The Pouty Princess

What happened to me?  I am on this emotional rollercoaster and I haven’t even started treatments.  Looking back through my last few posts, I started out in a pretty rough place, but as the posts went on, I saw myself getting happier and more rational.   Then, last time I wrote I was talking about battling the “glass half empty” feeling.  Now, today, the darkness is rolling in.  I’m watching myself and I want to change what I see happening, but I feel powerless to do so.

This morning, my husband came into my bedroom (we sleep in separate rooms whenever one of us is sick, so as not to contaminate the other person) and woke me up in, what I considered to be, an obnoxious way – turning on the light and yelling “It’s wakey wakey time!”  I yelled back, “No…if it was wakey time, I would be AWAKE!  I’m not two years old…I’m old enough to decide when I need to wake up.”  That was a great start to what was destined to become a “great” day. 

Next, I slipped on ice outside of my house, getting into the car to go to work.  So I spent a half and hour in the freezing cold, with my cold, salting our driveway.  When I emailed my husband from work to let him know I’d salted, there was no appreciation.  Instead, he informed me that he already salted this morning.  I wanted to say “Clearly not well enough” but at least had enough self-control to avoid that fight. 

I’m still sick and am coughing so hard that I actually have a headache from coughing.  I can’t focus.  All I can think about is “why hasn’t the donor started her period yet?”  It’s been 23 days since the donor coordinator (D.C.) told me that she would call when my donor started her AF.  So…being the obsessive person that I am, I started thinking that at this point, assuming a 28 day cycle, my donor would have had to be on day 5 of her period when the D.C. told me we were waiting for the donor to start her period.  So after that thought, I got angry…because the donor coordinator never mentioned that my donor was in her cycle at that time and it would be another month before we would get started on anything.  Then, I thought, “What if this wasn’t the D.C.’s omission, what if there is something wrong with my donor and she has an irregular cycle?”  I can hear how ridiculous this sounds as I type it, but that’s where my mind went.  I am an extremely logical person, but logic went out the window, just then.  At that point, obsession had kicked in and I couldn’t do any work.  I just sat there and stewed.

So, like a person fresh out of a break-up, who makes that drunken 3 a.m. phone call to “the ex” that is regretted for years to come, I emailed the D.C.  I didn’t even attempt to conceal my insanity.  I came up with a pretense for emailing her and then launched into a barrage of questions…Was everything okay for the cycle to move forward?  Were we still waiting for the donor to call with her Day 1?  Was everything okay with her cycle, because it was seeming a little long and I would be concerned if she is having an off cycle?  Was the primary recipient couple (i.e. – the other couple we are sharing the eggs with this cycle) ready to go?  You (the D.C.) had said we would be starting in February, but it seems like we won’t be since we have to wait three weeks after the donor has her first AF day before we take the meds.  Oh…and “thanks for your patience.”

In her typical fashion, my D.C. was less than warm and fuzzy in her response.  She and I have very different personality types, and it is difficult for me to not take her brief and sometimes unresponsive replies to my questions as her being snippy with me.  She always puts “Have a great day!” at the end of her messages…but I feel like she is just plastering a bandaid on a black eye that she just gave me.  My husband reads the D.C.’s messages and sees nothing wrong with them…so I guess this is just a problem with my perspective.  But, in my defense, she has a reputation for being very matter of fact and not particularly sympathetic.  Anyways, I digress.  She responded to my email, saying “The donor will call in with the first day of her period and I will let you know when that happens.  The primary recipient couple is doing their mock cycle right now.  Have a nice day!”  Ugh!  First, I got pissed because my questions weren’t really answered.  Then I got pissed that the other couple is doing their mock cycle now, when I had been told at the end of January that they were finishing up their mock cycle.  So…either that couple is having issues that could hold things up or someone lied to me. 

What the hell is wrong with me?  I’m even cursing like a sailor in this post.  I feel the darkness creeping in.  I’m writing my blog post at work (something I’ve never done).  I really want to go to bed right now and sleep the rest of the day away (but I can’t because this stupid cold has already caused me to use too much of my sick leave).  I don’t want to speak to my husband because I’m mad at him, even though I know there is no reason to be angry.  I feel like a puppy that got spanked…sad and fearful…waiting for the next assault.  I get it that this is all crazy.  But why am I here right now, in this dark place, when I was doing so good just a few days ago?  Princesses aren’t supposed to be moody and crazy (see, I managed to tie it in with the theme, even if it’s a crappy tie-in).  As I type this, with tears falling down my cheeks, I keep thinking “I hate infertility.  I hate it.”  That says it all, really. 

Into the Mystic

In spite of my recent positive shift in attitude, I have been feeling really disconnected from this upcoming cycle.  Usually, I would be getting excited, even hopeful, at this point in the process.  Being so close to getting the ball rolling is usually the point when I begin to check on what my due date would be, look through baby name books and get serious with my healthy eating.  This time is different.  Maybe it is because of my nagging reservations about using a donor.  Maybe it is because after so many heartbreaks, I’m just having difficulty mustering up excitement.  I’m not sure why I feel this way, but I am sure that I need this outlook to change.  I need to be at least cautiously optimistic before I start the fertility meds, or I will be a wreck going into the “meat and potatoes” part of the cycle.

In fairy tales, when a princess is feeling low, she often gets a little help from a magical character, object or creature.  Cinderella had her fairy godmother to help her.  Sleeping Beauty had the final fairy’s wish to give her a possible out from the bad fairy’s curse.  So what mystical solution do I need to get things back on track?

