Don't Count Your Eggs

Why the Lady at the Front Desk Matters

In the past few weeks I've been hearing horror stories about people on IF Island having to deal with totally frustrating BS with their fertility clinics, and it is usually an administrative thing. 

Sometimes admin. Sometimes nurses. Sometimes the billing department. Sometimes attitude. Sometimes a mix up or error... 

Case in point. My friend who is working on baby #2 had a ton of confusing mixed messages from her nurses. She had the wrong meds, she had to wait several hours to see her doc and when she got in there it wasn't her doc (he was out of town) but instead a doc she didn't know, and finally, the icing on the cake was when she was waiting to miscarry (sadly a chemical pregnancy), the nurse called her to congratulate her on her pregnancy and instruct her to keep taking progesterone or whatever,  because she looked at the chart, and saw a decent beta number and didn't bother to look at the previous beta which was much higher (indicating a decreasing pregnancy). 

I had decent luck with our fertility clinic and staff for the most part but remember how...pissed off I was when one nurse called (at 2:29pm when they said they would let us know our beta results by 2:30pm) to tell us that our last embryo from our egg donor cycle didn't take. She literally said, "I have the results. It's negative. Sorry. Have a great weekend!" The chipper "have a great weekend" threw me over the edge (though I know that isn't what I was really upset about). But it felt insensitive and borderline insane to tell me to have a great weekend. 

I hear stories like this all the time. Clinics not calling back. Improper billing. Staff acting annoyed at multiple questions. Wrong meds prescribed or instructions on timing being wrong. Having to wait for hours at the office. Why can't these peeps understand the stress and anxiety and confusion just walking into a fertility clinic can cause? I've been wanting to create a sensitivity training for fertility clinic staff because it seems kinda lacking. On the flip side, occasionally there will be one awesome nurse who hand holds or is super responsive and helpful and it can really make all the difference. 

That's why I think it's really important to advocate for yourself and remind yourself that the staff at these places often don't have personal experience with infertility and while one would hope they'd be sensitive, sometimes it's just a job for them. I remember when there was a change in nursing staff over the years we were at our clinic, I introduced myself to the new gals and let them know I'm highly anxious about this stuff and will probably ask a lot of questions and I apologize in advance and appreciate their patience. I said it jokingly and explained what we had done over the years (since we were new to them) and also brought donuts a few times. I needed to be cared for when we were getting down to the wire and so I did my best to set things up so I could have minimal frustrations. 

Even though we can try to tell ourselves not to be overly sensitive to the fertility clinic staff or the lady at the front desk, often times when you're jacked on hormones, it's hard not to take things personally. The lady at the front desk does matter sometimes! The best we can do is speak up for ourselves how we can when we can, and try to not let it affect us. 

Good luck to anyone out there dealing with this added stressor. You're definitely not alone!

Scar Tissue

A few weeks ago-- wait, time is moving really fast right now, I guess it was the end of June or early July when Noah busted his lip open and needed stitches. It was ugly-- like literally and figuratively. His lip was hanging in three pieces and he was in pain and pissed off like I've never seen him. Cut to now, about a month later, and he looks and feels pretty good. His lip is still pink and a bit puffy and he has a few scars but no one would really notice, except him. Every time he eats it still feels funny and numb, and every time Momo comes near his face holding a hard object above her head (she's really into throwing things these days), he flinches. He's got a physical and emotional scar. 

He was trying to describe the feeling the other day (because my unemotional rock of a husband is now a guy who can talk about his feelings) and I kind of felt that how he was describing it all felt oddly similar to the IF "journey." I wish I wrote down what he said. Sometimes he's actually quite eloquent. But the gist of the feeling is that it's not on his mind full time the way it was when he had purple stitches poking out of his mouth, but he still thinks about the accident or is reminded about it for some reason daily. 

My reminder of my journey is Momo, but it also comes up in other ways.

