Don't Count Your Eggs

I wish I would have known...

That everything would be ok.

I wish I would have known that one day instead of waking up early to juice up on hormone injections I'd be up at 4am trying to convince a 10-month old that it's still time to sleep.

Ten months old today. As wrecked as I feel (and look) sometimes, everything is finally in it's right place. For now. I wish over the years of struggle I would have known a right place existed and that the boxes of syringes, the insane schedules of doctor appointments, the fear that nothing would ever work just wouldn't matter any more. I mean, it matters. It all matters. But what matters more is Momo and what she eats and how she sleeps and how she dances when I clap and sing. 

It was really hard to see any of the light, any way out, when we were in the trenches. But I wish I could have.

A short little reminder post today that light exists. It might just be a speck in the distance-- at the far far end of a super twisted dark tunnel. But it's there. 

Wishing everyone lots of love and light. 

The Journey Stays with us, but not in a bad way

One of the mom's in my mommy group (I apologize to anyone who is triggered by the word mommy group-- this is going to be a parenting after A.R.T. post) announced that she is P. Again. Unexpectedly. The group oohed and ahhed and she, looking a bit shell-shocked, explained that it was an accident and she took a pee test and OMG! What do you know! I don't think she expected or planned to have two kids so close together and seemed a little anxious about the whole thing. I sat in the group, watching Momo bang a few wooden toys together and I wondered what that might feel like. To have sex, unscheduled and unintentionally, to randomly think about the calendar and wonder if Aunt Flow is later than usual, to take a pee test haphazardly and see a second pink line or the word "yes" loud and clear across the window. To me that is a distant fantasy-- a dream I let go of a long time ago. But to many people this is scary. And I tried to have empathy for the stress of it all, I mean, I think I'd be a little freaked out to have a another on the way right now, and I was able to feel some excitement for her and understand the challenges of it all, but I had a hard time relating. I suddenly felt a little out of place and I couldn't quite put my finger on why.

Having a baby is a great equalizer. There is a common experience that the world embraces and understands-- "I'm so tired, blah blah blah..." Infertility is very much a divider. It separates and disconnects and is a very lonely experience. There is great online camaraderie but infertility support groups are not as easy to find as mommy and me. Since I've started taking Momo to this group, I've felt a sense of belonging I haven't felt in a long time. How she got here, who she looks like, what my journey was doesn't matter. And I kind of like that. The focus is on the babies and their development and our development as mothers. I'm so grateful to be there every week. But the mention of pregnancy was strange. It made me feel...different maybe? Not necessarily in a bad way, just different. My body was able to do a lot of the things many of these other mom's bodies could do, but not that. Not a spontaneous, shocking, unexpected pregnancy (though who knows, I feel like anything is possible now).

It's all just something to think about. I wasn't upset. I wasn't envious. I was happy for her and understood how it could all be overwhelming, but I also noticed a little twinge of something that made me just a little pensive. Remnants of a past history that sticks around and pops up every once in a while. The feeling was neutral, but a feeling nonetheless. Then I watched Momo play. At nine months, she's almost walking. She screams with excitement when she can whip something around and moves furiously from toy to toy, licking it to make sure it's still good. She amazes me every day.

Anyone else have remnants of the journey they'd like to share? Ways it comes up and how it makes you feel? Would love to hear.

Casting a Wide Net or putting one foot in front of the other?

I remember when Noah and I started our "journey," a friend of mine (who was on IF Island for years and ended up adopting one child and having a surrogate and egg donor for her second) gave me one piece of advice: pursue everything at the same time. Sign up for adoption. Put a deposit down for a surrogate. Find your three favorite egg donors and figure out their cycle times. And, of course, keep doing IVF. And then try naturally because you'll definitely be in the mood between paperwork and shots and donor websites. My head was going to explode. And so would our wallets, had we even tried to entertain the idea. There was NO WAY. My my friend was able to do this (she also had some insurance coverage and lived in a state that mandated coverage) and when her IVFs proved unsuccessful and a miraculous adoption opportunity fell into her lap, she was already prepared. She had lawyers and an agency and was able to adopt her son within a few weeks. Had she not been going down several paths at once, maybe it wouldn't have turned out the way it did. Who knows. 

There actually was a moment where Noah and I were thinking about starting the adoption process while doing treatments but it was just too costly and time consuming. So we went down one road at a time. And when we hit a dead end, we backed up and tried another. It probably took us more time, perhaps, but that's just how it worked out. 

People sometimes ask me if they should pursue several avenues to a family at the same time, and I don't really know how to answer that. Yes. Maybe. If you can. Cast your net wide. Be open and curious and receptive. Up your chances and know the different roads you have in front of you so if you hit a dead end you don't have to drive in circles to find another road. If you have the means, the time, and the energy, maybe this is a good strategy. Not too many people can afford to do this. Most of us regular folk have to make choices, and sometimes it is in those choices that we are led down a certain path to a certain baby. 

Putting one foot in front of the other one step at a time forces you to slow down. It's terrible, because everything on IF Island feels so F-ing slow, but it also can sometimes be necessary. Noah called it 'coming up for air,' which I hated. Those stagnant, slow moments of feeling my face smashed up against that dead end made me wish we could just jump into another vehicle onto another road--but we couldn't. And we didn't. And that was our journey. Easy for me to say now, right? 

I guess I'm kind of throwing this idea out there. Should people cast a wide net if they can or take it all one step at a time? There's no right or wrong, just things to think about. Thoughts?