Tag: baby

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For better or worse: kind of an update

For whatever it’s worth, this is the third time I’ve started this blog in the last 6 months. Every time has really had its best intentions, with the promise of a big update that many have skirted around asking for. And please don’t get me wrong, I’m so, so appreciative that so many care. But frankly, I haven’t known what to say.

So I’ll say this. Please don’t read this with hopes for a big, awesome plan. We don’t have one.

The last 6 months have really had their ups and downs. I’ve finally found a career I really love,Ā Mike is doing great. Ā So many things to be so grateful for. And we are, more than you know.

So here’s the last 6 months of baby making, in a nutshell. The third transfer and subsequent failure changed me. I’m just being honest here. I mean, no one expects the first transfer to work, and the second, well, it stings, but you’re not burnt yet. But man, something happened after that third transfer. Ā We really, really thought that one was it, too. I was sick in a way I had never been, all the numbers looked great. This was finally it. Until it wasn’t.

We were willing to move forward with the 4th. We went for a consult with our doctor, and she spewed all kinds of tests we could do and experiments we could try, with all statements seeming to end with a proverbial question mark. All costing thousands of dollars with no actual promise of any definitive answers. Months and months of meds and endometrial biopsies with no end in sight. And frankly it was all a shot in the dark. But what really got me was this: “we have no idea why it didn’t work. Everything looked perfect. This should have worked.”

Everyone has asked me throughout this whole process how I could work around pregnant women all day, and I very truthfully responded with “their baby isn’t about me. Their path isn’t my path.” And I meant it. And everyone seemed to wait for the final straw that would break the camels back. And break it, it did.

I started turning into what everyone expected me to have been from the start. Bitter, sad, jaded. Jealous and angry. And with no help from the shitloads of artificial hormones still coursing through my body, I’ll be the first to admit I went to a pretty dark place. I lost all sense of hope. Literally, every bit.

Mike and I did a lot of soul searching, and decided that maybe we needed to be done with IVF. We had always welcomed the idea of adoption. And Ā it’s a much larger conversation which I’m happy to get into personally, but we just decided to do IVF first. But adoption was never a consolation prize. Just a different path.

So here we were, super excited about the change in direction, ready to put full steam behind adopting! Here’s what we found out: there are almost zero local agencies that will work with us because we’re not Christian. OK, so we find a large national agency we like. Yay! We meet with a family services organizationĀ to start our homestudy. Oh, what’s that? All the debt we went into for IVF will likely get us denied to adopt? Awesome.

Enter total pit of despair.

Alright, maybe I’m being dramatic, but I’m not far off.

So here’s where we stand. We have no idea what we’re going to do, and that’s basically it.Ā There’s a part of me that wants to go on and onĀ all about how I feel defective and guilty, how my body has let us down too many times. About how when you look for help to change that feeling, every article you read about loving and accepting your body seems to boilĀ down to “I look at my beautiful children and realize my body did that“, which only alienates me even more and fosters the hate even deeper. How this whole month of December has been excruciating because had that third transfer worked, this is when we would have met our baby.Ā I wish I could explain the painĀ I’ve felt when I told Mike (on more than one occasion)Ā that I would totally get it if he left me and found someone else that was just easier, and the pain in his face because he knows I mean it.

But frankly, if you haven’t been there, you won’t understand. I swear, that’s not meant to be condescending.Ā It’s just true.

I want to end this on a positive note, but there kind of isn’t one. I mean, who knows how all this will turn out? But I do know this – for now, I’m lucky enough to get lots of love from littles who I get to hang out with all the time. And I could not have asked for a better partner. I mean, seriously, this shit tears couples apart, and understandably so.

They weren’t kidding about the whole for better or worse thing.

 

FAQ’s and other notable commentary:

“But what about foster care?”
Every state is different, and TN always has the main goal of reuniting families. Always. Babies do not go into foster care for adoption right off the bat. And bringing a child, baby or otherwise, into our family and then having them taken from us is too much right now. I’ll always be supportive of families being able to work it out,Ā and I’d love to be part of that in the future, but right now, that’s not the right path for us.

“BUT THERE ARE SO MANY BABIES WHO NEED HOMES! SAVE THE BABIES!”
In private adoption, there are approximately 36 waiting hopeful families for every baby born with an adoption plan.

“So are you in a constant state of misery?”
Not constant, per se. I speak for both of us when I say we find a lot of joy being around our friends and their families! Or my little ones in class, whom I LOVE and truly look forward to seeing weekly. But yes, it’s hard. Sometimes, I’ll recuse myself from the environment so I’m not that person bawling in a random place. And that’s ok. It’s always appreciated when you allow me these moments.

“Have hope! My brother/neighbor/cousin/friend did…”
Here’s the thing about hope. Hope is the easiest thing for people to try to pump into you when there’s nothing else to say – which, for the record, I completely get! I’m guilty of it myself, probably many times over. But alongside hope, is reality, and reality is truth, no matter how much hope you’ve got. Infertility is really, really complex. It’s incredibly unlikely that what happened to your loved one won’t happen for us. It’s not a doom thing, it’s that every case is extremely different.

“But did you try…”
Yes.

 

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From Her Point of View

 

Failure.

After weeks of shots in the belly, shots in the ass, estrogen patches, supplements, not lifting more than 10lbs, avoiding caffeine, sugar, raw almost anything, soft cheese, and Advil, surgical procedures, bed rest, and essentially avoiding anything that makes anyone any fun.

Failure.Ā 

I’m not saying I failed. I’m not saying I didn’t. But in the end, that’s exactly what happened. We may never know the reason. It could be that the embryo wasn’t genetically viable and the body has an incredible way of avoiding that kind of heartbreak. It could be something the clinic did. It could be something I did. It could justĀ be bad luck.

