A New Vocabulary

Recent years have permanently altered my perspective on just about everything in life. Here are but a few things that have taken on entirely different meanings courtesy of loss and infertility. Anyone have any others to add to the list?

Beta then:

Beta now:

Note: "Beta" refers to the blood test to check for prenancy. You go to the clinic to get blood drawn and they call you later in the day with the results.

Baby Dust then:

Note: People who are trying to conceive (TTC) often wish each other "baby dust" on message boards, etc. as a way of saying "good luck".

Baby Dust now:

Belly Shots then:

Belly Shots now:

What to Expect When "Expecting" then:

What to Expect When "Expecting" now:

Update: All is not doom and gloom for us on the TTC front, despite recent posts. There may be hope yet, on which more later.

As Expected, Not "Expecting"

Words cannot convey the magnitude of this depressing news, so I won't even try. This was our last chance. *

* Unless something fabulous happens quickly for hubby on the job front, because health insurance = IVF

Beware the Ides of March

There are still four days left of The Wait as I finish up my last cycle on Follistim. I fully expect the results to be negative thanks to the relentless attack endo has been waging for months near my one and only tube and ovary. That's the only place that ever hurts, and boy does it hurt. Also the sperm count was pretty rotten at IUI this time around. A few hours after the IUI, during church, I could swear I felt an egg popping out! So I seduced hubby there in the pew. We ditched the kids at church and I made him take me home immediately to make another (hopefully better) deposit before he had to rush back to church to teach a lesson. I'm a desperate woman.

I've been passing the time researching IVF and hoping to find out before Beta Day whether it's a viable option for us. I needed to know if bad news on Friday means The End For Good or just The End For Now. After much research and many phone calls, I was shocked - shocked, I tell you - to get accepted for the Cost Sharing Program at my clinic despite my losses and one ovary. Things were moving along at breathtaking speed so that we could get started next month! This might really work! Of course it might also be an even more painful and expensive way to fail, but I was cautiously optimistic. Recent years have turned me into a big pessimist and it felt good to have a little optimism, even just the small cautious type. Yes, I dared feel a little bit happy about the possibility of Something Good finally happening. That, of course, is the cue for Something Terrible to occur.

Hubby got fired! At this point, it is unclear exactly why he's fired or exactly when he's cut off as he's expected to work until the replacement is brought on. Since he works for a very large corporation, there's some hope (though not a whole lot in this economy) of finding work within the company by using the many contacts he's been cultivating in anticipation of this very event. But for now we are in survival mode (wait - isn't that where we've been for years already?!) unable to plan on ANYTHING - not income, not insurance, not spring break in exotic Illinois, and certainly not stressful and expensive IVF. No future plans of any kind. Now there's even more stress piled on when we already felt stressed nearly to the breaking point.

On second thought, I don't think I'm a pessimist at all. I'm just a realist - and life really, really sucks right now. Oh, things could be worse. We know that because they've been getting progressively worse for years now. But . . . at least we have some savings and aren't tethered to a house, which we're absolutely giddy about. And we're all reasonably healthy with no deadly diseases - just endo which sometimes makes me wish I were dead. See, I can look on the bright side. I'm a pessimistically optimistic realist.

Wouldn't It Be Loverly?

I'm in the midst of examining Xtreme Measures for family building. Tragically, all of them have one thing in common - all require a five-figure sum of $$$$$. The figures are daunting, especially given the sorry state of the economy and the fact that hubby's job is in some jeopardy. Since I have always been frugal (some may say cheap) the thought of spending that much money with no guaranteed result tends to make me a little nauseous. But thanks to years of frugality we already have the five-figure sum in the bank at this moment, so no debt would be involved. Still, that's A LOT of money and the last thing I want to do is add financial stress on top of everything else.

Looking at our options and essentially planning for failure this cycle has thus far prevented hope from growing in any meaningful way. Who knows what kind of wreck I'll be in two weeks time, however, when the results are in for this last cycle with Follistim? I'm guessing it could be ugly.

