Revisited

Almost three and a half years ago, I encountered a neighbor on my walk who was in full pregnancy mode and looking particularly smug about it. I blogged about it here. I expended more energy than I’d care to admit disliking her, her husband and their perfect life.  I scoffed to Mr. X at the name that they chose for their child. I hated that they had what I wanted.

This evening, around the same time of the evening that I had first run into her, I ran into her again. Her three year old son ran toward me, Rex and G to say hi.  We stopped to talk to her.  I complimented (genuinely) how sweet her child was. She asked after Rex and how old he was.  I asked her advice on when she transitioned him to a toddler bed from a crib.  We talked about potty training and day care.  We talked … as moms.  As much as Rex healed a lot of my wounds, this conversation today helped me forgive myself for how awfully I felt towards her all those years ago.

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I had a date this morning with an old friend, the Dildocam.  This was not the panic-inducing wand of Dr. Salsa’s office – it was the one at the OB/GYN’s office.  I had gone to see the Lady Doctor last week because I had two annovulatory cycles in a row and was getting concerned that something was going on.  She ordered bloodwork and, not surprisingly, wanted to get a peek on the screen of the lady bits.

It was as uneventful as it could be and the ultrasound tech and I had a few good chuckles.  She didn’t see anything amiss and I agreed since, I’m so good at looking at scans of my lady parts. Still, part of me was almost wistful for the days of searching for a little sac in the uterus.  There was always that possibility of hope, that this would be the time it would work, that was just so addictive.

Expounding

Ever since I posted about my re-emerging battle with the impotent rage of unfairness and reading the thoughtful and wonderful comments that were left by you, dear readers, I have been giving more thought to the question of why the why still bothers me so.

It is an eternal question, one that I have fought with before.  I’ve read numerous articles about bad things happening to good people.  I’ve heard the, “don’t ask ‘why me’, ask ‘why not me’?” and I still don’t really understand what that has to do with the price of grief these days.  None of these things really helped me get a final answer – they just gave a short lived high of compassion and understanding.

Of course, this is because no article can tell me about why I feel the way that I do. They can suggest reasons or solutions, wrap them up in helpful bullet-point lists with uplifting words and uses of exclamation marks.  They cannot substitute for me doing the necessary mental gymnastics of really sitting down with myself and having a conversation.  Which I have finally done. Here’s the transcript.

Me: Why does this continue to bother you?

Me: I can’t think about it without feeling that it is all terribly unfair.

Me: You sound like you’re whining. Life isn’t fair, right?

Me: Of course I’m whining. Perceived lack of fairness is one of my greatest pet peeves.  To me, the “life isn’t fair” screed only applies to the little things like parking spaces, bad hair days and a genetic predisposition to thighs that rub together.  It shouldn’t apply to the big things in life, especially when I’ve been taught so often that I can accomplish anything.

Me: So how is it unfair, though?

Me: Because I can’t for the life of me figure out what makes them so special that they get to be normal and happy and ignorant and I get infertility and miscarriages and dread.  I think it’s the part where they get to act like getting pregnant without help and then have the baby like it’s all normal and good that drives me crazy the most.

Me: That’s because it is normal to them.  It’s normal to most people in the world.  You’ve been graced, for whatever, reason with the unnormal version and get to obsess over your inclusion in this illustrious group for the whole world to read.

Me: And, it’s my inclusion in this group that I cannot explain.  I can’t explain it going backwards looking at my past misdeeds, I can’t explain it now and I probably won’t be able to explain it going forward.  And I want an explanation because I can’t stand thinking that it is just random or bad luck.

Me: You’re going to need to work on that because unless you become omniscient, you’re never going to know why it happened to you.  And, I would like to posit that maybe that’s ok.  Maybe it doesn’t make you a lesser person than those ladies, maybe it doesn’t make them luckier or more blessed.  Maybe it just is.

Me: Damn, damn, damn.  That is way too esoteric for me.

