Someone on a support board I frequent mentioned that when a fellow sufferer of infertility finally gets pregnant, it's like your jailhouse buddy getting out on parole. This analogy seemed so fitting to me, but I'll take it a step further. Take this all as a bit of a joke, certainly written by someone who has never even visited a jail (but I DID watch "Orange is the New Black," so that counts, right???)
10 Reasons Infertility is Like Jail
1) The days all blend together
This week, I spent all day thinking Friday was Thursday. It was 7pm when my husband finally corrected me, and laughed at me. I could never tell you what date of the month it is, and now I can't tell you what day of the week it is. Want to know what I could tell you? That it's my 19th cycle since we first started trying to get pregnant, that I hit the 2 year mark of being off birth control this month, and that I was 9 days past ovulation, 11 days past trigger, and day 23 of my cycle. It's like a prisoner checking off days of their prison sentence rather than days of the week and days of the month like normal people.
2) The only people who get it are stuck there with you
I have some really truly dear friends and family who are super supportive of our infertility struggles and the many mixed emotions that go along with it, but they don't "get it". Even my family members who have done IVF before don't "get it" because they had insurance coverage for it all - they weren't simultaneously worried about going bankrupt before being able to get pregnant because they didn't have to pay for the procedures (though, admittedly, they probably "get" quite a few of the other emotions of this process). But they also have kids now, so they don't have that fear of being infertile forever like I still do. Even my husband doesn't always truly understand how I'm feeling. But my fellow female infertility sufferers do seem to "get it", though we all have slightly different experiences. Like prison buddies, we all have different sentences for different crimes, but we're all living in the same hell on earth, and the only way to get through it is to lean on those around you.
3) You have mixed emotions when someone gets out before you do
Nobody wants to be in jail, just like nobody wants to be infertile. But misery definitely loves company, and you create some strong bonds while under extreme stress and emotional upheaval. So when a fellow infertility buddy gets pregnant, you're thrilled for her while in the same moment, your heart lurches and your stomach sinks. Because while she's getting out, you're still stuck, and it was nice to have her around to lean on when you were both in it together. So now you're even more alone than you were before.
4) When buddies who get out come back, they don't "get it" anymore
I'm not talking about miscarriages - when someone gets pregnant and has a miscarriage, that's like breaking parole and getting sent back to jail - you're worse off than you were before, and you will have to go through the same nonsense all over again. But when someone is paroled, or rather gets pregnant, and comes back - in the case of the support group, continues to post on the board after they've gotten pregnant - it pisses you off. It's like someone paroled comes back for visiting hours to tell you how nice it is outside the jail walls, and that you should have hope you'll be there someday! Great, I believe you, but it doesn't make me any less miserable here in jail, so thanks for rubbing it in my face, however good your intentions are to "give me hope".
5) Your daily routine kind of sucks
Like prison food and making license plates, the daily grind of infertility sucks. Taking hormone pills, giving yourself shots in a big old hunk of your belly fat, pushing progesterone pills up your va-jay-jay, the swollen soreness of stimulated ovaries, the violation of the transvaginal ultrasound, peeing on countless sticks, it all kind of sucks. And then you have to wake up and do it all over again. And again. And again. Until you're paroled.
6) There's no privacy anymore
A prison shower has nothing on a transvaginal ultrasound. I actually had to consider whether I wanted to shave my nether parts or not because I have to have relative strangers look at my hoo-hah several times a month, often several times a week. I have sex when the doctor tells me to, and I have to tell nurses about when we've had sex. My sex life and vagina might as well be compared to a jailhouse strip search and public showers, because there's no sense of privacy left.
7) Sex is like scheduling conjugal visits
Spontaneous? Nope. Sexy? Nope. Do it anyway because you have only a limited window to get the job done? Yup. And the doctor and nurses, like the prison guards, know when and how often you've done it.
8) While dreaming of the outside world is all that gets you through, sometimes it's too hard to hope for parole.
We're all going through this for one purpose - to be THROUGH it and on the other side! None of us want to be here. This is not what we pictured our daily life to be like. It isn't fair, we were wrongfully accused, we don't deserve this! But still, we're stuck here. So while dreaming of the outside world is what gets us through our toughest days, some days it's too hard to think about sunshine and grassy pastures when you wake up every morning and go to sleep every night looking at your cement jail cell of infertility. Because it makes you all the more sad to remember where you are when you think about what could have been if you hadn't been put in this position. Sometimes to get through it, you have to just put in the motions and keep moving, trying not to think about where you are and how you got here, and how long it might be until you get parole.
9) Every month is a parole board.
Do I get out of this hell this month? Do I get to see sunshine and move past this nasty chunk of my life once and for all? You wait anxiously each month, hoping with every ounce of your body that this is finally the time you'll get pregnant. And then when you get denied with a negative pregnancy test, your hope drops rock bottom and the despair sets in again.
10) When you finally get pregnant, you won't be the same person who entered this journey.
Infertility, like jail, changes a person. Not always for the worse - my relationship is stronger than ever because of going through this together, and I love my husband in a way I never could have known because he's been such an amazing support and team player. I've learned to be a more compassionate person, and I will appreciate that day so much more when I finally get paroled from infertility. But after seeing how hard it has been to get pregnant, I will be petrified of losing the pregnancy in a way that I wouldn't have been if it hadn't taken this long. Like a new parolee being frightened of breaking parole and being sent back, I will follow every rule and guard my freedom from infertility cautiously. And I think I will always bear the scars on my soul from this journey. I can't uncry the tears or turn back time to when I naively assumed it would all be easy. I've been in this jail for awhile now, and it's part of my life story. That's hopefully going to be a badge of pride I wear in my later years, a mark of experience and personal growth, but for the moment all I can see are the walls that keep me locked in this hell. And dreaming of someday getting out.
Monday, March 10, 2014
Wednesday, March 5, 2014
Unrealistic Expectations
I'm currently watching Glee's newest episode, "Trio" (though I'll probably finish watching it before I finish this post) and it's reminding me the completely inaccurate portrayal of trying to get pregnant in television and movies (or at least completely unlike my experience, as I have no idea what it's like to be fertile).
Emma and Will start the episode with Emma pulling Will out of a class, saying "It's time!" and they then got caught in a janitor's closet getting busy. Emma explained why they couldn't wait until they got home that evening to Principal Sylvester by saying there's a "narrow window of fertility".
TRUTH: Sure, there's a narrow window, but not THAT narrow. For a normal fertile couple, sex in the 5 days leading up to ovulation is ideal as sperm can live in the female fertility organs for up to 5 days. It's certainly not "NOW NOW NOW!" as that scene makes it seem. They could have waited until they got home, there's no excuse for behavior like that.
After an indeterminably amount of time that seems like a day or two, Emma takes a pregnancy test and gets a negative.
TRUTH: You have to wait a minimum of 8 days after ovulation and often between 10-12 days. You can take a pregnancy test at any point, but if you have any hope of a positive test, you have to wait at least that long. Let's say you get a positive OPK on CD 12 - likely 12-36 hours later, you will ovulate. You want sperm already waiting to meet the egg. Then it takes 6-10 days for that egg to implant in the uterine wall. From there, it will start producing hCG, which is the hormone a pregnancy test is testing. So if you test too early, you'll get what's called a "false negative" - your body isn't producing enough hCG to turn a pregnancy test positive, not that you aren't pregnant.
And then Will suggests they go to a fertility doctor to rule out any problems.
