All In One Basket

thinly

2012-02-10T14:13:00.002-05:00

While thin is a nice adjective to hear about one's figure, it certainly is not a great word to hear about one's uterine lining. Am I surprised? Nah.

The lining was only 6.5 mm this morning and not anywhere in the neighborhood of triple striped, or whatever that description is. Dr. RE used compact, or dense to describe what it lacked. He said it took a long time to visualize on the u/s, noting that good linings are identifiable within 3 seconds (for my and the medical fellow's benefit).

Our clinic changed their monitoring venue at the end of April last year, so I never actually went to their new digs. Women used to have to go one place for the bloodwork, and then drive up to the hospital for the u/s. Hospital parking was an expensive and time consuming ordeal.* At the new outpost, parking is free. And the location is closer to the highway, which is great when one is driving from afar.

I was so pleased to see that the physician on call was Dr. RE. It could have so easily been a different one, as there are 5 or 6 of them who are part of the team. I hadn't seen him since our big discussion in the fall and felt immensely reassured to see him and talk to him. He asked how the injections were going and talked about the fact that he wished he could prescribe this, but Dele.strogen isn't available in Canada. We both quickly agreed that the Dele.strogen was insufficient and that I would be back there shortly for more monitoring.

You'd expect to find me frustrated and disappointed. But I'm not. I've just been feeling grateful all morning. Grateful that I have such a great doctor, and a great team who have been helping us on this difficult journey. Grateful that we are able to go to the U.S. for DE IVF through the financial help of our parents. Grateful to have such amazing friends who have supported us, loved us, placed innumerable international phonecalls to keep connected, wiped our tears and made us dinner, and who continue to be there for us despite our protracted and thus far unfruitful struggle. Grateful for all of you women who find it in your hearts to check in with me on this blog or through email and also share your stories. You give me such vivid examples of how one fights this hard fight, and I draw much strenght from seeing how you pick yourselves up from the depths and find it in yourselves to keep fighting. I am grateful for being healthy enough to attempt another DE IVF.

I am awaiting further instruction from SG. I suspect that we will be adding estr.ace PV and that I will head back there for monitoring next week. I may also be driving over the boarder soon to pick up more Dele.strogen. I will keep you posted.

*the most salient example in mind is the one of the day of Sattva's retrieval, when I lost my parking ticket and realized this only once I got to the gate. I had to run into the parking office and pay the full day's worth of parking, not to mention hold up traffic for 10 minutes. But I didn't care too much. I had my very dear Sattva in the car and 6 eggs fertilizing upstairs.

Clarified like butter

2012-02-06T21:09:00.000-05:00

Once again, I am amazed by the power of this community. Your comments on my last post(s) really helped calm me down at a time of loosening hinges. It helped to read your encouragements to contact the clinic (I tend to feel disentitled), and to know that some of your educated opinions and factual knowledge pointed to the fact that IM is more potent than pills. Thank you nurse Sans Cigogne (translation: stork-less) who could also add from her nursing background and who wrote it in English for everyone's benefit (she is from my part of the world, where most of us speak French).

I emailed our nurse this morning who was quick to reply (bless her) by saying that my hypothesis 1 was correct. She said that they would supplement with estr.ace vaginally if needed. In the mean time, the girls are getting more sore by the minute, telltale sign that there are womanly hormones flowing in there.

Friday is the bloodwork and u/s. Curious to know how things will look in there.

In the mean time, if you have a moment, please go give my friend Patience a big hug at Searching for the missing piece. She just found out that her little bean's heartbeat stopped. Patience is an IF veteran and by golly, we were all praying that this was her take home baby. I am so sad that it is not.

Mocking Me

2012-02-02T20:20:00.002-05:00

Got home from my day at work, and was slurping golden borscht made by Mr. A, when he asked me whether I could feel the injections. Well. Maybe there are a few signs.

If you knew Mr. A, you would know that from asking "how does it feel" to talking about math is a very short distance. In fact, as far as he is concerned, everything is a short distance to math.

I messed up my last equation. And now I am in the vice grips of WORRY.

Let's revisit the equation, but this time with increased accuracy, thanks to Mr. A who knows me well enough now to always check my math.

The dele.strogen has 20mg/ml. The dose is 0.2ml per injection, or every 3 days (and not 20ml per injections - man, that would require an IV, almost).

2mgs estra.ce t.i.d., PO + 2mgs est.race, PV + oes.clim patch 5mg every three days < 20cc of Dele.strogen IM, every three days.

The reduced equation would be:

6mgs PO + 2mgs PV + 5mgs every 3 days < 4mgs every 3 days

To reduce it to daily dosage would be:

9.67mgs < 1.33mgs

Wait.

that equation doesn't work.

I envisage one of two things going on:

Hypothesis 1
There is one heck of a difference between injectable estrogen (estradiol valerate), and estrogen in pill form (estradiol-17B) plus estradiol transdermal.

Hypothesis 2
the doctor omitted to read my file, which clearly pointed to the massive quantities of estrogen needed to produce a somewhat acceptable lining in this particular patient.

As far as hypothesis number 1 goes, well it's entirely possible that estrogen that has to be handled by your liver and estrogen that has to come through the pores of your skin and that of the wall of your vagina can be much less efficient than estrogen that comes directly through the muscle, and into the bloodstream. So, hypothesis number 1 is viable, even though I still have some doubts.

Hypothesis number 2 makes me nervous. Hence the vice grips of WORRY. What if this mock cycle is completely awash because the estrogen is entirely insufficient. And we have to do a second mock. And a third mock. (notice the catastrophizing going on here, ladies). Clearly, I will be made a mockery.

If any of you have any insight, please share. I am clearly lost here. I am making puns for goodness sake.

mocking continues

2012-02-02T10:15:00.003-05:00

I think I may have ignored important information to solve the equation I posted on my last entry. So, on the little dele.strogen vial, it says 20mg/ml, an important clue for us to solve this equation. To recap:

2mgs estra.ce t.i.d., PO + 2mgs est.race, PV + oes.clim patch 5mg every three days < 20cc of Dele.strogen IM, every three days.

If I divide the dosage to daily doses, and factor in the 20mg/ml information, we get this:

6mgs estr.ace PO + 2mgs PV + 1.67 oesc.lim < 13.33mg dele.strogen

or

9.67mg < 13.33mg

Equation solved.

Still, all the math in the world doesn't prevent me from wondering how my body will react to this new form of estrogen. I am trying to reassure myself with reminders that my uterus is responsive to estrogen. Obviously not exactly like a uterus that has been stimulated by naturally occuring estrogen since the age of 11, but still, I have taken estrogen in many forms (alas, not yet in the form of dark chocolate) and had an "adequate" uterine response.

I think my fretting comes from the association I have with injections. I wasn't blogging back in 2009 when we started our treatments, but here's a synopsis. We were gearing up for an IUI in June 2009 and I was taking menop.ur. I diligently injected myself everyday and showed up for monitoring but NOTHING was happening. The u/s and the bloodwork showed that my body was absolutely NOT responding. Like radio silence. LH and FSH receptors probably never developed on my ovaries because of my unusal history, and so injecting the two did absolutely nothing. Alright, Dr. RE said, let's try the estrogen priming protocol plus injections. After a few months of priming with estrogen, we tried meno.pur injections again in September 2009. Again, nothing happened in there. Both times I could sort of tell that there wasn't much happening in my body. The subtles signs weren't there. It just felt like silence. I think I've associated injections with silence, with failure.

This is different. I'm not injecting gonadotropins. It's straight estrogen, to which *remember* my uterus tends to be responsive. My boobs are a bit sore. I'm taking it as a good sign. I won't know anything until I go in for monitoring on Feb. 10. And then the RE at SG can determine whether he likes that better than the estra.ce/oescl.im combo I was on.

Mock cycle begins

2012-01-28T17:54:00.003-05:00

I am writing up a storm this month. It's my 6th post in January, for goodness' sake.

We started the Dele.strogen injections last night. I'm happy to report that it didn't hurt very much. Just wait for the PIO shots, you say? Oh yeah, those will be coming before I know it. We will do these injections every 3 days, and then I'll go in for b/w an u/s on Feb. 10 to see what has become of my endometrium. We're hoping for thick red fleece, as Oat would say.

Here is an equation I'm having a tough time solving. Calling all mathematically skilled persons out there (yes, that means you, Misfit).
2mgs estra.ce t.i.d., PO + 2mgs est.race, PV + oes.clim patch 5mg every three days < 20cc of Dele.strogen IM, every three days.

I guess you can concentrate a solution significantly, whereas there is only so far to go with packing a tablet and a transdermal patch with estrogen. I'm still wondering why they wouldn't consider the idea of putting estrogen in bubble bath, eye drops, or dark chocolate. I am curious to see how my lining will respond to this new estrogen regimen.

I am thinking of Patience and Jess, both awaiting news about potential adoptions, and also for Patience, awaiting to know more about a pregnancy in its early days. I am hoping so much that they will both finally become mothers.

Hope you are having a nice weekend. It snowed all day here, which incidentally, is one thing that truly makes my heart sing. I love snow.

From Bomobob, an artist from my home town, Montréal.

Looking ahead to the looking back narrative

2012-01-24T13:51:00.000-05:00

Thank you very much for your warm comments on my last post. I feel better: less stuck in that spiral for now, although I know I will revisit my grief. That's just the nature of the process. What I'll muse about today is inherently more positive.

I've observed (however unscientifically) that after harrowing journeys through the inferno of multiple failures at conceiving or gestating a child, a significant proportion of you have found success or are well on your way. A few of you are still in childless land and suffering. I am here with you and like you, doing everything I can to bring our child(ren) home. I've recently been thinking about how infertile women who now have a child or children once felt hopeless, thought it would never happen, suffered through a thousand disappointments and overwhelming anxiety. And then they got pregnant. Or got the call from the adoption agency. And then went though the pregnancy or met the birth family. And at some point brought their child home. It appears from my very naive reading of this bringing-home-of-one's-child that it "draws a line between so far and from now on"* Life will never be the same, they say. From reading your blogs, that's the sense I get, but you will correct me if I'm way off on this one.

So, in writing or talking with some of you recently, I've been wondering about the looking back. As I struggle through this terrible time, I find myself thinking about what I will think and feel about this period of my life once it is over. And how the bringing home of our child will change my sense of these awful years (told you this post was more positive: I am speaking as though I will actually bring a child home!). I have been articulating for myself and some of my close friends that this experience of infertility has changed me at my core. Right now, it doesn't feel like a welcomed change, or one that's made me a better human being. I feel like a diminished version of myself, and have felt this way for 3 years. I have found myself unskilled at compartmentalizing this experience, and have seen my failure at becoming a mother reach into and rattle the foundations of my marriage, my self-concept, my professional identity, my body image, my friendships, my social self and I could go on. Do I really think a baby is going to steady all of those pillars? No. I'm not an idiot. Will it prove to me that earthquakes can shake foundations but not make them crumble? That's one of the questions I ask myself.

Clearly, having a baby doesn't erase the infertility. It probably changes one's relationship to it though. How will I look back on all of this? I don't know. What will be salvaged of my old self, pre-infertility? I'm not sure. Who the hell will I be once I'm not consumed by thoughts about treatment and time processing all of the emotions relating to this experience? I hope to find out.

In the mean time, CD1 is arriving on Thursday, which will ring in the start of the mock cycle. Dele.strogen IM injections here we come. And with reluctance, I have to do a HPT. I guess if we need to prove that a wheel is round, we will make it roll, but it's been demonstrated time and again. The wheel is round, my friends. Augusta's ovaries are closed for business.

Now, let us see about my uterus. It may be able to do what it needs to for the growing of a fetus. A girl can hope.

*Ani DiFranco, 78% H2O

grief's recursive movement

2012-01-18T10:15:00.002-05:00

I was on a good spell in the last several weeks. Christmas is not at all my favourite time of year, but felt I weathered it well this year. Before that there was the due date, and I felt I also did well with that. The trip to Washington made me feel very alive, a hard-to-come-by feeling for the last while. For the last 2 sessions, my therapist has made a point of skillfully observing that I seem to be doing better.

As things tend to go with matters of working through grief, there is so much to visit, and revisit, and revisit once again...with feeling. At least that's my experience with grief. I'm not that patient with myself (although more patient with others), so it may be that I want to have worked through this already, I want to stop feeling so mind numbingly depressed, and feeling so 'out of life' and holed up in my house where I don't have to deal with anyone. It's the anhedonia that kills me in grief/depression. I hate the rest of it, but it's always the sense of 'losing the capacity of experiencing pleasure in activities previously enjoyed' that pushes me over the edge and makes me angry and wanting to tear my hair out.

It started last Friday. I might be outing myself to some readers here, but our city just recently got a commuter train and Mr. A, the transit aficionado that he is, discovered how I could get to work via transit. He even accompanied me to work that morning because he was so excited about the transit route and wanted to experience it himself. Let's agree on this: my husband is a freak. When we got off the commuter train, we looked at the tracks and determined that I would be waiting on platform X when it was time to return home at the end of the day. In the evening, it had gotten very cold and I waited in a small indoor waiting area on platform X. I didn't see it arrive because I was still indoors, but the train came in on time. Except that it arrived on platform Y. By the time I realized this and tried to take the underground walkway and ran back up the stairs (swimming through commuters) to get to platform Y, well, the train had pulled out already.

Missing the train is not a big deal. I was angry for about 6 minutes, and then, I figured out another plan to get home and sat down and read my book in the warm station, waiting for another train. But the day had brought its challenges already. A co-worker had announced he was going off on sick leave the day before, to fight against a stage 4 cancer. That morning, a female colleague came into my office to debrief this terrible news, and also to announce that she is pregnant. Second baby, perfectly timed. I weathered it well in the moment, as is usual for me. It's always after that it hits. I work in an agency with an over-representation of women, which is wonderful, but also means that I am immersed in pregnant bellies and baby showers.

Anyway, on my walk home from the train station, it hit me that missing the train had the same flavour as this very striking dream I had in June, shortly after the m/c. I have a pretty intense relationship with my dreams. I may be an unhatched Jungian for all I know. The dream went like this. I was on a train, heading home to Pleasantville. In the dream, I am only one or two stops away from our station. I step off the train as it makes a longer stop in a station. When I return, the train's doors close in front of me and the train rolls out of the station. In order to return home, I am told I need to take the train back to a station that is about 600km away from home, and catch another train heading back towards Pleasantville. I felt that this dream really expressed my feelings of dejection around the m/c. The doors closed in front of my face, and the only way back was one that would require an insane detour. I was so close to home, so close to a baby.

So, Friday night sucked really big. I ate my dinner silently and shed tears on my cat, while Mr. A watched and said nothing (what was there to say?). I couldn't really recover after that, and felt very sad and out of it the entire weekend, and all of Monday. Some stuff happened at work on Monday and I had to go into the bathroom and cry. I felt a little pathetic because it wasn't a huge deal what had happened at work. I was just feeling so vulnerable.

I am weary, folks. I feel like it's time to get out of this negative spiral. And I will. But revisiting this place over and over again just tires the hell out of me. It's probably the case that overall, I am emerging from the intense grief I have felt since the m/c, and since October 2009 when I found out that my ovaries were not going to produce eggs. I think these last few days are just an instance of the recursive pattern that grief takes, where one revisits the grief from a slightly different place, multiple times. Does that happen for you as well? I'd be interested in knowing you've also felt this pattern.

As always, thank you for reading and leaving me sweet notes. Or just for reading. You are amazing women and I feel very, very blessed to have your support.

initial migration south a success

2012-01-09T14:35:00.002-05:00

I'm happy to report that the visit to SG went very well. I think that all of the good thoughts you sent our way really helped. The weather was on our side, the travel was smooth, the connections in transit were achieved easily, and the hotels were welcoming. Oh, and the plane did not crash. Always a bonus. As a treat, we also got to hang out with Pumpkin and Mr. Pumpkin. It was so wonderful to see them.

In Logan airport, while changing planes, we met a loquacious man who started up conversation by telling us he was a war Vet on his way to visit his son and grandkids. When he found out we were Canadians, he said the plane couldn't crash because nice Canadians would not be killed in a plane crash. What a thing to say to a woman who is so afraid of flying. It did raise my anxiety, but luckily, he changed the topic. After I dispelled the myth that we all live in igloos and have pet elks tied to a post in the backyard, the man went on to ask about where were all of our children. I didn't say that we were on route to having them created, but instead that we didn't have any yet. He suggested that Thomas would be a good name for a son, in case we were seeking suggestions.

The meeting with the clinic staff was positive. We are different folks who speak English with different accents, but we are all focused on the same goal and that transpired clearly. They welcomed us warmly and made us feel like they were happy we were there. We started the day with the Dr., which brought on the lu.pron discussion nice and early. I won the argument again, despite his warnings that they have seen failed ovaries flare up in a DE cycle. That would be akin to walking on water, as far as I am concerned. I did need to have a saline u/s after the mock transfer, but found that it was much less uncomfortable that the one I had way back in Sept. 2010. There was a question in the morning regarding my arcuate uterus, but the Dr. didn't find it to be arcuate to the point of concern. 'Somewhat' is the descriptor he used to qualify the curve, and he didn't think it would be a problem for growing a fetus from a donated egg. Looking at the data regarding my lining, he did suggest that we try deles.trogen injections instead of the combo of oral and vaginal estr.ace plus the oesc.lim patch. Deles.trogen is not sold in my Northern Nation, so we did need to purchase it there. Also, Mr. A had to practice giving me a shot in the behind with saline. He was super nervous, but managed beautifully once he gathered his courage and with the nurses's encouragements. The next day when we met up with the Pumpkins, he got some good pointers from Mr. Pumpkin, who is a world-renouned injection guru.

We have two more pieces of info to gather from our end to send to SG before we can proceed. And then we need to do a mock cycle using the estrogen injections, something that can start as soon as AF shows up on Jan 26 (the beauty of artificial cycles is that you can predict down to the hour when your next bleed will be). After that, we are good to go. We will need to select a donor, pay up, and get the cycles synchronized (which is not hard to do for me, again because of the artificial cycles). We are aiming to do share eggs to reduce the costs, so that might be another thing that takes a bit more time. They ballparked that we would be back there in 4 months and that is entirely acceptable to me. Of course, I want a baby now, or last December, but I am more interested in lining up all the ducks so that we can be successful. They didn't promise us the moon, but they were positive and told us there was cause for hope.

After 7 hours at SG, we took the metro into DC and walked around. Neither of us had ever been to the capital of the United States, and we were both wowed. The awe began at the train station and didn't let up until we left the next morning at 6am. We were kicking ourselves for not having scheduled a day to spend in DC and visit at least a museum and are hoping to schedule some time to do that next time.

On the way out of the hotel, the lady at the desk told us to bundle up because it was cold outside. Of course, for people who live in igloos, it wasn't cold at all. All is relative, I guess. Which goes for going to such great lengths to have a child. It seems like a lot of effort to travel 350 miles and pay all that money, but when it's what you really want and you can't make it happen otherwise, it doesn't seem like you are moving mountains. It's just what you do.

here we go

2012-01-04T10:11:00.001-05:00

I'll be heading to the airport tomorrow at this time. I am feeling pretty nervous overall. I could tell because I was irritable beyond words last night, and that is a clear sign that I feel anxious and overwhelmed. I came close to biting Mr. A's head off when he slurped his soup at supper. STOP SLURPING YOUR SOUP...is what I didn't say. I still made it to my yoga class but was showing signs of irritability there too. Oh geez. I sometimes get tired of living inside my head.

I am trying to line up all the ducks before our Friday consult. I think there will still be documents to run after and tests to repeat once we get back here after the consult, but we've made some headway in terms of gathering what SG requires. I am dreading having to repeat the HSG or the sonohysterogram, but they may ask me to do that since both were done longer than 12 months ago.

Our family physician has once again shown herself to be a superstar in terms of supporting us on our journey. When the lab wouldn't take the blood work requisitions from the US, she immediately wrote the orders out for Mr. A while he waited. When the lab refused to fax the results to the US, she had them faxed promptly by her staff. I feel so grateful to have her support.

It's been interesting to read through documents from our file at the fertility clinic. It's really quite dreadful to see what my FSH and LH levels were at when last tested. Both far below one, akin to the levels a child would have. It's information I already had, but it still feels so hard to see in black and white. I realize that it's part of integrating all the parts of my story, and grieving for what I didn't have/don't have.

The part about working with a new team still makes me uneasy, but I know that will change once I meet them. I found it helpful to hear about your stories of changing clinics and changing REs. And for those who have worked with the team at SG, it's been very helpful to hear about your positive experiences. I think overall, it's just hard to be so exposed (says the girl who writes about her most intimate feelings on a blog for the whole world to see). It's hard to tell the sob story once more. It helps me appreciate my patients experience when they have to retell their stories to me for the nth time. It takes a lot out of a person to hold themselves together while trying to recount the story of a hard journey, trying very hard not to leave any important detail untold. From a brain perspective, so much of the brain's functions are sollicited. And emotion regulation drains the system big time (in my case), leaving less cognitive resources for the telling, the remembering, the formulating of cogent arguments when asked to take lu.pron, etc.

It would be nice to feel hopeful, but as I've discussed here ad nauseum, hope is not something you can order online from J. Cr.ew like a moss-coloured cashmere sweater. What I predominantly feel right now is anxious. Maybe the hope will come later. Maybe it would be putting the horse before the cart at this point to feel very hopeful. I can just keep focusing on the tasks that need to be done to get us there.

Here we go.

Wish us luck.

a new year

2012-01-01T18:08:00.000-05:00

The holidays are wrapped up and a semi-sense of order is returning to our household. We un-decorated the Christmas plant, put all the wrapping paper where it lives all year in the basement, and will eat the last 2 Christmas cookies in short order (the many chocolates will have to wait to be consumed as there are more of those than there are days in January). The Holidays were not as awful as some of have been in the past, and for that I am thankful. We were able to strike a balance between time at home and time with our families. The best part for me was to spent Christmas eve and Christmas day at home, cooking boeuf bourguignon for the first time in my life. Do you have any idea how satisfying it is to pour a whole bottle of Beaujolais into a dish? Very. I was a vegetarian for close to 15 years and recently decided to eat the occasional piece of meat, and this year's foray into cooking the French beef stew has made me appreciate the change even more (which is nice, since I often consume meat with a side dish of guilt for what I am doing to the planet and the animals. But that's another post).

I did a lot of walking yesterday, which afforded me time to reflect a little on 2011. What I came up with is that I felt a pretty constant sense of being under water. You can't hear or see very well underwater and everything happens in slow motion. This is funny considering all that transpired over the last year. The DE cycle, my PhD defense, the pregnancy, the miscarriage, the hectic job, the new job, the trip to Cuba, etc. There was so much happening in my outside life while on the inside, it seems I felt immersed (drowning at times) in a thick soup and slowed down in my thinking. As someone who wishes to be able to live in the present moment, I achieved that almost never this past year.

I must say at this point that I feel less terrible than I did from May 25 through to November. There is a lot to be thankful for in the past year, despite the hard blows. The support and love from our friends and family has been significant, including your support and friendship. William James told us that 'it is your friends who make your world'. I have wondered often this year how small my world could become as grief kept pulling me towards more isolation and less human contact. It was good to know that here (and with close irl friends), there were women who cared about me no matter what I wrote or didn't write. Even with the long lapses in between my posts, you came back and left me a comment or sent me an email to check in. To all of you, thank you.

I have to work tomorrow, Tuesday and Wednesday, and then we travel to SG for our Friday marathon appointment. When I talk about it, people tell me I seem very low key and wonder if I am feeling hopeful. As you have all experienced, the infertile's relationship to hope is a complex one. I am once again flirting with hope, but certainly not buying what he has to sell. Yet.

Merry Christmas

2011-12-25T17:29:00.000-05:00

I was inspired to bake this year. I've done Christmas baking in the past, but not for a few years. I think I was inspired by Ashley at Calmly Chaotic who showed us pictures of her delicious looking baked goods. I tried those Hello Dolly bars, which were a big hit with Mr. A, as well as the whole wheat gingerbread cookies. Yum. I also made pistachio-apricot triangles, sugar cookies and espresso chocolate snow caps. Overall, the gingerbread and pistachio-apricot triangles were the ones that turned out the best. Thanks for the inspiration Ashley (and if you don't know her blog, I encourage you to feast your eyes on her lovely posts which are often filled with beautiful pictures (including of her gorgeous girls))

Christmas cookies are so fun to make

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas or Happy Hanuka or simply, Happy Holidays. Thank you for your support and friendship this year, dear women.

Vitamin D and adoption are unrelated topics

2011-12-22T10:06:00.000-05:00

I continue to sit at work with not much to do. Today, I have scoured etsy for last minute Christmas gifts, I have written emails to friends with whom I have not been in touch in a long time, and I have tried to read a very dry, but very relevant (but very dry) book on Learning Disabilities. I am struck by the contrast from my last job where 11-12 hours each day wasn't enough to get my work done. It's funny how it's so uncomfortable to have things out of balance, in either direction. I suspect I will be very busy again before I know it.

So, while I have some time to spare, dear reader, let me entertain you with thoughts on disparate topics.

1) Vitamin D: If you have not come across Jay's blog at Stork Stalking, I strongly encourage you to check it out. Through reading her blogs and generous comments on my blog and others' blogs, I have come to appreciate the relevance of vitamin D in health related matters, not the least of which infertility. For a thorough explanation of the impact of vitamin D deficiency in infertility, start with her tab on the science of infertility and continue on by searching for through the vitamin D label. Jay has such a great ability to make complex scientific information accessible, and I feel very grateful for how willing she is to share her knowledge.
After reading some of the info on vitamin D deficiency, I started to supplement with 2000 iu per day. I thought it couldn't hurt. After about 2 months of this, and after my trip to Cuba in the sun, I visited my family doctor and asked her for labs, including vitamin D. Since I have osteopenia, she was all for it and sent me off to get this tested, along with the usual suspects (tsh, CBC, glucose, iron). The only thing that came up as low was, you guessed it, my vitamin D levels. I was advised to supplement with 1000 to 2000 iu per day, but I sometimes go up to 3000. And perhaps I should go higher. I have to say that I am hoping to improve my chances for the next round of treatments by making sure my D is in the happy zone.

2) Adoption: I have not given many updates on our adoption process here, so I thought I'd update you now. We did finish our home study in November and our social worker Gretchen said she would have the report done in January. We did the adoptive parent training intensive back in Sept/Oct. We are technically at the point of being a "family in waiting". Except that I have not signed us up with the agency or any licensee as of yet. I thought about doing that when Gretchen suggested we call up the agency and put our names on the list, but I think it's the wrong time right now. On one hand, I would like to put all our sticks in the fire and just see what happens. But on the other hand, it would mean that if the agency wanted to present us to birth parents, we would have to say no because we are in active treatment. And I think that knowing there are birth parents who could potentially chose us would really mess with my mind. Especially if the subsequent round of DE IVF failed. As awful as it is, I experience regret and guilt often in my life and I would find a way to regret and feel guilty for the fact that we said no to being presented. Can you see the mindfuck implications?

I still experience a conflict inside about the adoption versus the treatment route. I am and have always been very open about adoption as an option for creating our family. And I am and always have been wanting/hoping/praying to be pregnant one day.

There is a very disentitled part of me that doesn't entirely believe we deserve the gift of pursuing treatment at a US clinic. Fortunately, there is another part of me that knows to take the gift simply because it is being presented to us, and to just be thankful. The disentitled part of me says that I should just accept my medical condition and stop trying to have science perform miracles by making me pregnant. (I know, that's quite a statement to make to a group of infertiles, but that's me, ready to shock at any hour). Move on and...wait for it... just adopt (you know I'm being sarcastic here). I realize that this makes adoption sound like the consolation prize, but that is not my point. My point is that there are babies being born from women who can conceive but cannot parent, and that I can parent but cannot conceive, so I should maybe focus on trying to parent such a baby, instead of insisting on defying the odds through a medical intervention.

But then, the 'what ifs' start bubbling up. I got pregnant last time, what if I were to get pregnant again? What if this time, I didn't have a miscarriage? What if by some miracle, I got the baby to term and we had a child through DE? Well, that would be swell (note the apt use of a euphemism).

And what is the advantage of DE over adoption for us? Well, we're not too concerned about whose genes reside in our child. Of course, we would like to avoid things like Huntington's or other such awful genetic diseases, but frankly, it doesn't make a huge difference for Mr. A or I to have our child share his genes or not. Not at this point in our journey. I know that might sound discrepant from your experiences, but that's where we are at. If the door to using your OE slams in your face, you orient towards other options. We want to be parents; that is our main priority. Then it should not make that big of a difference whether we focus on adoption or DE. The difference for me is that the pregnancy itself is a very important part. I want to be pregnant. I have had numerous dreams of being pregnant, I've always believed I would be pregnant and if there is any possibility that it will happen, I feel like I have to pursue it. I don't think it's better than adoption, I think it's just that all things being equal, I would prefer to start with our child from the very beginning.

And I know the pregnancy may never happen again. The 12 weeks we had last spring may be it. But it feels like I have to give it a good try. It doesn't put adoption off the table for us. We are thinking that a second child would come to us through adoption and it is something we both want.

I worry about this post and whether I've offended anyone in talking about where I'm at with all this. Please know that this was not intended to offend. It's just me working through all of my thoughts in writing. I think it's very tricky to straddle the ART and adoption worlds. People tend to be in one camp or the other (or one camp after the other might be more accurate). Yet, some of you straddle the two beautifully. I'm not there yet. I'm in the messy phase of sorting it all out.

the week after

2011-12-16T09:51:00.002-05:00

Got through it fine. The date came and went. And now it's the week after the due date and I am trying to look forward.

We have scheduled our one-day intensive work up at the Gro.ve for Jan 6. We are flying out on the 5th and returning home by train on the 7th, much to Mr. A's delight (with a 45 min layover in Penn Station on Saturday morning, for New Yorkers who would like me to treat them to coffee). Honestly, I hate flying. I can do it wihtout having a panic attack (barely) but it really creates a lot of distress in me. I certainly was opposed to having to fly after an embryo transfer. What chance would that little peanut have with all quantities of cortisol thrown at it? While there will be no embryos transfered on this trip, we can practice the trips in and out as they will look like when we go for the transfer. Familiarity is our friend in this situation.

