Dreams and False Alarms

Guest Blogger--The Great Blog Cross Pollination

There are probably 400 million kajillion posts out in the blogosphere about how cool and awesome and amazing and wonderful it is to connect with someone on-line. What I find fascinating is what connects a person can be something so specific but what makes a is something far more special and rare.

I created my family with the help of donor gametes. In my particular case I needed donor sperm. And so when I began quietly walking along the long and windy hallways of the internets I sought out other bloggers that were donor gamete needers. Some needed eggs, some sperm, and some the whole shebang. What drew me in was the process other people went through. I enjoyed reading how other people or couples culled through donor profiles. I wanted to know everything about everyone else's methodology. Having a collective pool of other people's course of action gave me a sense of normalcy.

I have to be honest, my path was always obvious. I am single. I was not interested in using a known donor and I am not a lizard and able to make both sperm and egg. In order to make a baby in my body (or lab, as the case ended up being) I needed a sperm donor. And all of my real concerns centered around what he looked like and whether or not his handwriting looked like a serial killers. I had no one else to consider. And there was a bizarre sort of freedom in that.

One of the things that I adore about Sarah's blog (oh yes, I am totally going to use this cross-pollination to tell you how much I adore her) is that she is one of the most considerate and thoughtful people ever. And as she travels down her and her husband's path to parenthood she writes these breathtakingly honest posts that have me thinking about things that I should have thought about ages ago. "How is your mother? She had a bladder infection"  as just a taste, is especially amazing. "Am I Jonah or the Whale" This one too.

Just one of the things that I get to deal with all on my own:

resemblance. I totally picked a sperm donor that came from the same European ethnic pool party as me. I picked a donor that looked like he could be a distant cousin. And one of the reasons is because I wanted my child to look like he belonged to me. I did not want there to be any doubt that I am his and he is mine. And I never stopped to think what this process must be like for couples. It's fucking brutal.

But really, if you want to know how amazing Sarah is, I am going to tell you something that you don't know about her. She was one of the very first people that paid me money to design a header for their blog (thus helping me afford IVF/FET). It was ages and ages ago (or so it seems!) and I really was flying by the seat of my photoshopped pants, not really sure if anyone had any interest in such bloggy design stuffs. I was expecting people, if they asked at all, to just ask for basic stuff. You know, something along the lines of, "I like kitties and the color yellow".

And then Sarah met my inbox. And she had this incredibly stunning and elaborate specific visual in her mind. I'm not sure if I can even do it justice to explain it because it was just way over my head. Way.

But I wanted Sarah to like me and to like my work so I attempted version after version. And I sucked. But Sarah kept encouraging me, kept cheering me on. And she is one of THE reasons why I finally got better and more comfortable in my skills. She's just the sort of person that wants you to be the best version of you. But in the kindest way possible. There aren't many people like that.

Who wrote this post? Way obvious? Way over your head? Have a guess in the comments! Check out all of the http://missionimpossibleinfertile.wordpress.com/2009/11/10/pross-collinate/

"Tap-Tap-Tap Announcment. Quiet Please"

This is not all about me.

Shocking, I know.

Now, some of you who have been following the bouncing ball of my infertility experience might be kind of confused about this revelation, of course it's about me, but it has finally started to sink in that it isn't 'all' about me anymore.

Kind of embarrassing actually. Ugh.

For the last 5 years (because I was freaked out about being infertile for at least 2 years before we actually started TTC!) Husband has been my rock. He had held onto the "yes we can" flag, picked me up off of the floor, given me pep talks galore, held me, dried my tears, made me laugh, encouraged me to dream of the future, and put his big longs arms around our dreams for our family. 

Well now, the tables have turned. And yes, my grief process is as valid as his, but in a way different. I am mourning the lost potential, the years spent beating myself up, living on the knife's edge of infertility, and losing Sparky.  But I am no longer, absolutely, mourning the loss of my fertility potential. By that I mean, one of the things I found the most painful, and hard to manage on a material and symbolic level, was the feeling that my body had never been fertile.  Now I am in the position of not knowing, and compared to knowing for sure, there is a certain freedom in that. That isn't to say that if we move onto donor eggs and donor sper.m I won't need to work through that loss, but I am in a different place than before.

