Get to know me (and my baggage)!

Oh, please bear with me and accept my apologies in advance...I'm in a mood today and this could turn into a LONG post, partly because I have a lot to say, but mostly because I want to get this out and be done with it.

I really don't want this blog to just be all the things that grind my gears, but I'm not going to lie.  Inspiration, at least for me, comes in two forms.  Comedy and irritants.  I suppose my personal therapy is either laughing or complaining.  There are some people in my family who will attest to the latter, and I'm counting on them to do so in the comment section of this post (that's also a test to see if they're actually reading).

So, let's get down to it.  Ever since I realized I was of the fairer sex and would be the giver of life, I've wanted to have kids.  My paternal grandma had nine kids.  I'm Catholic.  It's in my nature to want to be the mom.  When I was little, I pretended to want to be a nun, mail carrier, teacher and at one point, a writer.  But I was lying to myself and everyone else.  I wanted to be a mom.  I wanted to be just like my mom...there when the kids left for school and there when they got home.  Cooking meals, baking goodies, folding laundry and mopping floors.  Kissing away tears, disciplining and teaching.  I wanted to be the one they ran to when the world was horrible and they needed comfort.  It was all part of the grand scheme.  Now, how to achieve that goal?

I wanted to get married young.  Never mind the fact that it meant I'd have to find Mr. Right soon after graduation, I was on a mission!  I had a few high school boyfriends and one who I thought was going to be THE ONE, but life got in the way.  Long story short, I went to college, THE ONE moved to Louisiana and there I sat, waiting for the perfect time.  It took eleven years to finally figure out that it was meant to be.  "Better late than never" would soon become our motto.  We were married when I was 30 and for the next year we tried, in vain, to become parents.  When I finally thought to ask my doctor about why we weren't yet overjoyed with that second blue line on that stupid pee stick, I was already watching my friends and their kids hitting milestones I thought we'd all be sharing at the same time.  I felt left in the dust.

My OBGYN referred me to a Reproductive Endocrinologist (RE).  I had no idea what that meant at the time, but I would soon learn.  Tests were scheduled, blood was drawn, X-rays were taken.  I was scheduled for a hysterosalpingogram and the name alone freaked me out.  Several gal-pals who had endured the same test told me it was an easy, pain-free little deal.  Wrong.  Wrong.  Wrong.  That thing hurt so badly I thought my midsection would explode from the pain.  But, I endured...anything for that baby, right?  There I sat in the RE's office, waiting to hear the great news that he had a simple explanation for my inability to get pregnant.  The husband was offshore at the time, so like so many things in the life of a diver's wife, I heard the news alone.  At this point you should know that ever since the day I met this man, I wanted to wave a pregnancy test stick in his face, give him a Father's Day card in January, or wear some ridiculous shirt that said "I'm the Mom" to announce the impending addition to our new family.  Nope, not gonna happen.  The doc wanted to schedule surgery.  My fallopian tubes were blocked and he wanted get in there and try to clear them out.  Achieving a pregnancy wasn't going to be easy for me.  I walked out into the parking lot of the hospital, ankle deep in rain, soaked to the bone, and I cried.  I cried all the way back to my office.

The surgery was scheduled.  The husband's boss struggled to get him off the boat in time to pick me up at the hospital since they wouldn't let me drive myself home.  He made it a scant 5 hours before I was admitted.  Thank you, Jeff!  I remember laying in the recovery room.  The anesthesia was wearing off and my RE was by my bedside.  He told me that I had major blockages, he was only able to clear one tube and that he'd never before diagnosed stage 4 endometriosis in a patient.  Apparently, they already know it's bad when they come to him.  I was told that after 6 months, we'd be able to move on to artificial insemination (AI).

Two AIs later and still no baby led him to believe that the surgery wasn't as successful as we'd all hoped.  In-vitro fertilization (IVF) would be our only hope of achieving a pregnancy.  I was crushed.  This is not part of the perfect picture.  IVF averages $15,000 per ATTEMPT.  That's not a guarantee of a pregnancy.  That's just a shot at success.  How do drug-addicted teens get pregnant so easily?  How does that girl from the office have perfectly spaced pregnancies?  "Oh, we had a boy and I now I wanted a girl, so guess what?  We're having a girl!  Oh, and isn't it great that they're 1.275 years apart?  We planned it that way."  Barf.

Being infertile is tough.  Being happy for people who just have sex to get pregnant is even tougher, especially when they're people you love.  Jealousy is an ugly thing.  Random strangers on the street get daggers from me when they park in those "Reserved for the Mommy To Be" spots at the grocery store.  Baby showers hurt.  Birth announcements hurt.  The word 'pregnant' hurts.

The blessing is that we were able to scrape up the money to go through IVF.  So many couples don't have that luxury and my heart aches for them.  There's a lot more involved in IVF than just mixing an egg and some sperm in a petrie dish.  There's two weeks of birth control pills followed by blood tests, $4000 worth of injectible drugs, two outpatient procedures (one to extract the egg and the second to transfer the blastocyst), a week of bedrest, 14 days of waiting on pins and needles as you imagine that every teeny tiny twinge is a symptom of pregnancy, and then there's the big day.  The beta.  The blood test that tells you if you've failed, yet again, or if you've succeeded.

