I think this article should be required reading for everyone, everywhere:
http://www.resolve.org/site/PageServer?pagename=lrn_ffaf_ie
A snippet that I rather like:
"Don't Minimize the Problem
Failure to conceive a baby is a very painful journey. Infertile couples are surrounded by families with children. These couples watch their friends give birth to two or three children, and they watch those children grow while the couple goes home to the silence of an empty house. These couples see all of the joy that a child brings into someone's life, and they feel the emptiness of not being able to experience the same joy.
Comments like, "Just enjoy being able to sleep late . . . .travel . . etc.," do not offer comfort. Instead, these comments make infertile people feel like you are minimizing their pain. You wouldn't tell somebody whose parent just died to be thankful that he no longer has to buy Father's Day or Mother's Day cards. Losing that one obligation doesn't even begin to compensate for the incredible loss of losing a parent. In the same vein, being able to sleep late or travel does not provide comfort to somebody who desperately wants a child. "
We get this ALL THE TIME. We are fully aware that life with a baby will not be easy...however, we seem to be much more aware than most PARENTS that life *without* a baby can be even harder. Sure, you lose sleep because your baby won't sleep through the night, and you can't "go out" on a whim without finding a babysitter. I can empathize with that. But please learn to empathize with the fact that we lose sleep because we don't have a baby at all, and we can't "go out" without seeing babies and pregnant bellies. The gods favor no one...I would gladly trade being able to travel, sleep late, and go out on a whim for sleepless nights, diaper changes, and stretch marks.
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Friday, December 21, 2007
Baby's first...
When does the phase of “this would have been my baby’s first…” end?
I never went through this with my first miscarriage. Maybe the first pregnancy just wasn’t as real to me; I didn’t know I was pregnant until I miscarried, so the emotional attachment wasn’t there the way it was the second time. I noticed a few milestones, but it wasn’t as much of an issue. I do tend to be a person who notices milestones, anniversaries, etc., of even the most obscure things…call it OCD, it’s just the way I am.
Now it’s like there’s this constant reminder in my head…this would have been my baby’s first Fourth of July…my baby’s first Halloween…my baby’s first Thanksgiving…and now, of course, my baby’s first Christmas.
Over the last few years, Christmas hasn’t been a real thrilling time of year for me anyway, even without this problem. My Christmas spirit has never fully recovered from the time I spent working in retail. The last couple of years haven’t been quite as depressing, but Christmas in general is more about frayed nerves and frenzied shopping than togetherness, the spirit of giving, etc. It has taken considerable effort for me to get “into” Christmas over the last few years. It’s only the last three or four years that the sight of poinsettias hasn’t filled me with dread.
Now, I have the added delight of that little voice in my head reminding me at the most inopportune moments that this would have been my baby’s first Christmas. Argh. When does this “first” crap end? Please tell me it doesn’t change to “this would have been my baby’s SECOND…”.
I really do try not to dwell on any of this. Sometimes it just sneaks up on me, or I’ll see something that reminds me. While shopping last night, they had “Baby’s First Christmas” ornaments…tell me I’m not the only one who just wants to die when they see stuff like that.
In general, I really am doing pretty well with the miscarriage. I don’t obsess over it constantly. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about it, don’t get me wrong, but I’ve come a long way since last year. It’s just that sometimes, things remind me, and I get that sick feeling in my stomach. And this time of year, those little reminders seem to be quite a bit more frequent.
Eddie loves Christmas, and he’s tried so hard the last couple of years to help me get into it. I always feel bad because I feel like I’m pulling him down with me, but it’s just one of those things that is really, really hard for me to get into, even without “baby’s first” syndrome hanging over my head.
But, we’ll have Christmas together, and we’ll have a few presents, some Christmas weenies*, and enjoy some time off of work. Hopefully I can get through it without crying.
* Christmas weenies are a family tradition – we always got together at my grandparents’ house for Christmas Eve munchies and presents. There were certain perennial favorites that became Christmas Eve staples: Ruffles potato chips (HAD to be Ruffles), eggnog with Seagram’s 7 (or 7-Up, for us non-drinkers), fruitcake (YES, WE LIKE FRUITCAKE), cookies, and various other things. Amidst all the goodies, there has always been a casserole dish of those little mini-sausages (smokies, I guess they’re called) in either a sweet BBQ sauce or a sweet and sour sauce. They were dubbed, and have forever remained, Christmas weenies. If there’s one thing that can, and usually does to a certain extent, resurrect my Christmas spirit, it’s Christmas weenies.
So…bring on the Christmas weenies, and let’s hope that 2008 is not the year of “this would have been my baby’s SECOND…”
I never went through this with my first miscarriage. Maybe the first pregnancy just wasn’t as real to me; I didn’t know I was pregnant until I miscarried, so the emotional attachment wasn’t there the way it was the second time. I noticed a few milestones, but it wasn’t as much of an issue. I do tend to be a person who notices milestones, anniversaries, etc., of even the most obscure things…call it OCD, it’s just the way I am.
Now it’s like there’s this constant reminder in my head…this would have been my baby’s first Fourth of July…my baby’s first Halloween…my baby’s first Thanksgiving…and now, of course, my baby’s first Christmas.
Over the last few years, Christmas hasn’t been a real thrilling time of year for me anyway, even without this problem. My Christmas spirit has never fully recovered from the time I spent working in retail. The last couple of years haven’t been quite as depressing, but Christmas in general is more about frayed nerves and frenzied shopping than togetherness, the spirit of giving, etc. It has taken considerable effort for me to get “into” Christmas over the last few years. It’s only the last three or four years that the sight of poinsettias hasn’t filled me with dread.
Now, I have the added delight of that little voice in my head reminding me at the most inopportune moments that this would have been my baby’s first Christmas. Argh. When does this “first” crap end? Please tell me it doesn’t change to “this would have been my baby’s SECOND…”.
I really do try not to dwell on any of this. Sometimes it just sneaks up on me, or I’ll see something that reminds me. While shopping last night, they had “Baby’s First Christmas” ornaments…tell me I’m not the only one who just wants to die when they see stuff like that.
In general, I really am doing pretty well with the miscarriage. I don’t obsess over it constantly. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about it, don’t get me wrong, but I’ve come a long way since last year. It’s just that sometimes, things remind me, and I get that sick feeling in my stomach. And this time of year, those little reminders seem to be quite a bit more frequent.
Eddie loves Christmas, and he’s tried so hard the last couple of years to help me get into it. I always feel bad because I feel like I’m pulling him down with me, but it’s just one of those things that is really, really hard for me to get into, even without “baby’s first” syndrome hanging over my head.
But, we’ll have Christmas together, and we’ll have a few presents, some Christmas weenies*, and enjoy some time off of work. Hopefully I can get through it without crying.
* Christmas weenies are a family tradition – we always got together at my grandparents’ house for Christmas Eve munchies and presents. There were certain perennial favorites that became Christmas Eve staples: Ruffles potato chips (HAD to be Ruffles), eggnog with Seagram’s 7 (or 7-Up, for us non-drinkers), fruitcake (YES, WE LIKE FRUITCAKE), cookies, and various other things. Amidst all the goodies, there has always been a casserole dish of those little mini-sausages (smokies, I guess they’re called) in either a sweet BBQ sauce or a sweet and sour sauce. They were dubbed, and have forever remained, Christmas weenies. If there’s one thing that can, and usually does to a certain extent, resurrect my Christmas spirit, it’s Christmas weenies.
So…bring on the Christmas weenies, and let’s hope that 2008 is not the year of “this would have been my baby’s SECOND…”
Thursday, December 20, 2007
My journey home.
This essay is something that I posted on a message board a few years ago, and upon revisiting it today, thought it appropriate for this blog. Having had several years to work on conceiving a baby, I’ve also spent a great deal of time contemplating getting said baby OUT. Not everyone will agree with what I’ve written below, but it’s the result of a significant amount of research, soul-searching, and talking to countless mothers.
My Journey Home to Have My Baby
I grew up “knowing” that childbirth was painful, traumatic, and inherently dangerous. Without a trained doctor to catch the baby, Mom and baby alike faced all manner of horrible complications. You went to the hospital, got drugs to numb the pain, and the doctor delivered your baby. You went to your room to sleep, the baby went to the nursery where people who knew what they were doing made sure he was ok. You lovingly peered through a window at a sea of babies and made happy faces at yours.
My mom would have died in childbirth if she had had my brother 100 years ago rather than in 1978. She simply couldn’t dilate past 2 cm, and when she hit the 24 hour mark after her water broke, it was time for a C-section. When I came along in 1980, I was – of course – a C-section.
As I got older and swore up and down I wouldn’t have kids, I listened to everyone else’s stories. “I was overdue, so I had to be induced.” “The baby was 7 lbs, and I just couldn’t do it vaginally, so I had to have a C-section.” “Thank God we were in the hospital. I never could have done it by myself; the doctor had to use forceps, vacuum, all kinds of things. We would have died.” “So-and-so had a baby at home; she’s crazy. In fact, I think I should call CPS on her for neglect. Do what you want with yourself, but don’t harm your baby because you are a sprout-munching hippie.” (YES, I have heard every one of these in pretty much those exact words)
I wasn’t planning on having kids anyway, but this kind of thing made it that much less appetizing. Why on Earth would I deliberately go through such a dangerous, scary ordeal?
Then I got married. And then we decided we wanted kids. Oh boy.
