Don't Count Your Eggs

On the Road, again

The only thing Noah and I can think to do on the weekends is get out of town. We haven't been able to afford a real out of the country type vacation in a while, since every last penny has gone to my ovaries over the past few years, so the short weekend road trips will have to do. 

This weekend we're headed to San Francisco. My sis lives in the area so we'll get to hang out with her and her beau for a bit, see some of Noah's family, eat dim sum, and go to the last Giants game of the season. Noah often reminds me that we have to do things just to do things and live and have a good time. He says we shouldn't do things just to distract ourselves from what's going on. He's right. Palm Springs was a distraction, we were beat down. SF can be just a fun little trip. I'm fine with that. Sometimes distracting myself is important and sometimes committing to living a good life and appreciating the things I do have is important. Depends on the week.

I started taking my birth control pills, which means the count down to the FET has begun. With each pill we're a day closer. And I remind myself that one day I won't be counting pills and shots, I'll be counting sweet little fingers and toes, (I hope there will be 20. Not of each, obviously. Total. Ahhh, what if my kid has 20 toes?!) and this will all be behind me, and it will have been worth it. 

I know a handful of you out there are in the depths of IVF right now and I want to send so much love! It's terrible, but it won't be forever. Happy Friday!

All Aboard the FET train!

Choo Choo!!! Ugh. I don't know why going in for a 30min doctor's appointment/ultrasound exhausts me so completely but it really does. It's like my brain is on high alert trying to understand and process what he is saying, while also trying to read the subtleties of his facial expressions and body gestures as if that will give me a clue as to whether the FET is going to work or not. I'm officially crazy. 

My med plan is as I assumed but I have to start with ten days of birth control to lengthen my cycle because the embryologist is going to be on vacation when I would need to do the transfer.

"You mean you don't just stick the little sucker in the microwave to thaw it out?" I teased the doc.

He smiled. He's gotten used to me now that we've been in a close to TWO YEAR RELATIONSHIP!! And then he explained the process of thawing an embryo, which sounds like the embryologist dips it into different liquids until it's no longer a popsicle.

And then he said, "I can do it, but I'm not as good as the embryologist so I prefer to wait for her. Since there is an 80% chance of success and we only have one embryo we want the best shot."

WHAT? And 80% chance? Meaning a 20% chance that the embryo may not...survive the thawing process?! I didn't know that. I HATE learning new things in this world. It's never good. You never learn about something that is going to help the situation, you only learn new things that can potentially go wrong or cost more money. The doc tried to reassure me that since EVERYTHING else that could possibly go wrong for us has, that maybe this time everything is going to go smoothly. I'm due, I suppose. But I know the truth. Doesn't always work like that.

I have to somehow trick my brain into un learning about the 80/20 split thing. I have to tell my brain that the Lone Ranger is going to wake up from his Ice Man slumber and become our baby. It's very literally all we've got. 

So anyway, birth control 10 days. Estrogen/progesterone to follow. Three omnitrope injections. And on October 25th, if all goes well, I'll be back in the two week wait line, trying not to pull all my eyebrows out until the beta HCG in early Nov. 

Anyone else gearing up for an OCT/NOV FET? Climb aboard!!

Back to the Doc

Well, Aunt Flow arrived. On the early side. Which is fine I guess. If she's gonna come to town, might as well just get the visit over with. I'm headed back to the doc at 10:30am and will find out the plan. I've never done a FET and have no idea what the protocol is but I'm sure it will both take what will feel like an eternity (like another month) and put me back into Hormone Heaven (I assume estrogen and progesterone 3x a day and omnitrope. I wonder if omnitrope is FDA approved yet? I also wonder if that's the human growth hormone A-Rod was taking. Ugh). Glorious.

The break from hormones has been good, I can't say that I'm excited to get back on them. But I guess this is our last hurrah. The final lap of the race before this chapter is officially over. I keep a picture of the Lone Ranger by the bed and look at it every night as I'm falling asleep. I wonder if that's our baby. The little fighter. I suppose I have to believe in it whole heartedly, even though that makes the disappointment fall that much harder. 