But Husband is where I was in December through March--but (in my description, not his) he has crash landed into this world where his fertility, though assumed, was not there. And he is dealing with it in his own way, and because of the time limits, he has to move towards this new reality at a faster pace than is optimal.

Frankly, he needs me to step up and be there for us. Not to be whining and sniveling about how freaked out I am about this or that thing. I do need to feel those feelings, and deal with them, but I've always been sort of the helpee in this dynamic, and now I need to be the helper.

I did a couple of things last week that really seemed to help:

One is that I talked to a friend who is the mother of two (4 and 18 months), and just poured out all sort of worries and fears, and she shared that she had a lot of the same fears and worries when she was pregnant, all the while being clear that my situation was a bit different, but also, normalizing a lot of what I just felt terribly guilty for worrying about.  The best piece of advice she gave me was that no matter where the father's genetic material comes from, you have to make him the father. It is so easy to exclude the father.  I saw that with a former roommate. She had two children by different fathers, and her partner at the time did not want to have a child with her because he know that would mean he would be on the outs.

The other was that I finally figured out, and expressed, that I was angry about only having two chances to get pregnant with my eggs, and that it was putting enormous pressure on the experience of the home insemination (upcoming in early August), and the IVF (the following cycle, if possible).  It felt so guilty, knowing Husband never get's another chance, and selfish for wanting this for myself.  It was hard to talk about, but we were able to come up with the plan to do the IVF, and inseminations (most likely IUI's) afterward.  I felt like the sky opened up.

I know there needs to be an end to this process, and I will need to figure out when 'enough is enough', but one home insemination and one IVF is just not enough, at least not right now.

So I am limbering up my arms, stretching them out, and encircling our family, just like Husband has done for us all these years. And yes, we'll do it together, but right now, I need to step up.

Wound around the axel (lather/rinse/repeat)

The day I wrote that last post, we found out that our other older cat (Zoe's brother), has, in addition to his heart condition, cancer of the iris. Yeesh. Husband and I were both just flattened. We had finally started to feel like things were, if not looking up, at least not looking down. And then we got this news, and there went Hawaii.  Pfffffffffffftttttttt.

He was angry, and I just sat and read blogs and wept. It was a real live pity party. We ordered pizza, drank expensive tequila, and fell asleep on the couch.

And since then, it's been...kind of the same, but without the pity party and the tequila.

We have figured out a local cheapish vacation we can do, but it will not the be same as Hawaii. 

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In reproductive news I got my FSH and E2 results back: FSH 6.5 and E2 38. And then I proceeded to ovulate on day 11. Geeze. That got me all wound around the axel again.  I finagled an ultrasound (diagnostic, so the insurance will pay for it!) and I had a 19 m follicle on the left and a 6.0 lining. Not bad for me, lining wise, but it makes me wonder if a home insemination has a chance to work...ugh. the endless swirling leaves me wrapped around the axel.

I was only tracking so that I could have a sense of how well the fertility monitor was working with the DHEA, and so we could plan our home insemination (not an IUI! Just putting the goods in the vag and laying around for a while), which in turn screwed up our vacation timing. We have to come home earlier so we can get the sperm from the sperm bank before they close for the weekend. Oy.

Yesterday at therapy I was just wallowing in how fucked up I am about all of this; exhausted by being a good soldier and trying hard and all that crap. I think my therapist is even tired of me.

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One thing I find really difficult is confiding in my friends. Its as if I want to be 'all better' and then talk to them, but that is along damn way off, and they are often quite helpful! Today I talked with a friend who has 18 month old and a 4 year old, and it was so good to let all sorts of things tumble out, and to find out that in many ways what I'm worried about is normal, but amplified, but normal nonetheless.

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I do want to figure out how to be more positive--sometimes I wonder if the negativity is a crutch or a...habit? Not sure, but in someway I feel helpless to manage it, and that leaves me feeling hopeless.

BUT! Today I accepted and invitation to do something really good for my career in October, and I paid all the bills in my inbox and worked on the 'lowest hanging fruit' in terms of a part of my job I've been letting slide. Progress! One of my best friends since college is coming to town tomorrow, and we have plans for a seriously deep, girl talk extravaganza. And girl do I need it. And in one month we'll do our at-home-insemination, and that is pretty cool too.

