Some cute, some ugly.

I’ll admit that I’m one of those irritating people that think their dog is the Most Amazing Canine to Have Ever Walked on Four Paws. Guilty as charged. But isn’t Feral cute in his chair? When he was a tiny puppy I had to lift his little back legs up for him to climb into it - my, how he’s grown!

Yes, you’re seeing correctly, don’t adjust your monitor, Feral’s chair is nothing short of hideous. It was given to me by my parents when they downsized into a smaller house. My mom likes to remind me how expensive that chair was when it was new. When it was new, it was the perfect compliment to the burgundy shag carpet we had in our living room. Maybe I should have it reupholstered? I’m not sure it’s worth the money, irregardless of how expensive it was when it was new.

Such is the state of the furniture in our house. Don’t get me wrong, the house itself is lovely. Built in 2003, it's way nicer than I’d expect to have at this age. It’s the furnishings and decorating that lack. Our style can best be described as Still In College. Everything is slightly junky, nothing matches, some of the furniture is homemade, and there’s way too much visual clutter.

The decor is so bad that B. and I don’t entertain. All of our friends are light years ahead of us; their houses look like actual grownups live there. We’d be embarrassed if they saw the state of our tent, uhh, I mean house.

There are three major reasons our house looks so junky:

1. We’re a bit mortgage heavy, and working on paying off some debt. (Hey wait, didn’t we just close on a home equity line of credit for more debt?)

2. When we do have cash to spare it tends to go towards one of our toys. We’ve got five (count ‘em!) vehicles for just us two chickens, three of them classics, one of them we’re currently rehabbing. This may seem as if our priorities are out of whack. Maybe so. All I know is it’s one thing B. and I can do together that brings us pleasure and isn’t related in any way, shape or form to infertility, grad school, or work.

3. And oh yeah, infertility. In 2004 we spent over $6000 out of pocket on medical expenses. Six fucking thousand dollars. This year we expect to potentially triple that amount, but of course, the home equity line of credit will bear the brunt of it. Still, we’re going to pay for as much as possible out of pocket.

Anyway...

Today’s Decor Chat brought to you by IKEA! Atlanta finally has one, it opened yesterday and I took my first spin around today. B. and I don’t agree at all about IKEA. I think it’d be okay to have well-designed shitty furniture until we can afford better quality stuff. B. thinks we should hold out for the high quality stuff from the start, which explains the current state of our furnishings and decor.

So once again, it’s all B.’s fault.

Just kidding.

Or am I?

A stalker at the swimming pool.

What is it about swimming pools that make people yell? Or do their voices just carry louder and longer across the water? I spent a couple of hours at the pool on Ft. McPherson today, and my head is still ringing with cries of “Marco Polo.”

The pool on base is definitely one of my favorite military benefits. It’s free for active duty personnel and their family members and is usually not very crowded. The facility isn’t anywhere near new, the locker rooms aren’t always clean, and it’s a bit of a drive to get there, but still, I wholeheartedly enjoy it.

The majority of poolgoers are children, as you would expect. Surprisingly, being around them doesn’t usually bother me. Yeah, I get a little sad when I see the cute Military Dad cradling his child in the water, much like I imagine B. would if we were blessed with a child of our own. Most of the time, though, I am my usual self, more irritated at than interested in children.

For someone who’s losing her mind with longing for a child of her own, I’m surprisingly uncomfortable around kids. And no, not only ‘cause I can’t have one of my own. I don’t know how to relate to them - they could be from Mars for all I know about what makes them tick. Show me a child capable of independent movement, or understandable speech, and I’m at a loss how to deal with them. Everyone says it’s different when it’s your own. I sure as heck hope so, or I’m going to fuck up my own child with my lack of relational skills.

There are exceptions, sort of. I’ve been able to carry on a seemingly intelligent conversation with a couple of my friend’s children. Or at least I thought it went well - the kids probably think I’m a Major Tool. Case in point: there’s one little six or seven year old girl at the pool that I’ve become rather fond of. We had one short conversation about finding frogs in the pool. She was personable, intelligent, witty, and well, adorable enough I could have just gobbled her up. Either the conversation didn’t go as well as I thought, or she was scolded for talking to a stranger, or she senses my stalker vibe, but she’s never come near me again. I watch her from a distance, her skinny little legs getting browner as the summer progresses, her hair matted all crazy-like from the water - really, a picture of gorgeous little kid happiness.

I hope I don’t sound like a pervert when I’m describing her. She’s just exactly the kind of little girl I’d like to have as a daughter. Maybe someday, if I’m very, very good, and very, very lucky, I’ll have one.

Left behind.

What colors your view on life from day to day? Why is it possible to wake up one morning and barely have the strength to drag yourself out of bed, while the next morning the birds are chirping, the sun is shining, and life seems manageable? If I wasn’t infertile, would I still be having these godforsaken mood swings?

There are so many shitty, isolating elements to infertility. New ones reveal themselves to me all the time. On last week’s episode of Six Feet Under David & Keith’s potential surrogate raves on about how pregnant women are treated with such respect and joy and excitement, like a princess. One of my favorite blogs, Fertility Now!, touches on the same subject.

I generally shy away from the spotlight, at least now that I’m older. I hated being the center of attention at my bridal shower, and at my first wedding. Still, I can’t help but feel left out of the magical Pregnancy Makes You Special! club that I so badly want to join. I promise, if I should manage to get and stay pregnant, I’ll never be mad at strangers who touch my belly without invitation, or offer unsolicited assvice, or make ignorant assumptions about my pregnancy.

I feel like the kid who failed his senior year, stuck watching the rest of his friends graduate. None of the graduation parties are fun, and I’m doomed to the same old classes, again and again, while everyone moves on to college.

Broken down.

I’m broke, and feeling bad about it. Unexpected car repairs have left us barely able to pay July’s mortgage. It’s my own fault - I pay way too much each month on the car & credit card balances, leaving us cash poor. I’ve got money coming in, but don’t know when it’ll arrive. One of the downsides to being self-employed, I guess.

I can’t believe I’m 36 years old now. How did this happen?

