Looking for Answers

There is a book in here somewhere I keep saying to my husband.

Our life was that crazy at times and quite honestly, our ‘normal’ is still crazy.  But I love it and wouldn’t trade it for the world!  We have a unique tale to share.  Others going through infertility apparently have said that too, and I have read many of their stories.  Something about this struggle, while intensely personal in nature and often hard to discuss even with close friends and family, makes you seek out the experiences of others.  It is so comforting to have that “Me too” moment when you realize that someone else has been through the same medical procedure you had this morning, peed on half a dozen pregnancy tests, or fight a real daily struggle to maintain some kind of normalcy in their close personal relationships.  While each story has its own particulars, there is a common thread that runs through them.  When you read a mystery, turn to the last page and Holmes reveals the killer.  When you read a romance, turn to the last page and the lovers are together, waves crashing and bodices ripping.  I found that when you read someone’s personal story about their infertility, turning to the last page reveals the end result of their family-building efforts.  In these stories, the end result is always worth the many pages of difficult decisions that came before it.  Because, unlike conventional family building, the story of infertility is the story of decisions.  Some are long-term, but most are daily.  Today I choose adoption. Today I choose IVF.  Today I feel all alone, like I don’t have any choice at all.  Any account of such a journey is going to be filled with contradictions.  The processes are lethargic:  months of paperwork, invasive tests if you agree to them, and boxes of pointy Kleenex on doctors’ desks.   You are always trying to figure out what comes next.  Only that you can never prepare for it.  This is the mistake that many women make.  Months turn into years and you find yourself second-guessing what will be the right ending for your story.  Is becoming a parent really worth all of this?  For those of us who experience primary infertility, this may become a real question at times.  And just like the many choices that have now become part of my world, I find the answer to this question changing almost daily.  What had seemed so obvious a goal was clouded in the reality of endless doctor appointments and even more endless nights of emotional, draining conversations with my husband.

I hope that someone else, who is also in the middle of their struggle, may find some helpful information among these posts, or at least some much needed humor from something that I’ve experienced.  Chances are quite good that you are going through the same thing.  Take comfort in the fact that you are not alone on your journey towards parenthood.  Oftentimes it feels that way for us.  You feel isolated from everything and everyone.  This is normal.  But you are not alone.  There are moments when no other living person can understand the questions in your soul.  I wouldn’t suggest going this road alone for the distance.  It twists and it turns and there are many unexpected bumps.  Open yourself to the assistance of others and let their help in.

My Story in Several Parts (for NoComLeavMo)

Like a good NoComLeavMo participant (read tired mom who agreed to participate in this wonderful idea and wants nothing more than to finish her 5 commenting obligations and go to bed)  I was reading a post on http://becomingadifferentperson.wordpress.com/ when I saw that some folks had decided it would be helpful to have a brief summary of our story appear on our blog so that it would be easier to follow along.

I have decided to try and accomplish this task over the next several posts (read I really want to go to bed!)

In the Beginning –

The high cost of homes in our area, where we had lived for the past several years, was the main reason that we moved. The desire to be closer to my family, specifically my two nieces, affectionately known as the Genius and the Funny One, was a close second.

We moved into our 1950s style ranch, typical of this part of the city  We were home.  We quickly unpacked and settled in.  We had three bedrooms:  one for us, one for the dog, our beagle, and the middle room which we converted into an office.  Deep down, we hoped that this room would become the nursery one day soon.

I was stuck in the middle of the mess that has been my life since February, 2003.  My plan for parenthood felt infuriatingly stagnant some days, even when my husband, my unwavering partner in all of this, assured me that we were making progress towards our goal of parenthood. Yet, somehow I still felt firmly planted in the day-to-day muck of endless early morning doctor appointments and emotional outbursts which seem to happen at the most inopportune of times.  There were also the good days when I feel so hopeful and excited about what our life will be like in its next phase.  What kind of parents will we be?

