Blogger's Block

I realize there has been a lull in my posting, but I can’t seem to come up with any worthwhile posts. One part of it is that we have been using this time off to finish off the last big pieces that still need to come together for our wedding. It has been going more smoothly than anticipated (knock on wood), though the days are busy and there is still much to do. The other part, though, is that there seems to be a run of bad news in blogland (like here and here) and it just doesn’t seem right I should revel in the trivial aspects of my wedding preparations. I love the way our wedding is taking shape and how much Mr. Warrior is also getting into it. But, a main reason for getting married is to start building our family and it is really heartbreaking to see how difficult a road my friends on the internet are having. Talking about wedding decorations, guest lists, etc. feels frivolous.

But, how do I balance that with the responsibility I feel to the people who read this blog? I installed a counter a few weeks ago because I was curious to see how many people actually come here, and was surprised to find that I get a steady stream of 10-15 visitors on most days. I then found myself getting more and more anxious the more days that pass without a post. I know I started this blog as therapy, but now that I feel like I have made some friends in blogland, posting takes on another dimension. I’m not sure how to handle this responsibility I feel to post more often.

Have you had times like these? What do you do?

Hey baby, what's your sign?

On and off the last few weeks, I have been scouring the internet looking for profiles of women willing to donate their eggs. Many websites will post pictures of some of these women with short descriptions of their jobs, interests, hobbies, etc. I usually start out not being very picky. I do want a Chinese donor because, well, being Chinese, if I gave birth to a completely Caucasian baby (Mr. Warrior is Caucasian) it might make the whole donor egg thing more evident. And, while I have no problem with people I know, knowing about it, I don’t really want to have it broadcast to every stranger I meet. Most sites with donors have very few Asian much less Chinese donors. Every once in awhile, though, I will come across one with several Chinese donors. In cases like these, I find myself focusing in on the ones I find attractive and only reading their profiles. Then, I start thinking about how I prefer egg donor Donor KF345 who enjoys cooking as a hobby rather than Donor AL981 who enjoys extreme sports. And, well, if I had a choice, yeah, the one studying to become a lawyer instead of the one who is an actress/singer/waitress/real estate agent. Oh, look there are two attractive Chinese chefs studying law. And, if I look at their pictures again I see that the way this second donor is posed makes me think she’s open, gregarious and sweet while lawyer-to-be #1 had a slightly slutty come hither look that seems to say, hey baby, looking for a good time? instead of, hey don’t you want to use my eggs to make your baby?!

At this point, I usually have to slap myself so I can come to my senses and ask myself what is most important?

I realize I am in the strange predicament of actually choosing certain characteristics that may be inherited by my future child. On the one hand, all I want is a healthy, happy child. No more, no less. On the other hand, I do have a choice now so why not exercise it as best I can? Infertility has taken away so many of my first choices, shouldn’t I try to make lemonade out of my lemons?

If I had it my way, I would rather have no choice at all. My children would inherit high cholesterol, bad teeth and near-sightedness (yes, it seems some agencies will ask donors to provide information on whether their family members wear glasses or not). But, that no choice option is not an option for me anymore. Just as I would avoid caffeine, alcohol and smoking during my pregnancy to give my child the best start in life possible, wouldn’t I also choose a woman who exercises 5 times a week in her spare time over one who goes to the movies 5 times a week? And while I believe nurture plays an equally an important role as genetics in who you are and who you turn out to be, why wouldn’t I choose a college educated donor over a high school educated one if I would also choose to read to my child every night instead of plopping them in front of the TV?

Yet, I can’t get over the creepy feeling the inevitably crawls up my back whenever I spend a long time going through donor lists. I feel like I am placing judgments on women, their lives, their beliefs and their values. And it's all based on very little knowledge of who they really are. I am almost glad that Asian donors are so few. This is tough enough already when, at most, there are 10 donors in a particular agency’s pool to choose from. I don’t know how I would handle choosing from a much larger pool.