That Same Old Feeling Again

I really thought I had left my bitter infertile lady days behind me.  I beat infertility to have the most gorgeous, amazing child about whom there are not enough adjectives to describe his awesomeness.  I kicked IF’s ass after a long, drawn out battle on multiple fronts.  I won.

So, why was I pissed off to learn that our neighbor is pregnant again? Or my sister-in-law?  Or random celebrities?  It’s because I know at least with my sister-in-law and neighbor that they just decided to have another one and poof!  No IVFs, no beta following, no waiting for shoes to drop, no miscarriages – in other words, the complete opposite of my experience with pregnancy.  They got and get to have again the happy, ignorant experience that I don’t think I’ll be able to experience.  And, it makes me angry.

The problem is that it has always made me angry.  I initially thought having Rex would fix this, but it only temporarily buried it.  It’s back now and showing no signs of going away.  Part of the problem has always been that I feel like I need an explanation for why infertility and repeat losses struck me, not them.  And, I’ve never been able to come up with one.

Have you?

There Is No Try

I saw the Lady Parts Doctor in October for my annual exam.  I passed  (I studied hard) but not before she quizzed me on important topics such as how much I drink, whether I smoke and of course, my birth control habits.

She didn’t ask whether I was using any birth control.  She asked what form I was using.  I just had to roll my eyes a little at silly Lady Parts Doctor.   She just assumed that I was on birth control because otherwise, I would be poppin’ out those babies like a rabbit.  She assumed that I was normal,  bless her heart.

I was honest.  I told her I wasn’t using any birth control*. I stopped filling the birth control prescription in August.  “So, you’re trying,” she stated, not questioned.  “Not exactly,” I said.  “If something happens, great, if it doesn’t great.”

“In my book, if you aren’t preventing, you’re trying,” she countered.  Touche, Lady Parts Doctor! You got me there! Ha, ha, not really.  I’m still not trying, no matter what magical powers you think Mr. X’s sperm have or how many stories you may have heard of infertile ladies getting knocked up the old fashioned way after Baby No. 1.  (Yes, I know some of these ladies, and no, I do not think I will be one of them. And that is just fine with me.)

We’re not “trying”, Lady Parts Doctor, because for us, trying to have a baby means we go see Dr. Salsa.  We’re not seeing Dr. Salsa, adorable as his Spanish accent might have been and no matter how darned effective he was at getting me knocked up.  Just having unprotected sex with my almost 36-year old eggs and a guy with a low sperm count does not count as trying in my book.   It counts as just having fun and seeing where the chips (or babies?) fall.

So, Lady Parts Doctor, no need to give me that knowing smile when you say you’ll see me in the new year.  I’ll be seeing you in the new year… for my next annual.  Maybe then we can talk about how I define trying.

*Does male factor infertility count?

Myth: The 1st Rule of Infertility Is You Don’t Talk About Infertility

I’ve given a lot of thought these past few days to what Infertility Myth I’d like to bust in honor of National Infertility Awareness Week and I have to say, the process was actually kind of, well, hard.  There are …

Rex’s Dollars and $ense

It’s rare that I mention or speak about how much money we spent to have Rex, either here or with people outside of the computer.  Part of it is because we didn’t really have financial issues in trying to have him, hence no drama.  But the other part is that I think it’s a little tacky to talk about the gargantuan wad of cash that we spent over the course of our five year epic saga to have a real live baby when so many couples in similar situations don’t have the means to take their journey as fas as ours went.

I will break that silence today, though, because those nifty ladies Lori and babysmiling asked me (and everyone else) to answer some tough questions about finances and infertility.  What is the effect of finances on the path that we chose to take in building our family?  What will I tell Rex when he’s older about how much money we spent to have him?

For us, finances were a consideration, but not a deciding factor in terms of how far we would go to have a baby.  This was partly because my tubal surgery, 6 IUIs and 1 IVF (including meds for most of those) were covered by insurance.   Between the write offs that my insurance company was able to negotiate with Dr. Uterus and our generous lifetime benefit, we didn’t feel the full financial heat until IVFs number 2 and 3 with Dr. Salsa.  Even then, though, Dr. Salsa had very competitive rates for IVF.  I even got him to give me a discount for IVF number 3 that resulted in Rex.  So, money was an object, but it wasn’t the only object.

