No Apologies Part Deux

I missed a few weeks on here. Sorry! That's what happens when I brag about being so accountable.

I wrote a post last year that you can find here https://imperfection-personified.blogspot.com/2017/07/no-more-apologies.html

This post is along those lines, but in a more positive vein.

So this morning I was at the gym, OrangeTheory, and one of the trainers was there for class as well. We were wearing the same clothes so she took a picture after class with me. Now six months ago I would have hated that picture. But today I didn't hesitate to let her post it. I have worked really hard in the gym since July. I was tired of not being in shape and I had the money to spend on a gym. This is my first no-apology in action. It's hard to understand how we can spend money on things like the gym for some of my friends. But we're not paying for daycare or diapers or formula. We have some expendable income. That is a silver lining for me. It makes me feel amazing when I finish a workout and I am stronger and leaner than I was six months ago.

My second no-apology is that E and I spend money on things that make us happy, like going out for dinner or a date night. You don't need to spend money to have fun with your spouse, but it is nice to not feel that pinching pennies is synonymous with going out. When we were doing infertility treatments we didn't have any extra money to spend on anything, including date nights. So this is another silver lining.

My third no-apology is that I don't need to spend time around other people's kids in order to feel fulfilled in life. I love kids...I mean clearly if we spent all those years and all that money trying to have one that should tell you something. But E and I are ok, or we'll be ok at some point. We're mostly ok with the hand that we've been dealt. It may always be hard, that we'll have that sore spot no matter how much time passes since we finished trying to have a baby. But our worth does not lie in other's children. We love our many nieces and nephew. We have close friends with little ones that we enjoy seeing when it happens. I consider it to be God's grace that we do not feel broken beyond functioning by our lack of children.

What are some no-apology moments you're having in your life at the moment?

Belonging

I don't really know where I belong right now.

That's hard just to type, honestly. I have been aware for a while that I am still angry about our infertility. That's ok. There's no prescribed end to anger, or grief for that matter. I have a lot of underlying anger, it's low, it's simmering and it's affecting my ability to pray and learn and have truth poured in to me and for me to share with others and support them.

I shared this with my friends in our life group just this weekend and then I started Braving the Wilderness by Brene Brown. In the very first chapter it felt like she was reaching out and placing a finger on my heart. The chapter deals with our need to belong. And that seems to be, at least the starting place, of what I am longing for. It also touches on why we belong to nowhere and everywhere at the same time when we can be brave enough to be who we are.

I know that we all want to belong, and just because we reach certain places in life or certain statuses that belonging is not a given. But two and a half years after treatment ended I still feel that I'm floundering with where I belong, both within my friend groups and in life in general.

There is no simple answer to any of this. I get it, I know it. I sure wish there was.

National Infertility Awareness Week...

...Otherwise known as my entire blog for the last 4 years.

So this week is reserved for Infertility Awareness. Isn't that nice? They sandwiched it in between National Don't Be A Dingus Week and National Ride A Bicycle Week. Seriously I have no idea what the weeks around this one are. But that sounds about right, doesn't it?

It's no secret that we have tried to have a baby. And it's no secret that it didn't work.

One of the hardest parts of infertility is that we are mourning a life that we will never have, children we will never know and there is no outward place of grieving to go to. There's not a gravestone or physical marker for our loss. We look as though nothing has changed on the outside.

The truth is that we are forever changed. We are not broken forever. But we are living in a new normal.

In this week of awareness, I simply want to say that there are many factors that play into a couple's ability to keep pursuing interventions. Insurance, health, emotional and mental stress, and finances are just a few. Infertility doesn't care if you are rich or poor, although admittedly if you're rich it may be easier to stomach the cost of repeated failures. Infertility doesn't play nice. It plays down and dirty. It will clothesline you and take your sense of worth and your wallet all in one move.

I would guarantee that you each know someone struggling with infertility and the outcome of it, whether that's a baby or not. Infertility is not something that disappears with a successful pregnancy. Our story has ended the way that many others have, without a baby. 

Now excuse me while I chase down infertility, break it's knees and take back my wallet and my sense of worth.

No More Apologies

I'm a people pleaser. It's really hard for me to tell someone no or to not make sure someone else is ok. Often this is at the expense of my own time, emotion and resources. One area that I've noticed I apologize for is not having kids.