Today's ultrasound showed three mature follicles (and another that's a bit too small I think) so in mere moments I will inject the Ovidrel and also give my ovary a stern warning: "This is a stick-up! Quietly hand over the eggs to the tube, or next time the needle may be in you!"

Yes, IVF may be on the table after all. I've found that some of the four local infertility clinics don't automatically disqualify me from the cost sharing program due to my lone ovary, and there's some chance I could get in despite my three losses in a row.  It'll take some more research, paperwork, and consultations to get a firm answer. I just have to hope that at least one clinic will buy the "cord-related losses are just random bad luck" theory.

For now, though, we're focused on giving this cycle our best shot. Whacking Day falls on the Sabbath this time. Please pray for us! May our time in the Porn Room/Stirrups be blessed with success! I don't have high hopes, but wouldn't it be lovely if it actually worked?! It would be so wonderful not to endure the intense stress of further infertility treatment and all the needles and probing that go with it, to say nothing of being able to use the $$$$$ we've saved for a house, as intended.

All I want is a room somewhere
Babe and I in a rocking chair
An answer to a prayer
Oh, wouldn't it be loverly?

What we need are some good gametes
Then baby smiling in the back seat
Wee face, wee hands, wee feet
Oh, wouldn't it be loverly?


UPDATE: Sunday morning 11 am - Sperm count at IUI 10 million with 50% motility. Not the greatest number. Insert expletives here.

If I Only Had A Brain

For the last 3+ years I have suffered from short-term memory loss, much like Dory from Finding Nemo. I assume this is another of the myriad trauma-induced symptoms since my losses. Does anyone else have this?

Sometimes the results have been comical, like the time I shaved a big bald spot on hubby's head. Well, maybe he didn't think it was so funny. I was giving him a haircut and forgot to put the length attachment on the clippers. This was the day before a big job interview. He didn't get that job.

Sometimes it can be scary, like the time I forgot the stove was on. A children's book that was on the stovetop got burned all the way through, but did not catch fire. Whew!

The lowest low point was in the months immediately following my losses. I had to keep a 3 x 5 card with my address and phone number by the phone. This enabled me to rattle off this information convincingly when verifying my identity for paying bills and making appointments.  I don't know who I am anymore.

I forget things all the time - my kids' tennis lessons, swimming lessons, dance class, birthday parties, dentist appointments, etc. I forget peoples' names. I forget what day it is. Last month I forgot to pay the rent. I forget why I went downstairs or what I need to get at the store. I try to compensate by keeping ridiculously detailed lists of EVERYTHING I need to do. . . but what good is that when I forget where I put the list or forget to look at it?

Finally this week I thought I'd figured out a way to get my act together. I programmed my cell phone to beep in advance of every scheduled event to remind me. So . . . this morning at 9:30 the phone alarm went off and I was totally confused. What's that noise? Where's it coming from? Oh yeah - I set the cell phone to go off before Tania's dance class! Hey, at least I'd already remembered that she had dance class today - I just forgot about the reminder. I'm an idiot, a dimwit, a moron. I'm going to get Alzheimer's for sure. It's starting already.

I miss my brain. Not so very many years ago, I was well-organized and intelligent. At least that's the way I remember it . . .

Death Lives On

It's official. Failure. Again. There's nothing more depressing than to fail at such a fundamental thing as keeping your children alive, and at this point, even managing to conceive at all. I try distracting myself from this failure by trying harder to succeed in other things I have some control over, but I seem to fail at everything. And even if I did have some small successes, no success can compensate for the failure to fill my home.

This cycle generated more hope than I've had in quite some time. Four follicles - my personal best. Still, hope disappeared rapidly once The Wait began and by the end of it I couldn't even muster up enough hope for the one second it takes to, um, administer the progesterone. Just couldn't do it. I HATE that progesterone, not because it's icky, but because it encourages false hope with its evil side-effects, especially sore Milk Cups (this is what my four-year-old daughter calls breasts).  How pathetic is it to obsess for days over whether my boobs are sore from the drugs, from pregnancy, or from constantly being poked at to see if they're sore?

