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

Eventually I'll stop talking about miscarriage. Not today, obviously.

Here I am to pour another cup of cheer into your day by talking about miscarriage! Ho, boy. I am a real hoot to be around these days.

Honestly, this is a good day, if you don't count how I almost cried while I was taking a walk this morning. Which: I have kind of come to accept that I am basically going to cry every day for essentially no reason, so it is what it is. I was listening to a song that made me ... happy and sad at the same time, so I got all teary-eyed.

I finally got my period! Again! Continued proof that life is cruel and disgusting; am I right? These post-miscarriage periods are real doozies, lemme tell you. I'll be sitting quietly, and, well ... you recall the scene from The Shining when the blood pours out of the elevators? That is essentially what is happening in my pants. I have bled through almost every pair of pants I own. I sprint for the bathroom. I want to yell: Clear the decks! Hoist the mainsail!

Don't ask me why you would hoist the mainsail. I know nothing about boats and/or sailing. Maybe instead I should yell: Stop the presses! Seeing as how my background is in journalism and I feel the unwise need to tell you every time I buy a new box of tampons.

I think my friends are coming up for air after the miscarriage. It's like the dust has cleared and they're creeping carefully out of the bomb shelter to see if it's safe to venture out. A few friends have surprised me this week by reiterating to me how sorry they are for what happened. They are telling me they're not sure they made it clear early on. Believe me, they made it clear in the beginning. There's no way to properly express your horror or grief about things like that, honestly. When these things happen, it makes us all helpless. All we can do is stand together.

I have very good friends. They are over-thinkers (as I am). Perhaps most women are. I'll return home from a gathering and replay each conversation I had with each woman, turning each word and each raised eyebrow over in my mind to make sure nothing was misconstrued and there's no possibility that anyone had their feelings hurt. I can't tell you how many times I and my friends have spoken later and said: You know that time we were talking? I didn't mean this and I hope you didn't take it like that.

Maybe my friends are just worried about their reactions to the miscarriage because I won't shut up about it. Consider this my very public journal. I keep a journal, normally. I kept one during the pregnancy, and when I miscarried I wrote: Having a miscarriage.

That was it. There was something about putting ink on paper ... I didn't want to literally spell it out there. That journal is for my secret, innermost, darkest thoughts, and I haven't as of yet been able to talk to even myself about that.

I feel sorry for my friends, in a way. Especially the pregnant ones (because of survivor guilt). They don't want to mention the miscarriage and they don't want to ignore it. They've got to touch on the topic to show they care but they don't want to make me feel like shit, either. The ones who know but weren't technically in-the-know because other people told them assume that I don't know they know (confused yet?) -- I see the wheels turning behind their eyes -- they're searching their minds frantically for cheerful things to discuss. They pity me and treat me kindly, and I'll take that, for now.

In"fun"tility

I think one of the hardest things to remember when dealing with infertility is to keep your sense of humor; if not about being infertile, at least in general. Luckily, I have my husband to remind me.

I came home from having brunch with some friends yesterday, one of whom recently had a baby, and is now having a miserable time breastfeeding. No, not miserable, misery would probably be a step up from what my poor friend is suffering. I was telling Ryan about what was going on, and he asked why she doesn't just switch to formula. "Well," I said, "I guess it's like me not wanting to give up on the pregnancy thing. My body is SUPPOSED to do this. It's SUPPOSED to be an intergral part of who I am as a woman."

Ryan nodded, and took that in. Then, he spoke: "Why don't you let her use your boobs then and you can borrow her uterus?"

Damn, I love that man.

The long cycle

I guess my cycles are still evening out. I am on Day 34 of this cycle and Aunt Flo has made no indication of her impending arrival, unless deep, dark rage is any indication.

Oh, rage is an indication? Huh.

A few days ago I took a pregnancy test, just in case. It was negative. I gotta say, this is the first time in over a year that I have seen a negative pregnancy test and not needed to either eat a vat of chocolate sauce or punch something. I felt mild disappointment and overwhelming relief.

