Don't Count Your Eggs

A Walk, A Film, and A Smile: Happy Friday IF Island

Happy Friday!

Last night, Noah and I walked to get burgers. It's been warm at night here in LA LA Land and we walked down the streets in near silence. I asked him how his day was, he had a few highlights. He asked me what I had eaten that day--I lied about some healthy stuff and we held hands on and off. I looked over at him and could see the indentations of his dimples. It made me smile and I said, "are we genuinely happy for the first time in four years?" He laughed a kind of sad but content laugh. Four years. As much as we were able to find our moments, do things that made us feel whole and normal and happy--much of the past four years have been kind of miserable. The weight of infertility sits like two giant anvils on either shoulder. The uncertainties and medical processes and waiting are cyclical, and with each lap around you just get more worn out and emotionally exhausted. In between it's important to find your happy. We went on little vacations, we went to baseball games and concerts and tried to live normal lives, but it was always a conscious effort to not be unhappy. My yoga practice and finding my mantra saved me in a lot of ways. For Noah, going to the gym and playing rec softball saved him a little. We did our best with what we had, and we learned to survive and find moments of relief and happiness. But last night we allowed ourselves to both feel genuinely happy without trying. I almost forgot what that's like.

Today I wanted to share some info. There's an upcoming walk in SoCal that supports infertility. My friend Candace, who we interviewed for the film, is helping to organize the event. It's Resolve's Walk of Hope in Long Beach on September 21st. Noah and I will be there with a booth sharing information about our documentary, ONE MORE SHOT. (If you haven't watched the extended trailer you can do so here.) 

Noah and I have been working on this film for over two years. And we are excited to just be getting the website up (it's a work in progress, we need to fix up some of the picts still), but we are ready to push full steam ahead to get this thing done and out into the world. It follows our own journey through diagnostic procedures, IUI's, IVF, donor eggs, FET's, and finally embryo adoption, and everything in between. (I still feel very cautious even thinking we have found our ending, but I'm going to believe it until proven otherwise). We also interview several couples who have created their families in alternative ways. This weekend we are supposed to interview a woman who decided to pursue single motherhood later in her reproductive years, and has an 8 week old in her mid forties using donor eggs and donor sperm. 

So stay tuned! If you live in SoCal, we'd love to meet you at the walk! If you don't or can't make it out, please stay connected by signing up on our mailing list on the Doc website! We are hoping to start a fundraiser soon so we can finish this thing legitimately and really start raising awareness about infertility and normalizing the different ways families are made.

Wishing everyone on IF Island a beautiful weekend. 

Running out of real estate

My butt is done. It told me after progesterone in oil butt breakfast this morning, that it's done. Even though my rear end is exponentially larger than when we started this glorious "journey," Noah is running out of real estate. My butt is red and lumpy and swollen and itchy and I'm amazed that I can sit on it for the majority of the day. I was tempted to post a picture of my butt, but thought better of it. Instead I'll post a picture of our dining room table's center piece:

I don't know why my pictures get so flipped around here. I can't wait for the day I can take this box of goodies to the appropriate disposal site (???) and say goodbye to it forever. Ten more days. Ten more shots. I'm supposed to "graduate" from my RE on Sept 8th, if all looks ok, and then maybe I'll be able to add on a few letters to the P word. 

I remember our first injection lesson back in 2012. I was terrified of the menopur needle, and Noah was so nervous his hand was visibly shaky. The night before he was to give me my first shot at home, by ourselves Noah threw up. The physical aspect of IF Island was extremely upsetting to both of us. After multiple medicated IUI's and IVF--shooting menopur and follistim and ganirelix and lupron and omnitrop and estrogen and progesterone...what am I missing-- I can say we are pros now. It almost seems cute to watch how nervous we both were--my sweaty armpits, his death grip on my belly chubs. 

Years have gone by. I have to stop myself from thinking about how much medication my body has endured, because it kind of freaks me out. All I can think is that all those unsuccessful attempts, those thousands of dollars of injections, those skin pricks and bruises, have, perhaps, led me to where I am. With my swollen butt and my Momo, who is hopefully still nuzzled away in there. (I'll know on Thursday when I go to my OBGYN). 

