PSA: Stopping vs Quitting

PLEASE NOTE: This is NOT an announcement of the outcome of our cycle (beta results in a few days). It is simply a subject that has been weighing on my mind in recent weeks.

Apparently, it has to be said. Stopping is not the same as Quitting.

It is a subtle difference, but an important one. Quitting implies action ceased due to frustration or fear of failure. Stopping implies action ceased due to desire, an educated decision or strength of conviction.

I knew going into this DEIVF cycle that it would be our last, no matter the outcome. Our hearts and our wallets are exhausted. This was part of our decision making process going into the cycle... do we have the reserves to get through even this one more? We decided that we did, but that it had to be the final attempt. Half way through the cycle, I had the realization that indeed, I do not have the heart to do this ever again. In the card we wrote to include with our gift for our egg donor, I thanked her for giving us the opportunity to find peace no matter the outcome. And that is just the thing. This cycle represents our limit. We can move into our future knowing that we did everything we could. We will not look back and regret stopping here. Of course, a negative result or another loss will be heartbreaking without question. But we can find peace.

In this community, those few of us who resolve our infertility journey by choosing to move on child free are often rather frightening to those still in the trenches. They see only "giving up" without the release of a future that was chosen. They offer support in the form they themselves still need: encouragement to keep trying, keep looking for answers, get another opinion. It is well intentioned, but misplaced support.

What we really need, when we reach this point, is for the community to wish us peace with our choice. We need respect for the strength it has taken to make that choice. We need to not be ignored, just because our situation makes people uncomfortable. We also need to remember that resolving this journey without a child does not invalidate the years of struggle and the experiences we have had. We can be a resource to those still struggling. We can be an inspiration to those who are questioning their reserves.

Step One: Remove Cat From Bag

We did it.

We've now told our parents about our infertility, our diagnosis and our treatments. We've told them about our decision to pursue a donor egg cycle. They were unanimous in their excitement and support of the choices we have made.

And exhale.

My Mom's initial response was "Well you know, I had to take fertility pills to get you!" Uhhhh... I have no memory of this, though she insists she told me years ago. I was born when she was only 27. All I could think was... even if we had tossed the birth control in our twenties, we might still have been unable to conceive without assistance. I suddenly feel a lot less guilty for waiting.

Whoa.

My Trench is Taking on Water

This is probably more of a post for my peeps still in trenches with me, as it were. I kind of feel like not only am I still in the trenches, but my trench is filling with water and I'm drowning in this hole I've dug myself. Those of you currently pregnant or parenting are surely drowning in a nearby though totally separate trench and I hope you understand that I'm not actually asking anything of you here and I'm not trying to hurt your feelings. I'm also fairly certain I've seen others write posts just like this before. I'm feeling a little derivative, but this is where I'm at. I know I'm not alone, not the first infertile to visit this space. That's really what will make me hit publish. So that maybe someone else will see they are not alone.

I know "Once infertile, always infertile", but my Twitter timeline and my blog reader have made a significant and painful shift recently. Huge numbers of the internet friends I made when I first stumbled into this community have now crossed over to the pregnancy/parenting side of things. Most days, it feels like all I see is pregnancy plans and questions with a healthy dose of nursing/diaper habits. It's really starting to get me down. Like Thinking-of-Seeking-Therapy Down. Even my online support group is becoming just another reminder of the ways my body is failing and the dreams I can't seem to fulfill. I am feeling worse and worse by the day about my chances of completing an IVF cycle, to say nothing of a take-home baby. Hell, with the failure of this most recent attempt at an IVF cycle, I'm even feeling jealous of those of you who just make it to retrieval. Relieved for you, but jealous all the same.

My initial instinct is to unfollow out of self-preservation and it may yet come to that, but I don't really want to lose my connection to these women. They are still infertile, they have been supportive, they have been where I am (and where I hope to be) and they have feelings too. I don't want to hurt them by disappearing.

For those of you who have written this post before me, how did you handle this?

All the Cool Kids Have One

Happy NIAW!

My sweet friend Jen over at This Is More Personal is doing a fundraiser for Resolve in honor of NIAW. Go check it out and pick a little #hope for yourself!

Holla Georgia!

