infertility – Baby Fabio

December 10, 2017December 10, 2017

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, Mike is doing great. 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. 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 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 organization 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. There’s a part of me that wants to go on and on 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 boil 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. I wish I could explain the pain I’ve felt when I told Mike (on more than one occasion) 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. 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, 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.

November 2, 2016November 2, 2016

The tale of the body that could(n’t).

I figured it was probably time to share the news.

This last embryo, it wasn’t our baby either.

So two rounds in, two rounds failed. I had done the unspeakable and tested in advance, so I sobbed it out all weekend. But the final line was drawn Monday with the blood test. The blood test that would, yet again, tell us we’re not going to be parents. Again. Not this time.

About a week ago, I had the opportunity to screen Embrace, a great documentary that explored body image and self love/hate. I came home enlightened, enraged, enamored. I wrote this long post about my deeply rooted body issues and conception, and in the end, couldn’t bring myself to post it. After years of very openly discussing my reproductive system, somehow, this post about my relationship with my body felt too personal.

It boiled down to this: no matter how much I’m told my body is amazing or capable or meant to do this, here I am, despite desperately trying to accept the body I’m in for what it is, with a blaring neon sign staring me in the face saying

you’re still defective.

I did everything. Eat this, don’t eat that, weigh this, stop taking this, start taking that, exercise more but that’s too much, relax, be positive, LOVE YOUR BODY FOR THE HEAVENLY VESSEL IT IS AND ALL WILL BE SOLVED!

Every shot, every ultrasound, every appointment, every procedure is a stark reminder of the things my body is supposed to do on its own. I wanted nothing more than that 1BB grade embryo that a doctor inserted to stay in my belly. I hoped it would settle into the uterine lining that injections of estradiol created. I wished that it would thrive on the shots of progesterone and estradiol that my body got nightly. Nothing. And I can’t help but feel that every time someone tries to offer advice, there’s an underlying twinge of “what is wrong with you?”

I have this idea in my head that when my body actually carries out a pregnancy, that’s when I’ll learn to love it. But that -when- may not happen, and the alternative action cannot be hating my body for the rest of my life.

I still don’t regret our decision to be open about our journey, even if it’s a little depressing sometimes. This needs to be discussed. People going through this need to connect, and the relationships I’ve had the good fortune to cultivate through this process have been priceless, and will hopefully last a lifetime. I write all this because infertility desperately needs transparency, and this is what it looks like.

So what’s next? What’s next is a break. My body needs to heal. Both our hearts need to heal. We are tired, brokenhearted, and broke. But this too shall pass, and on we’ll go, probably at the beginning of next year.

In the mean time, send gluten.

August 27, 2016August 27, 2016

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.

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 just 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, I would have appreciated 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. I felt that loss. I felt the grieving. I felt 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 forgive me when you want me to feel like my body can do anything, and I disagree. And I’m not going to apologize 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. No matter how our path looks, we’ve committed to becoming parents, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do.

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

August 12, 2016August 12, 2016

Paying the toll

Today was our egg retrieval day. That’s one of the two big days in the IVF process. I could write all about the process, but you could simply Google IVF and find a zillion explanations of what this entails (two months of meds leading into two big days at the clinic). We’ve been a little quiet lately, primarily because we’re just heads down focused on making this happen, balancing work and life and endless doctors visits and injections.

Selfie! — This is what I look like after waking up at 5am for egg retrieval

Here’s the quick update: we’ve got 6 eggs. At this point that’s all we know. We can’t tell how many are viable, and we won’t know until tomorrow just how many are fertilized. And we won’t know whether it’s going to be a day 3 or day 5 transfer until Saturday.

6 eggs isn’t what anyone really hopes for. Mathematically, that number doesn’t work in our favor. According to some research, that puts our success rate at 38%.

Still I’m hopeful. Optimism has gotten me through so many things in life. I’m not even an optimist by nature, I’ve just trained myself to think positively (most of the time). The pessimist would say we have a 62% chance it won’t work. But I’m gonna say this glass is half full.

But the hard truth of it is that the dice are just gonna fall where they fall. It’s all a crapshoot. I’m not gonna lie, this shit takes a toll.

The physical toll: As with most things in life, men have it easy when it comes to IVF. Seriously, I mean how could you not get turned on by this sexy room? I forgot my Marvin Gaye cassette tapes, though.