Not wanting to put myself or my baby in any unnecessary danger, and wanting to know EXACTLY what I was getting myself into, I started researching. I was terrified of doctors anyway, having had some really nasty experiences at the hands of a number of doctors throughout my life. I wanted to make sure I knew as much as I could, so that maybe I could prevent myself from having my streak of Bad Doctor luck extend into childbirth.
I wanted to know all about epidurals (not because I thought they were unsafe, but because I’m terrified of needles and that one was going to go in MY BACK!!!). I didn’t want to deal with the pain, but a needle? In my back? *whimper*
Maybe it was luck, maybe it was divine intervention (being an atheist, I’ll go with luck), but the first site I found was a homebirth site. Ooookay, well, maybe these people have links to normal birth stuff. Well, they did…normal, non-medical, non-managed births. Normal births.
I didn’t sleep so good that night. I spent most of the night staring at the ceiling thinking about the birth stories I’d read. I’d never read birth stories before. And they were so….peaceful. The pain, the horror, and the fear were not the main themes of the stories. In fact, they were barely present, except for pain, but that wasn’t a big deal. It just “was”.
I started finding more stories that unnerved me even more. People who had had their first one, two, even three or four kids in a hospital. The experiences haunted them. At best, they were uncomfortable, something wasn’t right. At worst, they were horrific to the point of longterm psychological and physical trauma. It was the other side of the stories I’d heard all my life. It wasn’t “thank God the doctors/hospital/machines were there to save us”, it was, “What the hell did they do to me?”
But if birth itself is so scary and dangerous, what could possibly have happened to make them believe doing it at HOME, without a doctor, was safer?
Failed epidurals. Reactions – in Mom and baby – to pitocin, epidurals, painkillers, and the like. Gaping episiotomies that really didn’t need to be there. Infections. Being tied down to hospital protocols that, now that the women mentioned it, really didn’t make much sense. Not eating/drinking? For 12, 18, even 36 hours? Or lying in bed with your legs in the air instead of squatting or being on all fours, which, to my great surprise is the way many women give birth when left to their own devices. Being in bed with your feet in stirrups actually closes the pelvis considerably, and pushes the tailbone into the way…I had no idea.
I always though you gave birth on your back with your legs up, but why were these women standing, squatting, and kneeling, and having big babies with nary a tear? Why was pushing counted as 2, 3, or 4 contractions or pushes, not 2, 3, or 4 hours? And it wasn’t just second/third/fourth time mothers, it was FIRST time mothers.
These weren’t women who were sad or angry and wanted to sue, or seek revenge. They were women who realized something was amiss and did something about it. And the subsequent experiences were not only better, it was not uncommon at all for me to see them described as “healing”. Healing? Birth? I thought those two only went together when you were talking about stitches and stretches. How odd.
It kept me up all night because it rattled me out of my comfort zone. One of the truths that had been ingrained into my head all my life…maybe it wasn’t so true after all.
But I’m not going to automatically buy into something because I read it online. So it was off to the bookstore. I picked up books in every part of the spectrum: from pro-homebirth to pro-hospital, and everything in between.
One was written by a couple of RN’s that worked in labor and delivery. They said right up front that they wouldn’t be discussing homebirth in their book because they believed it was dangerous. I read their book, and couldn’t help asking myself (constantly) “why do they need to do this or that?” “That doesn’t make any sense.” “Why?” “WTF?”
I read Henci Goer and Ina May Gaskin. I found a 2” thick book all about everything pertaining pregnancy and childbirth, with information on home and hospital. I read every last one of them cover to cover.
I didn’t sleep the next few nights either.
So I started corresponding with women on homebirth lists, lurking on message boards for everything from negative births to homebirths to unassisted births (yikes! I thought) to unmedicated hospital. I talked to people who adored their hospital births, and people who were traumatized by them. I talked to mothers who adored their homebirths, and tried to find people traumatized by them, but found very, very few. I literally read hundreds, probably well over a thousand birth stories.
So many questions were raised in my mind: Why were there so many C-sections? Why did so many women “need” inductions? There was so much going wrong with so many women that I had to stop and ask myself, was it the process of birth, or the way it was being managed? Why did normal, low risk moms suddenly need a million interventions, and why did this happen so often compared to at home?
Most of all, why were women giving birth at home, with people they love and trust, in dimly lit, quiet rooms? Why weren’t they on their backs, straddled, screaming bloody murder, in unbearable agony? Oh, because I guess that’s not how it’s really supposed to be.
It’s been nearly five years since I started looking for information, fully intending to give birth in a hospital just like everyone with a brain in their head would do. And here I am. We’re still trying to conceive our first, but the fear I had about birth is gone. I know it’ll hurt, but I’m not afraid of that pain. I’m more afraid of what could happen if I try to alleviate that pain with drugs. Barring any unforseens requiring a doctor, I don’t see any reason why an event that *could* be safe and peaceful needs to require me fighting against hospital protocols and putting myself or my baby in that environment.
It was an unnerving, comfort zone rattling journey, but in the end, it was a journey home, and it was worth it.
My Journey Home to Have My Baby
I grew up “knowing” that childbirth was painful, traumatic, and inherently dangerous. Without a trained doctor to catch the baby, Mom and baby alike faced all manner of horrible complications. You went to the hospital, got drugs to numb the pain, and the doctor delivered your baby. You went to your room to sleep, the baby went to the nursery where people who knew what they were doing made sure he was ok. You lovingly peered through a window at a sea of babies and made happy faces at yours.
My mom would have died in childbirth if she had had my brother 100 years ago rather than in 1978. She simply couldn’t dilate past 2 cm, and when she hit the 24 hour mark after her water broke, it was time for a C-section. When I came along in 1980, I was – of course – a C-section.
As I got older and swore up and down I wouldn’t have kids, I listened to everyone else’s stories. “I was overdue, so I had to be induced.” “The baby was 7 lbs, and I just couldn’t do it vaginally, so I had to have a C-section.” “Thank God we were in the hospital. I never could have done it by myself; the doctor had to use forceps, vacuum, all kinds of things. We would have died.” “So-and-so had a baby at home; she’s crazy. In fact, I think I should call CPS on her for neglect. Do what you want with yourself, but don’t harm your baby because you are a sprout-munching hippie.” (YES, I have heard every one of these in pretty much those exact words)
I wasn’t planning on having kids anyway, but this kind of thing made it that much less appetizing. Why on Earth would I deliberately go through such a dangerous, scary ordeal?
Then I got married. And then we decided we wanted kids. Oh boy.
Not wanting to put myself or my baby in any unnecessary danger, and wanting to know EXACTLY what I was getting myself into, I started researching. I was terrified of doctors anyway, having had some really nasty experiences at the hands of a number of doctors throughout my life. I wanted to make sure I knew as much as I could, so that maybe I could prevent myself from having my streak of Bad Doctor luck extend into childbirth.
I wanted to know all about epidurals (not because I thought they were unsafe, but because I’m terrified of needles and that one was going to go in MY BACK!!!). I didn’t want to deal with the pain, but a needle? In my back? *whimper*
Maybe it was luck, maybe it was divine intervention (being an atheist, I’ll go with luck), but the first site I found was a homebirth site. Ooookay, well, maybe these people have links to normal birth stuff. Well, they did…normal, non-medical, non-managed births. Normal births.
I didn’t sleep so good that night. I spent most of the night staring at the ceiling thinking about the birth stories I’d read. I’d never read birth stories before. And they were so….peaceful. The pain, the horror, and the fear were not the main themes of the stories. In fact, they were barely present, except for pain, but that wasn’t a big deal. It just “was”.
I started finding more stories that unnerved me even more. People who had had their first one, two, even three or four kids in a hospital. The experiences haunted them. At best, they were uncomfortable, something wasn’t right. At worst, they were horrific to the point of longterm psychological and physical trauma. It was the other side of the stories I’d heard all my life. It wasn’t “thank God the doctors/hospital/machines were there to save us”, it was, “What the hell did they do to me?”
But if birth itself is so scary and dangerous, what could possibly have happened to make them believe doing it at HOME, without a doctor, was safer?
Failed epidurals. Reactions – in Mom and baby – to pitocin, epidurals, painkillers, and the like. Gaping episiotomies that really didn’t need to be there. Infections. Being tied down to hospital protocols that, now that the women mentioned it, really didn’t make much sense. Not eating/drinking? For 12, 18, even 36 hours? Or lying in bed with your legs in the air instead of squatting or being on all fours, which, to my great surprise is the way many women give birth when left to their own devices. Being in bed with your feet in stirrups actually closes the pelvis considerably, and pushes the tailbone into the way…I had no idea.
I always though you gave birth on your back with your legs up, but why were these women standing, squatting, and kneeling, and having big babies with nary a tear? Why was pushing counted as 2, 3, or 4 contractions or pushes, not 2, 3, or 4 hours? And it wasn’t just second/third/fourth time mothers, it was FIRST time mothers.
These weren’t women who were sad or angry and wanted to sue, or seek revenge. They were women who realized something was amiss and did something about it. And the subsequent experiences were not only better, it was not uncommon at all for me to see them described as “healing”. Healing? Birth? I thought those two only went together when you were talking about stitches and stretches. How odd.
It kept me up all night because it rattled me out of my comfort zone. One of the truths that had been ingrained into my head all my life…maybe it wasn’t so true after all.
But I’m not going to automatically buy into something because I read it online. So it was off to the bookstore. I picked up books in every part of the spectrum: from pro-homebirth to pro-hospital, and everything in between.