As usual, B. and I are not communicating well via phone. He’s not been able to give me even a few minutes of his undivided attention today. Well, I wanted a break, didn’t I?

I never knew a day could have so many hours in it.

It's my party, and I'll cry if I want to.

And I seem to want to. It’s a bleak day here in Atlanta, rainy and grey. Matches my mood perfectly.

B. set the tone for the day by not calling me this morning. By 10:30 I was convinced that a masked gunman had broken into his hotel room and murdered him in cold blood. What other explanation could there be for why he hadn’t yet called to wish me a happy birthday? He’s not likely to have slept in, we’re talking about the original Morning Person here. I caved and rang his cellphone, we talked for almost ten minutes before I asked him, “aren’t you going to wish me a happy birthday?”

B.: Happy birthday. (Delivered with an abject lack of enthusiasm, he’s clearly aware that he’s made a mistake and is about to receive punishment.)

Me: (Silence.)

B.: Are you mad at me?

Me: (In a pitiful, little voice.) Well, my sister and my parents have already called, it would have been nice if you’d called too. Or remembered that it’s my birthday.

He launched into a tirade about how he had been studying and was loading up the car, and was planning on calling me once he got on the road. There’s no admission that he momentarily forgot that it’s my birthday, and there’s frustration and mild anger in his voice. His tone just makes me feel that much worse.

B.: What’s that? (In response to my continued silence.)

Me: Hello? You’re breaking up. Hello?

Gee, we got disconnected. Don’t you hate how flaky cellphones can be? (My angry fingers mashing the END button have nothing to do with it.)

He’s since called back several times and we’ve smoothed things over, but it wasn’t exactly the brilliant start to my birthday that I was hoping for.

I’m 36 today. What kills me most about this birthday is that I fucking should have had a baby by now. When we started trying to conceive I was a youthful 33 years old, and I never expected that I’d land here, at 36, still unable to have a baby. I remember visiting the TTC 6+ Months bulletin board and reading posts by women that were in their third or fourth year of trying and thinking, “Jeezus, how do they go on? How awful that must be.” And here we are, rapidly approaching our own three year TTC anniversary.

I’m having a Pity Party today for my birthday. All are welcome!

Out of sorts, out of place.

Well, he’s gone, on his way to Texas for a three month long school. I feel a horrible mix of sadness and relief. He called me every time he crossed a state line so far today. I found that very sweet. Typical B.

I’ve done a good job keeping myself occupied. Not one spare moment to sink into depression, each minute has been busy, busy, busy. I started out my day by driving to the Hong Kong Bakery to buy a special treat, what they call “cocktail buns.” Amazing. Picture the freshest sweet yeast dough imaginable (still warm when I got ‘em), stuffed with salty yet sweet coconut & butter paste. Sounds odd, is delish. Enough so to warrant driving a distance to procure them at regular intervals.

The rest of the day was filled with miscellaneous errands, including buying a housewarming gift for the party I attended this afternoon. The party was pretty fancy - catered, a band, rental chairs & tables, that sort of thing. I was unsure what to wear, it being midafternoon, summer, and supposedly casual. I thought this might be the perfect occasion for a simple linen skirt and shirt. I chose my beloved but not oft worn t-shirt with Ron Jeremy’s likeness in velveteen.



Can you say “lead balloon”? Those that recognized who the face on my chest belonged to looked at me like I had three heads. The guitar player in the Mexican jazz combo (one of the few straight males at the party) kept leering at me as if I might spontaneously decide to reenact a porn scene of my own with him. It seems no one understood my appreciation of the King of American Porn, as tongue-in-cheek as it was.

The last time I wore that t-shirt out in public, four or five random strangers said “great shirt” to me. This was a decidedly less fancy engagement - a neighborhood bar with a nice tattooey, edge. Further proof of where I fit best, I guess.

I’m off to bed. Tomorrow’s my birthday, and it’s sure to be a whizzbanger. Not.

And yes, I've been drinking, in case you were wondering.

Buh-bye, baby.

Aw, jeezus, he’s leaving tomorrow morning, early. It’s been a frantic day. We closed on the home equity line of credit this morning. It was an incredibly efficient process - the whole thing took less than ten minutes. Kinda scary, actually, how easy it was. Then we spent two irreplaceable hours of our lives getting my name officially changed in the Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System (DEERS). It took me over two years of marriage to do it, but I finally took his name. I felt sorry for the guy, he was getting called Mrs. Claudia’s Maiden Name by his buddies at work.

He’s packing now. The dogs are freaked. Catahoulas surely must be one of the most sensitive, neurotic breeds there are. I’m going to have to hide all the knives, and make sure they can’t reach their leashes for fear they’ll hang themselves.

We did manage to talk a bit today, and the general impression that I’m getting is that while he’d prefer me to wait, he won’t hold me back from cycling this summer while he’s gone. Once I get that book of checks from the equity line of credit, it’s full steam ahead!

For my birthday B. bought me a really nice cookbook, How To Grill by Steven Raichlen. The grill had always been B.’s area of expertise, but lately I’ve branched out and done some grilling myself. It’s been surprisingly enjoyable (fire is fun!), but my technique is primitive at best.

Maybe someday we’ll actually get to spend my birthday together. I’m not really bitching, there’s too many other more important things to complain about. Ultimately, I’m grateful that he’s stateside, and only leaving for three months. It could be much, much worse.

The day after tomorrow.

I’ve always used that phrase as a countdown of how near something is, usually in excitement. “We’re going to Italy the day after tomorrow!” Today I’m able to say that the day after tomorrow B. will leave for three months.

He was gone all last summer too. I’m noticeably less freaked out about this separation. It might actually be a good idea for us to have some space between us for awhile. All the better to sweep some of those dirty little issues right on underneath the rug.

Still, I’ve got a constant sense of anxiety hanging over me. It feels as if I’ve got a cinderblock on my chest, and I’m prone to spontaneous crying. B. has traveled enough over the course of our relationship that I’m familiar with this pattern. It’s always the worst right before he leaves, then for a few days afterwards. I find my stride, eventually, and settle into my own little routine just fine.