Hiya! I know I have a bunch of readers in Georgia and I'm hoping you lovely peaches will head over and give my bloggie buddy Waiting Vicky the benefit of your experience. She's contemplating traveling to the United States for treatment and is looking for recommendations in Georgia, specifically in the Atlanta area.

Thanks y'all!

Beating a Hopeless Horse

I just wanted to say a quick Thank You to all of you here and on Twitter who have been so incredibly kind and supportive. You've listened to me whine, putting up with my navel-gazing and moping. And you've done it in the most caring way and with such good grace, constantly reminding me that I AM NOT ALONE, I am not the only person who ever traveled this road, felt these fears and emotions. Not one person has told me get over myself, sack up and sally forth. Y'all are a warm fuzzy blanket and a cup of coco.

Thank you for continuing to beat that particular horse for me.

Award Season (UPDATED)

Apparently tis the season for blog awards as well. Quick shout out to missohkay (currently on the path to adoption after RPL) and A (who recently got an au naturel BFP after three years of treatments), both of whom have recently honored me with awards - thanks so much ladies! If you haven't met them yet - go introduce yourself.

I'm going to cheat a bit with the rules of the awards and direct you to this post for some random facts about me, and in the spirit of randomness, I nominate everyone on my Recommended Reading list in the sidebar (25 most recent posts from blogs I follow).

Now get out there and give each other some love!

UPDATE: Shortly after I posted this I got another award, this time from Moon, so I'm rolling it in here as well. Thank you Moon!

Need to Vent?

A few of my bloggie pals have mentioned recently needing to get something off their chest, but being concerned about someone or other reading it if they put it out on their blog. This reminded me of a blog I recently subscribed to by IF Good Samaritan,  Lois Lane: Off the IF Record.

If you need a REALLY anonymous place to vent, this is a good option. Check it out!

Just Be There

I recently witnessed an extended conversation on Twitter that I found incredibly disturbing and I eventually decided to unfollow someone because I was so uncomfortable with the self-righteousness and judgement that I perceived in their remarks. Note, I said "I perceived". Perhaps I misunderstood, but I doubt it. More than anything, I needed to not see it in my Twitter feed anymore.

A few hours later, I saw this post in my blog reader. And it spoke to me.

I know it isn't precisely to the point, but it brought home the realization that when we are hurting, when our hearts are heavy, there are some responses to our pain that hurt more than they help. That people who are maybe just trying to show us what they think is a better way of looking at things, can actually cause us incredible suffering.

We can't make each other better and we shouldn't try to shame each other into prettier feelings.

A Little Help FOR My Friend

I never cease to be amazed at how many people have stumbled into my little corner of Blogland, and how generous you all are.

I want to ask a favor of my readers who are IVF veterans, and I promise it won't cost you more than a few minutes of time! Please pop over to see my dear Twitter friend Jen (@thisispersonal) at This Is More Personal and give her the benefit of your experience. She is embarking on her very first IVF and is looking for some tips on managing the emotional/mental/psychological side of the trip.

Knowing you are out there has made this last six months so much easier to bear. Thank you all for the love you have shown me, for your comments and concern, just for being YOU!

Help Where It Is Needed (Updated*)

Since being told we were looking at IVF in the next year, and then being told that our insurance won't cover any of it, I've been keeping my eyes and my mind open to ways that we can scrape together the funds for it. We have no real savings. What little money we do have put aside is earmarked for the tax bill (self-employment has its down sides and the tax bill is a big one). All spare cash that comes in is going straight to paying off debts like student loans, credit cards and back taxes (see previous comment on self-employment down sides). We have some equity in the house, but adding more debt really doesn't seem like a sound plan of action.

So what can we do, short of begging our parents for help (which would only be a last resort)?

First and foremost, I will max out my FSA contribution this coming year. Providing I have leftover meds from the next and final IUI, then the FSA will cover most of the remaining cost of one round of IVF. One. Round. And my paychecks will be reduced by a terrifying amount for the entire year. I am so scared of the possibility of the Professor having a month or two when the contract work isn't paying out and having to figure out how to pay our regular bills on my greatly reduced income. My income alone isn't enough to cover our expenses as it stands, but with that level of decrease... well, it's just frightening. It's still not a brilliant plan, but it's a start.

*Updated: I just realized that by January, our back taxes and my student loans will be all paid off! Those payments total about half of the monthly salary reduction I'll see from maxing out the FSA. Things just got a little less scary!