One was written by a couple of RN’s that worked in labor and delivery. They said right up front that they wouldn’t be discussing homebirth in their book because they believed it was dangerous. I read their book, and couldn’t help asking myself (constantly) “why do they need to do this or that?” “That doesn’t make any sense.” “Why?” “WTF?”
I read Henci Goer and Ina May Gaskin. I found a 2” thick book all about everything pertaining pregnancy and childbirth, with information on home and hospital. I read every last one of them cover to cover.
I didn’t sleep the next few nights either.
So I started corresponding with women on homebirth lists, lurking on message boards for everything from negative births to homebirths to unassisted births (yikes! I thought) to unmedicated hospital. I talked to people who adored their hospital births, and people who were traumatized by them. I talked to mothers who adored their homebirths, and tried to find people traumatized by them, but found very, very few. I literally read hundreds, probably well over a thousand birth stories.
So many questions were raised in my mind: Why were there so many C-sections? Why did so many women “need” inductions? There was so much going wrong with so many women that I had to stop and ask myself, was it the process of birth, or the way it was being managed? Why did normal, low risk moms suddenly need a million interventions, and why did this happen so often compared to at home?
Most of all, why were women giving birth at home, with people they love and trust, in dimly lit, quiet rooms? Why weren’t they on their backs, straddled, screaming bloody murder, in unbearable agony? Oh, because I guess that’s not how it’s really supposed to be.
It’s been nearly five years since I started looking for information, fully intending to give birth in a hospital just like everyone with a brain in their head would do. And here I am. We’re still trying to conceive our first, but the fear I had about birth is gone. I know it’ll hurt, but I’m not afraid of that pain. I’m more afraid of what could happen if I try to alleviate that pain with drugs. Barring any unforseens requiring a doctor, I don’t see any reason why an event that *could* be safe and peaceful needs to require me fighting against hospital protocols and putting myself or my baby in that environment.
It was an unnerving, comfort zone rattling journey, but in the end, it was a journey home, and it was worth it.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
EVERYONE. IS. PREGNANT. (Well, except me...)
Everyone around me is pregnant. Everyone and their freaking mother is pregnant. Hell, it wouldn’t surprise me if a few of the MEN are pregnant. EVERYONE is PREGNANT.
So what about me? Still (obviously) not pregnant. AF finally showed up about 2 weeks ago, for the first time in about 5 months (aside from that quick, quasi-visit in October) so fingers crossed that things are working again.
I’m still going back and forth in my head about how much longer I want to keep trying. Some days, I just want to throw in the towel, give away all of our baby stuff, and accept that we will be DINKS for life. Some days, I’m actually ok with that. Other days, all it takes is a mere glimpse of a baby or a pregnant belly to have me climbing the walls. So…I’ll probably keep doing this back-and-forth thing until I finally do get pregnant (shortly after my 70th birthday, at this rate).
So…if anyone reading this has any baby dust that they’re not using, kindly send it this way.
So what about me? Still (obviously) not pregnant. AF finally showed up about 2 weeks ago, for the first time in about 5 months (aside from that quick, quasi-visit in October) so fingers crossed that things are working again.
I’m still going back and forth in my head about how much longer I want to keep trying. Some days, I just want to throw in the towel, give away all of our baby stuff, and accept that we will be DINKS for life. Some days, I’m actually ok with that. Other days, all it takes is a mere glimpse of a baby or a pregnant belly to have me climbing the walls. So…I’ll probably keep doing this back-and-forth thing until I finally do get pregnant (shortly after my 70th birthday, at this rate).
So…if anyone reading this has any baby dust that they’re not using, kindly send it this way.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
"She's stressed and flustered."
It's been a shitty week at work. REALLY shitty. I mean, I've come home every night this week and wanted either a stiff drink or something to hit. I'm just over it.
Today, one of my co-workers bit my head off over nothing -- in fact, I was HELPING her -- in front of several other people. I was fuming mad...I mean, seriously...spitting nails, ready to just let her know how I felt about her. I have been taking crap from people all week, and what she said was so completely out of line and uncalled for...I was just over it. My other co-worker said something to our boss, and we were met with, "Well, she's really stressed and flustered with (a bunch of work-related bullshit)." In other words, she let it go. Completely blew it off. Acted like it was NOTHING, and basically told me to suck it up.
Now, what if *I* am stressed and flustered? What if I lash out at someone because I'm overwhelmed by my job? Not that I have any reason to be...what's stressful about being short one person, slammed with high volumes of orders and phone calls like we haven't been in ages, and "supported" by a worthless production manager and lazy technical support staff? There's nothing stressful about that, right? So I have no REASON to lash out. And it wouldn't be exacerbated AT ALL by the fact that my hormones are raging (it's been almost 5 months since my last REAL period, and about 6 weeks since the brief period-wannabe I had...the hormones be snowballin'...). In fact, I work REALLY hard *NOT* to lash out at people when I'm like this. Sometimes it happens (sorry, Eddie...). But at work, I try really, really hard to keep it from happening.
So why is it that when someone else is stressed, or flustered, or just being a bitch, I have to just roll over and take it? Why can't I let fly and snap someone's head off? Fuck that.
So. Over. It.
I'd have a stiff drink -- and believe me, I've seriously considered it -- but wait! That's right, I have to go through life as if I'm pregnant JUST IN FUCKING CASE I am. Nevermind the fact that it's been over 4 years...just my luck, the night I decide to go on a bender with my good buddy Smirnoff will be the night before I get a positive test. So no, I *can't* drink even when I *want* to, because I COULD be pregnant. It's been 4 goddamned years, and all I want is ONE night to just drink myself stupid. Or hell, just a couple of drinks to get me giggly. Something. But I can't.
Great. All my lady hormones are making my job even more unbearable, and all I want is a fucking drink to defrazzle my nerves, but I *can't* because the goddamn lady hormones that are making me feel this way in the first place COULD mean I'm pregnant.
My co-worker is allowed to lash out at me because "she's stressed and flustered"? Fuck that. I'll show you "stressed and flustered".
Rant OVER.
Today, one of my co-workers bit my head off over nothing -- in fact, I was HELPING her -- in front of several other people. I was fuming mad...I mean, seriously...spitting nails, ready to just let her know how I felt about her. I have been taking crap from people all week, and what she said was so completely out of line and uncalled for...I was just over it. My other co-worker said something to our boss, and we were met with, "Well, she's really stressed and flustered with (a bunch of work-related bullshit)." In other words, she let it go. Completely blew it off. Acted like it was NOTHING, and basically told me to suck it up.
Now, what if *I* am stressed and flustered? What if I lash out at someone because I'm overwhelmed by my job? Not that I have any reason to be...what's stressful about being short one person, slammed with high volumes of orders and phone calls like we haven't been in ages, and "supported" by a worthless production manager and lazy technical support staff? There's nothing stressful about that, right? So I have no REASON to lash out. And it wouldn't be exacerbated AT ALL by the fact that my hormones are raging (it's been almost 5 months since my last REAL period, and about 6 weeks since the brief period-wannabe I had...the hormones be snowballin'...). In fact, I work REALLY hard *NOT* to lash out at people when I'm like this. Sometimes it happens (sorry, Eddie...). But at work, I try really, really hard to keep it from happening.
So why is it that when someone else is stressed, or flustered, or just being a bitch, I have to just roll over and take it? Why can't I let fly and snap someone's head off? Fuck that.
So. Over. It.
I'd have a stiff drink -- and believe me, I've seriously considered it -- but wait! That's right, I have to go through life as if I'm pregnant JUST IN FUCKING CASE I am. Nevermind the fact that it's been over 4 years...just my luck, the night I decide to go on a bender with my good buddy Smirnoff will be the night before I get a positive test. So no, I *can't* drink even when I *want* to, because I COULD be pregnant. It's been 4 goddamned years, and all I want is ONE night to just drink myself stupid. Or hell, just a couple of drinks to get me giggly. Something. But I can't.
Great. All my lady hormones are making my job even more unbearable, and all I want is a fucking drink to defrazzle my nerves, but I *can't* because the goddamn lady hormones that are making me feel this way in the first place COULD mean I'm pregnant.
My co-worker is allowed to lash out at me because "she's stressed and flustered"? Fuck that. I'll show you "stressed and flustered".
Rant OVER.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Either I need to quit my job, or change desks.
In the last 2 years, 4 women have worked at this particular desk that's kitty-corner to mine. One of them is post-menopausal, so she doesn't count....but the other 3 have all worked there for at least a year, quit, and within 2 months of leaving, were pregnant.
Either I need to quit, or I need to wrestle that desk away from the chick that's there now...because I am obviously sitting at the WRONG desk...
EDIT: My math skills are obviously lacking. Should have been in the last 4 years, not the last 2. LOL
Either I need to quit, or I need to wrestle that desk away from the chick that's there now...because I am obviously sitting at the WRONG desk...
EDIT: My math skills are obviously lacking. Should have been in the last 4 years, not the last 2. LOL
Monday, November 19, 2007
Made it through.
Well, we made it through the baby shower. The parents-to-be are some of our best friends, so I wouldn’t have missed it for the world, but I’m not going to lie…it was hard.