Hope is simultaneously killing me and keeping me alive. Every time it dares rear its increasingly ugly head, I do all I can to smash it down. It entices me with visions of happiness, and then drops me into progressively lower levels of hell. And yet I keep falling for it because sometimes that vision of what may be is the only thing that keeps me going on the darkest days. I have only one cycle left to try, maybe two. With Hope out of the picture, I'll be left to hang out alone with Despair. How's that going to work out?

WHY can't I just quit and do what soooo many people have told me soooo many times . . . "just be happy with the two you have". Ah, there's that "just" again - as if it could all be so easy if I'd only heed the advice of people who have no idea what they're talking about. My family is my greatest joy and I bitterly resent it every time anyone dares imply that if only I were more thankful for them, everything would suddenly be fine! I AM grateful for my family - I love them and live for them (though some days I feel I'm not doing them any favors by doing so). If I'd known what was going to happen, I never would have gotten pregnant again after I'd had David and Tania. Then I believe I could have been HAPPY with my two. As things are now though, with a body full of pain and a head full of horrific images, happiness is only a distant memory and my love and thankfulness for my two living children doesn't change that. I wish it did.

The last few years have destroyed me. The truth is that this is not simply about having a baby. Yes, I desperately want a new life in me and then in my arms, but I also want to be alive again myself. I felt death inside me when it came to take my babies and even after they were delivered and buried, death stayed with me, casting a cold dark shadow over every aspect of life.

One woman who has lost many babies once told me that the experience taught her a lot about death. Truly, you can't get any closer to death than to have it inside you and not die yourself. I've grown weary of having such a close relationship with death. Death lives in me, killing not only any child I manage to conceive, but also my friendships, family relationships, faith, and functionality as a wife and mother. Everything I touch seems to die.  Quite simply, I want life to drive death out of me. And that, quite simply, just isn't happening.

The Answer to All Your Problems

Hope has been steadily declining since Whacking Day, as typically happens during the seemingly interminable Wait. Thus, I was not my usual cheerful self (heavy sarcasm) during last Sunday's obligatory chat with my folks. My dad called back later in the week to see if perhaps things weren't all sunshine and lollipops around here. Answer: NO!!! But can I say that to my parents: Hell NO! They are kept as far out of the loop as possible regarding our unproductive reproductive efforts. Our relationship is deeply shallow. Other contentious topics include: medical issues of any kind, church, parenting, politics, and the economy. Therefore, I take Jane Austen's advice - "If you cannot think of anything appropriate to say you will please restrict your remarks to the weather."

I wouldn't mind my dad having a limited knowledge of our situation, but my mom was such a spectacular jerk after our losses (and on many other occasions as well) that I don't wish to open myself up to further destructive drama. They both have been kept in the dark because I can't have Dad spilling info to Mom, nor can I ask Dad to keep secrets from his own wife.

My mother has a nasty habit of looking down upon anyone with health problems. She has never in all her 60 years suffered from any serious or chronic illness and believes that if someone is ill, it is somehow their own fault. For example, when my father-in-law was diagnosed with cancer, she whipped out a list she keeps by the phone by "healer" Louise L. Hay. It lists hundreds of ailments, their supposed metaphysical causes, and the magical affirmations you must repeat to yourself ad nauseum to make your troubles disappear. I will share a few for your enlightenment:

Bowel problems - fear of letting go :D
Burns - No, not hot stuff! Actually they're caused by anger burning up inside.
Diabetes - longing for what might have been. Make sure to share this with the next diabetic that you meet. They'll surely appreciate hearing that their disease is their own fault.
Poison Ivy - feeling defenseless and open to attack. To think I've been avoiding a certain to plant for all these years! From now on I'll go skipping barefoot through the forest while muttering affirmations.

It's astonishing how many people really believe crazy stuff like this. There are even crackpots out there who think pregnancy is caused by HAVING SEX! Don't I wish!

Sadly, no quick fix is listed for infertility or miscarriage. I'll make sure to contact Louise about this oversight. So stay tuned - I will let you know what affirmations fix these problems just as soon as I hear from her.