Two Cards in my Purse

Right now I have two cards in my purse. They are both for my husband. The first one is a card I gave my husband on the day we finally made it to embryo transfer after two cancelled IVFs and one IVF resulting in no embryos to transfer. Inside I wrote, “No matter what happens…today we are a mommy and a daddy with the same hopes and dreams for our children that any parent has. Love, your baby girl (but hopefully not your only baby for long).” The day he opened it, he put it in my purse to take home and it hasn’t left since.


I can’t bear to throw it out. We were so happy that day. So hope filled. It was one of the best days of my life. But what do you do with a card like that? Where do you keep it?

The second card is a Father’s Day card I bought several weeks ago. It has a picture of a golden retriever on the front and I wrote a cute message from Bo inside. I have to admit that this card is slightly passive aggressive. Tony isn’t ready to say that he will ever want to pursue parenthood again (whatever that would mean). I’m not ready to say that I want to accept child free living for the rest of my life. We are in limbo. This is OK right now.

I bought the card in a small way to remind him that fatherhood is out there. I bought the card because I want a card from him saying, “When we are healed from the disappointment of five failed attempts at IVF, when we are ready, we’ll do whatever it takes to become parents…if that’s what we decide we want to do.”

I’ve happily carried this Father’s Day card around for weeks, ready to launch my passive aggressive assault.

But then earlier this week I reminded Tony (in a totally innocent, non-passive aggressive way…for real. I have no problem admitting when I’m being passive aggressive.) that Bo needed to go to day camp on Friday for the dog Father’s Day party. (I know Liz…we do some crazy crap for our dogs here in the States, but I hate for Bo to miss a party.) Tony was less than enthusiastic and snarked back something to the effect that he didn’t need to participate in some dumb dog Father’s Day party.

I’m so stupid. Why would I think that he needs a card (even one disguised as a cute message from our pup) to be reminded that he’s not a father? I know how he feels. On Mother’s Day my aunt sent an email to all the women in the family wishing everyone a happy day. She addressed it to everyone whether a mother, an aunt, a cousin, or a puppy mom. I wasn’t the only non-mom recipient of the email. She’s a non-mom herself. I felt conflicted though. On one hand I was happy to be included, but on the other hand I felt like the girl invited to the party by default because someone’s parent said that the whole class had to be invited.

And so, I think we will ignore Father’s Day this year. Both of our fathers have passed away. Tony’s not a father. We’ll just continue to celebrate each other as a loving couple with a fabulous dog, and eventually our ideas about parenthood will come together with time.

Facebook Status Today

my Facebook status today...

"The only good things in my life are my husband and my dog. Sometimes I feel incredibly lucky and sometimes I feel incredibly sad."

Do you think I'll get kicked off Facebook for admitting I'm sad?

...lots of posts rolling around in my head.  I've been enjoying the great weather we've been having!

Like a virgin...

...lapped for the very first time.

It's hard to believe that someone has conceived and birthed a child twice and I have nothing but plans to turn "the nursery" into my new office.

Sigh.

Where's my parade?

I have two close work friends that were diagnosed with breast cancer at a young age. Between the two of them I have attended a wine and cheese party where we were encouraged to shower one friend with gifts, made a meal for another friend's family (the week before one of my IVF retrievals), contributed to a fund to pay for one friend to have her house cleaned regularly, made phone calls, sent emails, and participated in other supportive activities.

I know I shouldn't compare infertility to someone with cancer. First of all, we aren't likely to die from infertility (although it feels like it most days). And our treatments are arguably less arduous (we don't lose our hair, just our minds).

But I can't help but think that it is unfair that most of us can't even get our Facebook "friends" to acknowledge our "infertility outings" on Facebook during Infertility Awareness Week. I can't help but think that it is unfair that most of us hide our infertility and cringe when an article about our struggles appears online because we know the comments from readers will be so painful.

Why shouldn't friends and family shower us with gifts and cook us dinner when stimulation meds are making us feel sluggish?

So what do you think? Am I out of line? And if not, how do we change this? Where did we go wrong?

Shouldn't the community of womanhood band together and fight for everyone to become a mother?

a different kind of love

When I was in my twenties a lady I worked with told me a story about the birth of her first child. She had endured something like twelve hours of difficult labor followed by an emergency c-section. When it was all over, baby in arms, her husband looked into her eyes and said, "I just fell in love with you all over again."

This story has haunted me lately. It's so difficult to know that I will never give my husband the gift of growing a child in my womb made of part of him and part of me. I will never give him the gift of laboring to bring that child into the world, and he will never look into my eyes and tell me that his love for me has been reborn.

