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OK ladies, the sickies have hit full-force today, so I tried to pick a topic that I feel strongly about yet I don’t need to write a 2,000 word essay about. That meant I had to save ‘how men and women deal with infertility differently’ for another today. Today, we are discussing the finer points of getting yourself a BTDT friend (that’s been-there-done-that if you didn’t read the title). That means, and forgive me for really pounding this one right into the ground, a friend who has dealt with infertility and is DONE dealing with it.
“Did you say DONE dealing with it, Barney? ” ” Why, yes I did, Baby Bop! ” Oops, sorry. Barney is blaring from our living room right now. I would be writing ALL DAY if I chose the topic of ‘why kids love Barney so much and why parents die a little inside each time Barney is shown’. Honestly, I have NEVER gotten this kid a Barney tape, got to thank grandparents’ payback for that one. Anyway, I did say that this BTDT friend needed to be DONE with infertility (at least for the next few years anyway). This is really important. This is why:
As much support as we infertility sisters can be with one another (and that’s A LOT), we are all ‘competing’ (with ourselves anyway) for the same prize: the sticky BFP. Inevitably, some of us are going to get there sooner than others. And even though it’s easier to take hearing about an IF sister getting their BFP finally, it still can be tough. Especially if it’s a RL friend who finally gets preggo, suddenly you two are in two different worlds. She’s pouring over baby name books and debating color schemes for her nursery, and you’re counting medication to put in those ‘old people’ plastic dispensers.
So you see why it’s essential that you have at least one friend who is going to stay decidedly NOT pregnant while you’re TTC (and if they happen to get preggers, you could always sue them for breach of contract). But, a BTDT friend also knows her way through the trials and tribulations of infertility. She knows the acronyms. If you tell her you’re going for an HSG test, she’ll tell you how to prepare, not ask what the heck you’re talking about. You can commiserate with her about meds, FPs, and really all the things I’ve already covered on here. She’ll totally get it.
Now, there may be some drawbacks. A BTDT friend may be a mom, and if you’ve been shying away from mom-types (I know I did when I was dealing with primary IF) you’ll have to trust that she’s going to get that you don’t want her mom issues shoved down you throat. But since you are hoping to be a mom some day, having at least one mom friend to open the pearly gates to the ‘community of mommies’ in your area can actually be quite invaluable.
Your BTDT friend doesn’t have to be your best and only friend. You don’t even need to have that much in common with her. You just need the common fact that both of you couldn’t get your eggo preggo (I stole that from Juno again, I’m running out of material I guess). THIS is the friend you call to find out exactly how to give yourself that BIG daunting IM shot or when you find out that your 18 year old cousin just got pregnant on her honeymoon. She is your best chance at some type of sanity.
What you’re looking for is perspective. Infertility gives us ‘temporal blinders’. When you’re in the infertility tunnel, it’s hard to remember the time before you were TTC or think of life after. This friend is actually living in the ‘life after IF’, so you’ll get to see firsthand it actually does exist. Just make sure your BTDT friend has some sort of redeeming message about her IF journey (whatever the resolution)…if she’s, you know, like a crack addict or something, you might not feel quite as inspired.
So, how do you go about finding a BTDT friend? Well, if you dare come out of the infertility closet, you might find you have one in your social circle anyway. If worse comes to worse, you’ll probably have some well-meaning relative set you up on a “BTDT blind date”. You know what I mean, “Eve, you should really talk to a girl I know at work, she tried for 10 years to get pregnant before they decided to adopt.” Instead of taking down her name and number with the intention of throwing it in the nearest trash can, actually consider calling her.
OK, I’ve said my peace. Barney is off. My cold medication has kicked in. I have myself a few BTDT girls. All is right with the world. I’m skipping out on tomorrow, so I’ll see you ladies on the flip-side. Alright, I don’t really know what the ‘flip-side’ is, but it sounds cool, right? Oh yeah, I’m totally not cool.
I guess that means I’ll see you Monday. Later.
Wow, I thought I was doing better than this. Blogging has been making me almost feel GOOD about infertility. Well, maybe not GOOD, but also not terrible. But, just when you’ve got your guard down….BAM! You find out you’re not quite as transcended as you thought.
I found out someone I know is pregnant with their 5th child. Fifth! I really shouldn’t be upset. It’s not like I was just told I have some disease that will melt my skin or something. She’s not even a friend or anything, more like an acquaintance. And she’s not an unmarried drug-addict either (and even if that sounds completely judgemental, I own that comment because no one on drugs should be getting pregnant expect for those of us on infertility ones). In fact, she’s really nice. She’s probably a great mom. But I still feel like an iceburg landed in my stomach as I choked out the, “Wow five! That’s just great!” obligatory congratulations message.
I’m not sure why this is bothering me so much. Just last week someone I know told me she was expecting, and I didn’t even bat an eye. Nope, just went on about my ‘I’m secure in my infertility’ way. Apparently not. It makes me feel totally guilty to feel so upset about someone else’s happiness. And the fact that I feel somehow justified in thinking that she’s had more than enough of her share, makes me feel even guiltier.
When I was dealing with primary infertility, finding out some FP was joyously preggo always punched me right in the gut. I was pretty sheltered from it compared to a lot of people because at the time of TTC#1, I worked with a lot of ‘career women’ who either were older and had their kids or didn’t plan on having any. So at least I didn’t get the ‘what’s in the water around here?’ situation at work that some of you probably have to deal with. If you’ve read my ‘people to blame’ page, you know I have some weird hang-up with Britney Spears. This is because she got pregnant with her first son while I was still TTC #1. I was ticked for WEEKS when I learned she got pregnant. I’m really not as petty as that sounds, it just seemed to quantify all the injustice of infertility I felt in one perfect hair-bleached-pop-star package.
What’s weird to me about feeling, well I guess I’m feeling jealous, is that I have my son. I say this is weird because I honestly didn’t expect to feel this way once I had him. In my head it was supposed to go like this:
- Blissfully start TTC
- Painfully realize we’re dealing with IF
- Diligently pursue treatments
- Joyously get our BFP
- Happily live ever after
Now please, please, please don’t get me wrong. There is a lot of ‘happily’ in my life. My son is a ball of sticky fingered joy. Every lonely hour of infertility was completely worth his before-naptime tantrums and his love for playing in the dog’s water bowl. But yet, I here I am, moaning about my fertiliciously-blessed ’friend of a freind’.
I’m a hypocrite all the way. When I was TTC#1, I never quite understood the plight of a woman dealing with ’secondary infertility’ (you know, not being able to get pregnant after having one or more children). I guess I always thought, “Well, you already got your child. What are you complaining about?” I even thought this after I had my son. I told myself, “You’re so lucky, so many women would give any amount of money to be in your shoes.” I promised myself I wouldn’t take him for granted or bitterly complain about the mundane mommy duties that I so longed for. I mean, I couldn’t stand when I would be talking with a bunch of moms as they droned on and on about how hard their stay-at-home life was when I was TTC #1. I always felt the urge to smack their heads like those old V8 commercials. Luckily, I never actually did that, because even though it’s sort of funny in those commercials, I’m pretty sure it’s considered assault and battery in RL.
