Hauntings

I had a dream last night.

I was infertile.

Then I had a baby.

A boy.

He was tiny, and his face was wider than it was tall. He looked squishy. And he had fantastic head control.

We had a hard time picking his name.

Joel or Jude.

At first, it was Joel. But then I called him Jude and it seemed right. And a little rebellious.

I couldn't believe I had a baby. A second baby.

I felt so blessed by my good fortune.

And serene. I felt so serene.

Then I woke up.

I did not feel serene.

I felt anxious, like I needed to get out of my own skin.

And I cried.

There were two separate days today - the day I actually lived, and the day I lived in my head.

The former was lovely.

The latter was painful.

And I wanted to go back to sleep.

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Just Thinking

I've been spending the last week thinking - just mulling all the angles over and over again. Every time I think I'm settled on one course of action, I feel a pain of longing for the benefits from the second course of action. I don't know what we're going to do. I don't know what to do. I have never felt so conflicted in my entire life. Tahd and I agree - this is the most difficult decision we have ever struggled with in our entire lives.

I've noticed an indirect form of criticism lately toward people who are struggling with secondary infertility. It has come from people with primary infertility. Not all of them, of course, but I heard it enough times that I got frustrated. There seems to be a consistent theme among a few people struggling with primary infertility that it would be better to have secondary.

I take issue with this. Yes, I am blessed with a child. Yes, I am a mother. But as much as my child is a blessing to me, having him is also a huge layer of complication because I want to do right by him. Sometimes I envy people with primary infertility because they don't have to worry that their infertility is burdening or harming their child. They don't have to look at their child and feel the immense guilt of having brought an only child into the world. They don't hear their child's cries of loneliness and ache because they caused a problem they can't fix. They don't deal with glares when they have an appointment at the fertility specialist and have to take their child because they have no child care. They don't worry that their child will internalize and personalize the parent's tears and grief. They don't worry about a freak accident that causes both parents to die, leaving a child who has no immediate family members.

There's a counterpoint to all those issues, I know. Because primary infertility is hard. People with primary infertility have no guarantees they'll know what it feels like to be a parent. So much of our identities is wrapped up in our ability to procreate; they're left to wonder, redefine themselves, and still try to keep the hope. They may never have a chance to be introduced to the world of midnight feedings, baby laundry, and blowout diapers - all things parents complain about, but they'd give their arms and legs to experience. They want the good and the bad, just to have a chance to love and nurture a person who is their son or daughter.

Primary infertility is hard. And secondary infertility is hard. They're both so hard that sometimes we look at people in a similar-but-different circumstance and wish we were dealing with their version, not our own. But really, I think it's just all hard. What's inappropriate - at least in my opinion - is telling someone who's dealing with another form of the same malady that they have it better than you have it.

I have a child. Sometimes I think it would be easier to be infertile if I didn't already have a child I love and adore. Others have no children, and they think infertility would be easier if they already had one child in their arms. Why can't we just admit that we think these things because we're hurting? Do we think that by comparing who is hurting more we'll feel less hurt? No, comparing hurts only causes more hurt. Making others hurt more doesn't make me hurt less. Pain is not relative, and there is not a finite amount of it in the world.

I wish the "primary-versus-secondary" debate would go away. It doesn't help anyone. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter what word precedes "infertile." Primary or secondary, it's all still followed by the word "infertile," and that sucks, no matter what.

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The Plan 2.0

We had a telephone consult with the fertility doctor today. I wish we could have done it in person; we could have, but we would have had to wait until the end of July, and I knew I wouldn't be able to wrap up the last cycle until I had a chance to debrief it with the doctor.

My major questions were

• Do you know anything more from this ivf about why we're infertile?
• Do I have low egg quality?
• Might we be able to qualify for the shared risk package?
• Should we consider using donor eggs?
• If we pursue ivf again, would we use the same protocol?

The answer to all of those questions?

No.

A big, fat disappointing NO in some cases.

If we do it again, we'll be on what's called a "flare" protocol. Last time, we were on a "long lupron" protocol. Basically, I took Lupron before we started the actual ivf cycle. This shut down my body so it couldn't inadvertently release any eggs. Normally, you want eggs to release. In ivf, you don't; you want the doctor to catch them all. Hence the Lupron - to shut off your body's hormones and artificially manipulate them with medication.