Good News, Bad News

Good: My mom just called to tell me an aunt and uncle of mine are coming to my wedding. I am very shocked because they are currently living in Tokyo, due to his job, and are flying back to the US to come to my wedding after having just been back for another family wedding last month. When I remarked that I couldn’t believe that were doing that, my mom says everyone in the family really wants to come to the wedding because of me. Sure, that makes me feel real good inside. That everyone is making such an effort to attend my wedding given the fact that the first 5 or 6 six years of my relationship with Mr. Warrior was filled with family uproar and disapproval (I really must write a post chronicling all the weirdness—like when Mr. Warrior had to face the bevy of family matriarchs, alone, and explain his motivations through a thick fog of cultural and language barriers), is a great gesture on my family’s part. I just wasn’t really expecting EVERY single person we invited to show up, you know?

Bad: My cousin (who also happens to be the daughter of the aunt and uncle mentioned above) will be coming with one of her kids. My parents don’t know if she’ll be bringing her youngest or oldest, but my guess is the youngest. And that makes me nervous. This is the same cousin who was due at the same time I would have been due when I was pregnant. I have been dreading the first time I would have to see her youngest daughter, not knowing how well healed I would be. I don’t know how to feel knowing it might be on my wedding day. When her Christmas letter came that year, I thought I could handle reading the news of the birth because I had heard about it already and had time to process the details. And that part of it was ok. I was even ok seeing pictures of the baby she had sent along with the letter. But, I wasn’t expecting to see a picture of her lying in bed at the hospital, pre-birth, naked tummy showing with a contraction monitor hooked up, reading a baby names book. I just broke down when I saw that picture. I don’t want to burst into tears seeing this child for the first time. At my wedding. I don’t want to start dreading my wedding day. How do I prepare myself for this? Is it even possible to prepare myself for something like this?

Huh?

So, this morning I woke up and fragments of three dreams swirled around my head. The first was getting up to go to the bathroom and realizing I had not used this bathroom in our house for a long time. The toilet seat felt different and that’s how I knew I hadn’t used it for who knows how long. Then I realized that this wasn’t the bathroom in our current house. It is the master bath of the condo we previously lived in. I was thinking that I was not looking at things as they are and kept shutting my eyes tightly and opening them up to see if I would see our real, current bathroom. It was kind of like the feeling when you know you are dreaming and should wake up. So, I kept shutting and opening my eyes. Each time a little piece of our current bathroom came into sight until it turned into our current bathroom. Our old master bathroom was much lovelier and cozier than the one we have now. But I remember thinking as we cleared out the things from it during our move, that in a way I was happy to leave it because it was in that bathroom that my miscarriage began.

The second and third both involved pregnant women. One was an ex-coworker. In reality, she has two kids. About 7 months after my miscarriage, she had a miscarriage herself (from an oops pregnancy). When she was going through her miscarriage, she reached out to me, having known that I had gone through it. A few months later, I asked her if she was ok, to see how she was holding up. Her response was that it was for the best because the pregnancy wasn’t planned anyway and it would have been hard on them financially, so maybe God was looking out for them. I just couldn’t relate, not because I don’t believe in God, but because even if there is a God, I would find it hard to believe that God would allow her to become pregnant then take that pregnancy away in order to “look out for them.” In my dream, I ran into my ex-coworker in the hallway and she was visibly pregnant. But, she looked upset. She went into my “office” which, as I think back on it now was more like my bedroom. I closed the door and locked it and asked her what was wrong. She started crying and said that she and her husband were getting a divorce. She didn’t say it, but I sensed she felt overwhelmed and not sure how she would take care of her two children plus the one on the way by herself.

The other dream fragment was about the wife of a coworker who is currently pregnant. She and I had traded stories and encouraged each other over the past year in our ttc struggles. It turned out to be male factor for her. They were considering ART, when, you guessed it, they got pregnant. This was right before my DOR diagnosis. I was actually ok about it when I heard the news and am genuinely happy for them. In my dream, they had come back from a trip (in real life, they did go on a trip to Europe and just flew back yesterday) and she was now visibly pregnant. She kept talking about “Barney” this and “Barney” that and I realized she was referring to their baby. Then she pointed to her belly and said, “Well, we’re just calling him Barney while he’s still in there. We’re going to name him Benjamin after he’s born.”

Now, I don’t know what to make of these dreams, if anything. I didn’t wake up with any bad feelings from them, but I can’t say I have good feelings from them either. And the thought crossed my mind this morning, that with my high FSH and pending POF, I could stop having my period at any time. What if it happens this month? What if I don’t get my period, ever again? It seems I would still be able to do IVF with donor eggs, but the thought of one day never getting my period again while I’m still in my thirties is disturbing to say the least.