Would I do all of it all over again if this ends up in a real live Momo with fingers and toes? Absolutely. Does it suck? Absolutely. Is it unfair and terrible and crappy? Absolutely. Can we survive it? Absolutely.

Sending love to anyone who has an overflowing red bio-hazard box somewhere in their home. You can do it! 

The Sweet Taste of Disappointment. The Saga Continues....apparently

Good thing mint chocolate chip gelato is just as delicious even when I have a bitter taste in my mouth. 

I found out the blood test was negative, and  once again it feels like we are back to square one. I went and bought a $6 pint of gelato and sobbed. I allowed myself five minutes to be really angry. To think about all that we have gone through. All the shots and the hormones and procedures. The years of waiting and wondering and hoping.  The time spent at doctor's offices and driving through LA traffic to get to said offices. The heartache. The mental and emotional energy spent thinking and wondering and discussing and Googling. The way my life has been on hold. The way my body looks like a manatee. The money. The thousands and thousands of dollars already spent.  The isolation from friends and feeling so misunderstood, always. Ok.  Maybe it took more than five minutes. But I gave myself some time to once again grieve.

Then I spent another five minutes (or so) worrying about what comes next. What if my sister doesn't have enough good eggs? What if something bad happens to her when she donates? What if we do the entire process and I miscarry? What if nothing works? How are we even going to afford this?

Yeah. These are all possibilities and realities. And that's where we're at.

Once my sobbing came to a minimal little whine, I took a big bite of gelato. I let the cool, sweet mint fill my senses and took a few deep breaths. Warm, salty tears rolled down my cheeks in slow motion. I called Noah, who is still out of town. He knows now not to just tell me everything is going to be ok, but to sit with the sadness of it for a while before saying something positive.

"We're gonna figure it out," he said. "You're the toughest gal I know.  I love you."

And so we move on.

How infertility forces you to be in the present moment

I found a clip of me talking about not being able to plan ahead and how the best I can do is go with whatever is. It was shot right when we started our first IVF cycle, and we know how that ended. But it reminded me that in the storm of crazy, there can be moments of calm.  As I continue to wait to see if IUI #2 worked, I find myself trying to plan what we will do if it doesn't work and thinking about how I may feel or act if it does. I've practiced in my head how I'll tell Noah, because he's still out of town, and what I will write here if..when...

 

Seeing this zen version of myself (even if it only lasted a split second) reminded me that all I can be ever, in life, is present with what is. In this moment I've had my blood drawn to detect any pregnancy hormone. I'm a little hungry and my hair is wet and dripping down my back, making my shirt feel cold. No matter how hard I pray, how tightly I cross my fingers, how much I feel we deserve this, I know whatever will be will be. And again, we'll have to make the best choices we can with what we have left.

That doesn't mean I can't feel sad and disappointed if it doesn't work, or that I can't feel relieved and cautiously excited if it does. I have to honor how I feel in the present moment, and then either celebrate with a delicious piece of cake, or pick myself off the floor, wipe my tears and eat that cake anyway. 

Waiting, waiting, waiting

I had a moment this morning where I thought I almost prefer the weeks of shots and hormones to the weeks of sitting around waiting to find out if this last IUI worked, but then I remembered how terrible the shots were. Sitting around is terrible in its own way. At least when I'm doing shots I feel like I'm being proactive as my body becomes a science experiment with tangible data and measurable changes.

Week one of the two week wait feels ok to me. I just do my thing, live my life, and feel apprciative that I'm no longer a human pin cushion. But week two feels soooo long. I feel fat and bloated and my boobs inflate from the daily progesterone I'm on, so I'm constantly wondering if maybe something worked. Wonder, wonder, wait, wonder. 

I keep trying to remind myself that the baby that's meant to be my baby will be. He may not be from my body, he may not be from this country, he may be formed using my sister's eggs. But eventually this chapter of our lives will be over and a new one will begin. Nothing stays the same forever. 