In the past, I have pursued acupuncture, meditation, hypnosis, vision boards, attempting to harness the power of the “law of attraction,” praying and even consulting a psychic (when you are desperate, you can throw skepticism out the window).  I’m not saying that all of these alternative therapies/practices are “mystical,” but, with the possible exception of prayer, they are generally outside of the norm in our culture.  My fertility clinic encourages the combination of Eastern and Western approaches to treating infertility, so they sort of guided me into the acupuncture and meditation.  In fact, I spent well over two thousand dollars on acupuncture during my second and third years of infertility treatments.  I've taken a hiatus from my treatments since November, when I just couldn't stand to even think about trying to get pregnant.  Although my migraines were better and my immune system was stronger when I was getting acupuncture, I didn’t get pregnant...and really, that was all I cared about.  Some of the other “mystical” remedies made me feel good emotionally during ART cycles, but they also didn’t get me to my goal of pregnancy.

I am pretty open to any suggestions about bettering myself and increasing my fertility.  But there are some things that have been recommended to me that are so outside of my scope of reality, I just can't stomach them.  For example, one time a person was brought into the support group I used to attend, at the clinic I go to for ART, so that she could share her "gifts" with us.  She owns a crystal shop and does life coaching and “spiritual healing.”  She spent the whole time (that would normally be allotted to our venting and comforting one another) talking about how we needed to “raise our vibrations.”  She claimed that by use of crystals, meditations, etc, we could raise our vibrations to the level that spirit babies (disembodied baby souls waiting to slip into a mother’s womb) would respond to.  Apparently you have to think only happy thoughts during a journey with infertility, because sadness, anger and depression will scare the spirit babies away.  When asked about how you set aside open wounds so that you can "raise your vibration," her answer was less than satisfactory.  I should note that she also started off the night saying that she had dealt with infertility and had beat it…only to later explain that she “beat it” by realizing that her business was her baby.  Yeah.  Not really the same thing in my opinion.  She also told the husbands who were attending the meeting that they were responsible for keeping their mates' vibrations high by being good vibrators themselves.  The discussion about the men being “good vibrators” was the highlight of the evening.  It almost became a game to see how many times we could get her to say "good vibrators."  Some mystical remedies are easy to reject...being good for little more than a laugh. 

But now I wonder, what is left?  Do I turn back to the “old faithfuls” for comfort?  Do I venture off into some new, uncharted alternatives?  Friends have recommended a female shaman in our area.  I’ve previously passed on Tibetan monk cleansing rituals that are supposed to be healing, but maybe I should be pursuing some outside intervention.  I haven’t tried cranial massage therapy or reiki yet.  What do I do?  Which one is going to be the magical fix to the funk I am in?  Which one will help me reach my goal of pregnancy?

I have been looking into weekend retreats lately.  There are a couple of ashrams, a monestary and a couple of yoga retreat centers close to where I live.  I’ve gone on silent meditation weekend retreats in the past and have found them to be very liberating.  When you are forced to be silent, you work through all of those dialogues with yourself that you generally push away because you are too busy to deal with them.  Once those are out of the way, you begin to become quiet – mentally, physically and emotionally.  There is a non-denominational spiritualism that automatically takes over…and it feels really good. (Plus I lose a bunch of weight by eating…or should I say by "not eating"…the vegan food they serve).  But I am never able to keep up on “my practice” once I return to everyday life, and slowly the good feeling and self-certainty dwindles away.  So far, I haven’t made any commitment to going on such a retreat.  I know that I can go any time, but I also know that we have a huge payment for our donor cycle due soon, and it is difficult to justify spending money on extras right now.

I wish I knew where my mystical fix could be found.  If I knew for sure that any of the aforementioned possibilities would help, I would find the money to pursue them.  I’ve had a miserable cold for two weeks now, so I will likely start acupuncture again so that I can be reasonably confident that I will be healthy going into the IVF process.  But I’m not so sure that will turn my pumpkin into a carriage, or my uterus into a baby shack.  I don’t know if anything can break the curse of seeing the glass as half full, or break the curse of infertility, but I feel like I have to do something.  I really need some hope of success right now.  What is the magical thing that is going to help this princess get out of her predicament?  I can't yet answer that question yet, but at least I can tell you that it won't be a "good vibrator."  Even my fairy tale isn't that weird. 

Let the Season of Royal Balls Begin...

I have three friends who are due to give birth in April, May, and June, respectively.  My sister-in-law's due date is July 4^th.  That means the season of baby showers is upon me.  I’ve known it was coming and have, at times, stressed about where I would be at in my journey when the time came.  I LOVE parties…any excuse for one will do.  But, when you are dealing with infertility, you stop looking forward to baby showers. 

Most of the aforementioned pregnant friends are fertility friends.  We’ve discussed baby shower etiquette when they were on the other side of the infertility aisle (pre-preggers).  Still, I’ve been worrying that the excitement of pregnancy would cause my friends to forget how they felt in the situation that I now find myself in.  I am pleased to announce that my friends have come through for me (of course) and my fears, thus far, have gone unrealized.   Two of the three friends have called to ask if I would like to receive an invitation to their showers.  Both of those friends let me know that they would love to have me at the showers but would totally understand if I would prefer not to come, or even to forego getting an invitation in the mail.  In my personal opinion, this is really the best way for a pregnant woman to approach this issue when she knows that a friend is struggling with infertility.  The phone call says “I care about you and know what you are feeling, so I would love to have you there but if you need to sit this one out, I love you anyways.”  It also removes the element of surprise when you don’t know that a baby shower is coming.  There is nothing worse than being in the depths of despair over a failed ART or natural cycle, and getting a cutesy baby shower invitation in the mail…complete with pictures of booties and rattles. 

So far, I’ve been able to honestly tell my friends that I would like to receive an invitation.  I always add the caveat that I am not sure if I’ll be able to attend the showers, but that I hope I will.  And that is the truth, not the “grin and bear it” responses that those of us struggling with infertility sometimes have to give, so as not to create a socially awkward situation.  I’m so happy for my fertility friends who have made it through their journey, that I want to celebrate with them and help them however I can.  But I have to place emotional self-preservation above all else these days.  I’ve heard friends talk about feeling like they had to attend a shower, being filled with dread for days or even weeks before hand, and breaking down at the actual event.  I don’t want that to happen to me.  So, for me, I’m making sure that I know I have the freedom to excuse myself before or during the shower, without any hurt feelings.  If I have that freedom, I know I'll be fine. 

