Taking a breath

The wind along the front range is what I might consider gale force; but I'm not a meteorologist, so my opinion isn't official.   It was, however, strong enough wind to take the tops off the trash, move gardening stuff, and freak the hell out of the dogs and the kid (and me, but I stayed quiet). 

The last 2 months have been a challenge for me, and frankly, I'm not used to a challenge.  I figure this sounds lame, and I ought to do some 'splainin' on it. 

I'm used to getting what I want, and having the capacity to make that happen.  When I want a pair of boots; I budget for them or pick up more work.  Bam.   If I want to learn a skill; I gather my information and read/watch/absorb and plunge right in.  Bam.  If I want to pick up a hobby; I learn costs/lessons/efforts/time and BAM.  If I have a goal I want to crush, I set it in my cross hairs, list out hurdles to overcome and what I need to do to see it through, and BAM. 

You see how that goes?  Easy peasy.   But usually, when I put my mind to something, I don't fuck around about it.  I also happen to obsess about it, which makes it easier to accomplish.  I'll usually push everything else that isn't essential out to my peripheral world, and focus myself on accomplishing this one thing.  I'm not going to list all of the things this list encompasses because it's  years worth of activities that I've been up to, and it'll just end up making some weird pat-myself-on-the-back-list.  I can do that on paper and give myself an "atta girl" while I'm looking it over, or something.  Yeah.

So this whole pregnancy shtick is really hard to nail down. I didn't think it would though, and that makes me seem like kind of a whiny baby.  And yeah; maybe I am.   I know there are other people who have been doing this a lot longer than I have, and have had to endure many times over what I have only BEGUN to experience.  My heart goes out to those couples (or singles). Very seriously. 

This shit is ridiculous. 

The holidays approach upon us, and I reflect more and more about what I am blessed to have, and what I normally feel a great deal of fortune and appreciation for, which is my family.  As pathetic and campy as it sounds, they have become what I was always in need of.   The thing that I was looking for, was also looking for me as well.   These things in my life that I have surrounded myself, they bring me great joy.  I have very little to despair for, aside from not being able to have a baby together. In some ways this could be considered a fairly nominal thing.  Sometimes I myself make it into a nominal thing, however.   It would have the potential to become a very large part of our family (making us a 4, and not a 3 anymore).  But what cannot be helped, simply cannot be helped.

I still write in my journal to the baby that, I'm frankly not sure I will see soon, in hopes that someday he or she will be able to read it and know that even before they were made, they were loved and thought about with great anticipation.  Just like their older brother was.   It's a way to keep my hopes up, and to keep going through this.  Poor C is just floating along with me; unable to help much more than by just being near me (since a man isn't going through the physical part, like the exams, the calls, the visits, picking up the specimen, etc).  He's with me, and that is something I am thankful for. 

So this holiday season I will hold my family close, and remember that we are still whole and filled with love for each other.  Hopefully our whole will include a fourth before too long, but until then I will keep waiting with blithe anticipation that it won't be a very long wait.

Finding my blessings

So much about my life is revolving around getting pregnant right now, that a great deal of what I should be doing is following to the wayside.  Like, my human development class for example.  I haven't logged in to work on that all week, and my unit is due Sunday.

However, I should confess, between now and then is actually plenty of time for me to write a blog, a journal, read 3 chapters and take a test.  The procrastinator in me has already worked that out, so I have about zero stress over it. 

If there's not a pressing need to get this stuff done over a long period of time, frankly I don't want to spend every night with this one class.  I've got kid-cuddling to do. Probably 26 other things as well, but when faced with a toasty flannel-encased bed with your adoringly snuggly 6 year old, that other shit can wait. 

I've started reading the Little House on The Prairie books to G.  He L.O.V.E.S. them, and I will ask him to practice his reading with me while I read some parts.  I'm so pleased that he's getting into them, and how much he absorbs from them.  We talk about the social issues of that era, and how that compares to our more modern times.  At 6 years old, he's already begun to see the world as a far more overly-complicated place than it ought to be, which is tremendous to see him do.

