fertility crone

I have reached a new stage in my infertility life: fertility crone.

I remember the first time I went onto a "trouble conceiving" message board, stepping carefully into a world of completely unfamiliar acronyms and words and a whole lot of, "wow, I would never do that." What the heck is RE? BFN? HSG? They do WHAT to your uterus? Endo? FOUR YEARS? Sperm can be the wrong SHAPE? WHAT THE HELL KIND OF WORLD IS THIS?

Fast forward to yesterday, when I had lunch with a woman from church who had a miscarriage a few months ago. She had told me, at the time, that she just couldn't talk about it yet, so I told her to give me a call when she was ready. She called a few weeks ago.

Normally I don't share a lot about myself when I'm talking to a parishioner, because the point is for them to get support from me, not the other way around. Also, I really hate it when you're trying to tell your painful story to someone and all they do is top every comment you make with an even worse one of their own. "Oh, you had an ectopic? I had two." "Oh, I had that surgery too but I was allergic to the pain meds and it was just horrible." "Wow, you got hit by a bus? I got hit by a bus last week, and then I got run over by a train and two cars AND one of Santa's reindeer!" (Okay, that last one has never happened. But it's been close.)

So my intent was to giver her support - and, before I knew it, the conversation had turned into a mutual consolation society. She has had two pregnancies, both of which turned out to be a blighted ovum. She had her first IUI that very morning.

It was as if we were two ex-pats, having been separated from our home country for years, who happened upon each other in a strange city and started speaking English to each other after speaking only a foreign language for what seemed like forever. "I can't tell you what a relief it is not to have to explain all this stuff," she said at one point, and I completely understood what she meant.

(As an aside, "I completely understand" is not one of my favorite phrases, because people use it all the damn time, and most of that time, it's not truthful at all. Maybe we can never say that we "completely" understand anybody, actually. But when you do connect with someone who really, really gets your situation, at a very deep level - it's pretty great. It feels as "complete" as understanding ever gets.)

She and her husband have been trying to get pregnant for not quite two years, while we're coming up on anniversary four. And after all this time, it occurred to me after lunch that now I'm the one who knows all the lingo, all the acronyms - I'm the one doing things I never imagined doing, spending money I swore I'd never spend, becoming someone I occasionally don't recognize anymore. How is this my life? we both asked. How did I get here?

We both confessed how much blogland means to us now. And how we always assumed we were the sort of people who would be completely, totally open to adoption - and how it still baffles us, even in the midst of it, that this pull toward biological parenthood is so unbelievably strong. How bizarre it is to lay on a cold, vinyl table while your husband is at work miles away, waiting for a nurse with a catheter to knock you up (you hope). How you always imagined lying in bed after sex, cuddling with your spouse and thinking about whether your act of love just conceived a child, and instead you're spread-eagled on a doctor's table waiting for the little timer with the sperm on the ticker to 'ding' so you can GO TO THE FREAKING BATHROOM, MY GOD I HAVE TO PEE.

It's a weird world we live in, the world of the infertile. I've become one of its crones, I fear - the person who has watched a hundred thousand other sisters come in to our little society and then leave, while I wait here and hope it will be my turn someday. Every once in awhile I speak our language to someone who looks like she might understand. Sometimes I get a blank look, or bad advice.

But sometimes you get a fellow traveler, and you have enough time to stop for lunch and laugh through your tears at the sperm timer, and at the very least, you know you're not alone.

why I have a small bruise on my forehead

Monday is my day off. I may be the only person in the world who LOVES Mondays. On the top of my list of things-I-love-about-Mondays is the fact that I get to sleep in, because I am not, in any sense of the phrase, a morning person. I have decided that this is one of the things that is built into you somewhere really, really deep, like in your DNA, along with eye color and your height and the length of your fingers. I have blue-y eyes, I have long fingers, I am 5'7", and I am a morning person. Ain't nothing I can do to change that. I've tried. It doesn't work.

So it was pretty unusual that I leapt out of bed at 7:00am yesterday morning. Here's why.

