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. 

 

 

 

Ringing in 2015, aka, "This is terribly belated"

I don't know about anyone else, but "New Years Resolutions" makes me feel about as awesome as when you start seeing a new Doctor and you need to fill out the questionaire about your cholesterol, history of diabetes, and when you last gave yourself a self-breast exam. 

Blech.

Making a list of things that you need to improve just because it's a new year doesn't seem to have any real weight that will carry you through those 12 long months.  Hell, by the time September rolls around we seem to forget that we're waltzing straight into the holiday season, let alone the home stretch for the end of the year (and thus the deadline for these "goals").

I generally have a list that I've got running for myself that's a lot like my grocery list.  Check the items off as you come across them, and try to get them all in a seamless fashion so as to save time, and avoid backtracking too far.  These are things that need to get done, but if they're leftover for next trip, NO ONE IS GOING TO DIE.

I say that now, but one day something insane like "eating less fats because your cholesterol is over 300, you goddamn animal" is going to be on my list, and then shit is going to be real.  I'll eat my words when that happens. 

So in order of things likely to get done, here's what I hope to get hammered out in the near future:

• Get our minor reno projects out of the way so we can start planning the scary and lenthy ones
• Measure dimensions for new beds and start hunting for pallets for free on craiglist
• pick these bad boys up and store them. Pronto!
• Move the new dresser into Kiddos room, so you can get rid of his old one that threatens to tip over every time you open it.  Seriously. 
• UFYH in the 3rd bedroom.  Also seriously.
• Fix the damn composter (and dump compost into it)
• Should the old dog run be converted into new composting rotation?

Additional achievements to unlock this year:

• Stop picking up projects that I can't get to.
• Also try to finish new shit that I HAVEN'T gotten to.
• This includes refinishing the rocking chair, and the 2 cast iron skillets I've acquired that NEED to be refinished.  No.More.Projects.
• Try not to become an unintentional pack-rat
• De-clutter thyself.  Immediately.  Ahem; TODAY. 

More, on this, but a little later...................

Finding Cheer after the holidays

After all the joy of the holidays, when the presents are torn apart, the toys put away in cubbies, the Christmas tree/menorah/Holiday decorations are all stored back up, we find ourselves in a slump.  It's still cold out, winter doesn't magically pack itself away and we're left with a huge gap in the upcoming months where you shall see nary a shred of happiness, or paid vacation days.  With the exception perhaps of MLK day, or in my employers case, Cesar Chavez day.

I didn't even know that this was a holiday, and I am 1/5 Hispanic.  I failed my Hispanic roots right there.   (Note:  my dad won't admit this; he says we're Native American, and French.  His parents names were Manuel & Roma.  I got nothing here other than that).

So here we are, back into the numbing work of plodding along, the nights are just starting to back down a little bit from showing up at 4:30 in the afternoon which causes us to feel like you need to rush directly home, right after work, so as not to be caught out at night.  Because nighttime in winter is terrible, worse than anything in the world.  God forbid that you be caught out in it, and especially when you know your pajamas are waiting for you in the snug surroundings of your abode.   This could also just be me, and I am a lazy freak when it comes to the cold.

Something about this time of year is what causes us to hit a sort-of low point with some things.  Maybe it's that sudden ramp down from holiday cheer and frivolity, maybe it's the credit card bills we all know are coming imminently that we didn't want to deal with when we were buying 3 memberships to wine-of-the-month club for ourselves from "Santa", maybe it's because there's a freakish Arctic weather pattern that is fucking up all of our nice Colorado winter weather.  Whatever it is, we are now deep into the pocket of what's called "Seasonal Affected Disorder", or SAD.  Very apropos. 

Sadness doesn't really need to be for any reason.  It could be because all of your pants are magically 1/2" too short, and you didn't notice that you've looked like Harrison Ford in Witness with his Amish pants.  It came come for a spell and leave just as soon as it would like, and doesn't need to announce itself.  But while it's there, you find that even the nice things you usually enjoy make you feel disconnected, and uncaring.   You don't feel like working on your 1,000 piece puzzle, you don't want to snuggle your children as much when they go to bed, you don't care that the dogs just want your presence next to yours.