I am not sure what to expect. I am hopeful that all will go well and that we will like the team, but I must admit that it feels difficult to contemplate trusting another team. We have so much respect for our doctor in Ontario. It does help that the US doc and our doc know each other. My fear is that I will be treated like a number. For example, the whole question of taking lu.pron or another suppressor comes up in my head a lot. You will remember that I successfull argued against taking supre.fact during our first DE IVF cycle. I am concerned that taking a suppressor introduces too much noise in the equation for absolutely no benefit. There is nothing to suppress in my reproductive system. My pituitary gland is not sending down any LH or FSH. My ovaries most often cannot be visulazed on ultrasound. The Gro.ve doctor asked if my FSH was high, which is what any educated person would assume when seeing the diagnosis of premature ovarian failure. But I find that a poor diagnostic approximation for my condition. I have never ovulated. I will never ovulate. My body has never made gonadotropins. I know that's an abheration, but it's the hand I was delt. So when the doc insists on me having to take Lu.pron, not knowing how my body will respond to something it absolutely doesn't require for the procedure to be successful, I think I will have to put up a stink.

It's one thing to put up a stink with people you know, people who have treated you for years, people who already believe you are an educated and competent person. It's another thing to put up a stink with people who don't know you and might think you're a little bit spun. (which I am, really).

Anyway, I just broke my own rule by writing a blog post at work. But truth be told, I am underwhelmed at my new job and I don't have enough to do. So I feel justified.

How did it feel for you when you changed doctors and medical teams along your IF journey? Do you have any advice you think is important for me to know?

the due date

2011-12-07T21:10:00.000-05:00

According to one IVF site, my due date was December 6. According to the nurse in our program, it was December 8. Sandwiched in between, I thought I'd submit a post to register the nonevent. A miscarriage. Months that have gone by where I imagined myself at different stages of pregnancy. And now the week, the day(s) where briefly, it was expected that we would welcome a baby into the world.

I visited my beloved therapist today. I talked about a lot of crap, but each time he brought me back to what this is: the due date. I want to avoid it, I said. We all want to get away from our pain, don't we, but you told me when we booked the appointment that it was the day before the due date. You wanted me to remember.

Yes, beloved therapist. Yes. Remind me. Don't let me run from my pain, from my own experience. It's not much, but it's all mine.

Yes, beloved therapist. I wanted you to hold it for me. It's so hard to hold it by myself.

I feel like I said goodbye to owlet in June. In a way, I do not picture owlet having lived. He didn't. It was final. Unequivocal. I feel like this grim anniversary is not just for the little life that could have been but wasn't. It's also a marker of our failure to become parents.

I feel sad about not being able to honour Sattva's gift. I know it's nothing I did or didn't do. I just wish it could have worked.

I won't stay in this grief forever. We are moving on to the next steps. But I know that I need to pause now and mark this due date before I move on with our story.

unfoldings

2011-11-30T21:41:00.001-05:00

And I'm not talking about my winter sweaters, although those are frequently unfolding as well these days. We had a very short mini blizzard today, much to my delight. I am one of those silly Canadians who actually loves snow. Winter is on its way. Hello, cross country skiing.

There has been some progression since our return from vacation, both on the adoption front and on the fertility treatment front. We have actually completed our home study at this point. Our lovely social worker Gretchen has been to our house twice since our trip and we were able to wrap things up this week. It's just as nerve wracking as some of you have described in your posts to have the adoption counselor come over to the house. It was 2 days after returning from Cuba, and one day after starting my new job. I was frantic, but also reached a point where I had to let it go because there were too many balls in the air at the same time. The house was clean enough. She noted a few things we need to take care of before a child can come into our home like cover the outlets, deal with the blind cords, secure some of the bookcases to the wall, but otherwise, she didn't write us off on the basis of an unkempt domicile. We like Gretchen very much and feel like we are in good hands with her. The next steps in the adoption process, given that we've completed the home study and done the parent training is to register with the private agency we have chosen, as well as some licensees in the region. We are not quite ready to do that yet, given what is happening on the other front.

Mr. A was anxious about having kids for a while in the fall, but he assured me that this anxiety didn't mean he wanted to call the whole thing off. He was in a slump, something I can relate to since I have found myself in various depths of slumps at different points in my life, and with offending frequency in the last 3 years. I can't say that at the time I was completely reassured. Maybe because I am still in slump territory myself, maybe because it's hard to trust that good things will ever happen, or maybe because that doesn't negate all the work we still have to put in to hope to become parents, but, you know, I didn't jump for joy when he said that. I just took it in quietly and thought "ok, then we'll work on our options."

The funding was a big issue for us, since it is not the kind of money we can tackle ourselves at the moment. Parents on both side have the means to help, but it was a question of stepping on our pride and asking them. On either side, we are the significant hope for bringing grandchildren into the family, as I am an only child and Mr. A has only one sibling who looks like he may not procreate. So, the answer was how much do you need and when do you need it by. That was a relief, a blessing. We have been in touch with the DC practice and even had a phone consult with the doctor on Tuesday morning. We are in the process of booking a time to go down for our one-day visit to the clinic for early January.

There is so much more to write here, but the clock has struck the 12 strokes of mid...(well, it's actually 9:40pm) and I am about to turn into a pumpkin.

Sending warm congrats to Roccie who has just welcomed little baby Jay.

Transitions update

2011-11-26T13:13:00.001-05:00

The month of November is now almost over, and I have not posted much at all. As I've said in my last posts, there have been many transitions. A little recap of the past month:

I finished my contract in FTT and finished it well. I completed all my reports and said all my goodbyes. It was difficult to leave. I had grown very attached to many people there. I miss them. I also miss the comfort of knowing how to work with different team members, and knowing the procedures. But boy, I really don't miss the part about living there part time and living at home on weekends.

Mr. A and I went to Cuba. It was a restful time, just as I had hoped. By chance, we landed in a terrific resort. It was terrific because it was very small, very new, very beautiful, and very quiet. The loudest part was the bus ride to the resort with patrons of other resorts in the neighborhood. Luckily, we dropped those guys off next door, and carried on with the quiet people to our resort. The week consisted of swimming, lying on a lawn chair, reading, eating, drinking and taking multiple showers in the outdoor shower on our back balcony. We really liked the Cuban people and vowed to return to explore Havana and other parts of the country. The week went by very fast, but in the end, it was what we were looking for. As promised, here are my toes:
An unlikely pink for a not-very-girly woman

We returned on Sunday November 13 and I started my new job on Monday the 14th. Quick turn around indeed. My new colleagues welcomed me warmly. I liked that. So far, it's been a slow start in terms of the work. I also like that, especially after the frenetic pace of the last job. I hope that I will like the work there, but if I don't, it will be time to look for another job in early next fall.

Living at home is wonderful. Minus the morning and evening commute in heavy traffic. I am driving to work towards one of the largest cities in Canada, so there is traffic. Lots of it. Luckily, Neko, my beloved little car is doing very well with all of this driving. And there is the CBC (homologous to NPR) to keep me company. Chicken is still in disbelief that I am here day after day, and most importantly for her, night after night (she likes to basically sleep on me. She tries to sleep on Mr. A when I'm not here, but he won't tolerate that. Me, I'm a big softy).

The update on fertility treatments/adoption/our marriage deserves a longer post, one that I don't have in me at the moment. Suffice it to say that I was relieved to hear that Mr. A is still completely on board with project: bringing children into our lives. I have lots of half written posts floating around in my head. I think it's worth my while trying to give them form and post them. But that will have to wait since I have to work on my application to start the process of getting my professional license.

the goodness in my life

2011-11-05T13:07:00.000-04:00

I think a little while back I may have written something about searching for this very thing, the goodness in my life. I may just have thought it and not written, but it's been twirling around up there in my cerebrum.

I got an answer to that rhetorical question over the last week. I had been pouring all of the goodness I had inside me into my work. And my work gave back in a big way. My colleagues went over the top in showing how much they cared about me. They threw me a party, got me flowers, wrote me heartfelt cards, and told me that it just won't be the same without me. The principal of the school attached to our residential program even got me a certificate of merit, which he gives to the kids leaving the program. It moved me very much.

A gift from a beloved colleague

It was hardest to say goodbye to our team psychiatrist who is a beloved clinician at the facility, and has been a benefactor to me. When he heard I was looking for a job last summer, he wrote me a glowing unsolicited reference letter. It meant so much to me, and I re-read the letter at times when I feel my self-confidence waver.

It was also very hard to say goodbye to my friend Violet. She is a clinician on my team who I told about the pregnancy a few days before the ill-fated u/s that told us it was all over. Turns out she is an expert in grief, having lost several siblings in her family and gone through other losses over the last decade. She is the one who sent me home after the biopsy. She is the one who would make me laugh, and also let me cry. She is the one person at work who really understood the state I was in and how much I was holding while performing my duties at work. I will miss her.

And now it's time to pack my suitcase and head to Cuba. I will have drinks in your honour, dear women. I will be thinking of Jennifer who very recently had yet another tragic loss. I will thinking of CGD as she continues to navigate the dark, awful waters of marital strain. I will be thinking of Jess and hoping that an adoption placement materializes in the next week. I will be thinking of Misfit and Ocho, as they continue together. I will hope that My New Normal experiences a very positive first ultrasound.

I will write when I return, with a picture of my freshly painted toenails in the white sand (you will remember my toenails from Pumpkin's picture of our feet in the Metro in Montréal).

Seventy-five percent

2011-10-30T17:45:00.001-04:00

Thank you very much for your comments. Each and everyone of your comments meant so much to me. As my posts have become more infrequent, I am surprises to get any comments at all. But I should give you more credit than that. You are some of the finest women I know, and I shouldn't be surprised that you are still there, still offering me life giving support. Thank you.

Tomorrow, I start the last week at my job in FTT. I have 5 more reports to write, and will find a way to get those written and signed. I had about 20 to write at the end of September, so I am 75% there.

75% is the theme, this week. I visited my beloved therapist last Wednesday. I was explaining to him that people ask about my new job and want to know if I'm excited. I disappoint them invariably. I am not excited. Mr. A and I are going on vacation next week to a tropical place. Again, people search for my excitement. I just can't deliver. That's not at all how I feel about the job, about the vacation.

75% of your experiences right now have to do with grief, he said.

Yes, that's right. About 75% of what I have is spent managing my grief. Most of the rest is on wrapping up my current job, and all that that entails. He wondered if maybe there was about 3% leftover to think of my next job. And maybe another 1-2% for the vacation. He's good with math, my therapist.

I am lucky to have a job right now, lucky to be going to another job when this one ends. I am lucky to be able to have the money to go on vacation. I am lucky to have a car, a roof over my head, food on the table. I try to hold on to that.

Just don't ask me to feel excited.

I am looking forward to alternating between doing nothing and reading a book on my week off. We are going to one of those all-inclusive resorts. Not really our usual type of vacation. We would typically go canoeing, hiking, cross-country skiing, or visit a big city and walk around until our feet hurt and we've gotten a lay of the land. But we're exhausted. So sitting on a beach and having all of our meals and as many drinks as it's going to take to stop feeling so crappy is what the doctor ordered.

Oh, and I guess having all that time just lazing around will give us a chance to talk. For example, about whether he still wants to have children or not. I was hoping we could do that kind of talking before the vacation so we could enjoy ourselves there, but I'm not sure we'll have the time to do that before. Life keeps going at a furious pace. We are at a standstill with that issue. I know that we need to talk, but there doesn't seem to be a good time. Oat suggested writing to him, which is a great idea. It's just that my thoughts have a hard time coming together (...after 10-11 hours of writing reports about small children with very complex mental health problems). I still need to bring it up, so that we can move forward one way or another.

I need to be strong.

I just fear what could potentially come out of such a discussion.

Marital Bliss

2011-10-18T21:27:00.001-04:00

I'm reconsidering calling this blog 'Hell in a hand basket'

I am annoyed with myself that all I can do on this blog as of late is a) not write or b) complain.

I feel like a resurgence of this blog is needed. That also goes for my whole life. A resurgence. Is there a 1-800 number for that? Can you share it with me if you have it.

I am down to the last 3 weeks at my job in FTT. It's been a great job, and it's been a completely overwhelming job. I am currently trying to hammer out the last 14 reports I have outstanding, hoping it can all get done in time before I have to hand in my keys. There are a lot of people I like very much at work and I feel sad that I will need to say goodbye. It's also been a good skill building job, a good experience acquiring job and a good resume building job.

There is another job waiting for me at the end of this one. Another mat leave coverage. Ha! The irony. But a job is a job, especially in this economy. It's also a good job where I will gain tons of experience. And, this job is closer to home. I can commute in about 45-55 minutes, and sleep at home each night. I'm relieved to have landed another job. As burnt out as I feel right now, I think being unemployed would be bad news bears.

The initial contact with large DC practice regarding the DE process has been made. Conversations have occurred between Mr. A and I. We haven't gone as far as securing the financing, but in my mind, this is where this ship is heading. In his mind? Well, that's another matter.

Hence the proposed title of my blog. Mr. A has continued with his talk of doubt about having kids. What? WHAT??? Who is this man that has been consistently telling me for the last 7 years that he wants children and wants to raise them with me?

Turns out our friends, Mr. & Mrs. Green, have procreated. Baby Green was born about 6 weeks ago. Mr. Green takes baby Green out for walks at all hours of the day and night, trying to let mama get some sleep (and also trying to create a baby who loves the outdoors just as much as his parents, I suspect). He stops by our house all the time apparently, and chats up Mr. A. Something wonderful happens in all of this, since Mr. A and Mr. G get to deepen their already close friendship. The downside is that Mr. A is appreciating more fully what babies are all about, something he never had the chance to do before. And turns out, he's not so keen on changing diapers, losing sleep, etc. Oh, and the lack of sex! Right, like there is a lot of that going on in our infertile household.

He brought this up a few times now. The last time he did, I leveled with him and said that I was volunteering for all the infant care required to maintain our child alive and happy. That didn't help one bit, as he spent the rest of the day brooding. And he's not at all a brooder, my husband of the sunny disposition.

I don't have a profound analysis of what is going on to offer. I'm just a bit baffled. I hope he comes around. This makes me feel discouraged. Oh wait, I was already discouraged. So, I am at the stage beyond that, whatever it's called.

This is perhaps why I am not writing very much these days. How many ways can I describe discouragement? How much more is there to say about the fact that I should be going on mat leave instead of covering another woman's job on a mat leave. How much do you want to hear from a bitter woman?

I keep hoping good things start to happen and that I can feel them sink into my heart. I know there are good things happening right now in my very own life, but the joy they produce just bounces off me. I can't feel it. I can't appreciate the goodness of my life. I just keep holding on to the notion that it is there and that I will find my way to it again someday.

For those who still read and for those who still read and comment, I want to say a warm thank you. Your support continues to be very meaningful.

rock bottom moment

2011-09-28T20:52:00.000-04:00

There is a metaphor I really like to use with patients in my work. It spoke to me very much in a time of crisis and it has continued to resonate to this day. It goes something like this:

When you jump into a deep swimming pool and you don't get all the way down to the floor of the pool, and you try to swim up, it's hard to do. Your body had momentum from the jump and reversing the direction to go up is very effortful. When you jump into the pool and get to the floor of the pool, you can push off and get back to the surface without much effort at all. Sometimes reaching the bottom helps you to get the momentum you need to get back up.

Now, don't think that I mean to say this is the actual rock bottom of my infertility and childlessness. I realize that things can get much, much worse from here. If nothing else, my experience thus far has taught me that lesson.

I was just having supper in my car a few minutes ago. Why? I was at work until 7:15pm and then wanted to spend time commenting on blogs and responding to email, so I had to visit the local mermaid-emblemed coffee chain that provides free internet when you purchase a very expensive drink. Why would I not just do email from home? Well, I had to find another place to board in FTT for the last 7 weeks of my contract, and this place doesn't have internet access at the moment. Gak. So, instead of going home for supper, I got something from the gourmet grocery store adjacent to the coffee shop and ate in my car. Lentil soup and bow-tie pasta salad. And REM singing about the end of the world as I know it.

It's been a hard week. 3 days of 11+ hours at work and some crappy sleeps. That seems like the new normal, but it was on the heels of yet another very crappy weekend. And then Mr. A who could not sleep on Sunday night (it's usually me or Chicken who can't sleep on Sundays). He told me in the morning that he had been up all night thinking about 'life'. In the hour that I was at home on Monday morning (5:45-6:45am), I didn't have it in my to explore what was up. I just gave him a hug and then I had to go. When I called on Monday evening, he told me it was about us having children. He wondered whether we (me) were just too tired for children, whether we (me) were too depressed for children, and whether we (me) were too irritable for children. Oh fuck. Yes we are. But I don't know what the heck more I can do about it right now.

To be fair, he wasn't saying any of this in a blaming way. He was just telling me what he felt worried and anxious about. And he was looking to me to reassure him that things would get better. Based on my belief in impermanence, I do believe things will change. But I can't see a clear picture of how things will get better. I just have to hold out hope that they will. That seemed to help him, somehow. But it left me with a horrible sense of failure. He is right. I am tired, sad and irritable. Pretty much all weekend every weekend. All the chipper I have has to be saved for my patients, their families and my team members. My livelihood depends on it.

This evening, sitting in my car, eating my supper in the dark, I felt like I did not belong anywhere. I can't stand going to where I board. I can't stand being at work anymore for today. I'm too far from my home and I am worried about what is going to happen at home, what is going to happen if Mr. A doesn't want to keep trying to have children because he's not sure about my capacity as a parent. He did call me at work today to check-in and worried that he had made me feel bad with voicing his concerns on Monday. It was reassuring to talk a bit, but what he was raising was a worse case scenario for me. Maybe IF will also rob me of my marriage.*

My rock bottom moment in the car tonight felt similar somehow to another rock bottom moment I had when I was 20. I was admitted to the psychiatric hospital on December 13, and so spent most of the Holidays in hospital. I remember Being the only patient on the unit that Christmas eve, since all the other patients had LOA passes and I didn't. I remember wondering what my life had become that I was sitting on a bed in a psychiatric hospital, listening to Simon and Garfunkel on a Christmas eve. And as awful as that sounds, I remember feeling like it was a new beginning.

It's not that I want to call it at this point. That would be premature. But things felt awful just an hour ago in the car. And at the same time, the memory of Christmas eve in the hospital came back to me very vividly. They say shit happens. New beginnings also probably happen.

*For you Ani DiFranco fans out there, it makes me think of the line in her song Done Wrong: "how could you take almost everything and then come back for the rest"

yankee eggs?

2011-09-21T21:17:00.001-04:00

There is much to be written on this here blog, but only so much juice left on the laptop battery (and the Augusta battery). The training weekend was certainly an interesting process. But I think I have to go reverse chronological on you, dear reader, and talk about Monday's RE appointment first.

Well, after waiting for an hour (again) we finally got to see Dr. RE. And just so we are clear, I don't mind waiting that long to see him because when we do see him, he takes the time to answer our questions in a thorough fashion. I am assuming he does this with all couples, causing to be him behind schedule. I prefer that to a jerk of a doctor who is on time. In a very funny, double-double negative (that makes 4, so that's positive, right?), Dr. RE said my lining was fine. No problemo with the cells in my lining. Also, the estrogen patch seemed to have done the trick in terms of thickness, according to him. He's happy with where we are in terms of lining and we can go ahead with what's next.

What IS next?

The options we were playing with going into the consultation were twofold:
1) Donor Eggs from Sattva
2) Donor Embryos from new Canadian program started last year

We started with number one. We talked about the possibility of taking up Sattva on her generous offer to go through the whole IVF process again. From an emotional standpoint, that is our first choice. We LOVE Sattva, and to have our family join with hers through DE is a dream that we wish could be realized. The miscarriage was awful on so many levels, the death of that dream not the least of them. The obstacle is Sattva's age, which introduces a great deal of statistical uncertainty into our baby making equation. I'm angry that this has to be a factor, but it just is. Sattva is a healthy woman who has given birth to healthy children in the past, but she is close to 38. It still makes her a candidate for pregnancy, but for donating eggs, it seems to be riskier. I think I am too afraid of it failing again.

Then there is the embryo donation program, where an existing adoption agency started a program that matches couples who want to donate their remaining embryos from previous IVF cycles to a couple in need. We are in need! The alluring aspect of this is that the couples have most likely been successful with their embryos before, since they are in a position to donate them. Also, we would have a connection to another family through this process, which is something that appeals to us very much. The cost is similar to the costs we just paid for the DE IVF, but most of it is in consultation and legal fees with the agency. We would have to do the embryo transfer at the donating couple's clinic, which seemed to worry Dr. RE. He felt that many Canadian clinics have set protocols to build a recipient's lining and they don't like to deviate from that protocol. And, as you know, I don't fit into a protocol very well (you will remember the supre.fact episode).

Dr. RE's was pretty neutral, as he tends to be in his ethical, respectful stance. But then I asked him to help us weigh our options. To our surprise, the good doctor gave us his opinion.

You want to get the job done, he said. Which leads us to option 3:
3) DE IVF in the U.S. with an anonymous donor

It's not a new option. I haven't been living in a bubble here. I read your blogs. I know it's out there, it just never seemed to be for us. I dreamed about it privately, as it seemed it could be this high-probability-of-success-solution. But the costs are so prohibitive. However, Dr. RE's point was well taken. You can keep going with the Canadian system, which is partly funded, for a long while and end up with the outcome you want, but often after much trial and error, not to mention heartaches. The American system is fee-for-service with a greater focus on getting the job done the first time. Hmmm. I would like to get the job done. A take home baby is what we are aiming for here.

He talked about a specific large practice in the DC area with which they have had dealings with in the past. He seemed confident that the clinic in question would follow his protocol for my lining. And the young eggs. Oh, the young eggs. I hear they make good babies. Dr. RE suggested that we have a teleconference with this clinic just to talk about how it would look like. I better have a teleconference with my banker beforehand.

I must admit, the draw towards option number 3 is strong. Mr. A and I need to discuss it at greater length before we launch ourselves into that venture, ridiculous debt and all. But the draw is very strong.

adoption chronicles

2011-09-13T21:31:00.001-04:00

After our first consultation with the adoption counselor in July, I felt a great deal of anxiety about the expectation that couples should have resolved their infertility before embarking on the adoption journey. Resolved. What. It doesn't even look like giving birth to a real life baby resolves it at all, how could NOT having a baby and starting the process of adoption bring you any closer? It seemed to be one more thing I could be angry and indignant about. How could the world conspire to prevent us from being parents?

I knew about this. We talked about adoption with the psychologist at our clinic, and he was clear in stating that adoption agencies sure don't like it when couples come to them like they are backed into a corner. This was another thing that made me nervous about starting the adoption process this summer, so soon after the miscarriage, and in such rough shape emotionally.

But the alternative to not starting the adoption process was killing me. Waiting around for the effing biopsy, and mulling over the same donor egg vs donor embryo question over and over again, bombarded with doubts about my biologic capacity to grow a baby inside my uterus, all felt like a passive way of wasting time. And yes, I know it isn't passive to grieve. BELIEVE me, all that crying and raging, and insulting people in two different languages when I am driving in my car for no reason at all is very active. But active grief does nothing to get you a baby.

We started our home study on Friday, after filling out the mound of paper work and the police clearances and the medicals, et cetera. I get myself fingerprinted tomorrow. The parent training starts this weekend. It's a little funny that the child psychologist has to go hear about attachment for 2 entire weekends, but there are no exemptions: the training is mandatory.

When we met with our social worker/adoption counselor - let's call her Gretchen, shall we - she asked us to talk about our relationship, as well as our struggles with infertility. Like probably 90% of her clients do, I explained that our experiences have been very painful and have challenged our relationship. We said we were at the point where we needed to diversify our efforts to include adoption. And then a couple of things surprised me. First, I didn't start bawling, which I am prone to do these days every time I have to utter the words infertility and miscarriage. Second, Gretchen shared that the philosophy had changed quite a bit within the adoption world and that she felt it made a lot of sense to start the adoption process even if fertility treatments were still a possibility. It's not that I expected her to say that it was prohibited to do both, but just that we would be considered as too fragile, too eager, not ready enough. She actually praised us for our efforts to go about our process in a systematic way, understanding that time is such an enormous variable.

Was it her praise I was looking for? Not really. I just wanted us to be considered, to be accepted as a couple in waiting. I just don't want another door to slam shut in our face. We have so few doors left.

Anyway, I can't say that what I am feeling is hope. That would be overstating things by three football fields. I am just putting one foot in front of the other.

biopsy completed

2011-09-06T21:20:00.000-04:00

The wretched biopsy happened last Friday. There was a small blessing to having it on Friday. As I've awkwardly described on this blog before, I live in Pleasantville, but work and receive fertility treatments in Fertility Treatment Town (FTT). 90 minutes of driving separate the two cities. The biopsy was supposed to occur on Saturday or Sunday, but at the last minute, got scheduled for Friday. This meant that I could just skip out of work 20 minutes before the procedure, make my way to the hospital and be right back at work within an hour or so, instead of driving home on Friday, and driving back and forth for the procedure on the weekend.

The rest, my friends, was pretty much pure awful.

It started on Thursday. I had to go to that hospital, the one where our clinic is located, for a matter unrelated to my fertility. New psychology interns were being welcomed and I was asked to talk to them about my experience as an intern in the program. I noticed that I was very anxious to be back at the hospital. I always get nervous about speaking in public, so I tried to explain away my case of nerves by that simple fact. But admittedly, I was also nervous about seeing a friend of mine who was scheduled to speak with me. I saw him last the night before I learned of the miscarriage and I wasn't sure if he had been told that I was no longer pregnant. I pictured a very awkward "you look great" statement, meant to refer to a pregnancy that is no longer there (and the ensuing embarrassment over the very unfortunate weight gain associated with it). Luckily, he had been told of what happened to me in late March.

I was nervous again on Friday, not surprisingly. I had a meeting at work, and something to write up for a conference I was missing at 11am while I would be busy spreading my legs a few blocks away. I took about 1000mgs of tylen.ol, knowing Dr. RE didn't want me to take adv.il. That was of little help when the time came for him to tear a chunk of my insides, quite unfortunately. When I finally was called (around noon), I changed and stepped into the procedure room. The nurse settled me in and went to get Dr. RE. Very suddenly, I became overwhelmed by the objects in the procedure room. The u/s machine, the pictures of embryos, the little door to the lab, the computer screen. The last time I was in this procedure room was when we had ultrasound one and ultrasound two. I just started sobbing and as if on cue, the doctor and nurse came in, my sob momentum too strong to make the ugly crying stop. The doc said he would come back later and left me there with the nurse to compose myself.

He did eventually return and my crying stopped long enough to get the procedure over with. It hurt like jaw (I am borrowing shamelessly from Roccie's colourful repertoire of expressions) and continued to be crampy for a good hour, although the pain evolved in a merciful decrescendo (also, thanks to the addition of 600mgs of ibuprofen). I'm not sure what possessed me to return to work after that. I had another sobfest in the car and all the way back to work and again in my office. An hour after I returned - where admittedly, I just hid in my office and prayed no one would call or knock on my door - my friend the speech and language pathologist saw me in the hall. She took one look at me and said I was to go home immediately. She then came into my office and packed my stuff. This lady wasn't going to take no for an answer so I just got the car and drove back to Pleasantville.

That day seems like another nightmare in the series of nightmares I've been having. I've been reflecting on my reaction and of course, being a psychologist, I realize that what got me was the environmental cues. Those are pretty powerful suckers when it comes to triggering memories and emotions. I also had worked very hard to shove down any anxiety or emotions I had about the procedure to the dorsal chambers of my heart so that I could just not deal. Well, had I been this woman's therapist, I would have reminded her that things catch up, no matter how far back the emotions are shoved.

I asked about my lining, since it had seemed to displease him so in the past. He told the nurse 8.65 during the u/s, and then when I asked, gave me a noncommittal response that I think was in the neighborhood of not bad. I have a follow-up appointment on Sept. 19 to find out the results. I am not expecting much out of that, to be honest. I'm putting my money on inconclusive. I guess dismal endometrial cytology would suck royally, but would offer a clear direction in our efforts.

Pissing in the ocean: our latest steps to babymaking

2011-08-20T13:41:00.001-04:00

I started a mega pumped up cycle last weekend. Those descriptors are to characterize the amount of estrogen I am taking, and certainly not how my spirits feel about it. There won't be an IVF or any other attempts at pregnancy during this cycle, but instead an endometrial biopsy on labor day weekend. Something to look forward to, indeed.

Dr. RE put me on 8mgs of est.race (which includes a nightly vaginal dose resulting in bright green discharge the next day. fun). I am also on an estrogen patch (oes.clim). I change the patch every 3 days and I feel a bit dizzy on the first day of the new application. I wonder if he shouldn't have also prescribed estrogen eye drops, an estrogen nose spray and estrogen bath salts, just to make sure we had all the routes of entry covered.

What's the point of all this? Dr. RE wants to look at the cells of my endometrium to see if they look normal and to rule out serious lining issues before we try another expensive, time consuming, emotionally draining and third-party involving method of having a baby.

Like all of you, I am a very good patient. I am a doctor's dream. I am compliant; I ask good questions, but not too many; I don't pester the clinic; I understand directions readily and follow them to the letter; I avoid investing my medical team with powers they do not possess; I am polite and friendly. This buys you squat in the babymaking department. But this is the mode I find myself in right now. I'm not questioning it and not thinking about it beyond the immediate pill-taking and patch-sticking. I am apprehensive about the biopsy. I had a cervical biopsy many years ago and it hurt like hell.

A negative outcome of the endometrial biopsy is the end of road in terms of ever trying to have a baby through pregnancy. Thus, the end of the road might be near. There is also the other outcome: an inconclusive one, an outcome where we go ahead and contemplate another donor egg or donor embryo cycle, knowing all too well that the chances of success are far from favourable.

This is what led us to get on with the adoption process right away. We had a consultation with an adoption counselor in July and discussed our options. We already knew that our preference was for private domestic adoption, but the consultation confirmed it. We heard hard things during the consult: only about 80 newborns a year get placed with adoptive families in this province through domestic adoption. The average time it takes for couples to be chosen is 2 years. I would have liked to know the standard deviation, but I didn't want to appear like too much of a geek. I might have also been afraid of the answer. Mr. A with his deep well of optimism thinks that we will be chosen right away because we are so awesome. Ha! I'm not so sure about that, but it's nice that one of us is optimistic.

I realize that efforts made towards having a baby are not in vain, but it just fucking feels like they are. Still, I worked on a farm for long enough to know that if you don't plant any seeds, you will not get any lettuce or tomatoes. So these seeds need to be planted, no matter how crummy my spirits feel these days.

Session one

2011-08-07T14:32:00.000-04:00

He said: "This doesn't have to look like anything"

I said ok.

I cried. That's what I do in his office, ever reassured to see 2 boxes of tissues in his office upon my arrival.