We close on a home equity line of credit tomorrow morning. How’s that for fast? I’ve got to give total props to USAA. They are simply amazing. I spent 45 minutes on the phone with a lovely loan officer on Tuesday. When she heard that B. was leaving this weekend she said, “why don’t we just get this all wrapped up before he leaves?” I was supposed to receive all the loan materials via FedEx on Thursday - I got ‘em on Wednesday. These guys always go above and beyond with their customer service, can’t say enough good things about them.

That said, we still haven’t made a firm decision whether or not I’ll cycle while B. is gone. Well, we’ve not officially discussed it. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that my mind is already made up. If B. forces the issue and demands that I wait, I will, but I’m not expecting that to happen. Am I terrible for thinking, “hey, this is my ship and I say when she sails”? Just hanging on to what little control I have left, I guess.

Anyhoo, jumping topics, I’m thinking I’m an idjit of some higher magnitude ‘cause I can’t figure out how to respond to anyone’s comments. I apologize that I haven’t personally written each of you back; my attempts have been stymied by blogspot. Maybe it’s just set up that I can’t and I’m not an idjit after all. Bear with me as I muddle my way through learning this stuff, and thanks, so so much for reading and commenting, and making me feel heard.

Right is wrong.

It’s our last few days together before B. heads to Texas for three months. I was expecting to ovulate before he left, and as it turns out, am ovulating as I write. I’m one of those lucky (I guess) women who can feel their ovaries crank up and let loose an egg. Problem is, it’s on my right side this month. No tube there, so there’s no way for little Mr. Swimmer to meet Mrs. Egg.

Not such a big event on it’s own. My right ovary does tend to be the dominant one, ovulating about 60% of the time, I’d say. I was just hoping against all hope that I’d get pregnant this cycle. See, my one and only pregnancy happened on a rest cycle after a stim cycle, much like my situation now. I had been doing acupuncture and stopped, same as now. It’s the final chance we have before I move onto an IVF cycle this summer. Oh, there’s a million reasons why I shoulda had the opportunity to conceive this month, none of them good enough to matter or make a difference.

If my ectopic had been caught earlier I might still have my right fallopian tube. If, if, if.

Jumping topics to a more humorous note, as promised in an earlier post, introducing my Scarred Dent of a Belly Button:



Note how shallow it is. Never again will I have to worry about the agony that is belly button lint. I do miss my mole, though. Wish I’d had the foresight to snap a picture of it before my last surgery. The surgeon said he’d do his best to leave it, but alas, it was not possible.

The red dots in the four corners around my dent are scars. I guess they poked through my skin to hold the opening open, maybe? Ouch.

Looking at this picture, I realize that it kind of looks like I’m pregnant. I’m not, it’s just the lack of perspective and my belly fat. Should I actually get and stay pregnant someday, my dent is going to look mighty weird when my belly grows. Something to look forward to!

Nuts.

They want me to wait to do another IVF cycle. They = B. + therapist. Here I am, finally moving forward with my plans to cycle again after weeks of indecision, and they want me to wait. Not indefinitely, just until B. returns from his school at the end of September. I had planned to get the ball rolling and go ahead and do a cycle while he was away. We’ve got all those banked swimmers hanging out in the freezer, it would make it simple to do a cycle without B.’s actual presence. I guess that’s their point, that I should wait until B. can actually be a part of the process. You know, ‘cause he’s been so involved in my infertility up to this point. (Yeah, I know, that’s ultra-snarky, but B. does deserve it, at least a little bit.)

Wait? Ummm, yeah, more waiting sounds good. Bring it on. After all, we’ve got all the time in the world, don’t we? All those cycles we wasted with an incompetent RE, the delays after surgeries and a miscarriage, the interminable time it took to get into Walter Reed, those were all good times, such good times, so why not just put my life on hold, again?

In case you can’t tell from my dripping sarcasm and blatant bitterness, this is not an idea I’m wanting to get too cozy with. If I’m going to be doing a two cycle plan at SIRM they require both cycles to be done within six months. Do you know what that means, people? Light at the end of the fucking tunnel. Frankly, that’s all I can see, and it is a welcome relief. To know that I could potentially be moving on, one way or another, from all this infertility shit by the end of the year, well, that’s what’s pushing me forward and keeping me afloat.

I was counting on an IVF cycle filling the time and keeping me busy while B. is gone. If I wait, the three months stretches out in front of me, bleak and empty. I mean, they’re pretty bleak looking anyway, but take away my pet project and what’s left? I’m supposed to relax and take good care of myself in preparation for a cycle. Right...

Their argument for waiting is that I will be resentful of B. if he’s not part of the process. What if I wait and he still doesn’t step up to the plate and get involved? Keg o’ dynamite, we’re talking here - and it’s a likely scenario. I think it’d be better to go ahead and cycle without him; if it doesn’t work, he can pitch in for the next round o’ fun. Getting through all this infertility stuff and moving on to whatever comes next as quickly as possible surely would be better for our relationship than stretching out the process any longer than it needs to be. Am I nuts in thinking this?

It was the therapist that suggested I wait. I asked B. if he’d considered asking me to hold off on my next cycle until his return before the therapist suggested it. He said he had, but I’m not 100% sure I believe him. I don’t get it - here’s his golden opportunity to be exempt from all this mess, not out of choice, but because logistics wouldn’t allow his participation. He gets off scott free! He’d be nuts to want to wait.

We’re supposed to take as much time as possible these last few days together to talk about our plans and come to a decision. Officially, B. is on leave the rest of the week. Where is he now? At the office. What’s he doing tomorrow? Work related business. What are we doing Thursday night? Work related dinner.

If I sound frustrated, it’s because I am. There are good intentions all the way around, but fact is, there aren’t enough hours in the day for us to have a serious conversation this week, much less for him to participate in an IVF cycle when he returns in September. This is how our life is going to be for the next year and a half, at least. Why can’t we just be real about it, and admit that not everyone’s needs are going to be met all the time and we just need to muddle through as best we can? I’m basically saying that I’m willing to go it alone, so why, now, do I have to slow down?

Nuts...

Redemption - for better or for worse.

