Male Point of View

For all of your husbands/partners/boyfriends out there who have gone through IVF, or heck, IUIs even, with you, here's a fantastic essay by a husband/partner/boyfriend about his perspective of a day in the life of their IVF cycle. I love how it makes me see it from their perspective. I think one day, I'll ask Tidy to write something here, to share his thoughts on this journey too. We need more of that, don't we? The partner's perspective (for those of you who have a partner in this)? We are so focused on how it affects us, but we don't always get to peak into the other side of this and see what it's like for them.

Getting Just a Wee Bit Excited

I'm craving being pregnant lately. (to all my pregnant friends, don't spoil my fun and tell me how much it sucks... lol!) I see pictures of women on TV or at the office and I just look at them with longing, imagining what it is going to be like for me when I'm big and pregnant.

Its hard to focus on this longing all the time and sometimes you need to put it away, so you don't drive yourself crazy. I've put it away for quite a while... I'd say at least since March or so. But as I get closer to my cycle, I have started looking at pregnant people again and fantasizing about being in that state. It may not be a glamorous state, but oh, am I so hoping that I get to be there.

Today I was texting with a friend of mine about getting some routine work-outs on the books, so we can keep each other going to the gym and I had the guts to say about one comment or another, ".... cuz I'll be pregnant in a few weeks, right? (thinking positively)"

I suppose this means I'm letting myself get just a little bit excited. I can't be all stone faced right now, right? Hoping our first update from Dotty 2.0's ovaries is a good one.

Boxing Match

Imagine a dark, smoky boxing arena with a bright light at the center of the ring. All you see are two boxers, each in their respective corners, prepping for the fight. They shift from side to side on their feet, pounding their gloves together, taking their last sips of water and getting their last pep talks from their managers. Off to the side, a rich, low pitched voice comes over the P.A system...

"Introducing first, fighting out of this corner, standing 4.5 years long, weighing heavy on the shoulders, this fighter is as dirty as they come. With 5 prior IUIs and 4 IVF's under her belt, she affects nearly 1 in 8 couples trying to conceive. She is the current title holder.... INFERTILITY"

(Boos, Hisses!!!!! from the crowd)

"And introducing next, fighting out of this corner, standing 5-feet-6-inches tall, weighing 120 pounds with 2 beautiful young ovaries, this woman is an up and comer. A proven donor with three prior cycles under her belt, fantastic egg quality, and plenty of frozens to boot, she is the current donor for Tippy & Tidy...DOTTY TWO POINT OH!!!!"

(Cheers, Claps, YAY!!!!! crowd goes wild)

"Round one, BEGIN!"

And the bell goes, "Ding!"
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Dotty 2.0 is starting her stims today. Hip hip, hooray!

Quotes that Spoke to Me Today

"To lead a life that goes beyond pettiness and prejudice and always wanting to make sure that everything turns out on our own terms, to lead a more passionate, full, and delightful life than that, we must realize we can endure a lot of pain and pleasure for the sake of finding out who we are and what this world is."  ~Pema Chodron

"Let us cultivate love and compassion, both of which give life true meaning. This is the religion I preach. It is simple. Its temple is the heart. Its teaching is love and compassion. Its moral values are loving and respecting others, whoever they may be. Whether one is a lay person or a monastic, we have no other option if we wish to survive in this world" ~ Dalai Lama

P.S - IF you are new to my blog today because of ICLW, I welcome you! You can learn about me on my "TTC Timeline" tab at the top. Oh, and my previous post about Tidy's Wisdom seems to be a pretty funny one, so you can learn a bit more about us on that too :-) Please follow me! I love to have new followers. And know that I will come visit you this week as well.

Tidy's Wisdom

I came home from work today after an acupuncture appointment where I had about 40 minutes to think and decided that I needed to tell Tidy my fears of having a baby with him. Maybe that's what has been keeping this from working so long?!?!? (Ha! If only). I should have been resting but my mind was wondering and I realized that I needed to let these fears out to him and have the world hear us in our conversation.