The sad thing about sad is that all of those things make you happy.  So many things many you happy, and because the chemistry in your mind is out of balance, none of it matters.    In these times I find it impossible to care about basically anything.  I go longer without shaving, showering, planning meals, planning what I'll wear tomorrow (more out of convenience than anything, I'm not so fashionable that I'm planning something interesting, we're talking shoes, pants, shirt; done).

For those of you, like me, who are in this funk?   Well.....  I'm with you.  We're all here together.  If it's a rough time at work, a crap time in your marriage, something with your kids that you neither understand or know what to do about.  Whatever it is;  I'm here too.

You're not alone.


In light of the fact that you might be feeling as down as I am, I've come up with a list of things that might help.  In no specific order:

• Google "funny memes" on your lunch break.  Or poop break.  Whatever.  Don't GAF at this point.
• Schedule yourself a 30-90 minute massage. 
• Take some time for yourself to relax.  Whatever is pushing this shittiness on you can't very well be fed when you're 100% relaxed.  Shit, maybe you'll burst into tears on the massage table, and while it will be embarrassing as hell, you'll need it.   Not that I've done that.  No, not me.
• Take a walk.
• This is not trivial.  Seriously. Take a walk and look around you.   Don't forget to observe the ice and slush around you; I don't want to be responsible for you falling on your ass when you were looking up.
• Pet your animal for a least 30 minutes.
• Scientifically, this mellows people out, and your animal will get some enjoyment out of it too.  Win, win!
• Get some.
• If you're alone, or if you're married/partnered/unioned; take some time to make this happen.  Orgasms = endorphins = you feel better/not like moose crap anymore.
• Get a small project together.
• Nothing huge, maybe it's just organizing a desk drawer, or a bathroom cabinet.  Give yourself some purpose and some body movement.  Even if it doesn't help, you'll still appreciate that you did something, even if it's in that same way that Eeyore would embrace good news, like "yeah, well, it didn't help, but at least it's done".
• Listen to some music.
• Not depressing shit either, like blues or jazz.  That shit will not help very much aside from lull you to sleep and make you not ever want to wake up.  Try something upbeat.
• Ask for a hug.
• Don't ask for hugs from strangers.  People are really weird lately, and you'll likely get maced anymore.   Try a hug from a friend, someone close to you, who cares about you.  Hugging for 20 seconds or more has been proven to raise serotonin levels. Hell, I will hug you, and not mace you.  I probably need a good hug, too.
• Do something nice for yourself.
• At the risk of encouraging someone to be frivolous, darn it, it might be time for you to buy something that makes you happy.  What my mom always called "a little pick me up".  A scarf that you loved that you spy at a store, a nail polish that you thing is lovely, a magazine that you wanted to read.  If you've got a job and a few bucks to blow, then the sky could be the limit!  
• Talk to someone.
• Maybe it's not as simple as just "cheering yourself up".  If you're down so low that even a stern puppy-swarming cannot bring you a laugh, a chuckle, or even draw the slightest smile (and might even make you cry), it really might be time to make an appointment to discuss what you might be going through.  No one but you needs to know about it too, that's what's beautiful.  If you're like me, I hate telling people when something is seriously wrong.  I hate sympathy for myself and I can't explain why; I just get very guarded when it comes to things like feelings.   And even if it's just a talk over the phone, or a series of appointments just remember that you're trying to help yourself maintain in a world that's very hard to maintain in.  Seriously; it's insanity out here.   

Wherever you are, both emotionally/mentally or physically, I really hope something on this list helps you.  Maybe you'll read it and say "man, she missed this one important thing on her list "___insert action or item____" that would totally work for me", and that's the thing that gives you just a smidge of pep in your step.  I might not have thought of it, but hopefully I put enough inspiration in front of you to find it on your own.


Many hugs, and don't worry;  Seriously, it will all be ok. 

The moments we forget

Since tomorrow will be one long string of complete mayhem and chaos, I want to give thanks before the fact. 