On Saturday, I received the first of the actual invitations.  I was a little scared opening it…as I knew what it was.  The invitation to my friend's baby shower was adorable and clever.  There was also a bookmark, requesting that guests bring a children's book to the shower, to start off the baby’s library.  What an awesome idea!  As I breathed a sigh of relief at my positive reaction to the invitation, it occurred to me that I am going to have the best baby shower ever!  If I can, I am going to attend each and every baby shower that presents itself, with the intention of stealing (or...shall we call it "procuring") all of the clever ideas from each friend’s showers and invitations, so that my baby shower will have all of the clever trappings that I would never have thought about (even a Hostess With the Mostest can't think of everything).  I know how that sounds…someone else's baby shower is not supposed to be about me.  I should be going in solely as a guest thinking about the baby that my friend is being blessed with.  But I’m a big believer that having small distractions available can make the difference between being overwhelmed by something, or being able to ignore the bad and focus on the good.  So…if all goes as planned, I’m going to be a baby shower idea thief, spending each shower celebrating my friends’ good fortunes, but also looking forward to my own.  I’m going to attend each shower, knowing that my baby is going to have the most awesome Royal Gala ever held...or at least I'm going to try.  So I say, bring on the baby showers.  I've got this!   

Why my infertility is a fairy tale (and other awesome things to ponder)...

First, as a disclaimer, I will admit that this post is a little long.  But, in my defense, tomorrow is my birthday and I have a busy weekend, so I likely won’t get to have a chance to right for a couple of days.  I tell you this so that if you get overwhelmed looking at my small novel of a post, you will know you can break it up into small chunks rather than trying to digest it all at once.  I probably should have posted it in small chunks but…I prefer to be “in the moment” when I write. 

So…I would like to start by apologizing for making an overgeneralization in last night’s post.  I talked about fertility friends - the strange way that our relationships pick-up in the middle of where a “normal” friendship would start, and the intense but shallow nature of those friendships.  I stated that fertility friends talk about infertility, but not their “other lives” until they get pregnant.  I said that, generally, it is only after her pregnancy that you get to know the “real person” who is your friend.  But that wasn’t entirely true.  Tonight I went out to dinner with two of my best friends….fertility friends…who both happen to be pregnant.  We talked about infertility, about their pregnancies, and about our husbands and crazy families.  I may not have “awoken” from the infertility nightmare like they have, but they haven’t cut and run yet, and our conversations tonight were as robust and fulfilling as any we’ve had in the past.  To the extent that anything has changed, it has almost certainly been my perception.  It’s as if I have felt the need to protect myself against being hurt or rejected, and so I didn’t associate with the “Land of the Living” (a.k.a. those Preggers).  I need to remember that, although I’m still stuck in a dream, my friends (fertility friends or otherwise) can still be a part of that dream.  This is my fairy tale and I get to choose who stays in the story and who only has a bit part.  And my true friends, no matter how we met and no matter what we choose to talk about, will be in my story as long as they want to be.  There just aren’t that many good characters around these days.  I need to do everything in my power to keep the ones I’ve found.

Okay.  On to the “meatier” part of my self-analysis.  Earlier today I was thinking about why I have always viewed my experience with infertility as a story or a fairy tale.  At first I thought that it was some strange form of dissociation, where it is easier for me to live through this experience if I am always thinking about it as something that isn’t quite real.  Then I was thinking that it could be that the characters involved fit neatly into the same types of categories you find in fairy tales.  But, ultimately, I have decided that it goes deeper than both of those explanations. 

Noted scholar on fairy tales and folk lore (yep…you name a subject, there’s an expert on it), Jack Zipes, has proffered that the function of fairy tales is to “awaken our regard for the miraculous condition of life & to evoke profound feelings of awe and respect for life as a miraculous process, which can be altered and changed….”

Okay…so if I break that down, a fairy tale “awakens our regard for the miraculous condition of life.”  Check!  Infertility has definitely made me aware of, and appreciative of, how miraculous life is.  Never before did I realize how amazing it is that humans ever conceive.  Everything has to go right…functioning ovary, appropriate hormone levels, good sperm count and motility, sex within a window of a few days each month, good cervical mucous, the sperm and egg meeting up for fertilization, the egg not breaking down upon fertilization, the embryo dividing for as long as is needed, the embryo implanting early enough to have time to burrow before the uterine lining sheds, and the mother’s body accepting the embryo rather than seeing it as a foreign substance and rejecting it.  ALL of this, and more, has to happen in order for a pregnancy to occur.  Once you start learning the odds of success for each separate part of this process, you realize that life is truly a miracle.  You probably never learn those odds if you don’t go through infertility, although it might make an interesting project for a course in statistics if there are any statistics professors reading this.

Next, a fairy tale is supposed “to evoke profound feelings of awe and respect for life as a miraculous process, which can be changed and altered….”  As I explained above, I have developed a much greater respect and feeling of awe for the creation of life.  But what about seeing my life, and all life, as something to be respected and revered?  I’ve talked about how much infertility has eroded my self-esteem and caused me to doubt everything I’ve believed in, including my own abilities.  Is it possible to feel that way and to respect your own life?  The simple and yet not so simple answer is “Yes.”  I’ve learned to be grateful for what I’ve been given in life and I’ve decided to work at making the most out of the life I have been given.  So, in that sense, I am much more respectful of my own life because of infertility. 