In an effort to find some other solution, I started looking around and found the following non-profits that offer grants for IVF or adoption assistance. They are all for US citizens only as far I can tell, but other parts of the world must have similar resources where the health care systems don't fill the need. I'm going to create a Resource page and add these there, but if you know of others, let me know so I can add them as well!

INCIID IVF Scholarships
Tinina Q. Cade Foundation
Fertile Dreams
Parenthood for Me
NYS Infertility Demo Program (varies by clinic)
*B.U.M.P.S. Inc.

More options and suggestions from Resolve.

Benched & Back at the Drawing Board

Well, I went in for a baseline appointment this morning (CD4). I started crying before I even got out of the waiting room. I held together so well over this past weekend. If you had asked me on Friday or Saturday, I would have told you that I was disappointed but not surprised that the cycle failed. Yes, I was concerned about the repeated 9 day luteal phase, but I didn't shed a single tear. Until I walked into the RE office this morning.

This appointment was with one of my favorite nurses, and her first question "How are you doing?" set me crying again. After verifying that Confuterus was still in there, she checked the ovaries and WHY HELLO THERE giant cyst on Rightie! Leftie had a bunch of little follies prepping to go, but Rightie had one huge cyst left over from that one huge Follie of Fail.

I had a chance to discuss things with her after I retrieved my pants and my dignity. Benched without question, and depending on estrogen levels, I might need to suppress with BCPs before the next round could begin. She told me that my official RE was in today and would be reviewing my results, but she felt like it was time for me to go ahead and schedule another consult with him. Even she agreed that the plan as it stands would need changing. When my eyes started leaking again, she suggested I avail myself of the free counselor they keep on staff.

Free counselor on staff? Uh... OK. Done.

Another cool thing about my clinic is that whichever nurse sees you for monitoring is the nurse that calls you later in the day to discuss your results and next steps. This means she already knows where you're "at" and it makes the follow up more comfortable. So when she called, she knew what my questions and concerns had been and had the answers ready.

• Estrogen only slightly high, no suppression needed (relief).
• Another round of GonalF (dosage tweaked again)
• AM/PM progesterone supps + oral progesterone (we'll see)

I'm kinda bummed that I'm benched for Leftie's month and will be trying this adjusted plan with Rightie AGAIN. I need to be sure to ask my RE what he plans to do to get a better response out of Rightie next time.

New Blog Friday with Infertility Overachievers (UPDATED)

If you are here visiting from New Blog Friday at Infertility Overachievers - Welcome!

Obviously, my name isn’t really Slackie, but my beloved husband is an extremely private man and he has requested that I keep my online presence anonymous. Since this is his story too, and since I love and respect him, I concede that point. I call myself Slackie because my diagnosis was Luteal Phase Deficiency. In my own words, I have lazy ovaries – a couple of slackers if ever there were… If you want to start at the very beginning, you can find all the basics here. Check the sidebar to see my cycle history (Not That Anyone's Counting).

You find me in a bit of a blue spot at the moment. I wish I had some humor to offer you, something clever and entertaining. A song, a dance, even a knock-knock-joke. Truth is, I'm just trying to keep hold of that sunshine, but there's a pretty dark cloud overhead today.

Yesterday was CD1. Four days early. Even the nurse who scheduled my baseline for this morning was puzzled by that one. 20 cycles y'all. TWENTY failures. Good follicles, good lining, good timing, good blood work. And yet, here we are again. Last cycle was my first on injectibles. I didn't really expect to get a positive this time. I was treating it as a practice run, you know, getting to know how my body would respond to the new protocol. With three follicles triggered and progesterone supplements aplenty, this early end was decidedly unexpected. I've already determined to hit the acupuncture a little harder and get back to my yoga. What else?

I hope today's appointment will provide, if not answers, at least some ideas for new directions to try. I'll update when I get home this evening.

UPDATE (as promised): Thanks for the comments and well wishes, both here and on Twitter! No clear ideas as to why things went sideways just at the end of last cycle, and some small possible cysts were hanging out on Leftie. The doctor was uncertain if we should proceed with treatment this cycle due to those maybe-cysts, but my blood work came back great so it's full steam ahead! GonalF dosages got tweaked and my progesterone will be doubled up in the luteal phase this time. I'm also gonna hit the acupuncture weekly instead of every other week. Cross your fingers that the insurance will cover the GonalF refill - there was some question over that when I called it in this afternoon.