Some people (myself included, apparently) get oversuppressed on long Lupron. The flare protocol is an alternative, and I've read it's really the most aggressive protocol you can be on. Basically, before Lupron shuts you down, it causes your body to release massive amounts of certain hormones. It's kind of the idea of wringing out a sponge. When you first start ringing out the sponge, a whole bunch of water is released. Once that water is released from the cells in the sponge, you won't get anything out unless you add more water. With the long protocol, they "wring you out" well in advance of when you start the FSH. With the flare protocol, they have you start Lupron just a few days before you start the other hormones. This way, the "wringing out of the sponge" effect will take advantage of my body's own hormone "dump" and will hopefully cause my ovaries to recruit more eggs. After that, we'll add high doses of the same medication and see what happens.

Sounds fun, hmm? Flares. Dumps. Recruiting. I should be a joy.

As for wrapping up this cycle, someone told me a failed ivf feels more like an early miscarriage than an unsuccessful cycle. That really connected with me. I feel exactly like I felt in 2007 when I got my several positive pregnancy tests that didn't stick around. There *were* babies. I saw them. They were pretty. When they were put back, they were alive. Two weeks later, not so much. That's why I just don't know if I want to do this again. This feels like a really huge failure. I'm sure no one else thinks this, but when I go out in public, I feel like I have a scarlet letter emblazoned on my chest. I. Infertile. Rejects babies. What kind of a woman rejects babies? I feel horridly embarrassed. I don't know if I want to go through the process of rejecting more babies and failing again.

A friend who knows how I think sent me a sweet card with these verses included. I cried. I have to put them here so I don't lose them. Because, well, I'm Heidi and I lose things. Did you expect anything different of me? The title of my blog should really be "slightly cosmopolitan but profoundly ordinary with a strong dose of impressively flighty."

Here they are. I found them very comforting.

Though He slay me, still I will hope in Him. Nevertheless I will argue my ways before Him. ~ Job 13:15

My grace is sufficient for you. My power is made perfect in weakness. ~ 2 Corinthians 12:9

You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book. ~ Psalm 56:8

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Today I Have Eaten

I don't know why I want to write about this. But I do. I'm sure no one wants to read about it. But I'm really quite fascinated with this detox thing I'm following. Loosely. I'm only following it loosely. Mostly during daylight hours. At night I seem to go hog wild. But I'm okay with it. I'm clean in the day and dirty at night.

Fine.

So today I've eaten (some in the form of juice, so really, I drank some of it):
1 head romaine lettuce
4 stalks kale
1 lemon
3 cherries (never mind they were surrounded by chocolate. Neveryoumind.)
8 carrots
1/4 avocado
1/2 sweet potato
1/4 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
2 packets stevia

I will not - repeat - Will Not - record my food intake for the evening hours.

And no, Gabe hasn't eaten any of that. He has eaten hamburger buns. White hamburger buns. Several. I can only detox one of us at a time. He's going to love it when it's his turn.

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Starting Over

I often fantasize about simpler times. When Tahd and I first got married, we did a lot of reminiscing about college and how simple and carefree we were then - limited bills, no consistent schedule, lots of free time. Then we moved and bought a house and had Gabe and we fantasized about how fantastic things were when we were first married and went out to eat all the time, didn't have to maintain a house or get up 6 times in the middle of the night.

Now, I'm fixated on anything pre-Gabe. It's not that I wish he wasn't around. I wish I had him to look forward to. Of course, I still have him to look forward to. He's only four and it's not like he's moving out tomorrow. But I wish I had ALL of him to look forward to. And I don't. Too many days have gone by - 1678, in fact.

As much as I want his days back, I also just want a chance to do the newborn thing again. He taught me so much. I want to try out the knowledge I acquired while I failed and succeeded with him. Because what good is learning if you never get a chance to put your new information to good use?