I really need to start shopping for some good wool fleece.  I have a friend with a local farm that I haven't been able to come visit (mostly schedule issues), but she's been saving a few nice fleeces from this spring for me, and I'd really love to hunker down this winter with some non-strenuous projects seeing as how we're still trying to conceive. 

It should be said that beginning this whole "make a baby" parade shouldn't have been crusaded until after we finished remodeling the master bedroom (by ourselves no less, so it would cost $200, and not $2k) was true stupidity on our parts. I'm fairly sure our child now knows the word "cocksucker" as a result of both the steet rock hanging, and spraying texture.  

It should be noted that I am a crappy drywaller.  Do not hire me if you don't want your seams showing.  Painting, however, is where my talents can really shine.  Not shocking.  Way to go me for putting my fancy art degree to use, finally.  Thanks mom! 

 

Husband calls me every day while I'm at work and asks me how pregnant I feel.  I love that he asks. 


So here's the grit for today: My progesterone test came back at 4.6. A good level would be more like 5-10 to support implantation of a fertilized egg.  So, my OB will have me on clomid this cycle to push my ovaries a little harder to bring that up.  While my cycle isn't expected for another few days (I am not out of the game until she shows up), that 4.6 is a hauntingly low number, so I really wouldn't be pregnant.

After that I'll do an ultrasound to see what my eggs are doing, then somewhere in there when I ovulate we'll shoot up some more donor semen and do another 2 weeks of tedious, tearful, terrible, glorious and boring waiting.

I have a peak window left in later November, which will put me in August/September (which we were going to "tr" to avoid because our anniversary is in September), but I'm going to steam roll this whole thing on through until I've got a bun in my basket.

If this get's any closer to conception in December, I"m going to end up with an October baby, and that's going to suck.  Hubby's, (step)daughters AND baby's birthdays all in the same month. 

Fuck it though.  Baby's going to come when baby comes, and we can just suck it the fuck up.

Zing, and Zing!!!

T-Minus 4 days

I'm obsessing.

My cycle is due by the 9th or 10th. I could begin spotting as soon as the 8th.    I was insanely emotional yesterday, and then totally in the doldrums today.   My body feels empty and devoid of the subtle changes of pregnancy.  No little cramps, little swelling, chest tenderness. 

I keep stupidly holding on to the fact that with G, there were no symptoms until I realized I was at 35 days without a period, then a week later I was hit with intermittent nausea that rarely produced the relief of throwing up.  Just swirling, dizzying, awful nausea.  

My ObGyn is out of the office until Friday, so I couldn't call and freak out yesterday. 

During my last IUI, he said that the follicle was mature, and the egg was already released.  It would be a high likelihood of a boy.  While I don't necessarily want to know whether I have a higher chance of a boy or not (and I am secretly hoping for a girl, since I know this will be my absolute last shot at children and I'd like to have someone, who, after her terrible teen years, I can bond with over female things.  I'm sure my son will be busy dating, and doing things that don't involve hanging out with his mom), it was mildly depressing to know that I would be having another boy, if I'm being honest.   

More likely to have a boy, I should say. 

I had a blood draw two days ago to test for progesterone, which would confirm that I have, in fact ovulated at all. I was supposed to get one on my first IUI, 7 days prior, but I very honestly slacked off and didn't bother.  I have no defense. I'm a dick.

I felt more physical changes in the first round than in this one, but we were still remodeling the basement and I was working out every other day.  I remain convinced for no reason that this was a bad thing for me.  This time, however, nothing. No womb-gurgling, no exhaustion. Just....  Nada.  :(

I had a cramp here and there, but nothing else. Especially on Halloween night.  I was totally bloated, but I couldn't tell if that was because I had a hamburger or not (and burgers tend to stop me up).

