Tag Archives: trying

My Hannah Moment

Early pregnancy, Infertility Feelings, Why "My Brown Eggs", , , , , , ,
As the story goes from I Samuel, Hannah couldn't have a child and "was in bitterness of soul, and prayed to the Lord, and wept sore." It hurt until she cried, and she cried until it hurt.

I’m really behind on the updates. I’ve just been so incredibly sleepy. Some time has gone by since then, but I did have my weeping Hannah moment in church. Ironically, though, it had nothing to do with me or anything I could’ve predicted.

Call it a divine revelation or or a alignment of coincidental thoughts — not that I don’t believe either is possible — but given that this site has been up and circulated, I might call it something different. Whatever it was led to an altar call for “a couple struggling to conceive.” I only recently posted positive pregnancy results, but I knew at time that I was and had told the people most proximate to me on a day-to-day basis. But it wasn’t widely known, particularly not by the person led to invite “a couple struggling to conceive” to the altar.

Don’t misunderstand; I fully believe in inspiration of the Holy Spirit to move a person to say or do something in a way that isn’t based on any prior knowledge. In many ways, I try to live my life with that kind of direction. But to have prior knowledge and to suggest it was revealed by God feels kind of like a carnival show gimmick. Already pregnant and fully aware of it, I didn’t go to the altar, but three women did.

At the moment, I realized that my struggle has not been for me nor has the blessing up to this point. It has been to tell the story of prayer for undeserved favor in an impossible situation, the unrelenting downright stupid-looking faith, and a glimpse of the promise (which is where I feel I am now) to somebod(ies) who feel even more hopeless that I have in the midst of all of that. That was my revelation that night.

I was skeptical of the way it went down, but I thought it was cool that the church, a black church in particular, devoted prayer time to infertility. Rather than let the method of how we got there permanently divert my attention, I directed my energy toward praying for them and just worshiping in general.

And I cried and cried some more, praying that God would show himself strong for those ladies as He has for me.

I’d wondered — with the postive pregnancy test and the ultrasound photos — whether I could still be considered part of the infertility struggle. I know how I felt when I’d read that someone had a successful interuterine insemination or in-vitro fertilization cycle: abandoned and even more like a failure. But my Hannah moment reminded me that the struggle to this point binds me to every woman on the same road.
Not to get too churchy on you, but it was one of my pastor’s sermons that kept me holding on to the idea that God would allow us to become parents. I don’t remember the title (and this tired mama is too lazy to go find her journal), but I do remember the scripture and its context — 2 Kings 3:18. After you prepare, which you’re already doing, you pray and you try to be patient, it’s a simple matter in the sight of the LORD. That’s the New King James Version. The Message translation reads: “This is easy for God to do.”

As hard as the infertility road is, rest with that idea in mind.

Read between the lines

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He wanted to know, so after I did the pregnancy test honors -- bright and early at 4 a.m. -- I woke up the Mr. to show him the results.

How long has it been? A week? I apologize for the delay, but the past several days have been one long waiting game: waiting to find a new place, waiting to get to the hotel lobby for free Internet, waiting for our approved apartment application, then waiting for movers and this week waiting for the cable guy. My computer felt completely useless without a wireless connection to the outside world.

Though I’m connected again (and free to online window shop about the world), my return to normal life is taking several twists. Not only is it a new year in a new apartment; it’s also new duties at work that essentially mean my problem child is no longer my problem.

And, apparently, I’ve gained this new habit of actually doing what my husband says.

With a small amount of arm twisting, I took the blankety-blank test, the pregnancy test that had been lingering in the bathroom cabinet of our old apartment. The Mr. knew exactly where it was in our packed waiting-to-go-on-a-truck luggage and dug it out to wave it in my face. That took away my argument that pregnancy tests are too expensive to buy one for peace of mind. And yes, this was after months of $14.95 times two or three per cycle that I wasted on tests that I knew would most likely be negative. Most of those he never knew about. Either way, I had no case except the one I’d made here.

One of my very best friends — I call her my “stick girl” among many things — gave the best motivational speech to shake me from my fear of knowing. In a random text message, she said, “You know I love you, and I usually refrain from commenting on bodily functions.You give a compelling no pee argument. But pee on the damn stick, friend.”

You have to understand that she is the Yang to my yin, i.e., the Christina to my Meredith, my person, the only person who can say crap like that and make it so endearing.

Hours after our exchange, sometime around 4 a.m. Thursday, I woke up and stumbled to the loo, did the potty dance back out to find the test in the dark and sprinkled on myself before successfully peeing on the doggone stick. It wasn’t graceful, but it was effective.

I know what the stick said, but now, I’m waiting to see what the doctor says next week.

“Write this down and repeat it back to me.”

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Monday is egg retrieval day, but hold the sparkling cider. I've had too many BFNs to get excited just yet.

“What? Huh? Wait. OK. Um, hold on. OK, I’m ready now. Go.”