It sucks to wake up feeling exhausted. But I do. It's a melancholy kind of fatigue if that makes sense. Like my breath just feels heavy in my chest and takes more energy to move it in and out of my body. This has to end soon, this exile on Infertility Island. It has to. I'm not going to grow old here. I'm not looking into retirement property. I feel like I've already over stayed my welcome. I have to remind myself that we will find an ending. This plot will resolve. I'm trying to stay open minded and flexible and positive, though if anyone tells me it's "exciting" that we are doing a FET I'm going to punch them in the face. Which isn't exactly open minded and flexible or very positive. I just hate when non IF Island residents use the term "exciting" to describe anything we here on IF Alcatraz have to do. 

I guess I'll shower, get myself together and dig out my left over meds. I'll remind myself over and over I won't be doing this forever. 

Livin' on the Edge

I don't mean that in a rock n' roll, adventurous, bad-ass kind of way. Unfortunately. I mean actually feeling on edge, because I'm on day 23 of my cycle. That means my Aunt Flow is due to come to town any day now, and that always makes me feel a little nuts.

I get my period anywhere between day 25 and day 30. The day 30's are the hardest, because there are many a day spent in obsessive wondering if maybe I am pregnant. The few days leading up to my period I turn into a total lunatic. I think maybe some miracle happened. Maybe this is it. I plead I pray I bargain I cross my fingers and toes. I convince myself my boobs look bigger and allow my belly to pouch out so I look three months pregnant. I think I have cravings for things like ice cream. I google "early signs of pregnancy" and ignore that fact that any "symptom" I may be feeling could be

a) a symptom of being human. Everyone (or almost everyone) craves ice cream

b) a symptom of hormonal changes to come with Aunt Flow

c) a symptom of wishful thinking/hypochondria

Fine. I get it. But a girl can dream. I've stopped beating myself up over the fact that I do this every month. I used to feel really embarrassed and like a total loser when I'd wake up with the arrival of Aunt Flow, seeing that I have indeed, been wrong, again.

The other night as I was being obsessive and asking Noah if he thinks maybe Junior Mint is growing in my belly this month, I stopped myself. 

"Forget it. I'm an idiot. I'm always an idiot," I said.

"You're not an idiot for hoping," he replied.

True. But being hyper aware of everything happening in my body isn't really helping anything. I'm not jinxing anything by being hopeful, and I'm not helping anything by crossing my fingers and toes. It just makes me look like a freak. So instead I try to stay totally focused on other things. If my mind starts to get crazy, running "what if" laps around my skull, I bring it back to the present moment. The feeling of my wet hair on my shoulder. The sound of the wind rustling through the bamboo outside. And of course, the taste of delicious mint chip ice cream, because after all, I'm only human!

Enough already!

I made it through the week--barely. By the skin of my teeth. Is that the phrase? It's kind of gross.  But anyway. So I work really long days on Weds and Thurs, and on Weds I  was at the end of my rope. Or the end of my non-existent teeth skin...

As a social worker, I work in a predominately female dominated field, which makes going through infertility even harder. In some ways it's great to have good girlfriends at work who are super supportive and understanding. I have that and am forever grateful to my little crew. But the down side of working with mostly women is that someone is ALWAYS pregnant, or just had a baby, or obsessed with talking about their baby. Always. I have lived through more than a dozen pregnancies and births at work in the time I've been trying, and now I'm living through second pregnancies and births in the time I've been trying. Let me tell you, number two is no charm. I CAN'T BELIEVE PEOPLE ARE HAVING SECOND BABIES IN THE TIME I'VE BEEN TRYING TO SCRAPE TOGETHER PIECES TO MAKE SOME KIND OF JAMBALAYA OF A BABY!!

There. I got that off my chest. Weds brought yet another second pregnancy announcement as well as the news that one of my former clients, a kid I worked with when he was in middle school a few years back, just became a baby daddy. HE'S IN HIGH SCHOOL!!  