4 more days to miss my cycle and then if this round wasn't successful, I'll likely ovulate somewhere around the 17th or 20th, depending.

I had acupuncture on the 3rd, and while I didn't take a wholly deep nap, I did get a few light zzz's in.  I woke up a few times and found myself talking to my body, in my mind.  Telling it we were doing great, we were in this together, and that we could do it. Together.  Talking to baby and telling him/her that they were wanted, and I hope they were there already, and I couldn't wait to see them, how much Mommy loved them.  It made me tear up something awful behind my closed eyes.  I think of people who go through this for years, and seriously question whether or not I could go through this for that long.  I imagine that the pain lessens over time, despite that you keep trying.  Reality kind of fades into the background so you can get through the anguish, in a way.  

Joined an online message board of women who are in similar positions.  They're giving me a lot of great information, which I have immensely appreciated.  Helps to know you're not the only one. 

Hubs called this morning to see if I felt anything. Preggo or not.  He was a little sad to hear that I still felt the same.  It was nice that he called me. It lifted my spirits a bit.  It's kind of the first thing he's really done to reach out and connect with me about since we started TTC. 

Take two

Bust for round 1.  When my period started showing up, I found myself crying at almost every still moment.  I'd sit in a chair, and tears would be streaming silently down my cheeks in a few seconds.  They were welling up from a place I didn't realize they were even hiding.  3 or 4 days of that, mostly at night after I put the bear to sleep.  I cried alone, and often up until it was time for me to go to sleep.   This drained me considerably.

So when the app that tracks my ovulation gave me a heads up that I was going to ovulate soon, I was back to testing urine midday, in whatever bathroom I happened to be near at the time.  I got my first peak notification Monday the 26th, and had my second shot at 7:30am Tuesday the 27th.  Weirdly, I ended up with an awful and hateful headache that same day, and spent most of the day in bed, resting, with a heating pad at my shoulders.

Almost oppositely compared to my last IUI shot, I haven't spent nearly the same amount of time obsessing about what minute symptom my body might be experiencing, might or might not be related to conception.  Oooh, a gurgling in my lower abdomen!  This must be a good sign!    None of that.   I am, however, trying desperately to compare it with my first pregnancy and remember what was special about it that would have given me clues as to being knocked up.  The funny thing is; there were no major prior signs that clued me in.  My last period that year was on Cinco De Mayo, and on Monday June 10th, I happened to look at my calendar and realized that it had been 35 days since my uterus had reenacted the final scene in Carrie. 

About a week before this, I had astutely noted that none of my typical pre-menstrual symptoms were present, and had peed on a stick.  The pee test was an expired test, and there was a faint second line, which I discounted as being faulty and literally thought nothing of it beyond that.   Of course, that Monday the 10th of June, I came straight home and took another pregnancy test (with a close friend on the phone, who had been pregnant-by-surprise with all of her three children) who educated me that a faint line is still a line, and I was pregnant.

While my first pregnancy was completely by chance, this one will be completely planned and anticipated.  With breath that is bated, even.  At $450 per round; breath being bated isn't even really the only thing going on for me, either.  There's anxiousness, fear, apprehension, excitement.  More fear.

It's ridiculous to think this way; but most nights when I lay down to tuck Bear in, I think to myself "How could I possibly love another child as much as I love this one?  Will I just have to dive into this venture knowing that I'll always love Bear more?  Is that even possible?  HOW is that possible?  Is my heart able to contain that much love?"

Truly, I love my firstborn with a passion and fervor that I have never realized I was capable of.  Though my conception and pregnancy were entered without planning and there was admittedly a great deal of hesitation on my part (mostly because I was such a complete fuck up at that time in my life, and I was embarrassed that I didn't have more to give a baby at that time), by the time I heard his first little heartbeat, I was no longer finding myself caught in terror and sadness.  It became awe and interest.  When I first felt Bear's little flutter inside me at 4 months, I was already wrapping layers and layers upon my heart, and his, in love. 

