meh

It's Day 15 and I've just reached my peak fertile hurry-up-and-bone day.

Yep. God only knows what all is happening up in my Lady Parts, but we certainly have a surge of luteinizing hormone, and that's something, at least. Our new insurance kicks in about a week and a half from now, and then I suppose I can go harass some more doctors about my defunct vagina.

Meanwhile, a number of irritating things are happening. Nothing major, just minor annoyances that add up to make me feel bitchy. I'm sorry this isn't one of those uplifting infertility blogs where the girl just keeps plugging away optimistically until her vagina is like, FINE BITCH, you can have a baby.

Nope. It's not. Because I let things get to me. Let's list them! All the things! Ok, here we go.

- Weight loss. Dudes. Losing weight is hard. I've been on this diet that's making me a little stabby. You eat a combination of lean protein and complex carbs SIX TIMES A DAY. Planning for meals on this diet is stressful. And I am not especially enjoying the food. Meh.

- One of my facebook friends who announced her pregnancy at the same time I was miscarrying this last pregnancy. Normally I find her funny and awesome, but now I am inexplicably irritated by her. Today she said she is going to Disneyland and will be 25 weeks pregnant at the time and asked what shoes she should wear. I don't think anyone is going to have anything particularly insightful to say to her about this. You'll be pregnant. Wear comfortable shoes, for godssakes.

- Pregnitude. Really, Pregnitude? Ya couldn't come up with a better name than Pregnitude? As if being infertile weren't already demeaning enough, companies come up with the most irritating names for their products. That said, I've just ordered a box of Pregnitude, since lately the internet has been singing its praises. Let's face it: I will try fucking anything at this point. 

- Exercise. Exerting myself is not my favorite. Yes, I am lazy.

- Cleaning the shower. Worst chore ever.

- Former infertiles who forget everything about what it was like to be infertile because now they have babies and everything's awesome. It's really not their faults, because I would be exactly the same way. Who wants to dwell on the past when now you have a baby? Let's just call this what it is: Jealousy.

- Do I plan a vacation or not plan a vacation? Is it presumptuous of me to assume I might be pregnant at the time of said vacation? Yes, maybe. Is it possible to take a vacation if I'm pregnant? Sure. Problems, though: I don't want to be sick on vacation, and I don't want to fly in the first trimester (advice from Making Babies), and -- oh yeah -- I don't want to miscarry on vacation. But I will hate myself if I don't go on vacation, so fuck it. We're going.

- Articles with headlines like: "Father's Age is Linked to Risk of Autism and Schizophrenia." There's no turning back time, folks! Time to throw the dice and see how they land.

I'm sure that is quite enough bitching and moaning for today. I hope to return shortly and report on the wonders of Pregnitude ...

The "Why" Of It

I am having my worst period in recent memory right now. It's like my uterus is trying to make a break for it now that it knows I'm not going to try and grow anything in it any more. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if I woke up tomorrow to a crudely scrawled note reading "take care, Toots, taking the ovaries with me." Part of me would be willing to buy them a bus ticket.

I will never know why I wasn't able to get pregnant, which is why I think it took so long for me to reach the end of the line. All of my plumbing allegedly works. Yes, I was told I had "polycystic ovaries" but I have come to learn that really means "we aren't quite sure what's wrong, so here's something you can tell your friends." There are women with polycystic ovaries who get pregnant all the time, without any help. Some of the most fertile people I know have polycystic ovaries.

My husband's junk works too. In fact, when the fertility doctor first looked at his sperm counts he said they were "impressive." For a minute I thought Ryan was going to order a t-shirt to let the world know. I still feel bad that he will not have a biological child, because out of the two of us he really does have some traits the world of the future will need. He says he doesn't care, and I know he's telling me the truth, but there's still a part of me that feels I failed him in some way. I'm hoping that will go away as this process goes on.