When we went shopping, we mostly stuck to practical gifts – a baby first aid kit, bath stuff, etc. I didn’t realize it until later, but I think that that was less about “let’s get them what they NEED” and more along the lines of “I can’t go near the cutesy stuff”. And by “I didn’t realize it until later”, I mean I didn’t realize it until I was surrounded by onesies, teddy bears, baby toys, baby keepsakes, baby socks (has anyone ever noticed how obscenely cute baby socks are? OMG…they’re adorable!), etc. So apparently my “Operation: Avoid Cuteness” defense mechanism had a fatal flaw. SIGH. Is it just me, or is it a sick cosmic joke that some of us even find ourselves needing to develop defense mechanisms to deal with babies and cuteness? What the hell?
By far the most difficult thing was when someone showed up with a baby. Duh, it’s a baby shower…there will always be at least one or two besides the one that’s about to be born. I fully expected that. But this one was born very close to when mine would have been. Within a month or so. Ouch.
In spite of all of that, I’m glad I went. I wouldn’t have missed it, and I’m thrilled for my friends. They went through a lot too, and I couldn’t be happier for them.
But still, throughout the evening, there was that nagging question on my brain…
When is it going to be my turn to need baby socks?
When we went shopping, we mostly stuck to practical gifts – a baby first aid kit, bath stuff, etc. I didn’t realize it until later, but I think that that was less about “let’s get them what they NEED” and more along the lines of “I can’t go near the cutesy stuff”. And by “I didn’t realize it until later”, I mean I didn’t realize it until I was surrounded by onesies, teddy bears, baby toys, baby keepsakes, baby socks (has anyone ever noticed how obscenely cute baby socks are? OMG…they’re adorable!), etc. So apparently my “Operation: Avoid Cuteness” defense mechanism had a fatal flaw. SIGH. Is it just me, or is it a sick cosmic joke that some of us even find ourselves needing to develop defense mechanisms to deal with babies and cuteness? What the hell?
By far the most difficult thing was when someone showed up with a baby. Duh, it’s a baby shower…there will always be at least one or two besides the one that’s about to be born. I fully expected that. But this one was born very close to when mine would have been. Within a month or so. Ouch.
In spite of all of that, I’m glad I went. I wouldn’t have missed it, and I’m thrilled for my friends. They went through a lot too, and I couldn’t be happier for them.
But still, throughout the evening, there was that nagging question on my brain…
When is it going to be my turn to need baby socks?
Saturday, November 17, 2007
A trip down the baby aisle.
My friend's baby shower is tomorrow, so we went to Target to buy gifts. There was just no way I could stomach going to Babies R Us...at least at Target, we could hightail it to the electronics section or something if we needed to come up for air. Babies R Us is baby stuff at critical mass...something my psyche just can't handle right now.
It's kind of surreal wandering through those aisles, looking at all the things that I, a little over a year ago, had been adding to my growing mental "things we'll need in a few months" list. And of course, the calendar in my head makes sure to remind me whenever possible how old our baby would be now and how if things had worked out differently, we'd already be past the point of needing a lot of the stuff we were seeing. Hell, I'd have a clue what half the stuff was.
A year from now, who knows what life will be like? Maybe we'll have a baby of our own by then.
Sorry for the somewhat pointless ramble. I'll try to post more often now, just haven't really felt up to it. Thanks to everyone who has e-mailed and commented on my blog -- it really does help to know that people care. :)
It's kind of surreal wandering through those aisles, looking at all the things that I, a little over a year ago, had been adding to my growing mental "things we'll need in a few months" list. And of course, the calendar in my head makes sure to remind me whenever possible how old our baby would be now and how if things had worked out differently, we'd already be past the point of needing a lot of the stuff we were seeing. Hell, I'd have a clue what half the stuff was.
A year from now, who knows what life will be like? Maybe we'll have a baby of our own by then.
Sorry for the somewhat pointless ramble. I'll try to post more often now, just haven't really felt up to it. Thanks to everyone who has e-mailed and commented on my blog -- it really does help to know that people care. :)
Monday, November 5, 2007
An update.
I know, I know, it’s been a while since I’ve posted an update. Hopefully I won’t go this long without posting again…life’s just been busy.
We had a blast visiting family and friends in Washington. The first anniversary of the miscarriage came and went…it was a bit depressing, but being around everyone helped get my mind off of it.
On the health front, things are looking up. My acupuncturist is still seeing a positive change in terms of hormones, and suggested testing weekly from here on out. Fortunately, I found some wicked cheap test strips on eBay – they’re the same kind that doctors use, instead of the insanely overpriced EPT’s and crap at the grocery store. I really should’ve bought stock in EPT a few years ago…I jokingly told my acupuncturist that I have probably spent as much money on tests as I have coming to see him.
So…right now I’m waiting for my test strips to get here, and then I’ll see if anything happens. I’ve felt a bit…odd…lately. For the last couple of months, actually…which is why the acupuncturist has been so insistent that I test regularly.
I’ll post an update when I get the next test result. Send BFP vibes, people!!
We had a blast visiting family and friends in Washington. The first anniversary of the miscarriage came and went…it was a bit depressing, but being around everyone helped get my mind off of it.
On the health front, things are looking up. My acupuncturist is still seeing a positive change in terms of hormones, and suggested testing weekly from here on out. Fortunately, I found some wicked cheap test strips on eBay – they’re the same kind that doctors use, instead of the insanely overpriced EPT’s and crap at the grocery store. I really should’ve bought stock in EPT a few years ago…I jokingly told my acupuncturist that I have probably spent as much money on tests as I have coming to see him.
So…right now I’m waiting for my test strips to get here, and then I’ll see if anything happens. I’ve felt a bit…odd…lately. For the last couple of months, actually…which is why the acupuncturist has been so insistent that I test regularly.
I’ll post an update when I get the next test result. Send BFP vibes, people!!
Sunday, October 7, 2007
A brief update.
All the "signs" are still there, but an HPT on Saturday morning was negative. Still no period.
So...nothing new...just the same old uncertain shit.
So...nothing new...just the same old uncertain shit.
Friday, October 5, 2007
October 15th: Pregnancy & Infant Loss Remembrance Day
October 15th is Pregnancy & Infant Loss Remembrance Day.
Ironically, October 15, 2006 was the day of my second miscarriage.
I may or may not be online that day, as I will be traveling, but for those of you remembering a loss that day, my heart goes out to you.
Not a whole lot more to say. I just wanted to post something about that day, as many people are unaware of it.
Ironically, October 15, 2006 was the day of my second miscarriage.
I may or may not be online that day, as I will be traveling, but for those of you remembering a loss that day, my heart goes out to you.
Not a whole lot more to say. I just wanted to post something about that day, as many people are unaware of it.
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Another milestone.
It was a year ago today that I found out I was pregnant. Finally, after countless negatives, a test turned positive.
In turn, the 15th will mark one year since I miscarried that pregnancy.
Reflecting on the last year, it’s difficult to comprehend that just one year ago, I was pregnant. It’s hard to imagine that overwhelming feeling that the surreal had just become real, that there was no turning back, that in a few months, it would finally be our turn to have our lives turned upside-down by a new baby. At last, we could go into Babies R Us as real parents-to-be. Our entire identity was changing. We were part of The Club. We were going to be parents.
A year later, we’re still who we were, just another year older and no closer to being parents than we were before that test turned positive. We’ve had a few fleeting glimpses of hope, as I’ve mentioned in previous entries when I thought I might be pregnant from time to time. But that identity, the elusive title of “parents”, is still beyond our grasp.
It’s difficult to accept that one year after a positive test result, we’re still no closer to having a baby.
There is a faint glimmer of hope right now, but I’m trying not to hang too much on it. My last period more closely resembled implantation bleeding than an actual period; both tests were negative, so I’m going to give it a few more days, and then try again. My bra is a bit tight, too. So…there’s a possibility…a slim chance, but a chance nonetheless. And if it turns out to be negative, which would not surprise me, we’ll keep going, and hope that a year from now, we are celebrating more than just the second anniversary of a positive pregnancy test.
In turn, the 15th will mark one year since I miscarried that pregnancy.
Reflecting on the last year, it’s difficult to comprehend that just one year ago, I was pregnant. It’s hard to imagine that overwhelming feeling that the surreal had just become real, that there was no turning back, that in a few months, it would finally be our turn to have our lives turned upside-down by a new baby. At last, we could go into Babies R Us as real parents-to-be. Our entire identity was changing. We were part of The Club. We were going to be parents.
A year later, we’re still who we were, just another year older and no closer to being parents than we were before that test turned positive. We’ve had a few fleeting glimpses of hope, as I’ve mentioned in previous entries when I thought I might be pregnant from time to time. But that identity, the elusive title of “parents”, is still beyond our grasp.
It’s difficult to accept that one year after a positive test result, we’re still no closer to having a baby.
There is a faint glimmer of hope right now, but I’m trying not to hang too much on it. My last period more closely resembled implantation bleeding than an actual period; both tests were negative, so I’m going to give it a few more days, and then try again. My bra is a bit tight, too. So…there’s a possibility…a slim chance, but a chance nonetheless. And if it turns out to be negative, which would not surprise me, we’ll keep going, and hope that a year from now, we are celebrating more than just the second anniversary of a positive pregnancy test.
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Oh, what a shock.
