Kaboom! ... knock my socks off May

I was so sad a few weeks ago, I literally couldn't pick myself up off the bed for a full afternoon as I lay there reading back issues of Southern Living and staring out the doorway at the dark, cloud-filled sky. I'd just returned from a visit to Bea and it had thrown me into a funk. Nothing it seemed was going right. Seb was in Lyon and I wasn't seeing him much. The baby making trials hadn't worked and now one of my best friends was leaving. Add all that up and you get a mess of emotions all surging together into a wave of pent up adrenaline. Throw in some PMS and you've got a real tsunami heading to shore.

I'm feeling better now. Seb and I have decided to take a very small apartment on the outskirts of Lyon near his job so that Little S and I can join him a few days most weeks. For the past month and a half he's actually been living with some colleagues in a communal situation and we hadn't been able to visit. This job seems to be something he actually likes and if the "liking" trend continues we're going to ease into a life over there, ... uh, emphasis on the word ease as you may have noticed.

As for the fertility treatment, I've started the IVF and although I'd love to say I'm feeling uppity and positive, I'm way beyond the positive vibe rah rah rah cheerleader crap at this stage in the game. I'm going to leave it at saying I'm feeling advancement in that little compartment of my life. Advancement though is a good thing. It's better than standingf*ckingstill. Three cheers for advancement!

The PMS is gone for now thank you very much.

And then there's Bea and all of that "friend who I will miss more than I can imagine" baggage I've been lugging about. But, strangely things are a little better on that front too because in the past few weeks I've had a luxury. I've spent lots of time with other friends and it's been very, very nice. For example I've recently discovered a blog friend Riana, a sort of sprawl on the bed friend, meaning simply that you feel so comfortable with this friend you can sprawl out on their bed barefoot and chat until you're hoarse, or until their husband comes in eyeballing you to give back the wife and the bed you've so readily stolen. And there's Dee, a longtime SBF who will now be one hour north of me instead of the usual two and a half hours. Because while I'm in Lyon it will be a much shorter trek to her house. We're already busy planning lots of Summer visits. And finally I've gotten to know My Turkish friend Huri a lot better in the past month. We both like cooking and baking and Huri does a great job cutting hair so I think she may be snipping mine a little next week. The other day as I was sitting, not sprawling mind you, on Huri's bed she paid me a very nice compliment, "I feel really comfortable around you Chris. I feel like I can be myself and say what I want." I liked hearing that. It made me feel it was possible to build new friendships and make new connections. I think that was where my fear has been with Bea leaving. I was afraid I was losing yet another "I can be myself with her" type of friend. After all, living in another country there aren't so many of those type of friendships around. I think maybe there are a few more out there than I'd originally thought though and that has significantly eased my mind these past few weeks.

So well, let's hope the feeling better stuff continues. I'd like to see May end with a bang and not a fizzle. I'm really not in the mood for any more fizzling. I'm ready for some real fireworks as the rest of this month plays out. Come on May ...show me the magic.

The inuterine files

There's nothing like bad infertility news to make you crabby. I think I had forgotten how immmmpoosssibbbblyyyyy sssslllllooooooowwww this train goes. I don't really feel like going into it here. If you're the least bit interested in infertility and how it makes a sane woman crazy, you can read about it in my trying to do baby two blog which come to think of it would probably have been better titled I HATE MY UTERUS.

I have nothing nice to say today.

Love at first ...

a little spin around the port with my papa

In an effort to patch up the lingering emptiness and frustration, oh yes and anger over last weekend's terrible turn, I decided the best cure was to go shopping on the Monday and forget about everything. The trip into town would I decided be devoted to baby S for many selfless reasons on my part. Actually to be honest it was kind of by default. He has more cash flow right now than anyone in the family; the only one with any buying power around here. So, I gathered together the few stray birthday checks, including the biggie from the grandparents, and hit "Joué Club" with a sort of mission in mind; baby S's would be getting his first bike. After all we all remember the first bike, right?

It wasn't an easy choice. All of the bikes I looked at were completely wrong. They were all either too large or too babyish. I knew we'd regret the large ones because it would only frustrate him to try to ride it, and he'd be completely obsessed with trying it so we'd have to hide it away. Then the baby cars and ride-on toys were just too namby pamby and I knew he'd outgrow them in six months time and we'd be stuck with more stuff to arrange in the basement; which in reality is no longer really a basement but a fully operating BABY STORE. Finally we found this really cool tricycle that you can adjust as the child grows. It has a seatbelt and lockable steering. It also has lockable pedals until he can figure out how to pedal by himself. Perfect for him for the next few years. When he turns three we can get him a real bike with training wheels and he'd transition right from this to that.

