Category Archive

Busy smooshing baby, kissing her, and getting her to fall asleep on my chest three seconds before I have to pee. Really bad. That’s happened twice now.

Realizing more and more that I’m coming to peace with the idea of putting IVF off for a while and focusing on adoption. Babies, or kids of some sort will come to us and we’ll have a family. One day, hopefully, we’ll have children that are creations of Khalil and I. But all will happen at exactly the right time, even if that time is not rightnow.  

Hoo boy. She got an earful from me this morning. Now I need to go get ready for work.

http://tyrashow.warnerbros.com/beontheshow/mom_wannabe.html

But before I do, I just want to say- I so wish she would do a show on infertility: educating and supporting. Instead, she’s do a judgemental show with people telling women struggling with infertility that it’s time to stop. Lovely.

I was talking the other night to a friend who has struggled with infertility. She went on to adopt, and has never had biological children.

So yesterday my mom said, “Can I ask you a question?”

I got a wee bit nervous at that and said, “You can ask whatever you want, but that doesn’t mean I’ll answer it” and we both kind of laughed.

She then asked if we are still “trying”. I wanted to be a smart-ass and tell her that no, I am in fact no longer trying to lose weight, I just don’t care anymore. Or say yes, we are in fact both trying to deal with the fact that we both hate our jobs and want new ones. I didn’t though. I answered her and told her yes, we are trying. It is in fact stupid to tell infertile people to not try, no matter what scary disease you’re not sure they have. Khalil and I both laugh about the day we sat at one of our many doctors visits. He more or less told us that we were not going to get pregnant without the help of IVF. After we told him the plan to start IVF sometime next year, when I’m cleared from the scary disease I probably don’t have, he then asked us what we were doing to prevent pregnancy. I wanted to tell him having sex seems to be working great for us. Can we just keep doing that?? I also wanted to tell him that he just. told. us. that we’re not going to get pregnant on our own. Was he listening to himself? At ALL?

So anyways. I told my mom briefly about that, and that yes, we were still trying. But that I had just gotten my period, so it was going- well, as expected, I suppose.

Fast forward to this morning. My mom and I are chatting and she appears to be getting even braver with the questions. She proceeded to ask me (and this is probably the fourth time someone has asked me this, including clients at work) if I put my legs up on the wall after we have sex.

I told her in no uncertain terms that I was not having THIS particular conversation with her, and she then told me that she learned everything she knows from TV. I love my mom so much, and I know that she cares. I know her asking is her way of saying she’s thinking of us and hoping things are going ok. I know it’s her way of telling me she cares what’s going on with me.

But I really cannot discuss intimate details of my sex life with my mother. I cannot. The internet, perhaps. Not my mom.

I dreamt last night that I went to get a bikini wax. I have a girl who has been waxing my eyebrows for probably almost 5 years. She is the one who was going to do my bikini wax. In my dream she did the wax and it was relatively painless.

Then she pulled out the ultrasound wand. She started to do an ultrasound on my belly. She asked when I was due for my period, and told me she saw “a little sign of life” in my uterus. She said that she knew it would happen, and that she hadn’t been worried, but other people had told her to check to make sure. I kept asking her- what does that mean? Does that mean I’m pregnant? She told me that I had to wait  until I was due for my period to test and find out.

I dreamt this on the same night I dreamt about people from high school all meeting in the huge gym in my living room. It was all very realistic- remember, my doctor in this dream is the girl who waxes my eyebrows.

Me: (in annoyed tone) Can you please help? Grab your soda cans, which you seem to leave all over the house, where they then multiply, I swear.

Him: At least someone is.

touche, hon. Touche.

(for the record, we laughed. It was a funny moment for us. We’re doing ok with things.)

I googled famous roller coasters. The ones that stuck out to me the most were Nemesis, Cyclone, and the Boss.

See? Infertility really is a roller coaster.

Yesterday was a down for me in our little battle.

Let me give you a picture of our ride though.

Tickets to the Park: We started thinking seriously about “trying to conceive” (ttc) probably after about the first year of marriage, which would be June 05. We didn’t do anything then, decided we weren’t ready, were enjoying our alone time together, etc. By about January of 06, we started to get a little more serious in our thoughts about making babies, or expanding our family. We decided we’d start trying in about September of 06. This would plan things perfectly- if we got pregnant on the first try (of course we would!)

Standing in Line: We started our “ttc” journey in June 06. A little earlier than anticipated, but we figured if it happend sooner than September, we’d be excited! We were ready!

Stepping on the Ride: There’s that moment when you get on a roller coaster, right when you board, that you wonder if you’re making the right decision. What if this is the time the coaster actually goes off the track and you plummet to your death? If you don’t think that, something’s wrong with you. Then you shrug, give in to the thrills and buckle up. That was what June felt like. Wondering if we were doing the right thing, having fun, and giving in to the ride. Never having any idea what was ahead of us.