*pause for sadness*

When my husband and I finally got off the treatment roller coaster I didn't recognize our marriage anymore. For a while infertility treatments made us stronger and drew us closer, but eventually the constant disappointment destroyed us. My depression grew stronger than our relationship. My husband became more and more frustrated because he could not solve this problem. He could not succeed as a husband and make me happy. I could not succeed as a wife and give him the child that I so desperately wanted to give. Infertility led to financial problems and destroyed our physical intimacy. We were broken.

I'm happy to say that we are rebuilding. I'm thrilled to report that our marriage is getting stronger. We are smiling, laughing, planning, touching, hugging, kissing, joking, and talking. We are starting to become "us" again.

But still that woman's story haunted me. Can we ever have the kind of love that two people have when they build a family together?

The answer is no. We can't have that love. We have something different. Tony and I walked through hell together. We may not have always been looking into each other's eyes while we walked, but we always held each other's hands. We did it together. Our hopes were raised together. Our souls were rocked together. Our dreams were destroyed together.

We are falling in love with each other all over again. And that love feels so special and so true. It didn't come from a place of joy where love is easy. It came from a place of despair. We had a choice and we chose us.

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Money Makes the World Go Round

We're broke.


OK, we're not totally broke. We still have jobs. We still pay the bills. After spending tens of thousands of dollars on infertility tests, treatments, and prescriptions over the past two years we have very little savings left.


Yes, we are on an extended (maybe forever) break from treatments. Yes, even if we had the money we would not be in treatment right now, but quite frankly even if we wanted to cycle we couldn't afford it. The well is dry. The money tree has been shoke (shooken? shaked?) to within an inch of its life.


BUT...despite our dire financial situation, we want to live. We want to do some of the things that we have been putting off. We want to travel. We want to buy stuff. We want to have fun.


BUT...I still have a nagging thought, a little voice telling me that if this desire to have a child is still with me in a year then I may want to have the option to try donor eggs. That option requires some major savings and I just don't feel like it right now.

So right now I'm spending. I'm buying new toys. And I'll worry about saving for tomorrow later.

Back in the Stirrups

No, don't spit out your Sunday afternoon margarita. No IUI, no IVF, just a regular well woman exam with an extra discussion regarding my missing period (cycle day 60+ since my post failed IVF bleed). Am I the only one who has Sunday afternoon margaritas?

I've been away from my regular OBGYN long enough that she has had time to drop my insurance and pick it up again. I was really excited to "graduate" from my RE (even without the eight week old heart beating fetus in my belly that most graduates have). Another step back toward normal world.

But things didn't go as planned...

It all started down hill when the nurse insisted on a pregnancy test since I haven't had my period for sixty-plus days. She asked me if I had tested at home. I answered, "Nope." She asked if there was a chance I was pregnant. I answered, "Nope." She asked if I was using birth control. I answered, "Nope."

I could tell that she was getting excited at the opportunity to be the one to tell me that I was pregnant. So I broke the bad news to her, "I've done five IVFs and I've only had sex with my husband once in the last sixty days, so I'm sure I'm not pregnant."

I could tell she was disappointed. She hung her head and said, "Well, the doctor would have wanted me to test anyway." The test was never mentioned again. I assume it was negative.

I had to relay and relive my whole history of infertility with the doctor like two college girls catching up. I started to cry. This is not how I wanted this visit to go.

After all the boob checking and pap smearing we got around to talking about my absent period. I told her about my high FSH. She asked if I was diagnosed with premature ovarian failure and I answered, "Yes." I'm not sure why I answered this way. I've never actually been told that I have POF. I'm not ready to open my medical records that I requested be mailed to me by my RE. Actually, no one has really said what is wrong with me besides the fact that I have high FSH and crap eggs. But based on my affirmative answer my doctor dropped a bomb.

"If you have POF you probably won't get your period anymore. I'll give you some Provera, but I want you to do some blood work before you take it."

Really? I always had normal periods. Yes, I had to take Provera to start my period before this last cycle, but I just figured I was messed up due to all the meds. Her prediction really bothered me. No period = no hope what so ever. Does no period mean that donor eggs is not even an option for me in the future? Does no period mean that I'm old and dried up at thirty two?

And so I wait. I wait for blood work (which I haven't given yet.) I wait for Provera to induce a period. I wait for another period that may never come. I wait for answers to questions that I had no idea would even apply to me.

WTF.

On a happier note I have been busy crafting the last few weeks and have decided to revive my other blog. Check it out if you have an interest in crafty things...