Mother's Day, Smother's Day

Boom.

Have I mentioned that our engagement party was on Mother's Day? Oh, right, and our wedding was shortly thereafter, on Father's Day. #FML.

Those first ones were fun and busy and exciting... but every Mother's Day and Father's Day after that have been brutal. I've felt "smothered". I've cried every year. Including this year, actually, but I'm not 100% sure why. Maybe because I'm still hurting from the past 5 years... but definitely because my heart was breaking for everyone still going through what we went through. And for the moms I know out there who have lost a child, which brings every struggle of mine to it's knees. I can't even begin to imagine.

One thought in particular ran through my head all day. Last week someone on Facebook (I knowwww) had posted a photo of a page in a book. She'd bought her daughter a kids' encyclopedia and there was a 2-page spread in it about reproduction and how babies are made. She wanted to know if others thought this was inappropriate for her 3 year old to be learning about. Like, should she wait a couple of years to tackle that subject. Fair question (in my opinon)... except...

There's ALWAYS an "except" when it come to FB, right??

So people are commenting on this picture, all giving their 2 cents, and someone pipes in with this:
"The first sentence in this book is wrong, "You need a mother and a father to make a baby." No, you need a male and a female ... any male and female.... they're not a mother and a father until a baby is born. LOL."

And then people chimed in and laughed about how "true" that is.
 
Now, listen. I didn't look up the actual definition of "mother" or "father" in a Webster's dictionary or anything.... but that sentence rubbed me the wrong way in SO. MANY. WAYS. I wrote about 50 responses to it, but never had the guts to send any of them. I just knew I wasn't going to have the energy to deal with the backlash. I'm still debating whether to send one.

But... COME THE FRICK ON. That's gotta be one of the most insensitive FB responses I've seen in a long time. It takes away the title of "mother" from such a huge group of women. Women who have had MCs. Women who have had stillbirths. Women who struggled with the decision to have an abortion. And so on and so forth. All of these women LOVED their BABIES on some level. Whether they got to spend 5 weeks with the child inside of them or 40 weeks, whether their child was ripped away from them unwillingly or even if they chose to abort it because they couldn't give it the life it deserved, there was and still is love there... and the loss of that child will stick with them for the rest of their lives. The memory of that child will haunt them forever. And, at least on some level, they will miss that baby until they die.

If none of those women are a "mother" then I don't even know what else to say.

Ranting!

We're 12 weeks as of today. Holy cow. Our 12 week appointment is tomorrow and I am FREAKING out that there, G-D FORBID, won't be a heartbeat. NOTHING points to that being the case. Nothing rational should make me feel like this. I'm just like 90% convinced that it's going to happen and I'm worried, scared, and actually preemptively sad. I legit have no reason to think any of that.

Oysh. So I guess that's also a rant, but my main one is this: One of my BFF's from high school has been planning on giving herself a 2-3 month window to get pregnant for like 2 years now. Summer of 2015. Twenty FIFTEEN. Meaning, she wants to start trying in like July of 2015, and if it doesn't happen within 2-3 months, she's "gonna be pissed". I've told her about our struggles (separately! not in response!), so you'd think she would be careful about what she says... no? But she actually posts about it on Facebook. Like references it once a week.

Seriously?? Today she had a post about how she's thinking about doing a roadtrip with her husband next summer, "if" she's not pregnant by then. I just... can't. I can't even fathom being so sure of it. That it'll happen that quickly. That having (a) kid(s) is a GIVEN. That it's not a total miracle when/if it happens. And telling EVERYONE on your FB newsfeed about when you'll start trying. And being super cocky about it in the rest of your comments about it- she actually said once that she'll be upset if they don't end up with at least one of each gender after 3 kids (I think she even said they'd only have a 3rd if the first two are the same gender). UPSET?? Seriously?! Someone else commented something like "C'mon, as long as they're healthy, gender doesn't really matter..." and she responded with something like "Well yeah, but still if there's not one of each, one of us (her or her husband) is going to be really upset". It's legit mind blowing to me.