I told him I am a bitter, angry woman.

I do my yoga practice (sometimes) and omit the closing prayer. I am inconsolable, uninspired, and have lost faith. I just keep getting up and doing what I have to do and going back to bed.

He said: "This doesn't have to look like anything"

He means my grief.

I am not reaching out to friends. I respond when they call on me. I'll even meet them for breakfast, but I don't have much to give. I don't initiate.

I am concerned about losing my friends. And I can't make myself do more to connect. I am remote. To them, to myself.

I am tired, exhausted from working, and from holding it all together.

This doesn't have to look like anything.

My grief, he means.

There is no right way or wrong way to do this, he means.

There is just this moment. And the next. I wake up and do the laundry. I drink water. It's Sunday and I'm supposed to call my father. I don't want to talk to anyone. I don't call. I feed Chicken, change her water. Start hand washing my cobalt top to wear at work this week. Roll out the yoga mat. Take off Dona Farhi's book off the shelf and do a backbending practice. Mr. August is at our friend's birthday brunch. She is not only having a birthday but also having a baby any minute now. Their place will be packed with happy people. I notice my mind getting busy with the problem of my absence at that party. And then I let it go. I'm not there. I'm here. In this moment. This doesn't have to look like anything. Yoga ends in savasana. I go down to change the laundry. I make coffee. I eat brunch.

In the next moment, I am lost. What comes next on a Sunday? On this Sunday? There is cleaning, walking, making supper, talking on the phone, reading The Globe and Mail. What order do they go in?

Oh yes, I remember now. This doesn't have to look like anything. I can just make it up, jerry-rig it together with chicken wire, and call it a day, call it a grieving period. I can just do my best. My best, he says, will be good enough.

infertile shrink humour

2011-07-26T21:29:00.000-04:00

from psychotherapy.net

Called my lovely therapist back today, after not seeing him since November. Maybe he'll help me find some words.

Cake-eating Aries

2011-07-20T22:06:00.004-04:00

I've always enjoyed reading real life astrology

by Rob Brezsny. This week, Brezsny tells me this:

"ARIES (March 21-April 19): I dreamed you were

in a cake store. Every delicious kind of cake you

could imagine was there: carrot cake,

strawberry cheesecake, gooey butter cake, rich

chocolate cake with four layers of cherries

and whipped cream,birthday cakes that must have

been baked in paradise. Sadly, there was a problem:

You weren't allowed to buy anything, even though

you had enough money. A big sign on the wall said, 
simply, "Absolutely no cakes available for Aries."

What do you think my dream means? More importantly,

what are you going to do about the 
situation? I suggest that in my next dream, you

get a friend to buy a cake for you. Either that,

or go to a different cake store. One way or another, 
the astrological omens say it's high time for you get

the cake you want."

(Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter)

I found it apt, somehow.

No cake for me. Now what?

The endometrial biopsy will happen at the beginning of September. We will at least know if we can try again for a pregnancy, whether with donor eggs or donor embryos.

We've started the adoption process.

I can't keep standing in that store being told I can't have any cake.

Got nothing

2011-07-13T21:47:00.002-04:00

That's what I feel like most of the time. I've got nothing to say. I realize that this conflicts with the regular updating of a blog. Accept my apologies. It is a dark, wordless land where I live.

As you can tell from the tone of my last post, I've been struggling in the wake of our miscarriage. And then Misfit Mrs. had miscarriage #7. That somehow just finished me. This game has never been about what's fair, but somehow that was just too insulting. I think if anyone had spoken a word about the effing Universe and its ways, I would have bitten their head off completely. Yes, the normally caring and good-natured Augusta has grown into an angry and bitter woman.

I get it. It's part of the package deal - and we've apparently signed up for the all-inclusive dream cruise. Infertiles have to put up with a lot of shit; hope, anxiety, crushing disappointments, grief, loss of social connections, feelings of personal failure, etc. I am getting to experience a lot of what the dream cruise has to offer at the moment.

The only time I feel ok is when I am working. At work, I play a child psychologist. I'm a pleasant, well-liked member of a clinical team, who smiles a lot and gives the impression of deep personal satisfaction. I think I might get nominated for a Genie award this year (for my International readers, this is the Canadian equivalent to the Oscars).

On weekends, I stop acting. Weekends are hard.

One good thing that happened since I last posted is that I met Pumpkin during the Canada day long weekend. I went to visit my family in Montreal and there she was, having herself a little holiday with Mr. Pumpkin, so we decided to meet. And wow! is she ever wonderful! You already know that from reading her blog, but I got to experience it firsthand. For both Mr. August and I, our time with the Pumpkins was the highlight of our trip.

the job search

2011-06-26T15:22:00.001-04:00

I am applying for jobs. My current contract ends at the beginning of November, and instead of going off on mat leave as I hoped, I am scrambling to find gainful employment. I wrote cover letters today. Here is one that I won't be sending. (Warning: it is quite pathetic, but I just had to get it out of my system)

Dear future employer,
I am responding to the notice placed on your website for the job of Psychologist with XYZ Child and Adolescent Mental Health Team at your Prestigious hospital. I am certain that you will find my experiences and qualification would be a great asset to the team.

I have been working my ass off at my current job, being bogged down with doing all that was necessary to finally graduate from my PhD program. My research advisor, god love him, has narcissistic personality disorder and it took a lot of my energy to deal with him in a way that would permit me to get to my defense. But I did it, all the while working this crazy ass job that is so far from where I live that I can't reside with my husband 5 days out of 7. Oh, did I also mention that while I was trying to defend and work at this job, I was also going through IVF with donor eggs. I defended during my 2ww and then found out I was pregnant. And then I started feeling very nauseous and very tired all the time. But I was happy because I was finally pregnant.

You may be curious as to why I haven't yet published my dissertation research or why I haven't completed the application for my registration with my professional college. I think the easiest answer would be to say that I am lazy. I defended at the end of March and we are now at the end of June. Sure, I had a miscarriage at the end of May and have felt broken beyond repair ever since, but I could have used all that time much more wisely than staring at the walls or feeling sorry for myself.

You will excuse my lack of enthusiasm for the job advertised. As amazing as it sounds, it hardly compares to experiencing the birth of my own child and spending the first year of my child's life caring for him or her.

My laziness and lack of enthusiasm aside, I desperately need a good job such as the one advertised on your website. My husband is a farmer and makes very little money. We are anticipating further very expensive fertility treatments and/or expensive private adoption and I need to shoulder a good deal of that financial responsibility. You should note that fertility treatments involve incessant appointments and lots of missing work at the most inopportune times. Just one more reason why you would want to have me on your team.

Finally, I am emotionally ravaged by my husband and I's failure to become parents. I am not sure I have anything left to give emotionally, but I may not need that much if all I'm going to do is manualized CBT. For anything more than that in terms of providing therapy, my emotional fragility may prevent patients from feeling a sense of hope that their lives will change with entering treatment.

My supervisors have always noted that I am an excellent team player. I also have oral and written competency in both of Canada's official languages. Perhaps these are redemptive factors in my candidacy and will convince you to offer me an interview.

I would welcome the opportunity to discuss in person my specific qualifications pertaining to this role. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Augusta, Ph.D.
Yet another depressed and anxious infertile

Did my lining kill our fetus?

2011-06-18T15:10:00.001-04:00

I was ready to write a cheerful post on the tail of convocation last Tuesday, but our appointment with Dr. RE on Thursday has overshadowed that brief glimmer of light. I can't say it was bad news, but it wasn't good news either.

The day didn't start off too well. I woke up with a start when the alarm sounded. I was having a dream that Chicken had been run over by a car. Then as I was trying to get in the car, carrying a bunch of things in my hands, I dropped my beautiful pottery commuter mug and it smashed to bits (notice a pattern here?). I was in a great mood after that. I couldn't help thinking about the water bottle smashing on the day of extreme bad news. My mind was drawing lines and making predictions about the appointment.

Dr. RE was great as always. He came in and right away expressed his sympathy for our loss. He said that they wanted to call, but knew I was likely in shock and that it was better for me to receive care in Pleasantville rather than in FTT, so he let my family doc. handle it (but he did all my family doc to make sure I was looked after). He reviewed the prom.etrium schedule I was on during the pregnancy, to rule out that we had stopped too early. I was taking the prome.trium up until the morning of the ultrasound (12w1d), so we ruled it out as a contributing factor in the miscarriage.

After some discussion of this and that, he said that he couldn't come to a conclusion in his mind as to whether the m/c happened because of the embryo or because my lining couldn't support the pregnancy. My lining is not, as previously believed, as good as we would like. In fact, he said that my lining had never reached an optimal thickness in the last three years that I've been under his care. The embryo might have been perfectly healthy and viable, but it was my deficient lining that cased it to stop growing.

Gulp.

I think that in my mind, I had created what I was hoping to hear him say at the appointment, and was obscuring what I was afraid to hear. His actual assessment was somewhere in the middle. He didn't say: "Hey, that was a fluke of bad luck. Let's get back on that horse and try again next month". What he said is getting us steps closer to: "there isn't much to do with your body in terms of growing a fetus, so you should just cross that out as an option."

Dr. RE suggested that we try a more aggressive lining building strategy over the summer by having me take estr.ace orally, vaginally and through a patch (are there any other possible routes of entry for the estrogen to come in? I can bathe in it or sniff the darn thing just to be sure). He will then do two endometrial biopsies: one during the follicular phase and one during the luteal phase of the cycle. This needs to be done over two different cycles because once he's biopsied the endometrium during the follicular phase, he won't be able to get valid results for the luteal phase in the same cycle. So, hopefully, by the end of the summer, we should know more about next steps.

Dr. RE also said that Sattva's response was not as good as he had hoped, especially since non of the embryos made it to freezing. He did say there could be modifications made to her protocol (i.e. more drugs) to see if it would produce more eggs, but he didn't say too much more about that. I tried to discuss whether he thought we should accept Sattva's offer or start the process for embryo donation, but he wanted to defer that conversation until we knew more about my lining. He acknowledged that even if my lining continues to be sub-optimally responsive, we may still chose to try egg donation (because women get and stay pregnant with less-than-ideal linings). Would I really do that though? I don't think so. That would be my cue to stop persisting down this path.

It's always been hard to believe that my body would or could do this pregnancy thing. I am losing faith that it ever will. These are dark days for me. Mr. A is keeping an open mind, and waiting to hear the results. Thankfully, he has enough optimism for two.

I leave you with a picture of my graduation.

owlet's seedling

2011-06-12T16:51:00.000-04:00

I have been so devastated by Egghunt's news. She finally got a BFP after a FET, and found out last week that it was an ectopic pregnancy. She had to have one of her tubes removed. Please go give Egghunt a hug at Searching for our Golden Egg. It just seems so unfair.

----------------------------------------------

We managed to find some time at the end of the day yesterday for our tree planting ceremony. I use ceremony loosely, as it was a very brief event attended by only 2 people and roughly 3 or 4 million unceremonious mosquitoes.

Mr. A and I went to the farmer's market in the morning, as we often do on Saturdays. I've been going there with a very heavy heart for years, and a heavier heart still since the miscarriage. There are a multitude of babies, young children, and happy new parents who stroll around at the farmer's market. This is wonderful, and we too would like to stroll around with our baby, except that we've had no luck making that happen. So we walk around with only our shopping bags instead.

I had a fat gift certificate for a spa in town and treated Sattva and I to a manicure and pedicure in the afternoon. It was nice to spend time with her. And very fitting on the day of the tree planting.

When I returned home, I knew it was time to do the tree planting. We couldn't put it off any longer. The seedling needed to be in the ground, and we needed to bring some sort of emotional punctuation mark to this sad event, even if it was only a coma. I think we both went reluctantly.

The spot we chose was, as I said in my last post, at the back of the property, where Mr. A proposed to me in May 2009. It took us about 30 minutes to walk back there, stopping to get mulch on the way. The bugs were atrocious, except when we walked across a breezy field. We didn't say much to each other on the way. I just said, "I hope we never have to do this again". We got to the back field and Mr. A chose a spot at the edge of the forest for the seedling to be planted. It didn't need a very big hole, but Mr. A dug it a bit deeper because we had mementos to put in: the pee sticks that revealed such happy news, a little card we'd received from a friend who was excited we were pregnant, a little note I wrote to owlet, and a tiny metal angel a co-worker gave me with this purpose in mind. Mr. A covered the hole and mulched it well.

Mr. A planting the hazelnut seedling

The bugs were so voracious (but not vociferous, Pumpkin), that it prevented us from lingering there too long. I thought about how that was nature's way of telling us to move on, and not stay in this deep sorrow too long. There are lives to be lived, and perhaps someday, children to be raised.

As I stepped out of the wood's edge where we planted owlet's seedling and began collecting things we had left on the ground, I heard a barred owl give a few hoots. One doesn't often hear owls during the day, but I'm pretty sure that's what I heard (although I am not discounting the possibility of auditory hallucination). While I know it's probably complete bullshit, I took comfort in believing that it was nature's welcome to owlet and a reminder to us that we are not alone in our grief.

Slow return to work

2011-06-08T13:14:00.001-04:00

I returned to work on Monday. I wasn't too thrilled about it, but knew it had to be done. Monday was a pretty hard day overall, but I must say that my colleagues were amazing. Most people gave me space, but still managed to let me know they were glad I was back. As I suspected, the toughest moment was when I saw my clinical supervisor. He is the kindest man. He gave me a hug and I sobbed. He just knew how hard we worked for this pregnancy and how devastating this is for me. Another colleague who I had just told I was pregnant a few days before the m/c, came by my office and looked at me in askance. She gave me a hug when I told her, which is always a bit surprising when someone's role in your life has been 'colleague'. Her care was so genuine, though, and I welcomed it. At lunch time, she came by my office and asked if I wanted to go for a walk in the park. I appreciated the gesture so much.

People at work are incredible all around. Staff on the my residential unit expressed concern about my health and all said they were happy I was back. None of them pried to know what had happened. My manager continues to be incredibly supportive. I talked to her on Tuesday afternoon, and she reminded me that my job was to take care of myself right now, and that her job was to support me in doing that. This whole situation would be made so much more stressful if my boss was a jerk. Instead, I have one of the most supportive person advocating for me.

I am "working" from home today. I've put the word working in brackets because it's nearing 1 pm and I haven't actually worked. I got back to work tomorrow for 2 days and then will be home for the weekend. I'll work again on Monday, and then it's convocation on Tuesday. Again, I am glad that my work week will be broken up. My first full 5-day week will be the week of June 20. I am thankful for the gradual return to work.

Mr. A and I are planning a tree planting ceremony to say goodbye to our owlet. Friends of ours gave us a hazelnut seedling and we will burry other little mementos with it as we plant it. We're going to plant it where Mr. A proposed to me. He farms land owned by Jesuits in North Pleasantville. Back in 2009, he planted oat seeds in one of his fields to form the letters "Will you marry me?"4-5 weeks later, he took me on a walk around his fields and asked me to look at what was growing there. It was a great proposal and the start of a great adventure together. The spot is at the back of the property. We will plant the hazelnut at the edge of the forest and hope that unlike owlet, it grows up to be tall. We're planning to do that on the weekend.

Otherwise, I am one bitter and angry woman. Hopefully, this state is temporary, but I am struggling with those ugly feelings right now. It's hard to tolerate those feelings in myself, but I am reminding myself frequently that those feelings are normal. Bitter and angry is not who I want to be. It is not where I want to spend my precious energy. But I know that trying to "control" my feelings is a moot exercise. They are what they are. All I have to do is just acknowledge them and let them be, and take care of myself in the midst of these strong feelings. On my long drive home last night, I was listening to a story on the CBC (radio station comparable to NPR for my American readers). There is this big awful story that's been in the news for a few years now about a disgraced pediatric pathologist who got dozens of people locked up for killing their children. He testified against all these poor parents, saying that their child had died of suffocation or being shaken, when in fact, most children had not died at the hands of their parents. This poor mom got her murder conviction dropped yesterday after spending 14 years in jail for the murder of her son. He died of an epileptic seizure, but this doctor said she had suffocated him and she got put away. Her other children were removed from her care and adopted into other families. I was listening to this mom talking to reporters and wondered how the injustice of it all was not crushing her completely. Her entire life was destroyed by a quack. The way she spoke though, I could tell that rage over the injustice was not consuming her. She sounded grateful that the murder charge had been dropped and looked forward to living her life out of jail, hoping that her other children would some day want to make contact with her.

It made me look at myself and my own feelings of rage over the injustice. I guess I can stay stuck in decrying the fact that it's not fair that nothing I've done so far has permitted me to have a child, or I can acknowledge that and find out what's going to help me have a child. Because I was driving when I was thinking of this, I came up with a driving metaphor. The injustice is like cars in the oncoming traffic having their high beams on. You can't look at them directly or you'll be blinded and won't see well enough to drive straight. You have to focus on something else ahead of you and let their blinding light fall into your peripheral vision, where the rods in your cornea can absorb it (they're all about contrast), while you save your cones (responsible for visual acuity) for the important work. I need to keep my anger over the injustice of what's happening fall to my peripheral vision, because I need to look out for more important things. Like, what our next steps will be. Like finding a job for when my contract ends.

Ok, that was a cheesy metaphor, but thanks for bearing with me.

Thanks for your very kind comments on my last post. I get so much from your care and kindness.

Pinot noir in hand

2011-06-03T20:03:00.001-04:00

I composed a post yesterday and then just like that, Sa.fari ate it. I was trying to delete a word and all of a sudden it deleted 6 paragraphs. After that I didn't have the humph to start over.

The week has come and gone, and I will be going back to work on Monday. I am feeling apprehensive about it, but I've made plans to work from home on one of the days next week so that I can come back and be with Mr. A. I'm not sure what I will tell people who ask what happened, what was wrong, am I better, etc. I can tell them that I am physically better. That would be true. I can tell them that I was ill. That wouldn't be entirely true. I can tell them to mind their own fucking business. That doesn't sound like me. Any good scripts you have, please send my way. As you can see, the well is dry of inspiration for a good story.

I am sitting here drinking Pinot Noir. It's nice to be able to drink wine, but I would give up wine for the rest of my entire existence if it meant I could have a child. Bargaining. That's a stage of grief, says Kubler-Ross.

I have been doing ok, I think. I cry each day, and I have moments of feeling complete desperation, but otherwise I am holding on. I focused a lot on self-care this week: long walks, reading a novel, watching the first season of Ma.d Me.n, baking and cooking, spending time with beloved friends, and spending some quality time with Mr. A. I wish I could send you all some of my pear, pecan, and dark chocolate muffins.

What's been the hardest are the nights and mornings. I wake up each night and can't fall back asleep. With my 'middle of the night irrational mind', I can't seem to hold on to the belief that we will ever be parents. In the dark hours, I am choked by the panic that I will not have children, that all this work is in vain, that nothing we can do will change this utterly shitty luck. I do fall back asleep and then have trouble getting out of bed once morning arrives. And when I do get up, I'm pretty unsteady for a few hours. By the afternoon, I can usually start looking into options for our next steps. If friends call me in the morning, the get the weepy Augusta; if they call in the afternoon, I can hold a conversation without sobs.

I had lunch with Sattva on Tuesday. I bought her lunch and she started to cry. She said it felt like she didn't deserve lunch, which is where I joined her in the crying. She deserves oceans and mountains of gratitude, and all I have for her is this puny lunch. She reminded me that we were sitting exactly where we sat a year ago having lunch and discussing the ramifications of going ahead with the egg donation. She said she didn't regret it. She said "let's try again". Sattva being Sattva, she of course wants to try again. That took the wind out of my pipes. How can she even think of going through that again? She said that looking back, it wasn't too bad and that overall, what she took from it was this sense of doing something good. She reminded me that because we've done all the preliminary steps, it wouldn't take too long to try again. Mr. August and I had always thought that we would not want her to go through the IVF procedure more than once. I must admit we are seriously taking in her offer. I think the dream of having a child with her help and seeing our families join through the egg donation is still very strong within us. We have an appointment with Dr. RE on June 16 and we will get his opinion on whether that's a good idea or not.

It's pretty daunting to think about the other options, although I have thought through them carefully and will not reject any of them at this point (except adoption through the Children's Aid Society, which is something I can talk to you about through email but won't post on here). Embryo adoption, surrogacy, or private local adoption. What is daunting is simply the money and the wait time, otherwise, I feel capable of going to the ends of the earth to get our child. I realize all the options are gambles, and guarantees are not granted in this game.

A few friends have asked me this week how come I still hold hope after what has happened. I did not have answers when they asked, but it made me think about it more. I was walking downtown earlier today and it occurred to me that the reason I still have hope is you. You women have gone through hell in the form of multiple miscarriages, umpteen IUIs and IVFs and surgeries, years of trying and failing, years of keeping hope alive somehow. I have 2 failed IUIs, a diagnosis of ovarian failure, and a miscarriage and that's all. Your hope and your tenacity has inspired me. I've decided to keep fighting this merciless IF monster. I've figured out who my heroes are, and I will work to emulate them. Thank you, dear women.

home and empty

2011-05-27T12:43:00.000-04:00

First, I need to thank all of you who have kept us in your thoughts and prayers, who have reached out by leaving me a comment, or by calling, or sending me emails. I want to thank Rebecca and Jess who posted about our situation and sent many of their readers over to my blog, and who also left very supportive comments. Thank you to all old and new readers who left a comment of support. I thank Misfit, Bunny, Adele, Roccie, Pumpkin, and LisainSK who reached out by email. It was really helpful to talk with Misfit and Adele about the m/c options and help make up my mind. I thank Oat who posted an update yesterday in the comments section when blogger was being uncooperative, and for her immense support now and always. I also thank all my beloved IRL friends who read this blog and grieve with us at this time. As much as grief is trying to occupy 100% of the space in my heart, gratitude cannot help but grow in there at the same time. I am not sure how I would have gotten through the last 48 hours without all of you.

After several earlier phone calls with my doctor on Wednesday, we talked in the evening about what options were available for evacuating the pregnancy (doesn't that sound horrible). She told me that the u/s report showed that little owlet stopped growing at 9w0d. It had already been three weeks. In retrospect, I see that the decrease in nausea wasn't coincidental, but in fact a sign that things were not going as they should. She gave me the option of taking misoprostol at home for 2 consecutive days, bleeding out over the weekend, and having an u/s on Monday to see whether everything was gone. Let me say that this option never appealed to me. It sounded protracted and emotionally draining. The other option, a D&C under general anesthetic, is the one I chose. I told my doc at 9:30 am yesterday morning that it was my preferred option, and by 10:30 am, she called back to say that my surgery was at 3:30 pm that day. My doctor has had a stillbirth (and thankfully, 2 other successful pregnancies which resulted in beautiful boys), and she said that the doctor who took care of her during the stillbirth was the one who would be operating on me. She said she was lovely.

We arrived at the hospital with heavy hearts. I was looking forward to visiting that hospital in December for the birth, but instead we were going in to put an end to this pregnancy. The person who registered me at arrival was pregnant. It felt a little cruel, dear Universe, but I quickly decided it wasn't personal. I got registered and admitted quickly. The nursing staff was exceptionally kind. We were there at 1:30pm, but my surgery didn't happen until 4:15 pm. We had a visit from our doctor in that wait, who was indeed lovely. She came in and right away shared her sympathy for our grief. I guess my doc had told her our story, and I was glad for it. She felt that it was a very good sign that my body had taken on the pregnancy and that we should try again.

The procedure was quick, I think. It's good to be asleep for these things, if you ask me. I am so glad we made the decision to go with the D&C. I woke up in the recovery room, not sure if it had happened. When the nurse told me it was done, I started to sob. "I'm not pregnant anymore". But that didn't last too long. There was some physical pain to contend with, some morphine to be administered. I was finally wheeled back to the day surgery area at 6:35, where I was reunited with Mr. A. I was ready to go back earlier, but they had brought an elderly lady to the recovery who was in very rough shape. Both nurses were tending to her. I felt so bad for the elderly lady. I could hear the nurses and the doctor talk and she clearly was palliative with what sounded like lung cancer. It was another hour and a half before they let me go home. I got to drink and eat some cookies. Again, the nurse was extraordinarily kind. She was giving me hugs by the time I left. We got home a bit after 8 pm.

It feels steadying to have events to describe. Somehow, I feel like the worst is yet to come. I know how to be in survival mode. I've had a lot of practice at that. But when it's time to go back to work, and start thinking about thriving again, I fear I won't be adequate. I fear the dark grips of depression wanting to close in on me once again. How many more years of depression? How many?

For now, we are just regrouping. I had a pretty bad sleep. I was up from 3 am to 6 am. My body was confused with the lack of eating from yesterday, and was ready to eat again. So I spent those hours reading, eating a bagel, and sitting outside for 45 minutes listening to the birds in the early morning.

Today, a few of our dear friends have stopped by to offer us their love and support. It feels good to have so many loving friends around us, in real life and in cyber space.

Thank you. I can't say it enough. Thank you, dear friends.

It's over.

2011-05-25T16:11:00.001-04:00

(oh, how I have dreaded ever having to write this post. But here we are).

Little owlet did not make it. He stopped growing at some point between our 8 week u/s and now.

I went for the u/s this morning and when I asked if there was a fetus in there, the response was "I'm not seeing what I should be seeing at 12 weeks". We then did a transvaginal u/s and no words were coming out of the technician's mouth. Only my sobs to fill the room.

Of course, technicians can't tell you anything, because they are not doctors. He said my doctor would be calling later today or tomorrow.

On my way out, I dropped my glass water bottle. It smashed into hundreds of pieces. There were 2 men from housekeeping standing 10 feet from me. They didn't acknowledge me when I walked towards them. When I asked if there was something I could do to help clean up, one of they shoved a broom in my hands and left. I picked up all the pieces and went home.

I did not return to work but went back to Pleasantville instead. Mr. A and I have just been sobbing all afternoon.

My doctor called several times. She is very kind. Even gave me her home number in one of her messages. I did get to talk to her, and she confirmed that this is a miscarriage. She needs to get the u/s report to know what the next steps will be. I guess it will go one of three ways, all of which sound horrid. The worst is yet to come.

I'm not sure how we're going to tell Sattva. We might need to wait until tomorrow. We both are train wrecks at the moment.

The cure for T1 grumps

2011-05-23T13:46:00.000-04:00

Is coffee.

I woke up on Saturday morning, and felt like the constipation was more than I could continue to bear. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Mr. A and I went to the farmer's market, our typical Saturday morning activity, and for the first time since October, I had a cup of caffeinated coffee. Did I ever mention that I LOVE COFFEE? It tasted so bloody good, it must have been illegal. The sun was shining (it's been raining for weeks in Ontario), it was the beginning of a three-day weekend, I was wearing a red skirt with sandals, I had a coffee in hand, my honey at my side, and life was grand. I honestly couldn't remember the last time I felt this good. We sat outside with our coffees and breakfast sandwiches. It was wonderful to feel good again.

I visited Dr. Ninja later that day. I asked whether he thought the 15mgs of iron in my prenatal vitamins could be related to the intestinal misery I've been experiencing. Yes. He did think it was worth trying to replace it with a different multivitamin. He freaked me out a little bit with his concerns re: the impact of constipation on the fetus (squishes the fetus and increases toxicity in the body). But I did reason with myself that many pregnant women experience this symptom and go on to deliver healthy babies. Two days later, I am happy to report that the iron might have been the culprit, as things seem to be improving.

I am not back to drinking coffee, but that little taste certainly made me lusty.

To follow-up on my last post, it appears I will be getting an u/s much sooner than anticipated. I wasn't going to go through with the IPS (integrated prenatal screening - which includes a blood test and the NT scan) because we have already ruled out having amniocentesis. We thought that the information the test would provide us would not be of great use because of our reluctance to do the amnio. My doctor was also unsure of whether the testing norms would mean anything for someone who is pregnant as a result of egg donation. She called me back last week to say that the test was valid for those who went through egg donation. In the end, it was the u/s that got me. The chance to have an u/s soon was too alluring. Of course, my doctor said it wasn't a good reason to get the test done, but I don't care. We are about to start telling people of the pregnancy, and I would like to have it on fact that there is a living fetus in there. So I'm having the scan on Wednesday morning. Hoping all is well in there.

First trimester grumps

2011-05-19T21:46:00.001-04:00

There is a theme in my life right now. That theme is that am behind on everything. Even my blog postings. I apologize for the e-silence, ladies. I am just tired and a bit, well, behind in everything.

Luckily, or hopefully I should say, I am not behind on growing a fetus. But I have to take that one on faith because I don't know what is going on in there. Augusta was all happy to graduate from the fertility clinic at week 8. Yet at week 11, she is wishing like hell she could drop by for a quick ultrasound. My next visit to my family doctor, where I will theoretically be able to hear this owlet's heartbeat, is on June 17. This is about 100 years in first trimester time. Wish me patience.

My nausea has abated a bit. Quite a bit, actually (alarm bells ringing). I still feel queasy and disgusted by the sight of some foods (volume of alarm bells turns down). The exhaustion continues, and I continue to fight through my days at work, hoping I am not coming across as entirely incompetent because truly, it feels like the lights are on but nobody's home.

My mood has been low lately. I realize that I am allowed to feel however the hell I feel, but it's hard to accept feeling low when I've been hoping, dreaming, begging every god and goddess to be pregnant for years. And now it's here....and I'm cranky. How to resolve the dissonance? I'm hoping a crossing of the line into T2 will help in that department.

I realize there are factors at play in my low mood. The first trimester really does suck the living daylights out of a woman's energy. And my great job is still great, except that to do it well, I would require the energy I had when I was 26, or at least when I was 36 and not yet pregnant. I am seriously dragging my ass at work, and I don't like that. The way I used to resolve the overload of work was to put in serious overtime all week. I'd just put in 10 or 11 hour days regularly and managed not to get too far behind. Now I don't have the stamina to do all this (unpaid) overtime, so I am falling further and further behind. I have so many darn reports to write that I can't even come up with a plan of how to get them done. In the mean time, these kids schools, and parents, and community agencies are waiting for my pronouncements (in paper format) on these children's mental health.

I have also been missing Mr. A and Chicken a whole lot. And missing being home. This week, I decided to drive back home on Wednesday night so the week wouldn't seem so interminable. That helped a little in the missing home part, but not so much in the fatigue department. Chicken is not too keen on letting me sleep, since really, I could be petting her instead. A complete cuddle monster.