My husband, who leaves for work about 7:00am, came running into the bedroom yesterday morning and woke me up with a running commentary, the kind you have to say REALLY FAST because you were supposed to be in the car ten minutes ago, "Hey, there's something on the Today Show about IVF and I don't have time to watch it but I thought maybe you would want to get up and see what it is. I have to go. Bye!"

I figured it was probably bad news, because nothing fertility-related gets on the national media's attention radar unless it's some kind of disaster (OctoMom, anyone?), but, in spite of Morning Girl's natural aversion to pre-7:00am rising on her day off, I did indeed get up to watch said story.

Problem number one: it was not on until 8:00am. Stupid Today Show.

Problem number two: it was about a couple who received the wrong embryo. And now is about to give birth to someone else's child.

Okay. I have friends in journalism. I get the whole, "if it bleeds, it leads" mentality. The rarity of this particular circumstance and the enormity of the consequences probably does, indeed, warrant some national attention.

But I could feel every infertile woman in America do what I did: lower her head to the table (desk, steering wheel, whatever solid surface you could find when you heard this story) and bang it several times. (Hence the small bruise on my forehead.)

I had a whole tirade about the fact that all the media EVER FREAKING DOES is spread half-truths, misinformation, and salacious stories about fertility treatment and how, if Dr. Oz can do a whole FREAKING SHOW ON BOWEL MOVEMENTS FOR THE LOVE OF GOD (I was home a few afternoons ago and I caught part of it and I think it was the topic of the whole show, but I could be wrong) - how come said media can't be bothered to understand that not all fertility treatments result in "Jon & Kate plus Eight Embroys and, By the Way, Sorry About The Whole Wrong Womb Thing" situations?

But then I read this post by Mel and it said what I wanted to say in much better words, so you should go read it. If you haven't already.

I'll be over here putting ice on my forehead. (And saying prayers for the couples involved who, despite the frustrating news coverage, are in a heartbreaking situation.)

mastering the art of infertility

I am the very worst sort of bandwagon-hopper, because I am the kind of person who will completely hop on a bandwagon but will then do everything in my power to hide the fact that I succumbed to popular influence.

This is how it works. I go to a movie, which is based on a book I might have wanted to read, or have read but don't own, or maybe have never heard of...whatever the case, it turns out that I really like the movie. Which makes me want to read the book. Except that I refuse to buy the no doubt newly-released version of said book prominently featuring the stars of the movie on the cover, because somehow this would make it look like I am the sort of person who only reads books as recommended by movies, which is a bad thing. In my tiny, crazed, snobby mind.

So, I went to see Julie and Julia. Which I loved. And I decided, snobbery be damned, that I would order her cookbook - because, for one thing, I am now bound and determined to make Boeuf Bourguignon. I fancy myself a decent cook, but I learned some things in this movie: I learned that I should pat my meat dry before browning it, for one thing, which will certainly pay off when I finally get around to the recipe-trying.

But I learned something else, too. I've never known much about Julia Child, to be honest, except that I think she once appeared on Sesame Street. I vaguely remember this from my childhood. (Or was it the Muppet Show? My childhood is basically a blurring of those two.) There were a hundred great moments in the movie: Julie trying to cook the lobsters, Julia and her fierce determination to CHOP ONIONS LIKE A MAN, Julia's sister falling in love with a short, rather dumpy guy who turns out to be her heart's desire.

But two moments meant more to me than all the cooking tips in the world. Early on, when Julia and Paul have first moved to Paris, they come across a family with children. And Julia and Paul exchange a glance which my husband and I have shared with one another a million times over. I'm betting most movie-goers didn't entirely know what that moment meant, but I did. Maybe you did too. That one glance tells you more than a file of medical procedures, more than a thousand nights of tears shed, more than ten boxes of pregnancy tests thrown away - that quick glance contains the heartbreak of an infertile couple, who look at other people's children as if they were the oasis in a desert. You don't need words.

So after Julia's sister gets married - Julia's long-single, equally-tall-and-gangly-yet-totally-charming sister - when she gets married quite sudddenly, I knew what was coming. A scene where Julia, sitting in her kitchen, gets a letter from a friend. And the friend tells her that Julia's dear sister, whom she loves deeply, who has been married for all of ten freaking minutes, is - you guessed it - pregnant.