Gurlee Made Me Cry

So after being away from blogworld for a while when my Mom was in town, I opened my email to discover that Gurlee over at Infertility Musings had bestowed on me the Versatile Blogger Award. And I cried. Like most of you, I started this blog just to have somewhere to vent, to get everything out of my own head with a hope that someone out there would say, "Me too. Doesn't this shit just suck?" 

Thank you Gurlee *sniff*sniff*

So as I understand it, this is how the award works:

1. Thank the person who gave you the award. (Thx again Gurlee!)
2. Tell 7 things about yourself that readers may not know.
3. Pay it forward by nominating 8 bloggers you’ve recently discovered.

So without further ado:

1. I have an English Garden and I hate gardening. I have to pay someone to come take care of the flower beds because otherwise things start dying and weeds take over and the next thing you know... there goes the neighborhood!

2. I was in the past (and will be in the future) an artist. I packed up my studio to take my first ever 9-5 job in order to do the baby-making thing with decent insurance and maternity pay. It's been two years and I'm only just now starting to miss it. I'll get back to it when I can have a home studio.

3. I actually like my job. I've only been there for 18 months, but I go home at the end of the day knowing that I contributed to making the world a better place.

4. Salsa is my number one comfort food. No joke. I was raised in Texas and good salsa is probably the thing I miss most.

5. I am a book addict. I collect first editions, particularly young readers and teen books. Yes I like Harry Potter, Percy Jackson and Twilight (all for different reasons). I also love Diana Wynne Jones (Chrestomanci) and Catherine Webb (Horatio Lyle).

6. I am allergic to cats. I have two.

7. I have a soft spot for aquariums (the kind you visit, not the kind you keep in the living room), but find zoos depressing. I am particularly fond of sea urchins. But not for dinner.

I would like to bestow the Versatile Blogger Award upon the following:

1. APlusB at a+b, waiting for c
2. Becca at Liberal Granola Girl's Blog
3. Hope Springs at Moving On to the Next Plan
4. Jay at The Two Week Wait

5. Jenny at Among the Blossoms
6. My So-Called (TTC) Life
7. Secret Sloper at Park Slope Purgatory 
8. This is More Personal

A Familiar Stretch of Road

So yeah.

At 14dpo I had no signs of an impending period, so I consulted the Oracle of the Almighty Stick, and the Stick said NO. At 15dpo with no change, I went in for my beta. An hour or so after the nurse called to confirm the negative, my period arrived full on. No spotting, just a little cramping and BAM!

Looks like the acupuncture got my cycle fixed up right.

When the Crazies hit me before this last IUI, I told myself that if it didn't take this time, I was giving my body a month off the meds and another month of acupuncture treatments to tweak my cycles and provide some stress relief. When the nurse called with the BFN, I told her this and let her know that I had some questions for the doctor. She suggested a follow-up consult with the RE in 2 weeks. So we're all set to get back to basics this cycle, and I hope to have a better idea of the Plan Going Forward after this next appointment.

It has indeed been a rough week. Big thanks to my tweeps and the folks who dropped by from LFCA to show their support. I encourage you all to drop by there and see who else needs a little love today.

Professor:1 - Crazy:0

What prompted my post earlier this week about the fabulous man I married?

Rewind back to CD7. Everything had been going so smoothly, I had been feeling so unusually positive about the cycle and life in general. About four hours after I took the third Clomid pill, the crazy caught up with me. I was suddenly so angry I was shaking and my heart was pounding. And why was I angry, you ask? Because the Professor forgot to take his vitamins.

Yeah... I told you it was crazy.

After I had a go at him for this grievous transgression, I broke down in tears and just let all the crazy flow right out. He was so good about it all, didn't even get defensive. He held me and talked me down till eventually, he could crack a joke and make me laugh. Crazy all gone.

I'm so lucky.

To My Friends in the Computer...

I started this blog one month ago today.

I just wanted to say "Thank You" to all of you wonderful women who have reached out to me since I joined the crowd on twitter and started this blog. It has been such a comfort to have so many strangers extend such warmth and good will to someone they've never met, and probably never will.

Thank you for listening.

Thank you for caring.

Thank you for talking back.

Thank you for getting it.

Just... Thank You.