I think that's all the complaining I have in me for the moment. Thanks for reading and not throwing rotten tomatoes (well maybe you are, but that is going to be nasty to clean off of the keyboard). In the happier news department, I've booked a few fun weekends in July to get away. We are going to Montreal, where I'm from, on the Canada day long weekend and spending time up north at my mom's country house. I also look forward to visiting my dad during that trip. I haven't seen him in a year (which is terrible). We are heading back to Niagara-on-the-lake, this time, with some good friends of ours who will be a month away from welcoming their first child. I'm really looking forward to that.

And in the good news department, I just spoke to my beloved friend Dragonfly (also known as A) live from her hospital room. She was due to have a baby girl on May 31, but she delivered early this morning. I am so excited for her and her husband. I will have to go visit this beautiful girl as soon as possible (and sadly, the 10 hour drive makes that trip tricky to arrange (see the part about my stressful job above). I am hoping to head there in early September, before I get too big. I can also visit Oat when I go, which will be marvelous.

Those are my thoughts for now, lovelies. I am terribly behind on my commenting (see first paragraph) and I hope to make some retroactive progress over this weekend. It's a long weekend in Canada. YEAH!

10 weeks

2011-05-10T20:28:00.001-04:00

I reached the double digits today. My first thought as my feet touched the ground off the bed this morning was: made it to 10 weeks! I went for a celebratory walk with the chirping birds and there was a spring in my step. The spring doesn't ever make it past 9:30am, but still, it was nice to feel energetic for 3 hours this morning.

Today is also the day that I reduce my intake of prom.etrium from 200mg three times per day to 200mg twice per day. I admit to being a little nervous about the decrease and hoping the little owlet is ok in there with less progesterone.

I went to the grocery store today. The theme was green: green grapes, spinach tortilla wraps and green peas. Don't ask. I saw a pregnant woman at the grocery store. The old habit is to look away, but I let my eyes linger today. I looked at her and thought "that will be me".

My fatigue continues and despite the extra B vitamins Dr. Ninja prescribed, I am dragging myself around all day. I can't say my work schedule does much to make me feel less tired. I was able to find 15 minutes to gobble up some soup at lunch, but it's been nuts.

Off to rest, my lovelies. So excited that Bunny's baby is here. Welcome to the world, sweet girl. Also excited about Lisa and Cassie who recently had baby boys. Happy Spring!

first prenatal appointment

2011-05-05T20:28:00.000-04:00

I had my first prenatal appointment with my family physician today. I had not seen my family physician since last summer, when I cried on her exam table after she asked how the fertility treatments were going. My demeanor at today's appointment was different. She was very excited for Mr. A and I and visibly disappointed to have to refer me to an OB in FTT (fertility treatment town - where I will be working until November). It's nice to be loved! She spent quite a bit of time with me doing a physical and talking about the screening tests and the next steps. She said that normally, she follows pregnant women until week 24 and then refers to an OB. When I told her that Dr. RE suggested an OB was probably best sooner than later, she got on it right away. I still have an appointment to see her in 1 month, but if the OB's office calls before that, I will just cancel my appointment with her and start with the OB. I somehow don't think I'll get to see an OB within the next month (this is Canada folks: free health care = awesome, and free health care = waiting).

My doctor had a doppler but said right off the bat that it wasn't very sensitive. She usually only hears heartbeats of 11 week old fetuses and up. She heard one of 10 weeks recently (I'm at 9w2d), so she was willing to try, but at the condition that I wouldn't get anxious if we didn't hear anything. She poked around for a long time, but alas, it couldn't be detected. Yes, I could get anxious about that if I let myself, but that would be ridiculous (please also remind me of this in your comments). The instrument isn't sensitive enough to pick up the heartbeat of such a young fetus.

I found it interesting that they made me pee in a bottle today. Oh look, there is hcg in my urine! I guess they were being thorough. The nurse took my blood pressure (a-ok) and weighed me. I weighed a pound more than the last time I weighed myself (2 weeks ago) and pretty much the same as pre-transfer. I think the extra pound was all constipation. That is the new symptom this week, along with heartburn. Poor digestive tract. It's really struggling.

It was great to walk out of the doctor's office. I was back in Pleasantville, which is where I like to be. The sun was shining, something we haven't really seen in weeks. And I had just spent an hour talking my pregnancy. What. my. pregnancy. Yes. I had been thinking of Bunny all day, since this is the day that Bun Bun is coming to the light of day, and I suddenly felt my heart fill with substantial hope. This happens. People have fertility treatments and get pregnant and have babies. This really happens. Maybe it's even happening to me.

the telling begins

2011-05-01T18:53:00.000-04:00

I can't really say the news has fully sunk in. When did you start believing your were pregnant? I know that I can say the words: "I'm pregnant" and that those words reflect a biological fact. I know that the collection of symptoms I feel are all explained by that very biological fact. Yet, I am truthfully still at the stage of skeptical bemusement.

The word is getting out, although I am titrating the flow at which it goes very carefully (trying to). Some of the immediate family now knows. Friends that supported us through Infertility Hell also know. In four weeks, if all continues to go well, there will be more people to tell. Like my dad for instance. I have chosen not to tell him before we reach T2. Explaining the whole egg donation situation to my dad will be tricky. Not that he will be upset or negative about it, more that it may be difficult for him to fully understand it. He gets confused by medicine and science. He never made it past grade 10. He's not an idiot, but he is not at all worldly. Bottom line is that if I'm happy, he will be happy. But I anticipate it to be tricky. And I insist on telling him about the egg donation. I feel strongly that he has a right to know that the child won't be genetically related to me and our side of the family. Obviously, Mr. A and I have fully embraced egg donation and Sattva's generous gift. But both my parents have a right to know this fact so that they can do what they need to do to come to a place of acceptance.

We met my mom and stepdad for a few days in Toronto over Easter weekend. I might have chosen to wait to tell my mom, but I don't see her all that often since we live about 600km (375 miles for my American friends) away from one another. So it made sense to tell her now. There was also the fact that Mr. A's parents knew that we were going through the procedure and were told that it resulted in a pregnancy early on that made it imperative to tell her. We didn't want her to feel left out because we told them and not her.

The telling was very fun. We were at lunch on Saturday and I busted out a little board book I bought in preparation for the reveal. My mom is a chartered accountant by trade, although she fries bigger fish these days, so I thought a book about counting would be up her alley, and part of our child's education she would certainly like to be involved with. And besides, all the 'grandmother to be' books portrayed antithetical grandmothers to the kind she will be (i.e. she will not bake cookies, knit booties or sew quilts). She opened the present and was trying to figure out what cockatoos were and why we were giving her a book about cockatoos. "Mom, you'll need this at your house. You'll want to read it to a little person." It was my stepdad who blurted it out, and much to my surprise, he started shedding actual tears. So did my mom. It was great. I'd never seen them so emotional. The rest of the weekend had quite the celebratory tone.

It's funny how I had idealized my mom's reaction to our donor. In retrospect, her reaction was exactly in keeping with what I know of her. I had imagined her being immensely grateful and wanting to buy Sattva an expensive gift. In actuality, she was cautious at first. She asked if Sattva had any claims on this baby and could she later on "take it back". Mr. A and I quickly nipped that issue in the bud. It felt a bit strange to us because we know and love Sattva, and understand why she donated. I can't say I fault my mom for her reaction. I can think of it as her wanting to make sure I was protected because she cares about me. And I also feel glad we told my mom and stepdad about the egg donation part of this beautiful equation at the start of the weekend because they had time to ask questions during the rest of the weekend. I think by the end, my mom did not feel cautious anymore about the donor. I am also planning for them to meet when my mom and step dad come for my convocation in June.

I am thinking about the next wave of announcements come June. At that point, we (read: I) will feel comfortable with the word spreading, although I certainly won't be posting an ultrasound picture on fb. As I approach this stage, I am thinking of those I could sadden with our good news, just as I felt devastated so many times in the past with pregnancy announcements. There are of course those women in my life who I know the news might be hard to take. And then there are those who might get hurt but that I won't know until it's too late. I realize that it won't be me who is hurting them, but infertility who is the assaulting party. Nevertheless, it feels very strange to be on the other side right now, and to be close to having this great, big, happy news to share.

Ultrasound Two

2011-04-26T21:03:00.000-04:00

I promise a longer post sometime this week, but not tonight, my beauties. I am in a stupor of fatigue. Holy T1 tiredness. And I suspect that my diet of carbs and carbs and more carbs is doing nothing to pep me up. Yes, in the midst of nausea, all I ever want to eat when it's time to eat is starch (and drink fruit juice). Forget gluten free, I'm onto bread and muffins and noodles. What can I say. I am in strange territory and trying my best to adapt.

I had my second u/s this morning. On my way back to the waiting room from the obligatory bathroom trip upon arrival, I came across Dr. RE. He stopped me in the hall to ask how I was doing and whether I had had my u/s yet. I hadn't and he said he wanted me to tell the nurse to call him when my turn came up. How nice! We hardly had to wait this week. Before we knew it, I was wearing a sheet for a skirt and Mr. A and I were joined in the u/s room by 2 docs and a nurse. The same doc as last week performed the ultrasound and Dr. RE observed. They took about 60 secs of observing the monitor before saying anything, and you can imagine that it was a very long minute. But Dr. RE was quick to say in his lovely Italian accent (I think I said Eastern European before. But I was wrong. He is Italian), that 'everything is normal'. Music to my ears.

We saw the heart beat again, this time more defined. Our little owlet measured 8w0d, which is exactly the day we are on by the calendar. The nurse said my due date is December 8.

I quickly gathered that today was graduation from the fertility clinic. Dr. RE told me to go back to my family doctor, who would refer me to an OB. He said that it was worth asking for an OB sooner than later because of all the trouble we went through to get here. As he said, there are no frozen embryos, so this is it.

Both doctors and the nurse gave me hugs before they left. I can't believe we are graduating!

I believe in miracles today. We have many more weeks to go, and the potential of things going wrong is still there, but I still believe in miracles. Perhaps because I am living one.

Ultrasound One

2011-04-19T21:17:00.001-04:00

Unbelievable! That wand is most certainly magic. Today, firmly gripped by one of the REs at our clinic, it located the little sac and little primitive creature we know as an embryo. It even located a rhythmic flicker known as a heartbeat. Where did this magic wand locate such miracles you ask? In MY uterus. On MY birthday.

The little owlet measured 6w6d, and today was technically 7w0d, so we all agree that it is measuring right on target.

They were running late this morning, which was fine by me. As far as I am concerned, they have a lot banked after all they have done for me. So they could have been 2 hours late instead of 1 hour and I still would have been ok. It was an RE and a nurse I had never met who were running the ultrasounds this morning. Once they got me oriented, they went to get our beloved nurse case manager. She seemed happy to see us and relieved that there had not been any more bleeding. I looked away as the RE tried to find what she was looking for, and pretty quickly, she hit the jackpot. One little one in there. We saw the heartbeat pretty quickly, which was amazing. And pretty soon, I was crying in disbelief. I never entirely believed we would be in this situation. And yet, there we were. Mr. A was ecstatic.

After I wiped my tears and started grinning like a fool, the RE gave me a hug. Our nurse case manager also gave me the warmest hug. I then mentioned it was my birthday, and everyone was just even more thrilled.

They want to repeat the ultrasound next Tuesday. I am happy to do that. It's amazing to see this miracle on screen.

I have a belly full of birthday Thai food and am close to falling asleep. Good night, my beauties.

ABCs on a rainy day

2011-04-16T14:45:00.000-04:00

I saw this little meme over at Ginger and Lime's place and she got it from Misconceptions about Conception. Thought it would be fun to do on this rainy Saturday afternoon.

A. Age: 36 (for another 3 days)

B. Bed size: Queen. I keep asking myself if we'll have to bump things up to king if and when there are more people in the bed. For now, it fits Mr. A, Chicken and I just well.

C. Chore you dislike: Is there a chore I like aside from washing the dishes?

D. Dogs: No dogs. I like them well enough, but Mr. A and I are more cat people. I could be convinced to get a standard poodle, though.

E. Essential start to your day: cold water. Lots of it!

F. Favorite color: I really like steel blue, and otherwise, I have always had a penchant for warm colours like oranges, reds and browns.

G. Gold or silver: silver.

H. Height: 5'10". I love being tall. It's so easy to find your friends in a crowd.

I. Instruments you play(ed): I took piano lessons as a kid and wish I'd kept it up. I enjoyed playing it. I have promised myself to take cello lessons once my PhD was done, so stay tuned.

J. Job title: Clinical Psychologist (although I'm not yet registered with our professional association and can't technically call myself that at this point in time. At work though, that's what they use as my title).

K. Kids: God and the Universe willing, maybe in December.

L. Live: we rent a house in a medium-size college town in southern Ontario. There is a nice front porch and a small backyard.

M. Mom’s name:

N. Nicknames: Augie? Augs? Aoûta (given to me by Pumpkin). My AT trail name was Moosewood.

O. Overnight hospital stays: A 5 1/2 month gig in the nut house* when I was 19-20 for anorexia, and a weekend in the ER for the same reason.

P. Pet peeves: People who talk over each other; when the dishcloth is left at the bottom of the sink where it gets soggy and gross; when people complain about winter in December.

Q. Quote from a movie: "Hey Mr. grumpy gills. When life gets you down, you know what you gotta do? just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming" (from finding Nemo, rivaled only by 'my bubbles' but that one doesn't translate well in text).

R. Righty or lefty: Righty.

S. Siblings: None.

V. Vegetables you don’t like: No fennel under any circumstance. I don't eat onions, broccoli, cauliflower, peppers, green onions, and zucchini raw, but I really like all of those veggies when they are cooked.

W.What makes you run late: I'm not often late, but if I am, it's that I've tried to pack too much in. A good snow storm will also make me late.

Y. Yummy food you make: I am known for my salads (making them and eating them -> please ask Oat about this). Mr. A says he likes my soups, stir fries and omelets. I can also bake (I have made some decent birthday cakes when putting the effort in. People often ask me to make beet chocolate cupcakes. G&L, maybe that's one way you would like beets?). I can open the fridge door and come up with supper, when others feel like there is nothing to eat. I'm sure that this skill will serve me well if I do become a mom.

Z. Zoo animal favorites: (even though I don't like them being in a zoo) Giraffes, elephants, and the big cats. I was also fascinated by the octopus at the Seattle aquarium last fall.

* Please know that I use the word nut house with humour and with no intention of offending. I'm obviously devoting much of my life to fighting against mental illness.

rest & gratitude

2011-04-13T14:06:00.001-04:00

I felt so reassured by your comments, women. Thank you. A thousand times, thank you. It was helpful to read Finch's story especially, so thank you very much for pointing me to her blog. And Finch, I'm so glad that all was well in your pregnancy and you had a baby recently.

The update on the bleeding is that it stopped completely. As of last night, I wasn't even spotting. This is most reassuring. Of course it could happen again. But why not try living in the present moment.

I thought I might go back to work today, but some wise friends talked me out of that nonsense. I will go back tomorrow, with the knowledge that if I feel the need to come home, I will. I'd sent an email to my manager last night and her reply this morning was prompt and unequivocal: rest as much as you need and come back when you are ready. And she doesn't even know what's going on. This episode did make me realize that I need to talk to her about it. I'll have to use the p-word. Better practice that today.

I barely walked around the house yesterday, not feeling confident in how my movements could affect the embies. Today, I feel more confident. I went to the grocery store to get some food. I noticed that all I feel like eating are fruit, fruit juices, bubbly drinks, and starches (rice, corn chips, rice cakes, crackers). How's that for a balanced diet. I still sneak in some veggies and proteins when I can. My nausea is in full force today. I was locating receptacles in the grocery store in case I needed to run for one. Thankfully, it never got to that point.

The nausea is making me think that I'm still pregnant. Nevertheless, I thought taking another hpt might reassure me (or not). The drug store sold me a dud, unfortunately. Invalid test. I will return it to them and hope that they can sell me one that is useful. I know this is silly exercise, but you already know that I am crazy at this point in our relationship, dear readers, so this should come as no surprise to you.

So, day time television is fascinating. I watched all kinds of nonsense yesterday and this morning. The place where I board is filled with televisions, hence not a bad place to have to rest. Canada is in the middle of a federal election and I was able to catch the English language debate last night (French one is on tonight, which I most certainly will watch). At least I am keeping current with the political scene during this time of rest.

I called Dr. Ninja's office this morning, and he wants me to come in on Saturday. They told me to rest and avoid too much stress, and not to worry too much. Yeah, right.

Thank you for your support women. I can't say it enough. Thank you.

fear is the colour red

2011-04-12T15:32:00.000-04:00

I am sitting on the couch at the house where I board, and trying to focus on breathing well and deep. Last night was rough.

I had a long, stressful day at work yesterday, not uncommon when working in the child mental health field. I finally left at around 6:30pm and went to get groceries. I felt a bit uncomfortable in the store and decided to wrap up my shopping quickly and head home (the place where I board during the week). On my short drive, I had menstrual-type cramps and cold sweats because I knew what that meant. Got home and there was blood, much more blood than anyone at this stage would be comfortable with. It seemed like the start of a period. I immediately lied down and called Mr. A in Pleasantville.

It took about 2 hours to get connected with the on-call physician from the fertility clinic, but I was thankful to talk to her at last. She said to take my prom.etrium by mouth, keep my feet up, think good thoughts and call my nurse case manager in the morning.

The blood did not keep pouring. The cramping stopped completely. I was shaking like a leaf in my bed, and poor Mr. A was just crying his eyes out on the phone. It felt so much like things were going south very fast, but I was trying hard to keep calm. I talked to Dragonfly who reminded me that bleeding is common in early pregnancy. My house mates reminded me of this as well. This helped me calm down a bit.

Mr. A borrowed a car from a friend and got here at midnight. Neither of us slept very well, but we were each grateful to be together. I talked to our nurse this morning, who was able to get a hold of our physician. They said that blood work at this point would not tell them much. They also thought that an ultrasound would be too early at this point. She said that an ultrasound today would likely create more, not less, apprehension, confusion and fear. They did move up my u/s from April 26 to April 19. They think that at that point, they will be able to measure the sac(s) and little guy(s) and compare this data to normative data. It is also feasible that a heartbeat(s) could be detected on that day. April 19 is the day I was born. Let us hope that my birthday is a happy one this year.

Today, there is no more bleeding, but a bit of brownish spotting. No cramping. Immense fear. I'm not sure what to think. Will we even make it to next Tuesday? Out of the first trimester? To the birth of a healthy baby? I won't find out unless I keep putting one step in front of the other.

I hope that the embie(s) can hold on.

beta, revised.

2011-04-09T12:18:00.001-04:00

I was napping after coming home from work yesterday (T1 fatigue has arrived), and suddenly something occurred to me. I made an error in thinking about the beta number. Erring is human. Erring when your brain is like cream of mushroom soup because you're sleep deprived, just defended your PhD thesis and just found out you're the p-word is entirely par for the course. So, the beta was obtained 18 days past egg retrieval, NOT 18 days past the 3-day transfer. It was done on day 18 and I just inserted that number without thinking about what I was writing. So to rectify:

~~18dp3dt = 1210~~

15dp3dt = 1210

Well, who cares about those details, right? It's just a number and it means that the procedure was successful. WOOHOO! Yes, except that when I start Dr. Googling the hell out of the numbers, I am presented with an indication that both embies might be nestling in there. That doesn't mean much at this stage, but it's good to get your mind wrapped around the idea of twins early in the game.

I saw Dr. Ninja this morning. I <3 Dr. Ninja. He was completely thrilled about the news, and so was his staff, who asked me as soon as I walked in. He measured my pulse and said that it as strong. No acupuncture and no herbal teas for now. He just wants to keep my body calm, stable and not stimulated with those things. He helped me resolve a quandary I had plunged head first into this week.

One of my best coping mechanism is exercising. It truly does the job and I can always count on it. When I work and have the kind of stress I have with my current job, I typically go to the gym every day, except on weekends, when I exercise in other ways instead (walking, skiing, hiking, biking). It's a big part of my life. There was a time when I exercised too much, but I've reached a balance with that. When I talked to our beloved nurse last Monday, she said that I could pursue my regular activities, including the gym. Ok, I thought, I 'll try heading back to the gym this week then (I had barred myself from going during the 2 week wilderness). I decided to go on Wednesday night. The gym was packed (I usually go at 6:45am when it's nice and empty), and I couldn't make up my mind as to what I thought would be safe. I opted for an elliptical and started slowly, very, very slowly, avoiding bouncing as much as possible. I did that for 10 min. and cycled for another 20, without ever breaking a sweat. I still managed to freak myself out completely. I had some very mild cramping upon returning from the gym, and I was back to being a quaking owl.

I talked about it with Dr. Ninja this morning. On one hand, I know that exercise continues to be very beneficial in pregnancy. On the other, it makes me fear that the owlet(s) will grow uncomfortable and leave. I couldn't resolve it, but then Dr. Ninja provided his professional opinion: walking is fine, stay away from any higher impact stuff for now. I trust him, so I will keep with that. A nice morning walk, some yoga, and maybe swimming if I feel like it.

What are your thoughts about exercising in T1?

Beta

2011-04-04T19:12:00.002-04:00

Pardon my silence since Saturday, but admittedly, I've been entirely speechless since seeing those little pee sticks. When people ask me how I feel, I just start crying. Better than having to find the right words to use. How the hell am I feeling, anyway? Does ecstatic even begin to describe it?

So the beta result is in.

18dp3dt = 1210

I somehow was expecting a number in the 300-400 range, but I must have misunderstood during my consult with Dr. Google. Anyway, all I know is that's a VERY handsome number we've got here. Our beloved nurse called it strong. She said that I was pregnant. I can still hear it sounding in my ears. It might take me a little while to say it out loud, but bear with me. We are not doing a second beta, as they didn't feel we needed one. Our ultrasound is booked for April 26.

I called Sattva right after we read the pee sticks and we cried together. Couldn't say much more but how amazing it all is.

I loved all your comments on my last post. I've read them again and again (because I also have to check the picture (and the actual pee sticks) to make sure it's for reals). Thank you, women. I think that the support I've received from all of you has made an incredible contribution to our success. Like I said to Mr. A at supper, I always took these lovely women with me to each appointment. I felt held in their care.

I need to rest. My regularly scheduled commenting will resume tomorrow.

2011-04-02T09:29:00.001-04:00

Introducing Dr. Augusta

2011-03-30T16:03:00.001-04:00

I did it! It's over and done. I'm a doctor now. The defense went very well. It was actually shorter than I anticipated: we wrapped up by noon and the entire committee took me to lunch. I was very nervous at the start of my presentation, but by the time we got to the questions, I was enjoying myself. I even cracked a few jokes, to help me relax and it worked: the audience started to laugh and it lightened the mood. There were no questions I felt I couldn't answer, and even when I didn't know the answer immediately, there was always something I could say.

I can't even begin to describe the relief I am currently experiencing. I'll try with capital letters:HUGE RELIEF. Not quite, but it will have to do.

Do you know what time our anxious owl woke up this morning? 3am, and that was that.

So I am off for a nap.

Your encouragements are wonderful! I am so lucky to have your support.

P.S. Did I even notice the very pregnant internal/external examiner? Not really. I took it as a good omen.

Here goes...

2011-03-30T06:37:00.000-04:00

talk to you on the other side, women.
I'll post a short update this afternoon to let you know the outcome of my defense.

THANK YOU for your amazing support.

your order of fresh cortisol has arrived!

2011-03-28T10:29:00.001-04:00

Oh yes, it has. It's a case of nerves, and it's getting worse. And I keep freaking out about the potentially lethal levels of cortisol in my blood. Lethal to the embies that is, I've survived it thus far in my life. I would like to take this opportunity to remind myself to breathe. Inhale. Exhale.

Only 2 more sleeps and it will be the day of my defense. It is at 10am EST on Wednesday. It started affecting my sleep last Thursday night, and it hasn't really let up. I couldn't fall asleep last night.

Sattva organized a dry run (mock defense) on Saturday with two other dear friends from grad school. Yes. Sattva gives me eggs, reads my dissertation and makes constructive comments, and organizes a mock defense for me. How does one even talk about gratitude when it's a few galaxies beyond that. Anywho, the dry run was extremely helpful. It helped me feel more confident about my presentation and about my topic and my work in general. They gave me useful feedback and I now feel much more ready to tackle this beast on Wednesday. I also really enjoyed the fact that my presentation launched us into a discussion of clinical issues for another hour and half. And by the end, we had changed theoretical models of psychopathology and re-written the DSM.

Any of you have ideas on how to disentangle symptoms of anxiety from symptoms of early pregnancy? I'm swimming in a soup of confusion on that subject, so thank jaw (that's Roccie's expression and it always makes me laugh) that it isn't the topic of my dissertation. Clearly, subjective feelings of anxiety are related to anxiety about Wednesday. No brainer. Feelings of nausea in the morning tip the scale on the side of early pregnancy symptom. I'm pretty much queasy at some point during the first hour after getting out of bed. It was pretty serious on Saturday morning, and then yesterday and today, I felt some waves of nausea, but they were short.

Last night, as I said earlier, I couldn't fall asleep. Initial insomnia is very much linked to performance anxiety for me. I remember having to take figure skating tests as a kid and not sleeping the night before. However, last night I wasn't just nervous, I also felt very hot. And this was part of the difficulty in falling asleep. I had to push Mr. A over to his side of the bed and remove most of the duvet off of my body. Finally, I had to get up and do crosswords. But while I was lying there, attempting to think calm thoughts, I felt some definite cramping in the region of my uterus. Nothing major, but I still could feel it and call it crampy. I definitely feel a heaviness in that region, and certainly pulling when I try to stretch my body.

List making is our friend at these times, so to recap, here are to date, noted symptoms of both anxiety and potential early pregnancy:

Signs of anxiety about Wednesday: subjective feelings of anxiety, trouble sleeping, lower GI upsets, obsessing about details, generalized jitters.

Signs of potential early pregnancy: nausea and queasiness in the morning, one noted instances of rise in body temperature, some mild cramping, heavy uterus, very very sore boobs (and they are looking bigger than normal), random weeping (not tearing, weeping) on Saturday night upon hearing the song 'that's what friends are for' by Dionne Warwick and friends (!).

Most of the items in the anxiety list could go in the PEP list, and most (but not all) items on the PEP list, could go in the anxiety list. As you can see, creating these lists was really helpful.

I'm doing pretty well overall, despite this last display of obsessional thinking. I am not driving myself too crazy about the results of the IVF. We'll have the beta on Saturday and test on Sunday. In the mean time, I am trying to enjoy the thought of being pregnant. This may be the only 2 weeks I ever believe this. One thing is for certain, I will not soon forget March 2011. And I'm happy to report that Mr. A is all better. So nice to see him back to his old self.

Keeping you in my thoughts, women. I'm particularly excited about Roccie's slam dunk BFP!! And about Bunny's baby ukulele. What a surprise! I am still feeling hopeful for Pumpkin who had a negative early hpt and is awaiting her beta this week. Hopeful for Foxy who is in the midst of the 2ww. Hopeful for Adele who awaits to cross the threshold to the second T.

still.cannot.concentrate

2011-03-24T20:25:00.001-04:00

This is was happened after my lament of a post on Tuesday evening. I woke up the next morning, went for my gentle walk, did all my morning routine things and despite being up for a couple of hours, I just wasn't getting hungry. I had a substantial piece of salmon for supper on Tuesday and still felt full, a decrease in appetite not altogether surprising after a change in my activity level. But like a switch, it suddenly turned to nausea. And then from mild nausea to 'oh my gawd, I'm gonna barf' nausea. That is certainly not a remotely typical reaction to my delaying breakfast. I get nauseous on planes, boats, watching home videos, and every few years when I get a stomach virus. Certainly not from delaying breakfast.

To be sure, this nausea could have been entirely of psychogenic origins.

Or, it could mean something else.

Like the estrogen (unlikely, I've never had problems tolerating it) or the progesterone (more likely, since it is a hypothesized cause of morning sickness in pregnancy) I am on currently. I am taking 2x the amount of progesterone I normally take on my regular cycles. There are theories that hcg causes morning sickness. If that's true, and if my nausea wasn't psychogenic, then I have reason to hope.

No big nausea this morning, as I ate breakfast more promptly, but there was some mild queasiness post breakfast.

I should really be leaving this level of detail to my defense prep. Which is what I'm going to have to do right now.

Some of you have asked if I will POAS and the answer is yes. But it will not be until the weekend after my defense. Mr. August has been quite clear with his wishes regarding the peeing on things and I can see his point. My advisor is having a little gathering on the night of my defense, and then my friends are having another shin-dig on Friday, April 1st. Mr. A wants me to be able to enjoy my celebrations. He knows all too well that if it's negative, it will be next to impossible to enjoy myself.

My beta blood test is on Saturday April 2, but I won't get the results until Monday, April 4 (because I can't do the actual blood test in FTT, and by the time the clinic gets the results, it will be Monday). Because I don't want to hear the results of our DE IVF at work, I will pee on a stick on Saturday or Sunday. Haven't decided yet. I know that technically, I could start testing this weekend, but I just don't want to do this to myself. I will continue to be hopeful and ignorant of whether I am with child until after April Fools Day.

I am stupidly excited about Roccie's darkening pink and blue lines on the complement of POAS approaches she has been using. I am hopeful that my other two cycle sisters, Pumpkin and Foxy are also coming upon some wonderful news imminently.

the 2 Week Wilderness

2011-03-22T21:10:00.002-04:00

On the Appalachian trail, there is a section in Maine called the 100 mile wilderness. It's the most remote stretch of the trail. Like its nickname suggests, it consists of a section of trail without any access to civilization. I was always looking forward to Maine, when I hiked the AT. Unfortunately, an injury stopped me early in my thru hike. It was one of my life's big disappointments.

What will come at the end of the 2 Week Wilderness? Blissful joy or one of my life's big disappointments? It seems all so black and white at this moment.

Ok, women, is this suppose to feel like anything? I'm not feeling anything yet. Except, maybe a bit grouchy.

I miss my daily workouts. I went for a gentle walk this morning. No sweating. No attendance at the gym. Just a little walk around the neighborhood. I find it very tough not to go to the gym. It's my surefire way to cope with stress. It works 98.97 times out of 100.

I wish I knew what was going on in there. It is very hard not to know, not to feel like it's one way or another. What to think? My rational mind is trying SO BLOODY HARD to think its way around this question. What a waste. I should be reading articles. But I'm still completely distracted and now I'm also grouchy.

Maybe the grouchiness is a good sign. When Sattva was pregnant with Anne, she thought she was depressed for the first 10 weeks or so. She felt awful about life and her career prospects and everything. She tells this very funny story of telling her husband that she must be depressed. Maybe her eggs give off the grouchy, depressed kind of hcg.