Back to the topic at hand, when I couldn’t get pregnant a second time, I hit a self-imposed wall. I told myself that I couldn’t be upset because that would mean that I didn’t appreciate having my son. I felt guilty for feeling so sad about not conceiving while getting to tuck my son in bed at night. What kind of horrible person could have such a blessing and just say, “more please!” ? A selfish kind, that’s who. And that made me feel thoroughly miserable, alone and ticked off. And that made me SUCH a joy to be around.
I’d like to think I’m a student of myself. In different circumstances I’ve been in, I like to step back and analyze my feelings and reactions as objectively as possible. I think this either makes me brilliant or totally neurotic (you be the judge). So in this second round of infertility, I was actually quite dumbfounded at my intense reaction. Why was I so upset when I already had a son? Why, after only a few months of trying, did I feel like I had been trying for 3 years again?
I talked to my hubby about why the heck I seemed so upset despite myself. He’s so smart (and I’m not saying that just because he spies on my blog), he said, “Well, you and I know how wonderful things can be now. We just want more of it.” So I considered that for awhile, and it made sense to me. I realized that I’d been way off base with my judgements of women with secondary infertility. They weren’t thumbing their nose at God and being ungrateful. They weren’t wanting another child because they were unhappy with only one (or more). They wanted more because they were SO happy with their child. I also realized that sometimes your heart wants things that your head hasn’t quite reconciled. My heart wanted another child, even though my head said that was selfish. Hearts speak louder than heads, you know.
I still jump back and forth with this struggle. Sometimes I feel so guilty when I talk to women who would trade the world to have their own child. But I also feel jealous when I see women who come by motherhood so easily. I guess those of us dealing with secondary infertility are sort of the ‘middle child’ of the TTC family. One thing I’ve learned these last 1o or so months of TTC for #2, is that infertility never totally goes away. And even if you hit the prized ‘BFP’ jackpot, the build-up of all the years to get that BFP come flying back if you dare to enter into the TTC game again. I didn’t know that was going to happen, and that’s a big deal, since I consider myself a know-it-all.
I realize, since I’m currently going through it again, I can’t conclusively report how infertility will be bookmarked in my life. But I’m pretty sure it sort of stains your life in the same way a death, divorce, or other loss does…even if you get a BFPin the end, or adopt, or just move on. The stain sort of fades with time, but never totally goes away. And the stain makes you realize that life doesn’t always care how you intended things to go, life goes the way it goes. Maybe sometimes that’s a good thing, and maybe sometimes that’s bad. And the way it’s going right now makes me feel down right rotten that someone else got pregnant instead of me. And maybe that’s completely selfish and ungrateful, but at least it’s the truth.
I have to change gears today. I know that I have only touched the tip of the ice-burg of the hurtful things people say, but I gotta (I know ‘gotta’ isn’t a word, but it sounds good) come up for air on that one. It was sucking the funness (I like words that are ‘disenfranchised’, we’ll call it) out of me.
I was looking so awesome, I had to take a picture of myself this morning. I just know this blog is eventually going to get me blacklisted in normal society. Anyway, we have the sickies in our house right now. (I actually do mean we, my son has a cough and fever, but I’m not feeling so hot myself. ) We just had croup two weeks ago (OK, this time I actually just mean my son. Isn’t that completely annoying when a mother refers to herself and her child as some weird symbiotic organism?)…anyway I couldn’t quite tell if he had a NEW sickness today or if it was just leftover from the last one. That’s tricky, seriously. I got to play hooky from work, which would have been fun except I don’t get paid for time off. And getting less money in my paycheck definitely contributes to funness sucking too.
I promise it’s not my goal to talk about all little ups and downs of taking care of my son. I completely get that many of you want to hear about that as much as I want to relearn what the heck a cosine is. (Seriously, I pretty much faked my way through advanced math…I probably never even knew what a cosine was.) Anyway, you’ve got my commitment that this blog is not going to smack you in the face with ‘cute kid’ stories on a regular basis.
One of my many complaints that I had with TTC #1, was that parents pretended like, if you didn’t have kids, that you couldn’t possibly understand suffering, or commitment, or empathy, or even love. Like I would be at work and say, “I slept terribly last night,” or something, and one of my co-workers would condescendingly utter, “Wait until you have kids.” That really irked me. Anyway, my point…what is my point? (Go back and reread what I wrote.) Oh yeah, my point is that surviving infertility is a lot like already BEING a parent.
I mean, the toughest part of adjusting to parenthood is that you can’t put yourself first anymore. Don’t feel like breast-feeding today? Too bad. Want to go out for a dinner and a date with your hubby? No way, need money for orthodontic work for your daughter. Living in infertility and actively TTC on a constant basis is quite the same. Want to sleep in today? Not going to happen, you’ve got an RE appointment a 7am. Want a glass of wine? No way, it’s the 2 WW, you could be pregnant! All those 2 WW waits I’ve had over the years, obeying every stinking ‘act like you’re already pregnant’ rule – to think of the colds I suffered through with no medication only to find myself back at square one when AF arrived….that’s commitment!
That gets me back to my original reason I told you we’ve been sick. Being sick and being a mom is tough. In fact, you can physically ‘be’ sick, but it’s not like you can actually get any of the ’sick perks’ coming to you, you know: laying around, vegge-ing in front of the tv, sleeping all day. I had the flu last year, the INFLUENZA ‘flu’, and my son didn’t give a rip. I was still expected to fulfill my mommy duties.
It’s totally the same with TTC. I can’t remember how many times my hubby or I got sick right around that crucial time of the month. Too bad, so sad. No ’sick perks’ allowed when it comes to keeping your RE appointment to check for follies, or going to work ill since you had to use your sick days on testing or procedures , or if you’re still in the ‘natural timing’ game and find yourself with a 102 degree fever the day of the big O. Now that’s sheer will-power. You know what it is, it’s love for your baby-to-be, that’s what it is.
So don’t let parents try to pretend like they own the patent on unconditional love. My trials with infertility have been so much harder than my trials in motherhood. They still are! Being a parent is hard. But not being one is harder. I remember all too well, and my heart aches for those of you out there longing to be a mother for the first time. So, here’s to you, you ladies who get up hours before work to check to get your baseline U/S, and save every extra dime you have to pay for treatments, and have a sharps container under your bathroom sink for the needles, and drive 2 hours each way to your specialist, and take mounds of medications and supplements even though they make you sick. You don’t get recognized for the wonderfully loving mothers you already ARE.
Your love for your babies-to-be is as real as the air you breathe, don’t ever let anyone tell you differently. And I know for a fact (now don’t tell the FPs this) that when you finally meet your child face to face , it will be so much sweeter than anyone who has not traveled this path will ever know.
Bye for now.
I say too much. It’s pathetic, isn’t it? Thanks for all the comments ladies, it makes me feel sooooooooooooooo happy to get them! On to the continued topic of what to do with the rude, ignorant, or judgemental comments that people tend to toss our way once they discover we’re dealing with infertility.
It’s odd to me, really, people’s reactions. Like, I think that a normal reaction to some type of ‘life stressor’ a person is dealing with is to simply say, “I’m sorry” or “I hope things get better soon.” But, that doesn’t seem to be the reaction people give. It’s like some obligatory script that people say over and over again. I’ve heard it so many times, especially on the ‘first reveal’ of my infertility to someone. This was my unending conversation that I had with numerous persons my first round of infertility:
Random Person (RP): So, how have you been?
Me: Actually things have been pretty stressful. We’ve been trying to get pregnant with for about 3 1/2 years now.