TRUTH: If a woman is not having a period for longer than 60 days, it suggests she may not be ovulating and seeing a "fertility doctor," or a reproductive endocrinologist, is definitely justified. Otherwise, a woman over 35 years old is suggested to wait 6 months of trying before seeing a fertility doctor, and women under 35 years old are supposed to wait 1 year. Each month, a fertile woman has approximately 20% chance of pregnancy (give or take depending on her level of fertility and her husband's sperm quality and quantity). Which means even the most fertile people can be unlucky and take a handful of months before they get pregnant. Because women over 35 can be battling egg quality and reserve issues, it is suggested they seek help sooner - there may still be no problems, and they might get pregnant on their own, but it's worth doing initial testing as time can be a serious obstacle at that point.
When the fertility doctor supposedly finds nothing wrong, Will then gets advice that they're "trying too hard" and should "try not trying," with Coach Beiste suggesting that worrying about it is what is causing them not to concieve, which Will then repeats to Emma. This results in them painting the nursery and reading "What to Expect When You're Expecting" and obviously (since it's Glee) singing songs about having a baby and how awesome that will be.
TRUTH: Suggesting that Emma's anxiety disorder is somehow causing her infertility will only cause her more stress - there's no medical evidence that stress causes infertility, but it's certain that infertility causes stress. And seriously, trying for ONE MONTH and not getting pregnant is TOTALLY NORMAL!
Oh, and also: TRUTH: While it's great to be optimistic, painting a room for a nursery for a baby that has not been conceived yet can be a painful reminder if the process does take longer than you expect. I optimistically painted the guest room that will someday be my nursery (come hell or high water) when we moved into this house, after we were already dealing with infertility, as sort of an affirmation that we WOULD bring home a baby someday, some way. It still hurts some days to see it. It's like a shrine to dreams that are crumbled and we're trying to glue back together.
Also, I'm taking the guess that Emma and Will will end up pregnant very soon (by "trying to not try" and "relaxing") which is seriously detrimental to people who struggle. As Glee is a show that prides itself on encouraging minority groups (including down syndrome, homosexuality, transgender, different ethnicities, disabled, etc.), it hurts me that they would be so dismissive of infertility. It's a subculture that is hidden and not talked about often because those who suffer often prefer to do so quietly and alone, but for a show like Glee to belittle the concerns of those of us who battle infertility, and to paint it so glibly as a simple obstacle, is really frustrating. It was a missed opportunity to educate, and rather they reinforced hurtful stereotypes.
(And yup, there it is - she's pregnant by the end of the episode.... now isn't that a punch to the gut).
TRUTH: There would have had to have been approximately 34-40 days minimum covered in the episode if all this happened. When the episode started and they were having sex in a closet, that would have been around CD 14, give or take a few days (let's say as early as CD 12). Then it would take a minimum of 10 days for her to take an accurate pregnancy test, and then another day or two to get her period (assuming she has a normal length luteal phase). Then it would take another 12-16 days for her to ovulate again, and then another 10 days to take a positive pregnancy test, and another day for the doctor's confirmation, as Emma stated. Somewhere in there, they would have had to have gone to a fertility doctor to get checked out. If they were to actually do testing, it would have had to have been CD 3 of her second cycle, with an HSG done around CD 7. So yeah, minimum 34 days or so covered in one episode, but it seems like it's all just a week or so maximum by all the other story lines that run in the episode. So really, what probably happened is she was tracking her periods on an app or something, and thought "it's time!" because of a standard assumed date of ovulation that is not at all based on reality, and so they had sex, and then she tested like two days later and got a negative test and so they went to the an OB/GYN, who did who knows what to "check" their fertility (clearly nothing comprehensive), and then Emma took another test a few days later that was positive. Boom, all that drama for a lucky pregnancy on a first cycle of trying.
"We're going to be a real family, just the three of us," says Will. As if my husband and I aren't a real family because we haven't conceived in the 19 months we've been trying or the 2 years we've been off birth control.
I'd say I was going to go have a drink, but I'm not allowed to drink because I am currently pouring thousands of dollars into infertility treatment, and if not drinking ups my chances even a little, that's what I'm going to do.
This sucks. A lot. I hate television! HEY GLEE, YOU SUCK!
Emma and Will start the episode with Emma pulling Will out of a class, saying "It's time!" and they then got caught in a janitor's closet getting busy. Emma explained why they couldn't wait until they got home that evening to Principal Sylvester by saying there's a "narrow window of fertility".
TRUTH: Sure, there's a narrow window, but not THAT narrow. For a normal fertile couple, sex in the 5 days leading up to ovulation is ideal as sperm can live in the female fertility organs for up to 5 days. It's certainly not "NOW NOW NOW!" as that scene makes it seem. They could have waited until they got home, there's no excuse for behavior like that.
After an indeterminably amount of time that seems like a day or two, Emma takes a pregnancy test and gets a negative.
TRUTH: You have to wait a minimum of 8 days after ovulation and often between 10-12 days. You can take a pregnancy test at any point, but if you have any hope of a positive test, you have to wait at least that long. Let's say you get a positive OPK on CD 12 - likely 12-36 hours later, you will ovulate. You want sperm already waiting to meet the egg. Then it takes 6-10 days for that egg to implant in the uterine wall. From there, it will start producing hCG, which is the hormone a pregnancy test is testing. So if you test too early, you'll get what's called a "false negative" - your body isn't producing enough hCG to turn a pregnancy test positive, not that you aren't pregnant.
And then Will suggests they go to a fertility doctor to rule out any problems.
TRUTH: If a woman is not having a period for longer than 60 days, it suggests she may not be ovulating and seeing a "fertility doctor," or a reproductive endocrinologist, is definitely justified. Otherwise, a woman over 35 years old is suggested to wait 6 months of trying before seeing a fertility doctor, and women under 35 years old are supposed to wait 1 year. Each month, a fertile woman has approximately 20% chance of pregnancy (give or take depending on her level of fertility and her husband's sperm quality and quantity). Which means even the most fertile people can be unlucky and take a handful of months before they get pregnant. Because women over 35 can be battling egg quality and reserve issues, it is suggested they seek help sooner - there may still be no problems, and they might get pregnant on their own, but it's worth doing initial testing as time can be a serious obstacle at that point.
When the fertility doctor supposedly finds nothing wrong, Will then gets advice that they're "trying too hard" and should "try not trying," with Coach Beiste suggesting that worrying about it is what is causing them not to concieve, which Will then repeats to Emma. This results in them painting the nursery and reading "What to Expect When You're Expecting" and obviously (since it's Glee) singing songs about having a baby and how awesome that will be.
TRUTH: Suggesting that Emma's anxiety disorder is somehow causing her infertility will only cause her more stress - there's no medical evidence that stress causes infertility, but it's certain that infertility causes stress. And seriously, trying for ONE MONTH and not getting pregnant is TOTALLY NORMAL!
Oh, and also: TRUTH: While it's great to be optimistic, painting a room for a nursery for a baby that has not been conceived yet can be a painful reminder if the process does take longer than you expect. I optimistically painted the guest room that will someday be my nursery (come hell or high water) when we moved into this house, after we were already dealing with infertility, as sort of an affirmation that we WOULD bring home a baby someday, some way. It still hurts some days to see it. It's like a shrine to dreams that are crumbled and we're trying to glue back together.