Maybe I’m just not cut out for parenthood. I’ve never been one of those women who just had to have a baby, not until I met B. and actually started trying to conceive. Children were always a nebulous, distant possibility, but never an obsession. My, how the worm has turned.

I’ve asked two friends who have battled infertility and won if it’s all worth it in the end. They both responded in the affirmative, but I’m still worried that I might have a baby someday and find the experience less than redeeming. The thought makes me feel absolutely nuts. What the hell am I torturing us for? And yet, I can’t, I won’t, let it go. Not until I know for sure that it’s impossible.

This plays into my larger view that perhaps I don’t deserve to have a baby. There are so many others out there who have dreamed of having children their whole life and are denied. Surely they deserve it more than I do, right? I certainly didn’t lead my life up until this point caring for myself in hopes of a future child. Hell, I was trying to run myself into the ground as quickly as possible. In spite of what my therapist says, I can’t stop believing that the bad choices I made in my life have ruined my fertility, and that I’m being punished for them now. You can only lead a decadent, indulgent lifestyle for so long before it catches up to you. That’s got the be the reason why my eggs are fried. That it’s just an arbitrary happening that I had no control over is too difficult to accept. The world is surely not that cruel of a place. I must somehow be responsible.

In spite of my lack of forward planning regarding a family, I do, at times, feel that motherhood is the Job I Was Born To Do. Fact is, I excel at the domestic arts. You can tell by the attention B. and I give the dogs, that we have way too much love to give. Our obsession with the furkids saddens me at times. We’re borderline pathetic about them...okay, we’re full-on pathetic. They’re certainly some of the luckiest dogs in the world, but caring for them is still a paltry substitute for a real baby.

Tonight is our last counseling session before B. leaves town. I’m hoping we can talk less about my depression and more about B.’s inability to be supportive of me. That’s the whole reason we started counseling in the first place. It’d be nice if it was addressed, but it’s a moot point anyway. He's leaving town, and nothing is going to be resolved. In all likelihood, the issues at hand will just fade away or morph into Exciting New Issues!

I’m hoping to make a decision this week about how to finance a couple of IVF cycles, somewhere around $15,000 worth. It’s either a personal loan, a home equity line of credit, or a home equity loan. If you’ve got some insight about which type of loan to choose, I’d love to hear it. I’ve got a call in to a buddy who is a wizard with money stuff; hopefully she’ll be able to advise, but I’d still like to hear how others have handled it.

And yes, it is looking like I’m going to go for the two cycle plan. As always, that’s subject to change, but it’s seeming like a decision for now.

As a last note, thank you for reading. This blogging business is new to me, but it has turned into quite the lifeline. I’ve tried journaling in the past, but it’s never been anywhere near as redeeming as this. Your slogging through this not always funny or entertaining blog is much appreciated.

Broken beliefs.

I broke my Buddha yesterday. He lives on top of my computer monitor, and as I was dusting I knocked him off onto the desk where his green plastic hand snapped off. I hope this isn’t a bad omen of some sort. It feels wrong to have damaged the little guy.

I spent a lot of years of my life thinking that if things just happened a certain way, everything would turn out as I hoped. "If the next Volkswagen I see is blue, that means I’m pregnant!" It was part of a larger belief (hold on for cheesy cliché) that everything happens for a reason, and there’s an order to life.

We’ve all had a series of unusual coincidences happen to us at one time or another. "Wow, that’s the sixth blue Volkswagen I’ve seen in a row!" I used to think it actually meant something, that I was somehow on the right track and surely, something good was right around the corner. This belief started in elementary school and carried me all the way through young adulthood to finally, after over two and half years of infertility, to be abandoned in my mid thirties.

Unfortunately, I just can’t look back at my life and see that those patterns, those coincidences, meant a goddamned thing. Any good scientist would have reviewed the data long ago and realized they had latched on to a junk hypothesis.

It’s sad, ‘cause those thoughts were hopeful ones, a belief that some cosmic scheme was ultimately going to reward me for noticing it. I’m not religious at all – spiritual, maybe, but definitely not religious in any traditional sense. My belief in the meaning of random events was like being religious – it took a certain amount of blind faith to dupe myself that what I was witnessing mattered.

Infertility has cured me of that. I no longer believe that anything I do, say, or see will have any impact, one way or the other, on whether or not I have a baby. My religion now? The Church of No Control Over My Situation.

Pulling myself together.

A work acquaintance of B.’s has been having a rough go of it lately. Rumor has it that they’re saying they’ve got post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a pretty serious claim when you’re in the military. The puzzling thing about their situation is that no one can figure out what would have caused it. Yes, the soldier in question was overseas recently, but not in a combat zone or even near one. In fact, while they were deployed they asked to have their overseas stay extended.

There are soldiers that B. works with that have seen combat; an allegation of PTSD by someone who has not is viewed as somewhat suspect. Nevertheless, the troubled soldier is in treatment and is remaining at home rather than reporting to work.

I’ve had my share of traumatic events. In retrospect, some I’m able to laugh off, like the time the RE I was seeing (a dabbler at the science, if you ask me - he’s since been replaced by a much more professional doc) left the speculum in place after an IUI for a little over an hour. That’s a damn long time - I swear I could feel my insides raisining up. I ended up having to yell loud enough to attract a nurse’s attention. Evidently the doctor and most of the office had gone to lunch and forgotten about me.

Others haunt me in a quiet way. I try not to allow them much active thought time. Here’s the top ten lowlights:

1. Having to walk around with a catheter for three days after my first laparoscopy when my surgeon accidentally punctured my bladder

2. Starting to spot on Christmas Eve, only three days after I learned I was pregnant.

3. My mother’s instruction on Christmas Day to “pull myself together.” I wasn’t anywhere near hysterical, she was just worried that she’d get stuck preparing the elaborate Christmas dinner I’d planned. Tell me those priorities aren’t out of whack. Thanks, Mom, for the support.

4. That first ultrasound where we didn’t see an amniotic sac.

5. The midnight visit to the emergency room because I was in excruciating pain and was vomiting and had diarrhea. It was like a third world country hospital. I spent four hours naked under a sheet on a bed in a busy hallway. And they totally missed the diagnosis, that my pregnancy (or the tissue that had tried so hard to become a baby) was ectopic.