RP: Oh. (pause when they realize I didn’t just say, “Fine, how are you?”) Have you thought about taking a vacation? I’m sure a little relaxation would help.
Me: No, we can’t afford it with all the infertility treatments we’re paying for.
RP: Have you thought about adoption? There are so many unwanted children that need homes.
Me: We’re really not at a point to consider adoption yet.
RP: Oh (obviously amiss for something to say) …well….it’s all in God’s time you know.
Me: Yeah.
No wonder we shut our traps the moment we mention infertility. Can you imagine the same conversation if someone said they lost their job? Or if they said they were losing their house or got diagnosed with some life-altering illness or even that their dog died? What is it about infertility that makes people feel like they just need to solve it for you? I have no idea. None.
Let’s break this conversation down. We covered the ‘just relax’ portion yesterday, but I put it in again to emphasize the fact that as long as you are TTC, you will never ever get away from this advice. Relaxation and a vacation is the cure for world peace, poverty and apparently all types of infertility. But I digress, the next little nugget of wisdom in this dialogue is the ‘there’s always adoption’ statement. Here is why this makes people with infertilty’s blood curdle:
Yes, we KNOW there’s always adoption, and it is a wonderful option for sooooooo many families. But it’s not like you can just call up your local Walgreens and pick up a baby at the drive-through. Contrary to popular belief, it’s really quite HARD to adopt (my mommies who adopted, can I get a whoop-whoop?). Adoption is an expensive and long process. The only way to NOT spend a lot of doe is to go the foster care route, but that means getting your fostering license and putting your heart into the hands of a totally and completely messed up child welfare system. (I have so much respect for people who have gone that route. My parents, were actually foster parents years ago before I was born). So, for most women with infertility, it financially makes sense to try to have your own child if possible with less expensive interventions.
And then there is the fact that choosing adoption means giving up on the dream to carry your own child, to feel the baby kick and move in your belly, to pass on your crooked ears or your hubby’s brilliant blue eyes. Couples who choose to adopt must mourn their own biological child that never was. I know my friend’s who adopted would never trade their gorgeous kids for anything, but nevertheless, they still have mourn that loss. So when people flippantly throw adoption into your face like it’s as simple as buying a car, it hurts.
The last part of the ‘what people say when you’re infertile’ conversation is the God thing. Now please don’t think that I’m being anti-God here. If you know me, you know I’m quite PRO-God! However, the ‘all in God’s time’ comment put like a period at the end of a conversation always feels like a ‘feelbetterism’ to me. This is what that comment sounds like through the filter of my infertility:
Stop feeling sorry for yourself you selfish person and realize that you can’t get everything you want when you want it. Instead of complaining about this, you should be praising God for your job and your marriage and the roof over your head.
If you can’t tell, I really struggle with this ‘God’s timing’ appeasement. How do they know what God’s time is for me? Maybe He wanted me to get pregnat easily and is crying along with me that this is happening. Maybe He’s the one opening the door to the right doctor and putting new paths in place for me to conceive. And why would you say that to someone anyway? Like, is it supposed to make me feel better? Let’s pretend I was diagnosed with cancer instead. Would you tell someone that “it’s all in God’s time” whether they get treatment, relief or are cured? No way! Boy, I’m really worked up here. I need a smoke break.
Oh yeah, I don’t smoke. Too bad, it probably would’ve made me feel better. Closely related to the ‘God’s time’ comment is the ‘God’s plan’ one. When I was struggling with infertility the first time, someone very close said this to me, and I really do believe they were trying to be sincere. They pulled me aside at a Christmas party no-less and gently said,
Well-meaning and yet totally clueless Person: Eve, have you ever considered that it’s not God’s plan for you to be a mother?
ME: (what I was thinking) Yes, I have considered that. Every day actually and it makes feel that I have done something so horrible to offend God that some stupid 15 year-old can get knocked up and I can’t. And it happens to make my thoughts a horrible and dark place to dwell and I try to remind myself that God has a wonderful plan for me and doesn’t want me to suffer, but you saying what you just did really makes me wonder.
ME: (what I said) Um, I haven’t really thought about it.
Geeze, I’m going long again. Girls, I’ve got more baggage than a jumbo jet’s cargo-hold. So here was my epiphany my first round of infertility, and this is thanks to prayer, counsel with other friends, and late night conversations with my wonderful hubby: God wants to give us the desires of our heart, so long that they are healthy for us. So, never again will I silently accept the ‘God’s plan’ comment with a quick good-bye and dash out of the room before I start crying. This is my fire back statement:
Person: Eve, have you ever considered that it’s not God’s plan for you to be a mother?
ME: Yes I have thought about it, and I believe that if God doesn’t plan for me to be a mom, than he will remove that desire from my heart. (Ha, ha ha! Thought you could get me down, huh? Never!)
I know these conversations sound cheesy…but I honestly have said these things to people. I love feeling in control of how the ‘infertility judgement’ conversations go. Maybe I like making people feel uncomfortable. I suppose that’s something to bring up to my therapist. Oh, that’s right, I can’t AFFORD therapy, I’m paying for infertility treatments. OK, so this is where I am now when the ‘infertility reveal’ conversation runs. Some people might think I’m confrontational, or angry, or overly-sensitive….and I am. Aren’t we all?
Random Person (RP): So, how have you been?
Me: Actually things have been pretty stressful. We’ve been trying to get pregnant with treatments for a little under a year now.
RP: Oh. (pause when they realize I didn’t just say, “Fine, how are you?”) Have you thought about taking a vacation? I’m sure a little relaxation would help.
Me: Actually I’m pretty relaxed, and we just got back from Vail a few months ago, but I still didn’t get pregnant. I guess that cure didn’t work for me.
RP: Have you thought about adoption? There are so many unwanted children that need homes.
Me: We’re going to try infertility treatments first. By the way, have you ever considered adoption? There are so many children’ that need homes, you know.
RP: Well, no. (obviously amiss for something to say) …well….it’s all in God’s time.
Me: Hmmmm. I know you mean well (at least I give you the benefit of the doubt anyway), but you saying that provides me no comfort. See you!
And then I walk away with the smuggest grin you can imagine. OK, people might hate me, but I usually don’t even have to get through most of the script before people realize that they’re walking on a mine field and they shut their traps. AND I don’t punch anyone. AND I feel good about myself. AND I never have this conversation twice. Never.
I’ll shut up now. See you girls!
I hope the wait is worth it ladies (sorry, no blogging on Sundays for me)….because I’m prepared to inform you of the best solution I’ve found to the Infertility Secret: BRAZEN, UNAPOLOGETIC TRUTHFULNESS! Can get I get a witness? (Pretend someone just yelled, “Amen, sister!”.)
This time of TTC (after having my son), I went into the daunting tunnel of infertility with the lights on. I KNEW what was in store for me with invasive tests, treatments, pokes, prods, medication side-effects, etc. I didn’t want to have to deal with the extra burden of keeping everything a secret like my gagged and handcuffed first round of TTC. Even though I opened up to most people by the time I conceived my son 3 1/2 years into our struggle, it always felt unsatisfying. Like I cared more about making someone else feel uncomfortable if I went into a little too much detail or they said something completely out-of-line than I cared about how I actually felt. Codependent much?