My husband reached over and took my hand in that scene, and squeezed it, and because there's no way to describe the moment in words, we'll just stop there. For the countless amazing roles Meryl Streep has played in her career, I'm grateful - but for none more so than that 10-second scene which, among other things, bound me to Julia Child for life. I have no idea if Julia herself tells more of that piece of her life in My Life in France (which, because I can't take too much change at one time, I ordered in the old version rather than the one with Meryl and Amy Adams on the cover). Maybe so - maybe not. It doesn't matter, really. That scene was enough. It was enough to say to thousands of men and women who have replayed that very moment in their own lives, you are not alone. You can still go forth and make fantastic Boeuf Bourguignon and you can blame your tears on all the onion-chopping, at least for awhile.

Up got a lot of attention from the infertile community about its delicate and heartfelt handling of infertility. I haven't seen it yet, though I will. Which means we have two movies in one summer which both, in kind and real-life ways, acknowledge that infertility is real. And that it hurts. And that there is not always a standard happy ending.

But which also remind me that there can be joy nonetheless. I'll drink to that, Julia. Thanks for the reminder.

back in the saddle again

Whew - vacation over, which means I've spent the last three days meaning to update this blog, but have instead been sorting my way out of the pile o' emails and other mail which arrived while I was on my 3-week break. YOWZA. Not a lot of extra time lately.

I have quite a few blogworthy (we hope) moments simmering away, but not nearly enough time - quite yet - to compose them, so I've made a list and hope I can manage to remember what ON EARTH I meant by these frenetic scribblings when the crazy time finally comes to an end. Which should be, I believe, sometime next week. Maybe.

For now, just a quick doctor-related update. I saw my RE last week and asked him for some advice about the timeline for IVF #2. For a variety of reasons - including some overseas travel this fall and a tax benefit for my generous parents who are giving us money to proceed- we'd rather wait until January to start treatments again. However, being a fully logical and cool-headed infertile woman, my desire to wait is accompanied by nightly visions of my ovaries drying up completely on December 31. Because, although I realize that fertility tapers off gradually as one ages, the idea that OH MY GOD I AM 36 AND THAT IS OLD AND WE HAD BETTER GET MOVING RIGHT DAMN NOW OR IT'S ALL OVER GIVE ME THE LUPRON TODAY is still pretty powerful.

My delightfully calm and kind doctor assured me that January would be fine. By which, I take it to mean that he was saying, "a few months more won't hurt you," not, "oh, you're screwed anyway, so who cares if you wait for the IRS?"

Also, I have this post brewing in me about Julie and Julia, but wow - I really have to get back to work. How terribly inconvenient. Thanks for hanging in there while I ignore my blog - I promise to get better. Really. I swear.

on-the-road update

I am not dead. Or boycotting my own blog.

Just on vacation, mostly away from internet service (except for now - a brief techno-interlude at the in-laws). We spent a week in a fantastic National Park and now we're at the hubby's family cabin. Loving the time away.

Not much to report, except that I have an appointment with my RE on September 1. Otherwise, life is good - and I'll get back to blogging when we get home next week.

For now, viva la vacation!

(Clearly, I am Spanish-illiterate. My apologies.)

request

If you're the praying sort, please say a few for my friend A, who is enduring the pain of a non-viable pregnancy. Either a miscarriage or an ectopic - heartbreaking either way.

When she called today, I thought about a book I read not long ago, in which the author, a well-known theologian, wrote about the nine-year struggle he and his wife had to bring children into the world. After adopting two boys, he thought back on those years. "Since [infertility] gave me what I now can't imagine living without, poison was transmuted into a gift, God's strange gift. The pain of it remains, of course. But the poison is gone."

I am nowhere near saying the pain of our infertility is gone. It's not. Not even close. But today, when this friend called with her own story of reproductive grief, I caught a glimpse of how pain can sometimes open a space for connecting deeply with someone else. I am not glad for our struggle, but I am glad I shared it with her, because she had someone to call in her own pain.

Maybe someday the poison will be gone too. For both of us. For all of us.

feeling tense

Warning: English major nerd post ahead. (And disclaimer: this post is so, so NOT about anyone who comments regularly on this blog. At all.)