6. Emergency surgery and the loss of my right fallopian tube.

7. Being sent home from my IVF attempt at Walter Reed due to poor response.

8. The countless and myriad of unpleasant medical tests and procedures that I’ve undergone without B.

9. Getting my period, again and again, every goddamned month.

10. Watching everyone around me have babies.

I could go on...

In spite of this laundry list of negativity, I have, so far, managed to keep my head above water. I’m not sure why the way people handle trauma is different from one person to the next, but I do know that I’m a survivor. There’s no PTSD here - or at least not officially. My therapist has gently recommended that I consider medicating myself out of this black hole, but that’s not an option for me. I will beat this in my own way, and be stronger for it.

It’s not a revolutionary or unique thought. You can do it too. The commonality of experience and feeling among us infertiles shows that we all do, one way or another, make it through.

Well hello, clarity!

Baking my brain in the sun for a couple of days seems to have helped me move towards deciding what to do about future IVF cycles. I’ve not made a complete decision yet, and as always, this is subject to change, but I realized that there’s just no way I want to do three IVF cycles in the next year. That means the shared risk plan is out as an option. The travel alone would snap me in half. Add in a potential frozen cycle or two and I’m overwhelmed well beyond my capacity to handle it.

One more failed IVF cycle may be enough for me to be able to move on to donor embryo; two certainly should be. If we reach that point and I’m just dying to do a another cycle, we’ll find a way, but I’m feeling pretty certain that won’t be the case.

I have nice settled feeling about this - a good sign. Now I just have to figure out if we choose the single IVF cycle with a military discount, or a two cycle plan without. It’d be nice if they’d offer the military discount on a two cycle plan, but I’m just getting greedy.

I’ve got a phone call in to SIRM in Los Angeles with a couple of questions. It’s looking more and more like I’m going to be cycling sooner rather than later. I should be excited, but I’m mostly just relieved to be getting closer to a plan.

I’m hoping clarity = sanity.

A quiet mind and her scars in a bikini.

A change of scenery is turning out to be a good thing. I've had more hours free of infertility-related thought since I've been in Savannah than I've had in months. I actually went several consecutive hours last night without the letters "IVF" entering my thoughts even once. A miracle? No, my first official dinner as an officer's wife.

B. became an officer last October after eleven years as a non-commissioned officer. Don't ask me to explain the difference, that's well above my knowledge level. All I know is that he makes more money now and seems to have lots more responsibility. With that comes certain expectations of me. Let's just say I won't be coloring my hair blue anytime soon, and probably should take the barbell out of my tongue. Maybe someday; for now I'll just keep my mouth shut as much as possible - a worthy tactic for many reasons.

Our dinner companions for the evening included B.'s commander, a recently retired Colonel and his wife, and several delegates representing a former Soviet block country, and their interpreter. Conversation was slow, and I did my best to be the proper Army wife. B. says I did just fine, but I felt fake all evening long. I'm just not a natural "chatty Claudia" and B. is pretty damned quiet too, so I can't say we contributed much to international relations.

I went to the beach on Tybee Island this morning. It was hot as hell. The only way to stay comfortable was to remain in the water, so I just flopped down in the surf and stayed there. All the better to camoflauge my drooping, scarred up belly and Swiss cheese thighs.

Maybe when I get home I'll post a picture of what's left of my belly button for everyone's amusement. We don't often think of infertility as leaving actual scars, but let me tell you, after two laproscopies my belly looks like it's been hit by shrapnel. The surgeon that performed my first surgery made such an awkward incision in my belly button that when it came time for my second lap (eleven short months later!) the doctor couldn't just cut into my belly button, he had to remove most of it. I'm left with a shallow dimple of sorts, surrounded by scars. And yet I persist in wearing a bikini, even though the scars are accentuated by a few extra pounds - a lovely combo, I'm sure. Someday I'm going to turn up on one of those "fashion don'ts" pages.

The worst part of my missing belly button is that I used to have a really cute little mole in there. It's gone, and I miss it. The things infertility takes from us...

Tomorrow B. and I will drive back to Atlanta together. As I type this in an internet café, he's back in the hotel room studying. He will have to work most of tonight, but I'm not complaining. Being in Savannah has been a welcome respite from my neverending internal infertility dialogue.

Thanks to all the people that have (gulp!) been reading and left comments. I feel as if I've arrived. You'll think I'm crazy, but when I saw I had received my first comment, tears welled up in my eyes. I've not told anyone close to me about this blog, and won't ever. If I thought for a minute that my friends and family would read this it'd be a different blog altogether. That's not to say I don't half expect someone I know to stumble across it, I'm just writing as if that were impossible.

Lolly and her hairstyles.

Do you ever wonder what your doctor thinks about your particular pubic hairstyle? As I was, umm, “making myself presentable” in the shower in preparation for today’s trip to Savannah I thought about all the different people that had seen my nether region (let’s call her Lolly) and the various states my pubes had been in.

I’m not a big fan of pubic hair, neither is my husband. I would be hairless, a “smoothie” if you will, at all times if I could, but unfortunately, my skin won’t allow it. Maybe it’s some deficiency in my shaving technique, but I get razor burn very easily, and the regrowth stage can be miserable. I’ve never tried the popular yet frightening Brazilian bikini wax, but might someday. After all the horrible medical tests and procedures I’ve been through, having my short & curlies yanked out should be a walk in the park, right?

Maybe someday, when all this infertility hell subsides and we have oodles of disposable income, I’ll just have it lasered off, forever. Add that to my list of consolation prizes I get if we don’t have a baby.

Believe it or not, before I was forced to deal with my infertility, I had never before spread ‘em for a male doctor. I had always carefully chosen a female ob/gyn, and never strayed from that path. The first medical professional I had to expose Lolly to was the x-ray technician at my first HSG, the dreaded dye test. He was ridiculously good looking, of course. I had the foresight to realize that it was highly unlikely that I would luck out and have an all-female staff performing the HSG, so I was prepared for this eventuality. It never occurred to me, though, that one of the men might actually be hot. Up went the anxiety level!

