Seriously, isn’t that what it feels like? It’s like having a sixth sense or something, and not in a good way, right? I mean, what is the trick to getting IF off the brain…once in a while!  Between the pregnancy dreams, baby showers, and the daily requirement of winding myself up in order to function, is there anything at the end of this tunnel? Anything? And to top it off, the money I saved to attempt to have a child again, it’s gone, yep… gone. It turns out that poor financial planning is just another one of those curve balls I wasn’t ready for-it just never ever ever lets up!

Is anyone listening? And the worst part about all of this is that I really feel totally alone in all of this-none of my friends can really relate though they try to be supportive, my family, forget that, they don’t have a clue. I mean, I have a great mother but she spent every sunday for about 3 months talking about this amazing baby shower she was throwing…what the ?!?  People just don’t get the depth of pain that this causes and you can’t really tell them because it sounds like this, like wining. And as far as the husband goes, we couldn’t be further apart on this subject. He says he gets it but he really doesn’t. If he did, he would move mountains to help make it happen but he’s more concerned with the exorbitant amount of money that it costs and well, he doesn’t want to lose our house over it, and I could care less about a house. Does anybody care?

We all know the feeling of desperately wanting to get pregnant, and being forced to witness the pregnancies of those around us, friends, colleagues, 12-year olds, homeless people, pretty much everybody else who wants to, and even those who don’t! Ugh!!!!! Is there a better word for this- It’s just maddening.

One of our fertility friends wrote in and asked me, what do you say to those comments like, “when do you plan on having a baby?” or my favorite, ”I can’t wait for you to get pregnant so our kids can play together!”.  Here’s the thing, I know from my own experience that those kinds of questions should just never be asked. Someone with class simply knows that you don’t ask a woman about her plans for having a baby unless it’s obvious that she wants to share that with you. But I should add that my experience has given me a sort of sensitivity to this subject that most people don’t automatically have–why should they? Because they haven’t experiened infertility, there  is a whole world of things that just would not occur to them, so my point, we should give them the benefit of the doubt, don’t you think? It’s like expecting a blind person to describe the color of the sky, they just can’t do it.

It’s funny that this comes up today because I was recently asked by someone I work with when or if I was going to have kids. But, we have worked together for 2 years and it wasn’t completely absurd for her to ask, we work at a school and most of the people we work with, have kids. In this case, I sort of told her a short version of the truth, and I’m sure she regretted asking, not that I was aiming for that, but it does teach them a lesson. I personally like the answer, “we’re gonna stick with dogs for the time being,”  that really oughta do it. But I think it’s okay to say, “we’re working on it,” or you can even say something kind of light like, “we’re not quite there but I promise you’ll be the first to know.” I don’t think there is an easy answer to this and each case is different but we can always (we meaning, fertility challenged) and should always walk away with our dignity in tact-we don’t have to join the others in the land of the tactfully challenged, we have enough problems.

Does anyone feel like a fuckin’ alien for be not being able to have a baby? I mean really, isn’t this like a right of passage for any woman who wants to have a child? I must be an alien trapped in a human body, but with an alien’s uterus no doubt!  Here’s what I don’t get-why give me the parts if they’re not going to work? Why didn’t God, or whoever is up there, just make me a hermaphrodite or something…maybe that way I could just get myself pregnant and call it a day. Oh sweet sarcasm….the perfect defense mechanism.

On a serious note, I feel an incredible amount of shame when it comes to this-I feel like a freak quite honestly. The question is, how do I overcome this? And the answer, I haven’t the slightest clue. I’m sort of a spiritual person in a way with some good tools, and I haven’t taken any hostages yet, so it works to a degree, but there’s always a struggle, a push-pull sort of thing that prevents me from having any kind of peace or acceptance. An inner war so to speak, a good-guy, bad-guy shoot out and I am both shooters.

Well, my boss’s baby shower is coming up and I am going! This will be my first baby shower since this all started-I’m not sure if good guy or bad guy made that choice, but I’m going…

By the way, this is her second baby-who has a baby shower for second baby??  It just keeps getting better….

But I’m curious, if this is the only way to have a child, would you do it?

Hey everyone!  One of my readers recently let me know that my posts just haven’t been the same lately, not as heartfelt, or complete with my usual ramblings of self pity and impending emotional catastrophe. I kinda miss it to. All that positive thinking, trying to look on the bright side of things, didn’t really work out so much. I see people doing it, reading about it, taking seminars on it, but in the end, positive thinking doesn’t really change my circumstances so pretending to be okay with it all, is just that, pretending. What’s the point in that?