I feel like I should look into making an appointment at a clinic so that we keep moving on the baby front. Yet, there are so many things I want to do for the wedding and wedding things are just so much more pleasant to deal with. Perhaps the worrier princess in me is fighting to be let out because she feels she’s been shut away for too long behind the wedding planning. Is she sending me pregnant women in my dreams to try to knock me off track?

Thalia

Thalia found out her IVF failed in the worst way imaginable. Please send some support to her.

Busy Bees

When I first started this blog, I had just found out about my high FSH and realized I would be entering the IVF battle. Fighting against the odds to have a baby, fighting against the insurance paperwork jungle to get medical expenses covered, fighting against my broken self-esteem to have some functioning semblance of myself. Just a few short weeks after starting this blog, Mr. Warrior and I decided to set a date for a wedding. And though we have been making baby steps (ha-ha) towards IVF, we have mostly been caught up with wedding preparations. We see the wedding as a step for us, in and of itself. Not towards IVF, but towards our ultimate goal, making our family. Ideally, our family would be built through pregnancies followed by the births of healthy, live babies that are biologically mine and his, but we know the chances of that happening is low and are willing to make our family in other ways.

All these wedding tasks have left me little time to blog and I probably will blog a lot less about the struggles of infertility until this is all over and we get knee deep in the IVF fight.

However, making all these million and one decisions about the wedding has made me realize some things about myself. One, that I can feel good about myself again. It’s been so nice to worry about something happy and positive instead of the negative and unknown. I just feel better about myself and feel more competent. Those are two feelings I haven’t felt for a long time and wasn’t sure I would feel again. Two, I am learning what is really important to me and what are just nice extras that I can live without and still be happy. For a long time after my miscarriage, I had a real need to have something, anything go my way. If I couldn’t choose the quickest checkout line at the grocery store, if I couldn’t find a scarf I was looking for, every little thing that I put energy into but didn’t receive gratification from could devastate me. I think I was looking for some sign, some hope that things would be ok and took those “failures” to mean nothing would go well in my life again. Three, I feel transformed in knowing I will be married. That is surprising because I had felt that Mr. Warrior and I were married even though we didn’t have the paperwork to show it. But, you know what? Wearing that ring does make a difference. We got our wedding bands yesterday and I have been wearing it to see if the sizing is right. And somehow, I feel transformed. I don’t know how to describe it much more than that. For people who haven’t been together as long as we have, weddings are true beginnings, the start of a new life together. I don’t see us starting a new life after we are married, but it does feel like we are starting with a new slate. The old slate is scarred and full of the pain of miscarriage and broken hopes and dreams of someone who thought she was fertile. It will not be forgotten, but it is no longer the basis for what is to come. The new slate has infertility and IVF written all over it, but it also has the possibility of new dreams and futures. I think it is because of this new slate that I no longer avoid babies and toddlers in the grocery stores for fear of feeling that stabbing pain and ache in my insides.

I don’t know how long these good feelings will last. I hope the wedding preparations are not just a temporary distraction. I hope I can carry some of these good feelings with me through IVF.

When it rains, it pours...

In preparing for the upcoming wedding, Mr. Warrior and I called up some family members who live on the opposite coast and offered to pay for their trip and stay in town should they have the time to make it to the ceremony. In part, we were doing this because these cousins were the first to welcome Mr. Warrior into the family without reservations. (For a long time Mr. Warrior was not accepted by my family and I was disowned, but that is a post for another day.) They are also the family we are closest to and since our wedding will be a small affair without a DJ, photographer and many other things that tend to make a wedding expensive, we decided to spend the money on people who have meant a great deal to us throughout our relationship. One of these cousins is someone we had on our “short list” to ask as a possible donor for IVF. She is single and older than me, so her age is not ideal, but I have always felt close to her and have always been comfortable talking to her about the things going on in my life. However, we had not yet broached the subject of donor egg with her.

Two days ago, she called to say she would be coming to the wedding. Mr. Warrior was at home at the time and they talked. At some point in the conversation, she half-jokingly asked why the rush after all these years? She had known we were trying to get pregnant again and was probably wondering if we were finally successful. (In fact, most of the people we invited are probably wondering the same thing.) That’s when Mr. Warrior told her about my recent test results and that we were thinking about her as a donor for us. When he first told me what he did, I was surprised but ok with it. We had wanted to talk to her in person, but this opportunity opened up and I’m glad he took it.