A year into this process I remember Noah saying, "I'm not doing this for three years. That's insane." Even though I reminded him that people do this for five, ten, fifteen plus years, he was certain we would figure this out and move on, baby in tow. And yet here we are. Three years later. Your inner strength and determination will surprise you sometimes.  It surprised him. Now we await a pleasant surprise. Hopefully.

I wonder if other people have better strategies in dealing with the two week wait? I tried to suggest going to Italy for two weeks but that was vetoed, since all our funds are going to my uterus right now. I may never see the inside of an airplane again. Any brilliant ideas?

IUI Take Two

I'm in the waiting room of the doctor's office. Noah just went back to "collect his sample." It's moments like these--when a tired nurse hands him a plastic cup with his name on it-- that I can't believe this I how we're trying to make a baby. The whole process has become so clinical, I feel like I have to have doctor's order to ever have sex again. But maybe this time it will work. I keep imagining my little eggs falling down dark Fallopian tunnels like bullseyes, and the spermies are racing towards them at full speed. Like a video game. We just need one to hit. Just one.

There is a little more weight to this IUI because it's probably the last attempt we will make with my eggs. There are a variety of reasons why-- medication overload, suspicions about my egg quality, time. Most importantly, my younger sister has offered to donate her eggs and there is a very small window over the summer when she can do so, so if we want her eggs, we've got to do it soon. I'm going to write more about my amazing little sis who offered her eggs without batting an eyelash, just not this second. Now we focus on the task at hand. Well, that's what Noah has to focus on. The task in his hand... Poor guy. #NIAW #Infertility

Cautiously Optimistic

It’s the day before our second IUI and I’m desperately trying to figure out a way to be cautiously optimistic. It feels so...tentative. It’s hope on the defense. But I suppose that’s what happens when you’ve been stuck in the bipolar ups and downs of infertility treatments. I found some footage that illustrates this emotional roller coaster, and the reason why being hopeful feels scary. Post egg retrieval, the doctor would call us early in the morning to update us on how our embryos were doing. This clip is two of those mornings:

 

The truth of our situation today is that we should be excited, because we have more follicles of good size than we did during our IVF cycle. But neither one of us feels excited. It’s a practice in just being. We know that what we have today we may not have tomorrow, and I’m trying not to be too attached to the outcome, but how can I not be?

Today Noah and I went to see Pain & Gain, because Marky Mark is one of my guilty pleasures, and brainless movies help me get through the day. Tomorrow at this time we will be wondering if his (Noah's, not Mark Wahlberg's) swimmers are finally meeting their match. And either they are, or they aren’t. And that’s science and chance and life and miracles. And again, we wait.

Medication Nation

Days four and five of meds are somehow the hardest physically. I'm not yet officially half-way through, there are tons of hormones pumping through my body, and I'm just bloated, sweaty and cranky. I have to remind myself that there is nothing wrong with the way Noah grates carrots. That the world will not end if the DVR doesn't record both episodes of Parks and Rec. That Noah doesn't dump all his change on the floor on purpose, it just falls out if his pants, which he has DUMPED ON THE FLOOR! But it's ok... It's ok. Tomorrow will be day six of meds and that means the end is near. My mantra this week is "It won't be like this forever" and "He's not annoying me on purpose."

We saw the IUI doc today and he said the two hardest things to have while in this process are patience and cautious optimism. He's right. My follicles seem to be taking to the meds better this time around which is good. I've been drinking wheatgrass every day this cycle, which I read somewhere can be helpful. Who knows. I'm cautiously optimistic.

Insemination Proclamation

This is what an Intrauterine Insemination (IUI) looks like. Warning: It’s pretty hot: 

 

This is what finding out the IUI didn’t work looks like: 

Noah and I are used to disappointment, but more importantly, we are now accustomed to the various processes we have to go through. The first time around with any assisted reproduction intervention is scary and confusing. It involves needles, exact timing, and a variety of people in my privates. But now that we have one failed IVF and one failed IUI under our belts, we know what to expect. We know the norms, the limitations, and the language. Though we thought we would just be visitors in this land of infertility, we’ve officially become citizens. Green cards approved. We’re acclimated, assimilated, acculturated. Now how do we flee this place?

Welcome to Infertility-Land