Don't Count Your Eggs

"Let's try and salvage this cycle."

Said my RE this morning. I wanted to throw my arms around him. He's been so good to us, and I realized how important it is to find an RE that's a good fit. But that's a topic for another day. Yes! Let's SALVAGE!

After my very disappointing ultrasound and the Seattle clinic cancelling my cycle, I had a thought. Could I possibly get pregnant this month? Could the gal who's been trying to get pregnant for FOUR YEARS, been through several IUI's and IVF and IVF with donor eggs--who was preparing for an embryo adoption, get pregnant naturally after being on birth control and Lupron? Poetic justice!

At the appointment with my RE on Monday, I asked him if I could get pregnant with the three follicles that looked like they were about to burst out of my ovary, and he shrugged, "maybe." I think he knows better than to use the words never, always, or impossible with me. I seem to prove him and modern science wrong more often than not. But my lining was thin at 4mm, so he suggested I just try naturally and hope for the best. 

That night, I started to think about how to get my lining up, and at the suggestion of Gilli, my trusted acupuncturist, I emailed my RE and asked if I could start taking estrogen. He wrote back some directions and I started scavenging for left over meds. I found a bottle of Estrace (estrogen), six expired progesterone pills, five Endometrin progesterone suppositories, and 17 Crinone progesterone inserts, and wha la! A little makeshift natural-ish cycle! I started taking estrogen on Tuesday and went in to see my RE this morning. Low and behold my lining was up to 7mm and the three follicles were still sitting there. The nurse gave me a shot of HCG to trigger ovulation and the RE instructed me to "make love" at a specific time the next day.

"I think I still know how to do that," I said. The concept of having sex to make a baby is completely foreign to me now. I can't even fathom it, but the whole thing feels just crazy enough for me to feel hopeful. A chance is a chance, however slim. I will continue to plan for the next step and remain completely open and curious about who our baby may be and where it may come from. 

So Noah and I have some doctor's orders to follow this weekend. We won't hold our breaths, but will ride this wave and see where we land. 

Join the Movement: HOW AM I MAKING A DIFFERENCE IN WAYS LARGE AND SMALL IN THE LIVES OF PEOPLE WITH INFERTILITY?

I decided to launch this blog during National Infertility week because I wanted to find a way to make a difference in the lives of people who struggle with infertility. For the past almost 3 years now, my husband, Noah, and I have been exiled into this world of infertility against our will, and we’ve had to figure out how to survive with nothing but a shopping bag full of hormone shots and a calendar of doctors appointments. 

Noah is a television producer. I am a Licensed Clinical Social Worker. With his film skills and my strong belief in advocacy, we started documenting our process in April 2012, a year after we started “trying.” We shot the first doctor’s appointment with a Reproductive Endocrinoloist in Los Angeles, and continued to shoot every appointment, hormone induced argument, and trip to the pharmacy right through to our failed IVF cycle. We have also been interviewing other couples, who I think of as “survivors,” who have had to be creative in building their families. Our intention is to one day share our journey to parenthood, because even though we don’t yet know how we are going to create our family, we know that we will one day be parents. I have also been writing about our experiences, but the only person thus far who has read anything I’ve written is my dad. And my dad is not currently struggling with infertility, so my words are of absolutely no help to him. They actual just upset him because he is a helpless parent watching his daughter struggle. But he is a writer who has always encouraged me to write. So now I am taking the next step and learning how to use the internet so that I can share my writing with others who feel alone and isolated on a little life raft in the terribly choppy waters of infertility. 

The archive and video posts will tell you where we’ve been. The current postings will tell you where we’re going. Our adventures in Infertility-land started in 2011.

2011 was the year we tried to start a family.

2012 was the year we failed to start a family. 

2013 is TBD.

We officially got the diagnosis of “explained infertility” when I got an HSG X-RAY that looked like this,

showing only one wonky fallopian tube. Then I had a laparoscopic surgery that looked like this,

which reveled two wonky fallopian tubes as the doc couldn’t pass ink through either tube. With seemingly no functioning fallopian tubes, we moved straight to IVF, where I learned that I also have Diminished Ovarian Reserve (DOR), and even though I ate this for breakfast and dinner for ten days straight,

my few follicles hardly responded. On retrieval day the RE got 3 good quality eggs, all of which fertilized, none of which divided properly. We closed shop in early December before transfer day $16,000 poorer. 

