Dream a Little Dream...

As many of you know (because I’ve been complaining about it in all of my posts), I’ve had a cold for a long time.  I finally went to the doctor yesterday and was given an antibiotic and a cough syrup with codeine.  Normally, codeine doesn’t bother me but last night the medicine made my dreams really weird.  And they all involved the same theme – Babies/Pregnancy.  What a surprise!

In one dream, I was living with a lovely couple, admiring and playing with their baby (who was a few months old).  I desperately loved the baby, even though she wasn’t mine and I wasn’t related to her.  Then, for no particular reason, I gave her a piece of popcorn to eat.  Nothing bad happened, but her father yelled at me, saying “What were you thinking?  Don’t you know babies can choke on popcorn?”  Even after he calmed down, I felt so terrible about putting the baby in jeopardy.  I do know better, and I don’t know why I would do something so dangerous.  I kept saying I was sorry, secretly thinking “how stupid can you be?”

Clearly, this dream was about me struggling with the idea that I am not fit to be a mother, and that is why I am not able to get pregnant.  I know that is not the way it works, as is evidenced by all of the people who aren’t fit to be mothers who do get pregnant.  But no matter how many times I tell myself that I will be a good mother, and my infertility is not punishment for some sin I haven’t yet committed, my subconscious refuses to give this idea up. 

In another dream, I was getting my first ultrasound and I went home to tell my husband that I was pregnant (not sure why he didn’t know already, but whatever…it was a dream).  He said “Great.”  Then, he paced the floor and got sweaty.  He kept trying to pick a fight with me and eventually said “I can’t do this.  I thought it was what I wanted, but it isn’t.  I think you should terminate the pregnancy.”  My heart broke as I walked out the door, suitcase in hand, hoping he would change his mind when he calmed down.

That dream was also pretty easy to analyze, but no so easy to go through.  My husband and I have been getting into lots of little quarrels lately.  I secretly am certain that it is because we are close to heading into a new ART cycle.  My husband pushes me away emotionally whenever we start a cycle.  He is more moody than I am when I’m on the meds, but he is oblivious to the fact that he is behaving so badly, much less conscious of why he is behaving that way.  And although I know the constant bickering is about him steeling himself against the pain of another failure, and not about me…it hurts.  And it also makes me scared.  If his fear of what is to come makes him abandon me emotionally when we are just trying to get pregnant, what is going to happen when I actually get pregnant?  Is he going to freak out? 

There’s another way to analyze that dream, too.  Some psychologists theorize that we are actually every person in each of our dreams – every character is just a reflection of a piece of ourselves.  If that is the case, then this dream could also be about me being afraid that when I finally get pregnant and have a child, I am going to find that it isn’t everything I had hoped for.  I don’t ever say that out loud…as if that doubt’s very existence will keep me from getting pregnant.  But I do worry about changing my mind about what I want in life.  Lots of mothers tell me that they had no idea how hard motherhood would be and that as much as they love their children, they might do it differently if they had to do it over.  What if I become that person?  What if I have a baby only to wish that I didn’t have a baby?  Am I capable of that?  And knowing what women go through, what I’ve gone through, to have a baby…could I survive the guilt I would have if I felt that way?

I wish I could be a real fairy tale princess sometimes and just sleep in a deep sleep, only to wake up and find that all of my good dreams had come true and my bad dreams had been dealt with by someone else.  Real fairy tale princesses don’t get terrorized by their own psyche.  Real fairy tale princesses don’t wake up feeling guilty and afraid.  And real fairy tale princess don't have to fess-up, anonymously to friends they've never met, to having horrible doubts and fears.

Once Upon a Time (Part 2) - Before and After Infertility

Once upon a time...I was not "infertile."  Maybe I couldn't produce viable eggs and wasn't able to get pregnant, but I didn't know it.  I didn't know anything about infertility, and I was happy.  I just went about my life, hanging out with friends, going out on dates and worrying about how not to get pregnant.  In fact, if I had saved (and invested wisely) all of the money I spent on birth control over the years, I probably would have had enough money in the bank to send a child to college.  But I digress.

Around age 25, something changed for me.  I met my husband and I noticed that I was smiling at babies in grocery stores and was looking at baby clothes when I went shopping.  I still worked out, hung out with friends and watched movies.  But I occasionally found my mind wandering to how it would be to hold my child in my arms.  And it made me smile.  I realized that I wanted to be a mother.

My wedding day was a wonderful day and it marked a new beginning for me.  It was the beginning of my journey to becoming a mother.  My husband and I had a plan and, after being taken off a suppression medication my RE had previously had me on for endometriosis, we just happily waited for my cycle to start again.  When it didn't, we didn't panic.  We figured that having a baby was just going to take a little longer and be a little less traditional than we had hoped.  But as each failed IUI and IVF cycle piled up, our spirits sank.  I became consumed with all things "fertility."  It was no longer about having a baby, it was now about making a baby.  And let me tell you...making a baby is hard work.

For years, the first thing I did each morning was take my basal temperature.  That meant the first thought I had to have every morning was about fertility.  Then, I would get up and pee on an ovulation predictor stick.  Then I would drink my whey-yogurt-flaxseed-blueberry fertility smoothie for breakfast and, more often than not, head to my fertility clinic for blood work and an ultrasound.  I would spend every free second that I had at work on the internet, researching every article on IUI's, IVF's, diminished ovarian reserve, premature ovarian failure, the side effects of the drugs I was taking, the diets that are supposed to enhance fertility, yoga poses for fertility, self-help books on fertility, and every other fertility-related topic you can imagine.  It's exhausting just thinking about that time in my life. 

Then, during treatment cycles, there was the obsessing.  I would obsess about how many follicles I had and how long it was taking them to grow.  I would obsess about the level of my hormones, what the levels meant for my chances of conception and what I could do to change any of it.  Then, I would obsess about how many eggs we got at retrieval, how many fertilized, how many made it to Day 3 and...if we were lucky enough to make it to transfer...I would get to obsess about how poor the quality of my embryos were and what I could do to make them "stick."  I was so busy obsessing, at some point, I stopped talking to my friends.  I stopped talking to my husband (at least about anything other than infertility).  I stopped looking in the mirror or doing my make up.  I stopped exercising and going to movies.  I put on sixty pounds.  I stopped being me and I realized that, while I was still alive, I had stopped living.

That realization occurred only a few months ago.  I'm still mending friendships that I abandoned and I'm still learning how to have fun with my husband again.  We've both changed because of everything that's happened, and because we changed individually, we are needing to relearn how to truly enjoy being together as a couple.  We recently went on a vacation and I managed to go eight days without uttering one word about fertility issues.  At some point each day, I still would think about getting pregnant or about our egg donor choices...but I was able to let those thoughts go and just enjoy the sunshine.  I don't know if I will ever be able to go back to who I was or if I will ever be able to return to the social life I used to enjoy (especially now that all of my friends are pregnant or have small children).  I'm learning to live among "the fertile" and am slowly figuring out how to define myself outside of the label of "infertile."

Once upon a time, I was someone else.  I'm not that person anymore and, sometimes, I mourn the loss of that happy version of myself that was so full of hope and so unaware that there is a painful condition called infertility.  But sometimes, I look in the mirror and I'm able to see not what I've lost, but what I've gained.  I've gained strength, empathy, knowledge, and perspective.  I've learned to appreciate my friends, my husband, my dogs and all of the blessings that I do still have in my life.  And sometimes I'm even able to dream about what it will be like when I am in the future, holding my child, thinking about how difficult these last couple of years have been, and viewing this time as just a "Once Upon a Time."