I drove home Weds and called my dad so I could scream about the injustices of the world and the disbelief in where I'm at in my life, and before I drove into the parking garage at home I stopped. I had two choices. To cry and feel sorry for myself or to laugh at the utter ridiculousness that this has become. Of course a former client in high school just had a baby. Of course women ten years older than me are getting pregnant, again. 

I chose laughter. Why not? I may as well laugh. I taught my friends yoga that night, which felt great to do, and I got in bed and thought about other job options that are more male dominated. So far I've come up with a plumber and a mechanic and a bank exec.  None of these really speak to my strength of talking about feelings. Hm. I'll have to think it through a little more.

Sending love to all of you on IF Island, and a double dose of love to any teachers or social workers or nurses or anyone else who may have found themselves surrounded by belly bumps this week!

The Lone Ranger

    Our weekend in the sunshine was good. Noah and I got a little color in our cheeks and we were able to just relax and not think about anything. But now we are home, which means the thinking and planning and obsessing have started up again.  Not totally true. Somewhat true. We just knew that when we got back we would have to agree on the next step. And we have. 

    So we have one embryo popsicle that the Doc froze on Day 6. It took a bit of an atypical developmental trajectory in that it was a 4 cell B quality embryo on Day 2 and then an 8 cell B quality on Day 3, then it looked fragmented on Day 5, when normally it should have been a blastocyst.  When I emailed the Doc on Day 5 asking about the two embryos we had left, he wrote back that unfortunately neither had made good progress. But on Day 6,  he called, surprised and excited. He said that the one embryo that was fragmented had actually made it to blast and looked good. He said the embryologist was freezing it, and I hesitated.

            “But what about how it started kind of weird, what does that mean,” I asked, knowing the freezing cost for a wonky embryo could be upwards of a thousand dollars.

            “There could be abnormality. I would want to test it, but it could be your miracle baby. We can’t throw it away,” he said.

            At that point we had just put the three good embryos in, so I felt like we didn’t really need one funky one in the freezer, but agreed to go with it. We were so far in the hole I figured we’d deal with it later.

            And then later came.

            The Doc thinks we should put it in. He won't bother testing it beforehand, but if the implantation is successful, I will need to have an amniocentesis, and be prepared for a hard decision if the test suggests abnormality.  I will have to be comfortable with the uncertainty of that.

            But what are we really certain of? Nothing, except that one day we are all going to die.  But while we are alive, we have to live life to the fullest, and that involves sometimes making hard choices. Over the past few weeks I have consulted with various doctors and other people on different message boards and have found that there doesn't necessarily mean anything is wrong with the embryo. It may just have a decreased chance of becoming a baby. Or it may move at its own sweet pace, like its dad and its auntie. Huhhhh....

    Noah and I think giving this surviving embryo a chance  is the best choice. It gives a us another month to grieve and plan other options while having a little bit of hope.  Just a little.  The Lone Ranger rides again! Here he/she is (though I hope it's not both!). Ain't it pretty?

Happy Friday from Infertility Island

Infertility Island...where the sky is gray, you're totally isolated, and hormones run wild! Sounds like an awesome vacation spot and an even more awesome place to live, huh?! I may need to work on the sales pitch a bit. The brochure would be just a picture of me, crying, empty syringes in my hand. How sad.

But when it gets unbearable, Noah, (to his credit) does one really great thing for us. He finds a good sale on a room at a hotel we like in Palms Springs (The Ace Hotel) and he drives my misreable ass down there to sit in the sun. We agree not to talk about IT at all, and instead we eat and drink and watch dumb things on TV. It's a life time out, and even when you're no joke broke, it's totally worth it. Sometimes you GOTTA get off the Island. So that's where we're headed. 

Have a wonderful weekend y'all! Get off the Island if you can and find a little sunshine--

Everything I've Got

It's seriously taking everything I've got right now to get out of bed in the morning and get on with my day. And sometimes that just happens. I'm okay for a while, focused on whatever comes next, and then nothing feels okay. I suddenly flash back to how we spent the summer and can't believe this was the end result. I flash back to this time last year, when we were trying to start our first round of IVF and I realize another year has gone by. I've celebrated three birthdays with infertility and I really want to dis invite him to the party this year. 