So I came into infertility round #2 prepared to spill-all. And I that I did. To my friends, my family, my pastors, my co-workers, my you-name-it. I mean, it wasn’t the only thing I ever talked about or anything, I just ‘unmuted’ the infertility button on my life. I discussed my treatment protocols openly with my friends as we sat around McDonalds and informed the receptionist at work I was at the doctor for an IUI treatment. I wrote out infertility-related things in my calendar and didn’t worry about using some ’secret code’ for tests and meds and cycle days. Sometimes I felt like I was on a ‘very special episode’ of Growing Pains or 7th Heaven where a new friend comes in and teaches everyone about her special problem (you know: bulemia, dyslexia, leukemia, or some other weird disease that ends with ‘ia’) and how they still manage to find meaning in their life or whatever. Yeah, totally ‘After School Special’.
Almost a year into TTC round #2, if you know me in RL (that’s real-life all you internet newbies), you know that I’m dealing with infertility. I’m not trying to be a drama queen or make people feel sorry for me. It’s just part of my life right now. I chatted up with a friend just today that I had to go get another cyst check. The conversation didn’t even veer into ‘total infertility realm’, it was just nice to mention that it’s something I’m dealing with. No secrets. No embarrassment. After all, it’s not like I chose to be infertile or did anything wrong to deserve it.
The pay-off has been big. Most people (emphasize most) think before they say things that might make me feel bad. They ask me how I’m feeling or if I need a babysitter for my son so I can go to the doctor. I don’t have to do a mental scan of who I’ve told what to before I enter a room. I get to be ME all the time, not ‘me pretending to be happy even though I just got a BFN’. And they DON’T ask ’kid timeline’ questions (ie: when are you going to give that son of yours a baby brother or sister?) .
Now it hasn’t been all peaches and cream. I opened myself for a lot of ‘infertility opinions’ from people who had a heckuva lot to say and not much interest in listening. It was harder for me the first few months of TTC again. I didn’t realize my wounds were so fresh from the first time, until the ‘just relax’ comments started pouring in again. But infertility round #2 was different from #1, I now had my new friend ‘UNAPOLOGETIC TRUTH’ in my corner. And that meant speaking up for myself when someone made an especially insensitive comment rather than running off to lick my wounds in solace. Look at it this way, people are going to say rude/hurtful things no matter what. If you choose to be ‘out’ you not only get to defend yourself, you might actually get to inspire them to keep their trap shut next time they decide to tell someone else just exactly why “you’re not getting pregnant and what I think you should do about it”. I promise you this…there’s a golden comeback to even the most idiotic infertility word-slap.
At risk of sounding like an Oprah soundbyte, here’s my suggested steps to coming out of the infertility closet:
Step 1: Lay down your embarrassment. shame and guilt about your infertility. You didn’t choose this, it chose you. Feel whatever it is that you have been hiding all for the sake of ‘not making waves’.
Step 2: Make waves! Tell the truth about your infertility and how much it hurts. Don’t apologize for feeling this way.
Step 3: Ready yourself for the onslaught of infertility opinions that are sure to fire your way.
Step 4: Fire back.
And that is where things start to get fun. Be here tomorrow for idiotic comeback lessons!
So, sorry for the lame-o post yesterday…life’s a crazy, crazy carnival. Even if you think my post stunk, I’m still interested in your answer to the poll about who you’ve told about TTC or infertility. So, go back and answer if you haven’t already. Now!
I mean, pretty please?
If you read my back story, you’d know that the route my hubby and I chose when we jumped on the TTC bandwagon was to tell no one, save for a close friend or two. For first-time participants in the TTC process, I think you either fall into that category, or you tell everyone on God’s green earth that you’re trying. And this is how the numbers fall:
- Everyone who blabs about TTC in the most obnoxious and arrogant way will conceive in less than 3 months, but most likely on their first try.
- Some of those with a little more restraint will actually get the REAL pay-off…the ’surprise reveal’ I call it. That’s where they get to announce their good news at some large family/friend gathering and bask in the glory of the well-wishes everyone sends them (ok, this is just my fantasy of the ’surprise reveal’…I’m sure that sometimes it doesn’t go that smoothly.)
- The other lucky 10% of the restrained group end up in this quandry of trying to keep the secret of TTC (to preserve the ’surprise reveal’) while starting to stress that it’s taking so long to get pregnant in the first place. This is where my hubby and I found ourselves several years ago.
Keeping the secret was fun at first, because we clung onto the hope that the big surprise would be so exciting, so fantastic, so wonderfully fulfilling, that it would make up for not cluing anyone into what was going on. Here’s the problem: no one knew that we were TTC and having problems. So, people started asking us all kinds of rude and prying questions (they probably did this before we were TTC, and it didn’t bother us one bit). Here’s a list of my favs: When are you guys gonna get busy? You’re not getting any younger, you better start trying soon! You can’t wait for the ‘perfect’ time to have kids you know, there IS no perfect time. You guys DO want kids, right?
A few times I tested the waters out. The invitable,”So, do you have kids?” question would drop like a lead weight into the conversation. And I would summon up my courage and say, “Well, we’ve been trying for awhile but it just hasn’t happened for us yet.” And then would come the barrage of advice, suggestions, and downright RUDE comments firing away like little poison darts. (We’ll get to the topic of the ‘let me tell you how you’re doing it wrong’ comments another time). And I learned that, even if people meant well, that their words of encouragement about our infertility always made me feel WORSE not BETTER.
Burned, I decided it was better be a master of evasiveness than submit myself to target practice again. Sometimes I just changed the subject, or made up some milestone we were waiting on before we started our family, or blamed work or financial issues on ‘waiting’. I mean, this is private stuff we’re talking about here: the birds and the bees…and it’s even more private if the bees aren’t buzzing or the birds aren’t singing.
Unfortunately, The Infertility Secret is a double-edged sword…if you don’t tell people what’s going on, they keep making insensitive comments, asking personal questions, and tsk-tsking your increasingly grouchy responses. If you DO tell people what’s going on, you open yourself up to the firing squad. If you don’t tell, you cut yourself off from the emotional support your friends and family could provide. If you DO tell, you risk leaping out the window only to find that no one is going to catch you.
So most couples dealing with this situation end up in some sort of complex compromise to the Infertility Secret. The compromise involves telling some people because you have to (like your boss or your doctor), some people because you want to (like your best friend or your sister), and some people who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time (like your coworker who finds you reading the ‘Infertility Rocks’ blog, or a perfect stranger who walks in on you crying in the bathroom at Target after you notice the the Liz Lange maternity collection is actually cuter than the Isaac Mizrahi one).
In summary, the ‘complex compromise’ is a respectable solution….however lonely it might be. It involves lots of tongue-biting and pride-swallowing. Personally, I’m not a big fan of either of these practices. I happen to have an additional suggestion. But you’ll just have to get yourself back here tomorrow to read about it.
See you then!
“To tell or not to tell. That is the question!”
I happen to have quite a bit to say on the subject of letting people know whether you’re dealing with infertility or not….but you’re just going to have to check in tomorrow to see what I think. Yeah, that’s pretty lame, but it’s the way it goes. Sorry.
Today, I decided I would take my hand at making a poll because I want to know who YOU are telling about your TTC or IF journey (or who did you tell in the past, if this is going on for you now?). Polls are fun, right?
Oh, and by the way…Pink Polls ROCK!