With each additional cycle, and disappointment – either with a negative or worse a miscarriage – the question that we would ask ourselves was did we have the emotional resources to continue on, not the financial ones.  We had about hit the wall when we decided to do IVF #3.  We both knew that if it didn’t work that we were probably done.

Of course, since it was IVF # 3 that produced Rex, are we going to tell him how much he cost?  No more than we are going to give him a bill when he turns 18 for all of the food and expenses he’s cost growing up.  It’s part of doing business.  The reality was that we were not in that fortunate group of people who got pregnant for free.  I won’t lie and say that this didn’t bother me greatly because it did.

I will tell him, though, how fortunate we were to be able to afford all of the treatments because (insert Hallmark Channel music here) they resulted in him.  The baby I wanted for so long and who turned out to be even more fantastic and amazing and every other superlative adjective in the English language.   We wouldn’t have had HIM – not a baby, but HIM – if it hadn’t been for all that we did and to me, that’s priceless.

This doesn’t mean that we won’t joke to him every once in a while that we spent his inheritance trying to have him.  It will be just like the time when I was in college and received a post card from my parents in Europe that simply said: “Study harder. Inheritance fading fast.”

Little Do I Know

A few years ago, when we were well into the infertility and miscarriage slog, but Rex was no where in sight, I happened to look out my window at home and see a touching family portrait: mom walking her little girl in a stroller while sporting an obvious baby bump.  As usual, my blood boiled and I mentally cursed the universe for subjecting me to this scene at such a low point in our lives.  I didn’t know the neighbor, they had moved in a few months before. All I knew was that they had one kid and were on the way to having another and that was more than I had or could even imagine having.

That second child was born in October of that year, right around the time of both of my prior due dates.  Mr. X and I happened to be taking a walk one afternoon, shortly after the new baby came home and we met him, being borne around in the arms of his proud papa.  I made all of the right congratulatory noises even though I was still just as pissed inside.

If I had known then what I know now:

That their first child was the product of IVF.  That the second child was an oops only 8 months after the first one since they didn’t think they had a chance of conceiving naturally.

I found this out from their next door neighbors (really, in our neighborhood, there is no such thing as a secret, depending upon who you talk to).  Their daughter also dealt with infertility and just had a baby through a surrogate, using IVF.

I could have learned this information much sooner if I had been more outgoing during our struggles.  But, I didn’t want to talk to anyone, least of all mothers of small children.  They would be just like all the rest of the fertile population – blissfully unaware of the difficulties of life and telling me that having kids has been the greatest thing they could have ever done with their life, blah, blah, blah.

Oh, how we are own greatest enemies.  I could have found additional support from these ladies (well, maybe not the lady with the grown daughter.  She was a bit …. much).  I could have seen that the world isn’t nearly as black and white as I had made it out to be – and me being a lawyer, too, for shame!

But, that time is gone and I’m glad that I do know, even if it’s a little late.  I was able to share with this neighbor our struggle to have Rex and how we too benefited from IVF.  She got it, even though we both have the families that we wanted, she still got it.

And I learned that it’s never too late to reach out.

image: Steve Took It

Katrina and Her Waves

Five years ago this weekend found Mr. X and I stuck in a little CR-V with two cats, a litter box and our most precious worldly possessions stuck in traffic in Houston on a very hot day.

Six hours earlier we had left our home in New Orleans, bound for Mr. X’s parents’ house west of Houston, not knowing what the future would bring.   As we were leaving town, we listened to C-Ray being interviewed on WWL -I distinctly remember his talking about how Katrina was like a storm on steroids due to the warm waters in the Gulf.  I probably snorted at the obviousness of this statement and the total lack of awareness by C-Ray at the obviousness of the statement.  By the time contraflow had kicked in and most people were getting themselves out of harm’s way, we were ensconced in a Mexican restaurant in BFE nowheres-ville Texas downing margaritas.  They were not celebratory.