Also, I'm taking the guess that Emma and Will will end up pregnant very soon (by "trying to not try" and "relaxing") which is seriously detrimental to people who struggle. As Glee is a show that prides itself on encouraging minority groups (including down syndrome, homosexuality, transgender, different ethnicities, disabled, etc.), it hurts me that they would be so dismissive of infertility. It's a subculture that is hidden and not talked about often because those who suffer often prefer to do so quietly and alone, but for a show like Glee to belittle the concerns of those of us who battle infertility, and to paint it so glibly as a simple obstacle, is really frustrating. It was a missed opportunity to educate, and rather they reinforced hurtful stereotypes.
(And yup, there it is - she's pregnant by the end of the episode.... now isn't that a punch to the gut).
TRUTH: There would have had to have been approximately 34-40 days minimum covered in the episode if all this happened. When the episode started and they were having sex in a closet, that would have been around CD 14, give or take a few days (let's say as early as CD 12). Then it would take a minimum of 10 days for her to take an accurate pregnancy test, and then another day or two to get her period (assuming she has a normal length luteal phase). Then it would take another 12-16 days for her to ovulate again, and then another 10 days to take a positive pregnancy test, and another day for the doctor's confirmation, as Emma stated. Somewhere in there, they would have had to have gone to a fertility doctor to get checked out. If they were to actually do testing, it would have had to have been CD 3 of her second cycle, with an HSG done around CD 7. So yeah, minimum 34 days or so covered in one episode, but it seems like it's all just a week or so maximum by all the other story lines that run in the episode. So really, what probably happened is she was tracking her periods on an app or something, and thought "it's time!" because of a standard assumed date of ovulation that is not at all based on reality, and so they had sex, and then she tested like two days later and got a negative test and so they went to the an OB/GYN, who did who knows what to "check" their fertility (clearly nothing comprehensive), and then Emma took another test a few days later that was positive. Boom, all that drama for a lucky pregnancy on a first cycle of trying.
"We're going to be a real family, just the three of us," says Will. As if my husband and I aren't a real family because we haven't conceived in the 19 months we've been trying or the 2 years we've been off birth control.
I'd say I was going to go have a drink, but I'm not allowed to drink because I am currently pouring thousands of dollars into infertility treatment, and if not drinking ups my chances even a little, that's what I'm going to do.
This sucks. A lot. I hate television! HEY GLEE, YOU SUCK!
Friday, February 28, 2014
Despair
There's a cycle of hope and despair for probably every infertile where they have lost hope. Where the idea of moving forward is unbearably hard, where there's no end in sight, and you just don't know how long you can go on like this.
The Prometrium could be a big part of it. I feel at my lowest emotionally before my period every month - part of that is because I know to expect yet another period, and the other is the progesterone surge in my system that is standard for a luteal phase of a woman's cycle. And now I'm taking supplemental progesterone from right after ovulation, so that despair has set in early. And I'm afraid it will stick around for the next two weeks until my period comes again.
Because I have no hope of my period NOT coming. I know it's silly, as by all accounts, I have at least a 10% chance this month, but I just don't feel it. We've had sex at ideal times for conception for over 18 months now - the only thing different this month is that I have two eggs instead of one. Sure, I'm also taking progesterone, but it seems I have good enough progesterone on my own. So in my head, it means two eggs is the same changes as two cycles - and it hasn't worked for last 18 cycles, so why would it work now, even with two eggs?
I feel like this just isn't ever going to happen for us. I know, logically, that we've got a good chance with medication, and especially once we move on to IUIs, and even if it doesn't happen then, we've got a really good chance with IVF. We've got a really, really good chance of a biological child, which I keep trying to remind myself.
But it doesn't feel like that. Emotionally, I don't think I believe it will ever happen for us. Sure, I know that we've got a really good chance with the doctor's help - probably more than a cumulative 80% if we do multiple IUIs and IVF - but we've already fallen into the 5% of couples our age who haven't gotten pregnant within 18 months of trying, what's to say we won't fall into the bottom percentile again?
This is stealing all the joy from my life. I can't plan anything - I don't know if I will need to go for a monitoring appointment, or if I will need injections (and thus have to bring my medication, needles, and Sharps box wherever I go). I don't know if I'll be pregnant, or if we'll need more money to pay for IVF.
We used to make do just fine - infertility didn't really impact our marriage. I'd have my period, and then it would end and we'd have sex for fun as we wanted for a week, and then I'd tell my husband, "Target zone is Tuesday through Friday" and we'd try to hit at least every other day during that time. And after that, we'd go back to our regularly scheduled program as we wanted for two weeks until my period came again.
We'd take baths together, we'd go wine tasting together, we'd to the bar and have a few beers together.
Now that I'm being medicated, it has taken over our life together. This month, it's controlled everything. CD 1-6 was my period, and I took meds from CD 3 onward. The doctor told us to have sex on CD 7 or 8 and come back on CD 9 for an ultrasound, so we did. And then after the ultrasound, they told me to have sex again the following day, do more drugs, and come back on CD11. So we did. And on CD 11, they told me to trigger that night, and have sex on CD 12 and 13, and then "as we want." Except on CD 14, he was tuckered out from dictated sex on CD 12 & 13, understandably. And in the evening of CD 14, I started taking Prometrium suppositories to supplement progesterone. Which meant we couldn't have sex between when I took them at bedtime until at least morning, and even still, there's a cottage cheese like substance left from the supplement, which is gross and messy.
Last night, my husband tried to have sex in the middle of the night, and I had to push him off and remind him that I'm on the Prometrium.
So this month so far, we've had unscheduled sex exactly zero times.
We no longer go wine tasting or to the bar, because I've mostly cut out alcohol (with the rare exception of a glass of wine or a small beer, like once every other week). And now we're looking at avoiding baths because they could impact my husband's semen quality.
Do I get nothing left of my life except the routine of an infertile? Do I just get belly bruises and swollen ovaries from fertility drugs shot into my stomach? Do I have to give up all the fun in my marriage? I can't job hunt because I can't get a job that would prevent me from my unpredictable visits to the doctor over 2 hours away, and with their earliest appointment at 7am, I couldn't guarantee to be back in time for work until 10am on a regular basis.
I've tried to find alternative ways to keep busy and fill the gaps - I have "mock-tails" and tea instead of coffee and alcohol. We watch TV shows like Dexter or House of Cards instead of going wine tasting or have some beer. But there's no supplement for fun sex with my husband - we managed so well for so long in keeping sex fun, but it's now at the whim of my doctor.
I cry at the drop of a hat. I feel sad and desperate and depressed. I honestly don't know how long I can keep moving forward like this, but I don't see any alternative that I'm willing to consider at the moment. I just have to survive. I'm emotionally drained and raw. I feel like an absolute failure and just about everything, and with nothing fun left in my life right now.
The Prometrium could be a big part of it. I feel at my lowest emotionally before my period every month - part of that is because I know to expect yet another period, and the other is the progesterone surge in my system that is standard for a luteal phase of a woman's cycle. And now I'm taking supplemental progesterone from right after ovulation, so that despair has set in early. And I'm afraid it will stick around for the next two weeks until my period comes again.
Because I have no hope of my period NOT coming. I know it's silly, as by all accounts, I have at least a 10% chance this month, but I just don't feel it. We've had sex at ideal times for conception for over 18 months now - the only thing different this month is that I have two eggs instead of one. Sure, I'm also taking progesterone, but it seems I have good enough progesterone on my own. So in my head, it means two eggs is the same changes as two cycles - and it hasn't worked for last 18 cycles, so why would it work now, even with two eggs?