My birthday isn't until April, so I guess I have a little time. 

This day is going to happen whether I like it or not, so perhaps I'll choose to find things about it I can like. The delicious fresh juice I made, the extra time I have this morning to take a long shower before work--sometimes all I have are the little things. Even when it seems like there is nothing to enjoy, we can always find something. We may just need to squint our eyes and use all of our senses to find it.

To anyone struggling to put one foot in front of the other today, I feel ya. Take some deep breaths and wear your cutest pair of shoes. Nothing stays the same forever, even if it's starting to feel like it does. Sending lots of love this Thursday morning. 

The Wrong Side of the Bed

This morning I woke up feeling grumpy. It's officially been two full weeks since our IVF didn't work and now I feel like it's time to go back to living my normal life, and it feels crappy. The first week post bad news is shock, the second week is healing, and now it kind of is what it is, and though I know I have to still be kind to myself and all that, there comes a point when I just have to get back to my life. Whatever that may look like.

Noah took one look at me this morning and said, "You have the whole day ahead of you, decide what it's going to be." I wanted to punch him in the face, but he was right. It's a balancing act. Honoring my feelings, taking into account the gloomy morning, not sleeping very well, hormones, life frustrations...blah blah blah and also deciding to be ok with where I am and what my life looks like right now. My life looks nothing like I imagined it would at 33, but it's my life and I have a lot to be thankful for.

One thing I'm very thankful for are friends that help me step out of my reality for a second. One such gal is my good friend G-Funk, who is dragging me...(taking me?) to a cardio hip hop class tonight. Me + cardio + hip hop = disaster, but I know it will be fun and will get me out of my negative head space for an hour. I can't think of anything else when I'm trying to keep up with some crazy choreography.

Those are the things I have to push myself to do right now. It's easy to be alone and to be sad. All signs point in that direction after an unsuccessful summer long adventure in IVF land. But it's just as easy to say yes to trying new things, to agreeing to tag along to a dance class, however embarrassing it may be, to get out of the house.

Nothing stays the same

It's true. Feelings, situations, ideas of what seems right, the body--it is all constantly changing. That's why hope exists. Knowing things will be different is hopeful when you're in a bad moment. It also reminds us not to grip to tightly when things are going well, thus the ever difficult challenge of being totally present and appreciative of whatever moment we happen to be in.

I've been starting to feel more hopeful about my body lately. After three years of being told it is in some way broken or defective, I have started reminding myself that it's not and it can change. At the beginning of our infertility journey I had an HSG that showed one blocked fallopian tube, and then a laparoscopic surgery that revealed two blocked fallopian tubes. That's why we jumped to IVF so quickly. Sometimes there is no getting around the IVF thing--blocked tubes are one of those things. But months later I had another HSG that showed two open normal looking fallopian tubes. What happened? They could have always been open but the first two procedures were wrong meaning maybe my body just tensed up at the wrong moment, or it could have been that something changed. Doing yoga or having my mother massage my stomach while chanting, "open the tubes," could have worked. Or time. Nothing stays the same.

So I'm going to remind myself of this every day.  When I feel sad, when I feel hopeless, when I'm frustrated with my body--nothing stays the same and good things are possible. 

Noah cut together a short clip of where we are. We interviewed each other last weekend about a week after we found out IVF with my sis as a donor didn't work. I can look back even just a week and see that I'm in a different, (slightly different) place:

 

We're going to be ok

This week I decided we are going to be ok.  And it is a decision. There's a definite mental aspect to this infertility game and that's why I had to just decide we are going to be ok. But in order to be ok I have to do several things:

1) Surround myself with people and activities that make me feel ok. For example: friends I love who get me, YES! Baby Showers, NO!

2) Wake up every morning and count five things I'm so appreciative of, including my incredible Hubs and my Vitamix.

3) Eat well. Exercise/do yoga/go for walks on the beach/do fun things/continue to live my life.

4) Be open to weird healing experiences.

