Four Options

Since my last cycle, the spring flowers have (long ago) come and gone, and April has evolved into the 90-degree days of mid-July. I can't stay frozen like this all summer. It's time to make decisions, or inaction is going to end up making them for me.

So … after letting go of these options for parenthood, at least for now, which ones are left? There are four that come to mind:

• Live without children and put my energy toward other things. I'm putting this one first to make the point that it doesn't have to be a last resort, a punishment I feel sentenced to by fate, but can be an actual choice. I can choose to step off the hamster wheel of trying and waiting. I can still be a mentor, a Big Sister, or a court-appointed advocate for children if I choose.
• Continue to TTC with my own eggs. Yeah, I know. Here's the thing (well, one big thing that's been a factor): I'm not just an only child, but the only grandchild on both sides of a close-knit family. The thought of it ending with me feels deeply wrong on a level that I've never felt before. I don't want to be delusional, though, to keep trying beyond all reason and at all costs. Let's just say that I'm very conflicted here.
• Look into embryo adoption. What a wonderful idea. There are concerns—the wait for a match, the cost, the need to research an entirely new set of issues. Also, I'd need to change clinics again. (Neither of my clinics will transfer donated embryos, because they believe there are too many unknowns about the embryos' origins.) That said, I may still sign up on a website that matches donors and recipients. If a match that feels mutually right comes along, well, wow. I would be unspeakably grateful! If it doesn't come along, I won't be up for more years of trying to make it happen.
• Become licensed as a foster parent. One thing that excites me about this option is that it can throw me into the parenting deep end right away. And while there's no guarantee of eventual adoption, the possibility is there. But I can't proceed until things are more settled. I don't see fostering as another path to parenthood so much as a separate thing, deserving of its own sincere commitment. And there are other hurdles. Let's just say that I'm very conflicted here, too. 

Letting Go of What I Can

A few weeks ago, I spent a weekend camping at a quiet spot along the river. Nature is my favorite anesthetic. This trip would be like a mini-retreat—unbroken time to make peace with some painful things, while sedated by sunlight, woodsmoke, and the sound of chirping birds.

It was lovely. BUT … how does a person make peace with letting go of such a deep desire?? Not in one weekend.

Anyway, it had to start with looking closely at the situation, meaning my finances and options for parenthood (which are closely related, of course).  Lots of hours and anxiety spent there. Then I sat by the river, just listening for any guidance that would come.

I didn't reach a decision about whether to keep trying or not. What I DID do is let go of acting now on two options, using donor eggs or pursuing private adoption. Those options aren't as time-sensitive as TTC with my own eggs, but I know that choosing not to act on them now makes it less likely that I'll have the resources to do so later. And it feels relatively OK.

Why? Long story short, when I think about those options, I feel myself contract. I sense my focus shift inward from the child to my own anxiety about making this happen.

There are two points I want to make here. One is that others' experiences may be different; those options may feel like the most natural ones for them, and of course I wish them well.

Also, no, I'm not signing on to the belief that "If things are meant to be, then they will be." My beliefs are more along the lines of "It is what it is." Can't argue with that, right?

Sometimes a fight is required. When it has to stop is when I feel momentum tempt me into drifting past limits I set years ago, or when I feel myself shutting down, diverting all energy into struggling even harder to swim upstream.

(source)

More Motherhood Dreams

I'm going to do it. I'm going to dare to picture more things that I'd love to do someday with my someday-child.

The list below comes from a journal that I kept for the baby during my short pregnancy last year (which is why it's all addressed to "you"). That journal has been sitting unopened since last March, until this week.

Things I want to do with you:

• Welcome you and your family back home to Thanksgiving dinner when you're all grown. Yes, this is the first thing that comes to mind—you as an adult. I wonder who you will become.
• Enjoy you as a baby, too. Feel your fingers close around mine, and watch your legs kick when you laugh. Rock and feed you in the stillness of the night.
• Share the people I love with you, and you with them. Watch your grandpa sit you on his lap and tell you stories. Make Christmas cookies with your grandma. Take you to play with my best friend's daughter. She's already in school now (see, it took me a while to have you!), but I know she will be patient and kind.
• Savor the ordinary things that I wondered if we'd ever do together, like going to the petting farm nearby. For years, I've driven by it several times a week, watched happy families going in and out, and never stopped.
• See your face light up when you touch the softness of an animal's fur, and teach you to care for small things that are dependent on you.
• See your confidence grow as you learn to walk, tie your shoes, and ride a bike. Bite my tongue and smile when you tell me, "Mom, I can do it myself!"
• Give you my favorite books. Happily read you that one special book 500 times.
• Take you to my favorite places, from the city park two blocks away to the national parks I've loved. We'll go on walks, and you can sit on my shoulders when you get tired.
• Do seasonal things: sniff the spring flowers, turn cartwheels in the summer grass, chase fireflies, go swinging at the playground and swimming in the pool, jump in piles of autumn leaves, carve pumpkins at the park, go ice skating and sledding, and catch snowflakes on our tongues.
• Do creative things: color on the sidewalk with chalk, put your art up on the fridge, build forts inside the house on a rainy day, and sing silly songs in the car. I'll clap at school plays and when you master playing "Three Blind Mice" on the recorder.
• Talk casually about the most important things while we do household chores or ride in the car side by side.
• Listen while you chatter about a new interest that excites you—something I'd know absolutely nothing about, if it weren't for you.

(source)

Breaks

Spring is coming, which means that my commute to the far-away clinic will soon be safe again. In fact, it may be safe now. The worst of the snowy weather should be over, so I thought about going back this month. But there were some financial ... uh, to put it mildly, issues. Anyway, between the snow, finances, and family crisis, I will have missed three months by the time I get started again.

This winter hibernation is one of several breaks I've had since starting TTC. They've been both required (after the miscarriage) and semi-optional (after the breakup with my ex). I've missed a few months for abnormal cycles. There were also months that passed by when I was moving, researching protocols and clinics, doing the paperwork and tests required to change docs…

I know that lots of women find it refreshing and healing to take breaks. For me, what they've mainly been is distracting. And distraction can be either good or bad. It's a short-term relief when I'm feeling overwhelmed, and there's nothing wrong with that. But distraction is no substitute for doing something meaningful, even if—like TTC—it becomes very hard.

When things aren't working out, I have to guard against letting discouragement turn into doubt (Do I even want to be a parent, if thinking about it just fills me with pain now?), apathy (Why bother, when this will just fail, too?), and short-sighted indulgences (So why not take another month off from the clinic?). I've even had to stage an intervention or two to make myself face reality, to get out of that comfy but unproductive habit of distraction and denial.

Being stuck in limbo isn't really comfortable, not deep down. There's the sense of unease, vague but always present. There's the hesitation to make any plans, and the frustration of waiting. There's tension and guilt when short-term pleasures (eating junk food today while promising to make the tough decisions tomorrow, or maybe the day after that...) threaten deeply held long-term goals.

What I'm avoiding, even more than the daily work of TTC, is the ending. The ending is what scares me.

In an online forum this week, another woman put my thoughts about it into words. She wrote that leaving IVF in her arsenal, unused, gave her emotional protection. I feel the same way about my upcoming final cycle(s) and PGS. It's comforting to have these final options, but now that the time has come to USE them, use them NOW when every month counts ... there's a part of me that still hesitates. And there's another part that has to (lovingly) stand behind her and push.

What's your attitude toward breaks from TTC? How have you managed to make them refreshing, or at least not too disruptive?

Facing the Wave

On a summer evening in 1958, three fishing boats anchored in southeastern Alaska's remote Lituya Bay. All was quiet ... except for a cloud of birds that suddenly left around 9 PM, in such a hurry that some of them crashed into one trawler's rigging and fell to its deck dead. The couple on board watched nervously. An hour later, as they and the other families were settling in for the night on their boats, the earthquake hit.

It was a huge quake, with a magnitude over 8.0. It caused mayhem for a hundred miles up and down the coast. To the north, an island dropped 25 feet into the water. Nearby, a mountain rose 50 feet into the air. Geysers erupted. But the strangest scene took place in Lituya Bay, where landslides poured down from the steep glacial peaks that surrounded the water. In the twilight, the families on their boats could see the mountains "twisting" at the head of the bay. And they could see what came next: the largest wave ever recorded on earth.

It was basically a giant splash, which sucked trees and dirt—everything down to bare bedrock—off the closest hillsides to a height above 1,720 feet. A wall of water hundreds of feet high filled the bay from side to side. By the time it reached the mouth, seven miles later, the wave was still almost 100 feet high.