I feel like this just isn't ever going to happen for us. I know, logically, that we've got a good chance with medication, and especially once we move on to IUIs, and even if it doesn't happen then, we've got a really good chance with IVF. We've got a really, really good chance of a biological child, which I keep trying to remind myself.
But it doesn't feel like that. Emotionally, I don't think I believe it will ever happen for us. Sure, I know that we've got a really good chance with the doctor's help - probably more than a cumulative 80% if we do multiple IUIs and IVF - but we've already fallen into the 5% of couples our age who haven't gotten pregnant within 18 months of trying, what's to say we won't fall into the bottom percentile again?
This is stealing all the joy from my life. I can't plan anything - I don't know if I will need to go for a monitoring appointment, or if I will need injections (and thus have to bring my medication, needles, and Sharps box wherever I go). I don't know if I'll be pregnant, or if we'll need more money to pay for IVF.
We used to make do just fine - infertility didn't really impact our marriage. I'd have my period, and then it would end and we'd have sex for fun as we wanted for a week, and then I'd tell my husband, "Target zone is Tuesday through Friday" and we'd try to hit at least every other day during that time. And after that, we'd go back to our regularly scheduled program as we wanted for two weeks until my period came again.
We'd take baths together, we'd go wine tasting together, we'd to the bar and have a few beers together.
Now that I'm being medicated, it has taken over our life together. This month, it's controlled everything. CD 1-6 was my period, and I took meds from CD 3 onward. The doctor told us to have sex on CD 7 or 8 and come back on CD 9 for an ultrasound, so we did. And then after the ultrasound, they told me to have sex again the following day, do more drugs, and come back on CD11. So we did. And on CD 11, they told me to trigger that night, and have sex on CD 12 and 13, and then "as we want." Except on CD 14, he was tuckered out from dictated sex on CD 12 & 13, understandably. And in the evening of CD 14, I started taking Prometrium suppositories to supplement progesterone. Which meant we couldn't have sex between when I took them at bedtime until at least morning, and even still, there's a cottage cheese like substance left from the supplement, which is gross and messy.
Last night, my husband tried to have sex in the middle of the night, and I had to push him off and remind him that I'm on the Prometrium.
So this month so far, we've had unscheduled sex exactly zero times.
We no longer go wine tasting or to the bar, because I've mostly cut out alcohol (with the rare exception of a glass of wine or a small beer, like once every other week). And now we're looking at avoiding baths because they could impact my husband's semen quality.
Do I get nothing left of my life except the routine of an infertile? Do I just get belly bruises and swollen ovaries from fertility drugs shot into my stomach? Do I have to give up all the fun in my marriage? I can't job hunt because I can't get a job that would prevent me from my unpredictable visits to the doctor over 2 hours away, and with their earliest appointment at 7am, I couldn't guarantee to be back in time for work until 10am on a regular basis.
I've tried to find alternative ways to keep busy and fill the gaps - I have "mock-tails" and tea instead of coffee and alcohol. We watch TV shows like Dexter or House of Cards instead of going wine tasting or have some beer. But there's no supplement for fun sex with my husband - we managed so well for so long in keeping sex fun, but it's now at the whim of my doctor.
I cry at the drop of a hat. I feel sad and desperate and depressed. I honestly don't know how long I can keep moving forward like this, but I don't see any alternative that I'm willing to consider at the moment. I just have to survive. I'm emotionally drained and raw. I feel like an absolute failure and just about everything, and with nothing fun left in my life right now.
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
The Wait Begins Again
We triggered at midnight on Sunday, which means I'll probably ovulate within an hour or two (36 hours after trigger). We had sex last night and this morning, and will try again tonight. We've done everything we could for the best possible shot this month, and now we just wait.
Trying to keep busy during the dreaded "two week wait" is hard. Time passes like watching grass grow. There's not much to do except wait, and in the meantime my brain has too much time to think.
What are our chances this month? Better than they've been on our own, but still less than your average couple just starting to try to conceive. That's exciting, and sobering.
There's this double edged blade of hope. On one hand, I am so excited that I could be pregnant soon (I need to remind myself that I can't hang all my hopes on this cycle - if this cycle doesn't work, it doesn't mean the next one or the one after won't work). On the other hand, I'm trying to remind myself that we still don't have the chances of a couple just starting out, and it can take a healthy couple up to 6 months (or more) to conceive with those chances.
And as I waffle back and forth between optimism and pessimism, I'm running myself over the blade in between. It hurts to hope and lose, but it also hurts to feel hopeless.
I try to spend my two week wait focusing on what I can do to improve my chances, or to prepare my body for a pregnancy if this is our month. I don't take hot baths, I eat pineapple core, I avoid alcohol and caffeine, and I get really careful with my exercise regime - just walking or hand weights or gentle yoga.
But really, even with all those things, it doesn't help the brain to slow down. I used to have trouble falling asleep as a kid (who am I kidding, I still do) because I can't get the thoughts to slow, and my mind is racing. I feel like it's two weeks full of that - my mind is on hyperdrive. Am I pregnant? Am I not pregnant? If I am, what stage am I at now? If I'm not, what could have gone wrong that it didn't work this month? What will we do next month to try again? What day would I be due if I am pregnant? Is that twinge implantation cramping, or endometriosis?
Add into this month the medication effects - I'm going to start taking progesterone suppositories tomorrow night, which will likely make my standard progesterone symptoms during the two week wait much worse, and thus play even worse games with my head. Also, I took the trigger shot, which will make a pregnancy test show a false positive until my body processes it out, which means if I take a test too early without knowing the trigger isn't still in my system, I could have a false positive on a pregnancy test and get my hopes up. Which means I'm going to start peeing on sticks tomorrow to make sure the trigger is out of my body. I will likely go through 12 pregnancy tests this cycle.
Is that sensitivity to smell because I'm pregnant, or because I took the progesterone pill? Is that light positive on the pregnancy test still the trigger, or is it possibly an early BFP for real?
I'm excited for and dreading the next two weeks. Either way, let's hope it goes by quickly!
Trying to keep busy during the dreaded "two week wait" is hard. Time passes like watching grass grow. There's not much to do except wait, and in the meantime my brain has too much time to think.
What are our chances this month? Better than they've been on our own, but still less than your average couple just starting to try to conceive. That's exciting, and sobering.
There's this double edged blade of hope. On one hand, I am so excited that I could be pregnant soon (I need to remind myself that I can't hang all my hopes on this cycle - if this cycle doesn't work, it doesn't mean the next one or the one after won't work). On the other hand, I'm trying to remind myself that we still don't have the chances of a couple just starting out, and it can take a healthy couple up to 6 months (or more) to conceive with those chances.
And as I waffle back and forth between optimism and pessimism, I'm running myself over the blade in between. It hurts to hope and lose, but it also hurts to feel hopeless.
I try to spend my two week wait focusing on what I can do to improve my chances, or to prepare my body for a pregnancy if this is our month. I don't take hot baths, I eat pineapple core, I avoid alcohol and caffeine, and I get really careful with my exercise regime - just walking or hand weights or gentle yoga.
But really, even with all those things, it doesn't help the brain to slow down. I used to have trouble falling asleep as a kid (who am I kidding, I still do) because I can't get the thoughts to slow, and my mind is racing. I feel like it's two weeks full of that - my mind is on hyperdrive. Am I pregnant? Am I not pregnant? If I am, what stage am I at now? If I'm not, what could have gone wrong that it didn't work this month? What will we do next month to try again? What day would I be due if I am pregnant? Is that twinge implantation cramping, or endometriosis?