I'm back at work, chickadees. My heart's not in it this week. I've just mostly been writing reports and feeling behind the 8-ball because I missed most of last week and I'm not going to be there most of next week. I am not letting myself stay until my usual 7pm, but instead coming home early to work on my, ahum, defense (or blogging).

I received the feedback from the external examiner for my dissertation. It was a pretty good report, as as externals' reports go I hear. Only very minor "fine tuning" changes are what she suggested. She used words like "excellent" and "may well lead to publication in a scientific journal". I can't believe how much relief I derived from her evaluation. I had obviously been catastrophizing catastrophically.

A little update on Mr. A. Sadly, he is still ill. His parents came over to take him to his chest x-ray on Monday and then decided to take him to their house. So he packed up Chicken and her scratching post, and off they went. The chest x-ray was inconclusive for pneumonia, but his white blood cell count was very high. He is taking the week off and resting some more, much to his dismay. Mr A is a keep busy kinda of a guy, and sitting around doing nothing is pretty much agony in a jar.

Thinking of you, women. I'm loving the good news lately. It's helping me keep positive.

first photo of the kids

2011-03-19T12:59:00.000-04:00

I hope you know that the title of this post is simply to amuse myself. We are a long way from actual children. But this may be as close as I ever get, so I am going to enjoy it, darn it! I am thrilled to introduce to you our embryos. Mr. A thinks the top one looks a bit like him. The bottom one definitely has more features of Sattva.

You can tell that I am completely green when it comes to IVF. You veterans reading this, please go ahead and laugh. I'm ok with that. I like talking "as if" though. I feel like there is something sane in that mode of thinking. Sure, this may not work. But 2 embryos have been deposited inside my uterus, the same uterus which was sporting a very nice lining and is being maintained by lots of nice progesterone. There are good reasons for this to work. I can be sad and depressed when/if it fails. But I am going to enjoy this for now. It's nice to feel excited and happy. What a concept!

Mr. A and I walked slowly to the farmer's market this morning (10 minutes away) and walked slowly back. That's the extent of my movements for the day. I freaked out when I sneezed. But not too much, that might upset the embies. We purchased one fresh, organic pineapple that I intend on consuming slowly over the next few days, including the core. Thank you for your input on this matter.

I had lofty goals of reading articles while lying down yesterday, but who am I kidding. I am so distracted! I just watched Jun.o in the afternoon, and then some episodes of Gre.y's Anat.omy in the evening. That's as far as my intellect could take me. I sure need to ramp things up. I'll get back to finalizing my slides.

Thank you for your wonderful comments and for keeping us in your thoughts.

Homecoming

2011-03-18T17:56:00.000-04:00

Ok, so what is this about pineapple I need to know. Please enlighten me, women! I am in the dark. I have never been anywhere remotely in the neighborhood of pregnant. And now I'm PUPO!!!!!!! So, if I need to be eating bucket-loads of pineapple or do some tango or any sort of crazy shit like that, please let me know. I depend on you.

Today, I wore my lucky owl underwear. I brought little Hoot that Pumpkin gave to me, just so the kids would know there would be toys in their future. I started the day with yoga. I took some deep breaths. My friend SJ was able to come with me. I kissed Mr. A goodbye and told him we'd be back soon. I did all that I could today to make this successful. Now it is not in my hands anymore. This is a kind of lottery or God's will or whatever tickles your fancy. I just know I don't get to decide. I just get to go along for the ride.

The transfer happened as planned this morning. It was scheduled for 10:45, but didn't happen until an hour later. I needed to go with a full bladder, and having planned that for 10:45, it became almost unbearable by 11:26. I almost started to cry in order to evacuate some fluid from my body. The nurse who told Sattva and I we were cute on Tuesday just told me to go. I promptly drank a bottle of water afterward, but my timing still stank. They called me right away.

The nurse's name was the same as Sattva's name. I told her so and we both felt that was lucky. The lab biologist (I didn't ask for her title and I don't feel like calling her a lab technician. She was infinitely more than that to me.) came in and told me my skirt (hospital sheet) was very becoming, especially with my striped socks. I liked her right away. She said there were 2 beautiful embies awaiting. One embryo had reached the 7-cell stage and, in the doctor's words, was as good as we could hope for. The other one was still at 4-cells but still growing. She put them up on a screen so I could look at them while having the procedure, and she also made me a take-home picture (will scan and post soon). She said the other 2 didn't make it. And it that moment, it didn't feel like it mattered. We were all lined up for a great transfer in the here and now.

The doctor was not my usual RE, but I liked him too. He couldn't visualize my uterus from the abdominal ultrasound (my bad), but he wasn't bent out of shape about it. He did a transvaginal u/s instead and took measurements. He got everything ready, and then the lovely biologist poked her head through the little window between the procedure room and the lab. "The babysitter is getting antsy" is what the doc said. The procedure was fairly quick. We talked about my dose of estr.ace and prom.etrium, and they sent me on my way, with earnest hope-filled wishes.

I cried only once I got in the car with my friend SJ. I looked at the picture and just couldn't fucking believe it. Pardon the French, but that was necessary under those circumstances.

They're in! Welcome home embryos.

After the procedure, the doc said "and now it will be the longest 2 weeks of your life", to which I responded that my Ph.D. defense should keep me distracted. He smiled.

Mr. A did make it in to see the doctor again this afternoon. They are querying pneumonia but he was unable to get an x-ray, given that it was Friday afternoon and we live in a fairly small college town. He seemed a little better this afternoon. He kissed my belly and seemed excited about the homecoming.

Embryos awaiting

2011-03-17T18:07:00.001-04:00

I drove to acupuncture with thoughts racing. Faster than my little Neko could in afternoon traffic. I thought about how the nursing staff goes home at 4pm, just about the time I would get out of acupuncture. I elaborated a plan to call Mr. A once I got to Dr. Ninja's and if the clinic hadn't call, I would call them myself with a well placed "what's up?". No need. They'd called Mr. August, who was in bed coughing up a lung. He didn't ask about grades the lab gave the embryos, so I have nothing of the sort to report. Here is what I was told by my semi-conscious husband:

3 embryos at the 4-cell stage, where they should be on Day 2
1 embryo lagging behind but still in the race. Could look different tomorrow.

So if things continue to go well, there will be 2 for tomorrow, 1 or potentially 2 to freeze. It might be less than that once we get to tomorrow, but I'm feeling positive.

I left Dr. Ninja's with a bottle of prenatal vitamins.

Holy cow!

I just talked to Sattva and she is doing very well. She said she was up yesterday teaching her afternoon class and seeing clients today. And she liked her flowers. I was so glad to hear this great report from our beloved Sattva. What a woman!

As for the drive tomorrow, well, it is up in the air. I have had an offer from Roccie, but Chicago is a long way from Pleasantville. And I want her to focus on calm thoughts given that she is herself cradling precious cargo within. You women are AWESOME! I was completely blushing when I read all your comments and felt SO LOVED! Thank you. I think that perhaps my dear friend SJ could drive me. And if not, I can ask a few other friends. And if I have to drive myself, well, at least the wee ones will start out by knowing their mama is a strong one.

The anxiety creeps in

2011-03-17T14:02:00.000-04:00

Have not heard from the lab yet. I will update as soon as we do. I have been able to stay very positive, but in the last hour, I've noticed myself getting more anxious. I went to school and printed SPSS (stats) output files "just in case" I would need to get technical in my defense. I also did a lit search on a measure I used in my study, and this got my anxiety going. SO MUCH I haven't read. I can't possibly know EVERYTHING before March 30th!!!

You get a sense of the anxious spiral I'm on.

I walked back in the house and Mr. A tells me our Nurse Case Manager called to confirm that I have been taking my prom.etrium since Tuesday. Three times a day, religiously, was my answer on her answering machine. If the lab hasn't called but she called to make sure I was on prom.etrium, it could be a good sign. Right? She would have heard news from the lab potentially, and knows that we are going ahead for tomorrow. Or not.

An added twist is that Mr. A has been sick for almost three weeks, and things have gotten worse since Tuesday. It started out as a cold, and now it's definitely something else. He started antibiotics on Tuesday evening, and he seems worse for it now. He is running a fever all the time and sleeps day and night. His cough is hurting his chest. He probably won't be able to come for the ET tomorrow if he is still in this state. I am able and willing to go alone, except for the fact that I have to take the prom.etrium orally tomorrow morning in anticipation of the procedure, and I've only taken it vaginally. I hear it makes people feel strange, dizzy and loopy when taken orally. Will I be able to drive? If anyone has input on this, please chime in.

Off to acupuncture in 45 minutes. Operation healthy, calm, balanced Augusta continues (with a few bumps along the way).

Fertilization has occured

2011-03-16T13:50:00.001-04:00

Our lovely Nurse Case Manager called this morning to say that 4 of the 6 had fertilized. The lab will call tomorrow afternoon with the fertilization report. I was relived and very happy to hear that 4 had fertilized. We're not sure if all 4 will become embryos, but we are hopeful.

Still working on my slides and have taken myself away from the internet connection. My level of distractibility is already at peak levels, no need to encourage it.

Augusta's self-care program is in high gear. I slept in until 8:20am this morning (instead of my usual 5:30-6am). I have an acupuncture treatment booked for tomorrow afternoon (so looking forward to it!). I went to one of my favorite classes at the gym this morning; a great way to start to my day. For lunch, I made an awesome salad, which included shredded carrots, lightly steamed broccoli, chick peas, green peas, and toasted sunflower seeds. I drizzled it with my lemon-mustard dressing. Yum! As you can see, I am hoping to make my house most hospitable for the arrival of our honoured guest.

I'll post again tomorrow to let you know about the fertilization report. Thank you so very much for your comments and encouragements. It is quite amazing to stop and take in all the support that we have had in our quest to have a baby. I am truly humbled.

Eggs

2011-03-15T15:30:00.002-04:00

My body has never produced eggs. The sum total of eggs I've ever produced is 0. Never ovulated. 99.99% likely that I never will. The circumference of all the eggs I should have produced in my reproductive years is the distance between us and our child. Today, we were able to start bridging that span.

We met at the clinic at 8am for the egg retrieval. Sattva looked tired, and said her belly was very unhappy. She also couldn't have coffee on the way over. I felt pretty bad for her, and just wanted the procedure to be over so she could start to feel some relief. We were all invited to the prep/recovery room where we stayed while she went in for the procedure. Once they got her on IV, and gave her antibiotics, things went pretty quickly. They wheeled her out of there and brought her back within 20 minutes. She seemed drowsy, but she was doing great, and able to have something to drink and eat right away after the procedure. Sattva started crying when telling me there were only 6 eggs. And all I could think and try to convey was that 6 was infinitely more than 0. The nurse caught this, and said under her breath that we were so cute. It felt more like poignant for me, but I caught the spirit of what she was saying. I guess there is something inherently and universally beautiful about an act of such altruistic proportions. I held my tears back, with my ever present clinician hat on, thinking I have to be strong when someone is feeling vulnerable.

Sattva was given tyl.enol 3s, ate some food and had a little nap, while Mr. August and I sat beside her. Just before we left, Mr. A was called to produce his sample. He was gone a long time and I was nervous that he was getting performance anxiety. He told me that the sample-producing room was in a hallway with traffic, and that it was pretty distracting when trying to get the job done. I was sending him sexy vibes. He finally came back with a smug expression, which I took as an excellent sign. The lab gave us the go ahead to leave, meaning that the sample was adequate.

When Sattva was changing, I asked the nurse about whether there was a high likelihood that we wouldn't be called back for Friday, meaning that none of the eggs would turn into embryos. Her face said it all when she expressed that this was unlikely. Having never gone through IVF, I wanted her opinion on this. I also wanted to reassure myself and Sattva. The nurse felt it was likely that we would get 2 good fresh embryos, and that embryos to freeze would be a bonus. Again, starting from nothing, I feel overjoyed at this prospect. The nurse could tell that I was anxious and suggested that she have our Nurse Case Manager call us tomorrow with an interim update on the embies. The lab will call Thursday afternoon with the fertilization report.

Mr. August, who had rented a car to get himself and Sattva over to FTT from Pleasantville, went to visit parents while Sattva and I returned home. We had a good conversation about work in the car, and then it was time to take her pain meds again, and she fell asleep. I dropped her off very groggy, and was glad to see that her husband was home. My next stop was my favourite flower shop to order a beautiful bunch of spring flowers for our beloved Sattva. I got it from the same flower shop that did our wedding flowers.

And now I must sign off and work on prepping for the defense. I will keep you posted as we hear from the clinic. I am feeling optimistic, and very blessed.

Spring Forward

2011-03-13T14:25:00.001-04:00

Picture this commonplace scene from our past. March 6th to 9th, 2008. Sattva, C. and I are in Chicago for the Society for Research on Adolescence conference. We had decided to take the earliest flight back home on the Sunday morning, given that we all had lives to get back to. What we didn't account for when buying our plane tickets was the time change. Clocks are changed in the night of Saturday to Sunday, and when we get the wake-up call, all three of us are confused about what time it is and whether we've missed our flight. In addition, we are still on EST, and Chicago is on CDT. Sattva is about 7-8 weeks pregnant with Ginger, and by the time our cab pulls into O'Hare, she is green with nausea. It's so damn early; it's dark like 3am. We make it with time to spare and I run around the airport, desperate to find something to put in Sattva's belly to make the nausea go away. I have a picture engraved in my mind of her sitting on an airport waiting area bench, looking pale, yet relieved that I was bearing coffee and baked good.

Picture this more unusual scene from this morning. March 13, 2011. Sattva and I are both expected in FTT for an u/s, and Sattva also needs to get blood work. I get up at 5:15, but because of the change to daylight savings time, it really feels like 4:15. I get to her house at 5:45. We drive in the night. It's so damn early; it's dark like 3am. In the car, Sattva tells me that her ovaries feel very big. We get to the blood work lab. Her name is not on their list. Weird. She goes in and I almost fall asleep on my chair. We drive to the hospital and find parking on the second floor of the parking garage. It must be Sunday. We wait in the waiting room until the nurse comes to get Sattva (no receptionists on Sunday. Too bad, I was wearing my name tag), and soon after comes to get me. Sitting outside the u/s room, I can hear that it's Dr. RE who is on call. This brings me infinite reassurance. I trust him so much at this point. When one of the two change rooms becomes available, I go in and know that Sattva is the one getting the u/s on the other side of the door. Despite the music playing in the change room trying to cover the conversations going on in the u/s room, I hear Dr. RE call out the size of the follies. It all sounds good to me, in the 1.6 to 2.0 range. I think I count 9, but I'm not sure. My turn comes, and the resident is the one doing the u/s. She tries to visualize my uterine lining, but is not quite getting it. Dr. RE moves her over gently, and locates what he wants to see. It's still good. 7.5 he said. I'm wondering how it went from 9 to 7.5, but if he says 7.5 is good, that's all I need. They tell me that Sattva will trigger tonight and that retrieval will be on Tuesday.

Following the u/s, the nurse took us into her office to teach the HCG trigger shot to Sattva. She also helped Sattva by extracting the last bits of meds from her 2 used go.nal-f pens so that she could get her final dose tonight. Sattva inquires about follies and the nurse tells her there are 8. We leave and make our way to the elevator. Sattva looks concerned. She feels that 8 is not enough. Meanwhile, I'm overjoyed to get that many, and all within a very close range in size. When your ovaries do not produce eggs, any amount is a miracle. 8 has always been my favourite number.

This gets more real everyday. Mr. August wanted to talk about midwives versus OB at brunch this morning. I humoured him, knowing that if things go south, I will look back on this conversation with great sadness. But at this point, my heart is completely in it. It's like when you are 17 and you lust after a boy very much, and you can see yourself falling and there isn't a damn thing you can do about it. I already knew my heart had to be in it. I already knew that if things didn't work out, it would hurt. I am doing this consciously. I want you to remind me to read this post if or when things go south and I start loathing myself for going through with the DE IVF. I made the choice with full knowledge of potential consequences.

But let's stay north for a while longer here (instead of talking about things going south). I decided to go to work tomorrow, and take the rest of the week off. Sattva and Mr. A will drive to FTT together on Tuesday morning and I'll meet them at the hospital. I'll drive Sattva home and then focus the rest of the week on preparing the presentation for my defense. Do you think I've been able to concentrate on that at all? Not so much. I've booked an acupuncture treatment for Thursday afternoon and we will go in for the embryo transfer on Friday morning (if all goes well and embryos get made). This is getting more real everyday.

Thank you for cheering me on. I feel very blessed to have you with me.

Snowstorm

2011-03-11T20:08:00.000-05:00

And a surprise one at that. The meteorologists were calling for rain. But in FTT, it was a whopping snowstorm. I got up at 5am, like Sattva, and went to the gym. Might as well do something with that anxiety. Mrs. cell-phone-phobic carried it everywhere with her in the gym, just in case Sattva needed to get in touch. I was worried sick about her in her rental car without snow tires.

I got to the clinic at 8:05. The new receptionist was there again. She asked for my name. I said I was here to meet Sattva. She asked for my health card. Loudly. I moved in closer to her and said I was meeting someone here, specifically our donor. Oh. Oh, I see. I think I might get a name tag next time which says: 'Augusta, 36, Infertile, Egg Recipient', just so EVERYONE is clear on what the hell I am doing there. I sat down and read about parenting the anxious child for a consult I had later on that morning. That did nothing for my anxiety. And then at 8:13am, there she was. I couldn't believe she was there, safe, all in one piece and only 13 minutes late. We gave each other a big hug. The drive had been harrowing.

She had her u/s in good time. Her follies had grown. On Tuesday, they were actually in the 0.8 to 1.2 range. This morning, they were in the 1.2 to 1.7 range. Her next monitoring appt. is on Sunday morning. The clinic also called me to have me come in for an u/s on that same day to do another lining check. We will head out early together from Pleasantville on Sunday. At this point, I am anticipating that the retrieval will happen on Tuesday or Wednesday. We can't tell for sure, but I think that's a good guess given the data available.

I'm sipping a glass of awesome red wine at the moment, wondering if it will be my last one for a while.

Overachiever

2011-03-09T21:04:00.000-05:00

That's what I can say of my lining. When I got to the ultrasound room, the doc said she would hope for a thickness of 6mm at this stage. Mine was at 9mm. She said that I should keep at this dose (8mgs) and would add pro.metrium the day of Sattva's retrieval.

Next is Sattva's monitoring on Friday. What will happen then? We don't know. We can just hope for the best.

Thank you for your comments. I was very anxious in the waiting room and then took a breath, and remembered that you were all with me.

Pinch me

2011-03-08T22:19:00.000-05:00

Things are still going well. How is that possible? I don't know, but I'm rolling with it. I can even say that I like it.

I met Sattva at the clinic this morning. Once again, she got up at 5am, drove 90 minutes in the dark to get a needle in her arm and some vagcam action. All before 8am.

I got to the waiting room and took a seat. I pulled out a pen and paper to do some math on the gon.al-f dosage and when we would replenish her supplies. The receptionist came over asking me for my health card, and I had to explain in a hushed tone that I was, hum, waiting for our donor. "Oh. Oh, I see." She wasn't the usual receptionist but she handled it well once her brain started to put it together. Sattva showed up almost at the same time: she had already had her ultrasound.

Even though we both had to get back to work, we felt that because it was so early, we could afford the time to have a coffee (tea for me) and chat. It's becoming our little ritual to go down to the 3rd floor cafeteria and sit at the table where I sat with little Ginger back in January. I'm enjoying so much all this time I get to spend with her.

Things looked good. The follies were at 1.2 cm, which they said was right on target for day 6. They want to see her again on Friday. We tried to plan what things would look like after that. Will they want to see her on Saturday or Sunday? Will the follies be big enough on Friday that they will have her trigger on Saturday night for retrieval on Monday morning? Hard to predict. We talked about the different scenarios and how we would do it logistically over the weekend. Sattva's husband is away this weekend, so the girls would need to be looked after if we have to go to FTT for monitoring.

So it looks like Sattva is actually going to make it to retrieval. This is actually going to happen.

I realize how much I have prevented myself from believing in this dream. I realize it now because I think I'm starting to believe in it. Is the moment of believing the same moment it all shatters to pieces? That is certainly one of my many fears.

Of course, retrieval does not equal embryos, and even embryos does not equal fetus (and fetus does not equal baby).

It just feels strange to go to the clinic and receive good news.

I can get used to strange.

I am going in tomorrow morning for a meeting with the wand. Hopefully, my lining looks nice and plump and cozy.

Oh, and Sattva and I were having a discussion about how there would be leftover from one gon.al-f pen and she would have to combine it with stuff from another one. Our nurse explained how she could do it with an extra syringe so that she would mix the meds from both, and only have to inject herself once. Pfff! Not our Sattva. She injected herself twice last night, she said with a little grin. She's so hardcore.

My commenting has been sub-par lately and I apologize for that, women. I have to say, there is less of me to go around these days. I am focused on getting through the DE IVF and getting ready for my defense. Please know that my thoughts are with you, even if I am not commenting with the same frequency. Also, THANK YOU for your great comments, for your support, and for keeping me in your thoughts.

Suppression check

2011-03-02T22:19:00.000-05:00

Sattva got up at 5am this morning so she could drive for 90 minutes in the dark and get her blood drawn at 7am in Fertility Treatment Town. I then met her at 7:52am in the parking garage of large hospital of the fertility clinic. Just randomly, we got there at the same time and parked near each other. What a wonderful sight to see her waving and smiling at me from her rental car.

Everything looked good at the ultrasound. She got out of there and said "I'm suppressed!" She later said they had counted 5 follies on one side and 9 on the other. I'm not sure what that will translate to in terms of eggs, but I took 14 as a nice, round, egg-shaped number.

We got her the gon.al-f, a little more supre.fact at the hospital pharmacy. She gulped when the pharmacist told us the total. I didn't bat an eyelid. We won't care about that money in 5 years, either way.

I think she will start her injections tomorrow evening and I wish I could be with her. I won't be back to Pleasantville until Friday, and so she will be on her own for her first injection on Thursday night. Somehow I'm having a hard time with it. I found my first injection really anxiety-provoking and had my beloved friend who is a nurse practitioner coach me through it. I remember even by my third injection, I was still shaky and needed to move very slowly through the process not to fuck it up.

Mr. August and I have a wedding anniversary on Sunday. Our first wedding anniversary. I think that we will all be getting up at 5 am and going on a road trip to celebrate. We will bring Sattva along and get her poked with a needle for the occasion. It seems fitting somehow that this is what we'll be doing on our anniversary.

Must. go. to. bed.

But before I go, just have to say how ecstatic I am about Adele's news. She heard a heartbeat for the second time today and graduated to an OB.

A bad news, good news story

2011-02-19T13:14:00.000-05:00

I was very sad to learn last night that Egghunt's FET was a bust. She had been waiting since the summer for this FET and finally all the stars had lined up just right for it. And it's a BFN. Words can't express how sad I feel for her. Please consider going over to her house and leaving her a little love.

Two more IF-related pieces of bad news came my way in the last 24 hours from two dear IRL friends. One is in her early 40s and trying to conceive on her own with a donor, and this month brought her another BFN. I feel discouraged for her, as her clock is ticking so loudly (her birthday is coming up at the end of March). I also remain hopeful, as life works in weird and wonderful ways. I have told her of R's and Kelly's recent BFPs, which have made her hopeful. Like many of us, she will be a wonderful mom when her child finally makes his or her way into her arms.

And this morning, I received an email from a friend who has been struggling with IF for about 3 years. It appears that her last fertility clinic completely missed intrauterine scarring from a past D&C and she has been doing IUIs and trying naturally for two years without success. She was going ahead with IVF at a new clinic when they recommended a sonohysterogram to see if everything was looking good. Which it wasn't at all. She obviously is not too pleased with the previous clinic, and also devastated about all those wasted months. I am sending her so much love and healing thoughts. I really hope that surgery will be successful at making a spacious, cozy place for her baby to grow.

---

In the good news department, Sattva started her suprefact yesterday. She wrote to say it was making her feel a bit spacey, but otherwise she felt ok.

The other good news is that I got a date for my Ph.D. defense. It's going to be on March 30th, in the middle of the 2WW. What the hell am I going to do to remain calm under those circumstance? I do not know. I told Mr. A last night that I was freaking out. He laughed and said: "when are you not freaking out?" I guess I'm one of those women.

Send any and all thoughts as to how we are going to keep me on the CALM program, despite having to stand before an examining committee of 5 while they grill me with questions about my thesis.

Thinking of Pumpkin and Roccie, living it up in Chicagoland.

Infertility never leaves

2011-02-14T22:12:00.000-05:00

"Did hope not make it hurt less than usual?" he asked.

Sadly, the answer was no. Not at all.

That was Mr. August and I at around 8pm last night, after a very good weekend together, a weekend that ended on a low note.

The birthday extravaganza was really fun. I took Mr. A cross-country skiing at this place close to where we live. We like to pretend that we met there skiing before we actually met in 2004. We both used to ski there quite a bit and it's fun to imagine our paths having crossed before they officially did. The day was sunny and not too cold, and the snow conditions were ideal. We were flying! I then took him out for a late lunch to a restaurant that sources their ingredients locally and we both really enjoyed the feast. In the evening, we babysat Sattva's darlings while she and her hubby went out. We relished every second of it, clearly. Ginger was her adorable self and Anne, her older sister, was sweet and fabulous. She really took to Mr. A, and he successfully made her giggle all evening long. We had a fabulous time with the girls. We even got to hang out with Sattva and (hum, what shall I call him) Crow and that was really nice. It's been great to get to spend more time with them than we use to.

Sunday was pretty low key, as it usually is for me. I need to recharge the battery before heading back to my intense job on Monday morning. I made brunch for Mr. A and I, and gave him his birthday presents. I was glad that he really liked them. We went for a shorter ski where Mr. A farms, and then ingredients for supper. Well, Mr. A was planning on going to Simple Soup on Sunday* but I tend to avoid this beautiful community tradition these days. In the end, Mr. A. decided to stay home and have supper with me.

Before that, I knew I had a tough task to face. My friend had summoned me for tea, specifying that it should be before or after soup. That smelled like a pregnancy announcement from a 10 mile radius. She was going to announce it at soup, and was wanting to tell me at about the same time, but not in the group format. My friend is very sensitive and I appreciated that she gave so much thought to how she was going to tell me (she was friend from example #1 in this post). I was resigned. I knew I had to go through it and even if I wasn't looking forward to it, I had to just go and do this. I knew this poor friend would be feeling nervous about telling me and probably wanted to get it over with.

So, after much skirting around the issue, she finally told me. I expressed the appropriate joy at the good news, which I did feel in part. She acknowledge that if our DE IVF failed, it might be hard for us to continue to be friends, which I appreciated. My friend is nothing if not pragmatic, and she's seen how far I've pulled back from other couples who have had babies recently. We sipped our tea, ate our carrot cake (yes, with gluten and dairy, which gave me a bellyache). I asked all the appropriate pregnancy questions. I prayed for it to end.

While I managed to put a good meal on the table after that, I pushed the plate away halfway through and started to cry. I just wish it was different, like Mr. A said that hope would have transformed my reaction to pregnancy announcements. It made me feel selfish to cry and be so absorbed by my own sorrow, instead of being able to celebrate. Or at least being able to continue peacefully with my evening. I turn this one around in my head a lot: the one where I am happy for others, feel distressed for myself and feel guilty for having my own feelings. It always creates this conflict inside, where the range of emotions are like poorly matched dinner guests who are going at each other with their lobster forks.

The truth of it is that our friends just had sex and got pregnant. If they have a miscarriage, they can try again and will likely get pregnant. We have to drop 10k and hope with every fiber of our being that we get embryos and that they implant, and then grow. If that doesn't work, what will there be? Years. Years of waiting to adopt. Another 10k. Another bout of depression.

Thank you for indulging me in my morose state. Infertility never leaves. Even when there is so much to hope for at this stage. I continue to want to commit my heart to hoping. But I also have to face that we are doing a high trapeze act without a net below us. If it works, our hearts will be a flutter and the crowds will roar. If it doesn't, the thump on the circus floor will be followed by a hard silence. The crowds will go home, mumbling to each other something about those trapeze artists and their broken bones.

*Simple Soup on Sunday is a little tradition that folks in our community of friends have started a year ago. People sign up for a Sunday, and they make soup for everyone. It's meant to be brief, but a time to all come together and catch up before the start of a new week.

Why, that's a very nice lining you've got there.

2011-02-09T22:00:00.001-05:00

On day 10 of 4mgs of estr.ace my lining was at 4.5mm. After 6 more days, and a bump up to 6mgs, my lining was just a bit over 6mm. Nice. All Dr. RE wants is 7mm for the transfer and he said we achieved it (in his adorable eastern European accent) in August 2009, on 8mgs. At first he thought out loud that maybe he would push back the cycle to keep testing my lining, and then he quickly realized the foolishness of such a proposition: My lining, unlike my ovaries, is most cooperative.

So we are on track to start the cycle. The estimated date of egg retrieval is set for March 15. We all understand that this is likely to change. But in the mean time, it gives me something to get excited about.
That and Adele's 574.

Tuesday's list

2011-02-08T21:46:00.002-05:00

a) I think 6 mgs of estr.ace is fanfreakintastic

b) I put all the plastic plants in the closet.

c) I bought a live plant! It is, I believe, a type of arrowhead plant. Gorgeous!

d) I moved the furniture around in my room so there could be yoga sessions in a quiet, private space in the house where I'm staying.

e) U/s for a lining check is tomorrow at 8am.

f) Today is Mr. August's birthday and I feel sad not to be home to celebrate him.

g) Scheming for my Saturday belated birthday extravaganza for Mr. A. It will involve cross-country skiing.

h) External committee member agreed to take on the role last Friday. My nth set of revisions were submitted on Sunday. A date for my defense should be set...I don't know when.

i) Keeping all my fingers crossed for Egghunt. I think her FET was today!

Considering ourselves oriented to DE IVF

2011-02-03T22:23:00.000-05:00

The big orientation was a on Wednesday. Our appointment was at 8:30am, and the big ass storm was coming overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday. Sattva and Mr. August took the train on Tuesday night and joined me in Fertility Treatment Town (FTT). The weather Gods were trying to mess with our fertility plans, but we said pashaw, that's already been screwed up. We slept at Mr. August's parents' house, also in FTT (just to keep you appraised of everything: Fertility Clinic, Fantastic Job, Mr. August's parents = all in FTT. Sattva, Mr. August, grad school, Chicken, my heart = all in Pleasantville). I loved picking them up at the train station. When I was looking at them both walking towards me from the train platform, I felt a wave of emotion. It's going to take all three of us to make a baby.

