Dreams and False Alarms

Both sides now; or maybe soon.

When the going gets tough, this girl goes for Joni Mitchell.

Over the last week I've been thinking a lot about illusions. How important they are to us, our fantasies, our illusions about what is, what can be, what we contain within ourselves, what it means to retire an illusion, how vital we feel when our illusions are met with reality, and how crushing it feels to have an illusion disintegrate right before your eyes.

We've really been struggling with pulling the trigger on the donor. Hmm, I almost changed that, but really, it has felt like 'pulling the trigger' on ourselves.  We have both been wrestling the end of illusion that there is genetic child in our future, and it's a tough one for each of us to let loose of.  I wonder how different this process would be if were only incorporating one donor.  I know that before we knew about the translocation, in my wrestling with the move to donor eggs, I felt both jealous of, and comforted by, the illusion that my relationship to our child would be strengthened by his or her genetic tie to my husband. And when we thought that donor sperm might be our path, there was the illusion that because we would both have my genetic tie, and our tie to each other to cushion the rough spots.

There have been moments when I feel the desire to keen at the loss of my own fertility. I am reminded of how women describe the moment when they realize they are in menopause, and it is the end of the illusion of childbearing, and how for so many the sadness catches them by surprise.  I feel that now. At my saline sono, I was so bitter when the NP said "here is your follicle for this month." Instead of letting it pass I said "fat lot of good that will do me." Ugly bitter moment.

I know everyone thinks their situation is different, but indulge me for a moment. Ours is different. We are a heterosexual couple, choosing to make our family through donor gametes. We could adopt, we have chosen not to. Probably because of another illusion: if we choose the donors, we will have some sense of who the child might be. Of course, that is the biggest illusion of all. Even if we were to make love today and I got pregnant with our mutually genetic child, we could assign characteristics to that child based on our wish to see the links between us and them, but those are fantasies and illusions as well. We are all both the sum of our genetic makeup, and totally unique. 

It feels as if we are struggling with post modern realities in our very bodies.  And no matter what my mind can do with ideas, my body is less than modern, it is prehistoric (Husband may not see things this way, so I'm not speaking for him in this case.). There are moments when I cannot imagine how I can take this alien into my body. This little creature made from the genetic material of two strangers, who I/we have chosen because of our fantasy that they are enough like us to allow us enough of an illusion of sameness to facilitate the connection.  And then, I hold my friends babies, and kiss their sweet little heads, and field their sticky fingers on my face and neck, and I say "Yes, yes, I can do this. I can love any baby. I can love. Period."

I am scared. I am scared of being pregnant. I am scared to being a mother. I am scared of so much. I am scared of getting my hopes up again.  I'm scared that each little disconnection between me and our child will fuel my illusion that I wouldn't feel this way if this was our (even partially) genetic child.

I think this fear haunts me because I felt so different from my mother, and so insecure in our connection to each other. Even though we are good friends at this point, I still rarely allow myself to 'want my mother'.  Clearly, the illusion that a genetic child guarantees a connection is bull.  It is opening myself, to a genetic child or not, that creates that (healthy) illusion of connection between mother and child. 

Many of my friends who are mothers by more conventional means tell me that my fears of not being able to connect to my baby are not unusual. Indulge me in a bit of philosophizing here:

One of DW Winnicott's most important ideas is of the transitional object.  It is a concrete placeholder for the developmental transition between the "me" and "not me" that allows an illusion of connection to the mother when she is gone (the blanket, the binky, the stuffed animal etc). I wonder if, for all mothers and fathers, the genetic connection (mostly unconscious for the vast majority of those who conceive) serves as this transitional object to smooth the transition between being a non parent to being a parent; between the "me" and the "not me" of this totally separate human being. For example, my fears of being a mother and parent, and the way it will transform and disrupt my life, are normal. If we were to conceive a mutually genetic child, my illusion of sameness, or my fantasy that I will recognize myself or my husband in the child (the 'me' in Winnicott's theory), would serve as a transitional experience/object to soothe me as I make this developmental shift. In my case, the fact that it is a much more conscious illusion leaves me scrabbling and scratching to hold onto some illusion of sameness with the donor, be it in appearance, or outlook, and it is difficult to sustain.  This is all to say that perhaps my fears are less about the real baby, and more about myself and my fear that if I don't have the transitional mental space of an illusion of sameness, that I will fail to connect to the child.