Add into this month the medication effects - I'm going to start taking progesterone suppositories tomorrow night, which will likely make my standard progesterone symptoms during the two week wait much worse, and thus play even worse games with my head. Also, I took the trigger shot, which will make a pregnancy test show a false positive until my body processes it out, which means if I take a test too early without knowing the trigger isn't still in my system, I could have a false positive on a pregnancy test and get my hopes up. Which means I'm going to start peeing on sticks tomorrow to make sure the trigger is out of my body. I will likely go through 12 pregnancy tests this cycle.
Is that sensitivity to smell because I'm pregnant, or because I took the progesterone pill? Is that light positive on the pregnancy test still the trigger, or is it possibly an early BFP for real?
I'm excited for and dreading the next two weeks. Either way, let's hope it goes by quickly!
Monday, February 24, 2014
Back to Your Regularly Scheduled Program...
I just got off the phone with my nurse. She's been out of office for the past several weeks on vacation, so I've been spending my first unmedicated IUI and my medicated cycle thus far being juggled by the rest of the nurses on staff - all very nice and helpful, but not familiar with my case, including the very nice (and apparently new) nurse who called yesterday and got my hopes up with talk of an IUI this cycle.
My nurse confirmed that it's timed intercourse this cycle. So staying up until midnight last night was not required, I could have taken the trigger several hours earlier since the exact timing of an IUI is not required. Oh well, a small price to pay!
So we'll have sex tonight and tomorrow, and then as much as possible. Starting Wednesday, I will start taking Prometrium (a suppository that I use around bedtime to supplement my natural progesterone to support a potential - hopeful - pregnancy).
The nurse told me I could take a pregnancy test on March 13th. I laughed and told her that I would likely (a polite way of saying "definitely") be testing out my trigger so that I could test sooner. She chuckled and said that she would likely do the same thing in my situation, which felt good. Sometimes it feels like this is all routine for the nurses; it is routine, to an extent, because it's their job - they do this every day. But for a nurse to recognize that impatience is part of the process for me felt good. This isn't my routine - this is my life, and it's exciting and scary.
So here goes nothing! Let's hope this timed intercourse cycle works. My hopes are significantly lower than they would be if we were doing an IUI, but they're still pretty high. And I'm back to burning my bonfire of hope low-and-slow to keep it burning for several cycles if needed, rather than pouring gasoline onto that fire. I can't afford to burn out.
My nurse confirmed that it's timed intercourse this cycle. So staying up until midnight last night was not required, I could have taken the trigger several hours earlier since the exact timing of an IUI is not required. Oh well, a small price to pay!
So we'll have sex tonight and tomorrow, and then as much as possible. Starting Wednesday, I will start taking Prometrium (a suppository that I use around bedtime to supplement my natural progesterone to support a potential - hopeful - pregnancy).
The nurse told me I could take a pregnancy test on March 13th. I laughed and told her that I would likely (a polite way of saying "definitely") be testing out my trigger so that I could test sooner. She chuckled and said that she would likely do the same thing in my situation, which felt good. Sometimes it feels like this is all routine for the nurses; it is routine, to an extent, because it's their job - they do this every day. But for a nurse to recognize that impatience is part of the process for me felt good. This isn't my routine - this is my life, and it's exciting and scary.
So here goes nothing! Let's hope this timed intercourse cycle works. My hopes are significantly lower than they would be if we were doing an IUI, but they're still pretty high. And I'm back to burning my bonfire of hope low-and-slow to keep it burning for several cycles if needed, rather than pouring gasoline onto that fire. I can't afford to burn out.
Sunday, February 23, 2014
Too Much Hope
I just got the call from my nurse - my doctor requested that I take the trigger tonight at midnight (guess I'm not going to sleep at 10pm like most nights). She then said that he wants my husband back on Tuesday for his sample, and I should show up a hour later for the IUI.
One problem - we had planned a timed intercourse cycle due to insurance reasons. They'll cover the cost of medication for a timed intercourse cycle, but not an IUI cycle. And they have generously covered the medications that have worked so beautifully. I've got a 20 mm follicle on my left ovary, and an 18 mm follicle on my right ovary, and my E2 levels indicate I've got two beautifully mature eggs in there, and my uterine lining is at 7.5 on CD11. It all looks "textbook perfect," in the words of the nurse.
So... she said we should just go ahead with the IUI! Oh my goodness! I just finished writing the whole post about keeping hope in check - stoking the fire slowly to keep it burning through several cycles if needed - and this was like throwing gasoline right on the fire.
I'm going to call tomorrow with my nurse and make sure it won't somehow mean I have to pay full cost for all the medication that I've already used for this cycle retroactively. If that's the case, we'll keep with timed intercourse as the plan. Otherwise, I think we're going to grasp this opportunity and do the IUI on Tuesday!
The fact that it's even a consideration is rather infuriating to me. The insurance company won't have to pay for my IUI, they won't pay for the sperm preparation. They won't pay a penny more than they would pay for a TI cycle. So why exactly won't the insurance cover the same medication for an IUI cycle than a TI cycle? When it's like an IUI is what will make the difference between hope and no hope, why does the insurance company draw that line in the sand?
The only answer I can come up with is religion. Certain religions oppose ART (Artificial Reproductive Therapy), or specifically any form of conception that is not through sex. I understand it, I can respect it - if you don't want to use medical techniques to overcome physical obstacles to conception, that's completely your choice. That's fine! But by deciding that the insurance company will only cover medicine if the method of conception is sex is unfair. That can help plenty of people, sure. But what about those it can't help? I understand also not covering the IUI procedure - I do! That's fine. I don't like it, but it's acceptable. But by removing otherwise covered benefits simply because I am choosing to add a procedure that will more than double my chances of success is cruel and unfair.
That's my political rant of the day. I wish all infertility treatments were covered as needed. Not only is it a cruel medical condition, there would be fewer twin and higher order multiple pregnancies if insurance carriers covered treatment because people would take fewer risks. It would be easier to decide to cancel a cycle where you over responded and risk higher order multiple pregnancies if you knew you wouldn't be losing thousands of dollars on the cycle.
You'd think, "Well, the insurance company doesn't want to pay for that either!" Understandable! But what isn't considered is the additional costs to the insurance company from those higher order multiple pregnancies that occur as the result of women taking higher risks because they couldn't afford multiple cycles. Women who went ahead with IUIs with 4 mature follicles, women who implanted 2-3 embryos during IVF because they couldn't afford another cycle. Those women end up pregnant with twins or triplets or even quads (or, very rarely, even more). Sometimes they then have to make the incredibly difficult choice of selective reduction (where you have to choose whether or not to eliminate one or more of the fetuses to increase the chance of survival for the rest of them and lower the risks to the health of the mother).
Stay with me - you're still wondering why the insurance company should consider paying for such expensive elective treatments. They're a company who wants to make money - what is their motivation in covering that at all?
We'll start with their financial benefits (and hit on the misnomer of "elective" later) from covering these procedures.
How much does a typical IUI procedure cost out of pocket? Usually under $3000, sometimes as low as $1000 depending on the medication. If they don't cover the IUI itself and just the medication, under $2500 usually. If it's simply a Clomid or Femara IUI with trigger, and they aren't paying for the IUI, perhaps only $400-500.
How much does a typical IVF cycle count? Probably around $15,000. Perhaps as much as $20,000 with medications.