The rest of our Katrina story is actually pretty boring – although, Mr. X did get to play commando loading handguns going back in nine days after the storm via the Causeway with my boss to check on our house and my firm’s office.  Our house was undamaged, if only by the grace of the levee on the other side of the canal being a little weaker.  We had no looting or other problems. We even managed to save our fridge, which was a very big deal since after the storm, new fridges were taking four months to come in.  Four MONTHS.

Still, Katrina changed our lives dramatically.  We moved out of New Orleans for good two months after the storm.  We had been thinking about moving before Katrina, but the storm turned our vague discussions into action plans.  I was tired of living in fear six months out of the year and the city, even our relatively undamaged portion, was going to take a very long time to recover.

You would think that ours was a Katrina success story, and in many ways it was.  Mr. X quickly found a new job in a new city and we determined that I could continue working at my jobin our new city.  We were able to sell our house not three months after the storm, which was virtually unheard of at the time.  We were able to get a moving company to come in from Dallas and move us.  We were able to extricate ourselves with the least amount of effort imaginable.  Yet, Katrina marked the beginning of a tough five years for us.  It was as if the storm was the opening salvo in a barrage of bad luck and adversity that we have only just now been able to emerge from.  I speak, of course, of our infertility journey and subsequent multiple miscarriages.   We had started our conception journey three months before the storm and of course, nothing had happened.  By January 2006, I knew that something was right and, in our new city, began the first of many infertility workups that would lead to our diagnoses (blocked tubes for me, low count for him) and treatment (IUIs, IVFs, FETs, you name it, we did it!).   All of this effort and heartbreak culminated in Rex, who arrived four years, ten months and about 11 days after we first decided that it was time to become parents.

Like New Orleans, we have come a long way since Katrina.  We are different, stronger and more resilient in some ways, more cautious and untrusting in others.  We had no way of knowing that bright, gorgeous Saturday morning in August when we left the city that had been our home for ten years that we never be able to fully return just like we didn’t know then how much it would take for us to realize our dream of being parents.   But, five years later, we are parents to the most beautiful gift ever conceived and our city has and continues to reinvent itself.  Perhaps, someday Rex will return to New Orleans and continue to help with the rebuilding of the city that his parents so love.

image: omnibus

What We Have Here Is a Failure to Communicate

The other day, I spent about an hour counseling a friend who has just passed the bar and is looking to break into the legal job market.  Of the hour I spent talking to her, only 15 minutes was spent discussing her resume with some ‘move this here’ and ‘change that around’.  The rest was spent trying to get her to stop apologizing for her lack of everything – legal experience, good class rank, etc.  She would never get a job that way.

I thought about this as I was reading the over much-hyped article about infertility in Self magazine.  Resolve has taken up the article as a rallying cry against infertility being ignored. I think this is missing the point.  Being ignored is not the issue here.  Not being able to sell our disease to the public as a crisis and a travesty that needs public support and funding is the issue.

After all, infertility is nothing but fault based, a sort of you-break-it-you-buy-it scenario.   It is our fault that we can’t get pregnant: we waited too long to have children, we were promiscuous in our youths, we drink too much caffeine or alcohol, we were foolish enough not to request a semen analysis before the wedding and married men who shoot blanks, we can’t control our lady parts that have the nerve to grow outside of the uterus, we don’t have a uterus but can’t seem to grow one either, we just happen to be gay and have two of the same parts, our hormones are wonky because, hello, we’re just crazy bitches that way! As if this weren’t enough, infertility isn’t even fatal.

No wonder your average non-infertile person is going to look at infertile people and shake their head in disbelief that we want sympathy and money for treatment.  Or, they offer up one of those famous lines that we should just adopt because there are so many kids out there that need good homes or that we’re being selfish for spending so much money (ours and other people’s) to do something that is supposed to be natural and free.