So how do I create enough of a transitional object to transport me from this place to that one?  Well, nothing like good old awareness, eh?

What I want is to get to that place of being able to feel and hold 'both sides'. The side where I have my real losses, and grief and trauma, and the other side where I accept that my losses, grief and trauma are part of my package, and I don't fear that it will affect my mothering, and my greatest wish of all to be a  mother who fiercely loves her children, and whose children feel deeply loved.

On Friday I was remembering a girl I knew in high school who loved the story of her adoption: her parents and brothers went to the home for unwed mothers, and of all the babies there, they picked her. She exuded a sense of being loved and wanted and special--sort of like what it is like to find the love of your life. It seems impossible to be in a relationship with anyone else.  I know that there are more factors that went into her experience than just her family's attitude, but at the same time, that story always spoke so strongly to me of the power of being wanted and cherished.  That was something sorely lacking from my own entrance into my family.  I understand why (brother died, marriage already in disarray, mother depressed etc), but it has been my mission in life to welcome my child(ren) into the world wholeheartedly, even if only to assuage my own wounds.

So here we are, with our illusions in disrepair, our dreams a bit unscripted, and our hearts mired in confusion, searching for a guarantee of connection in the smallest of elements.

And yet, just in writing this, I feel clearer. Clearer about why I am struggling so hard to stay in my fantasies that don't serve my reality, and  reality feeling a little less daunting

.

Surfacing, bobbing, gasping, blathering.

Friday was awful. It was that horrific crashing day when the progesterone really starts to plummet and your whole life flashes in front of your eyes while you wear 3D "your life is crap" glasses. Yeah, that good.

I raged at my therapist for telling me, earlier in the week, that I needed to rebuild my trust in my body, to which I politely replied, "Not until I have some reason to!"  I also said fuck a lot. A lot.  I said mean things about my 22 year old nice who just had her second child with her sort of boyfriend, who she allegedly doesn't like, and her  main goal in life to get tattoos and piercings. Oh, and don't even let me get started on the fact that she never even sent a thank you (even a verbal one through my mom who was at the baby shower) or a written note for the $100 Wal-Mart gift card I gave her--ya know, the place she buys her formula and diapers. For the moment, she can just suck it. Yeah. I'm feeling really nice.

Also, if you are my friend IRL, I can't imagine you will be able to take this any other way than to be hurt, but it is really painful for me to open your holiday cards. Please keep sending them, in the part of me that isn't burned into a little black cinder, it is nice to see how your children have grown, but the rest of me just weeps. Weeps at the sight of all of that adorable abundant child-ness.  If we don't have a baby by next year, I'm seriously considering sending a picture of our cats. I know I could just not look at them, but I want to. I want to be normal and happy, and enjoy other peoples happiness, but when you are coming off a miscarriage, or a failed IVF, it's just a little hard to be rational.

So back to Friday. I feel, and especially that day felt, like a colossal failure. My work, my business, my reproductive organs, my everything.  I just had no place in me that felt good at all. Ok, that isn't completely true, my husband, my marriage and my cats were exempt from that shit storm.

The reason I most likely miscarried is a chromosomal abnormality. It's the most common reason for a woman my age. Furthermore, husband and I thought I'd be ovulating a little later in my cycle than I did, and we were, shall we say, injudicious with our timing. So there is a possibility that for once, at the ripe old age of 39, I actually might have gotten pregnant by having sex with my husband. Hopefully the baby wasn't too far gone, like last time, and they'll be able to culture some of the cells. It would be good to know if it was the translocation, or just old eggs. No matter what the reason is, we still lost our baby, and choosing what to do next is daunting. If it was the translocation, do we take another whack at donor sperm and my eggs? If it wasn't do we chalk it up to regular 39 year old miscarriage (oy) risk, and try donor sperm, or do we just throw in the towel and go for DE.

Sprogblogger, proceed with caution...

AND THEN...what if that doesn't work. It doesn't work for 20% of people. Yes, I am allowed to think about that. We have been on the wrong side of every fucking statistic we've come up against, why should this be different. We can't afford to do shared risk--it's 31K plus meds, plus donor compensation. Yeah, we'd need a serious cash infusion to make that seem even reasonable. So when I said in my last post that DE was the bottom of the financial and emotional barrel, I didn't mean that we didn't value it, or even feel like it was our best bet, it's just that it's our last chance at pregnancy, and anytime "last" is in the equation, it takes on enormous weight. Of course, after we rob a few banks we could do adoption (even county adoption costs money--they don't just give those babies away).  Yes, I am feeling a little angry and bitter.