As he grew, so did the connection to him and the adoration I felt.  I would lay on my side at night and wrap my forearm and hand around the lowest part of my belly - where I was sure he was lying, and I held him while he was still there.  I grew used to loving him from there so quickly.

There is so much love that is part of mothering, and childbirth and pregnancy.  I, of many of the people I've known, uncannily loved being pregnant.  I didn't mind my belly, swelling legs, losing sight of my crotch.  Weird hair that appeared, strange new bodily noises or processes.  I didn't care, and I laughed it all away.  I rarely complained and often remained beaming madly at the undertaking I was on.

So, here I am, another few weeks to wait.  To try not to fret, to take it easy and light.  A feat of it's own that is much harder for me to accomplish than one would imagine.  My often overly-active energy allows me to get the shit done that needs doing.  But, imposed relaxation is required and healthy.

But still I wait.  Hoping.  Still fearing.  But mostly, just hoping. 

First try

I've been using an ovulation/conception app to track my fertility. I've been dismissing its reminders every month telling me I'm fertile because getting pregnant has been such a dismal situation for me up until this point. 

I made a joke about this, and my husband came back with the unexpected:  an enthusiastic "let's do it".  So, I picked up ovulation tests, confirmed my peak fertility, picked up frozen sperm, and had my first IUI on Friday October 2, 2015.   I spent the remainder of the day with my stepdaughter for her birthday, as well as our littlest, and my husband.  It was a fantastic day for everyone, actually. 

So here is the two week wait, or "2WW" as it's called by those "TTC" (trying to conceive). My ObGyn says that this is a 25% chance of conception without fertility drugs and dud an internal sonogram on me before he defrosted and inserted the sperm in me.  My Fallopian tubes were all primed and ready to go, he was even concerned that I was "too perfectly" ready, and we should have injected the day before. 

I am obsessed with what's going to happen next, naturally.  I'm petrified as well, to say the least.  I've been yearning to have a baby for so very long now, and suddenly without any planning or discussion, we just jumped straight into baby.

One of the things that makes me really nervous is that I have the sneaking suspicion that my husband just isn't into this. His so very "go with the flow" attitude never lends to any excitement, unless it involves bike riding, lots of money, or going on a vacation.  It's a little heartbreaking to be honest.

We also decided not to tell anyone until we knew what was going on, so we're keeping our mouths shut for another 2 weeks, at least. 

Empowerment, or Deranged Psychosis?

Because only three "events" were involved in the conception of my son, it's reasonable to figure out when he came into the picture.  I entered this journey with a great deal of fear and doubt; mostly about myself, where I was at that time in my life (unmarried, under-employed and a total mess), and through the ensuing years I found ways to bring myself up, and surround myself with success of my own making. I shed a number of tears first at my own foolishness, in that bringing a child into the world so vastly unprepared to tackle parenting.  Then later tears of guilt that it would not be born into a home with two loving hearts, and just the one.

As it turned out, one loving heart was all that was needed.  It has never ceased to amaze me at how lucky I was to have my little boy, and how relatively easy everything he brought with him was.  Sure, it was a learning process; I had no idea what to do when he was awake, fed, dry, and prepped for bed at 3am, but I figured it all out eventually.  I still have moments of panic as a parent on those "what to do's", and the kid is 6 1/2 now.

Time passed, and I met someone, and we liked each other.  But he came with baggage, like I did.  His was a teenage daughter and a vasectomy.  I tread this introduction with in trepidation; infertility put a major thorn in the side of my hopes for another baby, but ultimately he expressed that he'd pay to have it reconnected, or we could move onto other options like donor sperm, adoption or fostering.  He was very open and willing for all the possibilities.  He recognized how hasty that decision was on his part.