Because of infertility, I’ve put a microscope on my marriage and am working in therapy on cracks in the marriage that might have grown into dividers if I hadn’t caught them.  Because of infertility, I switched jobs.  After hearing a million times that the stress and long hours involved in my job was not helping our chances of conception, I realized that this was because my 60-70 hour a week, high stress work environment was unhealthy. So, I got my priorities in order and took a 9-5 low stress job, with a slight pay cut but a great work/life ratio.  I took the time to evaluate the friends I already had, making cuts as needed if a relationship was truly toxic, and spent more time cultivating new friendships with people who care about me.  I feel a respect for my own life that I just didn’t have before, and I am realizing that I can change those aspects of my life which aren’t to my liking.

This is not to say that I can change the fact that I am having a tough time having a baby.  In fact, infertility was the very first thing in my life that slapped me in the face and said “You can’t control me!”  And I can’t.  I have no control over whether I’m going to get pregnant next cycle.  But, I can alter and change my perspective to make up for that lack of power.  I can do yoga and write introspective blog posts that require serious self-examination.  I can help to emotionally prepare myself, just in case the next cycle doesn’t work.  I can constantly try to better myself so that I will be the most amazing mother I can be when the fates decide that it’s time to bless me with a baby.  Infertility has shown me that it is possible to alter and change my life, to overcome obstacles, and to keep on trucking…all the while appreciating how precious every life, including my own, is.

In sum, if Zipes is correct about the purpose of a fairy tale (and really, who’s to question him…he is the expert), it is no wonder that I view my journey through infertility as a fairy tale.  It is difficult to be “thankful” for infertility or to see it as a “gift” (a word frequently used by those who will point out what a character-building experience it is to repeatedly put your body through hell, only to get a negative pee stick result).  But, infertility does change your perspective and does cause you to view life in a new (and hopefully) more respectful way.  And maybe that's why this story is worth reading...and living. 

Waking from the dream...

Last night, I was watching the movie, Inception, with my husband (for the third time) and a line I hadn’t paid much attention to before struck me as important, somehow.  In the movie, a character says “Well dreams, they feel real while we’re in them right?  It’s only when we wake up that we realize how things are actually strange.  Let me ask you a question, you never really remember the beginning of a dream, do you?  You always wind up right in the middle of what’s going on.”

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting that I have lost touch with reality to the point that I believe that I am actually in a dream right now.  But there is a similarity between the phenomenon being discussed by that character and some of my experiences with infertility.  And it’s the same phenomenon you see in fairy tales.  The characters’ lives, to the extent that they fall outside of the actual tale, are deemed irrelevant and are never addressed.  We don’t know what formed their motivations or how they ended up in their station in life.  We only know the role they play in that particular tale.  They wind up right in the middle of what’s going on, without any explanation of how it all began.  And after “happily ever after,” they fall off the grid.  Did Cinderella have acne as a child?  Did she ever have kids?  Did she get divorced?  Who knows because everything before “once upon a time” never happened and “happily ever after” is like waking up from a dream – Poof, it’s all gone from that point on…completely disconnected from the fairy tale.

So how does this apply to infertility?  Well, I have a lot of fertility friends and I feel so blessed to have them.  But I am realizing that we seem to be starting a friendship right in the middle of a shared journey and the focus is always on what is going on in our infertility struggles right then.  I don’t know much about most of their backgrounds or what their goals are after achieving motherhood.  I’m a Chatty Cathy (I’m sure you’re shocked given the brevity of my posts) and I think that most of them know very little about my life before infertility.  It’s as if we are stuck in a dream about infertility, together, and we will only realize how strange our relationships are after we get onto the other side of infertility.  I’ve noticed lately that when anyone asks me “How are you doing?”  I say “You mean like infertility-wise?”  It’s as if I can barely remember who I am outside of this journey.  And who meets someone a half hour before talking about where the progesterone suppositories go and the various ways to get them there.  At the time the conversation is going on, it seems totally normal.  It’s only after you step back that you realize how strange the situation is…like all filters regarding bodily functions and personal secrets get switched off, but all filters regarding everything mundane and normal get switched on.

And, like the line in the movie, it seems like people who get pregnant after dealing with infertility “wake up.”  The friends that I know the most about are the ones who have gotten pregnant.  After they get pregnant, I start hearing about their marriages and childhoods and careers.  Sometimes, I’m really surprised because who my friends really are barely resembles who I perceived them to be while we were both in “the dream.”  Once they are beyond the struggles of infertility, it seems strange to them to talk only about infertility related discussions, while I sometimes struggle with getting to a place where I am comfortable talking with them about anything else.  They are trying to extend their character beyond the pages of the fairy tale…as if there is actually a life after “happily ever after.” 

And then there’s the other end of the spectrum. Sometimes my fertility friends drop off the face of the earth once they are pregnant.  It is almost as if they view what they went through as a surreal nightmare that they can now wake up from and forget about because they have a baby in their arms.  I don’t blame them or judge them for that.  I imagine it might be hard to be reminded of the struggle of infertility when you have an opportunity to just embrace the joy of fertility.  But I wonder if the strangeness of our relationships assists them in cutting all ties.  I wonder if the fact that there is no beginning “getting to know you” stage to fertility friendships makes them easier to break off.

I have so many questions…and no real answers right now.  All I know is that I want “happily ever after,” but I don’t want to lose everything I’ve gained since “Once upon a time.”  I want to take the lessons and friends with me, and I don’t want to become irrelevant once the journey through infertility ends.  I don’t want to start a new story.  I want to build on the one I already have.

Thank you, thank you and thank you again!!!

 

I’m not sure how to relate this post to fairy tales, other than to say that being nominated for the Versatile Blogger and I Love This Blog awards are making me feel like royalty.  I feel like I should be wearing a tiara and doing the pageant wave.  Okay…that’s a little overboard.  But I really am so thankful that someone has found something in my words that has touched them.  I started this blog as a means of working out my own conflicted thoughts and feelings about infertility and found that it is an awesome place to give and get support.  You gals rock, especially Endo_Life and One Cycle At a Time for the nominations.   Because I got two awards at the same time, and they have the same rules, I’m combining them.  I hope that is okay.  (It’s not okay with me when my husband combines Valentine’s Day and my birthday- February 12 – but that’s different, right?)