What if he doesn't know how to take care of a baby?
What if he can't handle being a stay at home dad when I go back to work?
What if he doesn't know how to wipe the baby's butt and he/she gets a diaper rash?
What if he gets frustrated and shakes the baby in a snap moment? (Disclaimer. He is NOT an aggressive or mean person! I  have never once been fearful of him. There's no way I would even imagine this as a possibility, but he's never been in this situation before and so how would we even know how he would react to a crying screaming inconsolable baby, because that happens, right? Yes, this is an irrational fear, but a crazy minded infertile who is trying to have a baby any way possible fears a lot)

He's a wise man, and I know one of the reasons we are married is because he understands the meaning behind my crazy monkey brain and is able to bring me back to a place of peace, most often with laughter.

SO here are some of the snippets of our conversation tonight.

Me:"What if you don't know how to clean a baby's butt and it gets butt rash? You've never done that before" (And I have, like 27 years ago, when my youngest sister was in diapers)
Tidy: "Tip, I'll learn how to clean a baby's butt. I think I've been mostly successful cleaning mine."

Tidy: "Have I ever NOT taken care of the Pog?"
Me: "No, in fact, she love you more than she loves me. Shit." (So, now, I'm convinced our baby is going to love Tidy more than me...)


After discussing how excited he is to take care of a child, Tidy says:
"...And, when it becomes slightly less baby-ish, that's when I'll REALLY start to dominate. You can handle the baby stuff and I'll basically take it from there"

Me: "Why do I like to control things so much?"
Tidy: "Because that's part of your personality. That's why you are in management. That's why we get along, because you like to control things and I TOTALLY don't."

After I look at him and just smile and feel better and we do a little dance to the music playing in our kitchen as I cook dinner (yet another area of my control), Tidy says: "Is life just finally starting to come together for you now? I think it is! And I trace it all back to the refurbishing of your flute"

(He took my flute from 8th grade and got it refurbished for me so I could re-teach myself the flute and get some creative-ness back in my life... What a guy, huh?)

SO, now you see, that's why I like Tidy so much... he and his wise, witty way of keeping me sane.

P.S. - Dotty 2.0 has her baseline this coming Thursday. Fingers crossed she can start her meds that night.

It's Time

I'm still here, waiting patiently for my cycle to start... waiting patiently for my new donor to start stims... waiting for her to to make it to retrieval... on and on. And yes, as we've heard before, this whole journey is about hurrying up and waiting.

I have tried very hard over these last few months to live in the present moment, waiting for things to just happen, and ride the wave of this cycle. But recently, I've been panicking a lot. Worrying about the what ifs.

With this donor's history, I am hopeful she will give us some good eggs to work with, but what our embryos are still not so good? And what if none of the transfers succeed?

How am I going to handle yet another BFN, especially with so many of my dear friends pregnant. If this cycle goes the way that I expect it to, after so many years of negatives... I don't know how to move forward with more hope.

But as I write this out, I feel like a broken record. What more can I say about the waiting, and hoping that hasn't already been said. It sucks. It's heavy. And I try often to put it away, and focus on the moment by cooking, working, scheduling time with my friends and Tidy... but it's still there... weighing heavily on my shoulders. 

I really don't want this journey to continue any longer. (Ha! Who does, right?) I want to start a new blog, a blog about my baby and share the joys and worries of pregnancy with my friends and family members. I love this community, but I, as you all do, I'm sure, long to not need this community in the way we currently do.  Its time for me to move on. It's time for Tidy and I to get our lives back, to rid ourselves of the anxiety and sadness and anger that lingers.... constantly.

Pouring

When it rains, it pours. And it's pouring, big time, right now.

I know so many of you out there feel like this, don't you? Why does life work that way? I don't have an answer. And I'm not sure that if I did have an answer if it would make me feel any better. Do most of you feel like when you find out one person is pregnant, another 10 or so come out of the woodwork to announce the same thing too?