I don't know if having a clear reason would really help though. I know women who know exactly why they can't get pregnant, and it doesn't seem to make it any easier. In the end, reason or not, we all feel left out and cheated, and then we have to decide what to do with those feelings.

Right now I'm drowning mine in Midol, and allowing myself to wallow until the bleeding stops. I figure I'll get back to "operation positive attitude" in two to three days.

I mean, unless my uterus gets out before then...

*Thank you all for your positive comments (and in one case really yummy cinnamon bread) after last week's post. Your support means a lot to me.

Holiday Guide for the TTC Crowd

I don't need to tell you the holidays are hard.

Something about our childhood memories colliding with our adult hopes wraps us up in a strange nostalgia. We miss the past and we miss the future.

We miss those who aren't with us. We miss those who have never been with us ~ like the cherub-cheeked children we imagined in our life.

And it's not just the trying-to-conceive crowd. Plenty of people feel sick to their stomachs for the entire month and a half between Thanksgiving and New Year's. Plus, Christmas (as much as I love it) is about the birth of a child.

I suspect part of the problem is that while we are simultaneously missing the past and the future, we are not at all celebrating life as it is right now.

I refuse to let my child-free status tap the joy out of the most joyous time of the year. I'm not saying it's easy, but choosing to have a good time is the first step to having a good time.

So, here's my guide for how to survive.

1. Skip the holidays. Extreme this may be, it's a legitimate survival approach for those suffering raw emotional wounds, like a recent miscarriage. If 2011 delivered this kind of disappointment, I'm not going to tell you to deck the halls and have a good time. Hunker down in a dark room with movies and ice cream and magazines. Keep your phone nearby and your friends on speed dial. We send our love and prayers and hope to see you happier in the New Year.

2. Say no. December's dance card fills up quick. It's OK to sit out a few songs. Only go to the events you know you'll enjoy. I typically avoid large parties with lots of guests. I say no to the big parties, so I can say yes to the smaller gatherings with my closest friends.

3. Don't spend the holidays with anyone to whom you have to explain yourself. Families are complicated, and some families are more complicated than others. If yours has a habit of bringing up painful topics as dinner discussions, tell them in advance that all fertility talk is off limits. Or make alternate plans.

4. Know what you're going to say. Even when you are picky about which events to go to and who to spend your time with, someone is bound to ask you, "Do you have kids?" "Are you planning on having kids?" "Have you thought about seeing a doctor?" "How is it going?" "Are you still trying?' Etc. Etc. John used to joke, "We had kids, but the economy got bad so we sold them." Or, he would say, "No, we don't have kids. We play board games at night." At this point, I usually respond with an abbreviated version of the truth.

5. Consider putting "trying" on hold until the New Year. If the disappointment of not getting pregnant is going to ruin your Christmas, I suggest giving yourself a break from peeing on sticks.

6. Music. Maybe it's just me, but happy songs make me happy. Sad songs make me homicidal. Pump up the volume accordingly.

7. Create new traditions. Sleep in. Drink cocktails. Get away. Last year, John surprised me with a night at the Fairmont right before Christmas. He knew I had always wanted to stay there (and the rates are surprisingly low in December). It was a great treat and something we would be less likely to do if we had kids. 

8. Spread holiday cheer. Infertility is no picnic, but it could be worse. Giving back gives me clearer perspective. Shop for charity. Volunteer at a shelter. Collect canned food or blankets or coats or socks. Visit a convalescent hospital or the lonely neighbor on your street. You can't help but be happy when you make someone else happy.

If you have a holiday survival tip, I'd love to hear it.


xo! Christina

Ragey

Ragey is a word I learned from Erin. I’m not sure if it has been officially added to Webster’s, but my personal definition is angry + crazy. To me, ragey is more than being mad. It’s being mad + slightly to severely unhinged. Thank God this is not how I feel all the time. It’s not even how I feel most of the time. But it is how I have been feeling for a couple of weeks.

