Triggers

Things that trigger sadness and/or anger:

The bottle of prenatal vitamins in my medicine cabinet
Holiday movies on the tv channel guide
Christmas displays at stores
Diaper ads on tv (have you seen the new Huggies ad with the dads at nap time? Ugh.)
A crying child
A stroller parked on someone's porch
The three newborns in the waiting area of the Original Pancake House
and a million other things.

When I am getting ready to meet my mom, or friends, I anticipate hearing my younger sister is pregnant again or my friend is pregnant again. Same thing when we are getting ready to go to Husband's family's-Brat's wife might be pregnant again, or I imagine someone saying something insensitive and I plan the various ways I would respond. Basically every time I'm putting on makeup or doing my hair, I am preparing myself for battle.

I have begun planning my route through Target to avoid the baby section. Yesterday I was browsing at a local florist and suddenly found myself in the section of baby gifts, involuntarily spun around and left. Saturday I was shopping with friends and had to come up with a reason to pull away from them to avoid walking the baby section.

It is not getting easier, even as we are in our third year of TTC. Everything is a reminder that we don't have a child. Each holiday we spend time and money on other people's kids and it sucks. I'm tired of putting away money into college funds for other people's kids. We should be saving for our children. We should be excited about selecting gifts for what would be our 9-month old baby, picking out silly, adorable outfits for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Instead, the holidays remind me of our constant heartbreak, of last year when we attempted to take care of ourselves and spent the holiday away from family, which we enjoyed, but were punished for later; the stress of continuing to pretend, for everyone else's comfort, that everything is fine.

As we prepare for a few days out of town for our anniversary, I keep trying to focus on how lucky we are that we have the freedom to just leave town for a few days, something we wouldn't be able to do if we had  a baby. It's little consolation though.

Trying Anyway

This was drafted on Wednesday, October 31. I didn't post it because it need refinement, but I just don't care anymore. This is what is happening this week.
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I really wanted, actually thought, we'd be pregnant enough to share the news at Christmas this year. This of course will not be happening.

Today I had a follicle scan, which after my first dose of Clomid in months, shows that only the right ovary had GIGANTIC follicles, while my left ovary, the one with the tube still available, had eight tiny follicles.

Crying while lying on the bed in the ultrasound room as the tech began, as they always do, on the right side.

Whatever, the details don't matter. What matters is I am so upset that I keep thinking I need to do something drastic: quit my job, tell Brat and Wife what I really think of them, book a trip to Paris for just me...get my job back in Maryland and move away.

As I've said before, each month we are not pregnant, each time I see some fat, poor, ignorant, cruel woman pregnant, I get so angry. It sends me down that list of all that is wrong in my life, all the things I gave up and how stuck I feel and it's all for nothing. Nothing.

I want to burn the Bible, tell my in-laws how flawed their logic is, educate the innocent on pain. I want everyone I come across to know my pain, and to force upon them new pain.

Husband asked me if I was okay. I replied "no, I'm not." when he asked what he could do I told him he could find a baby, put it in my uterus, make it so I could give birth and breast feed. Clearly, I am not okay.

It occurred to me that life does not really go on for us infertiles. This is not life. This is hell. This is bullshit.

Now it's Saturday, November 3rd and I got a positive OPK today. We will try to conceive despite the fact it's the wrong ovary (ironically it's always the right ovary that produces, even though there is no fucking fallopian tube). There is still a slight possibility, right? If we don't try every month, no matter how slim the odds, how could I forgive myself?

That Age

Last Sunday I turned 36. That week I had my period, but I was able to not get too depressed because I was at a professional conference and was experiencing some career related inspiration and could pretend I was a happy adult.

Today I had my first follicle scan at HMO since before my surgery. We gave ourselves three months of trying on our before going back for treatment. We thought we would be pregnant by now. Instead we are not, and we have decided that IVF is too expensive, the debt would make us uncomfortable and results are not guaranteed. Honestly after following many of your blogs, I am terrified of going through it. But today, HMO called and told me there were no follicle 1cm or larger which indicates I will not ovulate this month. I don't think I've ever not ovulated. The nurse informed me that this common for my age.

So that's it? Not only do I have a fifty-fifty chance each month since I only have one fallopian tube, but now I'm not ovulating at all some months?

Is this the beginning of menopause? How is this possible? 

All I wanted for my 36th birthday was to be pregnant. It feels like we have reached the end with no feasible options. I'm not willing to try IVF and take on the financial, physical and emotional costs. I can't put myself and my husband through that. We agreed a long time ago this would not be an at-all-costs thing. You have to stop punishing yourself at some point.

So we can keep trying on our own, or we can go through HMO and do IUIs on the rare month now that we ovulate, or we can give up, or try adoption, or we can change our minds about IVF. It seems like every decision is fluid in this process because we continue to find ourselves at the end of the line.

Loss and Support

There are so many women who lost their babies in the last week, it is utterly shocking and heart wrenching. None of them deserve this devastation.

Sometimes
Pissed Off and Infertile
Never Surrender
Just Waiting for My Turn

I am so sorry for your losses. 

It has been surprising to me how everyone in the blogosphere is trying to reach out and comfort, commiserate and show their love to those experiencing loss. We all know the only thing one can say is "sorry" "you are in my thoughts/prayers" "sending you love and peace" "it's so unfair" and offering digital hugs. No words can undo the tragedy.