Baby S fell totally in love with the tricycle as soon as he saw the box. He helped us put it together, matching pieces here and there and running away with others in his mouth which was cute until about the time when we couldn't find stuff.


some assembly required (note baby S's halloween costume for the 31st and note that Seb wears flip-flops all year long which he calls "claquettes." Huh you say?)

When it was assembled he immediately dragged it all over the house. It was very late though so we parked the trike in the corner to outraged cries of "nya nya nya nya!" which we know from past experience is translated as something along the lines of, "you people are a cruel race and I'm outraged at your lack of respect...one day when I'm grown you'll pay for this." He refused sleep because he wanted to be with it. He cried and cried until we showed him again that it was still there. We let him take a few more rides and then we put him back to bed. He woke up early on Tuesday morning. Seb cursed me because it was Toussaint and we could actually sleep in. "Nice gift honey." We brought him downstairs and there it was, the delighted toothy grin. He was enamoured and it made us feel again like we were feeling a few days before; full of life.


ironically the motorcyle in the background is what he'll be wanting in about 15 years time

Félicitations

I had my appointment with my ob today which I was looking forward to with dread. When I walked in to the office my ob was right there speaking with his secretary, and when he turned and saw me he had a spontaneous grin pasted ear to ear across his face. I could see he'd taken off his DOCTOR facade and was being a REGULAR PERSON with me, this facade of course reserved for people he is genuinely happy to see. "Alors, c'est une bonne nouvelle; félicitations." I didn't want to spoil the moment. He had never done this with me, never been normal. He was always a little icy. I was savouring it, rolling it round in my mouth like a really good treat. "umm yes ..." I said, stalling as we walked in to his office. I waited until he'd closed the door. "Well, I uh, lost the pregnancy you know." The DOCTOR face quickly jeckled back and he turned very serious. Not sympathetic because that wasn't in his repetoire, but stern. "Okay well, lets see what's happening."

He lead me into the little room adjacent to his office and did an ultrasound; condom, wand, goop. He said that he felt the pregnancy had run it's course, something I think I could have told him myself. That horrible empty feeling I'd had all weekend was testimony that nothing had been left behind. I was ready to try again if I wanted. Yes, I wanted. I wanted to be right back in the game. I desperately wanted to be seven weeks pregnant. I wanted to be listening to this baby's heartbeat instead of making sure there were no traces left behind.

My ob is very competent and I like him because he's always reassuring, not in a pushy "come on--you can do it!" way like our RE, but in a "you're in a slump and you'll soon be out of it" kind of way. I appreciate this and I can't fault him for his otherwise steely toned, straightforward manner. He's not my aunt or my sister. He's not there to bake me cookies and stroke my hair. He's there to oversee things when my body doesn't deliver what my mind was promised. He's there to read over my results and make evaluations about my ability to carry a baby to term. And, he's there to reassure me when I remind him that I feel like three miscarriages over five years makes me high risk. In this case he does his job competently. I left his office somewhat reassured.

Finally, when I signed the check over to him he said "You'll do the IVF again and it will work. You're just the kind of couple who needs ART to get pregnant, that's all. Just some tweaking."

Okay that stung.

Didn't he see that I wanted a natural pregnancy. That was what made this loss so bittersweet. Didn't he understand that a natural pregnancy is a rare gift to someone who'd had her fair share of invasive ART procedures over the past five years. It was a final sour note to leave his office with. He was probably right though. We'd be back in January for another round of injections, blood draws, ultrasounds, and poking. That was the inevitable truth.

Clear, blue yet never easy

The little, dark luminous cross glowing under my bathroom light bulb struck a chord in me that resonated with a certain, "Hey it's all over now. You can get pregnant! Finally! Anytime you want you can do it!" and so I did the jump up and down thing. Yes I actually did do this along with a little happy dance. As the next few weeks creeped by I couldn't keep the news bottled up inside. I actually announced the result to one or two or maybe more like three people I knew would be delighted to hear. I revelled in their, "see I knew you guys could do it!" comments like a dog in a really good and smelly patch of grass, nose first. One friend actually opened a bottle of champagne in our honor at a dinner last week with a wink and a sly smile. Oh god, there was even the champagne! How could I have not seen it coming?

Then the spotting started. Suddenly I was jolted back to the present. I was not in the fertility junction. I was the the fertility junkyard. That was the person I was. I was here. I was fooling myself if I thought I belonged anywhere else. I'd completely let down my guard and I was hanging out with the wrong crowd. The fall was going to be hard. I braced myself with both arms holding either wall for the slam of defeat. The ultrasound was grim. The beta was low and the next beta lower.

So here I am with a very positive pregnancy test in my pharmacy cabinet to remind me of what a giddy optimist I was a few short weeks ago. How quaint that they make them so that they don't fade and you can keep them now for all eternity. I really think they should disinegrate along with the pregnancy.