The Rules of accepting the awards are:

1.) Thank and Link back to the blogs that gave you your awards

2.) Share seven things about yourself.

3.)  Award 15 recently discovered great bloggers.

4.) Contact the bloggers to let them know you've given them an award.

First:  Thank you so much to Endo_Life at http://myendometriosisandinfertilityjourney.blogspot.com/  for the Versatile Blogger Award and to Once Cycle At a Time over at http://onecycleatatime.blogspot.com/ for the I Love This Blog Award.  I’ve been following both of these posts and I’ve got to tell you, these two sweet women are emotionally strong, awesome writers and great fertility friends to have.  (And I’m not saying that just because they nominated me for awards…I truly love their blogs).  Please check them out.  You won’t be disappointed.

Second:  So as not to cheat, I’ll share 14 things about myself, seven for each award.

1. I am the oldest child of three in my family.

2. I completed my four year forensic psychology degree in three years (always in a hurry)

3. In law school, at 22, I took custody of my teenage half-sister to get her out of a bad situation.  Being a parent to her was the best and hardest thing I ever did.

4. I am the aunt to a niece (4) and nephew (1 ½), via my now 22 years old half-sister, and am about to become an aunt via my sister-in-law around July 4th.

5. I have a 16 year old half-brother who was born with multiple birth defects, including fluid on the brain, mental retardation, facial clefting and autism.  I love him so much but it hurts me to see him deal with his limitations.

6. I am ashamed to say that my experience with my brother makes me terrified of how I would handle having a child with special needs.  Seeing first hand the work and resources required in caring for him makes me scared that I wouldn’t be strong enough if put in that situation.  My husband also feels that way, making me worry about what happens if we finally get pregnant only to find out that our child has special needs.  I feel so guilty sharing this.

7. I am in a constant battle with my husband over whether, if we ever have a son, he can be named “Hamish.”  My husband is Scottish and loves this “good Scottish” name for some reason…not happening (my apologies to anyone reading this blog who is named or related to someone named Hamish…I just can’t stomach the name).  I’m praying for a girl.

8. I was a beauty queen when I was in high school and dabbled in modeling.  I am not proud to say that I have had Vaseline on my teeth on more than one occasion, have worn pantyhose with a swimsuit and heels, and have said that I am striving for world peace.  On the upside, I have great pictures of myself in pink dressed with puffy sleeves and way too many bows.  My husband gets a good laugh from them.

9. I LOVE to watch football (American football) but I always feel badly for the losing team.

10. I try not to live my life in regret, but I can think of lots of things that I said or did in high school that I wish I could go back and redo knowing what I know now.

11. I am friends with most of my ex-boyfriends on Facebook and I torture myself periodically by looking at the pictures of them with their beautiful wives and children.  I don’t know why I do that but I do.

12. When I was in law school, I knew no one and so I rented movies all of the time to keep me company.  By Blockbuster’s records, I rented 462 movies in one year (my first year of law school).  I’m pretty sure I watched them all, too.  Any time I’m playing a quiz-type game, I go with the Entertainment and Music category, for obvious reasons.

13 . I was in Bible Quizzing competitions from age 10 to age 15 and I can kick “you know what” on Jeopardy whenever there is a bible category.  My husband – a devout atheist – is amazed at my ability to name the books of the bible in order or to remember the names of just about every major character in the Bible.

14. I have a genius IQ and frequently get picked on for belonging to MENSA (but they throw great parties…I love geeking out).

Number 3:

Okay, I’m so new to blogging that I haven’t found a lot that I am following yet, but if you have a blog that you want to suggest to me, please send me your blog address and I’ll check it out (and update my list).  So, with that disclaimer, I can’t list 30 (even though I am sure there are way more than 30 awesome blogs out there).  But, here are some of my favorite blogs, some are new and some not so new, but they are all great.  I’m going to do my best with including links, but if I mess it up, I have them listed on my blog under my favorite blogs section:

• Adding Peas To Our Pod
• Adventures In Infertility Land
• Adventures of Endo in the Artic
• Alex's Adventures
• Among the Blossoms
• Are You Doing It Right?
• Beckie's Infertility Journal
• Bottoms Off and On the Table
• Busted Plumbing
• Come On Baby!
• Empty Arms, Broken Heart
• Just Two Lines Away
• Little Bean Dreams
• No, I'm Not Pregnant, Just Fat  
• Two's a Company. Three's a Family

Thank you again so much for this honor and for sharing my journey with me.  The knowledge that I have women supporting me in this endeavor and my quest means more to me than you can possibly know.

Waiting Patiently...Okay, Not So Patiently

Today, I came home sick from work with the cold that everyone has right now…but I didn’t sleep and rest as I’d planned.  Instead, I tossed and turned, thinking “When is my donor going to start her period already?”  How absurd!!!  I’m getting impatient because another person’s body has not gotten onboard with my timeline.  I can’t start our donor cycle meds until about three weeks after our donor coordinator calls to announce that our donor has started her “Cycle Day 1,” so I’m getting antsy.  I’m a planner and I will plan and analyze myself to death if I don’t have something to do, to keep myself busy.  I am not very good at waiting.

In fairy tales the princesses often have to wait for something – a prince to come, a spell to wear-off, a rescue to occur.  You never hear about the princesses pacing the floor, tossing and turning at night, and grumbling about things not moving along quickly enough.  That is because princesses in fairy tales are virtuous, and we all know that patience is a virtue.  I, apparently, am a less virtuous princess than the norm.  I have to keep breathing and telling myself that I don’t need to be rushing things.  It is better that this donor cycle unfolds exactly as it is meant to…in its own time.  And although I know this, it isn’t easy to push down my impatience. 