Yesterday was better, I did the laundry, I made some very thick bean soup, I baked some bread, and caught up on some movies and TV shows, attend at all times by at least 2 of my three cats.  Little furry bundles of love.  Many multi cat households struggle with the relationships between the kitties, but our kitties are very compatible. We have two boys and a girl. The girl kitty is 6 months old and so cuddly and playful. There are times when Husband and I just marvel at how lucky we got with this little one.

Today I am determined to get a tree. Part of my funk on Friday also feeling like I didn't have the energy to do it for us any more. Husband major holiday tradition involves Chinese food, not too hard to honor. Over the last three years I've tried to set the stage for welcoming a child into our home, I've made some stabs at holiday traditions, but they all get squashed under the weight of all of this fucking loss.  So, today I going to drag him away from his desk, where he sits to make the all important money for all this fruitless baby making mishigas, and try to have something resembling a good day.

And I'll probably cry some more. But oddly not for the baby itself, the way I did for Sparky, who seemed so real, so inevitable, but for all the faith I've lost; for all the time that has passed; for all of the fear I have about all of the next steps; and most of all, my fear that I'll never recover. That even if we do finally get our child, I'll always be this broken, sad shell of a mother.

Thank You

Thank you so much, each and every one of you who has commented, sometimes twice, to let us know that you are with us in our pain and loss.

I am numb. I may be angry, but I'm not quite sure who or what I'm angry with. I can't cry. I cried more on Monday than I have Tuesday and Wednesday combined.  I just feel shut down.

At this point what I am most sure of is that I am weary, and that husband is weary. We hardly let down our guard through the whole 7 weeks--each of us was waiting for a bad thing to happen, and when it did, it felt as if the inevitable had come to pass. Of course, that's hindsight, but still, we are so battle weary it is hard to really believe that pregnant means baby.

We are at a crossroads. Hopefully we'll have the genetic results in two weeks, hopefully there are some results to be had. The last time it was too late and nothing could be learned from the culture.

We are looking for the money tree, wishing that doing DE didn't mean scraping so close to the bottom of both our emotional and financial reserves.

Thank you again for all of your support--it means the world to us.

It's the Trauma, Stupid!

I tried to come up with a better title, but that one just stuck.

On Tuesday I was struck by the realization that every time I imagine the 8 week ultrasound on Monday, I replay the 8 week ultrasound with Sparky.  I even manage to transpose the office suites (we'll be at a different office next Monday), but the outcome is always the same. No heartbeat. Husband and I weeping into each others arms. Sending out an email saying "no heartbeat." Updating the blog. Going in for the D&C. More weeping.

And of course, you and everyone else can tell me it's going to be fine, and that you have a good feeling about this, but me, I've got no good feelings to access.

The key to surviving being triggered by a traumatic situation is being able to remember that you are not in that place anymore, you are not helpless, you can do things differently (i.e. it's not snowing like it was the day you had your accident, you are in a Volvo etc, your an adult, you know Karate etc), but that is not true of pregnacy. When all of the known things have been ruled out, you just have to go through it, and that is not a very good recipe for managing the trauma aspect of it. Ok, you can do things differently, change protocols, meditate, but you can't avoid the reality of the pregnancy and the fact that whether or not the baby is ok in there is out of your control.   I am helpless to affect the outcome of the ultrasound on Monday. I can't worry it into a good outcome, I can't Zen it in to a good outcome, I have to accept that it is going to be what it is going to be. And yes it could be a good outcome, but it could also be a bad outcome, and the reality of that is pretty disempowering.

And I know, I know, that is what parenting is all about etc etc. But c'mon, ya gotta admit there is nothing like looking down the barrel of the same gun and thinking "I want to be in front of this gun, but damn it's scary."

So, 3 more days (I'm not counting Monday, that day is THE day, so just today and sat and sun) to distract and comfort myself. I've got Foyles War, Midsomer Murders and some more Rei Shimura mystery's to read. Oh,and I guess I could do some work if I really needed to.

Oy.

