I am a guest blogger brought to you by Cross Pollinate 2008. I'm sorry it is such a long post and so terribly stereotypical of me that if you are at all familiar with my blog, you will probably correctly identify me by the second paragraph. Keep reading after, if you wish. When you think you know who I am, please leave your guess in the comment section and then
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jaded:
adjective... wear out, Worn out, wearied, or lacking enthusiasm; exhausted.
Cynically insensitive; made callous by experience.
I never thought I could become so jaded. Sometimes I half jokingly describe myself as someone 'consumed with hate.' I didn't become this way for trivial reasons. I blame it on one part of my life, something most people do easily and often accidentally, having children.
Like many of us who live with infertility, it started out innocently enough. We planned and plotted. We discussed whether we were sufficiently financially stable. We went off birth control pills. I charted my temperature and other
fertility signs for four months. It was clear that I was ovulating regularly. I couldn't wait to "do the deed" during the fertile part of my cycle. The first month we tried, I was buzzing with excitement. I had been waiting a couple of years from "Let's get married and have a baby!" to when my husband felt he was also ready.
The first month didn't work. I wasn't the least bit concerned. Then the second month and the third months went by. I confess by month number four I cried whenever my period came. I started to wonder what was wrong with me. I started to research infertility issues. I talked to my OB who said it was ok to keep trying for another 6 months even though I told him that we had "hit the window" for 6 months running. I was still hopeful and, for the most part, happy.
The conscious part of my mind told me it would be ok. The subconscious part, however, was getting more and more concerned. I wanted to find out why we weren't getting pregnant, but I was afraid of medical intervention. My husband offered to get checked first. We were both shocked to learn we were dealing with severe male factor infertility. I had done enough research to know that science didn't fix male factor issues (in most cases); you had to work around them. We were told IVF with
ICSI was our only choice. Again fearing medical intervention, we opted do try natural cycle
IUI. We had about a one in a million chance that it would work, but it was cheap (only $100 / cycle) and we could do it five times for less than the cost of a work up at the local fertility clinic. What did we have to lose?
It worked. On our second IUI. "WE ARE STUDS!!!" we told each other. We talked about my husband's "small but elite corps" of swimmers. We were going to
finally have a baby! I went around telling people (after passing the three month mark) how happy we were to be pregnant and how it "took a long time." Yes, I was exactly the person I would eventually come to hate. "Took a long time" does
not mean two years. It does
not mean on the second micro-fertility treatment called "natural cycle IUI".
We were pregnant and we would be pregnant for six and a half months before everything went completely and utterly wrong. Our child died. I couldn't, and years later still can't, believe it. My heartbreak started to turn ugly. I hated seeing babies and pregnant people. Before the neonatal death, it never occurred to me that I may someday feel such grief because of other people's success. Yet here I was, emotionally injured every time I crossed paths with the more fertile segment of the population. Suddenly, pregnant people and newborn babies were everywhere. Sometimes I would look away and pretend I couldn't see. Sometimes I would stare in wonder at a newborn and wonder how it was possible to get one of those.
We had gone back to doing IUI's. It worked the first time so easily. Surely it would work again. Months went by without success. I became depressed and anxious. I started to ask people with children what they knew that I didn't. Surely, they must know something. Was there a secret handbook being passed around? A totem that I didn't possess? Did they eat better? Were they more relaxed? Perhaps, like a holistic physical therapist told me, my husband I just didn't love me enough. I learned to hate people who used terms like 'finally' or it 'took a long time' when referring to their pregnancy, but inevitably they had their healthy in less time than it took us to have a dead one.
I know it isn't fair. That the person I was (and the people like me) don't deserve my hate, but these were the walls I built to protect myself. I avoided kids' parties and holiday gatherings. I learned that anger - at an unjust world, at an undeserving mom, at a stranger on the street - was sometimes preferable to the deep sadness I felt. At least anger motivated. At least anger kept me going and got me off of the couch. I could cry for hours, but anger could burn itself out in a much shorter time.
My only other coping mechanism was to learn how to control this monster. We live in a culture that tells us we can have anything we want; we can achieve any goal if we are willing to work hard enough. I did mountains of research. My husband was taking 13 pills twice a day. I gave up caffeine and tried to exercise the "right" amount. We added acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine diet recommendations.
We went to an
RE. I was ready to embrace the very thing that scared me too much in the beginning - IVF with ICSI. Of course it would work for us. After all, we got pregnant against great odds with IUI. The 'big guns' would surely work.
Our first IVF cycle ended with a
blighted ovum. My RE told us that "the good thing is that people who have
something happen, usually have a baby eventually". I was more relieved than sad. At least this wasn't going to take 6 months to end. A bump in the road. Our next cycle would be successful.
I redoubled my efforts and added yoga for infertility and meditation. Other people did it. We could too! We had more and better looking embryos. We had a heartbeat! We miscarried.
By the third IVF cycle, we decided to shake things up a bit. We transferred all our embryos on day 3 instead of day 5. I was reading books like The Secret. The ladies at church prayed over me and lit a candle each night for us. I was soliciting good thoughts, positive vibes and prayers. I was feeling more and more confident that we could make this work. In fact, I felt so good about this cycle - I was so sure it would work - that I took a nap between the blood draw for the pregnancy test and getting the results. It was negative.
It was a year and two more life-consuming IVF cycles before we got our miracle baby. I have learned that life is chaos. There is nothing that 'happens for a reason', it just happens. Despite all my best efforts - from changing the way I acted to the way I thought - I wasn't able to influence the outcome. In the end, it was medical science and nothing more than made the difference and brought us our baby.
I am angry and bitter and jaded. I am healing now, bit by bit. But there are times when I wonder if I am permanently damaged. For my daughter's sake I hope not. I hope she will be able to look back on her childhood as a time filled with love, singing songs and laughter. I hope she never associates the word 'jaded' with Mom.