Last night, I called her again to get her final travel details and she told me about her recent trip to Hawaii. I hadn’t been sure if I was ready to talk about the donor egg subject with her myself, but then she told me about how she lost her driver’s license during her trip. How she has this habit of pulling out her ID and credit card and putting it in her back pocket when she doesn’t feel like carrying her purse. And how weird it was she still had her credit card but not the driver’s license. All through her story, I could picture everything she did. Every move, her thinking process as she was doing it, the very pocket she placed the items in because, that is something I do, too. Now, I know this is probably not something unique to just my cousin and me. I’m sure lots of women do this. But, at that moment it really hit me that we really are alike. Mr. Warrior had tried to convince me of this before. He saw similarities in the two of us that I never realized were there, until last night. And we know that her life values are similar to ours. In fact, many years ago we went to visit her and after the first day, Mr. Warrior and I both had the same thought--that if we ever had children and something happened to us, we would want her to raise our kids.

So, last night, I decided to talk to her about being our donor. The conversation was emotionally wrenching and draining, but in a good way. There were many issues we touched upon. Like how her first reaction when Mr. Warrior asked was that this was a gift of life and she was willing to give it. I could hear in her voice how much she really meant it. I almost broke into tears. I know we have much more to talk about because we all have concerns about what this would mean for our relationship with each other. And because of her age, it’s not a sure thing that she could be a donor for us even if we were all ok with it.

But, for the second time in two weeks, I see a future that is not bleak and empty but full of possibilities. I know this in no way guarantees a pregnancy or a baby for me. But, I know one day I will have a family. I don’t know what path I will need to take and how difficult it may be, but I am going to get there.

Emily at Scrambled Eggs wrote an amazing post on how infertility was like being thrown into a prison, unexpectedly and for no good reason. It is exactly how this last 18 months or so has felt for me. I don’t know what has happened to me in these last weeks since getting my FSH results back, but things are different. Getting that FSH of 31 was devastating but I think it started something that has somehow led me out of the prison. Maybe I have only found my way out to the exercise yard, but it feels good to breathe the fresh air and feel the rain falling on my face.

Life Lessons

I started reading blogs last year, one night when I couldn’t sleep, while waiting to miscarry. It occurred to me people were wrong and that it is possible to be a little bit pregnant. On a whim, I googled “a little bit pregnant” and of course I ended up at alittlepregnant.com and drawn into the IF blogdom where pain, sorrow, anger and humor, the same emotions I was fumbling through, leaped out my computer screen and into my heart.

Many of those old friends have, by now, found their way through the first phase of IF and achieved or are on their way of achieving their THB (take home baby--either through adoption or IVF). Their struggles now are different and, to be honest, I don’t quite relate to them as fully now but I enjoy spending time with them. Just, not in the same way.

In these last weeks, as I have started my own blog I have come upon new friends. Some of them struggling with their first IVFs or trying DE/IVF, some not infertile at all. In getting to know these new friends, I am realizing more and more how I am in a time in my life where I am, for want of a better word, living the prime of my life. That sounds funny on one level, because I always thought the prime of your life was supposed to be the good times. But, no doubt about it I am living my prime.

To really get a sense of what I’m trying to convey, I should probably backtrack about a year. Last November, one of my cousins was getting married. I was still in a fragile emotional state as my due date was November 8 and I wasn’t sure I could handle a wedding two weeks later, where there would be other cousins my age with their toddler children and possibly pregnant with their second child. I decided it would be best to stay away. I learned early November that it was the right decision. In talking with my mom, I found out that my cousin who was 3 months older than me, who had a 3 year old was also skipping the wedding because she was due to have her second child the same week as the wedding. It turned out she had her second daughter the very day of the wedding and I knew, knew I would have been a broken mess of a blob at the reception. Crisis averted, good for me.

Later, when I saw pictures of the wedding and all my family, I was struck by how old my parents and their generation looked. I had this overwhelming sense that I, my brother and all my other cousins were the adults in our family, now. Until that moment, I still thought of myself as young, still seated at the child’s table. But, seeing those pictures reminded me of the pictures from my parent’s wedding album and how their parents looked aged in them. I had somehow stepped into my parents shoes and walked around in them without realizing it. I couldn’t deny it anymore. I was no longer a child.

