Whispering Directions

Oprah has a saying about how you learn lessons in life.  The video is amazing (here).  Life starts with pebbles, which you might not even feel because you are sleepwalking through life.  If you still don't listen, life will give you a brick upside your head.

In yoga today, I couldn't feel anything.  I was trying to center, I was trying to pray or reach out or something.  I used to feel like I could feel my babies in my spirit coming to me, that I was destined to be a mother.  I don't feel that anymore. I can't hear them.

Maybe all this happening at once: IVF failing, miracle unicorn pregnancy failing, sperm donor's client leaving, me getting a dream job I had scoffed before for motherhood, is a sign that I have not been listening to what the universe has for me, and maybe that isn't to be a mother.

I've had my eye on the prize for THREE YEARS of constant doctor visits, meds, crushed hope every single cycle, I am exhausted.  For three years, I've been walking through a pebble storm.  I called it bravery or not giving up or something.  Maybe I've just been ignoring the truth.   Life has been whispering to me for years now.  I played off the ectopic as bad luck, then came just some pills, no big deal.  And then the pebbles started to hurt after every devastatingly "perfect" IUI cycle.  And then life threw a brick at my head after my failed "perfect" IVF cycle.  And then I got a brick wall when the heartbeat of my living baby stopped.  That's four known dead embryos in three years.  Eighty (more?) trips to the fertility doctor.

I hear you loud and clear, life.  I heard you every time I curled up in a fetal position, crying.  I heard you, but I didn't listen.  Maybe I'm not on the right path at all.  I can't feel my babies anymore.  Maybe my dream has died.

I have spent three Christmases, soon to be four, focused on this one dream that the universe does not want me to have.  I was so focused on what I can't have, all my other dreams have been forgotten, and now I can't hear any dreams at all anymore.  What were they?  Where am I going?  What was it I wanted?  I can't remember those dreams anymore.  Maybe it's time to face that this is not my destiny.  Maybe life is pointing me in a different way.  Maybe three years and four dead embryos should show me that it just isn't meant to be.

No Heartbeat

How stupid I was for thinking I would be normal.  Nothing is normal.  Nothing ever will be normal ever again.

Last week, you could see the heartbeat, and everything measured normal, 7.5 weeks.  Next week, you'll be able to hear the heartbeat!  So I brought my sperm donor and my mother in law to hear the heartbeat of the first grandbaby.  We went to lunch, we talked about the baby.  I felt fantastic.  Everything was fantastic.  We had a laugh about disrobing and the dildo cam.  We were so excited to hear the heartbeat!!!!

And then the tech stopped being so chatty.  And then she got the doctor.  Measuring 6 weeks (not 8.5).  No heartbeat.  So I can either wait or take the drugs next week, or it might happen any minute.

How stupid was I to bring my mother in law to see the heartbeat.  How stupid was I for thinking this would work.   How stupid was I for thinking I would have a baby by Christmas.  How stupid was I for thinking I would ever get a baby at all.  How stupid was I for thinking I would be a unicorn.  I'm no unicorn.  I'm nothing special.  All I do is fail.  I'm no further along than I was three years ago.  Maybe I'll never have a baby.  Maybe suffering and loss are all I have been dealt.

How stupid to tell my friends.  How stupid for taking all of this stuff.  I have a whole closet full of baby stuff.   Is it like wedding gifts?  Am I supposed to return it now?

This Christmas, we will have a two-seater convertible and a bunch of medical bills.  My sister in law Hermione, due in early November, will have the first grandbaby, five months after she started trying.

I'm not OK.  This feels like the world throwing me down ten flights of stairs just to laugh at me.  I don't know if I should scream or collapse or just give up.  This hurts in a completely different way than all the times that came before.  This was my miracle unicorn baby, and I saw it, saw its heartbeart, felt it when I threw up my lunch.  I signed up for prenatal yoga.  I had a tour of a daycare scheduled.  I am so stupid.  It is over now.  Maybe this is never going to happen for me.