Maybe it's far enough off in the future that it's just not "real" to her? Not only that these are actual little humans that she's talking about bringing into this world, but also that she's putting all kinds of pressure on herself. That it's going to raise a million and one questions from people when it gets to be July 2015? Can't you just picture people being like, "So... did you start yet?"/"Are you pregnant yet?"/"How about now?"/"...Now?". Maybe she just doesn't realize that people can actually be that nosy? And that questions will get REALLY old REALLY fast? And that just because you get pregnant, it doesn't mean you're "safe"? I just don't know.

I wish her well. I really, really do. She's someone I legitimately care about, and I really hope it's as easy for her as she's hoping it will be, because that'll be a HUGH disappointment for her if it isn't. She'll be 30 at that point, and her husband is nearly 40, so I know she's trying to time it well in terms of their ages, especially with timing another one or two down the line.

I just was NEVER in my entire life that optimistic. I was always really cautious about the chances. Granted, I have PCOS and a family history of infertility, haha. But still. I just... don't... get it.

Insensitivity Training

 I'm sitting here in my living room at 5:15am, thinking about getting ready for my RE appointment. My sleep schedule is so off it hurts. I need to break out of the nocturnal- a recurring issue for me. I'm thinking I'll take a nap when I get home from the RE, get up for awhile, take another nap (because I've got plans with friends tonight) and then go to bed between 12 and 1am. I think that'll work. We'll see.

Anyway, this has been the week of awkward comments.

Yesterday I went to my first shift at work in a long time. I've gone to a couple of trainings in the last couple of weeks but I haven't been to any actual shifts. The issue was that I had been doing morning shift (6:30am-9:30am) at a group home for women with special needs, which is great because it's time and a half. Buuuuut that's when my RE appointments are. Bloodwork is 6:30-8am. Hoorumph. Also, I was avoiding work like the plague during my 2ww because my job involves a lot of heavy lifting, and... y'know. I was scared. So whatever, I didn't have an appointment yesterday and my boss asked me if I could cover a shift, so I did. And wouldn't you know, we were severely understaffed and I ended up majorly pulling a muscle in my back. I came home and tried to sleep it off and was actually about 90% successful, but now I've been awake since 10pm. Haha. Ughhh.

While I was at work, one of my supervisors asked me if I'm just filling in during emergencies these days. I shrugged and said I guess that's pretty accurate. She looked at me incredulously and said "I don't know how you can just do nothing all day. Don't you get bored? What do you do??" Ahem. While I was picking my jaw up off the floor I had time to stop myself from slapping her. She has no freaking clue what's going on in my life, but my bosses know that I'm taking this time off because of a medical issue. Maybe she missed that memo, but c'mon. No one just sits at home all day doing nothing. And besides that, she and I are both observant Orthodox Jews. In our circles, birth control just isn't the norm. You use it if you need a break in between kids, if you have a health issue, if you don't want more kids. But we've been married for almost 5 years. People just don't put off having kids for that long around here. She absolutely knows there's an issue. And that's why her question caught me so off guard... Idk.

This past weekend I met a woman. We live in a large Jewish community where people feel very much entitled to know everyone else's business. So when I met this woman she started up with the usual 20 questions that women in the community normally ask. What's your name? What's your maiden name? Where are you from? Oh, do you know x, y and z? No? How long have you been married? 4.5 years... you don't have any children? Oh, then what do you do with your second bedroom??

Yep. Here's some advice I should take... someone from another blog (sorry I can't remember who!) posted this yesterday and it felt so fitting:

New Year, New Hope?

Pardon my language, but 2013 can Suck It. My favorite uncle passed away in February and that's been crazy tough on my family. My Nana had recurring health issues all year long. And 2013 ended with us being told that we should move on to IVF. Yep. That happened.

I can't say I'm particularly floored by the news, but I also wasn't ready for it. Before I get ahead of myself though, lemme add that we're doing iui again this cycle anyway. And if it doesn't work this time, we might even try iui one more time. E and I have to figure out our financial and insurance situations. But also, when we had our meeting with our RE last Friday, I had actually gotten my period on my own- all by myself!- so the options were sort of to get a move on with getting approved by the insurance company for another iui cycle or get on birth control (what! it'd be to keep me from ovulating) in preparation for IVF. We had, like, a day to figure out what we wanted to do. And since our finances were not yet in order, we went for it with another iui. I went in for blood work and an ultrasound today (the RE was training a new sonographer- is that a word?- so that was just lovely) and started Clomid tonight.