Since then I’ve shown Lolly to so many different medical professionals that I no longer have even the slightest hesitation or anxiety about it. I could drop trou and show a stranger on the street if the situation demanded it. I’ve even moved beyond caring about what stage of growth my pubes are in before an appointment. Used to be, I wouldn’t shave her naked if I knew I was going to be flashing her at the doctor’s office. I feared some sort of silent judgement by the doctor or nurse if my pubes weren’t trimmed in a more traditional fashion.

“No wonder she can’t get pregnant, she’s obviously a trampy slut!”

“Only whores shave that way!”

Yeah, I’m over that. We all know what infertility can do to a couple’s sex life. I’ll be damned if I’m going to stop something that might actually help my husband and I want to have sex, just ‘cause I’m scared of what people might think.

I may have thrown caution to the wind and be shaving Lolly however I damn well please, but I still hear that little voice in my head, wondering if they’re judging me. Maybe it validates the way I already think of myself. My rational mind knows that my sexual history is not the cause of my infertility, but since when is my response to my infertility rational?

Make a decision, dammit!

I’m beginning to wonder if anyone is ever going to read this blog. Does it matter, or is the possibility that someone might read it enough?

I will be heading to Savannah, Georgia tomorrow for a few days. B. is down there for a conference, staying in a nice hotel, so I thought I’d drive down and keep him company. Not that we’ll be able to spend much "quality" time together; he’ll be busy, as usual, but a change of scenery, even if I’m viewing it alone, sounds appealing.

I am spending a significant amount of my mental energies trying to decide what to do about another IVF cycle. Should I just try once more? Twice? Go for the outcome-based three cycle plan? Having to decide upfront how many tries you’ve got left in you is tough. I’m not a gambler by nature – Las Vegas would hold no appeal to me aside from the people watching potential – so to have to finance a crapshoot, basically, is freaking me out. I feel so much internal pressure to make the right choice. I don’t want to look back and think, “damn, what was I thinking?”

No matter what route I choose, I’ll be doing it alone. B. will be in Texas until the end of September, and in grad school for almost two more years. I can’t expect him to help me plan this out in any way, sadly.

We sat on the front porch yesterday and talked about our IVF options. After about twenty minutes of discussion B.’s tone changed and I could tell he had reached his maximum capacity for infertility/IVF/what-if chat. Me, I could go on all day.

We’re treating each other gingerly after Saturday’s outburst and the emotional session at the therapist. That doesn’t mean that all is well. It’s not, it’s fucked up, and will be for the foreseeable future. I am looking forward to getting back to that place where I can just love B. with ease and joy. Wish I knew when that would be...

There's two baby showers I could go to in the next two weeks. One of 'em is actually on my birthday, and it's for a friend who is having twin boys. She's totally overwhelmed - she already has an 11 year old and a 2 year old, and her husband's income is sort of sporadic for that large of a family. I actually feel bad for her. I won't go to either shower, though, I’ll just send gift cards. Sorry, friends, that’s all I can do. I’ve got to hope that they understand.

I’m looking forward with some trepidation to tonight’s episode of Six Feet Under. The last one had me crying, hard, for most of the show. I think they did a great job of showing the internal dialogue women can have when dealing with a miscarriage. It struck home for me, more so than any other media interpretation I’d seen.

Blood, whine, wine.

A bleed, finally. It’s day 39. With the exception of my one tube-stealing ectopic pregnancy, this is the longest I’ve ever gone before getting a period. You’ve gotta wonder what cumulative effect all the drugs are having on my system.

A bleak day. B. and I met with our therapist this morning. Again, we spent the bulk of the session talking about how depressed I am. This makes me feel like B. is getting off the hook, in terms of being forced to deal with his role in our marital problems. I pointed this out, and the focus did shift back to B. a bit.

Ultimately, we’re stuck. B. is about to leave for a three month long class, and like always, has too much on his plate. I either need to find a way to deal with this way of life, or the relationship may founder. I know that he’s working this hard in order to provide a better way of life for us, but in the meanwhile, I’m pretty much neglected.

We talked about holding off on another IVF attempt or donor embryo for a year or so. The therapist, who specializes in infertility-related issues, was surprisingly opposed to the idea, saying that I would be very resentful of B. if I did. Hey, you know what? I’m already resentful, and if I have to cycle alone, AGAIN, that’s just gonna make me that much more resentful. Half a dozen of one, six of the other.

As we were leaving the house to head to counseling today, B. absolutely lost his shit and had a temper tantrum the likes of which I’d never seen before. He made us late to leave, which was irritating to me - he’s not a tardy person. If he’s late, it can feel like it’s a passive-aggressive act. As we were heading down the road towards the highway, I road-raged at a slow driver in front of me, and had the audacity to honk the horn. Keep in mind that B. road-rages on a regular basis. I’ve pretty much learned to just suck it up and close my eyes when he’s driving. It is highly unusual for me to behave like that, though, and it must have freaked him out. He screamed, absolutely screamed at me, and pitched the papers and folder he was carrying down onto the floorboards. I was shocked but oddly, not mad.

“Oh, I’m sorry, did my road-rage offend you? Welcome to my world. You fucking road-rage ALL THE TIME, you hypocrite. Grow up.”

Yeah, that’s about what I said. Not the nicest response, but you can’t reason with someone in the midst of a tantrum anyway, so why bother trying? I didn’t realize it at the time, but it was actually nice to see him express some emotion.

He wasn’t mad about me mowing the lawn, surprisingly. He was sort of shocked that I did it myself, rather than paying someone to, though.

I’m exhausted after all of today’s drama. I look ancient. I’ve got huge fucking bags underneath my eyes, and when I look in the mirror, I see someone who looks like they haven’t slept well in a long time - never mind that I slept ten hours last night.

I’m off to the Dekalb Farmer’s Market to buy wine. 10% off the case price. Since I won’t be getting pregnant any time soon, I can drown my sorrows with as much gleeful abandon as I can muster, and at a savings to boot.