When It Rains

Life.  Man.  There's no way to control it.  Like when you get a "spontaneous pregnancy" four days before your next IVF round is approved.

We went out to see my in-laws to tell them the big news: the first gradbaby.  I love my in-laws.  This is something we already did, and it didn't go so well.  But this time I had a scan and blood tests and everything.  The first grandbaby was a big deal to me, and I was thrilled to get to announce it, and I made her a cutesy photo frame that I know she will take to work.   For three years, I have worried that my sperm donor's sister would beat me to it, and it just has to be me who is the first grandbaby after trying for three years.

My sperm donor's sister was there, I'll call her Hermione.  Hermione said she had a dream that she and I were both pregnant and due at Halloween.  Creepy, that's not far off my due date.  Well, is it true?  If it's true you would know by now.  So Hermione took a pregnancy test, and it was faint and positive.  That would put is four days apart.  FOUR DAYS.

I was flooded with emotions.  The whole thing was so absurd after three years, I started laughing.  It turns out she had two chemical pregnancies, so it's been a rough ride for her too.  Wait, it is supposed to be all about me!!!  I was grateful I'll have someone to go through this with.  Wouldn't it be neat to have a cousin so close in age?  I was happy for her.  I was happy for her mom.  Aren't I glad Hermione didn't have to go through the hell of IVF.  We can share those awful family showers and stuff.  Wait, this was supposed to be me me me.  How could Hermione take this from me when it was so hard for me?  Won't my MIL love her baby more than mine?   A lot of thoughts I am working through, some not so pleasant reflections on me.  Some of these thoughts are downright ugly.

I'm still not sure what to think about it.  It's shocking that I have now had two scans and seen a heartbeat, and she just got a blood test and a prenatal Rx and won't get a scan until 8 weeks.  I guess that's the difference between real normal pregnant and my almost normal pregnant.  Life, man.  When it rains, it pours.

Not Very Spontaneous

To the Woman in the Waiting Room:

I sat next to you in the tiny blood draw waiting room, next to the corkboard covered in twins, for my beta to confirm my pregnancy, and I'm sorry for what happened.  I saw my nurse run by the blood draw station, and I yelled out at her to ask if I should be taking my progesterone.  Since it happened on a break, I didn't have any sheets telling me what to do!

She yelled back
"Because it's spontaneous, don't take anything but your prenatals."  And she was gone.

I could feel you tense up next to me, and I'm sorry.  There was nowhere to hide, and I know you were in the thick of your own journey through hell.  Maybe right after your failed IVF you put every ounce of your heart into.  Or maybe you were just trying not to cry in the middle of the hell of a chemical pregnancy.  Or maybe you just can't believe how many freaking times you have been to this office to blow some more cash and get more bad news.  Or maybe there's blood everywhere and you know this can't end well.  Or maybe you feel like such an idiot for thinking this time it would work when you know how bad the odds are.  Or maybe you were about to go scream in your car because you have been doing this for three years now, and it is never going to end.

And then there's this bitch with a "spontaneous" pregnancy sitting next to you.  God, even at the IVF clinic, the preggos have to rub it in.

If it makes you feel any better, I don't consider anything that takes three years and five figures very "spontaneous."

A Scan That Is a Big Deal

Today was our Week 6, Day 1 scan.  Thanks to the ruptured ectopic, I get an early transvaginal, lucky me.  I've had a million of these scans, well dozens over the last three years.  But this one was the one that counted.  I couldn't sleep.  I was sweating.

I had gone over in my head what would happen if I had another ectopic.  I didn't want Methotrexate. I just wanted the surgery to take out all of the tube and be completely sterile.  Just wheel me into the OR that day and take it all.  I don't want to live the rest of my life worried I am going to pass out on a kitchen floor and bleed out.  This wait is worse than the 2WW because failure means painful, awful interventions that take months.   Or waking up in a recovery room again.  The threat of the ectopic has followed me around for weeks.