Yes, you read that right. How insane is it to apologize or feel guilty for something that I have no control over? Are you thinking when would this happen?

I'm done apologizing for having money to go to a nice restaurant. For having the resources to go away on vacation. For having the planning and financial security to be debt free much sooner than we thought. For using StitchFix every other month or getting my hair done at a salon or not buying clothes on sale or dropping $100 on a bottle of kick ass scotch or sleeping in to whatever time I want on the weekend or going to the gym 4 times a week or having furniture with pointy corners. The list goes on and on.

Because here's the thing. We would much rather have a baby. But we don't. And wanting a baby doesn't mean you get a baby. It doesn't make it so. So while I'd rather have to worry about diapers and daycare costs, I don't have to. Instead we have to build a life without those worries and figure out what that life will look like now.

What happens when a friend brings up one of these things is that I feel guilty that I don't have a child. I feel shame that they may think I didn't want a baby enough. And I feel like I have to stress that we'd rather have a baby than nice dinners and classy furniture and no debt (someday). And frankly, that's bullshit (sorry for the French, Mom). I shouldn't have to feel guilty or apologize for moving forward in small ways from our grieving. It's been just shy of a year from our failed transfer. It's a step forward that I can sometimes be around pregnant ladies and newborns. These look like small steps, but they are in fact huge steps toward the new "now".

I have been blessed to have a close circle of friends that span my lifetime from toddler-hood to a SIL. Those friends get carte blanche to complain about their kids. That's what friends do. They need to vent and discuss the hard things and the things they wish they had and the way they wish things were in the moment. I have a church family that understands where we've been and I never feel like I have to apologize or explain away my happiness in where we're heading. I have a band of barren b*tches online that support and celebrate the steps forward even while they are in the trenches still of treatments and interventions. I am so lucky to have the wide range of support and love that I do walking the "after" road of IF.

This is where it gets a bit sticky and I'm going to put my foot right in it. If you have a casual friend that you know struggled with IF and didn't get the happy ending, don't complain to them about how hard it is to have kids and all the things you've given up. I'm sure you have plenty of friends who are moms that you can commiserate with. I know it's hard to raise kids, to be strapped for cash, to want sleep so badly you can taste it. But unless we're close friends it is really difficult to feel empathetic with you over your multiple children and the complexities that come along with them. In fact, if you have a close friend that is struggling or grieving over IF and possibly moving to a childfree life, maybe don't vent to them as much as you'd like to unless they invite you too or if you've simply asked if it's ok with them.

So my next step forward? No. More. Apologies. No. More. Guilt.

The Face of Infertility

This week is National Infertility Awareness Week. I wasn't going to blog because, c'mon yinz guys...I feel like that's all this blog has been about for the last three years. But today is one of those days. It's a heavy day. And sometimes it helps to get that out in the gym (tried it), on paper (currently typing) or through song (I don't have enough gas in the state of Texas to drive and sing this out).

We are the face of infertility. E and I. It's not just us. I will guarantee you that we are not the only people you know who are struggling/have struggled/will struggle with trying to have a family. But tonight's post is just about me.

It's been nine months since we had our failed transfer. We realized that this past Sunday. It's a sobering realization. This should have been a joyous time in our lives, a time of counting fingers and toes, a time of not enough sleep, a time of too many diapers and making sure the cats didn't smother a newborn since babies are just so warm and easy to curl up with.

Normally I would try and make lemonade at this point...with some vodka to smooth the edges. But tonight I'm in a lemons mood. Our lives will always look different from what we imagined. Our new normal is heartbreaking in the smallest most surprising ways.

I can't sit through baby dedications at church. Hearing babies cry in the waiting room at work can be heart wrenching. Books and movies and TV shows are a minefield of pregnancy story lines, lame jokes about sleep deprivation, and completely unrealistic infertility story lines with *surprise surprise* happy endings. Even Second Lady Pence is contributing to the fallacies that abound in the public about infertility. Let me just say here and now that the Jesus I know loves science. So I don't think He has serious concerns over using the science that we have to try and have babies when our bodies are broken. Conceiving or lack of is not tied to anyone's faith.

"Relax and it'll happen."

