When You Wish...

When we got Grace she was a very scared kitty.  In fact it took us about a year before she'd let me pet her.   During that year my husband and I would lie on our couch and watch TV.  Sometimes Newman joined us.  I always talked about the day when our entire family...DH, me, and BOTH cats would all be relaxing on the couch at the same time.

It took a while, but it did happen.  And it kept happening.  I remember the first time I had that feeling of "this is exactly what I wished for".   It was very meaningful to me.

Last night Jeremy and I sat in our backyard watching for meteors.  I saw a giant one and a couple of small ones.  It was pretty awesome.  I told him that someday we'll be waking our kids up and dragging their little butts outside to join us.  It will be our "thing".  I can't wait.

It might take as long as it took Grace to jump on the couch.  It might take a whole lot longer.  But it is going to happen and when it does it is going to be that much more special.

You Did It. You Finally Did It.

I met someone.  One of my co-workers has a 10 year old daughter...through IVF.  

I'm a sitcom writer.  It's a job where hundreds of people fight for dozens of jobs.  The hours are  long.  You work weekend.  You don't take time off.  Not a good place for a pregnant woman.

I'm not pregnant.  But I don't want to announce to the writing gods that I am working hard to get pregnant.    So for the past two years I have kept this HUGE part of my life a secret.

It's still a secret except for one person.  That co-worker.  I told her.  She stopped her plans and took me to lunch.  We talked for an hour.  SHE UNDERSTANDS.  

She was my age when she started.  Her first IVF failed, too.  She has been to the mountain top.  

I cannot tell you have life-changing this is.  I have never met one of us.  I've heard their were others.  I've read their blogs.  But there is something about seeing one face to face.  She knows exactly what I'm going through.  She has advice.  She has warnings.  She has comfort.

I am on the Planet of the Fertiles.   I woke up in a world where what is the "norm" is not my norm.   Where I don't belong.  But fortunately I found one more of my species.

Tick Tock TIck Tock

I love my husband's best man's wife.     

She's funny and creative.  A great "mate" at all those functions where I'm surrounded by people our husbands went to college with and I could care less about.

Before they were married a year they got pregnant with their son.  Who is unbelievably cute.  He's three now.

It was inevitable they were going to go for number two.  

She told me they were going to start in May.  They are 12 weeks pregnant.   You do the math.

At my FIL's funeral they must have known, but she didn't tell me.  I'm sure she had her reasons.  Maybe they weren't telling anyone yet.  Maybe it was the fact that my IVF just failed and we were mourning the loss of a father AND a child.  The point is she said nothing.  

I respect her for that.

When she sent me the email saying she was pregnant, it was caring and sensitive.  

I respect that too.

Though I am happy for her, I broke out into "sad for me" tears.  But I sent her an email full of the good.  None of the bad feelings.  

Perhaps I should have added some of the bad.  Because this paragraphed was included in her response....

Thanks for being happy for us, I knew you would be, but it's okay to
wish me another week or two of morning (afternoon/evening) sickness.
;)

WTF?!  Like the last two years of my life....the suffering, the tears, the shots, the surgery, the hormones, the blood draws, the MONEY...did I mention the tears?  Is equal to another week (or two) of morning sickness.  Morning sickness I would give my right arm (or stab myself repeatedly in the stomach) for.

This is not a bad person.  This is just a person that has NO IDEA what our side is like.  She didn't mean to be insensitive.  I wish her no ill will.  I am still happy(ish) for her.  But Dang.  If this is one of my friends who know about our IF what are the ones that don't going to say?

Do you know what's crazy?  I wonder if I would be in such a rush to get pregnant if there weren't all of these timebombs surrounding me.  A lot of that feeling of rush is because I want to prevent this pain from happening again and again.  

Don't get me wrong...I want a child DESPERATELY.  But each BFN isn't just a loss of that child, it's another month that I have to hold my breath whenever a friend calls to "talk".  Another month of avoiding facebook.  You get the drift.

Enough lonelyness - tomorrow I talk about actually talking face to face with someone who has done IVF.  And she's my workmate!  

I'm Back

I didn't expect to be gone so long.  

So much has happened in the time since my last post. 

I am going to spread out talking about it so I actually get my butt back into the blogging every day gear.

But the first awesome event was the arrival of our "IVF twins"...a.k.a. the two kittens we adopted in immediate response to not getting knocked up after our actual IVF.

So may I present.....Milo

And Lizzie (after getting into our sooty fireplace)....

So for those of you counting that is FOUR cats.  I keep feeling like I need to also mention that I have a husband whenever I bring up the fact that I now have FOUR cats.  Like that somehow makes it better.   FOUR!