We all know that once you finish waiting for one thing on the journey of infertility, you just start waiting for another.  You wait for your period, wait for your period to be over, wait for RE appointments, wait to be called in for blood work and ultrasounds, wait for the results from your blood work and ultrasounds, wait for your medication protocol, wait for the next part of your protocol to get started, wait to find out how many follicles you have, wait for ovulation day, wait to find out how many eggs you have, wait to find out how many eggs fertilized, wait to see what types of embryos you have to work with for IVF, and of course…the 2 week wait to find out if you are pregnant.  Even then, if you get your positive test, you have to wait for a second beta test and for an ultrasound to confirm that the pregnancy “took.”  That’s a lot of waiting for anyone to go through and that list is in no way exhaustive.  No wonder so many of us feel like our lives have been put on hold while we deal with our fertility challenges.  When you are that busy waiting, how is it possible to fit in living your life?

So now that I know what my problem of the day is (i.e.-I’m getting caught up in waiting impatiently for something I have no control over), what do I do about it?  I don’t know what I’ll do about it tomorrow, but I can tell you what I am doing tonight.  I am (oh yeah…even in between typing these paragraphs) dancing around my living room to the song “Dog Days Are Over” by Florence + the Machine.  Fever, headache and all…I’m flailing around in my nightgown, sweatshirt and slippers, with a huge smile on my face.  Not a pretty picture for anyone watching, but it is fun.  That’s my plan…just try to have fun wherever I can find it, until I get the phone call from the donor coordinator that I am waiting for.  Then, I can plan a little more…then back to dancing, or cooking, or whatever it is that tickles my fancy that day.  Maybe that’s how the fairy tale princesses pulled off waiting so gracefully…they didn’t let themselves get bored and they found fun and excitement wherever they could.  And things just fell into place for them, just like it is going to for all of us one of these days.   

Let there be children...

In fairy tales, there are frequently children involved.  Often the children are abandoned (Hansel & Gretel), mistreated (Cinderella) or end up in harm’s way in some other manner (Red Riding Hood).  There are various possible reasons for this use of children as key characters in fairy tales.  For one, children are the typical fairy tale audience, so it makes sense that the moral lessons that most fairy tales contain would involve children, to make the story more relatable to them.  But I also think that it is possible that the reason we see children put in perilous situations in fairy tales is because children evoke strong emotions…from everyone.  The vast majority of people, regardless of their station in life or their desire to have their own children are repulsed by the mistreatment of a child.  People who would be hesitant to rush into a burning building to help the inhabitants  would likely be more inclined to put themselves in peril if they heard the sound of a baby crying in that building.  Not only is there a sort of primal instinct to protect a child, it is difficult not to be infected with a child’s joy when they smile at you.  Children make us feel.

So where am I going with all of this?  Well, for quite a while now, I have avoided children.  When I started my fertility journey and began attending support group, I remember hearing women talking about crying when they saw a baby in the grocery store or avoiding family gatherings because small children would be there.  I thought, “How could anyone feel that way?  Children are great.  They are the reason that we are all trying so hard to become mothers.”  I could not fathom that I would ever feel the way they felt and, I am ashamed to admit, I judged them for feeling that way.

I don’t know when I started avoiding children.  I believe it happened gradually, so gradually that I didn’t notice it and, thus, didn’t stop it.  But by the time I realized something was happening to me, I was at the point of crying when I saw a baby on a television commercial.  Even the word “baby” made me sad.  Looking back I can see that I’ve missed out on parties, a bridal shower and multiple opportunities to see friends that I rarely see, all because I would feel panicked when I knew I was going to be “trapped” in the presence of a young child.  Even after I became aware of what I was my avoidance, I felt powerless to stop my behavior.  I felt like I should be at a meeting saying “Hi.  My name is [Princess Wahna Bea Mama] and I am child-a-phobic.” 

I realize now that I’ve been grieving for a long time and that sorrow can do funny things to a gal.  So, I’m cutting myself some slack for how I acted.  But now I am not in the depths of despair and it seems foolish to me to deprive myself of the joy of being around children, just because I am scared that it might become a painful reminder of what I’ve lost throughout this journey.  As with most things, “acting as if” has brought the “if” to being.  I have been reaching out to friends that I’ve abandoned because they have small children…hoping that they will forgive me and that we can redevelop our friendships.  I’ve been acting as if I have no fear of being around children, hoping that just trying it out would get rid of that fear. 

Well, last night was my first real test.  I agreed to host a mini-Super Bowl party for a couple that we have been friends with since I started dating my husband (they were his roommates then).  The couple has the most beautiful little three-year old girl you’ve ever seen, and I hadn’t seen her since our Super Bowl party last year, when I told my husband (after our friends left) that I couldn’t do it ever again.  I told him there were to be no little kids in our house because it was too hard to hear the deafening silence when they left.  But, this year I changed my mind.  I went out and bought coloring books, crayons, and a couple of age appropriate games, so the little one could be entertained in our second living room/play room, while the adults watched the game in the formal living room.  She ended up bringing a book of 1000 stickers (whoever invented those books should be shot) that she played with, in the formal living room, throughout the whole game.  And as much as I love my football, I loved playing with her more.  I ended up with 13 stickers on me and my dogs were covered (in stickers with pictures of dogs), and I am still peeling stickers off of my hardwoods.  She was darling and adorable and every bit as smiley as I remembered.  And when she left, instead of saying “never again,” and obsessing over the silence of her absence, I quipped to my husband that we needed to have a small child over every night or two because our dogs behave themselves for days after children visit.  I’m not sure if the dogs get too worn out to be naughty, or if they are afraid we will move a little person into the house if they misbehave.  Either way, the Dog Whisperer’s got nothing on a three year-old girl with a book of stickers.