"When it's God's timing."

"Have you tried a natural diet?"

"You can always just adopt."

"Eat pineapple, drink pomegranate juice, take herbs, do eastern medicine."

In the last few days of this week, if you know someone whose heart has been scoured raw by infertility, do them a favor. Support them. Don't offer advice. If you're a believer pray for their hearts and grace and mercy. Let them cry or rage or pretend that nothing is wrong.

I didn't write this post to garner sympathy or to make anyone feel bad for us. It's just a picture of what this life looks like with infertility and no options left. Tomorrow will be less heavy. Even happy. This weekend will be amazing. The heavy times will ebb and flow just as the good times do.

"Bend before you break"

When we were actively trying and doing IUIs and going through embryo donation I would listen to my favorite artist, Brandi Carlile, over and over. I pretty much listen to something she sings just about every day. 

Her last album has a song called Wilder (We're Chained). She and her partner have a daughter and she has endo herself; her partner carried their daughter. I've never read an article or interview where she talks about their daughter's conception but my guess is it was IVF or donated embryos. (So I found out today, 1/16/18 that in fact they used one of her eggs and a sperm donor. I felt that this was relevant and should be corrected.)

The way I interpret the song is talking to a child about not looking like either of the grandparents but that they're chained together regardless. It's a beautiful song. This song was my heart as we were going through embryo donation. It was the song I hoped to have playing during delivery. 

I've mentioned in the past that if our end game of having children didn't work out that I was going to become a Brandi roadie. Or at the very least see her in concert. They did a tour last year called Pindrop and it was an all acoustic tour in small venues built for that sound. I was so disappointed that we couldn't get tickets in Dallas. I mean we could have but we were saving for embryo donation at the time and the ticket prices were ridiculous through the different ticket organizations. 

She announced a new tour last week that is in celebration of the 10 year anniversary of her album "The Story". It's acoustic and small venues. It's exactly the tour I'd want to see her live for the first time. We scored tickets and I'm so excited! 

It feels like a closure of sorts. We started trying to have a baby almost 4 years ago. The concert is our anniversary weekend. When I'd have a negative or disappointing visit at the RE's office (which was always, through no fault of our amazing doctor's), when our hearts broke into one more shard, when the stress became overwhelming it was Brandi I would listen to at loud enough to shatter my eardrum volumes while I sobbed my way through the following hours. In honor of all the struggle and heartache, as a balm to my spirit, and a small blessing for one thing that we planned on panning out, there will be a day in the next months when I get to hear her sing it all in person.

Because I Said I Would

I promised I'd blog more. So here I am.

Sitting on the couch with a beer at hand, waiting for the words to come. The beer, by the way, is pretty stellar. Martinhouse Stars Above, a raspberry sour. Living in the land of craft breweries has opened up my world, y'all.

Ok, I'll dive right in. The whole "we're not having kids" thing? That still hurts horribly. It is physically painful at times and it can creep up on me even on a good day. Things that we used to hope would happen someday...that aren't happening now. An example would be giving Henry meds last week. E had to work late and Henry is on a liquid oral antibiotic. So I sat on the floor, pulled him into my lap, wrapped my legs around him and popped his mouth open. Easy peasy. And my first thought was "I would have been a good mom" which led to tears while feeding the animals.

Grief isn't a straight line. It's more like this:

(https://side-out.org/latest-blog/just-keep-swimming-grief-advice-from-finding-nemo/)

I don't know that we will ever come out on the other side completely. I believe, right now, that we will still have fleeting moments of grief as others hit milestones that we will never see. We never get to have a first day of school, a first smile, a first tumble from a bike, a first boyfriend/girlfriend, a first disciplinary failure (that was a guarantee). The list can go on and on.

Grief gets better over time. I logically know this. So on the bad days where there are more hits than not, I try to remember this.

And in the meantime we look for moments and days of happiness, or at least joy. Brief face snuggles from Evie, who has a new nickname - DJ Pickle. Enjoying spur of the moment days out. Netflix and chill with E. Going straight from work to the gym without needing to arrange for childcare. Staying up late and having no one to get up with early the next day.

None of it is what we would have chosen. But we don't always get what we would like.