It's been 4 years of marriage now.  Lots of ups and downs, lots of delays and backtracking on the plans to move forward with this.  We found out that reconnecting a vasectomy is regarded as elective surgery, and not covered with insurance to the tune of around 10k. The efficacy of it plummets with every passing year you've had it.  It's as though once the swimmers were shut in, their health declined without hope of improvement. Sucking them out of the testicle with a needle should only be done by a professional, and would only be useful for IVF.  This is 18K per round.

Much to his chagrin, this left us with adoption (for around 40k, and that's for foreign kids!), foster children, or donated sperm.  As a man, none of those options really felt appealing to him. He had no part in the production.  Ultimately, this is where he started to lose his interest.  Conversations subsequent to this stage involved him not wanting to read of the info on any donors that had similar features to his, or show interest in coming with me to meet the OB who would perform my IUI.

I met him at 29, and I'm now 34, and still waiting to make moves towards baby#2.  By all accounts, if I were to get pregnant right now, and give birth just prior to my 35th birthday, I kid you not: I would be labeled a geriatric mother.   That's right.  10 years before when menopause might be coming to call, I've already been shoved aside to the geriatric ward, where OBs automatically sign you up for your C-section the second you get a double-line on your piss-wand.

At first I was able to keep doing things like reading up on pregnancy nutrition, exercises, birth groups and clubs.  But as other women kept having delightful pregnancy announcements, luminous pregnancy photos, smiling round and happily exhausted faces filled with anticipation and joy, and then squishy and milk-smelling babies...  I felt myself start to crumble.  It didn't happen right away at first.  It happened when I couldn't watch birth videos anymore without breaking into silent, and constantly-streaming tears. When I started hiding the baby photos in my Facebook feed. When I could no longer even open up the baby & kids section of Craigslist to browse for cheap & useful kids stuff,

When you're fertility incompetent, watching others around you conceive and celebrate, your resilience falls into the toilet, along with your hope and your ability to keep your head about you when a co-worker drops by with their newborn.  Your fein an illness and stay in your cube, listening to the cooing across the office. 

Challenges with fertility make women insane. They become toxic, like being sprayed by a skunk: the stench dies down after a while, but you feel like your nose has been so permeated with the smell, you're not even sure it totally went away to begin with.  You keep sniffing and sniffing because you're sure it's still there.

Four years isn't as long as some people have battled and hoped.  But oddly I read all these stories of couples that are supportive and strong, and hopeful still about their chances of their miracle baby coming to fruition, and I get envious.  I think "how is it that I fall apart every time my husband tells me he thinks the time is wrong, and none of these people ever talk about how goddamned hard it is to keep waiting, and trying, and failing?!"  I must be the only one with a mouth the size of the Rio Grand, because this shit has sucked. 

When things have gotten bad....  Like we were shouting threats of the big D at each other, there was always the sadness in me that realized whoever this little baby was going to be, that I wanted to have, was never going to happen.  And for a long time recently, it's been something that I've felt more and more. 

I can't decide if my husband has postponed and stalled us out so long that I've finally given up hope and let the dream go, or I've just moved on emotionally from the issue.  The apathy I experience on the subject is terrifying, to be honest. I can't believe I don't feel that urge anymore!  The pull!  The want! 




I like to think I'm a good mom.  I work hard on being patient, and loving, and honest.  I like being fun, and my son and I always play little fun games and have conversations about wonderful things.  He rides his bicycle with me while I go on runs in the evening, and always cheers me on to push myself harder.  Every time I hold him in my arms I feel that I've done at least 1 thing right in my life, and it fills me with a lot of pride and happiness.  

And yet I realize that once he's on his own....  he won't have anyone else in this world as family.  No sibling near his age to commiserate with once my husband get old, and weirder than we are now.  No one to shed tears with when he'd got to face losing one -or both- of us.  And certainly no one to blame when one of them breaks something, and I demand to know who was screwing around with it.  Ah, what fun it is to have a sibling to harass and torture!