If you're wondering, yes there's porn in the room. I opted not to touch it. — If you’re wondering, yes there’s porn in the room. I opted not to touch it.

Courtney hasn’t had it quite so easy. The physical toll for her is incontrovertible. For the last two months she’s taken needles like a champ, downed more pills than I can count, drawn blood, been prodded with an ultrasound wand numerous times. Today she went in for egg retrieval, a short procedure, but invasive, painful, and uncomfortable. Her resilience and resolve is astounding, and I am so proud of her. She’s one tough cookie, and I am so fortunate to have her as my wife.

Here are all the meds needed for one cycle of egg retrieval and transfer.

The emotional toll: we’ve been trying to have children for going on three years now. The first year was full of hope, followed by a slow decline into despair. The gradual realization that this might not be working is so difficult to explain, and so devastatingly debilitating. Hope dies an agonizing death at the hands of ignorance – unsure of what the cause is, unsure of what can be done, unsure of the path forward, or if there even is a path forward.

Courtney peed on a lot of sticks. All of them said no.

Year two was filled with picking up the pieces, making sure we had the information. We diagnosed the primary cause of our infertility (we hope), and fixed it through a bilateral salpingectomy (not pleasant, irreversible). We visited adoption centers, fertility clinics, and made sure that we had all our ducks in a row, that we understood all our options.

Somewhere around June of 2015, just after Courtney’s surger and before we were about to begin IVF for the first time, we were hit with a particularly difficult blow, when our landlord at the time decided to hike our rent by more than 30%. Forced to move, we had to put our plans on hold while we sorted out our living situation, our financial situation, and get back on our feet. Now this wasn’t all bad – we bought a beautiful house, consolidated our debts, and I got a new job – but it wasn’t an easy year, and given our age the clock is definitely ticking (fertility falls off sharply starting at age 35).

Which leads me to the financial toll: I’ll just be blunt about it, and tell you that this month we’ve spent $13,526.90 on our fertility treatment. $4,476.90 of this was for drugs, the rest covers the clinic fee which is mercifully set at a flat rate of $9,050.

In the United States (‘Merica!) fertility treatments are not mandated to be covered by insurance (ugh). Some states include it, but not Tennessee. Our insurance doesn’t include any fertility coverage. So we’re paying out of pocket. And I didn’t even mention the lab testing, doctors visits, and all kinds of other shit we’ve paid for that I currently don’t have the brainpower to tally up.

Needless to say, we didn’t have a spare $13,526.90 laying around. So we’ve called upon the slavedriver known as debt once more. We got turned down by one company, another offered us less than what we needed, but the amazing folks at SoFi have given us all we need and more at an extraordinarily reasonable rate. I can’t highly recommend them enough. If you need a personal loan or a student loan refinance, please give them a try (those affiliate links will help us pay off our loan too!).

All this to say that I’m exhausted. We’re exhausted. Midway through writing this post, I took a break to drive a 2 inch needle into Courtney’s left hip, full of progesterone and sesame oil. As Courtney is very fond of saying, “Why can’t I just make a stir fry?!”

And yet, think about it: our child may have been conceived today. That’s a crazy thought. And while 6 eggs retrieved may yield anywhere from 0-6 viable embryos, the thing that keeps me going is the knowledge that it only takes one.

January 26, 2016January 26, 2016

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 really 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’t 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.

June 21, 2015June 21, 2015

The Story of Two Tubes and Far Too Many Feels

I’ve been trying to write this blog for 2 weeks, and for some reason the words just entirely evaded me. I’ve started it a few times, would get halfway done, realize I was writing nonsense, and then delete it. I kept writing about the surgery I had a couple of weeks ago. The experience, the recovery. The stupid details that no one wants to hear about anyway.

But let’s start there – I had surgery on June 3 at 7:30a. Everything went as planned. Scar tissue, endometriosis, encapsulated fallopian tubes removed on both sides. Recovery went well.

But here’s what didn’t go as planned: how I was going to end up feeling about this whole thing. To be clear, I went in with 100% knowledge about what we were doing, and what the results would be. My doctor is amazing, and we talked in depth about what my options were, and the possible outcomes.

I knew that after surgery, I’d be clinically sterile. But what I didn’t know was the impact that term would have. The one thing we want more than anything is a baby, and now, here I am clinically sterile. Clinically. Sterile.

This is not how this is supposed to go.