2 HPT's, one last night, one this morning...both negative.
*sigh*
I really don't know why I bother sometimes. I mean, what's the point? After 4 years of constantly having reasons to say "hey, that COULD mean I'm pregnant!", only to get a negative HPT every damn time (except that one time...and we know how that one turned out...), it's hard to be optimistic about anything. Even these last few times when I *knew*, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I *had* to be pregnant...still a part of me, in the back of my mind, knew the test wouldn't turn positive. And that part of me is starting to wonder -- has been wondering for some time -- if any test will ever turn positive...and if it does, will it be like the last one? A week or two (or more) of elation that the struggle is finally over, only to have the rug pulled out from under us again? It's like my body saying "Look! Success! Finally!....Psyche!"
I'm really not sure how much more of this I can take.
*sigh*
I really don't know why I bother sometimes. I mean, what's the point? After 4 years of constantly having reasons to say "hey, that COULD mean I'm pregnant!", only to get a negative HPT every damn time (except that one time...and we know how that one turned out...), it's hard to be optimistic about anything. Even these last few times when I *knew*, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I *had* to be pregnant...still a part of me, in the back of my mind, knew the test wouldn't turn positive. And that part of me is starting to wonder -- has been wondering for some time -- if any test will ever turn positive...and if it does, will it be like the last one? A week or two (or more) of elation that the struggle is finally over, only to have the rug pulled out from under us again? It's like my body saying "Look! Success! Finally!....Psyche!"
I'm really not sure how much more of this I can take.
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
*sigh* How frustrating.
Good lord...this roller coaster is getting aggravating. TMI ahead!
As I mentioned a while back, I KNEW I was pregnant. When the test came back negative, I was stunned. Then a short while later, I started getting some wicked PMS, but wasn't sure if it might be some *other* hormones...so I tested again. Negative, of course.
Friday, Aunt Flo showed up. Well...sort of. Very very light, and no cramps. At least THAT part was nice...considering my periods are usually obscenely painful. 4 days later, it's stopped. Completely. Without ever really getting going much at all to begin with. WTF?
So now I have to wonder...could it have been implantation bleeding?
We bought a couple of tests tonight. Going to hold off for a little while, but will probably test sometime tonight, and/or tomorrow morning.
Stay tuned...
As I mentioned a while back, I KNEW I was pregnant. When the test came back negative, I was stunned. Then a short while later, I started getting some wicked PMS, but wasn't sure if it might be some *other* hormones...so I tested again. Negative, of course.
Friday, Aunt Flo showed up. Well...sort of. Very very light, and no cramps. At least THAT part was nice...considering my periods are usually obscenely painful. 4 days later, it's stopped. Completely. Without ever really getting going much at all to begin with. WTF?
So now I have to wonder...could it have been implantation bleeding?
We bought a couple of tests tonight. Going to hold off for a little while, but will probably test sometime tonight, and/or tomorrow morning.
Stay tuned...
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Appreciate what you have.
I work with several people who have problems of varying degrees with their kids. Mostly adult/teenaged kids, plus some young grandkids.
This past week, they've been ranting about their kids. A lot. I have heard, no less than a dozen times, "If I knew then what I know now, I never would've had kids." All I hear, day in and day out, is how awful their kids are, how much they've ruined their life, and how miserable they all are.
I guess it's all about perspective. But I just want to slap them. I mean, if you want to bitch about your kids...is it necessary to do it to someone who, at press time, can't have kids?
That's all for now.
This past week, they've been ranting about their kids. A lot. I have heard, no less than a dozen times, "If I knew then what I know now, I never would've had kids." All I hear, day in and day out, is how awful their kids are, how much they've ruined their life, and how miserable they all are.
I guess it's all about perspective. But I just want to slap them. I mean, if you want to bitch about your kids...is it necessary to do it to someone who, at press time, can't have kids?
That's all for now.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Emotional Rant.
The next person that tells me to stop trying, and to “just relax and it’ll happen”, is seriously going to get a fist in the teeth and a boot up the ass. I don’t care if that’s what worked for your friend, or your cousin, or you, or anyone else.
It. Doesn’t. Work. That. Way. For. Everyone.
September marks four years that we’ve been trying. Ok, minus the sixish months he was gone on deployment…so three and a half years. We didn’t even really start out trying…we just figured we’d let nature take its course. Well, apparently nature has decided to take the scenic route, because nothing’s happening. After a year, it’s an annoyance. After this long, it’s stressful…it’s frustrating…it’s maddening. Having a baby at all truly seems like a surreal, foreign concept now. Everyone keeps encouraging me that it’ll happen eventually. Yeah, maybe it will. But with each passing year, I have my doubts. Sure, I’m being pessimistic…but I haven’t exactly had cause to be optimistic about this, have I?
Every cloud has its silver lining, right? I guess in some ways this has had some positive impacts on my life. It’s made my marriage stronger – this is one of those things that either makes or breaks your relationship, and we’ve only become closer after going through what we have (Eddie, you rock). And had we never encountered fertility problems, I never would have started going to my acupuncturist, which means I’d still have problems with fibromyalgia and shit like that.
But even with all of that in mind, it doesn’t make the infertility issues any easier.
Having a baby is just basic human biology. It’s so easy, teenagers do it. All the time. Some couples decide to have a baby, start trying, and within a couple of months, she’s pregnant (SHE…not THEY…nothing gets under my skin more than “we’re pregnant”. Sorry, bub, if you don’t have a little alien playing trampoline on your bladder and making you puke up anything that isn’t Saltines or water…YOU are not pregnant. SHE is. But I digress…). It’s just something that’s taken for granted. You get married, you have kids, and life is dandy.
Everyone worries when they’re having a baby. Will you be a good parent? Will you screw up your kid? It’s just part of life. I just wish someone had given me a heads-up about what it’s like to try to have a baby after you’ve already lost one (or two…). Not that it would have made much of a difference…but I had no idea that when you get pregnant after a loss, there’s a deep, core-rattling fear of losing the baby again.
About 2 weeks ago, I was certain I was pregnant. I had to be. The symptoms were all there, and I just had this gut feeling. I have never been so certain that a test was going to be positive. At the same time, I was terrified. Completely and utterly petrified. And that pissed me off…because we’d been trying for so long, and what? Now I don’t want it? Quite the contrary…I want it, but I’m so scared of losing it again. I knew that a positive meant at least 3 months of not breathing easily, not until we’d made it through the precarious first trimester…a milestone that usually means the risk of miscarriage goes down significantly. It’s not gone altogether, and it still happens…but once you pass 12 weeks or so, the odds are in your favor.
I remember last year when I got a positive test, I was, briefly, terrified. I mean, after three years of trying, an actual baby had become a distant, abstract concept…I kind of felt like the dog chasing the car…I’d spent so much energy chasing it, I never thought about WTF I was going to do if I actually CAUGHT it. Then I caught it. There it was: the positive test. Holy shit. Now what? Wait, it’s REAL? There’s no turning back? What if I changed my mind? Of course this momentary panic was just that: momentary. The reality of it (as well how it would be making its exit in a few months…) was still rather jarring, but panic gave way to excitement.
Even then, I was never 100% convinced I was pregnant. The reality was just…I don’t know, I just couldn’t get it through my head. I took four home pregnancy tests in the space of 24 hours. It had just been out of my reach for so long that I couldn’t believe it. The reality was finally sinking in…and then I miscarried.
I suppose where some people would seek comfort in a god at this point, I found comfort in my atheism: I found a certain comfort, a certain amount of peace, in realizing that it was just a biological event…I wasn’t being tested, I wasn’t being punished, it was not some wicked cosmic joke…it just was. For me, that made a difficult event a little easier to swallow. It was still devastating, but realizing it was nothing more than a biological accident, not a deliberate part of a divine plan, was surprisingly comforting.
It’s been just shy of a year since that miscarriage, and almost three years since my first. Finding myself looking down the barrel of possibly being pregnant again was no longer the surreal, thrilling feeling while anticipating the test result. It was that paralyzing fear that goes straight to the core. I was CERTAIN it was positive….and that scared me to death. For the first time since the miscarriage, I was possibly pregnant…and the positive result, in my mind, meant a repeat of last year. Another miscarriage. Another month of physical hell followed by the months of depression and constant reminders. And I truly wasn’t sure if I could handle going through that again.
In the end, it was negative. Seeing the single line where I’d expected dual lines made me pause and exhale with a kind of relief I never before imagined: not the relief that I wasn’t pregnant, but the relief that I was no longer heading down a road towards an imminent miscarriage…a miscarriage that may or may not have happened, but seemed all too inevitable to me had the test been positive.
Once that momentary relief had passed, it was replaced by anger. Absolute rage. I was frustrated beyond words…I had been so certain. Finally, I had thought, four or so years of infertility might be paying off. But no… we’re back to square one. I just want to throw up my hands. Actually, I want to throw a lot of things right now.
We’re running out of options as far as treatments. I refuse to take the Clomid/Provera route again. No way. I would rather remove my own left eyeball and then eat it. Without ketchup. I’m not comfortable with IUI or IVF…and even if I was, I doubt we can afford it. Seriously…who has upwards of $20,000 to drop on a medical procedure that very possibly won’t even work? Nevermind my aversion to artificial hormones – which very likely play a significant role in why we’re having problems in the first place. So, even if I wanted to go back to the traditional medical route (which I don’t), there really aren’t many options left.
My acupuncturist was reassuring this morning. He thinks some of the symptoms I’m having indicate that my body is changing somehow…healing from all of the problems it’s had for the last several years. He sees some positive changes, and has a plan of attack for the next few months. So, I’m sticking with the acupuncture route. I think even if I sought out other fertility methods, I would still keep going to him…he’s made a tremendous difference in my health in the last year and a half.