This year, so far we’ve attended several meetings about adoption. We’ve discussed donor eggs and I’ve been learning to let go of my own biology and embrace the possibility of having a child with less neurosis and nice legs. I’ve had another HSG because I’ve become a fan of having French Tipped balloons shoved up my privates, which surprisingly revealed TWO OPEN FALLOPIAN TUBES and with that, the possibility to try IUI (Intrauterine insemination), which is much less expensive and less invasive than IVF.  I went back on a steady diet of post-menopausal nuns pee injected straight to the belly, which led to one dominant follicle. Only one. But it only takes one—or so I hear. I did the dirty with a turkey baster full of my husband’s best swimmers and now we wait.

Wait. Wait. Wait. 

In the three years that we’ve been waiting for this to happen for us, I’ve successfully shared our challenges with everyone I know, thus encouraging friends, family and co-workers to check their eggs and start the baby making process as early as possible. The result has been the birth of 48 (and counting) babies to said friends, family and co-workers. Though I may not have helped infertile couples, I’ve become quite the fertility charm for others, helping everyone else hit that developmental milestone of parenthood while Noah and I watch from afar. As an LCSW, I’ve tried to start a support group, but I’m in a strange position because I’m both a peer and a professional. I know once I find an end to this journey and a beginning to our family my career will lead me to help others cope. Because I know firsthand that this is not an easy ride.

So in the mean time, as we wait, I can offer my words. I hope to bring some sense of connection and moments of laughter as well as helpful resources and coping tools. I hope to become a part of the online community of support and advocacy. Infertility shouldn’t be an island. With over 7 million people struggling to conceive there’s no reason to feel so alone. 

                        Thanks to RESOLVE.ORG for being such a great resource. Check out

• http://www.resolve.org/infertility101  (Basic understanding of the disease of infertility.)
• http://www.resolve.org/national-infertility-awareness-week/about.html (About NIAW)

www.resolve.org/niaw

STOP TELLING ME THIS IS GOOD NEWS (THE HSG and BEYOND!)

In March of 2012 we finally went to see a fertility specialist, Dr. N.  After 21 months of being in this process it was time to see someone who could tell me more than “just relax.” 

Dr. N broke it down for us pretty simply.  We first had to get a few more diagnostic tests.  Depending on how they came out we would have choices of trying some medications, a combo of meds and Intrauterine Insemination (IUI) if needed, and as a last resort IVF. That was the tentative game plan. 

Dr. N told us (and by “us” I mean me. As much as Noah wants everything to be a “team” effort, let’s cut the shit, 99.9% of everything that happens, happens to my body. The most he needs to do is drive, jerk-off into a cup, or hold me) to get a hysterosalpingogram (HSG). It’s an “unpleasant” procedure that shoots dye into the uterus to see if there is any blockage in the fallopian tubes.  Since I never had a history of surgery or STD’s or symptoms that would indicate endometriosis, he said it would probably not reveal much but it was good to do.  He wanted that done as well as bunch of blood tests.  At the end of our appointment he handed me a tissue to wipe my eyes and assured me I will have a baby.  He assured me that I’m young, I’m healthy, we have sperm—all was good.  

I scrambled to find a way that some of the tests I needed to do could be covered by my insurance (they couldn’t) and then bit the bullet and had the HSG done the following Tuesday.  Let me correct anyone who believes having a #5 French balloon tipped catheter inserted into my uterine cavity, which is then inflated while the dye is injected into the body is an “unpleasant” experience. It was painful as shit! No amount of valium or ibuprofen (both of which I took in excess) helped the piercing pain and complete panic that overwhelmed the lower half of my body when sharp objects were inserted into my lady parts.  The radiologist wouldn’t say a word to me other than “try to relax.” YOU TRY TO RELAX! YOU’RE SHOVING A PITCHFORK WITH A BALLOON AT THE END INTO MY VAGINA YOU DEVIL WOMAN! When I started squealing, “I can’t I can’t,” the nurse in the room instructed me to breathe.  I took a deep breath and turned my head towards the monitor that showed what was going on in my insides.  There was a little shape that looked like a moth flying off to one corner, and then one windy-looking string attached to it that bubbled at one point and then looked to have exploded. When she was done I was handed a towel to hold at my privates and the radiologist started to bolt out of the room. 