I’ve been thinking lately about the grammar of infertility. We all started, the Stirrup Queen Sisterhood, way back someplace where we realized that infertility might be in our future. We started saying things like, “I think I might be infertile.” “I think I might have a fertility problem.” “I’m worried that I might not be able to get pregnant.” “Might,” we said, carefully, or, “maybe,” as we worried about what lay ahead.

And then infertility became present tense. “I’m getting tested,” “I have endo,” “We have sperm problems,” “I’m starting Lupron,” “I’m waiting for my beta results.” I am infertile, we finally had to say. It’s a short sentence, but it took me nearly two years to say it out loud. Infertility moved out of the realm of possibility, out of the future tense, and it became the now. The present. A reality. A hard, painful reality.

And there we stay. For months, some of us for years. Sometimes we think we have put it in our past, and then it comes back again: a miscarriage, an ectopic pregnancy, a stillbirth, and we’re back to the painful present again.

Here’s my struggle: what happens when infertility becomes past-tense? Specifically, what happens when the past-tense and the present-tense collide? I’ve read a few comments on blogs lately wherein someone who has a child (past-tense infertility) says something like, “I completely understand” to a woman who is still present-tense infertility, and although I really hope you don’t hate me for saying this, I’m going to say it anyway:

comments like that really piss me off.

There’s a sisterhood among the tenses, of course. Those worried about future infertility can learn a lot from those who are enduring it now, and from those who have come through it. I know I did, when I was still a future-tense girl. And those in the present-tense can offer support to the future-ones, and can take great hope and gain great wisdom from the past-tensers.

But somehow, no matter how hard I try, I cannot erase the resentment I feel when someone with a child says they still consider themselves present-tense when it comes to infertility. I read this every once in awhile, and although it’s not my intent to offend anyone who feels that way, I do want to be honest about my perspective: that, no matter how hard we try, there is a gap between these tenses. And perhaps it is better to be honest about that than to try to pretend they don’t exist.

I, for example, don’t really understand what it’s like to be a parent. And although I remember the early days of struggling with infertility, the four years of that struggle have permanently altered the way I view those early days. I look back at myself, 6 months into the game, and I laugh gently at how I cried when my period came, all the money I spent on ovulation tests and pregnancy tests, how I stopped buying tampons at Cos.tco because certainly I would get pregnant this month, and then what would I do with the super-sized box of Ta.mpax?

I pity that future-tense girl, which means that I don’t really understand her anymore. I have forgotten her pain – or, perhaps the pain which came along the way has swallowed hers up, and I don’t see it accurately anymore. I think she was a fool, and she wasn’t – not really. She was hopeful. She was a bit in denial. And I can’t get back to her with all these years in the way.

I can’t get myself to the past-tense either. I’m stuck here in the present. And although I believe that surviving infertility does change you forever, does bond you with others who survived it too, there is still a gap between us. I know you thought you would never get there. I know you were me, once, perhaps not long ago. You endured the same treatments and tests and heartache and despondency. You cried the same tears and you felt the same despair and you resented the people on the other side, the parent side, who said that they “completely understood.”

If infertility has ever been a part of your life – past, present, or future – then we have more in common than that which separates us. But we are not the same. And, for myself, it’s better to acknowledge those separations than to ignore them. Because if infertility is in your past, then – like it or not – your claim to “completely understand” me falls pretty flat. It’s as if a bride, in her lovely white dress, says to her single bridesmaids right as she leaves for her honeymoon, “I’m still single! I’m still totally like you!” Which is much, much worse than the hideous dresses they agreed to wear for the day.

It’s just how I feel. You don’t have to feel the same. And if you’re on the other side, if infertility is in your past, then know this: I’m delighted for you, and any envy I feel is outweighed by gratitude that you still care, you still want to connect, and that you want to share your experiences with those of us in infertility-future-and-present. The gaps between us are real, and sometimes our words fall through them. But all we want – the thing we all want more than almost anything else – is for every single one of us to get to the other side. So forgive me if my words have fallen into the cracks and landed on a sore spot. It happens. I hope you can put it in your past.

I'm just feeling a little [present] tense today.