Emotionally, I don’t know where I am right now. Part of me wants to throw in the towel and call it a loss. The stress has been exhausting, the uncertainty completely consuming. Four years is a long time. I hear people talking about trying for 5, 10, or more years…and I don’t know if I can do that. I know I’m a strong person, and I can handle a lot, but at what point is it time to just say “Enough”?
All around me, I’m watching couples have babies, watching their babies turn into toddlers, watching their toddlers grow into kindergarteners. When I first started going to the iVillage boards in 2003, some of my friends were pregnant with or had just had their first baby. Those babies will be starting kindergarten next year, and some already have one or two younger siblings. Some of the other women were dealing with fertility issues as well, but now their signatures are full of baby pictures and pregnancy tickers. While I rejoice whenever I see an announcement that someone is pregnant, part of me just wants to cry. I’m so happy for them…but I can’t help but feel envious.
Anyway…there it is. Another lengthy rant. There isn’t really much point to it…I just needed to get it off my chest. I don’t know what the future holds for us, or how many more years we’re going to flunk Applied Biology 101 before we finally get it right…but maybe there’s some hope. If nothing else, I have a husband who is a saint through all of this, tremendously supportive family and friends, and a midwife and acupuncturist worth their weight in gold. So…we’ll see.
If you’re reading this, and you’re a parent…go hug your kids.
And if you’ve made it this far, well…um…this is the end. So…you don’t have to sit through it anymore.
It. Doesn’t. Work. That. Way. For. Everyone.
September marks four years that we’ve been trying. Ok, minus the sixish months he was gone on deployment…so three and a half years. We didn’t even really start out trying…we just figured we’d let nature take its course. Well, apparently nature has decided to take the scenic route, because nothing’s happening. After a year, it’s an annoyance. After this long, it’s stressful…it’s frustrating…it’s maddening. Having a baby at all truly seems like a surreal, foreign concept now. Everyone keeps encouraging me that it’ll happen eventually. Yeah, maybe it will. But with each passing year, I have my doubts. Sure, I’m being pessimistic…but I haven’t exactly had cause to be optimistic about this, have I?
Every cloud has its silver lining, right? I guess in some ways this has had some positive impacts on my life. It’s made my marriage stronger – this is one of those things that either makes or breaks your relationship, and we’ve only become closer after going through what we have (Eddie, you rock). And had we never encountered fertility problems, I never would have started going to my acupuncturist, which means I’d still have problems with fibromyalgia and shit like that.
But even with all of that in mind, it doesn’t make the infertility issues any easier.
Having a baby is just basic human biology. It’s so easy, teenagers do it. All the time. Some couples decide to have a baby, start trying, and within a couple of months, she’s pregnant (SHE…not THEY…nothing gets under my skin more than “we’re pregnant”. Sorry, bub, if you don’t have a little alien playing trampoline on your bladder and making you puke up anything that isn’t Saltines or water…YOU are not pregnant. SHE is. But I digress…). It’s just something that’s taken for granted. You get married, you have kids, and life is dandy.
Everyone worries when they’re having a baby. Will you be a good parent? Will you screw up your kid? It’s just part of life. I just wish someone had given me a heads-up about what it’s like to try to have a baby after you’ve already lost one (or two…). Not that it would have made much of a difference…but I had no idea that when you get pregnant after a loss, there’s a deep, core-rattling fear of losing the baby again.
About 2 weeks ago, I was certain I was pregnant. I had to be. The symptoms were all there, and I just had this gut feeling. I have never been so certain that a test was going to be positive. At the same time, I was terrified. Completely and utterly petrified. And that pissed me off…because we’d been trying for so long, and what? Now I don’t want it? Quite the contrary…I want it, but I’m so scared of losing it again. I knew that a positive meant at least 3 months of not breathing easily, not until we’d made it through the precarious first trimester…a milestone that usually means the risk of miscarriage goes down significantly. It’s not gone altogether, and it still happens…but once you pass 12 weeks or so, the odds are in your favor.
I remember last year when I got a positive test, I was, briefly, terrified. I mean, after three years of trying, an actual baby had become a distant, abstract concept…I kind of felt like the dog chasing the car…I’d spent so much energy chasing it, I never thought about WTF I was going to do if I actually CAUGHT it. Then I caught it. There it was: the positive test. Holy shit. Now what? Wait, it’s REAL? There’s no turning back? What if I changed my mind? Of course this momentary panic was just that: momentary. The reality of it (as well how it would be making its exit in a few months…) was still rather jarring, but panic gave way to excitement.
Even then, I was never 100% convinced I was pregnant. The reality was just…I don’t know, I just couldn’t get it through my head. I took four home pregnancy tests in the space of 24 hours. It had just been out of my reach for so long that I couldn’t believe it. The reality was finally sinking in…and then I miscarried.
I suppose where some people would seek comfort in a god at this point, I found comfort in my atheism: I found a certain comfort, a certain amount of peace, in realizing that it was just a biological event…I wasn’t being tested, I wasn’t being punished, it was not some wicked cosmic joke…it just was. For me, that made a difficult event a little easier to swallow. It was still devastating, but realizing it was nothing more than a biological accident, not a deliberate part of a divine plan, was surprisingly comforting.
It’s been just shy of a year since that miscarriage, and almost three years since my first. Finding myself looking down the barrel of possibly being pregnant again was no longer the surreal, thrilling feeling while anticipating the test result. It was that paralyzing fear that goes straight to the core. I was CERTAIN it was positive….and that scared me to death. For the first time since the miscarriage, I was possibly pregnant…and the positive result, in my mind, meant a repeat of last year. Another miscarriage. Another month of physical hell followed by the months of depression and constant reminders. And I truly wasn’t sure if I could handle going through that again.
In the end, it was negative. Seeing the single line where I’d expected dual lines made me pause and exhale with a kind of relief I never before imagined: not the relief that I wasn’t pregnant, but the relief that I was no longer heading down a road towards an imminent miscarriage…a miscarriage that may or may not have happened, but seemed all too inevitable to me had the test been positive.
Once that momentary relief had passed, it was replaced by anger. Absolute rage. I was frustrated beyond words…I had been so certain. Finally, I had thought, four or so years of infertility might be paying off. But no… we’re back to square one. I just want to throw up my hands. Actually, I want to throw a lot of things right now.
We’re running out of options as far as treatments. I refuse to take the Clomid/Provera route again. No way. I would rather remove my own left eyeball and then eat it. Without ketchup. I’m not comfortable with IUI or IVF…and even if I was, I doubt we can afford it. Seriously…who has upwards of $20,000 to drop on a medical procedure that very possibly won’t even work? Nevermind my aversion to artificial hormones – which very likely play a significant role in why we’re having problems in the first place. So, even if I wanted to go back to the traditional medical route (which I don’t), there really aren’t many options left.
My acupuncturist was reassuring this morning. He thinks some of the symptoms I’m having indicate that my body is changing somehow…healing from all of the problems it’s had for the last several years. He sees some positive changes, and has a plan of attack for the next few months. So, I’m sticking with the acupuncture route. I think even if I sought out other fertility methods, I would still keep going to him…he’s made a tremendous difference in my health in the last year and a half.
Emotionally, I don’t know where I am right now. Part of me wants to throw in the towel and call it a loss. The stress has been exhausting, the uncertainty completely consuming. Four years is a long time. I hear people talking about trying for 5, 10, or more years…and I don’t know if I can do that. I know I’m a strong person, and I can handle a lot, but at what point is it time to just say “Enough”?
All around me, I’m watching couples have babies, watching their babies turn into toddlers, watching their toddlers grow into kindergarteners. When I first started going to the iVillage boards in 2003, some of my friends were pregnant with or had just had their first baby. Those babies will be starting kindergarten next year, and some already have one or two younger siblings. Some of the other women were dealing with fertility issues as well, but now their signatures are full of baby pictures and pregnancy tickers. While I rejoice whenever I see an announcement that someone is pregnant, part of me just wants to cry. I’m so happy for them…but I can’t help but feel envious.
Anyway…there it is. Another lengthy rant. There isn’t really much point to it…I just needed to get it off my chest. I don’t know what the future holds for us, or how many more years we’re going to flunk Applied Biology 101 before we finally get it right…but maybe there’s some hope. If nothing else, I have a husband who is a saint through all of this, tremendously supportive family and friends, and a midwife and acupuncturist worth their weight in gold. So…we’ll see.
If you’re reading this, and you’re a parent…go hug your kids.
And if you’ve made it this far, well…um…this is the end. So…you don’t have to sit through it anymore.
A Different Approach.
As mentioned in the previous blog, I decided to take a stab, as it were, at acupuncture. At my midwife’s recommendation, I called. Given all the health problems I’ve had in my life – fibromyalgia, migraines, anemia, female issues, etc – I can honestly look back and say that calling him was a pivotal moment in my life.
Eddie and I first met Bryon on a Saturday morning in March of 2006 at his clinic, which would rapidly become a very familiar place. He took my medical history, looked at my tongue (tongue appearance is very important in Eastern medicine), and we discussed treatments. As it turned out, my fear of the needles was not warranted: though they occasionally sting, I don’t even feel most of them.
It turns out that my heavy, painful periods were a symptom of endometriosis. While going on the pill was a great temporary reliever of the pain, it was not a good longterm solution, and likely contributed GREATLY to my problems. Ironically, not ONE doctor had EVER given more than a moment’s consideration to endometriosis, in spite of the fact that I had CLASSIC symptoms of moderate-severe endometriosis. I was never checked, never tested, it was simply never considered. SIGH.