Gotta make this quick (yeah right!) because I have to work today, so forgive the typos. Honestly, I hope none of you reading this out there are high school English teachers gasping at my creative sentence breaks. I KNOW you’re technically not supposed to start a sentence with ‘and’ or end a sentence with a preposition. I’m being conversational here not writing a dissertation. So, put your knowledge of spelling, proper grammer, and paragraph breaks aside and just enjoy. Moving on…
I cleaned my car out today before letting myself do something fun, like write this blog. I’m definitely a believer that your car is a microcosm of your life. Go with me here. So, I’ve been needing to clean out my car since… (pausing for a moment and talking to myself, “oh why not, you’ve already done pillow belly pics, there’s really no dignanty left to salvage”)…since Thanksgiving, when we took a long 15 + hour car trip. The reason I hadn’t cleaned the car out until today is because:
- My hands are always full of other stuff (like my child, bulk fertility meds, coffee containers, or Walmart bags) when I exit the car.
- It’s been really friggin’ cold here, even in the garage.
- I’m lazy.
I’m pretty sure #3 is what really did me in. Anyway, my car was disgusting (and say it like this for full effect: DEEEEEE-sgusting!). Like, “even if one of my friends was lying on the side of the road bleeding, I’m not sure I would’ve picked them up” deeeeee-sgusting. So here are some of the things I plucked out of my mini-van today:
- (by the way, I guess I like lists) A full sized flannel sheet left in the car for taking the injured dog back and forth to the vet.
- Two separately bagged Diet Mountain Dew 2 liters that I accidentally bought instead of regular Moutain Dew for my hubby before Christmas. I meant to take them back and exchange them (I told you I was cheap!). They’ve been rolling around in the back of my van for so long, they’re bound to have the equivalent of a nuclear bomb stored up in CO2 pressure.
- Three unopened dum-dum suckers, and two half-eaten ones wrapped in tissues.
- A hot pad. A hot pad? I’m thinking this had to do with a New Year’s party or something.
- The dvd jacket to ‘The Barney Movie’, which my son insisted we watch continuously on our 15+ hour road trip. Mysteriously, the actual dvd has not been seen or heard of since. Hmmmmmm.
- Various pieces of junk mail that offered us things like Franklin Mint Special Edition Princess Diana Figurine or one of those dolls that looks exactly like a sleeping newborn baby. Creepy.
- Bits and crumbs of goldfish crackers, cheerios, rasins, and burnt tips of french fries.
- Two (count them one, two!) flashlights without working batteries.
- A black plastic lid that says “Fujinon” on it and seems important.
- And an upopened bag of Pretzel Cheddar Cheese Combos.
I could go on, but I think I’ve done enough harm to my image at this point. So what does this have to do with infertility? Well, between work, and church, and friends, and parenting, and laundry, and cooking, and blogging, and football (go Cardinals!), and coffee…well, infertility throws an already jammed-packed life into a disgusting, stinky, smelly, hang-your head-in-shame mess of it all. Chaos.
(Warning, I’m getting metaphorical here.) In my life right now, I just sort of weed through the trash-bags of messiness around me it seems, instead sorting through it all and putting it into nicely alphabetized files. Even when I do get all the mess cleaned up, there’s always a new mess just around the corner. That’s why (and this is not metaphorical by the way) I can never have BOTH my garage AND storage room clean at the same time. Every couple months, we just shift the chaos from one space to the other. Maybe it’s worse for me because I’m organizationally challenged. Maybe it’s because I have a 2 year old. Or a dog. Or a husband.
But I’m pretty sure everyone dealing with infertility sort of feels like they’re hanging on to life by one finger sometimes.
Right?
I started getting into photography a few years ago after I decided I was too cheap to pay $20 for the JC Penny’s studio special for my son. I’m really cheap, by the way. So, originally this blog was supposed to be a photo-blog featuring my self-portraits about infertility. However, that would mean I would actually have to wash my hair, change out of my pajamas and put on make-up every day. If you’re grossed out by what I just said, I don’t think we can be friends. And anyway, I work 3 days a week, so I put clothes on THEN. Geesh, people judge so easily.
So last year around this time I took some maternity pictures for a friend. I wasn’t even TTC yet (for the second bean anyway), so I didn’t feel the urge to push her down the stairs or anything. It was fun! She had a gorgeous baby bump and was a good sport with any poses I suggested.
So I got to thinking I would use the power of positive thinking and do my own ‘maternity’ photo shoot. I think it turned out really well all things considered. When you look at these pictures, pretend I have on make-up…and that my hair is in an actual styel….and that my butt is smaller….OH, and that I’m actually pregnant.
So, I’m thinking I could have a new photography niche here: pillow-belly maternity shoots! It wouldn’t have to be JUST for IF sisters, it could be for FP’s who just bloated up like water-logged cereal when they were actually preggo and wouldn’t let anyone toting a camera within 100 feet. Man, affirmative message pregnancy tests, pillow-belly pictures… I just can’t stop the creative inspiration! And it’s all because…(say if with me sisters!)
Infertility Rocks!
Primary infertility is not being able to get/stay preggers the first time around. This is distinguished from ’secondary infertility’ which not being able to get /stay pregnant after one (or more) normal pregnancies. They both stink. But today my topic starts out with the stages of grief that women with primary fertility encounter on their ride through IF.
I had primary infertility short of 4 years before getting preggers with my son via the help of IF treatments. The best way I can describe primary IF is like being left out of the cool group at school, but much-much-much worse. Like, you can see all these people (moms) doing all these things that you long to do (going to playgroups, complaining about runny noses, discussing the finer points of potty training) and yet, no matter how hard you try, you can’t be a part of that cool kid group. And when you hear the cool kids rave about how fun it is, or worse, complain about how hard it is to be a cool kid….it’s like daggers in your heart. I could go on and on about how a little piece of your sould dies each time you see other women win the ‘mommy prize’ so easily, but that’s a post for another time.
I mentioned stages. Well, here’s the stages of grief as they relate to primary IF best I can pinpoint:
1) Denial
2) Anger
3) Bargaining
4) Depression
5) Furbabies!
I think that everyone going through primary IF at least contemplates the furbaby cure (as I have coined it). That is precisely where I found myself in 2004, just about 2 years into my infertility. By that point, I just wanted to take care of something, and at least you can BUY a puppy. So we played around with the idea of getting a dog. But then we heard that dogs sometimes have problems adjusting to new babies when they come, so the smartest thing to do is to wait until the child is a little older and can be more responsible and get a dog then. And then we got a puppy anyway.
We adopted our furbaby ,Charlie - an 8 week old rat terrier/mini poodle, for FREE from a friend who does dog rescues. This was our first test in the realm of parenthood, and we were (initially at least) joyously optimistic. In fact, we automatically started referring to each other as ‘Mommy’ and ‘Daddy’.
“Daddy! Char-wee needs extwa (we also started baby talking) big kisses today, he’s been soooo whone-wee!”
“Mommy, Char-wee needs to piddle!”
(If you have to get up from the computer and vomit, I don’t blame you. I just did.)
Anyway, the cuteness wore off when we realized that this dog had the bladder the size of a thimble. And making room for a crying dog (because he missed his litter-mates) in our bed was not really what I expected. I never knew something that weighed about 2 1/2 pounds could take up so much room. THAT is precisely when we got a glimpse into REAL parenthood. Who’s going to take out this stinking little ball fur at 2am in the freezing cold? Who’s going to clean up his little poo-poos from the carpet when we’re both late for work? Who’s going to hold steady to the ‘no table food’ rule and who’s going to cave?