I didn't realize it before, but I always looked at ivf as our ace in the hole. It would work for us. I knew it might take more than one try, but it would eventually work, and we'd have a second baby. It still might work. We can do it again. But the fact that it has failed once makes much more vivid the reality that it might also fail a second time. And a third. And then what? Then we're done? Our dreams are never fulfilled? We never get a chance to experience again the things we didn't look forward to the first time around? We never get to remember the things we've already forgotten?

I can envision us as a family of three. Even though I generally think of all the drawbacks, it does have a few perks. But try as I might, I can't find any way to envision us getting to the point where we're okay making that decision - the decision where we decide to be done trying for #2. So I feel like we're stuck in limbo land, where we can't go forward and we can't go back. And since back is all I know, I fantasize about what it would be like to start over and have all of this to look forward to again.

I don't regret much in my life, but I do regret two things - that I didn't look forward to everything more the first time around and that I might not ever get a chance to do it again the right way.

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The One Where I Smack My Forehead With My Palm

So I was all ready to write this deep post about how depressed I am when I realized the following key information:

I stopped taking my progesterone and estrogen this week.

Can we say hormone withdrawal? Realizing this has thankfully given me a little bit of clarity and comfort that the intensity is probably going to pass.

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The Fallout

When we decided to pursue ivf, one of my conditions was we had to go into it intending to do it more than once. Statistically, most patients have to complete more than one cycle in order to be successful, and I simply couldn't stomach the thought of investing a large chunk of money knowing the odds were against us. Why not invest a larger chunk of money and swing the odds toward our favor?

When my response to the stims was so poor, we decided to go ahead with egg retrieval rather than converting to a iui (a different, less effective and less expensive form of treatment) with the thought that if our first cycle didn't work, we'd consider doing two more cycles instead of just one more cycle. It meant we were committing to find more money from somewhere (i.e. borrow more money from somewhere), but making that commitment made us feel comfortable going forward.

So even though Cycle One has failed, we still have two more chances.

I thought this would help. I thought this would soften the blow. I thought I was looking at this as a process rather than a one-time event.

I was wrong.

There are two sticking points for me, two things I didn't realize I was thinking. First off, partway into the treatment cycle I realized if it worked, we'd have some money left over - the money we borrowed set aside for the second ivf cycle. It was fun discussing what we should do with it. In the end, our intention was to pay off (OFF! As in completely pay off!!) some other debt and then put the monthly payments we were paying on those debt payments toward the ivf loan, knocking it out in half the original time frame. And I also wanted to take Gabe to Disney World before birth of the new baby/babies.

I hadn't realized that part of the dream had been so exciting to me. Giving it up is a really, really bitter pill.

Second, I feel judged by the universe. Or maybe God. But mostly the universe. Apparently I thought the universe would work differently on my behalf. I know infertility hits good, normal people - people who are successfully parenting a child already, people who love children, people who can afford to have them, people who will pay for their children to have therapy if needed, etc. ;) But I can't shake the feeling that since the universe didn't intervene on my behalf, it is judging me as insufficient. Inferior. Lacking.

I'm really angry.

And every time I get angry, I dissolve in tears. Which is probably good. It probably means I'm staying close enough to the true feelings that are driving my anger rather than stuffing them down into unhealthy regions which never see daylight. But I don't really like crying, especially in front of people. Like in parking lots or at the grocery store or picking Tahd up or in Target. I didn't cry at any of those places today.

And unfortunately for Tahd, when I'm angry I seem to lash out at him. I'm sort of torn. On one hand, I don't want to lash out at anyone. On the another hand, sometimes he has a special ability to irritate me. And on the other hand, he wants me to be myself around him and share my emotions, which is notoriously difficult for me, and I'm not sure how to share the angry ones. I'm not sure how to be angry around someone and be irritated at them without lashing out.

Perhaps the most unfortunate thing in the above paragraph is that apparently I have three hands. And you know what? Doctors can actually fix that problem. Unlike my problem. And insurance would cover it, too.

So the bad news is I'm not doing great. I guess the good news is that's to be expected. I think I'll probably be doing better after I stop replaying these negative tapes in my head and wrap my head around the financial piece. And I have a consult with the doctor on Wednesday morning. I'm looking forward to that.

Until then, you can find me in a hole, figuratively if not literally. But I promise I won't stay for too long.

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