What are the most common risks from twins and especially higher order multiples? Miscarriage, pregnancy complications, early labor, premature delivery. One day in the hospital for even one of those issues would easily cost more than the cost of one cycle of IUI, and likely IVF. If even one baby ends up spending time in the NICU, it is not unusual to rack up an insurance bill of over $100,000.
So what is the insurance company's motivation to cover fertility treatments? So women will take LESS risks because of the high costs of each cycle. Less risks will likely mean less risky pregnancies, which will result in exponentially fewer costs of care for the Mom and baby (or babies).
Okay, I'll stop ranting... all that to say, I think we might get to do an IUI this cycle! We'll pay the $650 for it if we do, but I will gladly pay that to double our chances. I'm just going to make sure we don't have to pay retroactively for the medication we were already prescribed (and already took) for this cycle, because the Follistim would put us back easily the cost of another cycle (or two!) so it wouldn't be worth it.
Keep your fingers crossed for me. I'm in uncharted territory, and not sure how this will all work out. Either way, I'm hoping beyond hope that this is our cycle, that it's finally our turn!
One problem - we had planned a timed intercourse cycle due to insurance reasons. They'll cover the cost of medication for a timed intercourse cycle, but not an IUI cycle. And they have generously covered the medications that have worked so beautifully. I've got a 20 mm follicle on my left ovary, and an 18 mm follicle on my right ovary, and my E2 levels indicate I've got two beautifully mature eggs in there, and my uterine lining is at 7.5 on CD11. It all looks "textbook perfect," in the words of the nurse.
So... she said we should just go ahead with the IUI! Oh my goodness! I just finished writing the whole post about keeping hope in check - stoking the fire slowly to keep it burning through several cycles if needed - and this was like throwing gasoline right on the fire.
I'm going to call tomorrow with my nurse and make sure it won't somehow mean I have to pay full cost for all the medication that I've already used for this cycle retroactively. If that's the case, we'll keep with timed intercourse as the plan. Otherwise, I think we're going to grasp this opportunity and do the IUI on Tuesday!
The fact that it's even a consideration is rather infuriating to me. The insurance company won't have to pay for my IUI, they won't pay for the sperm preparation. They won't pay a penny more than they would pay for a TI cycle. So why exactly won't the insurance cover the same medication for an IUI cycle than a TI cycle? When it's like an IUI is what will make the difference between hope and no hope, why does the insurance company draw that line in the sand?
The only answer I can come up with is religion. Certain religions oppose ART (Artificial Reproductive Therapy), or specifically any form of conception that is not through sex. I understand it, I can respect it - if you don't want to use medical techniques to overcome physical obstacles to conception, that's completely your choice. That's fine! But by deciding that the insurance company will only cover medicine if the method of conception is sex is unfair. That can help plenty of people, sure. But what about those it can't help? I understand also not covering the IUI procedure - I do! That's fine. I don't like it, but it's acceptable. But by removing otherwise covered benefits simply because I am choosing to add a procedure that will more than double my chances of success is cruel and unfair.
That's my political rant of the day. I wish all infertility treatments were covered as needed. Not only is it a cruel medical condition, there would be fewer twin and higher order multiple pregnancies if insurance carriers covered treatment because people would take fewer risks. It would be easier to decide to cancel a cycle where you over responded and risk higher order multiple pregnancies if you knew you wouldn't be losing thousands of dollars on the cycle.
You'd think, "Well, the insurance company doesn't want to pay for that either!" Understandable! But what isn't considered is the additional costs to the insurance company from those higher order multiple pregnancies that occur as the result of women taking higher risks because they couldn't afford multiple cycles. Women who went ahead with IUIs with 4 mature follicles, women who implanted 2-3 embryos during IVF because they couldn't afford another cycle. Those women end up pregnant with twins or triplets or even quads (or, very rarely, even more). Sometimes they then have to make the incredibly difficult choice of selective reduction (where you have to choose whether or not to eliminate one or more of the fetuses to increase the chance of survival for the rest of them and lower the risks to the health of the mother).
Stay with me - you're still wondering why the insurance company should consider paying for such expensive elective treatments. They're a company who wants to make money - what is their motivation in covering that at all?
We'll start with their financial benefits (and hit on the misnomer of "elective" later) from covering these procedures.
How much does a typical IUI procedure cost out of pocket? Usually under $3000, sometimes as low as $1000 depending on the medication. If they don't cover the IUI itself and just the medication, under $2500 usually. If it's simply a Clomid or Femara IUI with trigger, and they aren't paying for the IUI, perhaps only $400-500.
How much does a typical IVF cycle count? Probably around $15,000. Perhaps as much as $20,000 with medications.
What are the most common risks from twins and especially higher order multiples? Miscarriage, pregnancy complications, early labor, premature delivery. One day in the hospital for even one of those issues would easily cost more than the cost of one cycle of IUI, and likely IVF. If even one baby ends up spending time in the NICU, it is not unusual to rack up an insurance bill of over $100,000.
So what is the insurance company's motivation to cover fertility treatments? So women will take LESS risks because of the high costs of each cycle. Less risks will likely mean less risky pregnancies, which will result in exponentially fewer costs of care for the Mom and baby (or babies).
Okay, I'll stop ranting... all that to say, I think we might get to do an IUI this cycle! We'll pay the $650 for it if we do, but I will gladly pay that to double our chances. I'm just going to make sure we don't have to pay retroactively for the medication we were already prescribed (and already took) for this cycle, because the Follistim would put us back easily the cost of another cycle (or two!) so it wouldn't be worth it.
Keep your fingers crossed for me. I'm in uncharted territory, and not sure how this will all work out. Either way, I'm hoping beyond hope that this is our cycle, that it's finally our turn!
Saturday, February 22, 2014
Allowed to Hope
I'm feeling hopeful. Not so much for this cycle, but for cycles in general. The medications are working as they're supposed to - I didn't overrespond, I didn't underrespond - I feel like Goldilocks! The meds did their job JUST RIGHT! I have two follicles that will likely be perfect size for trigger tomorrow. My lining is thickening as it should.
I still have my suspicions that we've got a cervical problem, or that my husband's morphology are partially responsible for our lack of success. Either way, a timed intercourse cycle won't likely help us (though having two eggs instead of one, and perfect timing, makes me feel a LITTLE more hopeful for this cycle!). But with future cycles, when we do IUI in combination with medication, I have hope. Oh, so much hope!
It's been awhile since I felt hopeful. When we first started trying, I was full of hope. I designed a little logo that said "Mini-(Last Name)" with a teddy bear and balloons - appropriately gender neutral - and bought a package of newborn onesies with the idea that I would iron on the logo to a onesie to give to my husband when I got a positive pregnancy test. That was 17 months ago, and I have moved that package of onesies three times since then. No, not moved them from one drawer to another - we have moved houses three times since then (ah, the wonders of military family life). That's just depressing. I'm not going to dwell on that, because it just bums me out.
We went to see a reproductive endocrinologist long before we knew we were having trouble. I have a family history of Fragile X, so I wanted to confirm that it wasn't a concern. During our appointment, the doctor started talking about how we shouldn't worry yet, that we should try on our own for a few more months - I remember being really confused, and feeling like she was rushing things by even having that conversation. Of course it would happen for us, we had only been trying 4 months or so! Why would she even say such things?
That original hope started to dwindle after about 6 months of trying. I started having a hard time right before and immediately after my period came, but by the time ovulation occurred, I always spent the two week wait in blissful hope. I worried, for sure, but it would ebb and flow with the various stages of my cycle. Early disappointment and nervousness, followed by superstition that I had figured out the "secret" that would change my fortune that month - eating pineapple core after ovulation, evening primrose oil before ovulation, doing a handstand after sex, having sex two days before ovulation and one day after, followed by optimism and hope.