Fortunately, this was something Bryon could help me with. Over the next few months, my periods started to regulate. They were still painful, but nothing like before. He gave me herbs, acupuncture, and nutritional advice. Late that summer, I noticed I was feeling really good, and actually had for some time. My back wasn’t hurting as much, my joints weren’t sore, my knee was being cooperative. Come to think of it, I didn’t feel like I had fibromyalgia anymore. I mentioned this to Bryon, and he said, as if it was the most obvious answer in the world, “that’s because you don’t HAVE fibromyalgia anymore”. 12+ years of chronic pain? GONE. HOORAY!
But the celebration wasn’t over yet! In September, my period went MIA again. Oh well, nothing new. 2 more weeks went by, still nothing. So, I bought my 4,000th (or so) home pregnancy test.
It was positive.
Holy. Shit.
After trying for three years, getting pregnant has become a distant, abstract concept. Something I was pursuing, but couldn’t imagine actually catching. For a fleeting moment, I felt nothing but complete and utter panic. Who wouldn’t? But that rapidly gave way to elation (and a brief thought of “oh shit…I got it in, now I have to get it OUT…”). After trying for so long, the requisite 12 week waiting period before telling friends and family went out the window.
A week later, the bleeding started. I spent 3 days on total bedrest at the recommendation of my midwife and acupuncturist after visiting both of them. Some say I should have gone to the ER, but really, there wasn’t anything they could do either. I will say this about both the midwife and acupuncturist: Without them, my sanity would have been toast at that point. Eddie was at sea for the first time in 3 years, and I was panicking. Bryon was especially a life saver. I will never, as long as I live, forget him sitting and just talking with me…not as my care provider, but as another human being empathizing with me and trying to ease my fears.
Eddie came home on the 13th. On the 14th, I did go to the ER because the bleeding had not subsided. It was a terrible experience and just cemented my decision not to go there previously.
I miscarried on October 15th, 2006. We were devastated. Friends, family (well, MY family, anyway…), and co-workers were exceptionally supportive, and when I returned to work on the 19th, I was met with hugs and encouragement. The 20th was my birthday, and also the day Eddie went back to sea for another 3 weeks. Happy birthday to me. Blech.
Eddie was gone for 3 weeks, then back just before Thanksgiving until the first week of January. He left for a 6 month deployment. Obviously our attempts to conceive were on hold for a while.
My periods went haywire again, and when I started a high-intensity exercise program, that didn’t help. But I was hellbent on getting healthier, so I continued exercising and continued my acupuncture.
That brings us to the present.
Now that I’ve briefed (ha!) you on the facts, the blog will probably move forward focusing more on the emotional aspects of all of this.
Hopefully, 2008 will be The Year of the Baby.
Eddie and I first met Bryon on a Saturday morning in March of 2006 at his clinic, which would rapidly become a very familiar place. He took my medical history, looked at my tongue (tongue appearance is very important in Eastern medicine), and we discussed treatments. As it turned out, my fear of the needles was not warranted: though they occasionally sting, I don’t even feel most of them.
It turns out that my heavy, painful periods were a symptom of endometriosis. While going on the pill was a great temporary reliever of the pain, it was not a good longterm solution, and likely contributed GREATLY to my problems. Ironically, not ONE doctor had EVER given more than a moment’s consideration to endometriosis, in spite of the fact that I had CLASSIC symptoms of moderate-severe endometriosis. I was never checked, never tested, it was simply never considered. SIGH.
Fortunately, this was something Bryon could help me with. Over the next few months, my periods started to regulate. They were still painful, but nothing like before. He gave me herbs, acupuncture, and nutritional advice. Late that summer, I noticed I was feeling really good, and actually had for some time. My back wasn’t hurting as much, my joints weren’t sore, my knee was being cooperative. Come to think of it, I didn’t feel like I had fibromyalgia anymore. I mentioned this to Bryon, and he said, as if it was the most obvious answer in the world, “that’s because you don’t HAVE fibromyalgia anymore”. 12+ years of chronic pain? GONE. HOORAY!
But the celebration wasn’t over yet! In September, my period went MIA again. Oh well, nothing new. 2 more weeks went by, still nothing. So, I bought my 4,000th (or so) home pregnancy test.
It was positive.
Holy. Shit.
After trying for three years, getting pregnant has become a distant, abstract concept. Something I was pursuing, but couldn’t imagine actually catching. For a fleeting moment, I felt nothing but complete and utter panic. Who wouldn’t? But that rapidly gave way to elation (and a brief thought of “oh shit…I got it in, now I have to get it OUT…”). After trying for so long, the requisite 12 week waiting period before telling friends and family went out the window.
A week later, the bleeding started. I spent 3 days on total bedrest at the recommendation of my midwife and acupuncturist after visiting both of them. Some say I should have gone to the ER, but really, there wasn’t anything they could do either. I will say this about both the midwife and acupuncturist: Without them, my sanity would have been toast at that point. Eddie was at sea for the first time in 3 years, and I was panicking. Bryon was especially a life saver. I will never, as long as I live, forget him sitting and just talking with me…not as my care provider, but as another human being empathizing with me and trying to ease my fears.
Eddie came home on the 13th. On the 14th, I did go to the ER because the bleeding had not subsided. It was a terrible experience and just cemented my decision not to go there previously.
I miscarried on October 15th, 2006. We were devastated. Friends, family (well, MY family, anyway…), and co-workers were exceptionally supportive, and when I returned to work on the 19th, I was met with hugs and encouragement. The 20th was my birthday, and also the day Eddie went back to sea for another 3 weeks. Happy birthday to me. Blech.
Eddie was gone for 3 weeks, then back just before Thanksgiving until the first week of January. He left for a 6 month deployment. Obviously our attempts to conceive were on hold for a while.
My periods went haywire again, and when I started a high-intensity exercise program, that didn’t help. But I was hellbent on getting healthier, so I continued exercising and continued my acupuncture.
That brings us to the present.
Now that I’ve briefed (ha!) you on the facts, the blog will probably move forward focusing more on the emotional aspects of all of this.
Hopefully, 2008 will be The Year of the Baby.
A Semi-Brief History of the Reproductively Challenged
This blog entry and the next 2-3 will likely be among the longest entries, as I have four years worth of history to get through. I will keep it as brief as possible, but it’s still going to be lengthy.
We enrolled in “Applied Biology 101” in September of 2003. I went off the pill, which I had faithfully taken for the past 5 years. I wasn’t exactly looking forward to this, since my primary reason for being on the pill was not actually birth control: it was horrendously painful periods. Ugh. Oh well…I reasoned that I’d only have to deal with it temporarily, because I’d get pregnant eventually.
My mom had difficulty getting pregnant with my brother, and eventually resorted to Clomid, but she had had problems with her system prior to that anyway. Mine had functioned like clockwork…painful and miserable, but with no signs of problems. Well, ok, no signs of problems ASIDE from the pain and heaviness, but I’ll get to that later. So, I assumed that I wouldn’t have the same difficulties she had. I’d heard that it sometimes took 6 months to a year to regain fertility after going off the pill, so I wasn’t in any hurry.
I wouldn’t say we were actually “trying” at this point. More like not “not trying”. We were just going to let nature take its course. We weren’t in a hurry anyway.
Two months into this, we made a rather life-altering decision: We had originally planned for Eddie to get out of the military, and we would move from the Seattle area to Northwestern Oregon because of Seattle’s prohibitive cost of living. However, after looking at the job market in Oregon, and doing some thinking, we realized that the military was still the best bet for us. We also found out he’d been given some erroneous information about his re-enlistment status (ie., that he no longer had time to look at orders, that the window was closed, etc). At the last minute, we made the decision to stick with the military. On December 7, 2003, he re-enlisted for 4 more years in the Navy, and was reassigned to Norfolk, Virginia.
On December 26, 2003, we drove out of Washington and headed east.
In the midst of moving across the country, finding a place to live, looking for a job, and all of that chaos, my periods stopped. At first, I naturally assumed that it was stopping for the most obvious reason: I was pregnant, of course! I bought the first of what would be many, many home pregnancy tests. Looking back, we should’ve bought stock in EPT. 20/20 hindsight, right? The test was negative, as were the subsequent two. A couple of weeks went by. Then a month. Still nothing. I tested again. Negative.
At this point, though I still wasn’t in any kind of a rush to get pregnant, I started to worry. Something wasn’t right. I decided to go to Planned Parenthood and get a pregnancy test, just to be sure. That was also negative, so they recommended that I go see an OB. Fine, I thought. I needed to find a doctor in the area anyway.
I found a list of OB’s in my area that were covered by my insurance, and found a group practice not far from my apartment. I called, made an appointment, and went in the following week. This was the day I met Dr. Satan.
The concise version of what happened is that Dr. Satan came into the room, where I was lying on the table half-dressed, and immediately started telling me that my periods had stopped because I was fat. Bear in mind, I’m not thin, and I was heavier then than I am now, but I was by no means as fat as he made me out to be. He told me that if I stopped eating so much and started exercising once in a while, I’d lose the weight and my periods would come back. (Nevermind that the rather rapid weight gain I had experienced in the previous couple of months may have been a symptom of something else…) And, he added, once I DID get pregnant, I was only going to gain weight, so why start out like that?