The storm roared its terrible roar and gnashed its terrible teeth, but when it was all said and done, it was less than the foot of snow they were threatening. We drove to the hospital and got there only 10 minutes late.

And then, the marathon really started.

I was surprised to see our nurse when we arrived. It is the same nurse we had when we were going through the IUI. The last time I spoke to her was on October 1, 2009, when I was weeping inconsolably on the phone because there was no response from my ovaries and it meant the end of the line. I always wondered if I would run into her during one of my visits to the clinic, but that never happened. And I wasn't sure if she would be our nurse case manager or if she would pass the baton to someone else. I'm glad we get to work with her again. I always quite liked her and after Wednesday, I like her even more.

Sattva went in first to give her medical history to the nurse, and then all three of us went in for the full orientation session. We went through in fine detail what meds would be taken when and by whom. Mr. August came out pretty easy in that part. By 11am, we had reviewed all the steps and Sattva had practiced injecting the skin simulating foamy block with her Gon.al-f pen a few times. But this was only the beginning.

We then had to meet with the psychologist again to sign all the consents and review what conversations we had since our meetings in early January. That was pretty straightforward. I like the psychologist, so it feels pretty comfortable to chat with him. And he is starting to be more familiar with us, so he was teasing Mr. August about his hypothetical questions (Mr. A is quite a divergent thinker who likes to think of all sorts of hypothetical scenarios just for the fun of it. You can imagine that with third party reproduction, there are many scenarios to run through, and his mind just lights up like a Christmas tree).

Mr. August and I then went to the business administrator's office to talk about moulah. Quick and simple. We have to have all of it paid by the time she starts the stims. I just paid for half of it on that day, and we will pay for the other half in the next few weeks.

After Sattva and I fantasized about eating Thai food for lunch, they told us that our RE couldn't see us until after lunch, but since we only had an hour, cafeteria food was our only option. It wasn't bad. We were all very hungry so even cardboard would have worked.

After lunch, our stamina somewhat restored, we went back up to the waiting room. Our meeting with Dr. RE had two specific goals: discussing the time line and addressing a question I had raised during our time with the nurse. The question was one which stirred strong feelings inside. They wanted me on sup.ref.act and I could not understand why. Why would a hormonal system that is nonfunctional need to be suppressed. My hypothalamus, sadly, does not produce gonadotropins. I would like it to, but it doesn't. Dr. RE came into the appointment knowing that I was taking exception to this prescription and initially responded by saying basically that: "it's the protocol". He supplemented this by saying that we couldn't take the risk that my system all of a sudden wakes up and starts to ovulate. Oh. Was that a pig flying out that window? I persisted in my questioning, ready to suck it up and take the freakin meds if I needed to, but determined to understand why I would do that. "If I am taking the sup.refa.ct to block signals from my hypothalamus to my ovaries, but we already know that the receptors on my ovaries do not respond to gonadotropins (425 iu of meno.pur a day and still nothing), then what will it accomplish". In answering this question, Dr. RE convinced himself that I did not need to take it. Case closed. I felt pretty happy to have stood my ground on that. So, Sattva will be the one taking all the supre.fact in this round.

Next, came the question of timing. Sattva was on CD4 on Wednesday, which meant that we had lost the opportunity for CD3 blood work for a whole month. Our nurse wasn't sure Dr. RE would allow us to jump onto this cycle, or have to wait for Sattva to complete another cycle. Our beloved nurse made all the calculations for us to start on this cycle and quickly had Dr. RE convinced that we could go ahead. YEAH!

Next was a little vag cam action for Augusta. I was on my 10th day of estr.ace and they wanted to see what my lining looked like. And what do you know: 4.5mm. Not bad!. And he even FOUND one of my ovaries this time (they don't usually find my ovaries because they are so minuscule). I got a phone call today that they are increasing my est.race as of today to see if how much my lining can be increased in preparation for next month's cycle, the one where theoretically, a couple of embryos will be invited to make their home inside Augusta's fleecy endometrium.

The marathon appointment left on a high note. We are moving ahead with this cycle right now. Sattva starts her supre.fact on Feb. 18 and then probably starts her stims on March 3, depending on how things look like on her March 2 ultrasound.

Augusta = cautiously, positively hopeful

the lunch

2011-01-30T16:11:00.001-05:00

Blogging is a good procrastination tool. I am utilizing it at this moment. I should be doing my revisions, but I just don't wanna. We all know how this ends. Reason will win. I will do my revisions. So, why not take 20 minutes, drop the inner conflict and write a posting to update you on the lunch.

This has been a better weekend for me overall. I didn't resist Monday morning as soon as I got home on Friday night. I just knew it was there ahead of me, but that I didn't need to fight it. I could still enjoy all the moments of my weekend. My anxiety about work is still strong, but I am learning slowly that I can do this job and it's not miles ahead of my competencies. It just requires a bit of reaching sometimes, which is great for someone who gets all jazzed up about learning. And Mr. August and I are doing ok with the adjustment.

This Wednesday is our big orientation meeting at the clinic. I've decided to take the day off and drive back home on Tuesday night, so that all three of us can drive to the appointment together. We'll all drive back together that day, and I will return to work on Thursday morning. A ton of back and forth this week, but it does mean I'm only sleeping in FTT for 2 nights, instead of 4. That will make my Chicken happy. I'm looking forward to the appointment because it means that we are actually getting this party started. I asked Sattva this morning if she felt ready for needles. I think her answer was something like "I'm ok with it. I just think it will be strange to inject myself with a needle". Yes. It is totally weird the first time. I remember being quite freaked out, but getting the hang of it pretty fast. She will too, as you all have, dear readers.

The lunch yesterday went very well. Sattva, C., J. and I all know each other from grad school and enjoy being able to catch up with each other, something that's harder when people get close to are actually graduate. They were happy to hear that Sattva would join us for lunch. Our usual lunch trio includes J., C. and I. We've been doing this every 2 months for the past 2 years. J. and C. are dear friends and have been incredibly supportive. The lunch where I shared with them that the fertility treatments had failed was the same lunch that C. announced she was pregnant. It was hard for all three of us. But I decided that day that I wouldn't let infertility take my friendships away. C. has always been very considerate and caring in talking about her pregnancy and her baby, always staying mindful that it would potentially be hard for me to hear. C. now has a 9-month-old baby and because she brought the baby along, her time at lunch was a bit limited (soon-to-be toddlers don't appear to enjoy sitting at a French bistro, eating delicious food, sipping wine at lunch and chatting for hours. go figure). By the time C. had to leave, we hadn't got to the part about revealing that Sattva is the egg donor. I was feeling a bit sad about that, since I wanted to reveal it so as to make it more real.

C. and baby left, but J., Sattva and I lingered a while longer. My friendship with J. is quite close and I would have told her who the donor was a long time ago, except that I felt that because she knows Sattva, I wanted to wait until it was a bit more concretized to say it. More importantly, I wanted to make ultra sure that Sattva was ok with telling people she knows. As soon as C. left, J. couldn't contain herself and asked if we could talk about the DE IVF. She pieced it together pretty fast that Sattva was the donor, and bless her heart, she started weeping once it was confirmed. Not just crying, but weeping. Sattva and I were a bit stunned, but as anyone with a heart would do in this situation, we also started to cry (thankfully, we were in a booth, reducing the spectator effect for those in the vicinity). J. is a very open hearted person, someone who wears her heart on her sleeve. She proceeded to tell Sattva how hard it had been to watch me go through the devastation of not being able to have a child with my own eggs. She talked about the lunch (described above) when I said the treatments had failed, and how she went home and cried that day, cursing the universe that I couldn't have children. J. had promised herself to tell the donor, once she found out, that she was so grateful that she could do this for me. J. was just so moved. And so were we.

I think about the crappy comments, avoidant behaviour, uncomfortable silences, glossings over that I have encountered when I've risked talking my infertility. Those all seem to fade when I think of how some of my friends have responded. Sattva is of course a cardinal example. J., as you saw in my description, has also been amazing. There are others like Oat, Dragonfly, and Themis (yes, that would be you in our nation's capital). And others still (I'm just running out of pseudonyms).

It's tempting to tie all of this up with a nice bow, and say that out of this awful infertility comes a great deepening of relationships. Yes, that is true. Infertility taketh away, but infertility also provides a context for giving and receiving. One that blows my mind these days. It doesn't take the pain away, but the ways in which my friends have rallied around me and supported me certainly makes me believe in how far people can reach out for others. For me.

Receiving is never easy for me (thanks for noting that in your last comment, Roccie, and for supporting my "unloading"). I carry on with my antiquated ideas of unworthiness, remnants of early messages I got growing up. In psychotherapy, we talk about corrective experiences, where some interpersonal processes that occur in psychotherapy produce a significant change for a client because the therapist is responding in a way that is different from the client's expectations, based on his or her established interpersonal patterns. My friends are forcing me to revise my antiquated beliefs and expectations. They've been doing this for a years now, and this episode is the latest version. Perhaps I am being compelled into feeling worthy. Could the universe have this as a plan? Is it time to abdicate and consider myself loved? Worthy?

I leave you with a little picture of my girl Chicken. I was snapping my fingers to get her to raise her head, which is why this strange arm is poking straight out of her head.


Chicken and Augusta's arm

weekly update

2011-01-27T21:32:00.001-05:00

As I continue to marathon through this new here-and-there life, it's nice to pause and write a blog entry once in a while. No, really, I could do better than once a week. But just wait until there are monitoring appointments and medications. I'll be a stellar blogger poster, then. (promises, promises).

I have just finished my lovely fungi/lichen infusion and thought I'd take a moment before bed to check-in with you and update on the latest.

The appointment with the lawyer last Friday went fine. He wasn't as much of a dick as I thought he would be. I have nothing against lawyers. It's just that Mr. August's phone interaction with him to set up the appointment was not promising at all. It reminded me that setting expectations low often leads to being pleasantly surprised. Mr. lawyer had no big revelation for us, but it was good to review some potential scenarios and talk about the Human Assisted Reproductive Act and discuss civil law. All that was missing was the Gre.y Pou.pon.

We drafted an informal contract with Sattva and established a protocol to reimburse her for her wages lost and to pay her expenses. It feels good to set that up and start paying her for something! We can't pay her for her eggs, but we are allowed to compensate her for expenses incurred as a result of this process. Sattva and I have had some good conversations and I feel like we are in a good spot. We've also decided to talk about it with folks around us we feel like telling. This weekend, I'm having lunch with good friends from grad school. They know about the egg donation, but I haven't told them who is the donor. Sattva is coming to this lunch as well, so it will be an interesting way to reveal it. I think I'll let her tell them what she'll be up to in the next few months and watch their faces as they piece it together. Donor & recipient, sharing fries with friends at the French bistro.

Life with the plastic plants is settling down (I'm still giggling at the fact that Pumpkin thought it was plastic pants). The other boarder is moving out and a new boarder is coming next week, but she will very rarely overlap with when I'm there. So it's basically just me and the owner, who is a very nice woman. I think I can stick this out, folks. I still find Sunday evenings and Mondays very tough, but I'm ok for the rest of the week usually.

And my job is just so cool. It really is. It's completely exhausting and overwhelming, but I sincerely love it. The complexity of it keeps me constantly on my toes. I just need to learn to pace myself. As it is, I just stay late every night to finish reports and that's really going to empty the gas tank fast. The cases are very interesting, and the people I work with as great. Some of the unit staff (front line workers with our patients) have been especially sweet. They keep wanting me to apply for a permanent psychologist position that just opened so that I can stay and keep working with them. How's that for a welcome. Many other people have been so supportive thus far. This week, the psychiatrist told me with all his sincerity that I was doing a "great job". That was so nice to hear. Psychiatrist-psychologist relationships are not always smooth, historically speaking. But I can't get over how much I like working with the one on my team. He is just so awesome.

So for all the drawbacks of living a life split between here and there, and being away from Mr. August and Chicken, it feels like I am indeed reaping the rewards of a very meaningful professional experience. If I want to be coherent tomorrow for my meaningful experience, I better head to bed.

Thank you for your great comments. I don't say enough how much they mean to me. I feel very supported in this community because of you.

Ups and downs while waiting for the roller coaster ride: Updated!

2011-01-20T21:24:00.001-05:00

Thursday night, ladies. One more day and I return to Pleasantville. The beginning of the week was an uphill battle. It started on Friday night when I arrived home from the crazy week I had at work last week, and realized that the weekend would just be too short. A small panic set inside me, and I worked for the whole weekend to minimize it. Needless to say, I am not yet fully adjusted to the transition.

I saw Dr. Ninja last weekend; a visit that was well timed. We knew we were monitoring my anxiety and stress management with this big transition, and some adjustments had to be made. He changed my personal tea for the first time since September. This one is still mushroomy, but with a tinge of lichen. I'm not a huge fan, but I love Dr. Ninja and will do whatever he says at this point. He also prescribed these little pills called "Hap.py T.ea". They are made to chill me out a bit. I can feel the subtle effects of all this, and whether it's placebo or actual effects, I do not care. I am sleeping a bit better overall and that counts.

I wish my mood was better, ladies. I feel some pressure to be happy and hopeful. But that ain't happening this week. I may be standing knee deep in a river dying of thirst, but as often as I repeat this to myself, I'm feeling down and not able to see what's great in front of me.

I think there was an insidious moment of upward social comparison this week that really did me in. *Warning* A bit of bitching and whining ahead* The psychologist that I am replacing came by after rounds to show off her baby. A lovely thing to do, to be sure. Except that I was premenstrual and had little warning of this ahead of time. I felt close to tears and wanted to make like a preacher and get the hell out of there, but I needed to have a meeting about a patient. And the only place to have the meeting was were she and the baby and 7-9 ooohing staff were congregated. Fuck me. That was one thing, I could have just surfed that wave and been ok. But then my mind got going, in its insidious ways. She's a psychologist with a great paying permanent position who can have babies. And then there is me. Infertile, 36 (soon to be 37), not finished school, covering mat leave contracts, in debt up to my elbows, a decade away from buying my first house, not living with my husband and my chicken, etc., etc.

I get on my own nerves with all this complaining, but I am feeling really down. And I am a bit perplexed about it. I had declared my last bout of depression over. Done with. But it lingers, apparently. Or maybe it's just the adjustment taking its toll. I don't know.

Indulge me while I do the reverse of bitching about stuff. What do I have to be thankful for? So much! I have my health. That's huge. I have an awesome husband who loves me and supports me and cooks me supper on Friday night when I arrive home at 7-7:30pm. I have a great cat with a fun identity crisis. I have amazing friends who love and support me, and have done so for a very long time. I have enough money to eat well, to provide shelter for myself, to maintain a car, and to meet all my needs. I even have enough hypothetical money to soon pay for DE IVF. I have a good job right now and good job prospects. I like what I do and feel like I'm good at it. I have a good heart, common sense and a some imagination; three things that go far in a human life.

Mr. August is taking the train to meet me in FTT (fertility treatment town: where I work and where obviously, I receive fertility treatments) tomorrow. We are going to talk to the lawyer. Can't say I'm too excited to meet with this man (sounds full of himself), but I am looking forward to checking off that box.

And I have my committee meeting tomorrow morning. Hoping they'll say that I can proceed to the defense once I've made a few minor revisions, but I should prepare myself for a worse outcome so as not to start crying in their faces when they tell me otherwise. I'm just not sure where I will find the energy to work on this thing while I'm busting my ass off at work. I completed my paid hours for my workweek shortly after lunch today. Good thing I'm only working for 3 hours tomorrow.

Thank you for the support around the transition and surviving in the face of the plastic plants. I am relocating them to the closet, as some of you suggested and will be moving the furniture around so there is space for yoga. I even have big plans to acquire a few living plants for this space. At this point, I think I'll stay and do my best to adjust.

UPDATE!: My committee meeting was scheduled to last for 2 hours, but it was done in 40 minutes. They had 5-6 minor little things (a sentence here, moving a paragraph there). They are signing off on the dissertation and letting me proceed to the defense! They anticipate first week of March as a target time period for the defense. FYI, I'm feeling a LOT less gloomy than last night when I wrote this posting.

tired

2011-01-12T21:38:00.000-05:00

Some of you are pregnant or new parents, so I realize I have a lot of gall to speak of being tired. But there. I said it. It's the truth.

I feel like I don't have much to say, women. I go to the gym, go to work, work my ass off, come "home", troll through blogland, read 3/4 of a page from my book and fall asleep. 6am comes and I repeat the cycle. You will have noted the quotation marks around the word home and maybe wonder why they are there. I think I had mentioned that my job was pretty far from my home with Mr. August, and so I had found a place to live during the weekdays. The place I found was not available until January, so I stayed at a guest house in December. Last week, I moved into the new place. The official title I am given there is one of boarder. It's feeling completely weird and uncomfortable for now. There are plastic plants in my room. PLASTIC plants. Remember that my husband is an organic farmer and now do the math. I know: that's just gratuitous bitching. I'll stop and be a grown up now.

It takes a while to get used to new circumstances and I am not at all used to these circumstances. It feels harder to deal with because there is so much stress associated with my work. I need to remind myself of how once I am used to something, it feels a lot better than it ever does at first. My freak out will dissipate. I will stop trolling the housing adds for something better, or different.

The job is going pretty well, I would say. I have a shitload of responsibilities, but that's really fun on some days. When 15 people are sitting around a table and look at you to pronounce yourself on what's up a kid and what he or she needs: call me power hungry, but I kind of like it. Sometimes the answer is a parentectomy, but you won't hear me say that. I'm no Dr. Phi.l. What an ass I would be.

Sattva and I were going to meet last weekend to regroup after the appointments with the psychologist, but a stomach bug ravaged family members over in her household. So we left it until this coming weekend. Mr. August are trying to set up the appointment with a lawyer for the next few weeks. And otherwise, we are freaking out about money. That's the IF treatment update.

I apologize for not commenting as much these days. I feel a bit like I'm in a daze. I am still reading your blogs, but I can't always find something to say. Please know that I am thinking of you, hoping for you, delighting with you.

The appointment diptych

2011-01-06T21:20:00.001-05:00

Today was the second appointment in the series of two this week, hence the title of this post. Mr. August and I met with the program psychologist on Tuesday. Today, Sattva and her husband met with him.

Our appointment was hard to get to for me. There was craziness at work, and I just had to put my foot down and leave. I had already told people I wasn't available on Tuesday afternoon. But of course, I felt pretty anxious about it. I haven't given up trying to be all things to all people yet, she says ironically.

Anyway, we got there and it took a while, but the psychologist finally came to get us. While he walked us to his office, he stopped and said he had to ask if it was ok to have his resident join us. ahem...no. Not ok. I am friendly with the psychology resident at work, and these folks are a small and tight group. Also, she will likely come to my work site for didactic lectures and I will inevitably run into her. No. I said it and even if I felt bad to deprive her of her learning experience (because remember, I was a psychology resident in that system 2 years ago), I stood my ground. This is my private life.

The meeting went for over 2 hours and I was completely knackered at the end of it. Ok, I hadn't slept well the night before and work was crazy for the hours that I was there, but the appointment was also demanding. It reminded me to think about how exhausting it is for my patients. It started with a recap of the IUI failures and what followed: the depression and the problems it caused in our relationship. He wanted to know if we had been told what the final diagnosis was. No, we hadn't been told. We know that my ovaries didn't and won't produce eggs. But he called it Primary Ovarian Failure. The words fell a bit heavy in the room. It bugged me that he asked whether I was getting symptoms of menopause. Later, Mr. August noted that there really isn't anybody in that clinic that understands my condition except our RE. My ovaries didn't stop working: they never did work. How can I go through menopause without ever having gone through puberty?

The rest of the appointment was spent talking about all the implications of egg donation. And let me tell you friends, there are many, especially with a known donor. Questions of what kind of relationship do we want with Sattva, her husband and kids after a baby is born. What role do we want her to have in the child's life. What if we both die: do we want her and her husband to be the legal guardian. When do we want to introduce to the child the concept that he or she was created through egg donation, and that aunty Sattva was the one with a basket full of eggs who shared with mommy and daddy?

We also talked about the reaction of our friends and family. "So, Augusta, how did your dad, your mom and your stepdad react to the news that you were planning on starting a family through egg donation?" Hum....I guess I would need to tell them to find out. It became clear to me that I had really only told safe people and had not yet challenged myself to tell people who probably should know, but whose reactions I could not really predict. I think that until it was more real and imminent, I didn't want to risk it. I guess now it's real. Or maybe when we sign the consent to treatments. Or maybe when Sattva starts her meds. Or maybe when she goes for the egg retrieval. Or maybe when we know that some embryos have fertilized. I could also wait until I'm 12 weeks pregnant. When is it going to be real, I wonder?

Today was the appointment for Sattva and her husband. Because they have children, it usually is just Sattva who comes for appointments and her DH stays with the kids. But they brought the little one today; a two year old beauty that I will call Ginger. I was called on to be the babysitter. I got the waiting room and said a warm hello to the receptionist who I really like. I asked if Sattva was here and she looked at me in consternation: "I can't tell you either way". Right, right, the whole confidentiality thing. Ok, gotcha. It turns out poor Sattva had gone to the wrong hospital and was quite late in getting there. I kicked myself for not having sent her a map and clarified which hospital it was. She had been there twice with us, but was never the one driving.

So there was this beautiful Ginger among the infertiles in the infertility clinic waiting room. I would like to publicly apologize for that sin on this blog. That was sacrilegious of us to bring her there and believe me, once mommy and daddy went to their appointment, I whisked her away to the cafeteria, out of the sight of these poor souls. I am really sorry.

My time with Ginger was pretty fantastic. I got her some chocolate pudding with whipped cream (half of it remained on her face until she finally let me wash it off). I brought pink paper and Dora stickers and she loved to create a little collage. By the end of it, she didn't want to leave the hospital. When I was at the machines for parking payment, little Ginger looked at me and said "uppy", meaning that she wanted me to pick her up. Parents were pretty surprised by that, as she usually prefers to be picked up only by mom and dad.

They said their appointment went well. I couldn't get a full read on Sattva's husband, but I don't know him well. Sattva said it went well, although she regretted having said yes to having the resident. Small world we work in, and she is probably right to think their paths may cross again. We decided to meet on the weekend, Sattva and I, so we could regroup and talk about the the appointments. I am really looking forward to spending time with her. I used to see her a few times per week when I was at school finishing my dis, but now not so much.

Next step, aside from some chats with Sattva, is to call a lawyer and arrange for consultations. Our big orientation appointment is on February 2. I believe that this is the day that treatments will start. Maybe it will be a bit more real then.

Christmas recap.

2011-01-03T18:52:00.000-05:00

Gee, I'm really glad this is not a vlog post. If it was, you would see me drooling from the left side of my mouth. I just came back from the dentist. Joy to the world! Not unlike everybody, I hate going to the dentist. So while I wait for the novocain to wear off, I thought I'd make an appearance in the blogosphere from which I have been absent for no good reason.

The holidays were what they were. No highs. No big lows. I worked for the majority of the time, with the 27 and 28 off, and Jan. 3 (today). I'm not used to working during the Holidays. At least not the whole time. This was different. We also did not go visit my family in Montréal. My expectations for the holidays were low and my expectations were met. I had this feeling of remoteness throughout, which is maybe why I couldn't really post anything. Posting is so intimate, and it felt too strange a thing to attempt with feelings of remoteness.

We spent Christmas eve and day with Mr. August's parents, and his brother and SIL from the left coast. This made Mr. August very happy, and that is what I focused on. I sat myself down and had a bit of a talking to myself. It's not always about you, Augs. Sometimes, it's other people's turn to have what they want. Of course, my idea of a great Christmas would be just the two of us (and a baby) making our own traditions. It would then be followed by time with friends for the rest of the Holidays, with exceedingly short visits with family members. I find it uncomfortable to be with Mr. August's parents and they seem to feel the same way. My present from them was a bar of soap. What's the message there, people? I don't even want to speculate. I should say that the time I spent there however, went pretty well. I enjoyed spending a bit more time with the SIL, who I don't know very well because a 6 hour plane ride separates us and also because of a cultural and language gap that doesn't always make communicating easy. SIL is Japanese and I don't always understand when she speaks English, to my great dismay (I'm a shrink, folks. I have this innate need to understand people). I feel a kinship with her, yet I haven't really been able to get close to her at all. But over the Holidays, I feel like we made some inroads. There was word in the family that she "cannot have children", but I have not worked up the courage to ask her about it yet (because if I can't always understand when she says common words like skating or sliding, I'm not sure how I'll do with fallopian tube).

There were two really nice parts to the Holidays, though. The first one is when I set some good boundaries and decided to head home on the morning of Boxing day. Mr. August and I had already talked about this and he had communicated this to his parents, so my departure was seamless. I got to spend a glorious 48 hours at my house with chicken. I watched some Gr.ey's Anato.my, season 4 that Mr. August got me as a present. Glorious and trashy! Watched 6 episodes in 2 evenings. The other nice part of the Holidays was New Year's eve. We ended up having a super lovely evening at one of my friend's. She made cheese fondue and chocolate fondue for desert. What do you mean I can't have dairy or wheat? I'll put that down as my New Year's resolution. It was delicious. I drank too much and fell asleep on the couch, but they woke me up as we neared midnight. We then hosted a New Year's day potluck at our house and it was well attended.

There were also a few great gifts. The best gift this year came in June and you know that it was Sattva's offer. I focused on that a great deal this Christmas as I let it sink into my heart more and more. This woman wants to put herself through uncomfortable and potentially painful medical procedures so that we can have a child. For no money. It astound me everyday. My mom, for all that I complain about her on this blog, sent me a whole pile of dineros. She wants me to treat myself to something nice. How about IVF with egg donation? I didn't tell her what I would do with the money, but thanked her over the phone and thanked her a thousand times in my heart. Her and my stepdad's contribution actually make a sizable dent in the total cost of the procedure.

And here is what Santa Pumpkin sent me:

Hoot! A little pumpkin coloured owl!!! I love it! Thank you, my dear Pumpkin.

I could write more about New Year's intentions and all that jazz, but I should really consider reducing the size of my posts, so I'll let that be part of my next one.

Tomorrow is our appointment with the program Psychologist. I'll update you either tomorrow evening or Wednesday evening.

My wishes are modest

2010-12-24T18:26:00.000-05:00

I'm feeling terribly no-nonsense at the moment and this will be reflected in my Christmas wishes to you. I know that for some of you, this Christmas is really going to be awesome. And for some, it's going to be so-so or perhaps miserable.

The forecast on mine is so-so with a chance of crappy. Maybe the pinot noir in the car can help it a bit.

But wherever you are and whatever state of mind you are, here is what I wish for you. May you have moments of being in the present moment and fully inhabiting your life exactly as it is right now. May you be able to taste the joy of being alive, whether that's done in sipping a good wine, receiving a warm hug, laughing with someone you love, or trapping snowflakes on your eyelashes.

My second wish is obvious: May the stork visit all of us who have been waiting on her for far too long. And may those of you who have a date with the stork already scheduled, may she bring you a healthy and content little one.

Merry Christmas, dear women. Joy and peace to you.

ramblings

2010-12-19T14:38:00.002-05:00

I'm back. I wasn't far, just not in posting distance. Well, I did post some comments, but that's about all I could manage. I am still trying to catch up with comments. Please forgive your slow little owl.

This new schedule is a bit grueling. The Monday morning drives have so far been 2 for 2 brutal ones, where the 90 minute drive gets stretched to 2-2.5 hours. I'm hoping for the best for tomorrow, but who knows. Snow squalls have been relentless. Here's my typical morning routine. 6:15: wake up, drink water, rub eyes. 6:17: think about morning yoga practice. 6:20, walk to the front window of the guest house where I'm staying and assess the situation. 6:21: Holy moly! There's a ton of snow in the driveway! Screw yoga, I have to shovel this snow. 7:35: Back inside the house, sweaty and with mildly achy back. Yoga would be nice now, but I have to get to work!

The new job is going well. I like the people I work with and the team-based approach is something I really enjoy. It must be said that I had moments of feeling completely overwhelmed this week. The responsibilities I have on our team are not slim and my self-doubts were reminding me far too often that I wouldn't measure up. But my self-doubts haven't cornered the market on truth, so they can voice their opinions, but I don't have to buy what they're selling.

And Christmas. What? Is that really happening this year? I've been dreading it and now it's upon us and I haven't done a thing about it. I don't even have a present for Mr. August.

We got "the package" from the fertility clinic this week, making the egg donation all the more imminent and real. The price tag was a bit hard to see, even if I know how much it is and even if I know that it is far less than treatment in the US. It's just that I haven't worked for money since June and my husband is an organic farmer. You do the math. We can access more money, but it will require asking parents. I was hoping to avoid that situation with my new job, but it looks like they want the ivf paid in full by Feb. 2, which may not give me enough time to amass the sum of money needed and pay for my (hopefully last effing) tuition in January, rent at two places, and manage my current debt. Like many people, money worries make me a bit coockoo, but I don't need to go on about it here. Many of you are in the same boat, I suspect, because no matter where you live, fertility treatments ain't cheap and life doesn't stop because you're infertile and need to pay for treatments.

My quest to welcome visions of a pregnancy (my pregnancy) continues. I went out for brunch with a friend this morning and when she was asking about next year at this time, I said "well, I could be on mat leave". It's not something I would say to someone who doesn't know about our journey, but it was safe with her. I think about December 2011 and allow that this may be the month when we welcome our baby. I'm not entirely comfortable with it, but I'm going with the 'if you can't make it, fake it' principle on this one.

I've decided to let myself hope. If the egg donation fails, it will hurt like hell. But no amount of holding off on hope right now can prevent that pain. It will hurt either way: whether I hope for it now or stop myself from hoping. Yet it's hard to imagine it working if I don't allow for it in my mind and in my body.

Funny how hope for a pregnancy and baby through egg donation has not taken away the pain of infertility. Not really any of the pain at all. What part of me thought it would, I wonder. I've had two most beloved friends call in the last 2 weeks to announce their pregnancy. I wish it weren't so painful, but it is. They were both stellar, amazing, sensitive and immensely compassionate in how they conveyed the news. Both of them cried because it hurt their feelings to hurt mine. It also broke my heart that their great news couldn't be shared in a more ebullient way. IF gets in the way of so much, and I just resent it for interfering.

It feels hard to reconcile these different stances and the conflict inside feels hard to manage. Hope, pain, hope, pain. Sometimes, in kind of a superstitious way, I start to fear that letting the pain have some space could negate my investment in hope.

Enough ramblings. I hope you have a great week before Christmas.