I was too nervous for my really pushy, dramatic mom to be there.  It was just me and my sperm donor.  We never actually made it this far before.  My ectopic ruptured days before my scheduled Week 8 scan in my first pregnancy.   This scan was a big deal.  It either meant some sort of scary do not pass go treatment about my wonky tubes, or it meant I was just normal.  God I wish I were just normal.

For today at least, I was normal.  Perfectly normal.  A normal baby.  They printed out a picture and gave me a due date and a list of rules, like I'm a normal pregnant woman.  I'm not even on any of the drugs, except a prenatal.  After three years, we never made it this far to actually see a blob on a scan.  Normal.  Wow.

Unicorn Exuberance

A unicorn is that infertile you've heard about a million times.  Pregnant days after filling out adoption paperwork.  Pregnant after four failed rounds of IVF naturally.  HAR HAR. I certainly never thought I would be a unicorn.  After failure after failure, I never let myself believe that, except maybe that moment I let myself believe that IVF would work.  Then there was this morning.

I TESTED POSITIVE.   I took four Wondfos, and they were all squinters.  I am now something resembling pregnant. WTF WTF WTF.

We were in our mandatory break before the next IVF cycle.  I just submitted War and Peace for the insurance IVF preapproval.  It hadn't used OPKs or anything.  This was so bad I didn't even know when my last period was, I had to figure it out from a flight and when I bought tampons at a small town CVS in rural Michigan.

This had to have happened in a Day 9-Day 12 romp on a couch in Chelsea, LOL.  It's the only time I was even around my sperm source.

My sperm source is keeping a lid on the irrational exhuberance.  After my traumatic ruptured ectopic and the chemical pregnancy from IVF, we've been down this road before, and it hasn't gone so well.  I hate that infertility has taken the jump up and down, TV commercial screaming joy from a positive pee stick from me.  I hate that when I showed my sperm source a positive test, he asked when the bloodwork would be so I don't die.  I hate that this journey has taken the joy out of the one thing I wanted the most.

I also hate that I CANT TELL ANYONE.  ARRRRRGGGGGG.  My mother in law, my BFF.  I want to tell them so bad, but I need to just wait a few days.  I need to be more sure.

Life always throws you what you weren't expecting.  It's been THREE YEARS and tens of thousands at this, and to get pregnant on a sofa on Day 12 without even using OPKs is just so ironic I can't stand it.  And somehow such a perfect ending for all I've been through.  I hope I get my perfect ending to this journey now.

UPDATE:  My Beta #1, one day after my missed period, was 56.  Completely normal.  I went to my car and started crying from joy.  It has been over three years waiting for this.  Three years waiting for this call.  I am so full of gratitude to be here.

Infertility Makes You a Better Mom

There's this idea circulating that somehow IVF or having to work this hard for your kids makes you a better mom.  I'm not sure I get it.

I was watching an episode of David Tutera's new party planning show, and he was doing some ridiculous, expensive birthday party for a set of IVF twins for a celebrity I had never heard of.  Clearly, the more money you spend on a party, the better mom you are.  The disturbing part to me was when this celebrity had a little sit down with David Tutera to explain how hard it was, it failed, miracle babies, blah blah.  David totally got it and was then inspired to do an awesome party.

This is coming from someone whose claims his daughter has never even met her twin.

WTF.  Because her twins are born through IVF, she should throw them expensive birthday parties?  She loves them more?  They are worth more?  They are better than accidental Teen Mom twins?  She's a better mom?  People should respect her or be impressed or something?

My mom had cancer.  Does that make me love her more?  Does that mean she deserves expensive parties?  Does that make her a better mom?

I seriously hope that when (if) this is all over, I can never look back.  Never talk about it.  Never think about it.  I hope I can be as close to normal as possible, as if I had a boring accident baby.