I.V.Effed: No Sex, No Lies, and No Videotape

when I knew I would be trying to start a blog, I wanted to get some of the initial feelings down, even before I figured out how to set it all up.  I’m computer-illiterate and knew it could take a while..so this was written at the “start” of this current cycle.

IVF…take five.  I had my baseline appointment yesterday.  For possibly the first time ever, I cracked a little bit when talking to my doctor.  I asked him to give some Great Reassuring Words about this upcoming cycle (He did not really live up to the challenge.  My doctor is not really a “Feelings” doctor.  He gets in there, does his thing, and then closes up shop.  Frankly, I usually don’t mind that method.  I don’t really want a motherly-type of doctor when my own mothering destiny is in question.  I’m sure this topic will come up again in a future entry titled “Why I am Sexist: My Thoughts on Why Reproductive Endocrinologists Should be Men.”)

Once I headed home, I broke down in the car.  I’ve been “artifically” working for Baby Two for a year now, and all I have to show for it are some outstanding medical bills.  Also have the ultrasound of the baby boys still–can’t bring myself to look at it, but can’t bring myself to throw it away, either.  I should be quite pregnant right now, complaining happily of indigestion and feet stuck in my ribs and feeling little baby hiccups.  Crap.  I stopped off at the pharmacy before going home to fill my prescription for the greatest irony known to an infertile, The Pill.  Will start that on the 10th and then finish on the 31st.  Hopefully enough time to shrink the inevitable cyst and keep the high FSH in check though hoping that the wheatgrass I chug nightly will assist in that too. 

This cycle has a lot riding on it.  I am so afraid it will be the last my heart can take.  I want to be so strong and keep going and going until it works again, but these days my heart is so much weaker than my head.  And this is IT until 2010 when we will have to find some new insurance.  So it is my last chance for a baby before P turns three.  And he is not even TWO yet! I will say though, that infertility has taught me to never say never.  But the reality of it all is still scary.

Another twist of infertile irony–my dear sister in law will be undergoing IVF at the exactsamefriggintime.  A sweet fate, or a hell for one of us?  We’ll know for sure in six weeks’ time.  I can’t imagine anything harder than going through something with someone…at the same time…and one (her) finding out it was a success and one (me) finding out it was a failure.  She is not only my sister in law, but a best friend–and we have already shared some of our fears et al about this.  We’ve decided to lean on each other, but also to realize when to back away.  Because while we are both going through this together, we are also going through this alone.  She is so strong–she believes The Universe can’t hate us both so much that it would cause something bad to come of this–me, I still harbor some bitterness towards The Universe when it comes to my fertility.  So I pray she is right.  One day at a time.  And while there is a hell of a lot riding on this for me, this is her first foray into The Big Guns of Reproductive Medicine.  So it is overwhelming and huge and scary for her too. 

My husband had some deeply reassuring words for me about she and I going through this together–”There’s a fifty percent chance you both have the same outcome, and a fifty percent chance you have different outcomes.”  Them there are such Words of Comfort, no?

1 Comment | In: August 09 | | #

I have a son.  That may turn a lot of you away, so I thought I’d get it out there.  He turns two this fall. You’re welcome to stop reading now, if you’d like.  You may not care about the story of a girl who has already started her family.  Because maybe you still haven’t, and you think I don’t know what that’s like anymore.  Afterall, what can possibly be so noteworthy, so interesting, so tragic about my life?  Nothing really.  My life is rich and blessed and special.  But you know, it sure as hell isn’t perfect.

It seems you’re still reading.  That means you’ve decided to give me a chance.  I’ll give a recent-ish update to my life, and then you can still decide if I have anything to say that’s worth reading about.

My son was born via my (our) second IVF attempt, back in 2007.  I love him to pieces.  I am thankful every single day for him.  Every. day.  My husband and I have been trying for a second child since P was about 6 months old, and we are about to embark on our third IVF cycle for this next little one (fifth, if you count the one before P, and the one FOR P).  And seventh, if you count a failed FET and a cancelled FET.  We did have a success story this past winter–after a quick little 60 hour jaunt to the ICU after a retrievalgonewrong, we found out I was pregnant.  Two weeks later we were stunned and then overjoyed to see TWO heartbeats.  Twins.  Fear.  Joy.  Excitement.  A bigger car.  A triple stroller.  And then at the 10 week appointment, they were both dead.  Two little boys whose hearts I will never really know.

So if you think maybe I don’t have a credible story here–because I don’t fit in with those who are still yearning for their first but I really don’t fit with those who are starting to try for a second, because I already HAVE my sweet baby, because I already know the love for a child, the love a child has for me…well, maybe you’re right.  But then again, maybe not.

I hope to use this blog as a means of survival for this next IVF cycle.  I want it to be just honest and real and raw and a crutch for me when the times get tough again.  Because I have no doubt they will.  So I start this blog a little selfishly, but also I hope that somewhere, someone will benefit from where I have been and what I still continue to do.  It’s hard to start my story right here in the middle of my journey, but it also seems wrong to go back and focus on the struggles I’ve left behind.   Because I really haven’t left them behind–they have shaped me into the person I am right at this second unshowered, laundry waiting to be folded, listening to P waking up from a nap. So thank you, Husband, for this invaluable 5th Anniversary present.  More special than jewels or wine or a fancy dinner–your heart wanted to give me this gift of a blog.  And I hope to do you proud by it.

5 Comments | In: August 09 | | #