The RE wants to move on to IVF for a couple of reasons. He said that we've now done 5 rounds of clomid with him (not to mention the ~5 rounds with my OB-GYN). Here's the thing, though- 4 of them were just with timed intercourse and I weighed 10-20 lbs more than I do now. We had an entire year break in-between Clomid rounds 4 and 5. And #5 involved our first-ever iui. So while he says that I should've gotten pregnant by now after 5 rounds of Clomid, and I get it, I just don't think or feel like it's urgent enough for IVF yet. Maybe I'm just scared of IVF and dragging my feet. The financial aspect of it is definitely freaking me out. But I feel like I need to give iui one or two more tries before actually taking the leap to IVF.

Another thing: my diagnosis has now switched from anovulation (I think? Whatever. "Not ovulating".) to "Unexplained Infertility". WTF!?! This has to be one of the most frustrating things ever. As hard as this whole process has been, there was almost always something to treat. But it being unexplained? That just sucks. And it's apparently hereditary, because that's what my mother, aunt, and grandmother were all told as well. You'd think that they'd have made enough medical advancements since the 50's and 60's to be able to pinpoint something, but, hey, apparently not. On one had, it's a little reassuring because all of those relatives had 2-3 kids. On the other hand, none of them tried for this long. So, great.

The good news is, the RE is "happy" with E's sperm. And since we'd flubbed that whole "length of abstinence" question on the paperwork that morning (we were flustered and wrote 2 or 3 days when it was actually 45 minutes because the first medical condom had broken), he was even happier when we told him the real story, because E's sperm is probably even more mighty. Mightier. Whatever. 

Tonight I was walking home from a little get-together with a friend when, all of a sudden, there were fireworks all over the place. I quickly realized that it was clearly midnight, and HAPPY NEW YEAR. E had been planning on FaceTime-ing me at midnight from his night shift at the hospital like we did last year, but my phone died at the get-together (I texted him from my friend's phone to let him know I'd text him as soon as I got home). Look: What I'm getting at is that I've been in a lousy place since our BFN. Emotionally, spiritually, mentally. But in that moment, walking home, watching the Prospect Park fireworks in the "Feels Like" 14* weather and laughing with my friend, I felt hopeful. It could've just been the fireworks- I love love love fireworks... but I think that I just might be able to grab onto the excitement of 2014/a new beginning, and try to use that for a while... right?

Let's Talk About Sperm, Baby...

Sperm, sex. Same thing, right?

Ugh.

I don't really have anything inspiring to say. I'm doing better today. Yesterday, I was completely broken. Part of me was so sure that this was the month. I was petrified of having a miscarriage, petrified of something happening during labor, petrified of something happening to our baby. But I really, really thought that this was our month.

We'd done everything "right". I'd lost weight, I was (okay, sort of) doing really well on Low Amylose. I was taking my meds on time. I'd produced not one but two follicles and I ovulated!! We even managed to get an iui done for the very first time.

Okay, so honestly, there was a little mishap there, and the more I think about it, the more I'm coming to terms with that being why it didn't work.

Here's the thing. We're religious Jews, so that whole masturbation thing is a big no-no for us. "Spilling one's seed", and all. So to obtain E's sample, we have to use this medical condom with a hole poked in it, and then empty the semen into a sterilized cup, stick it under one of our armpits, and verrrry carefully run downstairs to a cab (without shaking the sample) and book it to the RE's office. Then, even more fun, the sample needs to be watched by someone who knows all of these Jewish laws from the minute we hand the sample over to the RE or NP or whoever, up until they begin the actual iui, specifically to make sure they don't mix E's sample up with someone else's. So we have to pay $100 for a lady "mashgiach" to do this every time we do an iui. It's crazy, it's an added burden, it's frustrating. But that's what we do, and I guess it's nice to know there's an additional thing keeping everything in check. There's a word for that. Whatever.

Like I said, it was huge that we made it to this iui because we've attempted to do an iui twice before and we didn't make it to the RE's office either of those times. Third time's the charm? Y'see, these medical condoms are super uncomfortable. They're tight, they're made out of a totally different material than normal condoms, they're super thick and not at all stretchy. And there's no lubrication because they need to be sterile. So they really kind of hurt... both to wear and to, uh, experience? This is so ridiculous. Anyway, we didn't make it twice before because the condom broke both times, and  so we just ended up doing timed intercourse. This time we were ALMOST successful but the condom broke, yet again, at the last second. TMI? Possibly. Lucky for us, we'd bought two condoms this time ($15 freaking dollars each) and so we pulled it together and successfully collected a sample.