Wave Damage
(source)

The truly amazing part is that two of the three families in the bay that night survived. They were the ones who turned their boats into the wave and faced it head on, as did another fisherman who rode out a similar ("only" 490-foot) wave there in 1936. Not a trace was ever found of the other couple, who had turned toward the mouth of the bay. Not one splinter from their boat remained.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Why tell this story here? It's haunted my nightmares since I first heard it several years ago. But in the last few weeks, when I've been feeling especially overwhelmed, it's been stuck in my waking mind a lot too, and it's left behind this bit of guidance that seems strangely relevant: whatever happens, face into the wave.

Don't try to escape; the only thing worse than having something dreadful in front of you is having it gaining on you from behind, in your blind spot. Don't sit there in denial; pull up your anchor chain and deal with it head on.

Melodramatic? Yeah, I know. I'm sorry. I wish I could list all the concrete, practical things I've been doing instead to achieve my motherhood goals (and there have been some things), but the fact is that what feels like the hardest work lately has been mostly psychological. I know that this next try will most likely be my last. On one hand, I just need it to be over, one way or another. On the other hand, the finality is what makes me want to keep delaying and turning away.

Because I'm leaning toward the full "throw the book at it" approach with this next cycle, it will take a full commitment. So I'm trying to swing the boat around and brace myself: working twice as many hours to help slow the financial leaks, keeping up some exercise (as much for courage and energy as to get "in shape"), etc. So I haven't been around here as much. But please know that I'm still reading your comments and blogs and cheering you on, and appreciating your company.

ICLW

If you're here as part of ICLW, welcome! (If not, you're still welcome! And you might want to check out the ICLW list, since it includes a lot of great blogs.) I signed up for a second time because last time was so worthwhile.

You can read the basics of my infertility journey here, and my first post explains why I started writing about it.

What's new this month? I'm still sitting out the recovery time after a miscarriage, which means there will be more than a 5-month gap between my last cycle and next. I have mixed feelings about the next.

On one hand, I wanted to start trying right away, because last time (almost) worked and that was awesome—it felt like a miracle. Also, there's just no time to spare; I have severe DOR, and it's probably time to move on to the most aggressive options.

Which leads to the mixed feelings. Surely I'm not the only one feeling discouraged, afraid, and overwhelmed sometimes? When those feelings are at their worst, I want to curl up under the covers and avoid dealing with anything else that's painful (enough already!) ... even if there may be rewards beyond the pain.

So last weekend, in my best kind-but-firm "mom voice," I had a little talk with myself about the avoidance habit. It was an infertility intervention—a name I borrowed from this post at The 2 Week Wait, which says:

I know firsthand that it's easier to hope that things will work out somehow. That maybe next cycle, somehow, I'll get pregnant if I pray really hard or maybe I'll get pregnant while I'm in Disney World or maybe I don't have a problem and I just need to eat more chocolate.

No one wants to have an IVF. No one wants daily blood work or to be regularly intimately involved in vaginal sonograms. It sucks, it's not fun and it's not the way you expected it to be. The fact is though that if you're not getting pregnant, this is my personal urge to you to fight. Fight hard. See another doctor, get another opinion, be your own advocate and don't waste time avoiding what may be the very thing that can help.

That last sentence was just what I needed to hear. My own "intervention" involved several days of medical research and financial planning. (I've done all that stuff before, of course, but it's been a while.) It helped me separate feelings from facts. (Both are valid, but it's important to understand which is which.) It was unpleasant. It was also necessary. I now have a much better list of things to consider and to ask my REs.

So that's what's new. When I'm not obsessing about TTC options, I'm probably thinking about fostering options or just trying to maintain some sense of humor and perspective. Feel free to look around and comment on anything new or old. I'll pay you a visit in return. Sharing this journey with and learning from others has been one of the main forces helping me stay sane.

Happy ICLW!

Intervention

The time has come: I'm staging an infertility intervention on myself.

No more blogging, reading, or other great but time-consuming activities for me until there's a plan in place for my next cycle, which may start as soon as May 6. That may sound like plenty of time, but it isn't at all. There's a lot to consider.

And, frankly, I'd rather not. I'd just SO MUCH rather do almost anything else ... fool around online, spend an afternoon at the dentist, alphabetize my grocery-store coupons. Or take a nap. Oh yes, naps are a favorite escape when I'm feeling overwhelmed.

The thing is, I know that this avoidance doesn't mean that it's time to stop trying. It's not a subconscious way of telling myself that I'm done; it's a subconscious way of stomping my feet in protest that "This sucks!" Of course, this mature response does nothing but contribute to the suckiness.