“Excuse me. Wait. Can you tell me what you saw?” I was confused.  The image on the screen didn’t look like the classic images of a uterus and fallopian tubes that were in textbooks.  A round blob with elephant trunk-like arms on either side with dangly fingers floating towards the ovaries.  My shit looked like a moth kite on a tangled string. 

The radiologist stopped at the door.  She didn’t want to discuss her findings.  That was my doctor’s job. 

“Please, just tell me what you saw?”

“The left tube did not visualize. There was only one fallopian tube that was open.” She walked out, seemingly annoyed.

One fallopian tube? Where’s the other one? Was I born this way? Were there cysts or fibroids or peanut butter jammed into my tubes? Why would that be? I hobbled towards Noah, holding a bloody towel to my privates, passing an old man waiting to have his foot X-rayed and a young man with his arm in a sling. 

Noah ushered me into a small dressing room and helped me get dressed.

“There was only one tube,” I said.

“Where’s the other one?”

Exactly. Where’s the other one.  At our follow up with Dr. N two days later he didn’t have an answer, but his tone was different.  He didn’t like that my uterus was so far off to the right.  He didn’t like that the one tube that was seemingly open looked to have some blockage as well, like a bent hose it bubbled up and then burst. He didn’t like that there was only one tube. I don’t like anything Dr. N doesn’t like.  

He wanted us to do more specific blood work to see how my egg quality and hormones were and he discussed laparoscopic surgery to see what was really going on inside and to rule out pelvic adhesions. 

I went back and consulted with my OBGYN, Dr. E.  He wasn’t that concerned with my pictures. But he also wasn’t that concerned that after almost a year-and-a-half I still wasn’t pregnant. 

“It could be a spasm,” he said, looking at the images.  

“Well what if it’s not? I’ve been having a sharp pain on my side since the procedure.  Could there be an infection? Maybe I have endometriosis—I get really bad back pains, could that be what’s going on? How can we see if I have that?”

Laparoscopic surgery could help us see what might be going on. Two docs. Two votes for laparoscopic surgery.  I called one more doctor, my best friend Gabe’s dad, an OBGYN in Chico, CA.  I explained where we were at and sent him my pictures. 

He said the problem looks to be with my plumbing. Vote #3 for laparoscopic surgery.

We scheduled for a Tuesday, but since my period came early we had to move the date up.  Noah would still be in Louisiana, “gator-gliding” with his 5-month pregnant reality TV star for the show he was producing.

“Should I just do it?” We were on Face Time, where many of our life decisions are made.

“I wish I could be there but if it has to be now then do it. Then we will know. “

The plan was for Dr. E to put a camera in through my belly button and make a small incision below to see what was going on.  He would cut any adhesions that may have been growing like a spider web, potentially connecting my left fallopian tube to my uterus, burn any lesions or endometriosis type gunk, and re-do the dye test to see how the tubes were flowing. My sister was in town and since she’s a doctor, she was designated as the best person to be with me that day. 

I thought I’d go in, get my one tube cleaned up, and be able to work the next day.  It was outpatient. How bad could it be? We got to the hospital early and played around with the blood pressure equipment until Dr. E got there.  He smiled. He said, he’d pass the dye through, clean up anything that may be causing pain, and free up the tubes best he could, if that was in fact the issue. 

I lay back on the bed waiting for the medication in my IV to kick in.  Worst case scenario is that there is in fact only one good tube. If he cleans it up, then I’ll have to go on the dreaded Clomid again, but then we could try naturally for a while, at least on the months I ovulated from the right side. And if that didn’t work we’d move to the turkey baster.  I was ok with that.

I woke up with an oxygen mask on.  My chest felt like I had been punched in the sternum and then hit by a bus.  