Sparky and the Panda's

A wise British psychoanalyst once said "there is no baby without the mother". Since he was an analyst, we could imagine that he wasn't talking in a concrete sense, but that the baby exists because in some sense, the mother has created the baby in her mind.  It is starting to hit me that the babies I've had in my mind, those babies waiting for a body, aren't to be.

Sparky was real, he had a body for a precious few weeks.  The Pandas, what I started to call the last set of embryo's, had cell bodies for about 5 days, and then they were gone. But for me, these are my children. The only children who will ever share that precious mix of my husband and myself.  These children carried within their cells a mix of us that will never be expressed.  My blue eyes, his dimples, his congenital scrawniness, my impossible to fit feet, our big teeth and small jaws and on and on.  They also carried within them that indefinable, and indescribable hope of humanity--the hope that the love of our bodies, and the love of our minds will be expressed in flesh. These are the children that will never be, and yet they are so real to me I can see them running through the house, sleeping contentedly, making paper Mache models of the planets the night before the science fair.  I can see them growing up, and growing shy about their bodies, suffering the slings and arrows of first love, finding careers, finding love and becoming parents, and bringing home their own babies for us to love.  And yes, there will be children who will do this, and much much more. And we will love those children fiercely, aware of how close we came to not having any children to love at all, and yet, at this moment, it is my Sparky and the Panda's that I want.

When my husband and I were on the cusp of dating, I was trying to get him to kiss me and he said "I can't kiss you, because if I do, we'll have grandchildren, and I'm not ready for grandchildren yet."  In that moment a life flashed before my eyes, a life where we would make love, make children, and grow old together.  In some ways that vision hasn't changed, we do make love, we will make children, and we will grow old together, but this morning when I woke up, I just felt so so sad about the loss of...I suppose the loss of every piece of him going into our child.  Please don't reassure me that everything is going to be ok once I get 'the baby'.  I actually really know that. This stands alone; this loss is irreducible. 

So Sparky and Panda babies Mama loves you, and daddy loves you. And thank you for every precious second you were here with us.

Scabs

Saturday night my husband and I were both suffering from his having worked for 6 out of 6 of the last weekends, and wanted to go out for a nice dinner where we could look at each other, not just sit on the couch and look at the TV. We were seated next to a couple who looked normal from the back, but from the front, the guy had a really odd bulge in his jacket. Lo and behold, it was a baby in a sling, under his jacket. I was bracing, but I wasn't sure for what. It isn't always wrenching to see a baby or a pregnant woman, but sometimes it is, and those 'sometimes' don't always fit into neat categories. So we all ordered dinner, and when there were little sounds from inside the jacket, the dad would get up and walk outside and jiggle the baby for a little while and come back in. The mom was eating her dinner--clearly, this was the plan. The whole time the dad was soothing the baby, it was hidden from view. Finally the mom finished her dinner and it was the dad's turn to eat. The baby had gotten wiggly and mewley (not a crier at that point), and so the dad handed him to the mom. He was probably 2 months old. A little bigger than a new born, but not as fleshy as a 3 month old. I ate my dinner and watched as the mom snuggled the little baby, kissed his fuzzy little head and moved him around to keep him comfy. I really kept it together. Near the end of their meal, we interacted with them a little bit, complemented them on their baby (I must have said something, but mostly I remember my husband talking to them). As they were getting up to leave the father asked us if we had kids. Ugh. Clench. My husband smiled blandly and said "We're working on it." and got a little advice about taking your baby out in public. As soon as they left. Tears filled my eyes,and I tried not to cry. One of the ways that infertility manifests is that you no longer think about babies, or actively admire them, or even imagine your own or play the name game. It's like a scab on a wound that never quite heals. As long as the scab is in place there is no oxygen getting to the wound, and aside from tightness and tenderness, the wound is covered. But then there are times when the scab get's knocked off, and the wound opens up, and you remember what it is that hurts. So back to those tears. They just started falling of their own accord. It wasn't a noisy sob fest, but I was really crying. My husband took my hand and just held it while I cried. He said "We'll get you pregnant, by hook or by crook." Which was so sweet, and something we say to one another in the hard times. The 'crook' changes from time to time.

