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.

-------------------------
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. 

So Begins Another Two Week Wait

This time I am feeling hopeful though. Felt the ovulation twinge on my left side (where there the tube is good), I am not drinking any wine this time and am taking prenatal vitamins every night. I'm trying to be a good girl in an effort to sway the odds our way. To further this goal of doing things differently during this cycle, we avoided seeing people who have somehow always been around during the prime fertility time and therefore we have begun to foolishly blame them for our negative results each month, I'm trying to not think negative thoughts about Brat and Wife, and am allowing myself to feel hopeful. 

------------------------------------
I started writing this post on Sunday, but today is Wednesday and I've lost all that optimism. Maybe I'm just tired, didn't eat enough, whatever, but I have been in and out of a low mood for the past two days. I'm angry, screaming at people in the car, feeling very irritated with Husband. Granted, this is how I typically feel, but it has been much worse lately. As a result, I am coping by eating sugar. Seems like I am determined to get really fat, because that certainly will make me feel better. Though I continue to exercise, it's not enough of a release. While I managed to not focus on Brat and Wife this weekend, yesterday and today I have been really stewing. It's so stupid, and I tell myself to stop, which I do, for about ten minutes. It happens when I start to think what if we don't get pregnant? Then I fall into that trap of it's not fair, all these idiots around us have babies, etc. My younger sister texted me out of the blue wanting to go to lunch this week, and to pay....that makes me think she is going to tell me big news that I don't want to hear. Husband and I have been feeling like the second round of babies is coming because the first are all 12 months or older. I'm not ready to handle that if we aren't even pregnant with our first. We are always for the other shoe to drop. Doesn't that sum up all of us going through this?

Another Gut Punch

The idiot that I am, I checked Facebook last night on my way to bed. Yes, my last post mentioned how I hate Facebook and it is just full of other peoples babies and inane comments, but I can't help myself. Sure enough there was an announcement from this old coworker of mine, complete with photos of the four pee sticks she tested on. She is a mess of a woman, nice enough, but with many physical ailments and a whole lot of crazy and medications to tame that crazy. She recently married a much older man and now they are pregnant. Just barely pregnant.
Her posting it so early on upset me because it highlighted the fact that we, those of us struggling with fertility, will never be free to do something like that, outside of this community. We can share those early moments of joy together because we understand the other side of it. We know what it is like to want and hope and suffer loss and so we rejoice in one another's victories. We also know that things can suddenly change, and if the worst happens, we know that this community offers understanding and support. I thought, what if she loses the baby? What will she post then? What kind of support will her one million Facebook friends offer? To have to tell that many people that you are no longer pregnant...
Infertility, I have said before, robs us of those types of unfettered moments of joy. We will always have fear and doubt creeping around, even at our most happy and hopeful.  That fact only adds to the pain of hearing about someone else's pregnancy who has not endured what we have. How dare they have that kind of unencumbered happiness.