I am no more or less sterile now than I was before the surgery, so how is this weighing on me so much? Maybe in my head, there was still this shred of hope. Like there was a 0.002% that a spontaneous pregnancy would occur. Who knows, maybe I’m more of an optimist than I thought?

It’s funny how some people respond when they find out you’re doing fertility treatments. So many people have been wonderful, with the most amazing and appreciated words of kindness. But there are always those people who say, “Watch, you’ll go to start the IVF and then you’ll get pregnant!” I used to have energy for a witty comeback, or at least “nope, but nice thought”. Now, it’s just a sad “there is literally zero chance of that happening”. It’s generally an awkward moment all around, but it’s the truth.

I’ve learned to deliver all kinds of bizarre information through this process, but having to repeat over and over how defective my body is gets exhausting.

Emotions aside, there was no getting rid of one fact: I didn’t have a choice. As a product of 5 previous surgeries, my fallopian tubes were completely encased in scar tissue. There was a 0% chance an egg could have gotten in, and suspending reality and pretending it did, there was a 0% chance of fertilization as it was full of toxic fluids. Going the try-to-fix-it route only left me susceptible for them to close right back up, and at risk for ectopic pregnancy (yes! It’s totally possible, even with IVF) where I’d lose my tubes, and the baby, anyway. More than 50% of ectopic pregnancies are a result of damaged tubes, with many miscarriages a result of the toxic fluid coming back into the uterus and damaging the embryo.

My intention with this post isn’t to be depressing, it’s to bring these kind of things into the light. Since we’ve decided to be open with this, I’ve had the joy of connecting with so many people going through this. Some with good outcomes, some not. Some open about this, some who have hidden it from everyone – close friends and family included. I couldn’t have known how this would feel. I didn’t know it was even an option. But I do know this: this fight is much easier when you’re not doing it alone.

I suppose this is all part of the process. And I mean, if we’re being real optimists here, fallopian tubes are just a formality, right? I like to consider my surgery an upgrade to my future child’s uterine home. It’s like getting bumped to a suite at a hotel. Without the free toiletries. Silver linings all around.

March 7, 2015August 12, 2016

My name is Courtney, and I’m about to share way too much information.

1 in 8 couples have an issue getting, or staying, pregnant. And we’re one of them.

We’re not starting this blog to to gross anyone out. It’s not for sympathy, either. There are so many people going through this, and not nearly as many talking about it. I get it. It’s a private matter. Talking about getting pregnant usually mentions (gasp) sex. But infertility is anything but romantic.

I’m going to be frank here. This shit sucks. It just does. And I’m still not entirely sure there’s a light at the end of this tunnel. But I know that hearing personal experience helps me more in this process than any medical website or doctor. So if I can help one friend who’s silently going through this, that’s what I’m going to do.

I’ll get to the brass tacks here. We have female factor infertility. I’ve had 5 surgeries, of which started when I was 16. I’m like a medical text book. Ovarian cysts? Two different varieties. Endometriosis? Yep. Crazy adhesions (scar tissue) that tie your inner organs together? It’s about as awesome as it sounds. Fibroids? Let’s throw those in too. Now, we’re heading into the grand finale where scar tissue has screwed things up so royally that I have to have my fallopian tubes removed. Surgery number six will be happening soon.

We’ve been attempting conception for over a year and a half now, and with IVF being our only option in conceiving, it’s now science to us (I’ll touch on adoption in an other post). Of course the love exists, but where there were once thoughts of romantic weekends and Pinterest-esq announcements, there are now schedules, injections, blood draws, and strangers in scrubs.

Emotionally, I think we’ve experienced it all. Excitement, disappointment, guilt, love, anger – the list goes on. Funny enough, the diagnosis of absolute infertility made things exponentially easier. There’s nothing worse than a year and a half of the unknown. So when we told the fertility specialist “we’ve been trying for a year and half”, to which she responded with a head shake and a succinct “no you haven’t”, things were finally clear. There’s no doubt that having to do IVF brings on a whole different kind of stress, but it was finally a problem with a solution.

So what now? Well, surgery comes first, and then we schedule the IVF cycle, which goes for about 8 weeks. We’ll be chronicling this process along the way because it has to be talked about. For the record, we’re not offended if this is more than you want to know and prefer not to read it. We get it. But for those also going through this, just know you’re not alone on this (extremely confusing, emotion invoking, yet awesomely scientific) ride.