“Please get my sister,” I called.  The nurse moved about quickly, telling me to stay calm.  I couldn’t breathe. My mouth felt like I had been eating toxic paint chips and cardboard. 

“Please, get my sister.” 

Time stopped. All of my organs and insides had been displaced by air so they could see my uterus et al. They put a catheter in my bladder and a breathing tube down my throat. It was excruciating but crying was not an option. Moving was not an option.  My sister came running in and got me some water and juice.  She held the cup to my mouth.

“What did Dr. E say?” I gasped between sips.

“Are you sure you want me to tell you now?” She said, disappointment in her voice.

“What?”

“He couldn’t get dye through either tube. They were both blocked. He seemed surprised.  The uterus was good, no adhesions.  He said you are probably a good candidate for IVF.”

“What?” 

She pulled out color picture of my insides. She showed me where the dye bubbled and became blue but didn’t flow through the tubes the way it was supposed to.  I never thought of that. If one tube was open during the last X-ray, why was it closed now?  He didn’t know. She didn’t know. But what I knew is that all the options that seemed so terrible, going back on Clomid, having to be inseminated by a man not my husband, all of a sudden sounded like a dream compared to IVF. 

Please can we just take a step back?  Remember when I was being bratty because Clomid made me hormonal and moody? Remember when I was complaining about that gooey feeling the vaginal progesterone gave me? It’s fine.  I changed my mind! Please, let one of those things work. I’ll go on it at double the dose. Please. 

I felt like someone beat the shit out of me and then forced me to buy a very expensive one-way ticket to invitro-ville where I would be forced to live in exile with nothing but a bag of hormone shots and a calendar full of doctors appointments. I will stop complaining about how long this is taking. It can take another year, just let us make a baby on our own.  

I got home and took as much Vicodin as my sister would let me. I got a letter in the mail fro my insurance company that said that even though they formally approved the surgery, they may not deem it as “medically necessary”, so it may not be covered.  A very helpful letter to receive after surgery has taken place.

Hana broke the news to Noah while he was in a crew van driving from Hammond to New Orleans, Louisiana while my parents got in my bed with me so they could perform their version of “Reiki” on my bloody belly button and stitches. 

My dad balanced his clumsy paws and sausage fingers over my clavicles, which felt like they were broken in two, my mom placed her warm hands on my belly under the heating pad and together they closed their eyes and sent their love and healing energies to my broken heart and my failing reproductive system. And then I started to feel the weight of my father’s massive hand start to collapse on my chest, and my mother nervously began to pick at the band-aid over my belly button. Enough was enough.  I started to laugh and cry and yell at them to get off me, it nearly split my stitches. 

I wrote to my in laws and other family and friends.  But I started to see how very hard it is for a) anyone who is not going through this to understand or relate and b) for those same people know what to say to me.  

In general, there was a lot of support and excitement that my uterus seemed to be in good shape and that IVF was going to be this awesome new adventure. Like all they had to do was take an eye-dropper and plop a dollop of baby potion into my belly button and wa-la! Like all I will have to do is swallow a few watermelon seeds and say some prayer in Hebrew and nine months later Junior Mint will be! IVF is NO JOKE. It’s great that I MAY be a good candidate depending on how my blood tests come out, but I’d much rather be a good candidate for board member of the otter society or chief cup-cake taster at Sprinkles Cupcakes.  It’s like each step takes us father away from this happening. Each step that some possibility gets checked off our list (bye bye IUI) you look at what you do have. I have legs! Yay, score! One point for Maya. Noah has a penis.  Hey Five points for team Junior Mint! And…wait for it….we have a uterus!!! Next week I should find out if I have decent egg quality (though you can never really know until you actually take them out I believe) and then maybe we’re in business.  We can scrape together something that resembles a baby embryo in a dish and jam it into my apparently functional uterus and pray that $15,000 doesn’t get flushed down the toilet with my next period.  Are you kidding! This is what I’m excited about? All the kind friends and family who have “faith” that I will be a “mother” and that we will have a “beautiful baby” of our own.  To what end? And how many rounds? For how many months? As what cost to my body, mind and marriage? And bank account! And it will all be “worth it” And I “won’t remember any of the pain I went through when I look into my crying baby’s eyes at 3am?” The hell I will!!! 