I’m pretty pissed off, and I can’t fully explain why. Everything feels like an injustice. Everything feels like a struggle. Libby’s experience with her doctor makes me want to scream. Erin’s miscarriage makes me want to cry. Circumstances in my own life (related and unrelated to fertility) make me want to scream and cry.

The other week I had a full-blown, can’t-stop-crying, teenage-like breakdown in front of my dad. It was ugly and embarrassing, and he asked me twice if I was on my “monthlies.”

I have a friend whose primary symptom of pregnancy is emotional outburst, so after spending a day in tears, I took a pregnancy test. Negative. Since I still felt ragey a week later, I took another test. I’m only slightly exaggerating when I say I could hear the test scream NEGATIVE. It was so rude I felt like slapping it across its face.  To my credit, I managed to refrain from brawling with a pee stick and just threw the stupid thing in the trash. Two days later, I started my period.

One of the most annoying aspects of trying to conceive is how similar the symptoms are for PMS and early pregnancy.

• Moodiness
• Tender, swollen breasts
• Fatigue
• Backaches
• Headaches
• Acne
• Weight gain

Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. I love being a girl, but I look at this list and shake my head in disbelief. How do we manage to put up with all this B.S. every month? It’s unbelievable.

I’ve decided I want a surprise pregnancy. I want to be so detached from my monthly cycle and my body that I don’t even notice I’m pregnant. You know, like those women who go to the bathroom at a rest stop and practically deliver a baby in the toilet. It doesn’t matter that they’ve never taken a prenatal in their life and that they’ve drank alcohol and caffeine and maybe even smoked every day of the last 10 months. Their baby is perfectly healthy and they didn’t even know it was growing inside of them.

Of course, I’m not serious. If that ever happened, I’d get ragey over the fact I missed the joys of pregnancy.  

Fertiles v. Infertiles

That's what if feels like sometimes, I admit: The fertiles against the infertiles, or, more likely the other way around. The fertiles are usually blissfully unaware that anyone in the universe might be having difficulty conceiving, therefore they are just as unaware that infertiles as a rule generally detest 1) pregnancy Facebook updates 2) smug pregnant women 3) baby showers 4) pity 5) themselves.

I've been thinking about this quite a bit since a friend innocently asked me recently how a person ought to respond when a woman tells them she is infertile or having trouble conceiving. Because I'd written here recently that some women at BlogHer had said to me: "I'm so sorry," when I told them I write for an infertility blog. This response completely rubbed me the wrong way, and when I thought about it later I realized their responses were not inappropriate; I'd simply developed a knee-jerk emotional reaction to pity, particularly pity from fertiles.

This realization led me to mull other classic infertility minefields -- the ones listed above -- and I've been breaking them down in my mind ever since.

Let's begin with Facebook. I follow hundreds of infertile women on Twitter, and in my assessment their number one gripe about fertiles is the Facebook updates. I understand, completely. There've been plenty of surprise updates from my "friends" on Facebook that read something like: "Sally and I are happy to announce that we're expecting a little bundle of joy in October!" Or simply an ultrasound photo. For someone who's been trying and failing to conceive for a while, these updates feel like a slap in the face. And so infertiles as a whole have come to resent them.

The deal with Facebook is that it's become a place where people overshare. You wouldn't normally tell some former coworkers and a douche you went to college with a million years ago all about your vacation to the Grand Tetons, but on Facebook it's become a no-holds-barred arena of this shit. Facebook has become, in short, extraordinarily annoying, and it's not because of the fertiles. My personal number one Facebook pet peeve is the way we all suddenly wish happy birthday to people we wouldn't normally wish happy birthday to. If it's your birthday? And I want to wish you a happy birthday? I will call or text you. Facebook is the last place I'm going to try to express anything meaningful to you. BUT THAT'S JUST ME. And that's not a completely rational thing to be irritated about. Just as it's not completely rational for infertiles to get upset about pregnancy updates. We need to accept that Facebook is a place of oversharing and then make a decision about what we're going to do about that. As I see it, here are the choices:

1) Delete Facebook. 