The doctors said I would be scared to get pregnant again, but they were wrong, because the way I am feeling about getting pregnant again is something akin to horror. Terror, you might call it. Things would be very simple if my husband and I decided we didn't actually want to have children; I'd send him in for a vasectomy (he's going to read this and be like what the hell?) and that would be the end of that.

Unfortunately, it appears that we both want children even more now than we did before. Which is a problem, when paired with my severe fright about getting pregnant again. I can't even really talk about it, or think about why it scares me so much ... accessing that dark and smelly pit in my brain is such a disgusting thought. I really see it that way -- it's like I'd have to swim in tar, maybe go meet Gollum somewhere down in a dank, pitch black cave. This has begun to make exactly no sense.

I kept saying we'd wait until January to try again. Then I said we'd wait until I lost 15 pounds. Then I said we'd wait until April. If I keep pushing the try-again date back, eventually the pit of tar will dry up and go away, right? I'd thought it was gone, or at least on an extended vacation, until last week when I suddenly began to think of my baby. Who thinks of a first-trimester miscarriage as a baby? This cannot be a healthy line of thought.

Of course if I keep pushing the try-again date back, my fertility will lessen. Women who miscarry are most fertile in the three months following a miscarriage. It declines after that. I can't spend another year doing this; I might lose my marbles, you guys.

Yeah, I'mma try again. It'll need to be sooner than later. There's exactly no reason to wait, other than that dark pit.

I've said it before and I will say it again

If you know you want babies some day, try to have them earlier than later. And please, let's stop keeping secrets from each other about how difficult it actually is to get pregnant when you're not in your 20s anymore.

The following was posted on SFGate's Mommyfiles blog by Amy Graff. 

Many women misinformed when it comes to fertility

Let’s say you’re a newly married, perfectly healthy 30-year-old woman. You and your husband have stable jobs, a three-bedroom house, a Golden Retriever.

In other words, you’re ready to start having kids.

Easy peasy, right? You’re still young. You’ll get pregnant quickly, as the women on television sitcoms do. You’ll soon be changing poopie diapers.

Not so fast. You’re probably not as fertile as you think you are. It could take awhile. That middle school sex-ed teacher who convinced you that you’ll get knocked up anytime the truck drives into the garage was wrong—and he never told you that fertility decreases dramatically with age.

But don’t feel badly about your ignorance. The results of a recent fertility awareness survey reveal that most women think it’s much easier to get pregnant than it really is.

For the study, presented at the American Society of Reproductive Medicine, 1,000 women ages 25 to 35 were asked 10 questions about fertility, and most of them flunked the test, according to MSNBC.
Questions about the likelihood of becoming pregnant across different age groups were answered correctly by only 8 percent of participants. Most women assume a 30-year-old woman has a 70 percent chance of conceiving per month and that a 40-year-old woman has a 60 percent chance. But really a healthy 30-year-old has a 20 percent chance and that number drops to 15 percent at age 40.
Survey respondents also thought it takes an average 20-year-old two months to get pregnant, when it really takes about five months.

What’s more only 31 percent of respondents realize that increasing age is the single strongest risk factor for infertility.

These numbers are troubling because infertility is a huge problem in our country, and 7.3 million women in the U.S. struggle with it. This figure represents 12 percent of women of childbearing age, or 1 in 8 couples, according to the National Infertility Association RESOLVE. You can’t help but wonder if these statistics would improve if women had more accurate information about their fertility and opted to get pregnant sooner rather than later.

Holly Finn, a 43-year-old woman who has suffered from infertility, told MSNBC that she has a simple message for women ages 26 to 34: “Start having babies now.”

Why are women so clueless about fertility?

The researchers behind the study think women are simply misinformed.

Sex education in America focuses on prevention. In middle and high school lessons are focused on preventing pregnancy and STDs. There’s no talk about fertility and how it decreases with age. Many women don’t learn this lesson until they’re 40 years old and step foot inside an infertility clinic.