A story usually has a beginning, middle, and an end.  Do the characters really know that?  For them it is always the middle.  A sentence without a period has no end, so it must always be in the middle.  My story, started without a period.  So even my beginning was a middle.  Are you confused yet?  I certainly was.  I spent the better part of 2 ½ years confused.  Confused about our reasons for wanting to become parents.  Confused about why we continued to pursue treatments when we had no guarantee of success.  Confused about how we would love an adopted child.  Confused about how we could manage to function in a world where we have lost all sense of control.  There were times when I was confused about simply being confused!  Sometimes I joked about the moments and situations that have made up my infertility journey and then I realized that these things were happening to me.  Sadly, at times I didn’t even recognize myself.

Often I wondered about the person I used to be before I viewed the world through this crazy filter called infertility.

Great Things Happen to Great People

Among the 5 of us we now have 8 children.  All of them miracle babies complete with their very own miraculous story.  All of them special and all of them deeply and completely loved.

In March 2005 I started a peer support group for RESOLVE in my local area.  My husband and I couldn’t believe there was no support for people struggling with infertility and family growing options in our area.  And we were sick of driving.  Oh, so sick of driving to appointments and meetings and clinic visits.  You name it, we had to drive there and it just seemed impossible to fit one more location into our already over scheduled infertile lives.

I choose a location near my home so that if no one showed up for a meeting I could easily return in minutes.  I hung up flyers at doctors offices, yoga studios, beauty salons and therapist offices.

J and J were my first ‘couple’ and in fact they were the only people who attended a meeting for a good 3 months, maybe longer.  It is hard to remember now.  The peer support group does not require any long term committment, but J and J hung on.  We (along with my husband) became fast friends.

At first J and J struggled with male factor infertilty issues.  Then the other shoe dropped.  Everytime Girl J went to to the doctor she received some bad news of her own.  But they hung on.  The stress of work, the insensitive comments from family, the many hours spent in front of the computer searching for THE ANSWER. 

The rest of us – our circle of friends had now grown to 5 (more if you include the husbands) - began to slowly (and I don’t use the term lightly) resolve our family building struggles.  Girl J tried a new diet and Boy J hit the gym.  A vacation was taken.  Time off was considered after the devestating death of twin nephews.  Their path seems built upon loss after loss.

J and J decided to pursue domestic infant adoption and held the yard sale of all yard sales to help fund the cost.  Friends and relatives happily donated trash and treasure for the cause.   After interviewing agencies and setting up meetings things seemed to be progressing.  And yet, after much debate J and J changed course and began a parent training program through DSS.  Maybe it was their bad experience with a particular agency that led to this, maybe it was wrong information along the way or lack of guidance from a knowing adoption professional.  But things happen and they went down this new path toward parenthood.

Their request, an infant 0 -12 months.  J and J knew their chances and decided that the finanancial future of their family couldn’t withstand the cost of a ‘typical’ infant adoption.  Boy J wanted to give up his second job someday…

They waited.

They decorated a coordinated nursery, suitable for a boy or a girl.

They waited.

On April 14 a baby boy was born and 2 days later J and J got a call.  The baby was legally free for adoption.  He was healthy, he was perfect, and he was now their son.  That Saturday, to the joy and happiness of all who have waited with them, J and J brought home Baby J.

Great things do happen to great people.

‘Butch Up Crabapple’

I only wish I had written the following passage, but I have to credit a former blogger known as Gettup Grrl, who used to write the always fascinating blog Chez Miscarriage.  Unfortunatey, this blog is no longer active.  I had stumbled upon her site one day, in the midst of my own infertility fog and struggle.  Gettup Grrl was funny, she was witty, she was right on the money.

“Anyway, the voice said, “If you’re going to be crabby every time some crazy bitch gets lucky, you’re going to spend the rest of your life being crabby, so you’d better get over it now.  There will always be some crazy bitch getting lucky.  And not just crazy bitches – truly mean people, whiners and troublemakers, dictators of small countries, bossy control freaks and shirll complainers, people who have taken macrobiotic diet principles to extremes, people who steal parking spaces and don’t feel guilty even after you politely beep your horn and make the but I had my blinker on! gesture.  Those people have absolutely nothing to do with how happy you are.  You can live an ecsatic, joyful life regardless of how underservedly lucky some crazy bitch is.  Your happiness is entirely within your control.  It has nothing do do with whether you ever get pregnant, or parent a child who shares your neurotic genes, or anything else.  So butch up crabapple.”