So the point is, regardless of how my fairy tale ends, I will be reintroducing children to it.  The children won’t be in peril or being mistreated, but they will be present.  I don’t want to miss out on the emotions that children bring with them wherever they go.  I don’t want to avoid friends and relatives anymore.  I also accept the fact that I may not always be able to be around children.  There may be days or even weeks when I’m just too sad to remind myself of the pain I’m trying to ignore.  That’s okay and it is certainly okay for others to feel that way, too.  But in the end, I want my story to be full of life and fun, and children are the absolute best characters to bring that element into my fairy tale. 

Courage To Let It All Go

The hero in each fairy tale has to be brave in the face of adversity.  After all, courage is a key component of reaching “happily ever after.”  I think that every person facing infertility displays courage just by putting one foot in front of the other each day, in spite of the pain and fear.  But I was reading my recent posts and I think that I'm not being very courageous lately.  There is still a lot of self-pity creeping into my thoughts.  But I think I've figured out a way to start being more fearless.

Last night, I went to my Fertility Yoga class, as I normally do on Thursday nights.  After centering ourselves, our instructor always provides all of the members of my class with an opportunity to make an “intention” – a thought or desire that you carry with you throughout your practice that day, letting it seep into your heart and become a part of you.  For ages, my intention each yoga class has been “Peace.”  I feel like infertility has thrown my world into a constant state of flux and I just need to be at peace once in awhile.  But last night, when I normally would have embraced the intention of “Peace,” a loud and clear voice said “Let it go.”  And for just a second, I was annoyed.  I thought, “that’s not my intention…where did that come from?”  But I’ve learned in yoga and meditation that sometimes the part of you that silently observes your life from an objective standpoint, only speaking to you when necessary, knows more about what you need than the part of you that is always thinking and doing and talking.  So I went with the flow and engaged in a conversation with that other part of myself (I know.  I seem to have a habit of talking to myself lately).  The conversation went something like this…

“Let it go.”

“Let go of what?”

“All of it”

“What the hell is all of it?”

“You know”

“Really, because I probably wouldn’t be talking to myself if I knew…I would be letting go of whatever ‘it’ is.”

“Just breathe and let it all go.”

At that point, I decided to stop fighting with myself and to just follow my own advice (how screwed up is this sounding).  I took a deep breath.  Nothing.  So I took another and immediately thought about a comment on my post from a few days ago, regarding hurtful things that my mother has said to me.  I realized that I wrote what my mother had said to me because I’m still carrying around the hurt from every insensitive remark she has made to me.  So I breathed some more and thought “Let that go.”  I know it sounds hokey, but I could literally feel a physical difference.  My hips relaxed more and I went deeper into the pose and my breath.  I forgave her and even realized that she may not need forgiving because she isn’t trying to hurt me, she just doesn't know any better.  Given the pleasant outcome of that exercise, I decided to go for it again.

I asked myself “What else?”  Like a flood, I was faced with a whole bunch of garbage I’ve been toting around.  It almost made me cry to realize just how much there was.  And in spite of the lovely feeling I described above, my first response to the flood of baggage was to push it down, like I always do, leaving it for another day “when I might be strong enough to deal with it.”  But then I thought, “What if today I’m strong enough?  What if I just need to be brave?”

So, I took another breath and let the first thing that came to my mind wash over me.  I experienced the fear that I have that the egg donor cycle is not going to work.  I felt the fear of being disappointed and disappointing my husband.  That fear is like a huge monster, looming over me every single day that I wait to start my cycle.  But I decided that I am strong enough right now to face down that monster.  I didn’t perform some indepth analysis of why it is okay to be afraid or why it is better to be positive going into a cycle, I simply thought "Enough. I’m letting that fear go.  What is meant to be will be."  I can’t say that the beast is now gone forever, but upon intending to let the fear go, I felt peace (which was not my intention for the yoga class, but is what I ultimately received by following my intuition and “letting it go”). 

I can’t speak for everyone else, but on my journey, there are many times that the burden has just gotten too heavy to carry.  Lately, I've been going through one of those times.  So instead of sitting down on the side of the road and giving up on being a mother, I’m just going to let go of all of the baggage and the pain and the hurt feelings.  I can go back and pick those things up later if there is some crazy reason that I need them, but for now, the baggage I’m carrying is not providing armor to protect me from future hurt, it’s just stopping me from progressing into the future.  So I will keep “letting it go,” piece by piece…slaying one monster after another…until I have nothing left to let go of and am an empty vessel, ready to listen to that internal voice again and embarking on the next leg of my journey.

Darkness Falls Over the Land

Occasionally in a fairy tale, something will go wrong and to emphasize how bad things are becoming for the hero, the author will tell you that “darkness fell over the land.”  Very spooky.

I don’t know about you, but there have been so many times during my fertility journey that darkness fell over my land.  I would be going about my business, chewing my nails through my 2 week wait and WHAMO!  I would get the phone call from the nurse that my beta test came back and it was negative.  Immediately, a darkness would fall over me.  If I was at work, I would usually have to leave work because once the sobbing started, there was no getting it to stop.  I would go through all of the stages of grief over and over in rapid succession, thinking I was finished with a step (i.e.- bargaining), only to find myself promising to start going to church or to volunteer more time to charity if God could only make the test wrong…if I could just be pregnant a little later than expected.  Then, inevitably, the day would come (for me, usually more than a week after I stopped the progesterone) that I would get my body’s confirmation that I was, indeed, not pregnant…again.  For me, that final nail in the coffin usually would plunge me fully into the abyss.

I fear depression…actual clinical need-to-take –medicine-to-function depression, because I experienced it when I was younger.  It is like being in the darkest room imaginable, where you can hear the sounds of life going on around you but you can’t see even a speck of light that would allow you to orient yourself to the outside world.