Within the last 48 hours, I've found out 3 of my close friends are pregnant, and 1 is going to give birth any minute.

After 4.5 years of dealing with pregnancy announcements while being labeled 'infertile', it never gets easier. I watch myself each time go through all of the same emotions, and each time I hope that the next time a bunch of people announce their pregnancies to me that either a) I will be pregnant too or b) I will deal with it better.

But each time, I am still a) not pregnant and b) processing through the same emotions (jealousy, envy, unfairness, feeling left out, wondering why me, fearing I will never join them...), even though, I am truly happy for all of them. In fact, all 3 of them have struggled to get pregnant.

There's a new group of women in my life forming who are expecting and I will have a chance to be one of them in the next few weeks, assuming everything goes well with Dotty 2.0. I'm so very scared that one again, I won't be able to join this group, and we will see yet another crop of my friends pregnant, and their babies born, before we hold our baby in our arms.

Hope vs. Certainty

"I've been living in hope for so long, that certainty has become a much more desirable way to live" ~ some guy who was talking on NPR this morning as I was half listening and half driving to work (well, I mean, really I WAS paying attention to my driving, but... I do it every day that I COULD do it in my sleep, right?)

That's just another way to say how I've been feeling lately. I have no control over how many of these next steps are met and hoops are jumped through. I have no control over when my new donor will start stims, or if she will get many eggs, or how many embryos will grow by day 5 or if we get to transfer any and if a baby sticks around... And so I've focused on what is certain in my life right now and tried to enjoy and appreciate that.

Living in hope is important, yes, because a hopeless world is just plain sad, but carrying that hope for so long (long relative to me and this journey, not relative to many other people who have struggled with much worse for much longer)... carrying that hope for so long is tiring and burdensome. It's hard to keep hoping so outwardly and in front of your focus each and every day when you get setbacks and knocked down. So focusing on certainty has helped lighten that load.

What is certain right now? Work is incredibly busy. The fall weather is amazing and I am absolutely loving it. I have a lot of fun things planned in these next few weekends. Tidy is a fantastic hubby and friend... and Pog is just plain cute.

Thank you NPR for yet another snippet that really puts in a nutshell how I've been feeling lately. Sometimes you just, SO get me!

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On the cycling front, I stopped my estrogen at the end of last week and waited for my period to begin.  I'm going in for my NEW baseline appointment tomorrow and hopefully I will get the go-ahead tomorrow to start estrogen again to rebuild my lining.  (These hot flashes from Lupron and no Estrogen are RIDICULOUS!!!) And then based on my timeline and Dotty 2.0's timeline, we should finally be starting stims soon... "hopefully"

I Should Be A Surfer

I have learned quite well, how to ride the waves of this journey, even though I'm ready to get out of the water... Sometimes I may fall of my board, sometimes I get pummeled by the wave and am smashed into the sand, but sometimes I actually catch my balance and carve pretty well...

I think right now, I've found a good stance on my board, found my balance, and am able to ride this current wave of a donor cycle, a cycle which I figured would just finally be smooth...I guess not.

Dotty 2.0's ultrasound today showed her ovaries are still a little swollen from her previous cycle and they want to keep her on birth control for just a bit longer. So I'm going to stop my estrogen, stay on lupron, get a period (which shouldn't take too long, but just in time to be up north at my parent's cabin for the weekend.. yay), and then start estrogen again and a week from then, we'll re-check my lining and see if her ovaries have chilled out and ready for a new cycle...

Speaking of chilling out, it's my "Friday" night as I'm off work for the next 4 days. I just got back from a pedicure with my sweet friend J, poured myself a glass of wine and am ready to forget that I am still surfing the waves of infertility for a few days.

Enjoy the long weekend everyone, the end of summer, and hopefully a beginning of a beautiful fall... waves and all.