IF in the media

2010-12-10T08:01:00.000-05:00

Remember when I got interviewed for an article and posted my answers here? Well, the article came out yesterday. Here is the link to it below. I'm not sure what I think about it, yet, but I wanted to share anyway.

http://www.voxmagazine.com/stories/2010/12/09/risk-egg-donation/

A Synthesizing Blockage

2010-12-08T22:19:00.002-05:00

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/97

You may not have time for a TED talk right at the moment, but this one is worth it. So when you get home tonight, come back to this post and click on the link above. Sit down, maybe with a cup of deliciously bitter Chinese herb/mushroom tea (ok, I'm speaking for myself here), kick back and take it all in. It's glorious. Dan Gilbert pushes the limits of what we thought about happiness by explaining how we manufacture happiness in our brain cells, even when we think there is no happiness to be found. I viewed this talk 4 years ago and have come back to it many times since, because I find it so compelling.

The Cole's Notes: Dan Gilbert, a flamboyant Harvard social psychologist, describes how we're each built with a psychological immune system. What does that mean? He argues what the Buddhists have known for millennia, that the external conditions of our lives are not what creates happiness in humans. Well, not long term happiness anyway. He says we overestimate the importance of external events in their ability to make us happy, when in fact they don't matter that much. We can create happiness out of shitty circumstances no problem, Gilbert says. Watch the talk to see how he demonstrates this through a series of interesting experiments. He also peppers his talk with astounding anecdotal accounts.

The Kicker: In one of the experiments he discusses towards the end of his talk, Gilbert describes how two groups of students were compared on their ability to synthesize happiness. In both groups, students took a photography course. After taking a number of pictures on campus, they were taught how to develop the pictures and were allowed to develop 2 large size pictures. Both groups of students were told that they would be allowed to pick one and relinquish the other as proof of participation. Students in one group (reversible group) were told that if they changed their minds over the next 4 days and wanted to switch pictures, that would be totally cool. Students in the other group (non-reversible group) were told that their decision was final. When contacted 3 days and 6 days later, those in the non-reversible group, those whose decision was final, liked their pictures a lot. Those who were still deliberating about exchanging their pictures (reversible group), really weren't happy with their picture. Gilbert concludes that those in the reversible group were not able to properly synthesize happiness because they were left ruminating about changing their picture.

The IF-Link: I've been reading IF blogs for a while now and I'm always trying to draw patterns in the data I find there. Mea culpa: I can't help it, really. It's not that I see your blogs as data. It's more that I think about your blogs and your lives as those of individuals 80% of the time, and I think about broad trends in the data about 20% of the time. That's just my over-intellectualized defense, trying to make sense out of a world of chaos. Anyway, you can hate me now, but let me make my point. I was reading Jess' blog post today about how something in her just snapped and she no longer wants to be stuck on feeling miserable because she doesn't have a baby. It got me thinking about how much we put on this external event and how much we expect it to bring us happiness. Don't get me wrong: I'm 100% certain that having children will make us all happy. The part that I'm thinking about right now is the unhappiness in the meantime, as Jess so aptly describes.

I feel like the "unhappiness in the meantime" has largely to blame the sense of reversibility many experience in the way treatments are structured. The choice is always all on patients; there are always more complex (and expensive) treatments to solve the problem of infertility; it is rarely final unless: a) the woman achieves pregnancy or b) the couple gets off the ART ride. I mean, is there anyone reading this who have been told by their RE that there was nothing more they could do for you? I'm not bitching about having options here, I'm just making a point that all this choice of further treatments is actually, in Dan Gilbert's words, stopping us from synthesizing happiness. If treatments had finality somehow, we would be able to move on. Psychologically, this would be at our advantage. Yet, since many have gotten pregnant only after several grueling years of fertility treatments and quitting sooner would have obviated that success, it would also represent a disadvantage.

I am not suggesting that we quit trying and I am not putting down any of us for our persistence. I just want to highlight what I think makes women and couples miserable in this process (aside from the obvious lack of infant in their arms). If Infertility was like amputation, we would move on with the business of living our lives without our right arm. But IF is the land of question marks, of reversibility, of maybe one more time or with a different RE. It never lets the dust inside us settle, but instead keeps us actively focused on external outcomes for a chance at happiness.

May we all take utter delight in a small joy today and remember that it's in us to feel, this happiness I speak of. May we all get our babies home, and may we remember to find joy in the meantime.

Flurries

2010-12-07T21:56:00.000-05:00

I made it to work by a decent time on my first day. I even got there before my manager. Turns out that a gigantic snow storm was just getting going in FTT and like a dart, I landed smack dab in the bulls' eye. It started snowing on Sunday morning at some point and ended around 5pm today (Tuesday). The latest estimates puts the snowfall at about 1 meter (3.3 feet), and another 20 centimeters (8 inches) is forecasted to fall overnight.

My little Neko has done very well at plowing through the glorious mounds. I have been zooming around town without much difficulty, which is more than I can say for many who drive on their all season tires. Yes: I am a winter tire snob.

All this snow is making me nostalgic. I've been reminiscing of my childhood in Québec in which snow featured centrally. My native province is known for its cold weather and abundant snowfall, which typically begin shortly after Halloween and ends mid- to late April (with a few May snow storms on record). There is no point in hating snow if you live in Québec. It's like saying you don't like sand in the Kalahari. You're really in the wrong place.

I took a walk this evening and noticed many snows delights. Snow makes a city much quieter than usual. It absorbs sounds and creates this cottony silence. I can't tell you how much peace my heart derives out of that silence. I saw Christmas lights in trees covered in snow. I saw two kids giggling themselves silly as they slid down the 6 feet high snow mound in the driveway. And then 2 more kids ducking inside their snow fort at the approach of an enemy presence (i.e. me). I felt the biting wind on my cheeks and thought about my long down coat I left in Pleasantville. I walked on the street because sidewalks had not been cleared and would have needed to wade up to mid-thigh. I love the snow so much.

Whereas day 1 at work was very full, day 2 was cut short by this snowmania. Employees got sent home at noon. I wondered briefly if I would accrue brownie points by staying past noon, but it appeared that all lights were turned off and all offices were locked shut. I briefly contemplated staying and getting some important reading done for my new job, but then thought about the important revisions I had to do for my dissertation. I high tailed it out of there. I thought working at Star.bucks would be fun, maybe I could even get a decaf soy latte to crank up the juices, but I banged my nose on the locked door. The whole city was shutting down fast. City buses have now stopped running and will only re-start on Thursday morning.

I say this is a good start for the little owl. A gradual entry into my work duties because of snow was not what I expected, but I accept it happily. Thanks for your encouragements for my Sunday night post. I was a tad anxious and it felt reassuring to read your comments.

Quaking Owl

2010-12-05T15:21:00.000-05:00

That's me, loosing a few feathers as I write this.

I'm gathering myself together and trying to pack for tomorrow morning's drive out to FTT (fertility treatment town). I start my new job there in the morning. Huge amounts of snow have been falling on that city, with much more to come today, this evening and overnight. I'm feeling nervous about the drive, on top of feeling nervous about everything else. Such big shoes to fill in this new position (and such tiny little owl feet to fill them). Argh! It is so uncomfortable when doubt grips you by the ovaries. You'd think with my non-functioning ovaries, I wouldn't feel it, but that's a misconception.

I'm trying to borrow some confidence from my friends who can see me more clearly. They know I can do it and they are very smart people. So, my job is just to trust what others see in me, and stop asking myself to see it at this moment. I may be able to do that later, but apparently not today.

A trip to the gym, packing, book club, more packing, an hour with Mr. August, and then bedtime. Up at 5:30 tomorrow and saying a little prayer for my drive, hoping I make it in one piece.

In other news, I met with my advisor this morning who gave me some revisions to look after. About 1-2 days' worth or work. And then it's off to the committee. We calculated a mid-March defense. This is exactly when I'm anticipating the ET to happen. I'm already imagining my call to me advisor: "Um...March 14 isn't probably going to work, because that's possibly when 2 embryos will be inserted into my ute in hopes that they become babies. Can we do it on the 17th?"

A little sweetness

2010-12-02T10:55:00.000-05:00

I was so excited to read that the lovely Ashley over at Calmly Chaotic picked me for a Cherry on Top award. It made me blush! Thank you very much for this award, Ashley. I invite you all to go visit her gorgeous blog for three important reasons: 1) She is passionate about design and posts the most beautiful finds she hunts down in between injections, 2) She is Canadian like me and admit it, you love Canadians, and 3) She is in the midst of her first IVF cycle and had her egg retrieval yesterday. She would gladly receive your comments and encouragements.

And now, I would like to pass this award on to these 5 beautiful bloggers (even if I have the great pleasure of reading more than 5 beautiful blogs)

Egghunt at Still Searching for our Golden Egg
Rebecca at The Road Less Traveled
Lady Pumpkin at Planting a Pumpkin Patch
Roccie at Roccie Road
Misfit at Misfit Mrs

(gosh, that was hard to pick just 5. I wanted to pick at least 20. Ok, I know, play by the rules.). Here are the rules: Link back to the person who awarded you, and then pick five blogs to pass on the award too. Make sure to comment on the awarded blogs so they know they've been picked.

In non-cupcake award-related matters, I wanted to let you know that the cell phone purchase is going down tonight. Yikes! Roccie totally shone a spotlight on my cold sweats. I am a bit nervous, indeed. I'll have to learn how to text! Lions and tigers and bears, oh my! I am such a freak. My 72-year-old father has a cellphone, and I'm ill at ease at the thought of getting one. What can I tell you?

In other news, Sattva just passed her board exams yesterday. It's a huge, big deal. I am so, SO thrilled for her! I thought you would be happy for her too, since I know many of you have a fondness for our beloved Sattva.

As for me, I must sign off and go worry about my tables, figures and appendices, if I ever want to get to the board exams stage.

In transition

2010-11-30T08:22:00.001-05:00

I've been pulled in a few different directions lately, my friends, and I apologize for not being as present here with you. I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving Holiday. I've been thinking of you and catching up with your blogs here and there. I plan to sit down for a bigger catch up session this week.

This is my last full week in Pleasantville before my job starts next Monday. I'll be working in Fertility Treatment Town (FTT), which is about 90 minutes away. This means that I have to stay in that city during the week and come home to Mr. August and chicken (my kitty) only on weekends. Sigh. That's a bit hard for us. We did it for a full year while I was on my clinical internship and it was manageable. But it feels hard to gather momentum to leave this time. I like our little life here. But the thing is that psychologist jobs are really excellent in FTT, much better than in this area. This is how I agreed to take this contract for a year. It will give me great experience and build up my c.v. to get a good job closer to Pleasantville next year.

The other great thing about this job is that it's a mat leave coverage. Yes, in Canada, a mat leave lasts for a year. The psychologist I'm replacing is off on her second mat leave. During her first mat leave (when I was a resident there), another female psychologist covered her mat leave. And this psychologist got pregnant during the time she covered the mat leave. Call me superstitious, but methinks that's a fertile position to be in.

So this week is a bit of a mad dash to the finish line. Still trying to do the last bits on my dissertation (the reference list took me 4 days to finalize. Darn 6th edition of the APA publication manual and its requirement for digital object identifiers), finish some TA duties, get a hair cut (comes with the real job), etc. Oh, and you should sit down for this next one and put on a helmet. It might blow your mind. You sitting? Ok. I am going to. get. a. cellphone. YES! It's true. I've been resisting the 21st century for over 10 years now, but it's time to be a modern woman. I thought I'd go full hog and get an i.pho.ne, but upon questioning myself more, I realized I just wanted to have what the cool kids have. I'll just get a plane jane cellphone and that will meet my needs just fine. A cell phone will be useful in case of an emergency in my drives between here and there. Also, with the upcoming DE cycle, I realized I wanted to be available to take calls.

Speaking of the DE cycle...We have appointments booked! Mr. August and I are going to meet with the psychologist on Jan. 4 and Sattva and her husband will meet with him two days later on the 6th. Our big orientation half day will be on Feb. 2, which is to say that that's when the cycle will start. I was excited to book those dates.

I'm trying to let my mind go to the place where I visualize myself pregnant, where I think of this working out. It's hard to do after having quashed all those thoughts for the last year. I think all my life I imagined I would be pregnant someday and have babies. Once the treatments failed last year though, I would stop those kinds of daydreams anytime they appeared. I just told myself that it wasn't going to happen, that I had to start envisioning my life differently. It's now reflexive to do that. However, in the last week or so, I'm trying to just allow my mind to imagine pregnancy again. I know that I need to allow it in my mind. I need to see it. I need to know that it is coming. I need to my mind and my body to work as a team, both of them ready to welcome an embryo and grow it into a baby.

And of course, being so focused on acceptance, I also want to allow my grief. I have felt a good dose of it lately. I have been so incredibly saddened by the hardships that some of you have faced in the recent weeks. I'm speaking specifically of Roccie, R, and Jess. As it does for all of us, your grief has resonance with my grief. And so, I've been spending time in that sad, dark place with you, dear women. I feel so sad that things didn't work out for you, and I feel so much grief for myself and for our collective that IF exists and breaks our hearts again and again.

Nurturing the hope and honouring the grief.
Not an easy balancing act.
I'll keep working on it.

Happy Bloggiversary & Welcome ICLW

2010-11-20T21:58:00.001-05:00

If you're stopping by for ICLW, I wish you a warm welcome. Thanks for stopping by. I'm a bit of a wordy person (which I attribute to my French upbringing), so I'll give you a brief synopsis of my dealio. I'm a 36-year-old Canadian woman with hypothalamic amenorrhea. My husband (Mr. August) and I went through fertility treatments that failed miserably in October 2009. Since then, our beloved friend Sattva has offered to donate her eggs to help us have kids. Earlier this week, we were given the green light to go ahead with the egg donation. We are looking at January or February. If you want to read more about our story, you can check out this post.

It has been one year today since I started blogging. I'm still here! I wasn't sure I would keep it up, especially around April and May. I had not found many friends in blogland at that point and felt I was only writing to myself. That was ok. I like writing, and because it is public, writing on my blog encouraged me to organize my thoughts a little bit more than in my journal. It was a powerful first step for me to start writing publicly. I am fairly private person and I certainly hold back from talking about my sorrows, although that's largely cultural, isn't it. I didn't think anyone was reading the blog, but it felt helpful to just write. The pain of realizing I would not have children with my own eggs was engulfing me. I had trouble eating and getting through each day. I did a lot of pretending in public, but inside I felt entirely hollowed out. At some point I thought about my friend Poulet Secret who suggested to me a few years ago that I try blogging. She knows me well and thought that it would be my cup of tea. She was right. This goes on the very long list of my debt to her, this beautiful friend.

The solo season of my blog slowly turned into an interactive experience in early summer. This was great timing indeed. I was about to quit my pain in the arse job and throw myself entirely into my dissertation: a lonely endeavor indeed. And all of sudden, there you all were! I can't remember how it happened but to me, it came as a revelation. Infertility had been a most isolating journey up to then. I thank all my lucky stars that I have amazing IRL friends who, although they (thank the Lord) are not infertile, have vast capacities to sit with sorrow. They sat with me and mine beautifully. Discovering all of you out there was an added grace.

Nobody's story is exactly the same, although each is marked by so much disappointment and agony and hope. I found a mirror in each of your stories and felt inspired by your tremendous strength. I was amazed at how much most of you had endured and were still fighting for your hearts' deepest desire. After lurking for some time, I decided to risk leaving comments. And low and behold, you started leaving me some comments. I was astounded. It was nice to care about something again after being numb with pain for so long.

Where will this blog take me and where will I take it? I don't answer questions about the future, expect maybe that I'm pretty sure I'll keep flossing (that one's for you, Roccie). I know that it depends on what happens with having children. A blog about infertility is no longer useful when infertility is no longer a central aspect of one's life. I fear that a little. Not the resolution or surmounting/bypassing of infertility through whatever means, but the question of what happens to our friendships. These connections have become so important for this solitary little owl.

I wish for our continued friendships. But I would like to say that I'd give that up for the assurance that we will all bring our children home soon.

Thank you for this year, for your friendship, for reading.

Green Light

2010-11-17T12:41:00.000-05:00

It's been a whirlwind since coming back from the trip to Seattle and I haven't caught up on all your news yet, but I have gleaned some of the main headings. I feel really sad for Roccie, for R, for Adele, for Lady Pumpkin and for Foxy. Their recent attempts at conception failed. There is no rhyme or reason as to why those valiant attempts failed. There rarely are good reasons, are there? Just shitty IF. That's all. Women, I hold you in my heart, hope that your next steps to motherhood lead you exactly there.

On the heals of our trip to Seattle was a trek to fertility treatment town for our follow-up appointment with Dr. RE about the egg donation. That was yesterday afternoon. As much as I ruminated about it last week, I did not feel nervous about it yesterday. I was just happy to spend time with Sattva. I like our treks over there because of the time it affords us to hang out. A 3pm appointment meant that the waiting room was empty and our bubbliness went unnoticed by absent somber patients.

The exam rooms are arranged for couples, and like I noted last time, it ill fits a group of three. Mr. August sat on the Dr.'s chair, and I wondered how that would go down when the doc walked into the exam room. Dr. RE showed me he was cooler than I thought by just sitting on the exam bed in a relaxed position. His poor intern however, just stood there by the door.

There seemed to be confusion at first on his part as to why we were there, as if he believed our decision had not been made and we were coming to tell him yeah or nay. It turns out we were expecting the same from him. He came out with it rather quickly that all things are well lined up for the egg donation. From a medical standpoint, Sattva is a good candidate to donate eggs. Her CD3 FSH levels were within normal, she had good antral follicle count and everything else seemed fine. He explained the risks to her and we talked about the time line. It looks like January or February is when this will happen. First, there are a few appointments with the psychologist, as well as an orientation for Sattva and I. Before the appointment ended, Dr. RE said we needed to settle the matter of how many embryos to transfer. This discussion seemed to make the intern laugh, which was nice. The last intern was really stoic, so it was nice to see some humanity. He said he would be willing to transfer three, but he wasn't a big proponent. He preferred 2, unless we were firmly opposed to twins. He thought one was conservative, which was what I thought as well. So should there be 2 viable embryos, 2 will be transferred.

A complex mixture of emotions is what I'm contending with this morning. I am excited and hopeful. This could work. Egg donation works. Not always, but it does. If it does, we will not only have a baby, we will also have created a new family. There will be a cousin for Sattva's children and bond between our families.

I'm also apprehensive. I feel like we have just met the height requirement to go on this gigantic roller coaster ride. Now we must go wait in line to get on and then the click of the safety harness will sound in our ears, and we will be off. Who knows in what condition we will come out of this ride. With any luck, one of us will come out vomiting.

Before the discussion with Dr. RE came to an end, I wanted to be clear on whether it was worth putting Sattva through all this; whether the end justified the means if you will. If he told us he thought the chances were pretty slim, I would for sure want to call this off. I wouldn't want her to go through this for a total shot in the dark. His answer, once again, pleased me. The word 'worth' caught his attention and he replied by putting much emphasis on discussing the worth of the endeavor. He seemed humbled by the phenomena of altruistic egg donation (um, yeah, me too) and felt that it was worth it. He admitted to having gone through with the egg donation protocol with donors much less reproductively fit. He didn't go as far as saying it looked promising, but the three of us felt by the end that he thought this was a good idea. He's been doing this for decades and we feel that we can trust him on this.

So egg donation is a go.

Talk next week

2010-11-10T17:50:00.001-05:00

I'm leaving for Seattle, my lovelies.
Have a great weekend. I think I will.
Looking forward to catching up on all your news next week.

Augusta
xox

The early November update

2010-11-09T11:19:00.002-05:00

In point form:

The yoga workshop on trauma and stress I attended this weekend was really valuable. I learned a ton from it. A trusted teacher of mine was giving this workshop. I learned about important things in my body, not just in my head. I learned that sensations are just sensations, and that I can stay with those sensations as they come and go. This learning felt more accessible to me than what Energy Medicine Woman had to suggest. I have more trust invested in my teacher HL. That seemed to make a difference for me. The weekend provided further confirmation that I don't want to work with EMW at the moment.

I went to dinner at my friends who are new parents. As we say in French, I went walking backwards (j'y suis allée de reculons). I did almost call in uninterested or take Bunny's offer to punch them in the face. But in the end, I forced myself to go, thinking it was only delaying the inevitable. I made up a get out of jail free card that I had in my back pocket in case it got to be more than I could handle. I decided I would feign sudden nausea if I found myself too uncomfortable. I didn't need to use it. Dinner was fine. These friends are really nice, good people and I hadn't seen them apart from in passing since before the baby was born. The baby is totally gorgeous and smiles all the time. It was all fine. Except that because I need to survive these kinds of situations, the kind where you go into the intimate setting of new parents' bliss, I have to shut down parts of myself to survive. Because the dinner was in the midst of this yoga workshop, I noticed the shutting down more acutely. I can get through dinner and make as though everything is peachy, but the only way I've found to do that so far is to leave parts of me at home. I realized later that the evening was very hard on me. I noticed the shutting down especially as I left. The woman in the couple came out on the front porch with me after I had said goodbye to both of them. She very kindly (and nervously) told me that Mr. August had mentioned our infertility and she just wanted to let me know she understood if there were times when I could not be with them and their baby. She said she loves us and holds so dearly the possibility of us becoming parents. It was incredibly kindhearted and genuine. But I had numbed myself out already for the evening, so I wasn't able to let that in in the moment. What a shame that was.

I am submitting the first draft of my dissertation today. Today. My conditioned patterns have taken over completely and I am convinced it's a complete piece of crap. But it's a piece of crap that will be out of my hands as of this afternoon.

To celebrate submitting my thesis, I am going to Seattle! I've never been there, but it's intrigued me for a long time. Mr. August is in Vancouver on business, so he'll take the train down to meet me and we'll spend the weekend walking around and discovering a new city. It dawned on me that Seattle was the perfect city in which to conclude to the kind of year we've just had, one where SO MUCH RAIN has fallen.

I hate flying. I get nausea and fear. See bullet 1 to know what I'm going to focus on while flying.

I'm so thankful for all your comments on the last post. I've continued to feel a bit down lately, but it's been soothing to read and reread your warm comments. Thank you.

Doubting Thomas

2010-11-04T21:31:00.000-04:00

I've just finished reading this great book for book club called 'Too close to the falls' by Catherine Gildiner. It's her memoir of growing up in Lewsiton, NY, a town close to Niagara Falls. She goes to a strict catholic school and because she is so incredibly bright and so incredibly impulsive, she is perpetually in trouble with the nuns. When she questions something that the sister thinks she should take on faith, she gets called a doubting Thomas. Pretty soon, even the towns people are calling her that, because she was seeking proof (little empiricist that she was).

Today, I feel like a doubting Thomas. The November 16 appointment is coming, and I see a red light in the distance, and not a green one. There are so many reasons why the egg donation with Sattva could be nixed by the good doctor. And there are good reasons why it should go ahead. Should I take it faith? I can't seem to make myself today.

I'm feeling very sad right now. And angry. Why would a whole entire system of my body just not work at all. I know that it's much better to have your reproductive system be non-functional than say, your cardiac system. Because, you know, that's game over. But I'll bitch about my hypertension and cholesterol in the next blog I write, maybe in 15 years after my first myocardial infarct.

Of course, if Sattva cannot donate her eggs, there are still some options. The two that I've been thinking of are these ones: We can sign up for this new embryo donation/adoption program that just started in Canada for couples who have extra embryos as a result of IVF. The other option is adoption. The private clinic who facilitates the embryo adoption is the same as the adoption agency I was thinking we would use. I'm pretty firmly committed to open adoption, and this is a bit harder through the public system. I have other reservations about the public system, but no doubt, you will hear about them later.

The reasons I think it will be a red light are (neither confirmed by facts nor rational): 1) Sattva's FSH is too high and her ovarian reserve is diminishing, making the egg donation a bad decision for her and for us. 2) Some other reason will prevent Sattva from being able to donate her eggs. 3) I've already been picked as the one who won't get pregnant. Done deal. I'm just building castles in the clouds. 4) My body won't have the slightest, effing clue what to do with an embryo, given the unlikely eventuality that we get to transfer.

The reasons I think that maybe it will be a green light: 1) Sattva is a healthy 36-year-old with proven fertility. 2) There is something selfless and transcendent in the generosity of her gesture; the Universe will reward this.

To add to my general malaise today, I go a call from some friends I have been actively avoiding. These are the friends who chose us to be the first ones to tell about their pregnancy last fall. That was hell. I hid from them through the pregnancy, was conveniently in Massachusetts for the baby shower, and made myself scarce after the baby was born. But they cornered me. Mr. August went over a few days ago, before he left on a business trip. So they knew he was away and wanted to have me over for dinner tonight. After I said I was focusing on my thesis, he persisted in finding a date when I could come over. My duck was cooked. I have to go over on Saturday and share a meal with them and their smugness (and their baby). I'm in no mood for that at the moment.

Ok, that's plenty of grapes of wrath for now. On a different note, I want to mention that there was a bright spot to my day. Jess at A little blog about the big infertility had a giveaway and guess who won 2nd prize???? That's right, kids! Yours truly. So excited!! THANK YOU JESS! The prize is one of her beautiful prints. I'm tickled.

Thesis update: General discussion is written, but still very rough. But that's a full document I have in front of me. Submitting to my advisor next week for a first read through.

this owl's flight

2010-10-31T22:13:00.001-04:00

I gave Energy Medicine Woman her pink slip on Thursday. I did it nicely, explaining that it simply wasn't the right time for me to open up this pandora's box. It's not like I haven't looked in there before, mind you. I have and I will again. But the timing of doing it now to the extent she was proposing just sucks. I feel like my therapy appointments every two weeks and the work I do with Dr. Ninja is plenty. And gosh, on top of that, I'm attending a 15 hr yoga workshop on trauma and healing next weekend. Can you spell overload? My cortisol levels sure can. I gave the EMW a try and thought about returning, but in the end it didn't feel right. You all reflected that back to me so clearly in your comments. Thank you, women. You are the best.

Her reply to my email was interesting. Here's the first line: "I'm sorry to hear that your last session has left you struggling to concentrate on your thesis and feeling emotional. You do know that that means there is more work to be done :)" Dude! What is up with that? And then at the end she says she'll tell Dr. Ninja about "my decision". Am I 12 years old? Will I go to the principal's office for this? Anyway, I was mildly rattled by those little comments, but I also believe that she is a kind person and wants to help me. So, I've left the door open and may return at some point.

That felt like a good thing to do. I tried, it didn't sit entirely well with me, and I decided not to pursue it further. I used my own wisdom to guide my decision making. Where's the like button I can click?

On Friday, I had an acupuncture appointment followed immediately by an appointment with Dr. Ninja. I wondered what he would say and I thought that if he didn't support me, it would really be tough on me. I saw my therapist on Wednesday, and he was, as always, fantastic. Totally cut through all the crap and said that I knew exactly what was good for me and when. And yes I do know. Thank you. But Dr. Ninja is not someone I know as well and he is the one who referred me to EMW. My subconscious did funny things:

1) the night before, I had this very intense dream. In the dream, I was in my bedroom in my childhood home. The house was on fire. There was a man and a woman with me in the bedroom and we were looking to vacate the premises asap. I suggested running as fast as we could through the smoke and leaving through the front door. We opened the door to the hallway; the smoke was billowing thick and the man said we would die before getting out. We had to leave through the window. My mind was running a thousand miles per hour thinking about how we would get out through the window. I thought of bedsheets, tied together, and lowered to the ground from the second floor. Then they showed me the way out the window, where a steady, stable ladder was ready for use. If you'll excuse a moment of Jungian analysis here, I'd like to point out that going back into the burning house was not the best option in my dream.

2) On the acupuncture table, I had a vivid memory of working at this snooty clothing store when I was 17-18 and the boss was a crazy woman. I think she lived on coke alone, and I don't mean the kind that comes in a can. Anyway, one day, I did something she didn't like and tore a strip off me in front of the entire staff working that day (about 20 people). I hadn't thought about that incident in years, but there it was. I think I had this recollection during acupuncture because I was anticipating Dr. Ninja to scold me about ditching EMW. Of course, I no longer am 17 and I would have very politely told him where to go had he tried to scold me, but I realized I was anxious about it.

Met with Dr. Ninja. The man is so warm, I had to loosen my scarf a little. We talked about the state of affairs in my body, my mind, my heart. He asked about my anxiety. I said it hadn't been awful, except for the day of and the day after seeing EMW, and followed that by telling him it didn't seem like the right time for me to be doing that. Except that he was already ahead of me. He said "your thesis! Very important to you!" Dr. Ninja totally got it. He immediately said that if the timing wasn't right, there would be no healing. He said that I had all the wisdom I needed, and that my decision was the best one for me. He reiterated that the goal was to make me as healthy as possible for the work I'm about to begin in my career and for raising a family. Dr. Ninja thought I was changed already. He said my pulse had changed and with my report that my GI symptoms were almost all gone, he was totally pleased. Not as much as I am, let me tell you. It was a great appointment. The man even convinced me to stay off coffee a little longer.

I continue all the supplements and the bitter tea. I go to acupuncture once a week. And I otherwise keep on taking good care of myself. Next milestones: submitting the first draft of my thesis later this week or Monday the 8th. Appointment with Dr. RE on November 16, where we find out if Sattva can donate her eggs. Start my new job on December 6. Continue to floss, blog, eat peanut butter and do yoga.

Happy Monday, my beauties.
Your Augusta.

Email interview

2010-10-28T09:45:00.000-04:00

Funny things happen when you have a blog. Would you agree? A while back, a representative from a fertility clinic wrote a comment on one of my posts. It did not seem like a computer generated comment, but something in the ball park of a response to what I had written in the post. I thought it was so strange at first and I was even a bit miffed. What the heck is going on? I thought. In reality, this is the public domain and anybody can read what I write and comment (and I can delete those comments if I so chose).

I think that it would be so interesting to do research using the infertility blogs. I think my nose is way too close to the tree to even be able to imagine a day when I could see a forest, but it would be such an interesting data base to work from. Again, because it's in the public domain, this type of archival research would be easily approved by an IRB. Can you tell I'm procrastinating from writing my diss?

A journalist emailed me the other day because she had found my blog and was interested in writing a story about IUI and IVF, and infertility in general. She asked me a few questions by email and I've put my answers below. The questions are in black and the answers in green. If you have anything you would like to add, or you would like to answer these questions, I will direct the journalist to my blog and she can take a look at your answers.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi,
I've replied to your questions below, in a different colour. Hope this helps. Feel free to email for any clarifications or follow questions.