Both the reiki and the shaman I met with helped me feel better. I can't say why or how, but I know that the years of running circles around myself at the doctors office made me feel  like I was drowning in some vat of medical insanity. Being touched by people with special healing powers has helped me feel like everything is going to be ok, and helped me find faith in my body again. I'm starting to believe that even though I've been told that I have Diminished Ovarian Reserve and that I should get donor eggs, I think my body can work. Maybe not today, or next month, but at some point it may. And I want to be open to that and believe in that. And if it can't work then I will be open to other possibilities. 

Today I had a pretty interesting healing experience. My friend Ter Bear (who is very much a YES friend) took me to see her "energy guy." She couldn't describe what he did or what it was exactly but she said the words crystals and energy and zap in the same sentence, so of course I was sold. We went to see this guy in a small, open office in Santa Monica. He has created this...thing called the Lifestream Generator that delivers radiant energy to re-balance the body's energy, or something. Basically there is a light beam looking tower with a crystal on the top and he touched the light beam and then touched me and I felt all kinds of zaps and buzzes through my whole body. It was a different experience, and definitely a healing one. I can honestly say that when I woke up this morning I did not think I was going to have a strange man zap me with his crystal power, but I'm glad I did.  

5) Start to develop a game plan. Tonight Noah and I are going to "story board" some options for our next move. We are going to have a family, that is not the question. The question is how. We've learned that there are many paths that lead to parenthood, and tonight we will carve a few more and then see where the road leads us. 

Healing the heart the old school way

It's been exactly a week since we got our bad news. The slow motion daze we've been living in has begun to lift and we had a long three day weekend to just be together. We tried a few things to help us move on.

We tried talking about it. About what happened, about what to do next, about money, about feelings. We tried. But we found we didn't have anything to say that hadn't already been said and we aren't yet ready to map out a game plan. 

We tried avoiding it. We went to the movies, we watched TV, we read. 

We spent some time with friends who get us. We made pizzas and talked about traveling, and for an evening we were normal again. 

Then yesterday we tried a Shaman. I'm not one for mystics and voodoo and tarot cards, but this woman came highly recommended by a trusted friend and she doesn't claim to cure illness or disease, but provides some healing through ancient techniques and with the help of the spirits. I can't get into the meanings and the history behind shamanism, because I don't know it. But I can share the experience. I was looking for a way to let go of all that had happened, with this last cycle and with the last several years of living in this obsessive baby-making world. I needed a way to feel less angry and sad and resentful and confused. I couldn't talk about it anymore. I'm a psychotherapist and value talk therapy, but sometimes it's not what you need. Sometimes we need some kind of ritual or movement or energy--something that doesn't start with sobs and the phrase, "I just can't believe this happened..."

So Noah and I went to this woman's house up in the hills. We talked about our family history, how we met, where we were at in our quest for a family, and we talked about what we really wanted in our lives. Then I laid down on her little couch and she covered my eyes with an eye pillow and started to shake rattles and chant and stomp and make bird call sounds and blow on me and brush a feather over me. It sounds crazy but there was something magical about the experience. There was definitely something magical about her--like she was tapped into some ancient native american spirits. This went on for some time and I just tried to be totally open. Maybe I've become crazy and desperate, maybe I've become willing to try anything, maybe there is some spiritual powers that a few people have access to. I don't care. When she blew over my heart I felt it open and soften and that's what I needed.

She told us a few things to do and told me that the spirits said I didn't do anything wrong. She repeated that several times and for the first time I believed it. I didn't do anything wrong. I've felt guilt about my body not working right and I know I've held onto this feeling that I have somehow failed. Even using the phrase "we failed our IVF" reiterates this feelings. We didn't fail IVF, IVF failed us. But really, it just didn't work and that's that.

I don't know what to make of our experience with this shaman, but I do feel a little lighter. I don't know why it's so hard for us to make a family, but I do know that we will find a way. Building a family is no longer about anything but determination and willpower (and I guess money, but I'm trying not to think about that part). Determination, willpower and perhaps an open heart.