I Don't Know What's Next

I've been putting off writing this post. E and I were able to get to our embryo transfer last month. Everything went smoothly and for once we had a little bit of hope brewing. Last Wednesday we had our blood test. Yes, a blood test. When you go to these lengths to try and have a baby there is nothing left to chance. No peeing on sticks and hoping for two lines. I mean, we could have. But there are too many unknowns with that method for us personally. If it's positive it doesn't mean that the number is actually high enough to indicate a viable pregnancy, and if it's negative then the number might still be growing but not high enough to trigger a home test.

Regardless, all this talk of pregnancy tests is moot. Our blood test was negative. It hurts to even type that word. Negative.

So that's it. Our attempts to be parents are over. And it feels like it's so sudden when in reality it has been three years in the making. This is the hardest experience of our lives. Even though it wasn't a guarantee that the transfer would work we still had hope this time around. Hope is a bitch. A royal bitch. (Sorry, mom. I know you don't like it when I speak French.)

This is grief, pure and simple. We lost our children. We lost the hope of growing old with children and grandchildren around us. We lost the vision we had of what our lives would look like and encompass. Every day is a myriad of tears, desolation, anger and feeling blank. There are moments of joy and laughter and feeling like maybe we'll be okay someday. Grief.

I know that some people will say "Why don't you adopt?" And to them I say "Why don't you?" Those of us who are dealing with infertility (and all the emotional shit that comes along with it) have sunk thousands of dollars into treatment. Most insurances don't help. We personally have no coverage so we've spent tens of thousands of dollars from our own bank account. I know women and men who have spent much much more than we have. No amount of money will guarantee you a baby. That is true of adoption as well. We don't have tens of thousands of dollars more to spend on hoping that someone would choose us as parents for their baby. Fostering to adopt has it's own emotional toll that we are not prepared for.

I feel that I need to be absolutely clear on this. Frankly, adoption is not the right step for us. Just because we can't have our own children doesn't mean that we should be happy with adoption. That's not how this works.

Some people might ask why we don't try embryo donation again. Aside from the financial constraints are the emotional ones. I can't put into words at the moment the sense of failure and shame that comes from having to fight your own body. There comes a point where it's not possible to move forward one more time. If we hadn't made it to transfer in our third attempt we were ready to call it quits. You can only try to grasp the impossible for so long before you're tired of falling short.

I've been pushing all of the feelings aside since we got the news as much as possible. I know that it's all going to hit like a ton of bricks at any moment. This post is the first step toward acknowledging that this is the worst moment of my life so far. As I even type this I'm sitting here crying silently. It hurts too much to touch it for long.

I'll probably blog more about the fallout of all this as it sinks in and I come to terms with not being a mom. I wanted to say thank you, too, for all of the support that you've given us over these last three years.

The Third Time Around the Block

I know I haven't been around much. The last time was when we were all excited because we thought making it to embryo transfer (FET) would be easy. That was two attempts ago. When we were cancelled the first time we were upset and angry. When we were cancelled this week for our second FET attempt it was devastating.

There are blogs out there that talk about baby dust and OMG! I tried for one month and I'm pregnant and swimmers and all the other cutesy words that people use for trying to have a baby. Friends, this ain't that blog. So if you're squeemish about body parts and how babies are actually made and what's needed to even attempt to have a baby for 1 in 7 couples that you know, you should log off now. Stop reading. Run from the computer. Shield your eyes.

If you're still with me, here we go. I am one of the 1% that have trouble not only with getting pregnant, but with being able to get to FET. Both times my uterine lining has not been thick enough fast enough. The first time around it was the typical protocol. By the time my lining was actually thick enough my labs were out of whack.

So we went more aggressive the second time around. Injections all around, in fact. I've reached a point where I can do them myself if they're in the stomach. The ones in the butt are just not physically possible for me, and the needles are big enough that I wouldn't want to do them even if my elbows bent backwards. The "should be fail-proof" protocol wasn't so fail proof. My lining never got thick enough. So second attempt was cancelled.