Yup, it was ALL laid out for us, our future selves clear as can be. In our case, it was pretty much a toss-up for who got to clean up the stinkies and who did the graveyard shift walk out to tinkle. It really depended on our moods. With our son, it’s quite the same for us, one of takes a rough night, the other cleans up toilet-training spills. Not too bad really. I’ll admit that my hubby is a pretty awesome daddy.
At the time, we both agreed that taking care of a puppy (in some ways at least) was worse than a new baby. Babies, at the very minimum, wear diapers to catch the nastiness spewing from their privates. But, we failed to recall that babies cannot be left alone in a crate while one’s at work. Apparently that’s considered child abuse.
So, in summary, I think furbabies are a nice bridge into parenthood. I say, if you’re yearning for a furbaby, do it. They’ll give more unconditional love than any husband/child/parent/friend ever will. Just know this…that unconditional love comes at a price. With the neutering or spaying, the heartworm protection, the well-puppy visits, the grooming, the nail trimming, and the extra-expensive-premium-dog- food, it adds up!
Not to mention when you’re furbaby runs in front of a 2 ton vehicle like ours did a few weeks ago. What God blessed him in his cuteness, he deducted from his capcity for common sense. Little miracle furbaby walked (or limped I should say) off with just a very badly broken leg. We limped away minus 2 GRAND for the orthopedic surgery.
Dogs aren’t free, no matter what your hippie-dippie dog rescue friend tells you.
Quickie post here. I just wanted to let you all know that I’m spending way too much time figuring out this blog thing thank you. I’m totally technologically-challenged. I don’t even know how to send a text message. 100% serious there.
So, you may or may not notice, but I changed up my blogsite theme to help me enter in the appropriate widgets and plug-ins I want. I also had to figure out how to talk in ‘code’ (CSS…Cascading Style Sheets), and if you don’t know what I’m talking about, you might think I’m a genius. If you DO know what I’m talking about, then you know better.
Anyway, after many (and I mean many) hours, I finally figured out how to make a cute little button (or widget) appear that links my blog into e-mail. So, all you have to do push the button under where it says ‘get my blog on your email’ and then find your e-mail subscriber in the box in the upper lefthand corner of the pop-up page.
Now, if no one actually does this. I’m going to put my head in the oven. Just kidding, my oven is electric, I’d only be badly burned…and that’s just wrong.
See you tomorrow!
Alright, alright. I missed blogging yesterday. Sorry. It was my intention to write one, and I even started one early yesterday morning. Here is how is started…
“First off, I’m letting you know I’m extra testy this morning because, while I got up and fixed my son a complicated breakfast of toaster waffles and milk, my dear hubby is sleeping peacefully in bed. Even though I probably should feel really generous about giving him this little present, I don’t. I’m ticked. Honestly, this is one of the trickiest parts of parenthood: doling out the chores. Inevitably, I think women feel like they do more in the childrearing/housekeeping realm compared to their male counterparts. This is because they actually do.”
So I’m typing this out on the laptop when my hubby saunters out of the bedroom and gives me a cheerful, “Hello!”. Too which I ignore him because I’m mature. Anyway, he starts talking about the movie he watched last night with his brother (who was visiting for the weekend), and I’m still giving him passive-agressive grunts and poor eye contact. So he says, “Are you writing your blog?” No eye contact or emotion in my face, “Yes,” I say. So he says, “What, are you writing about how you’re mad that I slept in or something?”.
BUSTED!
Man, this guy really knows me. I guess that’s what near 12-years of marriage does to you. Apparently, I am incapable of hiding things I write about my hubby online. I suppose that is only fair. If I’m going to say nasty things about him for posterity to float around in cyberspace, he should at least know what I’m saying. Next time I’m really teed off I’ll do him the favor of forwarding my rant to his work e-mail (which is the only e-mail he actually reads).
Speaking of cyberspace and completely unrelated to what I’ve actually been writing about: I joined Facebook. Or, “myFace” as my hubby calls. I’m not sure what to think about this venture yet. Like, it seems a little high school to me. It may seem that way because, A, it’s all about who know you and how many friends you have, and, B, all these people from my high school have been contacting me asking to be ‘friends’. I didn’t really want to be friends with these people (or vice versa) when we actually lived in the same town and sat by each other in Advance Biology, why would I want to be friends with them now? And what is Facebook etiquette anyway? Like, do you have to write on someone’s wall after they write on yours? I’m not sure I have the time to post “You look great!” to 52 different people. Honestly, I may just not be cool enough for it all.
But I digress. We were talking about how I was ticked at my hubby yesterday and then he called me on ratting him out to all of you. So later in the day yesterday my hubby says, “Are you going to mention that I cooked everyone breakfast and cleaned up afterwards ?”. This was to make up for hogging all the sleep earlier in the morning. I told him no because I like messing with his head.
I’m pretty sure he would’ve cooked breakfast anyway, even if I weren’t complaining about him in my blog. He likes to cook – crazy I know. And yes, he DOES have a single brother. But….I’m almost 99.9% positive that he would’ve left the ‘mad scientist in the kitchen’ mess if it weren’t for the fact that he actually cares what I say about him on this blog.
So this is what I have to say about that…Blogging Rocks!
…and why I don’t care.
I take my caffeine in one of two ways: orally or intravenously. Just kidding. I meant in soda (preferably Coke) or coffee. I’m actually not a ‘real’ coffee drinker anyway. I’m a wannabe. I can’t drink it straight…good gracious that’s like downing a shot of cheap tequila (I’ve heard). I like my coffee seriously doctored up with mocha/caramel/sugar/cream type stuff. Totally fru-fru. I’m packing a 1-2 caffeine-a- day habit here.
My RE told me to quit caffeine the first time I visited him in 2003. He said there were studies indicating that women who consumed caffeine had lowered chances of conception compared to those who did not. He could’ve told me to quit inhaling oxygen and I probably would’ve complied I wanted a baby so badly. Aye, aye, captain! I quit cold turkey not long after that.
I stayed clean for a few years and finally got preggers with my son in 2006. No way was I going to drink caffeine ever again, I was reformed I tell you. But, when I took the oath to never have caffeine again, I highly underestimated the sleep deprivation of parenthood. So I relapsed. I couldn’t help myself, I was sleepwalking through life! Plus, my sponsor was out at a Starbucks (see, that was a shameless AA reference, but since I have no shame…). But relapsing is just a step in recovery, right?
So, this second round of infertility comes in and I’m needing a caffeine by about 9am to keep the jackhammers from visiting my head. But I keep remembering what my RE told me: no caffeine! I’m in denial for a few months…but low and behold, I’m not getting preggers! I’m drinking caffeine and I’m not getting pregnant! It must be the caffeine!
So I muster every ounce of willpower that I’ve got (which really isn’t a whole lot to honest with you) and decide to quit again: COLD TURKEY. Four days of a record-breaking migraine later and I’m caffeine-free. I really think I should’ve gotten some type of ‘medal of honor’ , but apparently the president was busy with foreign policy or something.
So, a few months go by. I”m eating right (pretty much), exercising, and turning my head the other way as I pass Starbucks on my way to work. Call me the frickin’ Mother Teresa of good habits. I plan to have an IUI with my regular OBGYN in October. An IUI, for all you FP’s out there, is an official way to say ‘the turkey baster method to conception’. Funny how an actual turkey baster costs $2 at the local Walmart, but an IUI runs about $500.