Our first two attempts were failures.  BFN.  That stands for BIG FAT NEGATIVE.  Has a nice ring to it, right?  I did everything right for those two cycles.  I ate right, took my vitamins, stayed on the couch for 14 days, to the hour and yet, I still failed.  So, when we finally decided to go for a third try in January of 2004, I was so defeated that I gave up trying as hard.  I took my meds and shot myself up, but I didn't stress if I wasn't eating perfectly.  I smoked up until the day before my egg harvest (bock bock).

I got started on another cycle in late February, I was all geared up for it to start and he got the call to go offshore.  Oops!  Time to get the husband to 'donate' to the cause before he left.  Bless his heart for the sacrifices he made for my dream.  Honestly, he put up with a LOT from me those first 4 years.  In order to make this a successful cycle, I needed someone there to help me with some of the injections, the bedrest and of course, the hospital wouldn't release me to drive home alone, so I needed someone to drive me.  Who better to do all those things than my mommy.  She flew out from California in March.  She helped me with progesterone injections, helped with shopping, laundry, put up with my hormone-ravaged body, drove me to the hospital, sat in the waiting room while I was poked and prodded and then waited on me hand and foot during the bed rest.  Now, here comes the craziest part.  The DAY we went for our blood test, she had to leave.  And not after....before.  ARGH!  She was crushed and I was too!  She sacrificed so much and wasn't even able to be there for the big news!

The husband made it home two nights before the blood test, so luckily, he'd be there with me for the results.  The first two "big reveals" ended in me leaving the REs office in tears.  In my mind, this time would be no different.  My first two BFNs were delivered to me by a really sweet IVF nurse who felt every ounce of my pain when she told me I wasn't pregnant.  She came out to greet us and walk us back to the office for a third time.  My heart sank.  My throat hurt.  I was squeezing back tears and feeling the shame of having to tell the world that I failed again.  I was feeling the ache of never being a mother.  I was feeling betrayed by my body, that had been giving me lots of signs that I was pregnant.

She sat on the edge of the desk, as if ready to jump up and beat a hasty retreat after she dropped the bomb for a third time.  She apologized that the doc couldn't be there but he was in surgery.  She opened our file, read my beta numbers and said congratulations.  I was all ready to start crying and asking why.  The husband stared at me and said, "We did it.  Oh, God, we're pregnant."  I actually had to look back at the nurse and say, "You're kidding, right?"  Nope.  Not kidding.  We were full-on pregnant.  Then she went on to say, "Now, don't hold me to this, but your numbers are pretty high.  Sometimes that indicates a multiple pregnancy."  I think that was the first thing I heard that actually sank in.  I was pregnant with twins.  See how well I listen?  Not well at all.

Now, you all know how that pregnancy turned out.  Yay for twins!  If I had control over the fertility universe, I'd choose another twin pregnancy in a heartbeat!  It was blessedly uneventful, relatively painless and everything I hoped it would be.

This is what's left of the hospital after Katrina

We had two teeny-tiny embryos left over from that cycle.  They were tucked away in a cryo chamber for use another day.  That day came in 2006.  They had survived Hurricane Katrina.  The entire group of soon-to-be babies were rescued by the National Guard from the second floor of the hospital. We were gearing up to move back home to California, so we wanted to give it one last try before we left.  This would work!  Our little embryos survived Katrina!  The embryos were thawed.  Only one survived the process. I laid in the recovery room with my almost 2 year old twins dancing around me.  I was blissful.  I was happy.  This would work and I'd be able to close a chapter in my life and move on.  A few weeks later, the husband went back to work and I was left having to go through the blood test and subsequent results meeting alone.  I was able to give the blood and leave since I didn't want to parade the twins around the waiting room that was filled with women aching for that one success.  The phone rang the next day and the nurse told me in a rather calm voice that the test was positive.  I was skeptical.  She didn't sound right.  She said the numbers were low, but that there was definitely a pregnancy.  I was to return in two weeks for another test.

I returned, the numbers were lower.  I needed to return again, but I should know that this wasn't a viable pregnancy.  I was having a miscarriage.  The sad thing is that I was lucky that it was so early.  I have friends who have stories that would rip your heart out when you hear them.  That was it.  We were done.  I didn't cry much.  I think I had this idea that the husband would want to try again.  I didn't want to let go of my chance at one more baby just yet.  That was four years ago.  Here I sit, knowing full well that I have to give it up.  I can't.  My doc puts me on birth control to stop the growth of my endometriosis and I keep making up excuses to stop taking them.  What if?  What if that ONE time that I stop, we get that "oops" pregnancy?  Then I can be done.

So, when you wonder why I'm so completely nasty and mean when it comes to pregnancy, now you know why.  I'm jealous.  Crazy, ugly, stupid jealous.  I have a low tolerance for people who complain about their fat bodies, their achy feet, their birth plans.  I'm intolerant of the people who say, "oh, I know how you feel.  We're infertile, too.  It took us 6 months to get pregnant with #4!"

I guess I'll eventually give up when my doctor finally tells me it's time to rip out my last chance at another baby.  For now, I suppose what I want people to know is why I don't jump up and down when you announce your pregnancy...why I cringe when I hear stories about the new baby and why I'm just a bitter old woman.  But more than that, I would LOVE for this story to make you think twice before you ask that newlywed couple, "when are you going to start a family?"  Understand why your friend can't make it to your baby shower.  Don't ask why they "don't just adopt."

Okay, that's all.  I promise my next post will be hilarious!  Thanks for listening.