Closure, an ephiphany, and some passive-aggressive behavior.

I finally received my follow up phone call from WRAMC yesterday afternoon. I spoke with one of the head honchos, I believe. As I expected, they've decided there's nothing more they can do for me. I was very polite, calm, and rational as I expressed my displeasure with my experience. The RE admitted that my cycle may have been cancelled too early, that there would have been no harm in letting me stim for a few more days. He also agreed that I should have been offered an IUI, since the follicles were on my left ovary, where I still have fallopian tube.

I'm done there.

Day 38 of my cycle, yesterday’s spotting has stopped. My local RE called yesterday and said we’d wait until day 50 or so before starting drugs to bring on a bleed. And as I knew it would, the bloodwork confirmed that I’m not pregnant.

I had kind of a minor epiphany this morning. What the fuck am I thinking? We can't have a baby the way our lives are now. B. doesn't have enough time or energy for me, how much worse is it going to be if a baby comes along? He's got a little less than two years left in school. I probably should just chill (as much as I hate to) for the next year, and then work on getting pregnant when he gets closer to being done. I know the clock is ticking for me, but really, this is not the right environment to bring a child in to. If I get pregnant in the meanwhile, great, but I'm thinking I need to hold off on IVF or donor embryo for awhile.

Wow, that pains, pains, pains me to write. The nasty little underside to this is that I'm going to resent B. for making me feel like we should wait.

The upside, however, is that maybe we could save up some money, so we'd have to finance less. That's a very positive aspect. The idea of adding so much to our already huge debt - for a crapshoot, basically - has been really stressing me out.

Well, it sounds like we have lots of fodder for our next counseling appointment tomorrow, doesn't it?

Here's my passive aggressive act for the day: I mowed the lawn. A little background...I have never mowed a lawn in my life. B. has always done it since we've been together, and has always said that I'm never going to have to do it. When he was gone all last summer we paid to have it done. It's pretty much his ONLY responsibility around here, besides earning money.

Well, last night as we were getting ready for bed I reminded him that we have an appointment with the therapist Saturday at noon. "Oh shit," he says, then launches into a tirade about how much school work he has and how he was planning on working all day Saturday. This upset me, so I said, "fine, I'll just cancel the appointment." No, he wants to go, god love him, he's just stressed about managing his time.

The lawn has needed mowing since last weekend. It's been rainy, B.'s been busy, it's just not gotten done. The grass has gotten so long in the side yard that Ploof has taken to shitting right by the front porch, 'cause the grass is worn down there since that's where the dogs hang out and play. “Princess” doesn't like to walk in tall grass, and who can blame her, it's full of landmines. So, this morning, for the first time in my life, I mowed the lawn. It was hard - our yard is hilly and has too damned many trees - but I did it. Maybe not well, but it's done. And when B. comes home and sees it, he's likely to be pissed. My perfect defense..."I was just trying to help." Am I evil or what?

Infertility, the military, and my life rafts.

I feel like beating my head against the wall, as if the physical pain would somehow distract me from my mental anguish. I am exhausted by my mood swings. When I am feeling normal (which believe it or not, is a good part of the time), and not horribly, miserably depressed I am acutely aware of how tentative this mental state is, how fragile. I wish I could find some reliable way to stay in that happy place - or at least that not-suicidal place.

Here a few words you can expect to see a lot of here: exhausted, tired, Catahoula, overwhelmed, alone, Walter Reed Army Medical Center (WRAMC), diminished ovarian reserve. I am aware that most of those words are of a negative ilk, or will become so after further reading. I apologize in advance for the overuse of those (and other) words.

Let’s go back to what happened in May at WRAMC. B. is in the Army, a career soldier, used to be in 3rd Ranger Battalion. Couldn’t be more proud of him, he’s a stand-up individual. In a perfect example of the continual contradictions the military presents, Tricare, the insurance for military families, will not pay for anything to do with assisted reproductive technologies (ART). This means no IUIs, no IVF, none of that stuff. Enter WRAMC, and the A.R.T. Institute of Washington which is housed therein. They offer all the traditional infertility related services, IVF, IUI, ICSI, the whole shebang. I find it interesting that on one hand, Tricare is against ART, but at the same time, the military itself offers ‘em – and WRAMC isn’t the only infertility clinic in the military that I’m aware of...there’s also one in Texas and one in San Diego.

According to their published statistics the program is a successful one. Best part is, it’s a bargain compared to civilian clinics. A patient at WRAMC can expect to pay around $3600 for an IVF cycle, drugs included, compared to the $12,000-$15,000 you’d pay elsewhere.

It’s not all good, though. Getting in can be tough. Referrals, test results, financial clearance, orientation – there are a lot of aspects to wade through, and information is difficult to come by. Thank god for online bulletin boards – they were invaluable to me. Once you’ve been accepted into the program you can expect to have to wait three to six months to get into a cycle, since they only do IVF four times a year.

In my case, I wasn’t greenlighted for a traditional IVF cycle; instead, they called it COH, or controlled ovarian hyperstimulation. Fancy lingo for the exact same drug treatment they’re using on their IVF patients, but they don’t expect you to respond well. If you don’t produce more than six follicles, your cycle will be converted to IUI only, no egg retrieval or embryo transfer. By this means, they don’t have to reflect my cancelled cycle in their reported statistics – only “IVF” patients are counted when their cycle is cancelled. Sneaky, yes?

They also aren’t known for inspiring a warm, fuzzy feeling in their patients. In fact, I found them to be difficult to extract information from, completely unaware of my specific situation or me as an individual, and frequently contradicting of one another.

There had been a lot of build up, planning, and excitement for this cycle on my end. I live in Atlanta, the clinic is in DC, and they expect you there for all the monitoring phases of your cycle. Some clinics encourage travel by allowing you to work with your local RE and then finishing the cycle at their location – not WRAMC.

Am I boring you yet? Let’s skip ahead to the nuts and bolts of what happened...

