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.

_____________________________________________




read about the alphabears at the crafty cpa

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...

Bonnie

I'm going to admit that I have been scammed by the Internet. I've given money to infertility treatment funds only to find later that those treatments never took place. So I don't take this post lightly, but I believe in this story.

I have been reading Bonnie's blog since I started blogging, back when she was "the angry one". We have IVF cycled together. We have been cancelled together. We have failed together. I read her new blog with envy as she inched closer and closer to taking home a baby through domestic adoption. I was devastated when that adoption fell through. Bonnie's raw and honest emotions that she shared with all of us during that time really touched me. I felt her pain.

Bonnie is a survivor...she is tenacious...and she is determined to be a mother.

Bonnie is currently trying to raise money in order to bring her daughter home from Africa.

Please visit her blog and enter her adoption raffle. For just $5 you can enter to win an iPod touch (which is a pretty awesome thing in my book since my current iPod is the first iPod ever made that was given to me by my sister). But don't feel like you have to stop there, every $5 earns you another iPod touch raffle entry. Entries stop May 2nd at noon.

***Bonnie, I wish you all the luck in the world with your fundraising and your new daughter. Please do not enter me in the raffle for this blog post. This blog post comes from my heart. However, I will be making my donation/entry today because I WANT THAT iPOD!!!

Two Infertiles Dancing

Walking toward each other in the office hallway I see you and you see me.

You know that I am infertile and I know that you are too.

You know that I don't have a baby and I know that you do.

You don't know if I am still trying...

You don't know if I might be pregnant right now...

You don't know if I'm waiting to find out if I'm pregnant right now...

You don't know the lengths I've gone to in order to catch up with you...

You know that you shouldn't talk about your baby, but you wish I would ask.

I know that I should ask, but I wish you wouldn't talk about your baby.

I've avoided your department because of you.

I've avoided the cafeteria because of you.

And so we dance down the hall, each step bringing us closer to an uncomfortable conversation.

Until I shout out a, "Hi!" and duck around the corner, never so happy to rush into a training class.

Outside of Myself

Most articles I read about Child Free Living After Infertility (CFLAI?) propose that you can still have children in your life and feel fulfilled. Usually the idea is that becoming involved with nieces or nephews or children of friends will be a salve for all your barren wounds. I have to admit that idea is a little too Pollyanna for me right now. I can't imagine a niece or a nephew or a friend's child making me feel any better about my situation. Of course I have no nieces or nephews and I have pretty much cut off contact with fertile friends by this point, so who knows.

Tony has a favorite student at school, a special needs girl named K. K is severely disabled. She can't speak, uses a wheelchair, and no one knows how much she understands. Tony takes time out of his day to rock her or takes her outside for a walk to watch the kids playing in gym class. She smiles when she hears the sound of his voice.

Tony has been asking me to sew something for her, so this weekend I made her a bag. I've made a few of these for friends and family. They are the size and shape of those reusable shopping bags that I seem to grab for time and again whenever I have to tote anything from here to there.



I don't know if it was the sewing or if all those articles are on to something, but making this bag felt good*.

*or I just wanted to show off a new bag I made.