Well, that was a suprise

I got a text from a close friend today saying she wanted to talk to me, we agreed on a time, and then when I called, she didn't answer. No biggie. I figured she just wanted to do some girl talk, and we'd connect over the weekend. Fast forward about an hour, and she calls me back. She says "I have some news, but are you sitting down." Now, she's had a hysterectomy and her husband has had a vasectomy, so I knew she wasn't going to tell me she was pregnant. I thought maybe one of our mutual friends had died or something. Nope. Her mom who is a social worker on in a small community had a client who wanted to put up her third  child for adoption.

Clunk.

That was the feeling I had inside of myself. Not a clunk of happiness or even of dread, but just a clunk.

I talked to her for the remainder of my ride home, and got some facts (boy, 1 month old, no drug or alcohol exposure, length of time mother had been thinking of putting him up for adoption, where he was now [foster care]).  In my gut I knew that this wasn't...right for us, and not right now, but geeze. No one had ever offered me such a clear chance at a baby before, and I felt a bit giddy and whirly.

I came in and presented the idea to husband,and he was, as I was, sure that this was not where we were.

It showed me that I'm (and we're) not ready to move on from having a chance at a genetic child, or at the least a gestated/biological child. Wow. Weird.

The road not traveled, heck the road hardly even considered

Today I am going to tell you what I'm really thinking. These thoughts are pretty shocking to me, and do not constitute a decision, but are very much at the top of my mind.

I'm thinking about not having children at all. That's right, Ms "gonna be a mom no matter what" is considering the childfree option.

The tremendous drive I have had over the last 10 years, and especially in the last 3 to become a parent/mother no matter what the obstacles, is waning.  I find myself wondering if I want to do it: do I want to dive in to the world of donor eggs and/or adoption, or do I want something else?

I have been so wound around this idea of being a mother, in part to heal myself in relation to my own mothering, but also from a visceral level, that this feeling of saying "no" is a relief and kind of frightening. I don't think anyone is taking me seriously, but today as I sat in a crowded dining room, I thought "I could go to Peru again, or Thailand. I could dive into that intensive training that I'm so interested in. I could starting singing again. I could spend time with my wonderful husband." and on and on.

I imagine that some of this is coming up because my last IVF with my eggs is around the corner (about 10 days away to be exact), and at the end of this cycle, if it works and I don't miscarry, the die will be cast.  If it doesn't I'll need to make a decision; one of the biggest of my life. 

From a mental health perspective, it seems like I'm embracing the full range of options--always a good sign, but this is so scary to think about, good thing I have that nice lady to talk to on Tuesday.

Well, waddaya think?

Moratorium

I think it is hard to post from this limbo because for me, posting is so often about working through, or making choices, and at the moment, I find myself in a fertility/mothering moratorium.  I mean that in the strictest identity development sort of way: trying on different identities, without making any commitments.  I've been trying on the DE baby mama identity, the "Finally pregnant on the last IVF" identity, the...gasp...childless Pilates devotee identity, the fierce worker bee identity, and last but not least the "I have no idea with the next 45 years will be like" identity.  All feel equally as interested in all of them at the moment. I know that the childless one isn't going to happen, but it feels to me like whatever the next step is, being able to try that one on frees me in a way that not trying it on won't. Kapish? 

I may not be around much this month. This is my last month until I step back onto the platform to catch that train to Crazyville, and frankly I'm gonna enjoy the heck out of it. 

I, Veruca

Its been a while since my last post. At this point, I think I can manage a post a week.  Gone are the heady days when I had something that needed to be said daily--gone are the days when I could bare to think about infertility daily.

Monday would have been Sparky's due date.  As is my style, the two days leading up to it were awful (cranky on Sat, and a weepy mess on Sunday), but Monday, was ok. My husband had a business trip from Sunday through Wednesday, and strangly enough, it couldn't have come at a better time.  One of my friends reflected to me that sometimes it is better to go through these things alone, but it is so hard to know the right time to do it.  The stars aligned, and it was the right time.  I just simply did whatever I needed to do, and I didn't take a moment to think about anyone else. My husband is a wonderful compantion, and wouldn't have made any sort of demands on me, but for some reason, after the crying stopped, I was able to be focused, and it was very restful.  He's back now, and I'm ready for some company, but we could sure use a vacation.