Remember when babies were made when a man loved a woman and they made sweet love to each other and nine months later they became a family? How do I get that? With each thing I do, each bit of information I get I fall deeper into the abyss of barren “auntie” Maya-land. Can no one be sad with me for a moment? Does everyone have to be a cheerleader and identify that “at least now we know!” I long for the days of confused trying, standing on my head after sex, feeling hopeful. That’s not really true, it’s better to know, but it sucks. And it’s sad. And it seems like Noah and I will never rub our parts together and make a baby. And I have to stay optimistic and hopeful. And I have to believe. But I also have to mourn this loss. At least for a little.  When my stomach doesn’t feel like someone took a bike pump to my asshole and blew me up, maybe I can get a good cry in and then move on. 

LAST GAL STANDING

I work at an agency that provides mental health services to kids and families. I also work with over 90% women, 80% of them are mothers, and a good chunk of those mothers have become so in the time that I’ve been trying.  Granted, my math may not be totally accurate, but I know it feels like we are always having baby showers and special announcements at out staff meeting about expected babies. I also know that a handful of other women at my office have struggled with similar issues to what I’m going through. Many have shared their stories and hopes for me. For that I am grateful.  But we are still the minority. The majority of women at work were popping out babies like rabbits. At least that’s how it felt.

I tried not to feel resentful or jealous, but how could I not? No one wants to admit they are jealous. No one wants to feel jealous. We make up all kinds of excuses, “No I’m not jealous, I’m just reminded of what I don’t have.” “No, it’s not jealously, it’s just a surprise that it was so easy for them.” “I’m not jealous, I’m sooo happy, they totally deserve to be soooo happy.” Forget that. It’s jealously. Pure and simple. It’s not like I’m choosing to be jealous. In fact, it’s one of the uglier emotions to feel and is totally useless and just creates more anger and self-loathing, and thus more jealousy. A vicious cycle of ugly. And I want to be happy for other people. I want to go to baby showers and buy cute clothes and talk about names and rub people’s bellies.  I was able to for a while, but there comes a point where another baby shower or pregnancy announcement became overwhelming and upsetting for no rational reason.  I noticed myself avoiding pregnant women in public and staying out of the staff kitchen at lunch so I didn’t have to hear the complaints from new moms about having to pump in their office or being kept up at night by their newborns.  I wanted to pump. I wanted to be tired from caring for a baby instead of crying for a baby. 

I hated that this process had made me this way. I felt angry all the time. Displaced anger at my mom for asking a question about a pregnant friend. Anger at my husband for not being more eager to have sex when I was ovulating. Anger at myself for being the kind of person who is jealous of another person’s blessings. I’m not normally a jealous person, so this new…personality trait was not only not very becoming, it sucked. I sucked. I felt snippy and nasty and bitter.  Infertility turns you into a person you never would choose to be, and it takes almost all your willpower not to give pregnant strangers the stink eye. 

But how could I expect to feel at this point? After a year plus of trying and not getting much help from doctors it just seemed like every month was this desperate futile attempt.  And every month I did everything I was supposed to do. And I waited and I tested and I hoped, and then some bitch at work or in my condo or in my circle of friends would announce they got pregnant, “without really trying.” Giggle giggle laugh laugh, OMG! And I say bitch with the most sincerest of apologies. I’ve become a terrible person. 

Noah kept telling me what happens to other people has nothing to do with our lives. People in Wyoming win the lottery and it doesn’t affect us. Friends land great jobs, move into awesome homes, and take fabulous vacations and we are super happy for them. But somehow this feels different. I just couldn’t explain it to Noah, who saw the red flags of my increasing baby obsession. 

I would come home screaming when I learned of a new pregnancy. I tossed baby announcements in the trash, with not so much as a glance at the sleeping new born or his tiny feet.  I was paranoid to go to dinner with couple friends in fear that someone would say, “We have something to announce.” I just couldn’t handle it. And Noah couldn’t handle me. I was paranoid, isolating, and angry. He started shielding me from baby news, which was kind of easy since I’m not on Facebook or other social media outlets. I can’t imagine if I was linked in to social media, I would be snooping around like a crazy person counting all the people I went to high school with who had babies.  It’s so useless. I had other hobbies: yoga, pottery, bike rides and beach walks, cooking. But all I could really do was obsess about babies and think about how unfair it was that we couldn’t have one when we wanted one. How self-centered and self-pitying.