The slow climb up: It was fun until it wasn’t. After the first few months, we tried to be hopeful. We’d both be disappointed when it didn’t happen, but not devastated. Just vaguely disappointed. In my heart of hearts I started to wonder what was up. I had always thought it would just…. happen.

The first big drop: This one is so ridiculous I cringe to even write it. But there it is. I was at my friend’s wedding. Her aunt is supposedly psychic. No, really. She predicted that of my friend and her brothers, one would get pregnant before they got married and have a boy and a girl (her brother), one would have boy girl twins (her other brother) and numerous other predictions about babies, weddings, and life events that have come true. Normally I don’t really believe in psychics and predictions, but I wanted to know: would it be this month? The next? how soon? I couldn’t get the nerve up to ask her, so my friend did.

14 months.

Whaaaa? My friend tells me that she watched my face crumple after her aunt told me that. As much as I didn’t want to- and still kind of don’t- believe in psychics, this was devastating.

Some more lows: Eventually we started testing. We found some things wrong. We went further into testing. We heard that it would be fine, then maybe not.

The worst low: Positive for Hep B. Given the medical issues, need to move to IVF. After I talked to Khalil, I called my sister and bawled. I know exactly where I was sitting- I was at work, and I remember looking for a place that I could sit and not be bothered. I couldn’t believe that was what it was going to take.

Climbing back up: More tests and specialists. Letting myself believe that we might be able to do this without IVF. I let myself believe it and hope it. I reveled in letting a teeny, secret part of me hope that just Khalil and I could do this. Getting the likely-negative for Hep B result was part of that climb back up. I didn’t like the thought of waiting six months, but there that is.

The drop back down: Definitely moving to IVF. That’s the direction we’re going.

Part of me, to be honest, is relieved. Relieved to be out of limbo, relieved to have a plan. Wait six months, head back to the MDs, move forward. Excited at the thought of having real hope that IVF could work and soon I’ll be the one pregnant, we’ll be the ones scared to death at the prospect of parenthood. Looking forward to the time to regroup, the time to move towards some of our other goals, and then move forward.

Climbing on a roller coaster of a whole different kind.

Sucks.

Need I say more? I tried for a minute to use another blog to write about it. Then I more or less “came out” with most of my friends about my/ our infertility. So I figured I may as well just “come out” here with it:

Khalil and I are struggling with infertility. Real, live, bonafide infertility.

And in the way that my weight loss posts don’t typically talk about calories and pounds (although I know some do) but the emotional and mental aspects of weight loss, my infertility posts are not going to talk about MD visits, medicines, diagnoses, or other such details. I find them boring (to myself, I’m not at all talking down about others who want to keep that kind of record, it’s just not me) and so I don’t want to share them with you guys.

I will tell you this, though: infertility sucks.

It’s weird thinking that you can’t just have sex and BAM! there’s a baby. It’s kind of sad and very frustrating knowing that it’s going to take more than just the two of us and a magical moment and all of a sudden there will be a new addition to our family. It’s hard knowing that it will take us, lots of not-so-magical moments, and a team of doctors to get us pregnant.

The first thing that I have to grieve about? Is the way we get to tell people we’re pregnant. I didn’t tell many people that we were even trying or considering pregnancy. When people asked, I was very vague. “Sometime!” or “We’ll see” or I’d go so far as to make things up “We’re waiting until Khalil gets through grad school”, “My career’s going so well right now, we want to wait”, “We’re waiting for a house”, “We’re trying to get our debt paid down”- all of those have come out of my mouth. I really, really wanted it to be a surprise. There was a place in my heart every month while I waited that planned out when I’d be seeing family next and how we’d tell them. The month before Thanksgiving I wondered if Thanksgiving would be too soon to tell everyone. Ditto Christmas, Memorial Day, Easter, etc. (Not Valentines Day. I was in Pittsburgh for Valentines day, dealing with my dying father. I wasn’t planning pregnancy news.)

When I told my mom, she asked why I waited so long to tell her. And I told her the truth- because I had wanted it to be a surprise.

It still breaks my heart that when we get pregnant, it will likely be planned. There are still some steps in the meantime, but right now the all-knowing doctors are saying that IVF will probably be our best bet (for those of you not familiar with infertility vernacular/ acronyms, IVF stands for In-vitro fertilization, and it’s when they take my egg(s) and his sperm, fertilize my eggs in a petri dish, and a few days later (hopefully) transplant embryos back into me. Fun, no?). This is just about the most intrusive and expensive way of getting pregnant. Again, fun, no?

Infertility, much like death and dying, is a grieving process. The difference is that there are sparkles of hope along the way, that keep getting run over. You have a test, or a doctor’s appointment, or something. And you have a hope that this one will be fine, this one will show something different. And then it doesn’t. You have each month of hoping that you’ve happened upon a miraculous surprise- naturally-achieved pregnancy- and then you don’t.

The idea is to keep up the hope. But this infertility? Not only does it suck, it’s also a hope sucker. You have to work to keep it from sucking all the hope right on out of you.