And you know what? I still found myself staring at a single pink line at the end of the month (yup, it was a POAS month). So, I marched myself over to Walmart and bought myself a case of Starbuck’s mocha frappucinos.
And a turkey baster.
Infertility rocks!
…or POAS as my infertility sisters call it. Which means, if you’re still drawing a blank here, taking a pregnancy test. You know: ClearBlue Easy, EPT, or my personal fave, the Dollar Store Special.
First off, let me say something about myself: I’m really a failure to womanhood everywhere. Fact: I have never dyed my hair (although I absolutely plan to do this once the greys get out of control). Fact: I don’t really care about accessories. The only good shoes and purses I have were gifted to me by friends and relative embarrassed to be seen with me. Fact: I always forget to look in the mirror, like for hours…and then waaaaay later on I’ll realize I had some nasty thing hanging out my nose or stuck in my tooth or caught in my hair. Fact: I still have lipstick that’s been in rotation since 1997. Fact: I hate to POAS.
It makes me different than a lot of my infertility sisters out there, who (by their own self-definition) call themselves POAS addicts. The addiction goes like this: ovulate, procreate, and then start testing away for days on end until you either: A) get a BFN (big fat negative) that you actually believe…or B) get a BFP (big fat positive) that you actually believe…or C) are rudely interrupted by sweet AF (aunt Flo…you know who I mean, right?). I’m absolutely not blaming my sisters for this addiction.
This is where infertility really messes with your brain. In life, we take for granted that the simple formula of desire + action = desired consequence. Makes sense. You want a new purse - you scope out a beauty- you buy it on sale - you’ve got yourself a new purse. But infertility doesn’t work that way. It goes more like this: you want a baby more than anything in the world – you do everything right to get pregnant – you don’t get pregnant. Wrong, wrong, wrong! The world isn’t supposed to be this way! Aren’t we taught that a little ambition and elbow grease is the key to success? Don’t we learn that the Little Engine That Could just ‘thought he could’ enough to get up that hill?
So, I envy the POAS addicts out there. It means they still have the hope, the expectation that doing everything right will get you the result you desire, the result you deserve, the result you need. It’s not that I’m completely hopeless, I just am a little jaded I guess. And to be honest, it’s the months that I did decide to give in and test that really haunt me.
It starts with thinking about testing for a few days. Then you start to obsess over every bodily symptom you’re experiencing. Was that a bit of nausea? Am I feeling abnormally tired? Did I just feel a twinge, a cramp…a baby? Nothing else enters your mind except, “When should I test?”. Then, I start the scheming: need to test first thing in the AM, want to wait until hubby’s leaving for work, need to wait until at least 12 days past ovulation. Time goes excruciatingly slow. Finally, the big day gets here, I tear at the near-impossible-to-open test stick while doing a pee-pee dance in the bathroom. Pee on the stick. Wait. Actually hear my heart beating in my ears. And here’s where I do it to myself…I let myself hope. What if I’m really pregnant? How will I tell everyone? Who will I call first? How can I surprise my husband? Has it been 2 minutes yet? What will my due date be? My heart starts pounding so loudly that surely the next-store neighbors can feel it thumping like a pimped out stereo.
And then I look. And, as I stare at the little white rectangle where there should be two perfect pink lines, I see only one. And my heart breaks…again. And I quietly and carefully wrap it back in its wrapper, put it in the trash and remind myself how stupid I was that I actually might’ve been the Little Engine That Could.
Nope, POASing is not for me, at least until sweet old Aunt Flo has failed to report to duty for a few days anyway. These days, I’m wondering if that’s going to happen again for me, to be honest with you. And that makes me feel like the biggest jerk for feeling this cruddy when I actually have experienced the joy of the coveted BFP with my son. I want so much for everyone to get to feel that feeling of the double pink lines.
Maybe the BFN would be easier to look at if it had some little affirming message next to that lonely pink line. I just had an idea. You know those digital pregnancy tests that say ‘pregnant’ or ‘not pregnant’? What if they made pregnancy tests that would give you comforting messages when you got a BFN? Like, “This wasn’t your month, but you have good teeth,” or “Better luck next time,” or “Go get chocolate now.”
I think I have a possible million-dollar idea here, yeah? Of course, I’m always inventing things and then forgetting. But, at least I wrote this one down on my all-new-tricked-out Infertility Rocks blog.
But girls, today I’m sort-of feeling like infertility doesn’t rock. It stinks.
OK first off, I finally got the guts to show my hubby this blog thing. So hubby (and gotta love him for his honesty)thinks my blog is SWELL but feels I’m little ”too mean” on here. That makes me think two things: #1, I’m too mean, and #2, I must do a pretty straight-up spiffy job at filtering my thoughts on a regular basis in front of him because I think mean stuff a lot. Sorry I’m mean, it’s probably not my fault. I’ll get back to you later on whose fault it actually is.
Now let’s get down to the topic of the day, DRUGS baby! Yes, all my IF sisters know what I mean when I say that drugs are truly the best part about infertility. I decided to take a picture of all the pills that I’m taking daily right now. Here they are…
Now if you think you see some M&M’s and Skittles in this picture, well it’s probably just your eyes playing tricks on you. And anyway,who are you to judge? Like, do you actually know anything about infertility medication protocols? Maybe my doc has specifically prescribed that I take my medication in conjunction with certain, delicious, sugary snacks so that the medication isotopes bind with the glucose molecules in the candy. Yeah…maybe so.
OK, you’re right. I did put a bunch of candy on the plate along with my medications. It made for a better picture that way. I mean, most of the drugs are just white or various shades of beige. The rainbow fruit flavors of Skittles look much more dramatic. Plus, the candy is my own personal contribution to my drug protocol. It makes me feel more in control of an out-of-control and chaotic world. OK?
So, I made a list of all the fertility-related medication that I’ve taken in the past 10 months. I know some of my IF girls have me beat by a LONG-SHOT here, especially any of you IVFers….so let me just say now, you guys are my heroes! Here we go, in no particular order:
- Metformin: Actually prescribed to treat type II diabetes, but in my case it’s used to remind my ovaries what God put them there for in the first place. This med gives me a constant upset stomach, woot! Oh, and my insurance company thinks I’m diabetic, so they’ve been sending me this “Living with Diabetes” newsletter for the past 4 years. Awesome.
- Lactobacillus: Not prescribe, just OTC recommended by my doc to ease the stomach discomfort caused by the Met. I suggested he give me medical marijuana, but I guess it’s not legal here or something. Whatever.
- Femara: This one’s pretty crazy…it’s actually a form of chemotherapy used to treat breast cancer. It also makes your ovaries produce more eggs. Wow, 2 for 1. It gave me killer migraines, and didn’t get me preggo either, but it might have cured some impending breast cancer. I guess we’ll never know for sure.
- Imitrex: OK, not actually a fertility medication but used to treat the migraines caused by the Femara, so I’m counting it, darn it.
- Novarell: This is a hormone injected in your, um, hip, to force you to ovulate. Apparently it’s sold on the black market to male body builders. I guess they want to ovulate, too.
- Ovidrel: Another handy-dandy shot. But my favorite thing about this one is that is comes in its very own prefilled syringe so you can give yourself a shot in your stomach with ease. Totally serious about that.
- Baby Aspirin: Thins your blood so you bleed through a few band-aids after they draw pints of your blood each time you visit the RE.