Speaking of the other two .... Newman and Grace are not happy.  It's only been a month so here's hoping they learn to love the kittens.  It's so weird seeing teeny tiny little Liz all brave near big FAT Grace and it's Grace that is scared.    

Tomorrow's post - The first pregnancy announcement since my failed IVF or What not to say to an infertile friend when presenting the news of your easy conception.

Did You Ever Notice

How many other things there are to think about other than IF?

Now that I don't have doctor's appointments,  shots, pills, OPKs and HPTs - what I do have is a life....of some sort.

I was on a work hiatus for three months.  But I was also going through fertility treatments.  Now I'm working full time and I feel like I have so much more free time.

I used to sleep til ten and nap during the day.  Now I have to be up by 7am yet I and so much less tired than I was.

Don't get me wrong...I still think about IF most of the day.  But it used to be all of the day.  So that is progress. 

I'm curious what our next step will be and when.  But not so curious I'm planning it out yet.

This weekend I'm going to sleep in, drink, swim, maybe take a nice hot bath....spend every second with my DH.

That's not a bad place to be.

Maybe next weekend I won't feel as positive.  But that is next weekend's problem.

WTF

a.k.a "What?  They're Forty?"

Yup I have the eggs of a forty year old according to my RE.   They had darker centers.  There were a lot of empty follicles.  They died before they made it to blasts.    These are things commonly found in older women.

Sweet.

Oh, yeah...DH's sperm had lots of white blood cells we hadn't seen before.  

Sweeter.

As I was hearing this, basically being told this is even more of an uphill battle than we previously thought...it hit me that I was in the exact same office, the exact same chair, looking out the exact same window that I was when we first heard we probably needed IVF.

I cried both times.  But now I cried as an IVF veteran.  One of "those women".  The failures. 

Needless to say I stress ate like a mo-fo last night.

We have a plan.  DH will get  more tests.  I will get more tests.  When we do IVF again it will be without Lupron....maybe it's the lupron making my eggs so shitty.

I also learned some interesting things.  Of the 12 mature eggs we had 8(!) matured in the lab.  Perhaps we triggered too early?

I was told there were 7 fertilized.  Well another 4 fertilized later.

I was told we had 5 eggs on day 3.  We actually had more.  

Everything looked great, the stims, the follicle growth, the E2 levels, the retrival.  There was no way to know how f-ed up we are.

I also learned my early bleeding could have been a VERY early miscarriage/chemical pregnancy.  And that the blast they transferred was a Grade C.

I'm glad it was a Grade C.  It takes a way a little of the guilt I have that if I didn't rush off to a plane...if I didn't pick up their dog....if I wasn't so stressed....maybe that egg would have stuck around.  But there is still some guilt there.

I know this will eventually work.  But it is going to take a long time and a lot of money.

I don't know how much of either I can spend.  It isn't limitless.  

I need a break.  Fortunately we are in one.

De Nile

I don't know if I'm pretending I'm not IF or what....

I deleted a lot of "baby shows" off my Tivo.  You probably have them too.... In the Womb, Dummies Guide to Pregnancy.....Deliver Me.....  you get the drift.

I didn't call my RE right away to make a WTF appointment.  Could have gone today.  Am waiting til Monday.  Just don't want to deal with it.

I found myself terrified of the TTTC board.  I was obsessed with this board on the Nest.  I mean EVERY DAY I would read EVERY post.  But a lot of those girls were going through IVF with me and I didn't think I could handle BFPs after BFPs.

Today I snuck a peek.  I thought all the BFPs would hurt.  Instead they were mostly BFNs.  And though I felt empathy for those going through what I did.... there was a sick little part of me that felt relieved to not be alone.  To not be the only broken one.  

There is one exception.  There is a very nice girl on the boards who said this IVF was her last chance.  Her BFN was almost as painful as my own.  To see her vocalizing that this is it.  The end.  She will never have kids....  I cannot even imagine what that must be like.

It's weird.  There is half of me that knows we'll keep going til we have kids.  5 more IVFs?  Fine.  Donor eggs/sperm?  Okay.  We'll do it.  BRing it on.

Then there is the other half that can't even conceive of an end game.  I don't think of a BFP.  I can't even imagine it.  Honestly.  When I do it is as foreign and unobtainable as imagining making out with Bradley Cooper.  It's be cool, but it's not happening.

All the money, time, pain - it's not for a baby.  It's just cause that's who we are.  I brush my teeth.  I pay my mortgage.  I shoot myself in the stomach.  That's me.