2) See the pregnancy update, then hide all future updates from that person.

3) See all updates, seethe, eat ice cream, and move on.

I'm going to skip over the smug pregnant women point because two women made a very catchy song about that and you can just watch it on youtube for all the information you'll ever need. And I'm going to go straight to BABY SHOWERS.

Now. Here is what I demand you do if you are infertile or struggling to conceive and the idea of attending a baby shower bothers you in the slightest: DO NOT GO TO THE BABY SHOWER. For God's sake, woman!! Unless the shower is for your sister or some other close relative or a very good friend, do not go. If you do go, ensure there will be alcohol there. If there's not going to be alcohol, BRING YOUR OWN. This is very important.

Because as many of us know, baby showers are already kind of freaky, right? They have always freaked me the hell out, even before I started trying to have a kid. And when you finally decide you want to have a kid? And then you figure out you're not as fertile as you thought you were? And you attend a baby shower? It's like someone is scraping your soul out with a dull spoon. You must smile and declare all things cute and play games and you will stare at a wall and wonder if you start banging your head violently against it if anyone will notice/care. They will notice. You mustn't attend baby showers. The end.

Now to pity. What is an appropriate reaction to infertility? I am sorry -- I don't know. My preferred reaction is a facial expression that reads: I am frustrated for you and I kind of feel sorry for you. If someone said: Dude, that blows, I probably wouldn't mind that. You're just kind of damned if you do, damned if you don't in this situation. UNLESS! Unless that person has suffered a miscarriage. In which case "I'm so sorry" is more than appropriate. That person deserves all the pity afforded to a mother who's lost a child.

Last but not least, infertile women have a tendency to hate themselves. I see it every day on Twitter -- women who hate their bodies because they just won't cooperate and do what every normal body is supposed to do. They ache for babies and their damned bodies have shut the figurative door on the prospect. I wish it weren't this way. I wish I had a way a person could be happy with themselves even in the midst of trials like these. But I don't. I've been there, every month for many months. It's become rote, the knowledge that it didn't work, again, that I will try again, but without any faith of anything taking hold.

And how about the infertiles who suddenly -- miraculously! -- become pregnant? I admit I've lost interest in many of them. It's part jealousy, part sickness at reading about joy and pregnancy. Earlier today I read a post by a woman who tried for a long time to get pregnant and then, she did! It was unbelievable. All her readers were happy for her. And then she wrote a post about how sick she's felt, and how she's vomited in every public restroom on her way to work. And a reader responded:

"Boo hoo ... you pee and throw up. At least your pregnant you mindless twat. Some of us would kill to feel that way and your complaining. I guess you forgot what it's like, just like every other so called infertile who gets a BFP. Whatever." 

(By the way it killed me not to correct that commenter's spelling.) 

This is a standard reaction to an infertile complaining about pregnancy symptoms. Because GOD FORBID the woman not ENJOY every single fucking minute of morning sickness. The commenter says she would kill to feel that way. You wouldn't kill to feel that way, madam, you'd kill for the baby. If you suddenly got pregnant and were vomiting every day, no way would you smile as the bile shoots out of your mouth and you crouch pathetically on the bathroom floor. Give me a break.

Let's not villainize people who have "put in their time," as I'm fond of saying. People who have put in their time have tried a good long while to get pregnant; have had miscarriages; have gone through IVF; have cried over their inability to just get pregnant. Hating ourselves and each other, plus the fertiles is a recipe for disaster and an acidic uterus (I'm sure it's true!).

All these things will continue to bother me, I'm sure, but only as I consciously realize whether or not my reaction is rational or irrational. My preferred method of dealing with these things from here on out: Seethe, eat ice cream, and move on.