Effin' Infertility

I don’t understand why more people don’t talk about their journey toward starting a family, particularly if the journey is bumpy and fraught with hurdles. Infertility is an extremely personal and emotional subject, but I guess I’ve never really thought that that means that the battle should be private— in my mind, keeping such a huge issue a secret just adds “isolation” to the laundry list of feelings that come along with the struggle to conceive (feelings like shame, failure, inadequacy, heartache, impatience, grief, envy, anticipation, and ultimately disappointment). If people feel comfortable enough to ask us questions like “Any kids yet?” or “When are you guys going to start a family?” (and they do… oh, they do), then I think we should feel comfortable enough to talk about the struggle. That seems fair, right? Well, regardless of your answer to that question, that’s where I am with this— infertility is a rollercoaster I never thought I’d ride, but here I am, tightly gripping the safety bar as it hurdles me up and down every two weeks.

So I guess this blog entry is the first in my attempt to NOT lose my lunch on this ride. Out of respect for my husband and our marital privacy, I’ll spare you any intimate details along the way (because you don’t need to know any of that- heck, you don’t really need to know any of this), but I need to talk about it, and writing it out is a safe way for me to do just that. I’m not looking for sympathy by putting this stuff out there into the world; I just need to put it out there to take some of the burden off of my heart and to feel a little less isolated by the reality of the situation.  If you don’t want to hear it or you fall into the box of people who feel strongly that the miracle of life should best be kept shrouded in mystery until that special moment when the couple magically announce it via Facebook thus making it seem like a completely effortless surprise, then stop reading this blog and go troll your newsfeed for the latest line-up of ultrasound photos.

According to Google image search,
this is what "fertility" looks like

Let’s talk about the “effortless surprise”. And how sad I am that that’s apparently not how our family is going to start. I think most girls who want to grow up to be moms envision that first moment of finding out they are expecting. I’ve imagined it in my head countless times over the last 20 or so years. That moment and the moments leading up to it played out like the news would be a complete surprise, like after a few weeks of fatigue and nausea, you’d put two and two together and think “I wonder if I could be… I better take a test” and then you make a trip to CVS and peruse through several brands of pregnancy tests (not knowing which to get—so many choices!). You do your thang and 3 minutes later, “oh my gosh!” and then come the excited and shocked happy tears and you immediately construct the perfect way to announce this news to your husband that evening and the two of you go to bed that night giddy with the “I guess we’re parents now!” feeling and you all live happily ever after. Right.

According to Google image search,
couples struggling with "infertility"
DON'T EVEN HAVE FACES.

Smash-cut to your 12^th month of actively, STRATEGICALLY trying to conceive and this is what it looks like: a notification goes off on your iPhone’s fertility app, its little green dots on the calendar alerting you that your “fertile window” approaches. You mark this week on your calendar and warn your husband that “from this Tuesday through next Tuesday, it’s ‘Flower Week’” (so called because the precise date of ovulation is marked with a little flower icon- how beautiful and feminine). You do what you’ve got to do, record everything in your little fertility calendar app, Flower Week is over, and then the two solid weeks of waiting begins. You start noticing every little twinge in your body (“my toe feels funny, maybe I’m pregnant!”), every moment of fatigue (“It’s 2pm and I’m tired, maybe I’m pregnant!”), and you’re way too aware of the exact date that “Shark Week” (as I like to call it) is due according to that little iPhone app. Every day you yo-yo back and forth at least 4 times—“I think this is the month!” to “it’s a bust” to “but wait- I just felt a cramp an inch above my belly button—this must be it!” and back to “I might as well just drink all the wine in my house- it’s not like it’s gonna happen”. It’s an evil pendulum of hope and despair. And then maybe Shark Week miraculously doesn’t start on the day your phone tells you it’s due to start—LET THE NURSERY PINTERESTING BEGIN! (let’s be real- I already have a secret pinterest board that’s well populated) PEE ON ALL THE STICKS! (followed by “eff those sticks- they don’t know what they’re talking about… it’s probably just too early to tell”). And then the sharks come for you, and you have to start all over again.

That’s what this journey to parenthood actually looks like. If I talk about it, most people’s responses are “just relax and let it happen” and “it will happen when it’s meant to happen” and “maybe you should try *NOT* trying and see what happens”, which I usually respond to with a polite and hopeful smile (and a semi-seething internal “are you effing kidding me?”). Yep- tried the whole “let’s just play it by ear this month” thing a couple of times and nothing happened either. So –and maybe this is just my personality—I’d rather go into each month trying everything I have control over so when it doesn’t happen I’ll at least know that we did everything we could possibly do to make it happen.

So after a solid year of strategy met with consistent disappointment, we’re bringing in reinforcements: we are officially getting this shit checked out. After an initial “this baby-making stuff is really hard and it’s bullshit” appointment with my doctor and the first of many blood tests (testing cholesterol, enzyme and various hormone levels) in August, I called this morning and scheduled the appointments for my bloodwork on Thursday (checking for a different set of hormone levels), for three weeks from now (yet another set of hormones) and for a not-so-fun procedure next week to make sure that all muh bidness is as it should be. I wanted to cry when I hung up the phone—even though I’ve had the forms for a few weeks now and knew that this was the next part of the process, it sucks that it’s the reality of our situation. And of course, just so we’re all having to do foreign and slightly humiliating things just so we can have a family, my dear Jeffrey has his own doctor-ordered lab form that he has to face.

This whole situation sucks. It may sound completely stupid, but in my head and in my heart, I feel like I’m kind of already a mom… just that weird brand of mom that’s still waiting for her baby to become real. That feels a little crazy to say (remember that first season of “Glee”, anyone?), but I don’t know how else to explain it. The names are picked, the back room that is currently housing all of our random stuff that doesn’t really go anywhere else in the house is just waiting to be cleared out and transformed (and it’s kind of making me nuts that I can’t do anything with that room- one way or the other- until we know what’s up), the books have been read, the acupuncture has been given a try, the pregnancies of women around me have been announced and many of those same babies are already full-term and ready to be born, and we’re just sitting here waiting for our baby to finally happen.

(And apparently our hypothetical child already takes after his/her mother in terms of doing things only when he/she is damn well ready to)