What’s more, many women in their 40s are successfully using infertility treatments yet they’re secretive about their use of IVF, and this leads other women to think it’s easy to achieve parenthood later in life. And so when a 40-year-old woman tries to get pregnant and fails, she’s shocked.

“We were not at all surprised,” says Barbara Collura, executive director of RESOLVE, told MSNBC. “This is what we experience every day.”

 

Now What?

Nothing demotivates me like the sight of a negative pregnancy test.

I know it shouldn't. I know I should reassure myself with the statistics, let myself know that I am on the right path, and that all the steps I am taking not only are for fertility but overall health. I should remind myself that the acupuncture and some of the supplements are helping with my anxiety. That watching what I eat and exercising are things I should be doing anyway. That getting in touch with my body through BBT charting and OPKs is a good thing to do.

I know I should be doing all of those things.

Instead I just want to drink a box of wine, put on my sweats and eat icing from a can. Oh, and warm my hands over a fire of all of the fertility books I have bought. It wouldn't be a small fire.

I will tell you right now there is nothing about how to overcome this feeling. That one they leave you to figure out on your own.

So, that's what I'm doing right now. Oh, and trying to determine if the four pounds I have put on is from the prometrium, or from pity eating.

I'll let you know how it goes. I think if I figure it out maybe I'll write a book of my own. "Kick Yourself in the Ass: A Guide to Dealing with Infertility When it is the Last Thing you Want to Do" is now the working title.

Community

I'm not sure how I would feel about this last year and everything that happened during it if it weren't for the Internet.

In real life, I have a couple of friends whom I've struggled alongside to get pregnant. We all have our own very individual, unique issues, and having these couples in my life has produced sanity for me. I just can't imagine being the only one of my friends dealing with this. And while I wish my friends didn't have these problems, I selfishly am glad I know people who get it. Everyone says it and it's true: You don't get it unless you've been there.

When it first started to become clear that getting pregnant wasn't going to be as easy as I'd believed it would be, I must have said something somewhere on the Internet about it. And Libby saw what I said and, maybe jokingly, said she and I should start a blog about exactly this problem. I roped Christina into joining us, and here we are almost 9 months later, all of us battle-scarred and -- there's no denying it -- pretty pissed off.

But what I didn't know until we started this blog was about the entire, enormous community of women out there who call themselves infertiles and blog about the things they go through. The things I've been through pale in comparison. It ain't nothing compared to five failed IVFs. Can you even imagine?

For the several weeks that I was pregnant in the summer, I read their blogs and wept. It was probably survivor guilt, although there's no denying what they have to say is heartbreaking. And I follow so many of them out of fascination and a sense of sisterhood, that when I became pregnant, I noticed when other self-professed infertiles became pregnant at the same time. Look at us! Pregnant together! There was something really bonding and strength-building knowing myself and these women were pregnant together and would have children around the same ages.

Then about half the infertiles began to have miscarriages. Why? I wondered. I read their profiles. Multiple miscarriages, been trying to get pregnant for ten years. Stuff like that. Unexplained infertility. (Few phrases enrage me as much as "unexplained infertility." It's the biggest load of bullshit out there)

And some kept their babies. They're coming up on five months now, getting over morning sickness, starting to get their baby bumps. That would be me, too, I can't help realizing when I read their updates. I'd never wish otherwise for them, but I still feel raw and wounded when I think of how it could have been me, too, with a viable baby.

I think the infertiles of the Internet (and other wonderful friends) kept me sane during the darkest times. There's just something about knowing other women have been through it, and whether or not it's just in my mind, I sensed a warmth, a cushion of support that, in my mind, was the collective voice of these women holding me up. It can't be overstated -- this kind of support is life saving. It'll never take away the hurt you naturally have to go through, but it will make it easier to endure, and easier to see the light on the other side.