I had my progesterone checked on day 21, and it was 8. Enough to signal that I'd ovulated, but not a high number. The last time I'd had it checked (2007), it was 13 without clomid and 21 with clomid, so hmmm. We're going to see the newest doctor in the practice today; Dr Calm is on vacation.  Psudonym to follow.  We're doing an antral follicle count, and I'm going to ask her about my lining, but this close to the end of my cycle, I'm not sure what that would tell us.  I think I'm suffering from data withdrawl.

Here is my (not so) secret wish: I'd like to do a monitored IUI with a trigger shot. Or timed intercourse with a trigger shot.  I guess I must secretly want the mindfuck of the trigger shot. Here is why I want this: I want to know if the DHEA is affecting my response in any measurable way.  Are my eggs getting large enough? Is my lining growing appropriately? Could I get pregnant with an IUI? I think I must also be suffering from Drama Withdrawl.  I'm also going to ask her about the drinking a quart of milk thing that BeeCee is doing. 

As I alluded to in my last post, my husband suggested that we may want to wait an extra month, just to give the DHEA more time to work. It seems that the internet agrees that 4 months is the minimum amount of time you need to take it to get the best results. And I do want the best results, but I also want something now. Feeling a bit like Veruca Salt.

I am not actully crazy at the moment, but sometimes I think the effort to keep the crazy under control is very hard. Like Veruca, "I want it now!", and in the craziest part of myself, I would steal a squirrel (novel), or a goose laying the golden eggs (movie).  But alas, my inner Veruca is chained up, only to come out at therapy, where I let the nice lady help me with all these bad scary feelings. 

It is not easy to be grumpy and cranky. I am not usually a grumpy, cranky person. It feels very disorienting to feel greedy, petty, angry and irritable. 

And yet, a small aprt of me would like unleaseh my inner Veruca:

Just substitute baby, and I think you get the picture:

Veruca:

I want the world
I want the whole world
I want to lock it all up in my pocket
It's my bar of chocolate
Give it to me
Now!

I want today
I want tomorrow
I want to wear 'em like braids in my hair
And I don't want to share 'em

I want a party with room fulls of laughter
Ten thousand tons of ice cream
And if I don't get the things I am after
I'm going to scream!

I want the works
I want the whole works
Presents and prizes and sweets and surprises
Of all shapes and sizes
And now
Don't care how
I want it now
Don't care how
I want it now

Now if that isn't a prayer for the deep down crazy in me, I don't know what is.

In which I use the word creepy too many times

Hey y'all! I'm sorry for the long silence, but between needing to just repress for a little while, and actually being busy at work, I didn't have the space to write.

After the IVF tanked, I started checking out Donor Egg sources hard core. I got into email contact with at least 3 agencies, my clinic included, and started looking at the, uh, options? Merchandise? What is the correct address for this activity?  It does feel like shopping, and it is creepy.

This is, by far, one of the oddest things I have ever done.

I am not usually a jealous person, I trust my husband, and he is very trustworthy, but there are moments when I feel like he is going to have a baby with another woman, and it freaks me out!  He does not even know what I am talking about--it just doesn't make any sense to him. Before we know what was the issue (as if we really know for sure now...) a couple of people in my family offered to be surrogates, and he felt like that was awfully creepy, and that we would be raising their baby--even if it was our genetic child. So he comes at this from a pretty different place.

Also, as a fan of mini-series and made for TV movies I think I have seen way to many movies when the wife is dying,and she is trying to find a replacement wife for her husband. It's like I see the scene play out, and I'm supposed to be dead, but I'm not, and I'm raising the new wife's baby.  Oy. Again, husband thinks this is ridiculous. However, he did say he could imagine having some of these feelings (but not as flagrantly), if we were using a sperm donor.

It seems like when I'm just having a relationship with the potential donor, and he isn't a part of it, it's comfortable, but I don't know how to have him there and not feel pushed out--as if he would rather have a fertile wife. Again, my fantasies. He wants me, and to have children with me, and to him whhile the loss of my genetic piece is a loss, it isn't the whole thing for him.