Infertility had gotten the best of me, and this was well before we even really started on our infertility journey. I was hard to talk to and difficult to be around. Even when we did other things, I was still always thinking about why I couldn’t get pregnant. 

Noah also started to think about why this wasn’t working for us. The only thing more ironic than me working with kids and families was the fact that my husband, who usually produced reality shows starring professional surfers, musicians, or aging celebrities, was working on a show with twin sisters, one of which was several months pregnant when the show began following their lives. The second twin would go on to have a baby as well, and he would go through two births of his reality co-stars before we would even figure out what we needed to do to attempt pregnancy. 

By day Noah would have to deal with a pregnant diva who was delusionally convinced she was the first woman on earth who ever had the burden of carrying a child for nine months.  She demanded special foods and cancelled shoot days because of fatigue and started all sentences with, “Now that I’m about to be a mom…” as if she was the Virgin Mary. Noah shot her doctors appointments, her interviews with doula’s and midwives. The show organized and covered her baby shower and “baby-moon” and all the moments leading up to the birth. Noah was inundated by all the excitement and anxiety that surrounds becoming a mother and creating a television show around that, and at night he got to come home and hold me while I cried about how I couldn’t become one. 

It all seemed so completely and totally ridiculous and unfair. And rather than banding together, our relationship felt strained. I constantly felt guilty about feeling so sad and angry and he constantly felt helpless and exhausted by his work and our life. By this point, we had been together for over ten years. We’d been through brief break ups, losses of grandparents, job transitions, my graduate school, being so poor we had to sit in the car in our neighbor’s driveway just to get internet on our laptops.  We’d traveled to different countries and gotten lost in places where no one spoke English and we didn’t know which way was out. We bought our first home together and moved into it on a wickedly rainy day with nothing but garbage bags full of clothes. We’d been through a lot. And we were always able to go through tough times with curiosity and laughter, and confidence that we would figure it out together.  Somehow, some way.  But the constant stress of baby making was a different beast. This wasn’t a moment of crisis, but a continuous beating of our spirits that came like clockwork, every month. This wasn’t something that had alternative creative solutions, there was just one, and until that happened it seemed like this rut would continue to sink deeper.  By the time I did finally get pregnant, I feared I would end up being a single mother. 

We wanted to connect. We wanted to have fun. But I don’t think Noah could ever really feel what I was feeling. He wanted this madness to end.  He wanted a to be a dad, to have a child he could play ball with.  He thought it would be fun.  I NEEDED a baby to feel like a whole person. I NEEDED to know my body wasn’t totally defunct and that we would get a chance to continue the human race. My need versus his want was hard, because he could never feel the intensity that I felt. We started arguing over stupid things.  How frustrated I was that he wasn’t more interested in reading the websites and books I was reading about infertility.  We fought about how he wasn’t that interested in my cervical mucous and about how he wasn’t as upset as I was when someone else got pregnant. I snapped at him when he rode his bike too much or when he worked with his laptop on top of his lap. I resented all that I was doing to keep my body healthy and functioning and how he didn’t have to do much. We fought about how much more I thought about all of this and how unfair that was. It was ridiculous and terrible.

And a moment came when we both decided this couldn’t totally be our life. Noah had faith that our time would come when it was supposed to, and ultimately, I had faith in Noah. So we planned vacations and weekends away. We went to rock shows and listened to comedy podcasts at night. I started cooking more and made a point of going on beach walks with friends. I began working part time at the agency to decrease my stress level and started a small private practice with a girlfriend so we could do different groups with kids. 

Life went on. And it was just the two of us. And the more I observed how my husband reacted under stress—calm, calculated, compassionate—the more I loved him and wanted to make a baby with him. My desperate frustration continued but I did my best to spare him from it. And there were moments of relief, and dare I say it, fun. 

Our ship seemed to be slowing sailing on.