What none of this tells you is that it is emotionally draining, spiritually challenging, financially constricting to be here. It is hard. It hurts. You see everyone around you adding to families, having first babies, seeming to fall pregnant without even wanting to be. Looking at babies hurts. Looking at pregnant ladies hurts. This whole process hurts. And here you are, shelling out thousands of dollars on meds alone to try to have a chance at no regrets. You don't even really believe that any of it will work but you know you need to do everything possible so that when you're 60 years old you don't look back and wonder. As a woman and a wife you start to second guess everything. It feels like you have failed your husband, you've failed at the one thing you are supposed to be able to do. When the process has bumps and roadblocks, it makes you feel even more like a failure. Even with science my body cannot do what it should. If there is anything more disheartening in this process, I haven't found it.

So where does this leave us? We have one last shot at this. Literally one last protocol.  I have trouble even typing those words. But we've tried to be transparent about this process, about the failures, the successes, the struggles. It's hard to be so vulnerable but chances are we're not the only people you know who are struggling to breath some days, who are jealous of those who this comes so easily to, who wonder what else has to be sacrificed to pay for meds, who have learned to not expect good news at any appointment but to prepare for the worst.

If you're lucky enough to have children, hug them a little tighter tonight. If you know someone who is desperately trying to have a baby, love on them a little more the next time you see them.  In the meantime I'll be drinking wine and eating sushi until I can't anymore. Maybe I'll go jump on a trampoline too.

A Quick Update

Well, chickens, you know that E and I are trying to be pretty open about our trials and tribulations related to infertility.

Our embryo transfer has been postponed a few months. My body didn't react the way our doc expected to the meds. It's a very time specific process and everything has to be exactly right for us to have the go ahead to proceed.



We appreciate all the prayers and thoughts, and this seemed to be the easiest way to update everyone.

We hope everyone else's week has gone better than ours!

Slowly Getting There

The process of trying to have a baby is ridiculous when it doesn't happen naturally. Ludicrous. Outlandish. Insane. Undignified. Nonsensical. Bizarre.

And this is from a woman who isn't even doing IVF and all the harebrained but necessary hoops it makes you go through. (Which is weeks of suppression, thousands of dollars of injections to stimulate egg growth, egg retrieval under anesthesia, waiting to see how many embryos you have actually start and grow and survive, how many are normal genetically maybe and then finally transferring to see if any of them take with no guarantees of any of this working.)

I honestly thought that waiting for the embryos would be the hard part. That once we accepted them it would be a cakewalk from there. Oh Awn, how little have you learned in 3 years. See, I didn't count on my body rebelling at the last moments of this process. It's always been perfect on paper so these last two weeks were a surprise.

I don't understand everything about hormone levels, so I'm not going to try to explain it here. But basically in the last two weeks I've had 5 blood draws and 3 ultrasounds. Fun, right?!!? First my hormone levels were too high on the progesterone end of things. They came down over a week. Whew, crisis averted....but wait, there's more! (Please read that in Billy May's voice.) I thought we were completely home free at that point.

At my what-was-meant-to-be-the-last-monitoring-visit another issue popped up. Sorry if this is TMI but my uterus lining is not thick enough. Which means more meds and more ultrasounds. So where does this leave us? If things don't kick into gear then we'll have to wait another couple months to transfer the embryos. We want it to be perfect to transfer but if we have to wait it'll be rough.

So I'm sitting here trying to feel my uterus grow a lining and watching The West Wing while Evie sleeps and Henry tries to break into the kitchen cabinets. He's weird. I'm close to entering nutjob territory. Evie couldn't care less. That's our Saturday.

Houston, We Are Go Flight

I don't even know if that title makes sense.

But the bigger story here is that E and I have accepted 2 embryos! We got the call last week and we are thrilled, scared, hesitant, a smidgen hopeful, and overwhelmed. This is the biggest thing that has ever happened to us.

We thought the waiting for embryos was the worst, and it was. But this is a whole new level of anticipation. We are choosing to try and become parents. CHOOSING. Are we nuts? A lot of people kind of fall into being parents. But we're saying "Yes, let's willfully pay to become responsible for someone else for the rest of our lives."

If I think about it for too long I start hyperventilating mentally. From here it looks like more waiting and at some point in the near future, finally, transferring the embryos. This is where what level of transparency to share is hard for E and I. As we navigate what we share and what we keep between us, please know that we appreciate all of the prayers, good vibes and support that you all have offered. As always we're open to questions and we'll share what we can!