There are times when I get really excited about a donor, and I start to imagine the process, and then it hits me what I'm doing, and I flip out a little inside.  It's like shopping for a wheelchair, and getting excited about the wheelchairs, and then all of the sudden realizing your are going to be in a wheelchair. Ya know?

I find myself getting to be ok with it, and then I wake up in the morning and say "but I don't want to do this this way! I just want my genetic child" And that freaks me out. I imagine someone will feel compelled to mention, I am getting ahead of myself, we do have one more cycle. But trust me, this is my process, I could have just as easily named this blog "Getting Ahead of Myself".

So this is kind of disjointed, and it doesn't really capture the texture of this experience, but I think this is as deep as I can go. I really really need to continue coping,and functioning and holding onto the fertile parts of myself that have nothing to do with my ovaries--otherwise I'm gonna be a sloppy mess until the next cycle.

Oh, and I guess I'm avoiding thinking about how Sparky's due date would be a month from now. Yeah, I'm just not gonna go there.

Thanks so much for coming by, even though I've been kinda awol.

 

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I can't really post today. I have some posts brewing, but they all require me to really engage with my thoughts and feelings, and I just can't do that today. I blame my therapist--she took two weeks off and I don't have any room to move in here.  Oy.

Sneak Preview:

-Being depressed is, depressing.

-All the donors I've viewed are all wrong, because they aren't me. It turns out I think I 'm perfect. Ha!

-It feels like I have a terminal disease and I'm trying to find a replacement wife for my husband. Ick.

-I would have never qualified to be  a donor--I'm too crazy.

-Thank god I am not trying to adopt (at this point), again, I'm probably too crazy to get picked by a birth mother.

Please bear with me, and check back soon. I promise to write a real post.

Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you feel like a can of mixed nuts.

Let me just start by saying, I am kinda nuts, but also, not as 'nuts' as I need to be sometimes.  If I were more nuts in someways, I think I'd feel better, not so bottled up.

Our dear friends, who I wrote about here, are pregnant. After about 2 months of trying, sperm met egg, egg invited sperm in, cell division party progressed, and then it went on a trip down the tubes and implanted. For you infertiles out there, this is how it works for other people. No sono, no shots, no surgery, no speculum with a full bladder, no catheter in your cervix.  Go figure.  The process actually works for some people.

As you can imagine my reaction to this news was pretty mixed. In one part of myself I am so happy for them; so happy that they are not in this hell of infertility. And in another part of myself, I am so envious that it is scary. I think that envy, that kind of jealousy that has an ugly edge to it, is one of the hardest emotions for me to deal with. It is sort of a cliché that infertiles are bitter and envious, and say awful destructive things about people who get pregnant. But not me.  I've indulged in the odd bitter outpouring of why me, but to really feel the ugly envy towards people I love, who have achieved something I wanted so badly for myself, and who will be such wonderful parents, and have been such wonderful friends to us, was pretty much intolerable. Of course, being the pillar of mental health that I am, instead of just feeling envious I attacked myself, my eggs, my effort, my fitness to be a mother and on and on. My husband, who is the soul of patience (even when he shouldn't be), finally snapped and couldn't take it any more.  He was tired of this implosion that happens every time someone gets pregnant instead of me, and get the f&*k over it. He did retract that last part.  Ugh. 

Again, my wonderful therapist gave words to some of my crazy thoughts, and it was such a huge relief to just admit these ugly feelings, and not take that energy and smack myself around with it.  To say I'm over beating myself up about infertility, goes too far, but at least I have something else to wrap my head around.

We didn't even try this month. both of us were emotionally a bit fragile after the maelstrom of the week, and then Sat am both of us suffered a sacroiliac joint pain extravaganza--husband can't sit, and certainly can't do the baby lambada.  So for the first time in 2 years, there is truly no chance I'm gonna get pregnant. I feel mixed about this as well. On one hand, to not even try feels very sad, but on the other, it is a relief. I know my period will come either on thanksgiving or the day after, and the IVF extravaganza will begin. 

In general, I'm working a lot more than I have been for the last year and a half, so my posting is suffering. But mostly, I've  been trying to live the not infertile part of my life a little more fully lately, and that is important too. I hope you'll stick around, even if the posts are a little sparse for a while. Remember, December is IVF #3, so posting of mundane but important details will resume at that time.