Truer words were never spoken.  Other people have absolutely nothing to do with how happy you can be.  It takes more energy to be miserable than happy, so why not choose happy? 

A Medal in My Bra

Each month I run a local peer support group for RESOLVE.    Someone recently asked me why I continue to run the group, almost 3 years later.  What do I get from it?  Call it a personal form of therapy, call it what keeps me humble and able to appreciate all the good that has come into my life.  Call it a mission – I love to put people in touch with others – to help create life bonding moments.

Each month, for better for for worse,  I am given the opportunity to remember the many, many, moments that loosely define my personal struggle to build a family.

Some are good memories, like the monthly breakfasts with my good friend, as we bitched and whined our way though eggs and bacon.  I get to fondly remember my husband proclaming himself the ‘Ass-Master,’ a nickname in honor of his ability to deliver my intermuscular progeterone in oil shots without a bruise to my backside.  I remeber the thrill (odd word choice, but others who have been there will understand) of our first transfer and carefully trying not to pee out the embryo.  I smile, almost secretly, at the hope that I felt walking out of a meeting with our adoption agency director.  Frustrating moments abound.  It seems like only yesterday I was waiting for a nurse to call with my HSG levels.  And  don’t even get me started on listening to the co-worker inform the office she is pregant – again – and this time they didn’t even plan it.  And can anyone please tell me why the clinic never seems to have my file on hand when I show up for an appointment!

Some memories I have all but pushed out of my head because they take up to much energy to revisit them:  a hard night spent crying so that the blood vessels burst under my eyes, hours curled up under a blanket, wishing for more than the miserable existance of living in this infertility fog, walking around the track thinking up baby names and wishing for a miracle as life passed me by, losing our baby to a miscarriage early in the pregnancy.  That one still brings tears to my eyes. To be sure, my husband, a handful of close friends, tons of peaut M&Ms, and the occassional glass of wine got me through some of the worst times in my life.  In my efforts to become pregnant, I  have tried most of the traditonal and downright bizzare methods known.  Anyone else would have done the same.  I recently came across a journal entry from that time and thought it would be appropriate to share.

***

How did I go from being a fun-loving, relatively intelligent Jewish woman to wearing a St. Gerard medal in my bra?  St. Gerard, in the Catholic religion, is the patron saint of expectant mothers.  This fact comforted me as I slipped the blessed medal underneath my shirt.  Immediately, little nagging voices started to fill my mind.  “Maybe you should put the medal on a chain and wear it around your neck instead?”  I pondered this as I walked over to the refrigerator to grab a handful of M&Ms, my favorite staple these days.  The medal fell out of my bra and I bent to quickly retrieve it from my dog’s waiting jaws.  I shoved it back inside, this time in the space right between my breasts.  The dog went back to sniffing the floor.  “You are crazy, this won’t work.”  I sat down at the kitchen table and reviewed the card, a lovely sentiment from my friend that had arrived in today’s mail.  My friend Ellen is a religious person.  I had recently shared with her the devastating news of my miscarriage this past winter.  She indicated in her card that some years ago, she had given a St. Gerard medal to a former co-worker who had suffered several miscarriages.  The woman wore the medal in her bra, to keep it close to her heart.  After one year, she conceived a healthy boy.  “We aren’t Catholic,” my voices insisted.  I adjusted the medal with the full knowledge that I had done many strange things during the past 2 ½ years in my struggle with infertility.  As I saw it, wearing the medal in my bra met the basic criteria of where I was at in my journey, mentally and physically:  it didn’t cost any money, cause me any bodily harm, and didn’t require getting up at the crack of dawn.  “Harmless,” I thought, as I shoved more M & Ms into my mouth.  “Besides.” the voices continued, “this may just be the thing that works.”