There's a level of insanity that you don't quite have a full grasp upon before you have children.  Even before they're born, and still snuggling and kicking around deep in your body, you think you're going to have a grasp on what it will be like, but it's just not able to prepare you. 

Through this chaos, probably just another word we can call "life", there are moments when we'd prefer to crawl into our secret hiding place, cover ourselves and just lay still until the storms of chaos blow over us.  Other times, there are moments, even if they're fleeing, that touch and move us so completely, so deeply, that we commit to ourselves during that very moment that they will forever be etched in our minds.  Forever and ever.  Now, sadly, that rarely happens.  Unless you've got the video camera, or the phone camera snapping shot after shot (I don't do this - how do I juggle my arm loads of shit with a camera rolling, exactly?)

That being said; those moments?  The precious ones, the ones that touch your heart and send your mind into utter and complete nirvana, your brain pumping Oxytocin all over you until you can practically feel the hairs raise off your whole body.  These are the things I want to give thanks for.  These shreds of light filled with beauty in my life that fill me with things I NEVER understood were going to be part of life.  

I am so very thankful.  Everyday.  Call it blessed, smiled on, lucky, fortunate.  I will use a million words to describe this if I need to.  No matter where the path of my life and my experiences will every take me, the bliss I feel from being part of this is humbling and stunning.  I will never stop feeling gratitude for it.

Reminiscing

I needed to hunt down something archived in the depths of my livejournal, and had to review entried in 2008 through 2009, which is the window before/durring/after I was pregnant with my son.  It really brought me back to that time, and how new and amazing the experience of pregnancy was for me.  My son was so polite, even in the womb, and so much like he is now.  I felt so much love reading those entries. 

Though there is all this love surrounding these memories and the words I wrote about the experiences I had in that time of my life, it caused me to reflect on where I am in these moments of my life, and to really feel weight around the experiences I am having right now:  The longing I still feel, pulling at me from inside feels like the longer we wait and put off, the less the idea of another child becomes a biological imperative, but a pragmatic decision.  Some people may know this feeling; the older your child gets, the more you lose that sense of motherly need for an infant. 

This was me in early November of 2008.  I wasn't slated to birth until January 2009.  Beautiful, full, happy, and huge!    Admitedly I spent too much time lazing around and indulging and not enough time watching what I ate, and walking around.  But I was happy.  So very happy.

I wish for this.  I pray for this. I feel waves of desire that fill every inch of me to be able to feel this time in a lifetime one more time.  We might never be able to do it a 3rd time (the 2nd is so arduous and time consuming, I can't even imagine what a 3rd baby would be like - pregnant at 40, perhaps).

I still hope.

Something different

There are a few new tags that I'm adding in light of the sudden fervor that I've observed in my own writing concerning our path to conception.  I would like to take today to have a meditative but momentary pause in something that brings me peace.

“If you love a flower, don’t pick it up.
Because if you pick it up it dies and it ceases to be what you love.
So if you love a flower, let it be.
Love is not about possession.
Love is about appreciation.”

― Osho

 

 

A new direction

The subject of fertility is often one people get bored of hearing, or reading, so it's not something I am going to wear across my shoulders lightly.  I didn't conjure the idea of writing down our experiences without realizing that people might find it dull, and monotonous.  Realistically, this is my method of putting one piece of information in line, right after the other.  No expectations, and hopefully less horseshit.

Here's to hoping. 

I knew right from the start that the husband (at the time, he was just "the boyfriend") that we were going to need some proceedure in order to conceive.  Having been in an LTR of his own until November 2010 with a person he DIDN'T want to risk having a child with, he'd had a vasectomy in October 2010. 

So Fast forward until April 2011.  I'm in the middle of a break-up and move-out when I put myself "out there" on a whim.  Queue future-husband (insert trumpeting fanfare), and fast forward again after months of emails, phone calls and countless text messages.  November 2010 is when we had the conversation concerning his physical imparement, and my desire for more seedlings.  Thus, where our journey was borne. 