So what was I crying for? I was crying for so many things. For my little Sparky, who would have been around 26 weeks gestation by now, for all of times the scab stayed intact and I didn't feel how bad it felt to have empty arms, and for the fact that the dream of a baby seems so far off. The little fuzzy head, and the sweet little face feels like a mirage. I really miss the part of myself who could conjure up my dream baby, and feel their little head in the crook of my neck, the fuzzy baby head all ready for head kisses. Infertility is a thief. It not only robs you of your children, but being able to dream freely of your children, and that gets to be a hard spot in your soul. That little baby saturday night opened up the box of dreams, and I still feel a bit raw where those scabs let loose.

Health quest hits a snag

It turns out, I'm no Moxie, and Dr. Oz's green drink was, uh, icky? It looked waterier on the TV--at home it was a wierd bright green ground apple glass of green slugde.

 

Howver, I did eat a smart dog and arugula sandwich on a sprouted wheat bun, so I'm not doing too bad!  As soon as I'm totally blood free, I'll get back to swimming.

 

Onwards!

The state of my state

Well, that was...interesting.  Yeesh, for a gal who likes her anesthesia, I've been getting a lot lately. It seems that June was the only month since May that I didn't have any!

I called Dr Calm on Monday, I just couldn't shake the fear that something else was wrong. But she calmly listened to my fears and assured me that since my beta was 3, and unless I was filling a pad every 1/2 hour or so, that my cycle would kick in and the estrogen would stop the bleeding. Well, lo and behold, she was right!  Today the bleeding is darker and sparser, and my uterus is less sore, and I can imagine that people might want to use their vag.inas for something other than bleeding out of.

I'm getting excited about the IVF. There is absolutely no fear of the unknown--just of a negative beta. I've been through the whole megilla, and survived, so it's less daunting overall.

The specter of a negative beta has become more daunting. After this, we only have one more chance at a fully genetic child. Egg donation, while a really attractive option, is still a loss of this dream. The dream is plenty meaningful and valid, but at it's worst, it seduces me into thinking all of my wounds will be healed by having 'my own' baby. 

Yesterday, I sat across from my wonderful therapist, who gets more credit on this blog than in person and she pointed out to me that my belief that a fully genetic child won't suffer what I suffered with my parents is faulty.  Essentially, I was a fully genetic child,and because of the state my mother was in (raw grief over losing my 14 year old brother in car accident), and her abiding ambivalence about motherhood and marriage, she couldn't unambivalently welcome me to the world, and that is the wound I want to heal through having 'my own' child.  What I'm working on today is that wounds can heal, but that my mother couldn't claim me when i was inside,and she couldn't claim me when I was outside, and that is why the wound is so raw.  No matter how a child comes to me I can welcome them, without reservation, and that will be grand reckoning of my wound, without the magical thinking that wants me to believe that the only way out is a total do-over. 

So here I stand, waiting for the next cycle to pass, and the known quantity of the IVF to begin.

In the mean time I'm going to:

• Swim at least 3 times a week (once the bleeding fully stops, that is)
• Try Dr Oz's green drink
• Go on a short vacation to the coast with my husband
• Paint the doors in my hallway (only two are done, after 4 years in this house)
• Finish all my paperwork before I leave on Sunday
• Have a labor day BBQ, and finally have the ribs and coleslaw I missed on for the 4th of July

Not bad for a week from major blood loss...oy 

Hysteroscopy! Whoooooohooooooooooo!

All is good in the hood. Dr Calm cleared out the clots with forcepts during the hysteroscopy, no D&C, Uterus is ready for the next IVF! WHOOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOO

The only  vexing part is taht they kept my husband waiting for about an hour, and the poor man was pretty worried. He needs a break!  I vow to not have any uterine emergencies, well ever if possbible, but at least for the next month.

More later.

One more D&C...

and if I'm lucky, and hysteroscopy.  No really, if I'm lucky she can clear out enough blood to look and see if there is a juicy clot she can pluck out. 

She thinks that the dark spot they saw last night at the ER is a bit of old tissue that is causing the bleeding. We chose the D&C because it increases our odds of getting to do a cycle in early Sept.

The plan is:

• Ibuprohpin every 6 hours to control teh bleeding
• 2 birth control pills between now and bedtime
• a 9:15am curtain call for my next performance as The girl who loved anesthesia too much

While I'm not thrilled at having anotehr D&C,it isn't as awful as the last one, but a long chalk.

See you on the flip...