Going It on My Own

Okay, for anyone who read my last post about us being done... well, let's just say that we're done going to the RE for now. We have tried as much medical assistance as is going to happen in my life (only going as far as IUIs), but I'm still going to try on my own and...

TMI WARNING!!!!: since DH doesn't seem to be in any rush to replenish his supply of birth control (i.e. no Trojan Mans in the bedside table) nor does he seem to be wanting to follow the celibacy route...

I'll just see where this takes us. I did buy more OPK sticks for my ClearBlue Fertility Monitor, and I'm about midcycle and starting to surge. I guess we'll see if Nature would like to lend a hand all on her own (or if enough hormones are still surging through my body). Not counting on anything, but won't close the door on the possibility.

4 for 4

That’s it. I haven’t had the heart to blog about this past IUI. Three weeks ago on Wednesday, we had the fourth IUI done. Great follicles, great lining, great sperm count, everything went great. Just like the other three times. And, of course, just like the other three times, the cramping started last week, three days before the scheduled bloodwork. Light staining on Columbus Day, and then, last Wednesday, the morning of the bloodwork to confirm a success, AF arrived full force.

We are done. DH knows I’m not happy about this. I must admit, I do have some sense of relief of getting off the monthly IUI hamster wheel. I do not miss the nightly needles. I do not miss the almost daily early-morning drives to the center to be poked and prodded. I have been able to go out to dinner with friends and have a glass of wine like a normal person. The focus of my daily life is no longer what cycle day it is and when is the Center going to call with my next instructions. At the same time, not ending this entire experience with a babe in my arms is frustrating and sad to say the least.

Last week, I was talking with two other moms at our 10 yo boys’ soccer practice. They both have been there through all of this. In fact, one of them was the mom, I’ll call her E, who, at our first Spring soccer game after we lost Jimmy, greeted me with “hey, where’s the baby?”, as the other moms flinched and one of them tried to get to her before she asked anything else and before I had to tell her how we had lost him. They also know about the miscarriage last year, and everything we’ve gone through. The only thing that they, and most of our friends, do not know is how much medical intervention we’ve had in this struggle. E asked how it was going, and I told her we were on our last legs as far as trying with medical intervention was concerned. I added that DH was really against going any further, and she said, “yeah, but what about you?”

My response was that I was going to just put the baby stuff up in the eaves for the time being, get through turning 40, and then deal with getting rid of the stuff in the spring. Her comment back struck a chord: “who says you can’t keep trying on your own? Don’t give up on something that you obviously don’t want to give up on. What harm is there in trying on your own for a few more months?”

Hell of a point, E. I knew I liked her. Just one question: how do I continue trying without DH realizing my plan????? One thing is somewhat decided in my mind - at this point, I'm going to take a journey down the acupunture avenue. Can't really hurt now, can it?

So this isn't over, folks. Just the IUI road is closed. Another intersection I never expected to be at in my life. We'll see where I end up next.

Baby Shower Fallout

So when did infertility and conception issues get to be grounds for one-upsmanship between women, like it’s a freakin’ contest. The baby shower at work I mentioned: I responded to the hostess last week when I saw her at a work function that I wouldn’t be coming because 1) it’s Halloween and I’m leaving early for trick-or-treating, and 2) I’m just not comfortable with baby showers. Her response? “You know, I lost three before I had my son. That’s one more than you lost.”

What the fuck?!? What do I say to that? “Oh, yeah, well, did you ever lose a child seven months into your pregnancy, have to be induced and labor for 36 hours, deliver, hold, and then have to bury your perfectly healthy baby?!?” I don’t understand it. Then she asks if I’m pregnant yet. This is not a close personal, come-over-on-a-Friday-night-for-drinks-and-talk girlfriend; she is a work friend, the kind that you eat lunch with but don’t socialize out of work with. What she does now is that we're still trying and that we're seeing an RE. I respond “we don’t know yet”. Her answer? “Well, have you thought about adoption? You should really adopt.” And then she turned her attention to another person who had just walked up to the table.

I’m chalking her up as a clueless chatterbox. But the fact that someone who’s been through the struggles of infertility can be that abrupt and condescending is tough to get my head around, especially now.