The thing is for infertility to be taken seriously as a disease that needs to be treated like other diseases with the funding and treatment, we need to change public opinion about infertility.  I think one of the most crucial steps is that we need to stop apologizing for wanting the same experiences as our more fertile brethren.

I will say this again since it bears repeated. We need to stop apologizing.

People who don’t have difficulty conceiving don’t apologize for not having difficulty conceiving (although, frankly, some of them should).  And, on the other end of the spectrum, people with cancer don’t apologize for getting chemo.  So, why do we feel the need to apologize for wanting to have our own kids?  We need to stand up and say, “we have just as much a right to conceive our own children as those who do not have difficulty conceiving .”  We have to answer those who tell us to adopt.  We have to respond when we are accused of being selfish.

Being infertile means never having to say you’re sorry.

Oh, New York, New York

I actually let my subscription to New York magazine expire a few weeks ago.  I just didn’t have time to read it on a weekly basis and there was no point in spending the money to keep it up if I wasn’t going to read it.  This meant that I didn’t see the latest gem of a cover complete with attention-grabbing headline (and the even more groan-worthy subheader “Why Parents Hate Parenting”) until Adele eloquently discussed it through the lens of multiple pregnancy loss.

I dutifully read the article while absently noting that none of the information contained within it was either a) new or b) different than what I have read time and time before.  What is new is the perspective with which I read the article.  Because, you see, I have been on both sides of the equation now – the primary infertility with multiple pregnancy loss side and the healthy baby parenting side.

I’ll get the obvious part over with. The article is right on one point: parenting is hard.  It is fucking hard.  It is so hard sometimes that you want to hide in the closet and cry.  It is joy, it is pain, it is sunshine and rain.  It is wonder and it is drudgery. But, as hard as it is, I don’t hate it.  There have been times when I really don’t like it, but never hate.  In contrast, I can say unequivocally that I hated being infertile and dealing with repeat miscarriages.  I hated that I couldn’t do what every one else seemed to be able to do with a lot less money and effort.

In acknowledging and agreeing (read = complaining) that parenting is hard work, though, I am not saying that I am not grateful.  Sweet Baby Toes, every day I am grateful. I am grateful that we were lucky enough to be able to afford multiple rounds of IVF.  I am grateful that we were able to use our own genetic material.  I am grateful that my body was able to grow this magnificent human being and bring him forth into this world.  I am so grateful sometimes it hurts.

And, I still remember oh so well how hard it was to lose our first two babies.  I literally woke up from my first D&C crying that I had lost my baby.  I remember the bitter sense of unfairness that not only did I have to wait two years and go through multiple procedures to even get pregnant the first time, I lost the baby anyway (and went on to lose a second, after our first IVF).  It seemed doubly cruel to me.  All told it took us almost five years to have Rex.  Five years.  Even lazy college students started and finished school in less time.  I was lapped twice around by at least one friend.

But, it’s hard to be grateful all the time about anything, not just about babies.  As the song goes, I can’t complain, but I will.  I freely grouse about my job, my husband, my parents, my house, the dog, the cats, you name any good thing I have in my life and I will complain about it.  Not constantly, maybe not even regularly, but one of the few things that keeps me sane in this world is being able to complain, to vent, to seek a little understanding of my daily trials so that I don’t feel as if I am the only person in the universe going through whatever bullshit is of the moment.

Understanding. Isn’t that we are all looking for at any given moment?  The feeling that we are not alone in our pain, our confusion, our sorrow, our little annoyances.  Unfortunately, there was little room in this article for understanding the perspective of someone dealing with infertility which is why the blithe complaints just seem like such a smack in the face to so many.  But, I understand.  I understand that the pain of difficult parenting is nothing compared to the pain of infertility and pregnancy loss. Nothing. Not even a pinky finger’s worth of difficulty.

Perhaps the parents in this article ‘hate’ parenting because they haven’t had to deal with the real hateful experiences that are infertility and miscarriage.