With adult shoes comes experiencing the adult life. As I re-connected with some of my cousins who also wanted to have kids, we shared more than our common struggle with getting pregnant. We shared our life experiences, heartaches and struggles. And, in learning of their struggles, I realized how much pain each person in the world experiences in their life. This was reinforced as I learned about the heartaches and struggles of my new internet friends. The struggles in their detail may vary among all of us, but the level and depth of the heartache are similar. I have learned it is not the cause of the pain that determines the degree of the heartache. One might say that my infertility is more heartbreaking than your broken engagement or your cancer is more heartbreaking than my inability to have biological children. But the heartache that accompanies the burdens you endure in life is equal. Pain is pain. But, we as adults, we fight on. Sometimes bravely. Sometimes blindly. But we go on.

I have fought depression in my life. Most recently due to IF. In those times, I have often wondered why do I go on living? What is the point if I can’t possibly have the type of life I envision? In this last year, I have slowly come to the realization that most everyone has something in their life they aren’t happy about, wish were different, wish would go away. I have realized that this struggle to cope with these things, to make something out of it is what adults do. As children, the people who take care of us shield us from having to struggle with this too much or help us find our way through it. As people get old and leave their prime of life, they live more passively and leave it up to us “young people” to deal with the world. But as adults in our prime, we struggle to live and re-shape our dreams as life throws us ordeals that test our capabilities. In our prime, we cope, adapt and try to move forward as best we can. Because that is our part in life’s journey.

Whirlwind

In having to deal with the many medical issues recently, the fact that Mr. Warrior and I are not legally husband and wife keeps popping up. Not in a disdainful, why are you living in sin and thinking about bringing up children kind of way. After all, I live in California. More objectionable unions abound. In fact, most people are overly polite in the way they address our relationship as if they’re too embarrassed to call attention to it. It’s the non-people ways that are annoying. For example, in the numerous forms to fill, there are the ever present check boxes to mark whether you are single, married or divorced. I never know what to mark. I’m not married and never been so it’s not “married” or “divorced,” but neither does it seem right to describe myself as “single.” After having been with the same person for over 13 years and knowing, no matter what our legal status, this is the person I am going to share my life with, I do not consider myself single. Problem is, there is no good simple term to describe being in a committed but not legally recognized union. Significant other is so wordy and unemotional. And, domestic partner suggests more of a same sex relationship. So, there is no good category for what we are. I am also finding it harder and harder to constantly fight the accepted societal and cultural ideas of marriage and having kids. Practically, there is also the issue that if we adopt one day, not being married will probably work against us.

Marriage has been something we have talked about since before my pregnancy and miscarriage. We would think about possible dates, but never made it to actually picking one. One reason is that neither of us wanted a big, formal to do but we couldn’t really come up with an idea for a small, informal event do that fit us and felt right for us. The closest idea we had was to rent a big house for a weekend somewhere, invite our family and friends and have a wedding “weekend” where we would prepare and eat meals together, play games, hang out, laugh, talk, etc. (think Big Chill).

Last weekend, in a stroke of genius (if I do say so myself), it occurred to me the perfect fit we were looking for. Until a couple of Christmases ago, we had always had annual Christmas parties where we would invite upwards of about 30-40 people to our house. We would have decorations up the whazoo, lots of food and a white elephant exchange. We have always loved these parties with all the people, the laughter and the fun. So, I said to Mr. Warrior, why not have a combined wedding and Christmas Party? We already have most of the decorations and could start putting them up weeks ahead of time. We would have a quick, civil ceremony followed by a Christmas party. We talked about it for the rest of the day and it continued to feel right. We picked a couple of weekends in December and started calling parents and close friends to see if they were busy. And what do you know? We found a weekend that worked for them and us. So, on December 10, we are actually. getting. married.

There is a lot to do before then. And this last week or so has been a blur. We printed up invitations and finally sent them out yesterday and today. Our guest list is bigger than we anticipated and we may have more people than we can handle at our house. But somehow, we just believe it will all work out. All of it. Not just having the wedding, but having and growing up babies and being a family.

I can’t remember the last time, I have felt so much hope with so little fear of the outcome.