At my baseline appointment, the RE I saw was optimistic of my chances of making it to retrieval and transfer. He was basing this on a stim cycle I had done only two months earlier where I had produced seven follicles at a much lower dosage of drugs than I’d be receiving at WRAMC. Sounds good, right? Fast forward ten days to my next appointment. I had been 20 IU 2X daily of microdose Lupron for six days, and 150 IU 2X daily of Gonal F, and 75 IU 2X daily of Repronex for five days – your standard microdose flare protocol. At my ultrasound only two follicles on my left ovary were growing, and my E2 was 50. Cycle cancelled. No opportunity to continue stimming for a few days to see if more follicles develop, no offer of conversion to IUI, nothing. The RE, a different one than the one I saw at my baseline, saw my elevated FSH (12.0 at its highest) on my chart and had her answer: it was clearly my diminished ovarian reserve at fault. Never mind I had produced seven follicles just months earlier on lower dosages...I suggested that perhaps I had been oversuppressed, but no, that couldn’t be it either, according to the RE.

I was devastated. I had packed up my life, driven to DC and unpacked it, only to have to turn around and come home again. B. was out of the country at the time. It’s been a recurrent theme for us to be apart whenever I have to deal with traumatic infertility related stuff. This was no exception.

Here I am a month later, at home, having a wacky, long cycle, and not one phone call from WRAMC as follow up. I am looking forward to that follow up phone call, should it ever come. I’ve had not one, but two board certified, highly respected REs tell me that they cancelled my cycle way too early...and that yes, I could have been oversuppressed. I don’t expect WRAMC to change their viewpoint, or even validate what I’m saying. Just an expression of frustration on my part, I guess.

Well, it appears that I’m finally spotting a wee bit today, day 37 of my cycle. That means I should have a period in a few days, if the spotting progresses like normal. Of course, it may well not – nothing else in this cycle has been normal. I’m not even particularly upset about the imminent onset of my period. I never really believed I could be pregnant. That doesn’t mean I didn’t have that annoying little voice in my head saying “maybe” for the past several days, I just did my best to tune it out.

Today, like many days in the past few weeks, it’s a struggle to keep my head above water. I am very lucky that I work at home. I couldn’t imagine having to drag myself out of bed to go to an office somewhere. I wear my heart on my sleeve most of the time. That, coupled with my growing social anxiety, would make working with others on a day-to-day basis really difficult.

I do have life rafts, though. Two of them. They’re named Ploof and Feral and they’re both Louisiana Catahoula Leopard dogs.



Ploof is the smaller one on the left; she’ll be (gulp!) nine years old this summer. She was picked out from a litter of Catahoulas at the Chattanooga, TN pound. Feral is the big boy on the right, just turned two, and came from a breeder in Canada. They both are natural bobtails, a rarity in the Catahoula world.

They keep me company and entertain me throughout the day. The house in constantly dirty and messy from them, and neat freak that I am, it’s hard to keep up with it. It’s worth it, though. B. and I are definitely the kind of people that shower way too much attention on their dogs. Hey, we don’t have kids, what do you expect?

And so it begins, or does it ever end?

Lots to read about infertility here, not so sure I have new things to add. This is supposed to be therapeutic, right?

I don't even know where to begin. I'm 35, about to turn 36 later this month. I have been trying to get pregnant for over two and a half years now. Our only success was a spontaneous, unmedicated, rest cycle pregnancy in November 2004 that turned out to be ectopic and cost me my right fallopian tube. I just had my first IVF attempt cancelled due to poor response. Well, that's what the RE called it - I'm blaming their inflexible protocol, but more on that later.

I am a Mood Swing walking! Last week, the therapist my husband and I have been seeing suggested that I might be clinically depressed. And here I had dragged B. to the therapist thinking she'd be on my side, not that they're likely to choose sides (or express it if they do). I thought she'd evaluate the situation at face value, and see as clearly as I do that a large part of our marital strife is due to B.’s inability to be supportive about all this infertility shit. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a good guy - a great guy, really - but he’s working full time and in grad school full time to boot. Not to mention that he’s totally exhausted from two + years of my not being able to get pregnant and the resulting stress. He’d have to be Superman to balance all this stuff gracefully; it’s only natural that something suffers from inattention...too bad it’s me.

Today’s drama centers around the fact that at day 36 of my cycle, I still have not gotten a period. Highly unusual for me - I usually am bleeding by day 28 or 29. I don’t know if this is just the residual effects of all the meds from my cancelled IVF cycle in early May, or if it’s a sign of something more ominous, like my ovaries saying “enough, we quit for good!” The one thing I’m sure of is that I’m not pregnant. I’ve gone through several home pregnancy tests in the past few days and they can’t all be wrong. My local Reproductive Endocrinologist (RE) called me in for bloodwork this morning to try to figure out what’s up. They may have to jump start my period with yet more drugs.

This is all a drag, and not just because it means I’m not pregnant. After being devastated by the early cancellation of my first IVF attempt, I’m looking forward - sort of - to trying again. I can’t get that ball rolling until I get my period, though, so for now, I’m just in limbo waiting for a bleed.

I say “sort of” looking forward to trying another IVF attempt ‘cause I’m having difficulty figuring out what direction to go. I know I want to try again - I didn’t get anywhere near a fair shake during my first attempt. It was at a military clinic, believe it or not. Betcha didn’t know such a thing even existed, right? Well, the statistics say they have a pretty good program at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., but let me tell you, it’s not for everyone. I was a square peg in a round hole, and sadly, luck of the draw stuck me with an inflexible and (I believe) unknowledgeable RE right when it mattered.

I’m done there. One month to the day later, and I’ve still not received a follow up phone call from them. Typical of the level of care from them, sad to say. I doubt they’d offer me another attempt with a different protocol, anyway.

I’m leaning towards cycling at SIRM in Los Angeles, but am having difficulty deciding how many tries to attempt. It’s really hard to guess how I’m gonna feel after a failed attempt, but they have these pricing programs for multiple attempts and you kinda have to decide up front. We’re going to have to finance the whole shebang, and that’s way scary for me. We already have too much debt and this would be like adding another car payment.

Thinking of it makes me tired. Knowing I’ve got to make these plans sooner rather than later is overwhelming. Nothing unique to my situation, I know.

That’s my head today.