Augusta, (of course, this is not my real name. I use the pseudonym to remain anonymous)

Thanks for your response. I did know that Canada and the United States differed quite a bit, so I will not bother and ask about donors or anything like that, especially since you have mainly dealt with IUI.

Would you mind if I asked you a few questions then? Basically, I want to hear from the actual patient's point of view on what it is like to go through the IUI process, whether it is generally successful or not, and whether (you, the patient) have also considered IVF.

Going through the IUI process was a hopeful one at first. It felt like we were actually doing something that would lead us to having our child. Staff of the clinic we dealt with had come to our town for a presentation of their Infertility Treatment Services. My husband and I had gone to that presentation and knew that this was the clinic where we would seek treatment (we already knew that intervention would be required since I had longstanding issues with my cycles). We had consulted a RE (reproductive endocrinologist) in Toronto a few months prior, and we felt pressured to embark on treatment without carefully evaluating our options.

It took about 5 months to start treatment from the time my GP referred us to the fertility clinic (January 2009). After our initial appointment with the RE (March 2009), we had to go through a bunch of tests (blood tests for both of us, vaginal ultrasounds and an HSG for me). In May 2009, we started our treatments in earnest. We first had a big orientation appointment. We met with our nurse case manager for a few hours. She talked to us about the IUI process, taught the procedure for injections. My husband had to give a semen sample at that appointment as well. I had another ultrasound. Then we met with the team Psychologist for about 90 minutes. We talked about the psychological components of infertility and treatments. We talked about what could make us vulnerable as individuals and as a couple, as well as what made us strong and resilient.

The treatment involved injecting myself daily with gonadotropins (LH & FSH; which sadly, my body doesn't produce) and monitoring. This involved blood work 3-4 times per week and ultrasounds at the clinic. Our first attempt failed, and the cycle got canceled. The meds were not successful in stimulating my ovaries to produce follicles. In summer 2009, the RE tried a priming protocol, where I was a nigh doses of estrogen to build a lining in my uterus and prime my ovaries. I started the injections again in September, but once again, the cycle got canceled because of poor response.

IVF was not an option available to us at that point. The ovaries need to be able to be stimulated to do an IVF cycle and mine weren't. Our only option left was egg donation. This summer (2010) a friend of ours came forward with the offer of becoming an egg donor for us. We have gone ahead with this process and are at the end of doing all the preliminary investigations. We have an appointment in mid-November where we will find out if she can in fact be a donor and determine a time line. Egg donation is an IVF procedure split between two women. What I mean is, Sattva (my donor's pseudonym) will undergo the ovarian stimulation (injections, close monitoring) and then her mature eggs will be retrieved and fertilized with my husband's sperm. Once the eggs have fertilized (3-5 day process), one or two blastocysts will be inserted into my uterus. Fingers crossed, that will lead to a successful pregnancy.

Also, I know that in the U.S., in various states, IVF must be covered by insurance. But in Missouri and most states, it is not always covered or sometimes only covered in half. How does this work generally in Canada--this might be too broad--but does it simply vary according to your insurance plan or is there a nationwide ruling on whether IVF is covered or not? Your IUI treatments were covered by your insurance, yes?

There is no federal coverage for infertility treatments because health care is a provincial mandate for the most part. To date, only 1 province (Quebec -where I'm from originally) has ruled in favour of paying for IUI and up to 3 IVF cycles. I live in Ontario, and those procedures are not covered. At the start of our treatments, my extended benefits package at work covered fertility drugs (which are stupidly expensive), but not all plans would cover those. We never got to the actual IUI, but we would have had to pay for that procedure, which I think was aroung $2, 500.

I am also interested in the psychological/emotional dealings you have to go through when undergoing IUI treatments and considering what you want your next step to be. Even just a few words on what this process has been like for you are appreciated.

I think if you have read any of the blogs, mine included, you can see that the emotional and psychological impact of infertility is immense. Compounded to the heartbreak of infertility are the fertility treatments themselves. Fertility treatments are not for the faint of heart. The process is a grueling one in every way and there are no guarantees. Surviving on hope alone, women suffer from a host of psychological and emotional difficulties related to the stress of the treatments, the worry of never succeeding, and the impact on their physical and social selves.

The roller coaster metaphor is an apt one, and many of us have used it to describe the emotional process of IUI or IVF (and natural) cycles. You start out with hope and worry, but you try to let the hope prevail. You get totally run down by the meds, the many appointments, the stress of missing work, etc. Then the procedure happens and you wait in hope, and very often, it fails and you come crashing down. All of this against a back drop of your friends, relatives, and neighbours getting pregnant, hosting baby showers and giving birth. It is all very, very painful.

Infertility changes a person in so many ways. It has been a significant challenge in my life. I suffered from depression after our treatments failed. When our friend offered her eggs, I couldn't even consider her offer at first, because I was to afraid to even let myself hope again. But we decided it was worth a try and so I decided to take the risk of hoping again, knowing there would be other options if this did not work out (e.g. embryo donation, adoption). I think the following quote sums up how I felt about trying again:
“To grow, to be reborn, one must remain vulnerable--open to love but also hideously open to the possibility of more suffering.” ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Thanks again for your help and time. I wish you the best. Just answer what applies or what you can.

Levity

2010-10-26T14:08:00.000-04:00

After a string of very intense posts, I wanted to interrupt that depressing trend, and bring you a bit of laughter. Mr. August and I have been loving this little didy from our friend Grover, so I wanted to share. I suspect most of you have seen this, but since I'm not a big TV watcher (haven't visited a hotel lately), it was news to me when someone posted it on facebook. I guess there is more than ultrasound pictures on there after all!

Holding my sh#t together

2010-10-24T14:58:00.010-04:00

Hello Friends,

The last week has not been awful, not tragic, not insane, not chaotic. But it has involved revisiting my past. And so the last week has rattled me like a little earthquake. It really was only maybe a 4 on the Richter scale. Minor, but felt across the land of Augusta.

After I came back from my trip to my home province, I visited Energy Medicine Woman on Monday. That was a 3 hour appointment and she lives and practices an hour from where I live. So that involved a big chunk of the day. Keeping an open mind, I just decided to go with it.

For those of you who are new, this post explains about how I ended up consulting Energy Medicine Woman. Briefly, Dr. Ninja, my TCM doc recommended I go see her to work on my blocked energy. He felt that the reason I never went through puberty or had menstrual periods was because of trauma, something that rang true for me.

Energy Medicine Woman was less flaky than I had imagined. She was a pretty straightforward German woman, with kind eyes and a genuine smile. She took a lot of time to try to understand my history. And since she's good but doesn't yet read minds, it was my job to communicate that to her. I had to unpack that ugly past again, with of course lots of tears, and a sense of falling off the earth. We then did some reprogramming of my subconscious (yeah, baby, bring it on) with this thing she does called Psych-K, and followed that up with hypnosis. It was cool. I could dig it. I had to say these phrases à la Stuart Smalley. I could deal with that. During the hypnosis, she made me visualize being pregnant, delivering a baby, and hanging out with our kid at different ages. It was really nice to see those images.

But then the next night, it sort of turned on me. Having to talk about my past sort of stirred up the mucky bottom of the lake. There was lots of stuff on the CBC (Canadian equivalent of NPR) about the trial of a serial killer and rapist this week, and some details got to me. With Mr. August away this week on business, I ended up having a horrendous night on Tuesday. I realized that I was, what we call in my business, re-experiencing the trauma. So, as a kid (starting at 11), I was left alone at night until all hours. I was super scared and could never sleep until my dad came home (the Cakeless Monster (my mother: thanks for that one Bunny) had left by then and was living with a wife-beating narcissist. That happened night after night, and there was just nothing I could do about it. I would call my dad at work and beg him to come home, but he was drinking and had to close the bar after all the customers had left. Since then, empty houses have always been uncomfortable for me. It was useful to go through that on Tuesday, though. I realized on Wednesday that I was actually 11 years old all night and not 36, and that helped me have perspective on things. I had a much better night on Wednesday night, anchoring myself more firmly into the immutable fact that I am now a grown woman and can take care of myself very well, thank you very much.

(Please allow me a parenthesis here for a display of my indignant rage. People like THAT are allowed to have children and I'm not? And many of you have not been able to? I understand cognitively that life is not meant to be fair, but this pushes the limits of my understanding and acceptance.)

So, at some point this week, I looked up and said: "Ok, Universe, I get it. You want me to look at it. You want me to look at that whole mess of a catastrophe that was my childhood and adolescence and make even more sense out of it than I already have. Or release it, or whatnot. I can do that, Universe. I am game. But, crap, can you just let me write the final part of my dissertation first before I become frayed at the edges and perhaps much less functional? Can we make a deal here?"

And then I got an email from Energy Medicine Woman, which contained the following paragraphs:

"May I be as outspoken as Dr. Ninja, Augusta? :) I have been wondering whether you are perhaps rushing into the step of having your friend donate eggs for you? :) It might be the right decision, but I would like you to first understand why your body does not produce eggs at present, what limiting beliefs are possibly behind that fact. I did hear you say that you feel you are under time pressure but I would like you to give yourself enough time to find out why your body is responding that way. The donation might very well be the right way to go, and I will do everything I can to support you to reach your goal for a successful pregnancy and birth, just don't rush into anything. :) As Dr. Ninja is balancing the body physically, let's look at the emotional and mental side of things. That at least will help you to get your body ready for the pregnancy, possibly shift even more.

I think, it's safe to say that the reason for you never having had your period lies in the trauma of abandonment, neglect and emotional abuse that you experienced as a child. It could be that your subconscious decided at age 11 that it is safer not to grow up, and/or that it bought into the message of not being worthy to be alive and to have off spring. When you were 20 you had to override that negative belief and choose consciously that you do want to live. Not producing eggs to reproduce might be a remnant from that limiting and destructive belief that you do not deserve to live. :) "

Yes, that was exactly what I was hoping to hear. Another person thinking that the egg donation should be delayed. I was taken aback, but I didn't let it bother me too much. It's her opinion, and I don't have to follow it. And the egg donation, if it goes through, isn't going to happen next week. Our next appointment is for November 16, at which point a time line will be established only if we have the green light. Sattva's CD3 blood work may have shown that her reserves are running low, and this whole egg donation discussion will be moot.

In the mean time, I've felt a resurgence of empowerment, a clarification of priorities, a fuller appreciation of where I'm at as a whole person (wow, that makes it sound like a revelation. It wasn't exactly that. It was more like a quiet knowing). I'm doing my best with all the medical appointments and Dr. Ninja's prescriptions, but I need to make these practices mine and make them fit with my other priorities. So, at the moment, I need to finish writing the beast. That's a big priority. I've thinned out the acupuncture schedule a bit, I've delayed my next appointment with Energy Medicine Woman, and I am drinking black tea, dammit! I'm not shutting the door on doing the work to revisit my past, but I'm also wanting to be very careful in how I do that. And I want to keep moving forward with my current life.

Signing off, and hoping to get an hour or two of work before going out for a walk with Mr. August, who came home last night. YEAH! Thank you for your wonderful comments. Your encouragements and kind words mean so much.

Bonjour ICLW!

2010-10-21T20:53:00.000-04:00

Welcome to my little corner of the blogosphere. Even if I have been blogging for almost a year now, this is the first time I've participated in ICLW. It took me a while to gather up momentum to do it, but here I am, hangin' with the cool kids.

You can read a bit of my history in this post. Mr. August and I have always known that having kids would be a significant focus in our life together. We tried fertility treatments, but my ovaries could not be woken up from their dormant state. A good friend has offered us her eggs and we are in the preliminary stages of a potential donor egg cycle. We have our next appointment at the fertility clinic on November 16, at which point we will find out a) that we can't proceed with this donor or b) the time line for when the DE cycle can happen. I would prefer option b. (Just so we're crystal clear, Universe).

The cast of characters on this blog is as follows. First of all, there is all of you, wonderful friends and readers. There is moi, Augusta, Canadian girl from La Belle Province (but living in Ontario). You will find that I grumble a lot about my Ph.D. thesis and the only reason is that I am in the very final stages of writing it and it makes me want to vomit. So, sometimes I have to get that off my chest, and then I go back to infertility as a topic of diversion (!). Mr. August is my awesome husband. We just got married in March 2010. Sattva is our wonderful donor. And then there is Oat and Dragonfly, my beloved friends who sometimes make an appearance in my entries or in the comments. Our reproductive endocrinologist is Dr. RE (I know, I win the medal there for originality). I also see a Traditional Chinese Medicine doctor that we like to call Dr. Ninja. And now there is also Energy Medicine Woman, who I just saw on Monday (more on that later).

Welcome to all of you. I'm glad you've stopped by.

..........................................................................................................

I was full of piss and vinegar when I wrote my last post on the train. I could barely stand to be in my own skin. Thank you for reading and commenting despite having to read such sourness. You are true friends, lovelies.

The visit to my home province was what it was. There was no metaphorical chocolate cake, as was expected, but I survived. The party for my grandparent's 60th wedding anniversary went well. They seemed pleased and that was nice to see. I didn't realize my grandmother was pregnant with my mom when they got married, but I put two and two together at the party (married August, 1950; first daughter born February, 1951...hum...let me do some math....). The anniversary party was being held on the date at which, 21 years ago, my grandparents lost their 4th child, a daughter, at the age of 26. She died of breast cancer. We all missed her at that party. I found it strange that my mom would pick that date to have the party, and apparently my grandmother wasn't too thrilled about it at first, but that's my mom. She wanted to have it in a particular spot, and that spot was available on that day only.

There were 2 moments during the party that were significant for me. One sucked and the other didn't. Let's go with sucky first. I was over at another table where some relatives were sitting. I went to high school with 2 of their grand kids, and now one of them has become a mom through DS. They were showing pictures of her and her little girl. Nice, nice, whatever. Can we please change the effing topic. Oh no! Not before they made a point of asking what the hell was I waiting for to get busy and also point out that my mom was tired of waiting to become a grandmother. My mom, who was standing right there, chimed in her support for that statement, admonishing me in public for not having made her a grandmother yet. It would be one thing if she didn't know about our situation, but she has been informed. The cow. I was nonplussed, as you can imagine. But I was not surprised. I just rolled with it and left.

Second moment was sitting at our table. The daughter of my mom's cousin sat with us and she and I really hit it off. She is in a same-sex partnership and was showing me pictures of her little boy. She was pretty forward with telling me how this little boy came to be conceived and the plans she and her partner had for a second child. So, I took a risk and told her we were awaiting the green light for egg donation. We didn't talk about it at length, but that certainly solidified our connection.

I've got more to write about this week. I went to see Energy Medicine Woman on Monday and that was something. But I'll leave it for now. It's crunch time with the diss. I've got 2 or 3 more weeks in me and then it will be written in full. Please have champagne at the ready, because we are going to celebrate. And if you are pregnant, there exists a lovely elderflower effervescent drink I can hook you up with. It's delicious.

Love and Fecundity,
Your Augusta

'Gusta gets the grumps

2010-10-16T11:53:00.000-04:00

As expected, I’m signing on today as the unadulterated, cranky pants Augusta. An 11:30pm bedtime and a 4:40am wake up call does not bring out the best in me. Admittedly, it’s easier to have those kinds of early wake up calls for the purpose of driving to fertility treatment town to get blood drawn or meet up with, as Jess calls it, the “unfortunate intimate friend”. But to have to leave my warm bed, my beloved purring Chicken (cat), and the comfort of my home and my town for a family gathering is a different story. So you are forewarned; this post is a litany and if you aren’t in the mood for that, I suggest you skip it and read my previous few posts.

Complaint #1: We forgot the bag of food I’d prepared for our train ride. There were apples, good granola and protein bars, trail mix, and almonds in there. It is sitting on the floor of the entrance to our house. We are rapidly riding east on the shores of Lake Ontario. Train food = bursting with dairy and wheat. And hungry is always equal to cranky in my books.

Complaint #2: One of the strands of my necklace broke during the many transitions (up, out of the house, drive 45 minutes to train station, take one train, get to big town, transfer to a different train). I went to the washroom on the train and as soon as I lifted my coat to undo my jeans, there was a flurry of beads coming down like Christmas snow.

Gratitude #1: Ok, sorry, I can’t help it. The sunrise over Lake Ontario was magnificent. I had to put it in there.

Complaint #3: On the first train ride, there were these 2 men talking. It was 6:11am. They were carrying on a conversation in a 2:46pm voice. I wanted to throttle them. They sounded like Stephen Harper supporters (our prime minister, who could be likened to Bush. I’ll say no more). I wanted to sleep. They annoyed the dickens out of me.

Gratitude #2: Mr. August is with me and he is sweet when I have the grumps.

Complaint #4: I have to go to this stupid family thing and I’d rather have a root canal. On top of not wanting to go, I feel guilty and awful about not wanting to go and being a grump about it. It’s my grandparents’ 60^th wedding anniversary. My mom has organized this big to-do. There will be 80 people there. The extended family (my grandmother has 11 siblings) makes up most of the guest list. They all know Mr. August and I got married in March and they are now expecting us to have babies. How many comments will I have to put up with in this state of crankiness? And more to the point, will I be able to keep being pleasant despite the comments? To be continued…

Complaint #5: Spending time with my mom leaves me with a great sense of emptiness. I’ve been feeling rather well lately, and I’m not pleased about having this interrupted. My mom is not the easiest woman to deal with and visits home are never restful. Everything is very controlled and orchestrated. We eat at a certain hour, with specific utensils, and a very precise menu. Everything revolves around food and innocuous, insipid conversation. Being with my mom and stepdad is like trying to walk on a straight line when inebriated. It’s a ton of work to try and control all your muscles, and no matter what, you’ll for sure step out of line. The saddest part is that I think they feel the same about spending time with me. We are so different and there is very little to connect us. They are this wealthy, upper class childless couple with an enormous sense of entitlement. They purchase my silence with tons of money, gifts and lavish meals, and in exchange, I don’t make waves. It’s this kind of agreement we have and it makes me feel like a hoe.

Let it be told that I am painting a uniformly dark picture of these people. I should also say that they have good qualities. My mom has been supporting me financially throughout my entire academic career, and that is no small potatoes. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have been able to pursue my education without her help.

Complaint number 5 boils down to this: You can’t get chocolate cake at the hardware store. My mom and her family have no chocolate cake for me. They have nuts and bolts and table saws, but no chocolate cake. While my mom is brilliant in her career, she is not one for warmth and isn’t good at forming relationships. She has no close friends. She was never able to really give me the sort of love a kid needs to grow up and feel worthy. It’s not that she didn’t want to give me chocolate cake, it’s that she didn’t have any to give.

I think that the personal work I’ve done in therapy and on my own in the last 20 years have brought me to a point where I can see all of this and a) put the brakes on internalizing my parents’ catastrophe as something of my doing and b) avoid being consumed by rage at their ineptitude. But visiting them tugs at my chocolate cake cravings.

Gratitude #3: I have this great plan with regards to the weekend and my chocolate cake cravings. I’m going to stay very focused on what the little girl in me really needs, moment to moment, and will put my wiser, stronger self in charge of looking after this little girl. And perhaps we’ll just have to wander off together and find some good vegan chocolate cake.

Q&A

2010-10-14T22:31:00.001-04:00

Dear lovelies,

Thank you for your amazing comments left on my last message and since day 1. Your kindness melts my heart every time. I blush, I cry, I giggle. It's really powerful stuff. Thank you so much. And I will pass on to Oat that she now has a new fan club. She'll be tickled.

A while back in September, Foxy at Someday asked me and others some questions she was curious about. I've been meaning to answer them since she posted them and today seems just as good as any other day to do that. Don't worry, I am reserving a cantankerous post for when I'm riding the train to my home province on Saturday morning, on very little sleep (must get up at 4:45am to catch an early train). You'll get cranky pants Augusta on that day, I promise (thanks for the encouragements in that department).

1. What is your favorite holiday and why?

It's a great question really. My first impulse is to say that I really hate all the holidays. The holidays bring so much stress, largely derived from juggling my crazy family situation and, huhum, Mr. August's interesting family. When I was a kid, I loved Christmas. It always snowed in Québec at Christmas and that made everything magical. My dad and I would watch Frosty the Snowman each year without fail. I didn't speak English as a child but since it was a cartoon, I could get the gist. And each year, I would cry when Frosty melted, and my dad would get a huge kick out of that. These days, I guess I would say I enjoy Thanksgiving because of the harvest and the delicious food it brings. I love the fall colours and walking in the crunchy leaves.

2. How much time do you spend on the phone? on blogger?
I don't spend very much time on the phone regularly. I don't have a cell phone and I would rather see people if I can. I make a significant exception for my faraway friends. I have beloved close friends who all live in the US, and I spend quite a bit of time on the phone with them. These are Oat, Dragonfly and Sweetamo, whom I love them very much.

I spend too much time on blogger, even if I don't write that often. My perfectionism often stops me from writing because I don't want to write something that has no substance or something that I won't have time to edit. I get like that about comments I leave too, and sometimes I get mad at myself for it. "Argh! Augusta, just write a little comment. It doesn't matter if it isn't profound or life altering, for goodness sake!!!" As you can see, I'm a freak. I read lots of blogs on a daily basis. I love reading your blogs and following your narratives. You make me laugh, cry and feel so much less alone.

3. What are your favorite TV shows?
I have lived without a TV for most of my adult life. I used to watch ER in the 1990s and I remember loving the West Wing when I was stuck living at my mother's when I had a broken bone in my foot and nowhere to go. Lately, I've been watching Grey's Anatomy. I rent it at our little local video store downtown. I'm in the middle of season 2, so yeah, way behind. I found that last winter, when I was in the dark whole of despair, Grey's Anatomy was compelling enough to take my mind away from my troubles for a few hours. And it felt good to cry for Meredith instead of Augusta sometimes.

4. How did you meet your lover?
I met Mr. August at a house warming. There is this community house where many of us (including moi and Mr. August ) have lived which is sort of an intentional community house. On the day I met him, there was a house concert at the house and then a house warming in one of the apartments attached to the house. Mr. August and I bonded over hummus. I had seen him before at the Farmer's Market selling vegetables and had noticed his handsomeness in carhart overalls, but I don't think he remembers meeting me before the house warming day. That was January 2004. We met again a few weeks later where the friend who had the house warming invited both of us for dinner. We both told stories of having gone to the arctic for outdoor adventures.

5. What is your favorite color of nail polish?
I rarely wear nail polish, so I couldn't even say what colour I like on my nails.

6. What in your life are you most proud of, personally or professionally?
I think I could say my almost Ph.D., but really, what I am most proud of is that somehow I've become a whole person, instead of vacant shell. I was neglected as a kid and from that, deducted that I didn't really matter to anyone. My parents could say to me that they loved me, by they couldn't act on that very often (but they did at times) and so I learned that I didn't matter. And that assumption almost killed me. I am most proud that I decided to revise my assumptions and live according to a different script. I became an adult and found amazing friends and mentors, and a good, kind husband. I am proud to have survived, and amazed that there was always something that told me to live, to fight for what I wanted, to believe that there would be better days.

7. Did you have a Batchelorette Party? What did you do?
I didn't have a bachelorette party, but the women in my community did have a celebration for me before our wedding. We all sat together and had dinner. They made cheese fondue, which is something I love. We drank a good amount of wine, and laughed. It was simple and fun.

8. Where do you blog from? (I mean, where is your computer, describe the setting.)
I have a little room in the house we rent that is my room, where I have a desk and I do schoolwork and used the computer, but it's also my yoga room. I've put my desk directly in front of the window so that I can see outside when I'm at my desk, and I blog from my mac. My cat Chicken often joins me, often opting to sit on my lap or on the desk, between the computer and I.

That's all for tonight, dear women. I hope you have a great Friday. One of my friend is defending her Ph.D. tomorrow. I will go support her and be inspired. I will visualize myself there because guess what, I WILL BE NEXT, darn it!

Thanksgiving

2010-10-11T21:29:00.000-04:00

Little grateful owl

Today is Thanksgiving in Canada. It's usually a time when Mr. August and I travel to visit with relatives, but I'm ever so thankful that this year we did not. We stayed put in our lovely little town. Mr. August has been harvesting like a mad farmer all weekend , putting in days of 15-16 hours (I picked him up from the farm at 11pm last night). He has to get his soybeans harvested and this weekend was the time to do it. It was sunny, warm and there was no rain in the forecast.

I was thankful to stay put and spend time with dear friends. Family relationships are difficult for me, so I spend very little time with my relatives. I have to go to my home province next weekend for a family event, so you will surely hear more about my apprehension this week right here on this blog. (I don't like it when I get too cranky on here, but I may need to let out some crankiness this week. Just warning you).

Today, I wanted to focus on gratitude. I just spent an hour journaling about all that I am grateful for and filled pages and pages in my journal. It's amazing what happens when we stop and look at what we have. I try to do that on a daily basis, but frankly, I don't always succeed. I find it so easy to fall into the trap of focusing on what I don't have. Sometimes it is necessary and useful to be full of discontent. It helps us move forward and change. And sometimes, looking at what's not wrong is where it's at.

Many of the pages of my journal were filled with gratitude for my friends. So many have been extraordinarily supportive to me this year, as the failure of our infertility treatments sent its aftershocks through my little heart. I feel indebted to them.

I wanted to share with you an email I received on October 1, the one-year anniversary of the failure of our treatments. My friend Oat sent it to me and it moved me so much that I want to share it with you. She gave me her consent to post it on here. I received a an email on that day from Dragonfly and another friend, which were also very touching, but I don't have their permission to publish so I will hold off for now.

Here's Oat's email:

"Hello dear, dear friend Augusta,

Just a quick note to say that I am thinking of you, as always, but especially right now as October begins. It sounds like this was a very big week, with yesterday being an especially big day. How was the anniversary of getting The News? I want you to know that am holding your beautiful heart in mine, surrounding it with love, and believing with faith and sureness that the child you, Mr. August, and Sattva WILL bring into the world will be deeply suffused with August-ness. Anyone who knows and loves you and who is a lucky recipient of YOUR big love carries you with them, Augusta. I know it hurts beyond what I can imagine that the child will not have genetic August-ness, and I do not want to diminish that pain AT ALL, and I hope you know I am not, but it feels especially important to me at this moment to tell you how deeply I believe that your child will be thoroughly and utterly yours and thoroughly and utterly full of all that you are -- down to the deepest levels of being. The love you bring into this world and give to your friends and family is incredibly strong, and it changes those who receive it -- I know, I have felt it for 15 years now and it has changed my life immeasurably. Your child will be basking in that love, just soaking it in, from the moment he or she enters your life (I think the little being already is, in fact), and will be simply saturated with all the wonderful peace, courage, wisdom, joy, security, and inspiration that being loved by Augusta provides. I just want you to know how deeply I believe that."

I think that in contrast to all the people who just don't get what we're going through and speak to us in hurtful and insensitive ways, it feels so good to know there are people like Oat who get it. That's mainly why I wanted to share it with you.

The last gratitude I want to mention before closing is a big one. It goes out to you, amazing women. I feel like I've gained so much strength from reading your stories or hope, despair, and ultimately, of great resilience. Because of our community, I feel like I have been able to put my loss into perspective. I've been able to see that my tragedy is one among many, a drop of BP oil in the Gulf (see previous post). I'm more able to see it for what it is; something heartbreaking, something that changed how I see myself, but also something that would not keep me stuck forever. I'm not alone in this silent, disenfranchised pain anymore. You are all out there living your lives every day of the week; tending to your careers, pets, loved ones; going through innumerable fertility procedures; and just like me, cupping your dreams in your shaking hands each time you show up to an RE's appointment and saying 'here, can you please help us have a baby?' I feel less alone and I feel like life will not stop for me. We all keep going. Some of you are pregnant. One of you has just two days ago welcomed a child home through adoption. And some of us are still struggling to find our children. But we will find them. Somehow. We will.

In the mean time, I count my blessings. You are my blessings and I am running out of fingers.

Happy Thanksgiving (even if I'm about 6 weeks early for my American friends).

warmth, uncaffeinated - Updated***

2010-10-05T18:37:00.002-04:00

I went back to Dr. Ninja's office today. After receiving my protocol of herbs and supplements, I had to go pick them up. When I got Cheerful Nutritionist (CN) on the phone, she asked if I wanted to start acupuncture today and I thought, why the hell not. So, less work on my dissertation, more work on my qi.

The acupuncture was not exactly what I expected. First of all, I really thought I'd be lying on my belly, but I was lying on my back. Also, the needles on the skull, the forehead and the solar plexus were a surprise. They were fine, just unexpected. Sweet Dr. Ying was the one to put in all the needles. Her English was not so good, but I could tell her heart was way better than her English. She asked a bunch of questions about matters I don't tend to discuss with others (e.g. relating to the room in the house with the most plumbing) and also really was interested in looking at my tongue.

Once she put in all the needles, I just got to rest there for 30 minutes. A heat lamp was at my feet, I had needles all over my body, and my thoughts were swirling. I asked myself if I could maybe look into some happy thoughts, seeing as I was having such a zen moment. So I did that for a bit. Some less happy thoughts visited, but I did the clouds in the sky thing and let them blow over. I also had some pretty strange thoughts. I thought of all of you and all the pain that you've gone through with IF and earlier in your lives. My mind created a BP oil spill in the Gulf of my psych with all of our sorrows, horrors, heart brakes. It was dispersing out a little, but then it got contained and capped. Our sorrows were not permitted to contaminate the waters of our lives too much.

I felt so warm afterward and for a long time too. My body tends to run cold, so this was a welcomed change in temperature. I think I was actually flushed for an hour afterward. I felt much calmer than I normally do. Warm and calm. What lovely concepts!

I came home with the herbal supplies. The one I most salivate over is my personal tea. My friend tells me the first time she sipped her personal tea, she spit it out all over her kitchen floor. CN recommended a shooter approach to the personal tea, something I will surely implement. The rest of the stuff is capsules and one powder, so I'm hoping all comestible. Oh, and as much as I didn't want to, I did make the fatal error of asking CN about coffee consumption. Nada, was the answer. That one, is a bit harder than ice cream. But, why the hell not try.

But not tomorrow. I have to go spend the day with the pregnant psychologist who I will be replacing for a year and meet my new colleagues and participate in a team meeting. And ya, be coherent. After that, I have to go discuss housing potential with a pregnant friend. I think Thursday will be a much better day to start my coffee elimination initiative (call it the CEI). Don't you guys think?

*** Personal Tea is in fact repulsive. Ok, it didn't make me gag, but for sure the shooter approach will be best. Some nausea post tea ingestion, but all told, I'm still standing. I'm just freaking out about what the dickens to wear tomorrow. Apparently, the effects of acupuncture only last as long as you don't think you have to impress people at your new job.