Relax aboard the IVF train

If you've been following this blog for awhile then maybe you remember a while back when I mentioned that we wanted a second baby. "Wait...you mean it took you over five years to have the first baby where you did 5 IUI's, numerous fertility drugs, embarrassing invasive tests and an IVF and now you want another?" ::emphatic head shaking::

Let's take a stroll through the past. Look, see how trim and fit I am! Look I don't have that crease in my brow yet. Awwwww look there's Seb and we're ...oh wait... turn around. No not that way, this way. I want you all to see. We're actually having sex! Hey look we're having sex for pleasure!! Wow, I should come visiting here more often! Wait I hear voices.

voices fade in . . .

-Look, we've been trying for two cycles to have a baby and it just isn't working.
-just relax and it will happen.

-We've been trying for 6 months to have a baby and it just isn't working
-just relax and it will happen.

-We've been trying for 1 year to have a baby and it just isn't working.
-just relax and it will happen.

-We've been trying for 2 years to have a baby and it just isn't working.
-just relax and it will happen.

-We've been trying for 3 years to have a baby and it just isn't working.
-just relax and it will happen.

-We've been trying for 4 years to have a baby and it just isn't working.
-just relax and it will happen.

-We've been trying for 5 years to have a baby and it just isn't working.
-just relax and it will happen.

-We've been trying FOREVER to have a baby and it isn't working!
-just relax and it will happen.

voices fade out . . .

It finally did happen. The voices were not right. It was not while we we're relaxed that we conceived baby S but in fact it was during one of the most tense periods of our life. Me, out cold and lying on my back, legs wide open having my eggs sucked out of me by strangers while Seb produced a sample in a room down the hall. Oh wait that was just part one. Part two consisted of lying on my back legs wide open and having a good looking doctor with a catheter pump 3 eggs back into me. Then we were sent home so I could throw up for 4 days straight from hyper-stimulation. Then I got the news that my father had suddenly died of a heart attack several time zones away. This was followed by a two week hormone induced shouting match between Seb and me. So you see relaxing is for wimps. Real couples make babies under extreme duress.

Here we are back in today. We have once again been told to "just relax and it will happen" and we've also been told "women are very fertile after giving birth" and "some things just fix themselves" and also "you just have to prime the pump!" But even though the pump has been primed and pumped out a baby and lots of other stuff, (ask Seb about this and he will make his 'I watched my wife give birth' face), we still are having no success.

My theory is that some couples don't just do it. Some of us need an intervention. The only way we seem to be able to make babies is through the reproductive equivalent of a bitch slap. Subtle relaxation and non-stress techniques obviously don't work for us. We need power and lightning. We need drama and headlines. We need large doses of science.

We've got our appointments all lined up and we're climbing once again aboard a very strange sort of train where there's no alcohol, no caffeine, lots of overpriced drugs and a wanking room for the men. The female passengers are all a bit bitchy but they have a great excuse for it, much to their partner's dismay, and the "engineer" is a very nice looking 40-something, 'mr. know it all' gent who makes all the women swoon. I'll be taking my usual seat near the window because I get motion sickness if I can't see the scenery moving. I should be at least be spared that misery.
*

The infertile camp

There's been a lot of talk lately on the various infertility blogs* I follow about how to define yourself when you conceive or adopt after years of fertility treatments. Mainly this talk abounds because almost every infertile blogger on the internet, adopted or got pregnant and well, stayed pregnant last year. Now in blogs where the main topic was "falling in love with my RE (who cringes when he sees me)", it's more apt to be "falling in love with mini-me (who cries every time he can't see me)."

I find myself asking the same question. After over 5 years of infertility treatments; from invasive procedures, & countless tests, to numerous IUI's, 2 IVF's and a terrifying nine month nail-biting session; what am I now? Who am I now?

I really did define myself by those tiresome trying to have a baby years. I was that classic infertile women who feels uncomfortable at mom/baby events, who felt left out of a whole class of women involved in the revolution of motherhood. This was a group I wasn't allowed to be a part of. It felt kind of like being 8 years old all over again and not getting invited to Cindy Grummbacher's birthday party. I mean everybody in the class got to go except me! Everybody got to see that huge house and they talked about it for days. New friendships were formed at that birthday party. Not getting to go to that party defined the rest of the school year for me. The whole rest of the year I was the oddball. Because you see one event, or one series of events can put you in a particular group for a long, long time. So here in my adult years I think I'm in the infertile camp. Maybe it's because I'm trying to conceive again that I feel this way but I'm not so sure.