That was the beginning of my conversation with the nurse today confirming that Monday will be my retrieval day, also known as the great Christmas Egg Hunt. I worried about the shots, and now I’m the subcutaneous injection queen. I worried about the drugs having no effect, and now I have 12 measurable follicles (right — 19, 17, 16, 14, 12, 12; left — 17, 15, 14, 13, 13 and 11). FYI, follicles grow 2 mm per day and are mature, meaning more likely to have mature eggs, around 18. The number of follicles does not necessarily correlate to viable eggs, and not all eggs retrieved will necessarily be fertilized. My awareness of the fact that there’s no guarantee that they’ll find enough quality eggs for fertilization basically gives me another reason to keep the sparkling cider on ice for now.

It’s not that I’m trying to be Debbie Downer; it’s just that at this point of trying to have children, I know all too well how it feels to get my hopes up and then let down with a BFN (big fat negative). After peeing on stick or two every month, you learn to take everything as it comes. I used to search for pregnancy T-shirts with funny sayings in anticipation of a positive test amid imaginary symptoms. I’d always feel dumb afterward for thinking too far ahead. Although by God, I’ve managed to accomplish many things and overcome situations that haunt people for life, my inability to get pregnant up to this point has always made me feel like something of a failure and occasionally like God wasn’t listening on this one. I kept praying but then encouraged other people to pray; though, I didn’t tell them about the struggle.

As for being a childless failure, cognitively, I know otherwise. Emotionally, though, it takes some convincing. Being happily married and struggling to have children feels like being the smart girl who isn’t considered pretty. You do a good job pretending it doesn’t matter, but then something happens as a reminder that you do. Some of my Facebook friends are fertile Myrtles; they’ve had two kids in the time I’ve been trying to have one. Stuff like that can get to you if you let it. I’ve tried not to let it, but I’m human. And maybe that was behind my annoyance with having to endure the entire in-vitro fertilization process to have the children I’ve been psychologically preparing for since 2005.

Now, here I am at the critical point — less than 36 hours from the egg retrieval but beyond the hard part — and I’m only thinking as far ahead as drug No. 6, a pre-emptive antibiotic that I’ll take orally starting in the morning.

Mindless update

Drugs, Infertility Feelings, , , , , , , , ,

I’d been concentrating so hard on that joyous news of follicles and a continued cycle that I nearly ignored the most profound display of unprofessionalism seen in my entire working career, and it was directed at me. There’s a lesson in everything, and perhaps mine was that life goes on despite all the interruptions of my infertility battles. So, in the midst of the ultrasound-blood work revolving door and phone gazing in hopes of a nurse’s call, I’m pretty sure I have to actually deal with a petty workplace problem before it becomes something else. I don’t have the patience for this, though, I’m not sure whether that’s a real reaction or whether it’s the drugs. They’re supposed to make me crazy at some point; I’m sure they’re already making me sleepy at odd times.

I’m currently on three medications, all administered via injection — Gonal F, Menopur and that evil Ganirelix acetate. The first two essentially create an ovarian Superman, and the latter is like the Kryptonite to keep the hero from winning and thereby ending the tale too soon. The idea is to develop follicles but to keep them, keep me from ovulating before doctors can go in and get the eggs. It’s for this reason that the Mr. and I have to keep our hands off of one another. Apparently, sex naturally triggers ovulation. How that for another counterintuitive fertility measure? Remember, this cycle started with me on birth control pills. So far, though, everything is working.

My estrogen level doubled from Tuesday to 1424. I do know that’s a positive sign, particularly now that, per a nurse’s message, I’m walking around with 10 measurable follicles. With Clomid, a drug given orally that I took for all three intrauterine inseminations, I only produced two follicles. Each time, they came from my right ovary. My left has been on vacation until recently. It’s now holding five at 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15 mm. The right has the remainder at 11, 12, 13, 16 and 16.

At this rate, the retrieval could happen in a few days. I’ll find out more — including how I feel about everything — at my next appointment in a few hours.

P.S. It was actually almost an hour and a half ago. This just didn’t post when it should have. I’m still pondering everything while trying to focus on work. Here we go …

What if … ? (Ode to @IVFandme)

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The ominous BFN, or big fat negative. What if after all of the insemination and in-vitro fertilization attempts, this is all I see? God forbid.

Visiting friends in New York allowed my mind to veer away from that hovering in-vitro fertilization cloud — with the exception of the nightly shots. (Speaking of, it’s almost that time again.)

When we all lived in the same city, we often played the “What if …” game just as we did this weekend. What if I came home and the Mr. had a pet monkey? What if Mrs. Friend told her husband that her name was Ursula when they first met? What if one of us caught another of us cheating on the other of us? It gets deep and sometimes wild and crazy as driven by a double dose of vivid imagination. The possibilities stray so far out of anyone’s mind that it takes a while to decide on the most honest and likely answer. For example, I never thought about what food I’d eat if I could only eat that one thing the rest of my life with no consequences until I had to answer the question.

The same day we hung out, I aimlessly scrolled Twitter to find the following tweet: “No more treatments for me. Moving to childfree, kicking & screaming with a side of crying. #MovingOn” and then “For the twithearts that don’t know my story: 3IUIs, 3IVFs, 1DEIVF, 2FET: all BFN. I truly gave it my all. #MovingOn #Infertility.”