My reality is still insufferable, every day the clock ticks and nothing happens, it’s just an endless cycle of waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting with the occasional and delightful interruption of baby showers and baby naming ceremonies. It’s a profound feeling of sadness that goes deeper and deeper every day. Every now and then, I experience a slight glimmer of hope as we consider our next steps, but nothing happens time and time again, nothing.

So I confess today the overwhelming defeat of IF and the likelihood of never really recovering from this hopeless state of mind.

I have to say, there is really nothing quite as lovely as seeing my “fertility” friends finally get themselves knocked up. I was sitting around a large table at Starbucks last night with about 10 girlfriends, enjoying the silliness and the chatter going back and forth.  I secretly knew that one of my friends at the table is pregnant, well it’s not a secret, she told me, but I was the only one at the table who knew and I felt sort of honored to be entrusted, and to have the kinds of bonds with friends that withstand the test of time–we have walked this path together, and I have seen her make it to the other side–there’s something pretty cool about that.

I know that I will never feel complete without having a child, but now I know that I can feel genuinely happy for others that do, and honestly, I didn’t know if I ever could.

There are some things you just simply cannot say no to, like attending your boss’s baby shower-ouch! Would it be rude to bring my own vodka? I know I keep harping on this baby shower and pregnant boss sob story but it’s in my face every single day….and now this shower! So, in addition to the 40 hours a week that I spend with her, what’s another 6, right?  Truthfully, I’d rather go back to having curly hair than attend this soiree but…she’s been an excellent boss so is there a right thing to do and if so, do I always have to do it?

If you think it, will it come? Money….that is. Lets face it, the exorbitant, racket of a cost that is necessary to go through IVF is basically non-negotiable and for most of us, crippling, financially crippling.

So, if you have been lucky enough to survive the financial bombshell, the depleting of your savings, and the embarrassment of asking family for help, where to do you turn to next if the IVF train continues to rob you of financial security? When do you say “no” and what if you don’t agree on when to stop, or how much more to spend? The words “till death do us part” make take on new meaning for those fighting the good IF fight! I wish I knew the answers and I was here to grace you all with the solutions that have worked perfectly in my life. Not even close…in fact, I’m completely out of ideas. So, what is the answer when it comes to financing another round of IVF, or even a donor-how much is too much?

I think for some the answer is to never stop, no matter what the cost, financially, emotionally, and spiritually. And I’ve seen those people myself move heaven and earth to make that dream happen. They didn’t mind taking out that second mortgage because it’s just money, right? And I know a couple who went through IVF 8 times, and after $100K-they knew that was all they could do. And three months later, they got pregnant on their own. But how do you come to an agreement when you just simply do not agree? Is this a deal breaker? What kind of terms can you and your spouse come to so that both of you can feel good about it, and feel hopeful? You can start by having the conversation, you’d be surprised how many people don’t want to have that talk–I personally would rather eat glass than talk about money! But then mixed messages and bad feelings get thrown in the pot and what you have is a disaster. The money issue is tough, I’ll give you that but just have the conversation anyway, it can’t be worse than everything you’ve been through.

Let me know how they go–I’d love to hear your solutions!

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I’ve noticed that our little IF community feels kind of like a pack, or at least we treat each other with that sort of “pack” mentality that you see with dogs and cats. We have a pack, 2 dogs and 2 cats and there’s safety in a group, don’t you think? After one of our cats spent the night tossing her cookies all over our bedroom, one of the dogs (retriever, of course) licked her ears and face and let her know she was still loved. And because it feels like we die a thousand deaths every time a cycle fails or we have a miscarriage or we feel that profound sense of loss, we need the people in this community to bring us back to life….over and over again.

My mom used to say to me, ”trouble in paradise dear?” She was referring to our once “normal” relationship. Take a look at this picture, the proportions are not too far off…we should look pretty close to this by the time we have a family, if ever. Anyone relate?  I just had a birthday a couple weeks ago, another brutal reminder that time isn’t waiting for me and the cruelty of childlessness lingers…    

Our relationships are tortured as well as our spirits and in the end, we really only have each other. So, what’s the lesson? A very long and exciting sex life!