Baby Showers

A baby shower. I got an emailed invite to a baby shower at work from a girl I’m on a committee with, for a baby shower she’s throwing for another girl on the same committee. On Halloween. At work.

I used to attend these events. Hell, I even hosted one or two myself. That was before Jimmy. I was pregnant with Jimmy at the same time as three cousins were also pregnant. Most with their first child. My mom’s niece was expecting twins, my dad’s middle sister (Aunt A)’s son’s wife was expecting their first, and my dad’s older sister (Aunt V)’s daughter was expecting her second after miscarrying her first.

My dad’s niece, my cousin M, miscarried her second child. This is a girl who we never thought would be married, let alone have kids. She had really severe endometriosis and had been told there was little hope she’d ever get pregnant (I actually think one doctor told her she’d NEVER get pregnant). She married a great guy who had three kids from his previous marriage. And then she got pregnant… twice. And lost both. It was determined after the second loss that she had severe gestational diabetes. But that was it. She didn’t see any specialists, didn’t go to an RE, she just said that was all she could handle.

My mom’s niece’s shower was the day that I delivered Jimmy. Mom and I were going to drive down to it. That didn’t happen. Her twins were delivered about two weeks before Jimmy’s due date. She had been hospitalized with contractions for about a month. The delivery of her son went just fine, and then things went really sour really fast. Her daughter was a crash C-section delivery, and had aspirated meconium. She was having major breathing issues, so they Med-flighted her to a hospital 45 minutes away from the hospital my cousin was in, where she stayed for about two weeks. Everything was fine in the end -- they’re both healthy and happy little kids. But the day this all happened, my mother called me at work, and I went to the ladies’ room and sobbed. I couldn’t handle the thought that another child in my family wouldn’t make it.

And then my cousin’s wife’s shower. Two months after Jimmy, I was supposed to attend her shower with my cousin M and our mothers at the mom-to-be’s friend’s house. For a baby that was due one week after Jimmy.

On a good day, I wouldn’t choose to spend time with the group who was hosting the shower. Think young Stepford Wives, who think a broken fingernail is a tragedy. And the mom-to-be’s sister is a witch. She was the wet towel at the wedding, ordering everyone around (my husband nicknamed her “the General”). But I responded to the mom-to-be’s sister that I would do my best to be there. I did add that I’d have to “play it by ear”, and see how I was doing the day of the shower. Why? Because this cousin and his wife came to Jimmy’s service. Even after we told them that we would understand if they didn’t, with her being at the same place in her pregnancy as me. They came anyway.

The deal with this shower was that if I was going, my cousin M would go. Well, the morning of the shower, I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t go and listen to a bunch of women smile and gloat all over someone who was still pregnant while I was picking out a gravestone for my son. I couldn’t watch my cousin M’s face. I couldn’t watch everyone congratulating Aunt A on the grandchild-to-be while my mom and Aunt V sat there. So, through the tears that wouldn’t stop that day, I called my mother to tell her I wasn’t going.

Boy, did I get an earful. How dare I tell them all that I would go and now I wasn’t! I must be very depressed, and truly need medication! I wasn’t being very considerate of her, my aunts, or my cousins! I called my Aunt A, who was VERY understanding (as I sobbed on the phone), and my Aunt V (to have her call my cousin M, who wasn’t handling the day well either and who wasn’t answering her phone) to tell them I wasn’t going. Then I went over to my parents’ house to drop the gifts off for my mother to take. I got greeted with more crap. The problem: she didn’t want to go anymore than I did, because it was going to be a painful day. But instead of dealing with that, I got the brunt of her anger. Even my father told her to lay off. I finally screamed back, as I was going out the door, that after having had a husband have a heart attack three months before and then burying my perfectly healthy son in the course of three months, the fact that I wasn’t in a corner somewhere drinking/popping pills/smoking something, but instead was still standing and functioning was a miracle in itself, and to lay the hell off.

So… I haven’t been to a baby shower since. In many ways, I’ve been lucky, being older, because most of my friends and family are beyond the baby years. That was the last baby shower I was supposed to attend. Until this invitation came along. My favorite SIL is right: they shouldn't have these things until the baby has arrived and is safe in his/her mother's arms. Now that I know what can go wrong. I don't know how to get around that particular elephant in the room.