For those who don’t know the lingo, the woman I follow with the Twitter handle @IVFandme has endured:

  • three intrauterine inseminations,
  • three in-vitro fertilization attempts,
  • one in-vitro fertilization attempt using donated eggs and
  • two frozen embryo transfers

… all leading to a BFN, infamously known in infertility circles as a big fat negative pregnancy test result. That’s a whole pharmacy of drugs, a lot of little tubes going you know where and God knows how many, ahem, “private viewings” to go through without a baby to show for it. I wanted to kick something on her behalf, and I couldn’t help thinking: What if that were me?

I don’t think people understand that when you get to the point of fertility treatments, you’ve already tried everything you know to do and that everything else really is a crapshoot. It’s not a sure thing. So, although I look fine with the frequent transvaginal ultrasounds, multiple drugs, blood draws and injections that not only expose my belly fat to the Mr. but turn it red so he can see it better, know that I’m anxious, I’m nervous, I’m occasionally pessimistic and sometimes downright depressed. Fortunately, the worst of it never lingers. But like the darkside, it’s always there. When I explain that I’m “undergoing fertility treatments,” congratulations are not in order. This (group of attempts that may go on for years until I’m tired or bankrupt) feels like my last ditch effort, and I don’t want to jinx it by celebrating what could be a lost cause and maybe a waste of money. “We’ll see what happens” is about all I can politely muster with that weight behind every fertility-related move.

Sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Friend, I’m breaking the rules and sticking by my non-answer: I don’t know what I’d do if it were me.

As for @IVFandme, my thoughts are with you. With a remote understanding of your individual suckage, I know at least part of the road you traveled to this point and send virtual hugs your way. It ain’t much, but tonight’s shots are dedicated to you. Ouch and sugar honey iced tea.

Let’s play 20 questions (Part 1)

Why "My Brown Eggs", , , , , , , ,
They arrived. That’s a month of in-vitro fertilization drugs.

It occurred to me once I decided to go public with my infertility struggles that people would have a lot of questions. I’ve found that when I open up in a quest for comfort, I instead do more educating than emoting. To remedy that and to avoid repeating myself, I present the most common questions I encounter and answers as they stand right now. That’s my disclaimer for if or when my answers change.

1) Why can’t you have kids?

I don’t actually know that I can’t. I just know that I haven’t. I have a diagnosis of diminished ovarian reserve, meaning I don’t have as many eggs as expected for my age. (I’m in my early to mid-thirties.) Therein lies the challenge and why we – the Mr. and I – are trying everything available to make it happen.

2) What’s that like?

Well, in short, it sucks. It’s annoying. It feels unfair. And I wish it wasn’t so. I get down about it sometimes, and maybe I wanna complain. It just doesn’t make me feel any better. So, I refocus. I write. I pray. I take my prenatal vitamins as an act of faith.

3) Did you pray about it?

Yes, for Christ’s sake, AND in His name with fasting. Intercessors welcome.

I get very tempted on Sundays to throw myself on the altar at church Hannah-style, but I’m pretty sure security would take me down and carry me out before I can say, “Amen.”

4) Are you having enough sex to get pregnant?

(People do ask.) Yep.

5) How long have you been trying?

I’d say not long enough for infertility street cred. Things have moved really quickly, but when I count back, the path to this point feels like a long road. I ditched the Nuvaring the last week of January 2010. I can’t believe it’s almost 2012.

6) What’s the effect on your marriage?

There’s been no negative effect. It was already the two of us against the world. Now, it’s the two of us against infertility. Beyond that, my husband amazes me every day just by being his funny, supportive and thoughtful self.

7) How many kids do you want?

For most of my life, I wanted five. Before we got married, we decided on three. There’s a song from my hometown that’s now my song: “Any way you bless me, Lord, I’ll be satisfied.”

8 ) Why not just adopt?

Oh, why not get a bike instead buying a car? It’s transportation, right? Sorry, that darn humanity. Um, adoption could be considered a “fix” for childlessness perhaps, but not infertility.

9) So you’ll be doing that artificial insemination stuff?

Kinda. Nobody calls it that anymore. For one, there’s not much artificial about it – sperm and eggs are still required. What used to be called “artificial insemination” is modernly known as intrauterine insemination, or IUI. Sperm cells, which usually “walk” to meet a single egg, instead get a bath before taking an express train via a thin catheter guided in most cases by a nurse. The actual procedure takes about a half hour, including time just laying there. I’ve done that three times. No dice. That’s why I’m at the in-vitro fertilization stage. The fur is similar, but it’s an entirely different animal. We’ll be experiencing it together.

10) What do they have to do?

Essentially, with drugs, they’ll suppress my reproductive system, jump-start it with more drugs to make my body produce multiple follicles, which house eggs. Doctors will then go get the eggs, pair them with sperm from the Mr. in a lab, offer them wine and hope they hit it off. Once matches are made in heaven, the doctor will let me hold one or two of them for safe keeping, and I’ll eventually look like I ate a watermelon seed. I’m oversimplifying to explain the procedure without the gory details that – again – I’ll experience when it all happens with you along for the ride.