- Prenatal Vitamins: What? Figure this one out yourself, Einstein.
- Folgard: An extra strong dose of folic acid that costs me $20 a month instead of $2. Yay.
- Clomid: Probably the most popular of all the infertility medication mentioned here (most likely because it’s been dating the captain of the football team). My favorite part about this little friend is the way it makes you feel: kind of like you’re on crack. OK, I’ve never actually been on crack, so I couldn’t say for sure. It’s supposed to make you super-ovulate. It’s made me have cysts instead. Oh, and hot-flashes. And I’m pretty sure it also causes swelling in the thigh/hips/buttocks area because my jeans are feeling a little tight these days. Yes, even the stretchy ones.
- Norethindrone: This is to make the cysts caused by Clomid go away…or so my doctor says. The effectiveness of this med is yet to be proven. It’s also caused the pleasant mood that has inspired this blog in the first place.
- Mucinex/Robitussin: I know it’s cough medicine…but it’s also used to help one of the other negative side effects of Clomid (Clomid dries up your cervical mucu…I mean cervical delight). This stuff thins it out again. Yes, I’m being for real.
- A bunch of antibiotics: Oh who care anyway?
- Crack: Just testing you. My doctor doesn’t prescribe me crack, my drug dealer does.
- Just kidding on the crack thing.
So you see, it is the pharmaceutical menagerie mentioned above that has left me in this ‘mean’ state in which my hubby has accused me of blogging. So, as for whose fault it is that I’m so mean: why it’s all the pharmaceutical companies’ of course. It couldn’t be my own fault. Why would I be in a bad mood without the influence of all this medicine anyway? I mean, infertility rocks…Right?
…about TTC (that’s trying-to-conceive). Yes. That is my topic for the day, I’ve decided. I’ve also decided, since I frickin’ LOVE abbreviations, that I’m going to call fertile people “FPs” from now on. I think it’s only fair. I have dealt with a lot of initials with the TTC (did you catch that?) thing. So, FP’s should have to deal a little too.
OK, what they don’t know. For one thing (and this completely blows my mind) FPs don’t know anything about getting pregnant. Oh sure, they know HOW to get pregnant, but they don’t know anything about the monthly cycle, most fertile days, or luteal phase (that’s LP for short, and look it up on Google all you FPs, what do you think I’m going to spoonfeed you here or something?). Just kidding, your luteal phase is the give or take 14 days after you ovulate, teehee. Anyway, I won’t bore you with my vast knowledge of the human egg cycle, the different hormones required for embryo fertilization or implantation, or who in Hollywood has had in vitro fertilization (um, like every star with twins), my point is I could have my flippin’ doctorate in gynocology and it still wouldn’t matter! FPs get pregnant with a whoops, and fellow reproductive scientists like myself are left to sit around studying our monthly BBT fertility charts.
Say it with me: BASAL-BODY TEMPERATURE fertility charts. Ok, it just means we take our temperature every morning. Simple right? Oh no! You see, the BBT chart is a cruel-little joke that the gynocologists play on their infertile patients. I think it started something like this.
“Hey Doctor Awesome!”
“Hey Doctor Fantastic! How’s the practice?”
“Well, it would be awesome, except that I have a few women who can’t get pregnant. They keep bothering me to fix it. I don’t know what else to do.”
“Have you made them do a BBT chart?”
“Why, no. What do you mean?”
“Make them take their temperature at the EXACT same time every single morning and chart it on this exceedingly complicated graph.”
“And then what?”
“Tell them to make specific notes about their moods, body symptoms, and…this is the best part…”
“Yeah?”
“Make them check out their cervical mucus and describe it daily.”
“For how long?”
“For at least 6 months.”
“That’s great. What do I do when they bring it back into me?”
“Well, you can either tell them it’s inconclusive and you need them to chart for 6 more months, or you can tell them you have to start running some tests.”
“So, do I actually INTERPRET the chart?”
“No way, I don’t even know how to read one of those things. It just buys you time, man.”
“Sounds good.”
OK, am I being to harsh on the old gynos? Maybe, but the rest is fact. When they say you have to take your temp at the same time every day, they mean the exact same time…before you get out of bed. And you must be in bed, laying down, for at least 4 hours prior to taking your temp to get an accurate reading. Have to pee at 5am but don’t temp until 7am? Too bad…hold it and weep. Our immigration standards are more flexible than this!
And yes, FPs, you really do have to monitor your cervical mucus (CM). Some people say ‘fluid’ instead of ‘mucus’. It’s not any more fun whatever you call it. Like, we could call it our ‘cervical delight’ but it’s still checking out something that I’ve been actively trying to pretend doesn’t exist since puberty. What’s the point of the charting? Well, supposedly you can pinpoint your day of ovulation, and watch for trends that could indicate various other medical problems. I charted for 2 years. Two years! All I had to show for it was a worn out thermometer and a confused looking doctor who wanted to ‘run some tests’.
The best part is that with all this obsessing, you’re suppose to just RELAX. Because, even FP’s know that relaxation is the key to getting pregnant. Don’t believe me? Just tell any old FP that you’ve been TTC for a while…and count to ten. I betcha my right arm (ha! I’m left-handed) that the ‘all you have to do is relax’ bomb will drop before you get to the count of 4…and the ‘maybe you need to take a vacation’ bonus hint will be thrown in by the count of 8. I’ve tested this theory and it’s no-fail.
Oh, and I’m totally serious about the docs being clueless with the BBT charts. Play this fun game at your next ‘check the BBT chart’ appointment, infertility sisters (that’s my new name for you) . Slip a Dow Jones Industrial report on his desk instead and see if he notices the difference.
You know where my money is…because after all, infertility rocks!
Ummmmmm….well, the inspiration to do this blog came to me today after a FUN vist to the RE (that’s ‘reproductive endocrinologist’ for all you fertile people). I found out the cysts, that decided my ovary was a perfect place to live, were not yet evicted. Add another 2 weeks to the impending 10 months we’ve been TTC (that’s ‘trying-to-conceive’, fertile ones). OK, I know 10 months does not make this round of infertility ‘official’ (it has to be 12 months)…but all together my huband and I have been dealing with my ovaries and/or uterus in some way or another for over 8 years.
But I digress, I’m at the RE’s office miffed because my left ovary (which has had discipline problems in the past) likes cysts more than it likes eggs. And the receptionist says to me, “Well, because this is a medical visit, insurance covers your co-pay.” Whoa. Infertility rocks. Now, silly me, I had it in my head that all the treatments I have been getting actually were medical, but maybe the whole doctor/nurse set-up is a scam.
So on the way home I get a craving for some therapy…you know the kind: hot, greasy, and salty. Mmmmm, McDonald’s french fries. With McDonald’s BBQ sauce. That’s good therapy. Now, you might think it was rude of me to hog all the fries as I drove and not give any to my 2 year-old son (what? I thought you were infertile?). But, being a nutritious-conscious kind of mom, I decided to just provide a horrible example of emotional eating and not actually let him partake. I mean, what’s he emotional about anyway? It has absolutely nothing to do with the fact the my son yells, “Eat, Eat!” each time we pass a McDonalds on the road and the guilt associated with that. The “Eat, eat!” thing, by the way, is my husband’s fault.
So anyway, an hour ride each way to a free medical appointment and french fries on the way home? Infertility Rocks!