Yes, I'm weary of starting over again so soon after the miscarriage, and afraid that some things that matter most to me may stay forever out of reach. There's a real temptation to numb out, to insist that I'll think about the next steps tomorrow ... or maybe, what the heck, the day after that.

So let's be honest here. I'm doing nothing but hurting my own odds by pretending that I can have BOTH things I most want right now: a nice, dreamy reprieve from pain today, AND a child in my future.

What could I be doing instead of avoiding reality? Some highlights of my to-do list:

• Decide on another natural-cycle IVF vs. stimulated IVF.
  • If natural-cycle, order a few drugs, like the trigger shot and antibiotics.
  • If stimulated, decide which RE (two options, although maybe I should get one more opinion...) and protocol to use. Decide whether to pay (*gasp*) for two discounted cycles at once. Order a boatload of drugs. Check limits on all credit cards. 
• Decide whether to genetically screen the embryo(s).
• Order my "other half" from the sperm bank.
• Research the Affordable Healthcare Act, to see if anything in there may help.
• Research more natural ways to improve fertility, to see what special foods or vitamins may boost my odds by 0.00001%.

There's so much more I could and did start to say about that first bullet. Then I realized that it would more than double the size of this whole post. There are so many issues hidden in there, and they overlap and intersect in ways that make my head hurt. 

So, for now, I'll just leave you with the simplified, diagram form:

One Month Out

It's been a month since that awful, silent ultrasound.

No, I'm not "over it" yet. In fact, you don't want to know how many times I snooze the alarm before dragging myself out of bed each day.

AND—I'm learning to say "and" instead of "but," which brushes off the truth of everything that came before—tonight I took a shower (the one I had no time for in the morning) and made a big glass of green juice. It has kale, broccoli, cucumber, celery, and apple in it, and it really is THAT green. It actually tastes pretty good (light and refreshing) for something that looks like it came out of a swamp. I made juice all the time when I was TTC and pregnant. Since then, I haven't done that or really any other healthy stuff.

The thing is, making these commitments to health again feels like I'm also committing to TTC again … which, of course, is true. The clock is still ticking and there's absolutely no time to waste. The idea of trying again, so soon, is what really feels overwhelming right now.

AND … all the same … here are the commitments I've made tonight:

• Cut out the physically unhealthy habits. That means all junk food of any kind, including the tasteless chips with only five ingredients.
• Add back as many healthy habits as I can without feeling too resentful. I'll get back on the prenatal vitamins, and I'm still looking forward to that kickboxing class. But no, the hippie deodorant can wait until CD1.
• Put together a list of follow-up questions about maternal testing for my OB. Our appointment today got rescheduled due to the snowstorm of the year half an inch of slush outside.
• Put together a list of TTC options and questions for my RE. 
• Take a close look at my finances, which will determine which of the TTC options are even possible now.

Oh, that last one is a killer. I've been avoiding it because (especially on top of the pregnancy loss) it's so depressing and scary. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go throw up that glass of juice now…

The Bitter End

After more than two weeks, the bleeding is finally over and this is it: the bitter end of pregnancy. I miss the bleeding. I'd actually rather have that sad reminder than nothing at all. The only good news is that it looks like I've managed to save $1,000+ by getting by without the D&C.

My doctor didn't recommend the "natural" route, and now, having taken it, neither would I. But my high-deductible health plan (no IF coverage) had a lot of deductible left, and I'd much rather spend that money on another IVF, because I must be a total masochist the first one did work, almost. I'm not ready to think about it yet beyond that point.

Also … it took a long time to get pregnant. My attitude was that if it took a little extra time to get un-pregnant, well, OK. Maybe a part of me needed to see the evidence before really believing it. I did fear the physical pain, which was intense, but the emotional pain and emptiness now are worse.

Now that the risk of hemorrhage is over, I don't have to be so careful physically. I can exercise. I may need to. At the start of the last cycle back in November, I noticed a new gym in my neighborhood that offers "fitness, fighting, and self defense." On a whim, I decided that if this cycle didn't work, I would sign up there and take out my anger on their punching bags instead of on my furniture, friends, and so on.

While that all sounds very badass, I remembered that I already have a gym membership I'm not using, because I'm researching protocols and driving four hours round-trip for treatments instead. So I might as well just go take one of the classes at the place I already know. Something different, though—no yoga (prenatal or otherwise) this time, but something with "Combat," "Attack," or "Xtreme" in its name.

Because, as disappointed and depressed as I am, I'm angry too. AM I ANGRY.