Last month we invited a colleague of Seb's, his wife and their two kids for dinner. She's pregnant again with their third, a planned pregnancy. The discussion between us women turned from child raising to spacing out children, and I sheepishly confided in her that we were trying again for a second baby. She looked at baby S wriggling in my arms, "Oh God ... so soon!" she gasped and covered her mouth for effect. "I don't know...hmmm...that's going to be awfully close" And then she continued and continued to comment, telling me stories of crazed motherhood with two underfoot, of jealous sibling rivalries, of hair pulling and brink of madness days. At that point in the glaring light of her astonishment, I began to feel a little ridiculous for even considering a second child. And, so to defend myself I spilled out the whole entire story of how we'd been infertile for several years. I explained that we had to try soon because we'd lost seven years trying to conceive the first, and now were in a rush to complete the family we had originally wanted (and deserved but I didn't add that even though I wanted to). She narrowed her eyes a little vacantly and nodded her head sympathetically as if searching for an equivalent story to make light of my situation. Then she changed the subject. So here I was finally able to do the mommy bonding thing and I was right back in the infertility camp all alone. It's a comfortable place actually so maybe that's why I ended up sharing the story in the first place. Being out there in "fertile" country, recklessly having baby number two right after baby one was just too tight a squeeze for me. I had to redefine myself as the "really just trying so quickly because I'm pretty sure it won't work" person as quickly as I could. I had to define myself as the infertile woman.

I don't think we ever leave the infertility camp. Those painful years so profoundly change who we are. Something akin to the phenomenon where a released prisoner can't quite reintegrate into society after spending all those years in a controlled environment, so he keeps getting himself thrown back in the can. Or maybe the lost look of a soldier fresh from the war observing the mundane normalcy of kids going off to school on a Tuesday morning. He keeps signing up for more tours of duty because he just can't relate with how a peaceful society functions. I feel a little lost like that sometimes, only relating to pregnancy war stories and battle scars. And, only functioning in the realm of rigid & controlled reproductive methods. Making babies? Fun and pleasurable? Uh no, sorry not in my world. I just can't identify with that. That's not who I am.

Several years from now I imagine I'll be sunning on Miami beach with my retired female cohorts and one of them will say "and right after Caleb was born I skipped a pill and Emily was conceived," and then someone else will say "yes, well I was three months pregnant with Irene before I realized it..." And then I'll share my story and they'll all stop talking and smile vacantly just like they do today. They'll each rack their brains for a similar story about someone they know who was infertile.** Even that many years from now I think I'll still be the oddball in the mothering group.

I don't think I can be rehabilitated into fertile feminine society nor do I think I want or need to at this point. I've leaned to identify with this beast that formulated my entire 30's. It's part of who I am now. And, like a prisoner or war veteran, I find it strangely and remarkably comfortable here aligned with the women I've met who are just like me. There's incredible camaraderie in tragedy, be it the bittersweet kind or the happily ever after variety.

*Both Julie a& getupgrrl wrote eloquently on this subject. Check it out.

**Although the way things are headed there may be a lot more IF stories to share in this fictional scenario

Baby Two

I miss being pregnant. I miss that special feeling. Seb and I are going to try for another baby very soon before all my eggs die off. It's very corny to miss feeling pregnant. This stupid dual voice keeps running through my mind.

Conversation with self:

-Appreciate the baby you have

-I do really but I want another one. It's my infertile right! (five years of IF gives you the ability to be brazenly self rightuous)

-Don't be in a hurry to have a bunch of kids little missy!! You have to take care of all of them remember.

-Uh. I have PLANS for them. Variety shows, circus families. Does the name Osmond ring any bells?? Besides I want to fill my house with, with... love.

-::whispers:: She's definitely losing her mind. That is sick. Hey lady, you're addicted to being pregnant; that special feeling has gone to your head. You're just high on all those pregnancy hormones. Its like a drug that stuff. They should ban pregnancy hormones.

-Being a mom is awesome.

-Yeah and fattening. Little lard ass

-Grow up.

And so the conversation runs around in my mind. Well, we're doing something about this. We're going to try for baby number two in a few short months. Wow, me a mom of two. I never could have imagined that.

Look at him

Destined to be about anything this blog may have been about struggling with infertility and how it gets you all wound up, and rightly so. Because some of my favorite blogs are from the distorted minds of we infertiles. Distorted yes. All the visits to the RE and all those abusive, invasive, explorative questions and procedures. It's a real fine mind f*ck for a couple who have been doing their share of it, which is why they go to the RE in the first place--to find out why the f*cking thing's not working.

I wanted to write a diary about that. The five long years of IUI, IVF's and boxes and boxes of overpriced fertility drugs like gonadotropins. Because did you know that gonadotropins are extracted from the urine of post menopausal women? Oh, but wait there's more. Clever biotechnoligists have found ways to genetically engineer hamster cells ovary cells to make more enormous quantities of gonadotropins. Rodent-based cancer cocktails anyone?

But hey, wait. Look at him. Worth it all.




(ed. looking back through old blog posts I have noticed that my older photos like this one have shrunk. I long ago stopped using Shutterfly to host my photos and all of these old ones will obviously have to be redone, sorry! )