It touches me that all these women, many of whom have never met, are there in an instant to offer support; that all of these women, suffering in their own loss can share their stories, their heart breaks, their hopes and offer absolutely sincere concern and love. In some cases, these digital relationships are more supportive than our friends and family are in real life. Watching as so many of us check back every hour on a blog to get the updates about a doctor's appointment or test results and then how quickly we are to cheer one another on or offer a kind word, is amazing to me.

Steph at Sometimes was the first to comment on my blog, which was really awesome. Then I found out we are in the same city and she offered to meet up and chat. Her comments to my posts made me feel normal, and not completely alone, for the first time during this whole horrible process. She shared some similar emotions, reactions and experiences and it was such a relief, I broke down sobbing. Even though we haven't met yet, these past few days I have been looking around, wondering if she is walking on the same street, or in the same store, because if she was, I would give her a big hug.

The power of a kind word or a shared experience to let you know that you're not alone is remarkable. For all of us enduring the pain of this cycle of hope, struggle and loss, we can provide support like no one else can. We share our biggest hopes, our deepest grief with strangers, and we lean on those strangers to comfort us and congratulate us when things finally go well. These strangers become our sisters in this difficult journey.

I wish all of us peace and strength.

Another Disappointment

Each month when I start my period, I pull the the box of tampons and panty liners to the front of the bathroom shelf, refill my Lancome makeup bag with feminine hygiene products and toss it in my purse. When my period ends, I remove that bag from my purse, place it on the bathroom shelf and rotate the OPKs to the front. The box of pregnancy tests always remains at the back.

Well, after a negative test last night and spotting today, I refilled that Lancome bag and put it in my purse. Had to stop at Whole Foods to resupply my stock and moved the OPKS back behind the tampons.

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Today is Saturday and officially day 1 of my cycle. I can hardly breathe. I really believed we were pregnant this month. This has been so devastating that I can't even discuss details of emotions and what happened today. Guess that doesn't matter anyway, you all know what it feels like.

Reminds me that I have never seen a positive pregnancy test (at least my own) and justifies my choice of deactivating my Facebook account. It's too much. And next weekend where my bitch of a younger sister has her two year old's bday party on Saturday, and Precious has her first birthday on Sunday will be absolute hell. It will be a miracle if I don't kill someone, end up in jail or hurt myself. That sounds dramatic, but right now is how I feel. What a fucking shit storm.

Wednesday Morning

Woke up today and it feels like all the symptoms which I believed to be indicators of pregnancy are gone. My breasts are no longer feeling swollen and tender, the tightness and pulling in my abdomen (which I had Monday night and all day Tuesday) is gone, and I have that physical feeling like I'm going to start my period. Today is only day 26 of my cycle, so it's too early to test, even though I am fighting the driving urge to do so. If I do, and the result is negative, I'll be devastated, but still hope because the results aren't 100% accurate. Therefore, I will wait and test again, and if it is still negative, I will be devastated again, so what's the point? At least that is what I keep telling myself.

Stop overthinking everything, you might say. Well, that is a complete impossibility when you have suffered through pregnancy loss and infertility.

Going through this is like training to become a scientist. You write down all of your observations, check for controls and variables and publish your findings (in a blog). Sometimes the experiments you conduct are OPKs or early pregnancy tests at various days in your cycle, the tissue sample to check for spotting, taking a different angle to view the sample, checking at different times of the day to see if the results have changed, I could go on. Unlike a scientist, however, we do not receive payment (unless we achieve pregnancy), and are often paying for the privilege to be in the situation whether it be IUI, IVF, FET, or other processes.

I would like to retire from this constant scientific experiment. I would like for all of us to be able to do so.

F You Too, Clearblue Easy

I was reading the blog  Not All Dreams Are Free  and saw this picture which I just had to post. This is exactly what it feels like when "not pregnant" appears in the display window. I wonder if the owner of the company who makes Clearblue Easy is aware of all the pain their product has caused us? Maybe the developers could change the display to more accurately reflect the emotional aspect of the tests. Instead of "pregnant" it could have a woman yelling "That's right, bitches!" and show this middle finger for "not pregnant." Alternatively, it could show Godzilla smashing buildings, an ape going wild behind the bars of his enclosure at the zoo, a person setting a stroller on fire...you get the idea. 

Constantly on the verge of our lives changing.

Along that theme, I was reading an article today about  Consumer Reports Best Pregnancy Tests, because we are on day 24 of my cycle and I'm super impatient and was desperately trying to find a test that would work this early. I know, I know, you're supposed to wait until at least the first day after your missed period, but those damn television commercials say they can detect up to five days before your period starts. We've been through it enough times that I know it won't work, but do I really have to wait? And because my period starts any day between 27 and 30 (typically, except for the two very cruel day 32 starts this year), that means I have to wait until at least day 30 to test. And last month, I waited until day 32 and then started my period as I was testing!!!!!!!

Since my last post, I'm back to feeling optimistic this month. Husband and I feel that things are different this time (don't we tell ourselves that every month?), and I've continued to not drink at all (which only matters today because it is our eighth anniversary and there was no celebratory cocktail for this gal), to take my prenatal vitamins every day, and my mood swings have been so bad, it just feels like it's possible this time. Then I begin to think well, I have had these symptoms before and it was just PMS, maybe I've made them worse by thinking about them so much, maybe other physical symptoms are psychosomatic. There is no reason to trust my body. This is why having to wait is so difficult... to know there is a set number of days before we find out that we were kidding ourselves or not is brutal.

But that brutal wait will absolutely be worth it if we find out we have a baby growing in me.