I digress......   Deny as I might want to, but my best and youngest years are behind me. I'm sure AARP already has me on their future mailing lists, and my advertising choices via social media will stop being promotions for 5ks, and start being coupons for hemorrhoid creams.  My time is running out, and the conversation I have with my husband always ends with "just a little longer".

Having my child was a fast and furious crash into a new routine, and a lot of changes.  I managed to land on my feet and somehow amble into a run sometime after that.  He wasn't planned, and I was in far worse shape in my life than I am now. 

So unreservedly, albeit quietly, I have chosen my donor.  B1047.  I have tracked my periods and cycles diligently, and assuming that I get a positive ovulation around mid-July, this will be my plan to move forward. 

For a few years I've been patient and laissez fair, allowing myself to ease up when my husband wouldn't engage when I suggested looking at donors or discussing when to map out the due date. Unfortunately that patience has worn so thin that what's left of my trust in the fact that "we'll get there, just a little longer" seems not to exist anymore.

Marriage shows you a lot about your spouse. Most specifically you get to see who this person is, an all their purity.  With my husband I know that while he never wanted to be a father in the first place, he half-assedly raised his daughter (as long as things remained convenient). With me, he understood that in order to get me in a relationship, I was a packaged deal and that was something he had to shoulder. 

Vasectomies are not hasty; they're deliberate.  They're an act of finality.  He didn't want the 1st kid he had, let alone anymore.  Ex's are a hassle and who needs that shit?

Whatever this rant or rave is, be it pre-menopausal breakdown, or a manifesto of my plans to say "well fuck this, I'm not giving this part of my dreams up" and throwing the gauntlet out the window.

Really the saddest part of this is that if I get pregnant, and he's not on board at all for it......   I don't really care anymore. 

 

 

 

Envy is a slippery slope, filled with unenlightened commentary

The word "barren" seems really inappropriate when one of you is fertile, but the other not.  It feels unbalanced.  Perhaps referring to this situation as "unfairly lacking in sufficient sperm product", but this doesn't roll off the tongue in any way other than clumsily.  Also, people don't care to hear the word "sperm".  They way the look at you is like you'd exposed your private parts to them while smiling.

Ping ponging between feeling desperate to fill the empty wasteland of my weeping womb, and arguing with my spouse about whether or not another child is in our families dynamic is as well balanced at the tides that come in and out of the shores.  I spend countless hours remembering what it was like to hold my now-5 year old kindergarten aged son in my arms as a caterwauling infant and chiding myself that I wasn't more appreciative of his newness, his baby smell, the privilege that I might never have again to feel him at my breast.  All the mundane things I took for granted as I didn't worship and revere them as they happened. 

The mind takes you places you don't realize it will when a desperation sets in.  As my ovaries cast out a new ovum with every passing month, I feel a new surge or urgency in myself that comes with each  of these passing moons, and in that brief and fleeting window I indulge in the darkest of fantasies on begetting a baby.  I languish in these ideas, and I cringe at what the definition of them really and actually turns out to be.  The weight of the hard fact bears down in my mind only after the curtain of ecstasy subsides. 

I have spun myself many webs of possibility in search of this magnum opus, and learned that despite the passion to pursue them, the oceans of children already born into this world will have no love of a mother to call their own, and to sew the seeds within them that blossom into that unconditional bond.   I cannot give a child the warmth and kindness, gentle touches and togetherness.  It is a damning hatred that grows in you when you see how the politics of countries punish the innocent and blameless to lives grown with the starvation of love, and to be cared for by strangers. 

Confined in a windowed prison of waiting, I am watching each week and month go by, passing beside me, as with each moment I am closer to failing at this endeavor.  It is a malignancy that comes with a bitterness that I have no care for.  The complacency and acceptance feels like I have resigned myself to yet another shortcoming in my life, the last in a very long list. 

To use the phrase "between a rock and a hard place" would be like putting a band aid over a bullet wound.