Yay, us. The problem is, you're supposed to abstain from sex for 2-3 days prior to collecting a sample so that the sperm count will be ideal, but because of our condom mishap, our abstinence time ended up being... oh, about 45 minutes. Right. Ah, and then, since we were running so late (we were supposed to be there at 7:15a for an 8am iui and got there around 9:30am) not just because of all the condom drama, but because this all happened in the middle of a freaking blizzard, we were flustered and forgot to dump the sample into the sterile cup. We just threw the whole condom into the cup. Which, of course, made the whole sample unsterile because of the outside of the condom. Right. #winning

So, as you can guess, E's sperm stats weren't super ideal. After the NP had washed and checked out the sperm, E asked her "How'd we do?" and her response was something like "I mean, they were terrible..."

Right. Ouch. Not exactly what you wanna hear.
The exact in-office stats were:
Volume: 1.8mL (Normal = 2mL or more)
Concentration: 24.5 x 10^6mL (Normal = 20 x 10^6mL or more)
% Motility: 47% (Normal = 50% or more)
Debris: 3 (Normal = 1-2)

So, yeah. Not great. Below average on 2, more "debris" than preferable, but in the normal range for "concentration"! That's gotta be worth something, right? And this was after 45 minutes of abstinence AND trekking through a blizzard. C'mon. Those little guys deserve a medal or something.

Idk. The RE is going to talk to us about this, among other things, on Friday. I'll just be a nervous wreck until then.

I'm also going to be praying that I don't get my period before then, because I haven't had it since AUGUST and when I had it then, it lasted for like 2 months. I cannot wait that long to start another cycle. Enough is enough.

Ramblings Part IV

Jusssst crawled back into bed after coming home from the RE's office. Had my "2 week" blood work done. Aka my pregnancy test. I'm FREAKING OUT. I really feel like it's going to be a BFN. Like, I would be floored if it wasn't. But that might be my brain just trying to protect me from getting my hopes up.

Been super emotional still. I was pretty fine over Shabbos, we went and stayed with some friends in (on??) Long Island. I couldn't sleep at all Friday night, though. I think it was a combination of a strange bed/place and E's over-the-top snoring. At least he slept well.

Been really nauseous but I think it's my nerves. Also, I'm exhausted because last night I had training at work until 10:45pm. Then I was too nervous about this morning to go to bed so we played Trivial Pursuit. We have the "family edition" (is that ironic? I still don't know) so I usually use the kid cards and E uses the adult ones because he's brilliant. But last night he made me answer only adult card questions because I've won the past like 10 games... AND I STILL WON. By three pie slices. Trivial Pursuit champion over here.

E ran out to a bodega to grab me some ginger ale... So I'm going to snuggle into bed and try to relax. The RE should be calling sometime in the early afternoon... Wish me luck.

...have I mentioned that I am freaking out??

Cuckoo Over Coca Cola

Still an emotional basket case over here. This new Coca Cola ad that everyone's been posting on FB and that I just finally watched over at Waiting For Baby Bird wasn't helpful. She pretty much summed it up. it should come with a warning for those of us struggling with infertility, thanks to the lyrics "You don't know what it's like" playing over and over again. You'd think I'd be all cried out after this past week. Check it out if you need a cry:

Speaking of crying like a crazy person... last night E ran out to do an errand for me and I put "ice cream cone- please don't fight me on this one" on the list. I had mean that I wanted one of those ones you find in the freezer section, individually wrapped, like with ice cream in it an chocolate and nuts on top. When he came home with a box of ice cream cones, I had a toooootalllllll meltdown. Tears just came automatically pouring out before I could even realize it. And then I felt terrible about crying and making him feel bad and that made it worse and thank G-d he ran out to the store and made it right or Idk what I'd have done in my insanity. Poor E.

If I'm not pregnant, I think it might be time to invest some time and money in a therapist.

What. Is. Wrong. With. Me??