The darkness that I call depression now is not quite the same.  I feel myself getting close to the edge of the cliff into darkness and I know if I fall down I might not get out of bed for two days or I might not be able to stay focused at work if I can drag myself there.  But I don’t need medication and the darkness always passes.  Still, feeling myself at the edge is scary.  And it is easier than ever for me to get there now. 

I also frequently have to watch as the darkness creeps over my friends.  It breaks my heart because there is very little you can do to help lift that darkness for someone else.  Like a fog, it rolls in, sucking out all of the happiness and positive energy, and rolls out, leaving you exhausted but alive. 

I’ve found it helpful to remember that there is a purpose to the darkness.  First, the darkness leaves you alive and stronger than you were before.  It hurts so badly, but it doesn’t kill you.  And, as clichéd as it is, the saying “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” is absolutely true.  The second thing about the darkness is that it is somewhat predictable.  You can usually feel when it is coming and brace yourself (at least a little). Although no amount of will power (or at least not my brand of will power) stops the darkness in its tracks, if I feel it coming and I turn to my support systems and get myself back to yoga and meditation practices, I can sometimes make the darkness bearable and maybe even shorter in duration.  The third thing I will say about the darkness is that it isn’t all bad.  It feels like it is when you are surrounded, but the darkness is actually a totally natural response emotional trauma.  It’s there for a reason.  A lot of what that darkness is made of is grief and sorrow – two emotions that need to be allowed to run their course before a person can truly move beyond a psychological trauma.  In that sense, the darkness is cathartic and necessary.

I’ve just made it through a darkness.  Reading back through my posts, I can see that the fog was still dissipating, even though I had thought I was fine.  I’m starting to move beyond nervous, and beginning to get a little excited about starting our donor egg cycle.  There’s still moments of panic, but now I can breathe them away more easily than before.  For months, I’ve spent a good portion of times under the cloud cover.  It feels good to know that I am slipping into sunny weather, again.

So, the next time you see the clouds rolling in, (to quote the ever-wise Little Orphan Annie), just tuck in your chin and grin and say “The sun will come out tomorrow.”  Because just like in the fairy tales, the clouds will eventually roll away, allowing that sun to shine and the birds to sing.  Hope will flourish again, when you are ready for it.  And you will appreciate it all the more because you remember what the opposite side of hope feels like, making the sunny days that much sweeter.

Am I the Villain in My Own Fairy Tale?

Every fairy tale has a villain.  The nature of fairy tales is such that there needs to be opposing virtues to make the story exciting – good versus evil, beautiful versus ugly, mean versus nice.  For this reason, the hero of any good fairy tale must be opposed by a villain.  The villain generally engages in deceit and trickery, trying to harm the hero.  The villain gathers information to later be used against the hero and frequently convinces friends and family of the hero to play a role in the villain’s evil plan, thereby adding insult to injury.  The villain is the character that everyone can fear and hate, so that they are able to appreciate how wonderful the hero truly is.

I am concerned that I am the villain in my own fairy tale.  I’m the hero too, but that is sort of a given since this is my fairy tale.  I would like to believe that infertility is the villain…but infertility it not tricking or deceiving me.  Infertility is what it is.  It may be thwarting my efforts to reach my goals, but that makes it an obstacle, not a villain.  There is no person or thing that I can point to in my life that engages in the acts that you would expect from a villain, except for me.

I frequently harm myself emotionally during each round of ART, and even during the time in between cycles.  I trick myself into thinking that I can control the outcome of each cycle by engaging in certain activities or thinking in a certain way.  If I can keep my attitude positive enough, or if I can find the perfect IVF protocol to show my RE, I’ll get what I want so badly.  Only, that’s not true.  Those are lies I tell myself so that I won’t have to admit the truth…which is that I have no control over whether I am going to get pregnant.  Sure I have control over whether I try to conceive during a given month and what method I use, but at the end of the day, whether the sperm and egg take a liking to each other and decide to nestle down for awhile is totally out of my control.  Thinking otherwise is just a form of torture...an act that a villain would engage in, but not a hero.  It allows me, in fact encourages me, to kick the hero while she’s down.  It leaves me thinking, “Not only are you not pregnant, but it is your own fault that you failed.”

I also might be the villain because I use my family and friends to hurt me.  Not on a conscious level, but perhaps subconsciously.  I have told people about my infertility that I wouldn’t, in any other circumstance, tell anything important to.  I might love those people, but I know that they will use the information to hurt me and yet I give them the ammunition to break my spirit anyway.  For example (and I’m only choosing one of many here), I’ve talked to my mother about our infertility struggle multiple times, even though I barely speak to her about anything.  She has made such comments as: “Did it ever occur to you that you are barren because you just aren’t meant to be a mother,” “I really think that God has already made a child for you that is going to have parents who die or something so that you can step in and take over,” “Did you ever think that maybe your husband isn’t the man you are meant to be with for the rest of your life and that once you divorce him and find someone else you’ll get pregnant,” and, my favorite “It’s really ironic that your sister and I, two people who never wanted kids and never had a pot to piss in, can pop out more babies than we can take care of, but you can’t even have one.  Isn’t that a funny thing?”  Yeah…it’s freakin’ hilarious, Mom!  Why would I tell a woman, who I know will only hurt me, about every step of our fertility journey?  I know better and yet, there I am on the phone after every failure, bawling away to her and then getting angry when she says exactly what I would expect her to say.

I put myself down, stress myself out, sabotage my attempts at bettering myself, try repeatedly to follow the forks in the road that I know don’t lead anywhere, and put myself in harm’s way emotionally.  How can I not be the villain?  My only hope is that mine is one of those fairy tales where the villain turns out to be a sympathetic character that learns her lesson and changes her ways in time for “happily ever after.”