Around 7 DPO, I would start peeing on sticks (I never claimed to be a patient woman). I would hope for an early positive, and when I got negative after negative, that hope would dwindle. I would calculate exactly what chances I had of still getting a positive test. If 30% of pregnant women got a positive test on 8 DPO, and 70% didn't see a positive test until later dates, then I knew to be 30% disappointed and 70% hopeful. With those declining numbers, my hope would dwindle in the same proportions.
Originally, I would not "call it" until my period arrived. In months since, I've started becoming increasingly resigned after 10 DPO and completely resigned after 12 DPO.
There were months I tested 2-3 times per day, and months I tested only once before my period arrived.
At 8 months, I sobbed when I got a negative test around 12 DPO. I sat on the stairs of our home, fists clenching my husband's shirt where he stood in front of me, with my head pressed into his stomach while gasping for breath between choked sobs.
"What's wrong with me?" I implored of him, as if he held the answer.
The poor, sweet man held me and told me confidently it would happen. I think he really believed that.
After 10 cycles, I convinced my husband it was worth doing some testing, especially as I had been off birth control for 6 months before we started officially trying. During our 11th month, we had our initial appointment with a reproductive endocrinologist and did initial testing. My husband's numbers came back mediocre - his count was good at around 55 million, his volume was good, his motility wasn't good at 25% (the doctor said they wanted to see 50%), and his morphology was on the bottom end of what is considered an acceptable range at 4%.
After sobbing when I first heard the news, I felt oddly hopeful. If that was our only issue, we would try vitamins! We would just try longer. It would happen.
I read every study on the subject. I bought tons of vitamins (if you've read my early posts, you can see exactly what I gave my husband to take). We timed everything perfectly, and "tried to relax" (man, I hate that phrase). I had such hope!
Besides the fact that my husband's incredibly busy and rigid schedule would not have allowed for any treatment cycles, and we were moving twice in the coming months, I sincerely hoped it would happen. Of course it would! I gave us 6 months before we'd go back to a reproductive endocrinologist, which just happened to be the same amount of time it would be until we were finally settled in a place where we would stay for awhile.
During those 6 months (September through January), my hope took an odd path. At first, my hope was relatively low as I had just seen my husband's sperm analysis, and knew our chances were not great with those numbers. But I felt positive and patient - we were doing the right things, it would happen. After 3 months, I started getting very hopeful as any vitamin regimin for my husband would take approximately that long to start having an effect.
As each month started passing, I got more and more discouraged. I felt hope for fewer and fewer days, and felt despondent and hopeless for more and more of each cycle. As you can see by my post from my birthday in December, I hit rock bottom around then. My following cycle, the last one before starting medical intervention, I felt such a split between desperate hope that it would happen before we needed medical help (because isn't it always that way in the stories?) and absolute lack of hope that this would ever, ever happen.
When we finally went to see the doctor, I felt hopeful that it would happen with their help. When we re-did some of our tests and my husband's numbers came up surprisingly good (70-something million count, great volume, and over 80% motility - no idea what the morphology was, but my guess is that it still isn't great simply because morphology usually is the hardest to improve), I oddly felt less hope. If my husband's numbers were so much better, why would an IUI work? If they can't find anything wrong, how can they fix it?
Hope hasn't been steady since then. It wasn't like early on, where I felt hopeful all the time. And it wasn't like later in the process, where I felt hopeful and despondent based on which part of my cycle I was dealing with at the moment. Now it it feels ephemeral - hope shows up like a flash of lightening in the night sky, lighting up the room and disappearing as soon as you notice it. Or it's like a bonfire - it's warming and soothing and you can hang around its glow for a little while, but eventually it burns out and you're left in the cold dark again, desperately trying to reignite the embers so you can feel its comforting warmth again.
Today I'm standing by that bonfire. It feels good, and I'm trying to just enjoy the ride while it lasts. I'm trying to stoke the fire - finding ways to add logs to the fire to build the hope and sustain it just a little longer.
I'm also trying to plan ahead to maintain that hope - if I put too much stock into this cycle, it will knock me down when my next cycle starts and it will be harder to start the fire up again. Like building up the fire with lots of logs and then pouring ice water all over it, with no logs left to rebuild. I'm trying to stoke the fire slowly, making the logs last long enough, with the plan to try to keep it burning low-and-slow until this long night of infertility is over and dawn arrives. Because if I build that pyre of hope too high, I run the risk of being left in the cold dark without any hope and without a baby.
I'm trying to space out that hope so that I have enough for three cycles - I'm not putting all my logs on the fire for this cycle, I'm saving some for my first and second medicated IUI as well. If I get to that point and we still aren't pregnant, I might need some serious help in rebuilding my bonfire of hope. But for now, I feel hopeful. Not overly hopeful for this cycle, but a little hopeful. I am feeling hopeful that this plan will work, and that within the next few months, we'll be pregnant.
That hope burns warm inside me. It feels so good! I did something yesterday that I haven't done since over a year ago - I went through the baby aisle of Walmart while shopping and imagined what it would feel like to buy little items. How it would feel like to walk through those aisles in a few weeks or a few months and actually be pregnant and looking at those items for my future child.
I also used this hope to think more about the next stage - I realize that I have been so focused for over a year now on getting pregnant, that I have learned so much about how the conception process should work and how the infertility treatment process works, but I know very little about what to expect after this is over. And I have spent my bad hopeless days researching what happens if we reach the end of this fertility treatment journey without a baby - we know that we want to be parents, and will move onto adoption if necessary - but I haven't spent any time since those early months researching pregnancy, labor & delivery.
I actually started looking online today to start thinking about what kind of maternity care I want, what to expect from pregnancy, what kind of labor and delivery I want, what pain management options I might consider during labor, which facility I want to give birth at.
Early on in my hopeful days, I created a secret Amazon registry of baby items I thought we might need. I've added to that and changed things around several times in my hopeful days. It's been a very long time since I looked at that registry, but it might be something I revisit during my newly found hope.
I also might start doing some research on early childhood development, what to expect as a new mother, vaccine research, and so forth. Because at some point, all this research that I've done on infertility and how to become pregnant will become moot. At some point, I will have to move forward. At some point, I will need to research something else and think about other things.
At the moment, it feels good to hope. It feels good to think about what could be awaiting me, what I would need to know after all of this research pays off and we finally get what we have worked so hard for. It feels really good to think about researching something new for a change, something hopeful.
I'm going to burn this fire of hope for as long as it burns, and hope that the dawn arrives before I run out of wood to stoke this fire.
I still have my suspicions that we've got a cervical problem, or that my husband's morphology are partially responsible for our lack of success. Either way, a timed intercourse cycle won't likely help us (though having two eggs instead of one, and perfect timing, makes me feel a LITTLE more hopeful for this cycle!). But with future cycles, when we do IUI in combination with medication, I have hope. Oh, so much hope!
It's been awhile since I felt hopeful. When we first started trying, I was full of hope. I designed a little logo that said "Mini-(Last Name)" with a teddy bear and balloons - appropriately gender neutral - and bought a package of newborn onesies with the idea that I would iron on the logo to a onesie to give to my husband when I got a positive pregnancy test. That was 17 months ago, and I have moved that package of onesies three times since then. No, not moved them from one drawer to another - we have moved houses three times since then (ah, the wonders of military family life). That's just depressing. I'm not going to dwell on that, because it just bums me out.