By All the Saints

Disclaimer: I hope this doesn't totally alienate any of you believers out there. I wanted this to be a place where I can be totally honest about me, but I don't set out to be purposefully offensive.

I am not what most people would call a religious person, or even a particularly spiritual one at that. I was raised Protestant in the Bible Belt, but the Church failed me early on so I left. I decided that while I don't have a problem with God (or spirituality per se), I have very little patience for the people who take their religion as their identity. People are people, whether or not they go to church, and in any group of people there's gonna be nice folks and there's gonna be asshats.

That said, there is something about the rituals of High Church that fascinates me. I'm all for rituals - they elevate the mundane, they impart a sense of peace in their performance. I have sat in on a few Catholic masses and those folks have ritual down! It's like theatre to me, engaging all of the senses. Even without subscribing to the meaning behind it, there is a certain kind of release in letting the flow of sounds and scent just wash over you while you watch the officiant in their finery, repeating moves that are so familiar to them as to be instinctual.

Along with those rituals go a host of accessories (for lack of a better word), and herein lies the point of this post. Saints. I love reading the stories of the saints, their histories, their symbology, their special causes. I figured there had to be an official Patron Saint of Infertility, and I found a bunch! I thought (obviously erroneously) that there wouldn't be more than one saint for any given cause, but there's a whole army of them! So for those who feel like they need a few extra folks on their team, here are a few suggestions:

• Saint Agatha of Sicily - patron saint of the sterile and breast cancer, rape and torture victims and nurses (Agatha's story is gruesome, but interesting)
• St Anne - patron saint against sterility (among many other things), particularly in Taos and Canada (apparently)
• St Casilda of Toledo - patron saint against sterility
• St Felicity of Rome - patron saint against sterility and death of children
• St Gerard - patron saint of motherhood
• St Margaret of Antioch - patron saint of all kinds of reproductive issues
• St Philomena - (not much info on her)
• St Rita of Cascia - patron saint of hopeless causes (gee thanks)

I don't really know how the Catholics do it, but I think you just choose the saint that speaks to you. So after reading the stories of those above, I'm going with Agatha.

Also, if you are saint person or just into religious art, check out the artist who created the image above. His name is Arturo Olivas, and I totally dig his style.

Who is your Patron Saint?

BFF

PCOSChick wrote a very poignant post about BFFs (Best Fertile Friends), and it made me think about my BFFs. I am such a lucky girl that I have two, we'll call them BFF(H) and BFF(B). These two women are not just my Best Fertile Friends, they are my absolute Best Friends Forever (aside from the Professor of course).

BFF(H) is a friend from my wild-child college days. I first introduced her here. I've known her longer than I've known my husband. She was my Maid of Honor at my wedding. We've been through some truly horrible ordeals together and we've had a lot of fun together, and year after year, we appreciate each other more. She has always been the first one to jump to my defense when I feel hurt or slighted, always ready with an offer to fly across the country to kick somebody's ass for me (and she could do it, too, she's fit). When I told her about my infertility, she just said "Damn, that sucks", and when I explained to her that basically my ovaries and my uterus had communication issues, she came back with the suggestion that they should seek couples counseling because she'd heard it really worked wonders for that problem! Not a trace of pity, which would have crushed me. She just comes at life fists raised and cracking jokes. It just breaks my heart to know that, barring a miracle, we will never live in the same place again. She got married last year, and is now 5 months pregnant with her first child. And I so cannot wait to watch her be a Mom, because it's gonna be a riot!

BFF(B) is a newer friend that I met at my previous job about six years ago, when we were both unmarried and childless. Now we're both married, and I'm still childless. I was there when she had her miscarriage, and she was there when I had mine. We had the exact same problem, but I had a different doctor and a lot more monitoring so I feel like I got off easy after what I saw her endure. When I told her about my infertility, she asked intelligent questions about the problem and the plan without getting soppy. And she just keeps telling me "You'll get there. You will." and it's hard not to believe her. She is the one who when I got my period after the last IUI, told me to come on over, put the kids to bed early and cracked open a bottle of red. I've watched her wrangle those three kids with calm and humor that I cannot fathom. She and her husband are possibly the most fertile people I know, and they are the people the Professor and I will look to for parenting tips should we be so lucky.

Take a minute to think about your BFF, then give them a call or send them a note and let them know how much they mean to you.