The following sping, April 2011, I had my IUD removed as it was no longer a needed form of BC, and we wanted my body to get into a place where if we wanted to start preparing to have a child together, the fields would be ready and I wouldn't have to deal with appointments and exams (more than you'd have normally, anyway).  I confess that, with the removal of my IUD, I was SURE that the universe would gracious and lovingly impart some kind of a miracle child in my body, and we could laugh for the rest of our lives that we'd be giggling over the 1/1,000 statistic about how we'd been able to beat the odds and hassles of the hurdles of non-traditional conception.    Har har.

So fast forward some more; July 2013.  Husband and I have jobs we can work for many, many years to come.  Stability, health insurance, retirement and the ability to cross one more important thing we need to cover off our list before really cruising down the baby track.  

The question has always lingered to my husband about where our baby will come from, and as our first option was always to explore a reconnection of his vasectomy.  This was something that proved MORE disconserting than you could possibly imagine.  Only 24 months after this was performed, a highly qualified local Urologist and his team deemed our case at only a 90% chance of success, depending on how motile and healthy husband's sperm were.  This leaves a grizzly 10% chance of failure for us to masticate upon.  On top of that, the surgery cost (without any "unexepected surprises") would start around $7,000.  Payment plans are not accepted, unless they're done in forward (money first, delivery of goods following payment).  No financing, and also no insurance coverage; this is an "elective proceedure".

Getting the vasectomy cost under $1,000.

So knowing that, if we had a surgery to reconnect the tubes and try for a natural child, we'd be looking at a heap of medical costs, an uncomfortably high percentage that it WOULDN'T be successfull (and unlike Wal-Mart, you can't get your money back when it doesn't work correctly!), and no way to pay in comfortable incriments. 

A visit to a busy OB in Loveland helped us to know what "extraction" could do for us!  Extraction involves a physical removal through the testicle wall via syringe and would allow sperm matter to be extracted and delivered into my uterus through a process of IUI, after a washing process.  The OB explained during this meeting that even after a few years of being pent up inside the testes, sperm lost a great deal of their swimming capabilities; in order to make an effective exchange, he wanted to deliver those lazy little tadpoles to one of my pre-retrieved eggs and, upon fertilization, send it back along the canal and into my womb. 

This, my friends, is what is refered to as IVF.  $12k-$20k per deposit.   Holy shitballs!!

All this, and every month my poor lonely uterus dumps another egg and weeps blood, and curses my name.  

This is how we came to the lovely land of "Donated Sperm"!   Ropey jets of flying tadpoles for anyone who wants to have a baby!  Yippie!   Of course, this also has it's cornucopia of pros and cons.  The read a lot like that contract that the children signed in the original make of Charlie and The Chocolate Factory.  If you don't remember that movie, you need to go watch it, and then come back and re-read that paragraph; I promise you won't regret it. 

So with this, we have a litany of flipping proceedures we're going to need to be put through: blood draws to confirm progesterone production (which signals that my body is in fact shooting out tiny little eggs), 2 to 3 boxes of ovulation predictors, and a calendar to write down every single stage of ovulation and menses. 

So, we are armed, organized, terrified, broke, and still crossing our fingers that for some reason, one of those damn testical tubes finds its way to reconnect itself from the urethra to the testicle and shoot some lazy, happy, bumbling little sperm so they can manage to clutz their way into some random egg my uterus left laying around the womb.

My daily Buddhism

"It is very good for children to see their parents sit still and be calm. That gives them the idea that maybe they too can do the same. If Mom and Dad are always busy, running around, talking on the phone, stressed out, or collapsed in front of the TV, the kids will also be like this."

I read this today, and am reminded of HOW much our daily lives are like this.  We run around crazily to accomplish everything we need and desire before coming home and sinking into our comfort-place.  What impressions are we giving our children?  What lessons? 

What I've taken from the excerpt is the unspoken levels in which children absorb from their parents, and what actions, emotions and attitudes this will teach them to have themselves. 

Today I've been shown a reflection of myself I've never bothered to look at before, and it is astounding that I see a person who does this very thing.  Not bothering to realize HOW I am teaching my child by example.