A few weekends ago I saw a friend who I lost during the process. That makes it sounds simple. This was my best friend since middle school who got pregnant and basically told everyone but me about it (she knew I was struggling and didn't know how to talk to me), and when she did tell me our conversation somehow ended with me crying and expressing how badly I wanted to be happy for her but how hard it was for me and her saying she was pregnant now and needed to take care of herself. I don't think I necessarily handled myself well or right, but we all know relationships with pregnant friends are hard and we all do the best we can. I did the best I could at that moment and so did she and we both missed the mark. I knew our friendship would be "parked" for a little bit, but I didn't know we would never speak to each other again. Until a few weeks ago. 

It was interesting to see her. Our friendship was drifting a bit before the fertility stuff hit the fan, but we have a lot of history with each other.  I don't think either of us are mad. We chatted briefly-- she has had two kids now. And that was that. But I felt a little like how Noah describes his lip-- numb, wishing it were different, and not that big of a deal all at the same time. 

I'm not sure where I'm going with this but seeing her brought up a variety of different feelings. Sadness at how we parted ways. Frustration that fertility problems can divide friendships. Regret maybe, but also understanding that there were moments in all this where I felt like I had to just save myself. And sometimes it is what it is and things happen. And then we heal and move on, and there's a little bit of a scar that just feels...different. The scar acts as a reminder of the past. It's not a bad thing to think about how we might have done things differently, acted or reacted differently. It's not bad to learn to heal and to think about things we can do better moving forward. And its okay to accept how life sometimes happens, and all we can do is the best we can in each moment. 

Where Does the Shame Come From?

I've been thinking a lot about the secrecy and shame that's associated with infertility, and trying to figure out where that comes from and how to try and change that. I never felt ashamed but I did feel...awkward or...uncomfortable talking about it early on. I remember very early on our "journey," (like back in the good ole clomid and charting days), a neighbor who had a 6 month old said something to me like, "So when are you guys going to have  a kid already?!" We had been trying for over a year and I was caught off guard and said something like, "We still have some traveling we want to do..." Some stupid lie. And then he walked away with some remark about how I wasn't getting any younger and having a kid is amazing blah blah barf and I felt like crying.

Why did I lie? Why did I feel..nervous? Embarrassed? Not able to tell the truth, which was that we were trying and it wasn't working? As time went on I did start leaking out the truth, but it was a mild version of the truth. "So...when are you guys going to have kids?" Answer: "Well, we've been trying and it's been harder than we thought." So I spared people the nitty gritty details of crying every month and seeing doctors and having procedures and trying to figure out what was going on. When I got into the IVF world, though, it was on. If you were asking, I was telling. I sort of enjoyed the "wtf do I say" look on people's faces. But what was hard is that if I shared the real truth, people seemed uncomfortable and I felt misunderstood. If I told a mild truth I felt like I was hiding something and that's where the subtle feeling of shame starts to creep in. I think.

Sure, infertility is about private parts. The diagnosis, while medical in nature, is not recognized by the insurance side of the medical field (for most), therefor it somehow feels elective. Historically in various cultures, being able to procreate brought value and represented virility and strength. But now, I think a lot of the shame isn't really shame but a sense of being silenced because we as a society don't know how to talk about infertility struggles. Some of us want to spare others the discomfort of knowing what to say in response. Some of us don't want to invite stupid comments or even well-meaning stupid comments that make us feel misunderstood or different or isolated, so we tell a watered down version of the truth or we say nothing at all. Then we alone are the holders of our story, our secret, and perhaps that feels like shame.

I actually feel very proud of how Momo came to be. I'm proud of her and proud of us and probably share too much. I don't mind other people's discomfort as long as I am normalizing how different families are created. But I do understand that that style isn't for everyone and that it's often hard to navigate. So how do we feel like we can be genuine to ourselves and protect our privacy at the same time? How can we know what is going to feel right for each one of us? It is very personal, that's for sure. And not everyone wants to share their story. And I think that is just fine, as long as keeping things close to the heart can be separated from feeling shame. Because shame is just crappy, and no one struggling on IF Island should have to feel that on top of everything else.