I’m not going to say “it happened for a reason”, because fuck that. Nor am I going to say “it’ll happen when it’s time”, because fuck that, too. If the universe has a timeline and it’s not right now, IĀ would have appreciatedĀ a heads up before we took out a $20,000 loan.

I want to make people feel better. If you’re hurting, I’m hurting, and I just need to fix things. But this has taught me that some things just need to be felt, not fixed.

So here I am Friday afternoon, pumped full of pregnancy hormones (which is really the cruel joke in all of this), getting a call that starts with “do you have a minute to talk?” And I sat at work and cried before I had to bring lunch into a room full of incredible women, all with their new babies. And I’ll admit I kind of bolted out of the room, grabbed my things, and left. And I continued that cry in the car. Like, a legit ugly cry. And I’ve had some tears since, but that horrid ugly cry is what I needed. IĀ felt that loss. IĀ feltĀ the grieving. IĀ feltĀ sad.

I am so, so truly appreciative of those in my life who love me. I have felt support in ways I’m not even sure I knew existed. I have a husband whose love is beyond words. I have family and friends who work so hard to let us know we’re in your hearts and minds. I love you all from the bottom of my heart, please know that.

I also need to ask for a little slack if I don’t always want to look on the bright side. Sometimes, I just need the leeway to say “this may never work.” It doesn’t mean it won’t, it just means I’m acknowledging what’s going through my head, and sometimes getting that out is all that’s necessary. Please forgiveĀ me when you want me to feel like my body can do anything, and I disagree. AndĀ I’m not going to apologizeĀ when encouraging words including hope, strength, and bravery are met with rebuttals of reality. My reality is this may or may not work, and acceptance of that does not mean I’ve given up.

So on to the next. We have one frozen embryo, so we’re going to try again. And if that doesn’t work, who knows? Maybe we’ll do it again. Maybe we’ll move to adoption. But as Mike has said, over and over: whether or not this works isn’t the end goal.Ā No matter how our path looks, we’ve committed to becoming parents, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do.Ā 

(So, you know, if your mom’s friend’s neighbors daughter is preggersĀ and looking to adopt, tell her to call us!)

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A slightly pessimistic, albeit honest, update.

I’ve been getting lots of questions about an update. I can’t believe so many people in our lives give that much of a shit. Thank you, friends. Your support has been invaluable.

As many of you know, we bought a house last year. It wasn’t necessarily planned, until our landlord jacked our rent up a LOT. And while we’re so grateful we were able to buy, we wiped out every bit of savings we had. So baby stuff got bumped back a bit.

So here’s the current standing: the plan is to get started in April. Let’s get SXSW out of the way, get our loan finalized, deal with whatever medical stuff I need to deal with dealt with.

Part of the reason I started this blog was to show the actual reality of what infertility looks like. And I’ve always promised to be honest with this blog. So let’s be honest.

I’m fucking exhausted.

The end of 2015 marked 3 years of pre-baby brain. Everyone who has started “trying” knows that your world is immediately shaken. I went from a 3 cups of coffee a day habit to caffeine free life. I have taken some reallyĀ bizarre herbs and supplements. I’ve eaten pineapple core, stopped eating deli turkey for half the month, made maca and flax seed smoothies, tracked every. single. thing. my body does. I’ve fallen off piles of pillows, peed on ovulation sticks 3 times a day for months on end AND taped the sticks into a notebook with the day/time taken (eew, I know), and taken my temperature upon exact moment of waking up (but you know, don’t move before because it could spike your temp). I’ve been vaccinated, changed every one of my facial/soap products to pregnancy safe, and researched every Advil/Zyrtec/etc to see what pregnancy category it falls under. I’ve been poked, prodded, injected, cut open, asked super personal questions, and had more people than I’d like in places I’d prefer them not to be. I’ve dealt with headaches, anxiety, and other various medical issues because the remedy isn’t safe for pregnancy. I have listened to every old wives tale, rumor, and/or tip on how to get pregnant, and explained countless times that no, I cannot “just relax”. I have truly believed I’ve seen pregnancy symptoms, completely discounting the 30 previous years of bouts of nausea for every single reason other than pregnancy, only to be let down at the end of the month. I’ve put my baking business on hold. I’ve smiled, made jokes, laughed, and acted hopeful for the sake of others when I just wanted to scream.

I’m. Exhausted. And the funny thing about all of this, is that the hard work hasn’t even started. It’s hard to be excited about the possibility of a baby when you’ve moved into the it’s not happening mindset (thank you, but no pep talks needed). Because it’s hard to see a baby in your future when you have injections, pills, blood, doctors, waiting, restrictions, and procedures, or home visits, birth parents, and approvals between you and that baby. And the giant pink elephant that no one wants to talk about: there’s a pretty significant chance that it just won’tĀ work. So at that point, does it all become worthless? What happens when you’re paying back a $20,000 loan every month for nothing? When trying again becomes a whole new set of loan documents, injections, and broken hope.

I’m not all pessimism. Most of the time I know it’ll happen somehow. Mike and I have committed to finding a way to parenthood, whatever it takes. Whether that be IVF or adoption, we know we’ll love that baby the same and all of this will be worth it. And that’s a great feeling to have, at least most of the time. But there are just times it’s not enough, and I get all emo and shit. Calling a spade a spade.

So there it is, the update. I’m sure you can understand why I’ve been hesitant to put this out there. But we committed to honesty and that’s what I’m going to do. With any luck, this time next year, we’ll be able to look back at this and be glad we’ll never have to feel this way again.

See? Optimism.

 

Side note: I just want to thank all the friends and family who have privately spoken with us about your personal journeys. The good, the bad, and the ugly have all helped us navigate our own path. To you, we are grateful.