Soon I will get to send E this meme, and we'll be on our way to knowing where life will take us next!

Dear Lord, I Think I've Learned Patience...Can We Get This Show On The Road?

Guys, I am so tired of waiting. Anyone else waiting on something? Maybe it's something huge like E and I. Maybe it's something little but exciting - Amazon order, am I right? Maybe you're in line waiting on cupcakes at a bakery. I fully support that, by the way. Send me one if you can. Strawberry is my favorite...unless there are macaroons.

Waiting is hard. It's frustrating and it's sucky. I know I'm supposed to be learning something during this time of waiting. If anyone has a clue about what that is, I'd appreciate a heads up. In reality I do know that I have learned a lot from this waiting. At the moment though they are lessons that I'm not too thrilled about. I even know that when I look back at this time in E and I's lives, it will most likely be clear about why this period of waiting happened. But when I'm in the middle of it there isn't that clarity. There isn't the ability to say "Oh, even if I never know why I had to wait at least I can see how much I learned while waiting." Nope, just plain want to tear my hair out waiting. And drink some pinot grigio.

The waiting we're doing right now is almost worse than the rest of this process. Yes, we were on the wait list for what felt like FOREVER. But because we were so far down on the list there wasn't this constant anticipatory feeling. Since finding out we are first on the list it's been like living on the edge of a razor. We actually did pass on a single embryo about a month ago. We will be transferring two embryos since this is the big finale to our procreating rodeo, After passing that embryo on, every time my phone rings my adrenaline shoots up, I breath faster. I basically am convinced that this is THE CALL.

Woe to the cold call representative who dials my phone number these days. Last week it was a home security company. I wanted to rip the poor man's head off. I didn't, I was sweet. But man alive I wanted to yell "Unless you're calling to offer me a BABY you should hang up immediately." Something tells me that this would not be smart, as I may get offers I don't want. Eww.

I just wanted to share where we are because I know that many of you are keeping tabs and we love that you are with us in spirit. The support we have received because of saying "Hey, guys? This having a baby thing is really hard for us. Like not happening on it's own haaaard." We're hoping that we will soon be able to share the news that our little Eskimos are being sent our way. Until then does anyone have another bottle of wine?

I Hate Picking a Post Title

There's a lot rolling around up in the brain today. Advice that may be useful this week:

1. Don't break your nose if you can help it. Seriously, friends. I think I may have knocked something loose in my skull. Now I will say that it's not as bad as when I broke my finger. I don't use my nose to write or move or balance myself. And it's not an open fracture, my swelling is going down and my bruising isn't too spectacular. With all that said, getting hit in the face by a medicine ball is no picnic, especially when it's self-inflicted. Suffice to say I do not have catlike reflexes. I have slow ass "Oh that's a heavy object shooting at my face" reflexes. We'll find out whether I need any other intervention once the swelling subsides completely.

2. Please don't honk at drivers and give them the finger when they have driven appropriately. There I was this morning staying in my lane when an older lady (way to give all women drivers a bad name, lady!) waited until I was about 50 feet away to pull out of the side street. She pulled into the other lane, so no harm no foul...until she swerved into my lane. I honked to let her know "Hey, I'm here!" She responded by honking back, swerving behind me while gesturing just to get back into the other lane and giving me the finger as she pulled up to the light. All while she had her left turn signal on. Sheesh, woman, who peed in your Wheaties this morning? You're old enough to know better!

3. Just because you want long gorgeous hair a la Joanna Gaines does not mean that you will acheive long gorgeous hair.


Went to the salon this weekend and had to loose some length. I may be destined to have shorter hair for the rest of my life.

4. Keeping up with who are celebrities at any given moment is a full time job. I already have one of those. Watched the Oscars last night. DH and I spent more time going "Who's that? What movie?" than should occur. Give me another year or two and my Oscar watching tradition will be at the wayside of life. Plunging necklines appeared to be a trend. I was a bit concerned that there would be a wardrobe disaster at any moment.


5. Waiting for a call from the RE sucks. Waiting can go kick rocks at this point. Fingers crossed that we get a call this week. We were offered an embryo a few weeks ago but we're holding out for a multiple transfer, so once again we're waiting. C'mon Popsicles, this wanna be momma needs some good news!

Happy Monday everyone!