We went to see a reproductive endocrinologist long before we knew we were having trouble. I have a family history of Fragile X, so I wanted to confirm that it wasn't a concern. During our appointment, the doctor started talking about how we shouldn't worry yet, that we should try on our own for a few more months - I remember being really confused, and feeling like she was rushing things by even having that conversation. Of course it would happen for us, we had only been trying 4 months or so! Why would she even say such things?
That original hope started to dwindle after about 6 months of trying. I started having a hard time right before and immediately after my period came, but by the time ovulation occurred, I always spent the two week wait in blissful hope. I worried, for sure, but it would ebb and flow with the various stages of my cycle. Early disappointment and nervousness, followed by superstition that I had figured out the "secret" that would change my fortune that month - eating pineapple core after ovulation, evening primrose oil before ovulation, doing a handstand after sex, having sex two days before ovulation and one day after, followed by optimism and hope.
Around 7 DPO, I would start peeing on sticks (I never claimed to be a patient woman). I would hope for an early positive, and when I got negative after negative, that hope would dwindle. I would calculate exactly what chances I had of still getting a positive test. If 30% of pregnant women got a positive test on 8 DPO, and 70% didn't see a positive test until later dates, then I knew to be 30% disappointed and 70% hopeful. With those declining numbers, my hope would dwindle in the same proportions.
Originally, I would not "call it" until my period arrived. In months since, I've started becoming increasingly resigned after 10 DPO and completely resigned after 12 DPO.
There were months I tested 2-3 times per day, and months I tested only once before my period arrived.
At 8 months, I sobbed when I got a negative test around 12 DPO. I sat on the stairs of our home, fists clenching my husband's shirt where he stood in front of me, with my head pressed into his stomach while gasping for breath between choked sobs.
"What's wrong with me?" I implored of him, as if he held the answer.
The poor, sweet man held me and told me confidently it would happen. I think he really believed that.
After 10 cycles, I convinced my husband it was worth doing some testing, especially as I had been off birth control for 6 months before we started officially trying. During our 11th month, we had our initial appointment with a reproductive endocrinologist and did initial testing. My husband's numbers came back mediocre - his count was good at around 55 million, his volume was good, his motility wasn't good at 25% (the doctor said they wanted to see 50%), and his morphology was on the bottom end of what is considered an acceptable range at 4%.
After sobbing when I first heard the news, I felt oddly hopeful. If that was our only issue, we would try vitamins! We would just try longer. It would happen.
I read every study on the subject. I bought tons of vitamins (if you've read my early posts, you can see exactly what I gave my husband to take). We timed everything perfectly, and "tried to relax" (man, I hate that phrase). I had such hope!
Besides the fact that my husband's incredibly busy and rigid schedule would not have allowed for any treatment cycles, and we were moving twice in the coming months, I sincerely hoped it would happen. Of course it would! I gave us 6 months before we'd go back to a reproductive endocrinologist, which just happened to be the same amount of time it would be until we were finally settled in a place where we would stay for awhile.
During those 6 months (September through January), my hope took an odd path. At first, my hope was relatively low as I had just seen my husband's sperm analysis, and knew our chances were not great with those numbers. But I felt positive and patient - we were doing the right things, it would happen. After 3 months, I started getting very hopeful as any vitamin regimin for my husband would take approximately that long to start having an effect.
As each month started passing, I got more and more discouraged. I felt hope for fewer and fewer days, and felt despondent and hopeless for more and more of each cycle. As you can see by my post from my birthday in December, I hit rock bottom around then. My following cycle, the last one before starting medical intervention, I felt such a split between desperate hope that it would happen before we needed medical help (because isn't it always that way in the stories?) and absolute lack of hope that this would ever, ever happen.
When we finally went to see the doctor, I felt hopeful that it would happen with their help. When we re-did some of our tests and my husband's numbers came up surprisingly good (70-something million count, great volume, and over 80% motility - no idea what the morphology was, but my guess is that it still isn't great simply because morphology usually is the hardest to improve), I oddly felt less hope. If my husband's numbers were so much better, why would an IUI work? If they can't find anything wrong, how can they fix it?
Hope hasn't been steady since then. It wasn't like early on, where I felt hopeful all the time. And it wasn't like later in the process, where I felt hopeful and despondent based on which part of my cycle I was dealing with at the moment. Now it it feels ephemeral - hope shows up like a flash of lightening in the night sky, lighting up the room and disappearing as soon as you notice it. Or it's like a bonfire - it's warming and soothing and you can hang around its glow for a little while, but eventually it burns out and you're left in the cold dark again, desperately trying to reignite the embers so you can feel its comforting warmth again.
Today I'm standing by that bonfire. It feels good, and I'm trying to just enjoy the ride while it lasts. I'm trying to stoke the fire - finding ways to add logs to the fire to build the hope and sustain it just a little longer.
I'm also trying to plan ahead to maintain that hope - if I put too much stock into this cycle, it will knock me down when my next cycle starts and it will be harder to start the fire up again. Like building up the fire with lots of logs and then pouring ice water all over it, with no logs left to rebuild. I'm trying to stoke the fire slowly, making the logs last long enough, with the plan to try to keep it burning low-and-slow until this long night of infertility is over and dawn arrives. Because if I build that pyre of hope too high, I run the risk of being left in the cold dark without any hope and without a baby.
I'm trying to space out that hope so that I have enough for three cycles - I'm not putting all my logs on the fire for this cycle, I'm saving some for my first and second medicated IUI as well. If I get to that point and we still aren't pregnant, I might need some serious help in rebuilding my bonfire of hope. But for now, I feel hopeful. Not overly hopeful for this cycle, but a little hopeful. I am feeling hopeful that this plan will work, and that within the next few months, we'll be pregnant.
That hope burns warm inside me. It feels so good! I did something yesterday that I haven't done since over a year ago - I went through the baby aisle of Walmart while shopping and imagined what it would feel like to buy little items. How it would feel like to walk through those aisles in a few weeks or a few months and actually be pregnant and looking at those items for my future child.
I also used this hope to think more about the next stage - I realize that I have been so focused for over a year now on getting pregnant, that I have learned so much about how the conception process should work and how the infertility treatment process works, but I know very little about what to expect after this is over. And I have spent my bad hopeless days researching what happens if we reach the end of this fertility treatment journey without a baby - we know that we want to be parents, and will move onto adoption if necessary - but I haven't spent any time since those early months researching pregnancy, labor & delivery.
I actually started looking online today to start thinking about what kind of maternity care I want, what to expect from pregnancy, what kind of labor and delivery I want, what pain management options I might consider during labor, which facility I want to give birth at.
Early on in my hopeful days, I created a secret Amazon registry of baby items I thought we might need. I've added to that and changed things around several times in my hopeful days. It's been a very long time since I looked at that registry, but it might be something I revisit during my newly found hope.
I also might start doing some research on early childhood development, what to expect as a new mother, vaccine research, and so forth. Because at some point, all this research that I've done on infertility and how to become pregnant will become moot. At some point, I will have to move forward. At some point, I will need to research something else and think about other things.
At the moment, it feels good to hope. It feels good to think about what could be awaiting me, what I would need to know after all of this research pays off and we finally get what we have worked so hard for. It feels really good to think about researching something new for a change, something hopeful.
I'm going to burn this fire of hope for as long as it burns, and hope that the dawn arrives before I run out of wood to stoke this fire.
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