The internal exam that followed can only be described as humiliating and painful. Let’s just say it involved a metal speculum – with a slightly sharper edge than the nice round edge of a plastic speculum – that wouldn’t go in, and Dr. Satan using his body weight to MAKE it go in. Wasn’t pretty.
I went home in tears, and fortunately Eddie was unable to drive at that point, so he wasn’t able to go back to Dr. Satan’s office and beat the crap out of him. I wound up at the ER a few days later because I was still bleeding a little and was in a lot of pain. Unfortunately, the only doctor available was a male, but he was an absolute saint about doing the exam. Still, I have never been comfortable getting examined by a male doctor since that time.
Eventually, my period returned. Then disappeared. Then returned. At one point, I went 6 months without a visit from Aunt Flo. Ladies, don’t envy me. It was miserable. M-I-S-E-R-A-B-L-E. PMS, it seems, snowballs from month to month. You know that crappy feeling you get right before it starts? Imagine if it DOESN’T start, and that feeling carries over to the next month….then gets worse…still doesn’t start…next month…etc. For 6 months. LAME.
By the latter part of 2004, it was getting old. I went to another OB on the recommendation of a friend. I was terrified of going, which pissed me off to no end…I’d never had a problem with getting annual exams, but ever since Dr. Satan, I was way freaked out. The exam did go well, and she recommended an ultrasound to check for cysts.
Because it was an internal ultrasound, my Dr. Satan-inspired fear kept me from getting it done right away.
In January of 2005, we were in the midst of moving into our new house when Aunt Flo made a visit. Or so I thought. The pain and the bleeding were exceptionally bad. I called in sick to work. Without going into detail, it became clear that this was not a period. I was miscarrying.
Fortunately, I had been unaware that I was pregnant, and evidently it was pretty early. Still, it was an emotional blow.
In August of that same year, nearly 2 years into this epic, I started getting a really obnoxious pain in my lower right side. It was consistent with symptoms of appendicitis, so we went to the ER. They found nothing, and recommended I go see my OB. Joy. I figured now was as good a time as any to get that ultrasound done, since I’d put it off for the better part of a year.
I saw my OB again, and was promptly read the riot act for not coming to see her when I miscarried. I’m not sure what she thought she could do – I knew the signs to watch for as far as infection and hemorrhaging, so it wasn’t necessary. But, anyway, it was in the past. She couldn’t explain the pain in my side (which had not subsided), but thought it might be ovarian cysts. She was certain I had poly-cystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS).
I came in for the ultrasound. It was clean. No cysts. In our discussion afterward, she said that “sometimes women don’t ovulate, and we don’t know why.” As far as she was concerned, the best plan of attack at this point was Provera.
This is where things really went south. I asked her point blank about side effects of Provera, especially in comparison to Clomid. Mood swings? No. Excessive cramping/bleeding? No. Headaches? No. Sleeping problems? No. She said that I might experience some bloating, but otherwise, the side effects were minimal. She wrote out the prescription, and sent me on my way.
I filled the prescription that night. The insert listed all the horrific side effects it could have, but the inserts always list everything from bleeding cuticles to having your ruptured spleen come out your nose, so that the pharmaceutical companies don’t get sued…so I didn’t think anything of it. After all, my doctor told me the side effects were minimal.
She was wrong. I’d go so far as to say she lied to me. It was HELL. Joint pain, nightmares, insomnia, massive headaches, inability to concentrate, and the mood swings…dear lord, the mood swings. I knew something was wrong when I had a complete and total emotional breakdown on the interstate. Something was very, very wrong. Then the depression kicked in. Terrible, terrible depression.
I did some reading online. As it turns out, the symptoms I was experiencing are not only associated with Provera, they are COMMON. Further, there is a blatant warning that Provera is counterindicated for patients with a family or personal history of depression (I have both), and that patients with a history of depression MUST be monitored VERY closely by their doctor while taking Provera.
I called and asked to speak to her. She didn’t return my calls. There were no appointments available. Finally, I reached the end of my prescription (I was afraid to abruptly stop taking them), and Aunt Flo showed up with a vengeance. I called in sick to work for 2 days, which is very, very unlike me. During that time, I left half a dozen messages telling her I needed to talk to her ASAP. I needed to know what to do, because I was completely losing it, and I was NOT going to take another round of Provera…but I needed to know if there would be more problems if I didn’t continue taking it. She never returned my calls.
Eventually, I got in touch with my doctor back in Seattle, and she assured me that discontinuing the Provera would not be a problem, and recommended I avoid hormones (well, DUH…).
I was done. No more doctors. It was time to seek alternative treatments. I had long been open to alternative treatments – my osteopath had worked wonders on my back pain and such, etc – but hadn’t really considered them for this. A friend had told me that acupuncture was used to treat infertility, but my phobia of needles kept me from looking into it. After the Provera, my rational mind said: Look, the worst that can happen is “that needle hurts…take it out.”
A friend recommended me to a midwife. My midwife then recommended a local acupuncturist.
This is where things start looking up. Stay tuned…
We enrolled in “Applied Biology 101” in September of 2003. I went off the pill, which I had faithfully taken for the past 5 years. I wasn’t exactly looking forward to this, since my primary reason for being on the pill was not actually birth control: it was horrendously painful periods. Ugh. Oh well…I reasoned that I’d only have to deal with it temporarily, because I’d get pregnant eventually.
My mom had difficulty getting pregnant with my brother, and eventually resorted to Clomid, but she had had problems with her system prior to that anyway. Mine had functioned like clockwork…painful and miserable, but with no signs of problems. Well, ok, no signs of problems ASIDE from the pain and heaviness, but I’ll get to that later. So, I assumed that I wouldn’t have the same difficulties she had. I’d heard that it sometimes took 6 months to a year to regain fertility after going off the pill, so I wasn’t in any hurry.
I wouldn’t say we were actually “trying” at this point. More like not “not trying”. We were just going to let nature take its course. We weren’t in a hurry anyway.
Two months into this, we made a rather life-altering decision: We had originally planned for Eddie to get out of the military, and we would move from the Seattle area to Northwestern Oregon because of Seattle’s prohibitive cost of living. However, after looking at the job market in Oregon, and doing some thinking, we realized that the military was still the best bet for us. We also found out he’d been given some erroneous information about his re-enlistment status (ie., that he no longer had time to look at orders, that the window was closed, etc). At the last minute, we made the decision to stick with the military. On December 7, 2003, he re-enlisted for 4 more years in the Navy, and was reassigned to Norfolk, Virginia.
On December 26, 2003, we drove out of Washington and headed east.
In the midst of moving across the country, finding a place to live, looking for a job, and all of that chaos, my periods stopped. At first, I naturally assumed that it was stopping for the most obvious reason: I was pregnant, of course! I bought the first of what would be many, many home pregnancy tests. Looking back, we should’ve bought stock in EPT. 20/20 hindsight, right? The test was negative, as were the subsequent two. A couple of weeks went by. Then a month. Still nothing. I tested again. Negative.
At this point, though I still wasn’t in any kind of a rush to get pregnant, I started to worry. Something wasn’t right. I decided to go to Planned Parenthood and get a pregnancy test, just to be sure. That was also negative, so they recommended that I go see an OB. Fine, I thought. I needed to find a doctor in the area anyway.
I found a list of OB’s in my area that were covered by my insurance, and found a group practice not far from my apartment. I called, made an appointment, and went in the following week. This was the day I met Dr. Satan.
The concise version of what happened is that Dr. Satan came into the room, where I was lying on the table half-dressed, and immediately started telling me that my periods had stopped because I was fat. Bear in mind, I’m not thin, and I was heavier then than I am now, but I was by no means as fat as he made me out to be. He told me that if I stopped eating so much and started exercising once in a while, I’d lose the weight and my periods would come back. (Nevermind that the rather rapid weight gain I had experienced in the previous couple of months may have been a symptom of something else…) And, he added, once I DID get pregnant, I was only going to gain weight, so why start out like that?
The internal exam that followed can only be described as humiliating and painful. Let’s just say it involved a metal speculum – with a slightly sharper edge than the nice round edge of a plastic speculum – that wouldn’t go in, and Dr. Satan using his body weight to MAKE it go in. Wasn’t pretty.
I went home in tears, and fortunately Eddie was unable to drive at that point, so he wasn’t able to go back to Dr. Satan’s office and beat the crap out of him. I wound up at the ER a few days later because I was still bleeding a little and was in a lot of pain. Unfortunately, the only doctor available was a male, but he was an absolute saint about doing the exam. Still, I have never been comfortable getting examined by a male doctor since that time.
Eventually, my period returned. Then disappeared. Then returned. At one point, I went 6 months without a visit from Aunt Flo. Ladies, don’t envy me. It was miserable. M-I-S-E-R-A-B-L-E. PMS, it seems, snowballs from month to month. You know that crappy feeling you get right before it starts? Imagine if it DOESN’T start, and that feeling carries over to the next month….then gets worse…still doesn’t start…next month…etc. For 6 months. LAME.
By the latter part of 2004, it was getting old. I went to another OB on the recommendation of a friend. I was terrified of going, which pissed me off to no end…I’d never had a problem with getting annual exams, but ever since Dr. Satan, I was way freaked out. The exam did go well, and she recommended an ultrasound to check for cysts.
Because it was an internal ultrasound, my Dr. Satan-inspired fear kept me from getting it done right away.
In January of 2005, we were in the midst of moving into our new house when Aunt Flo made a visit. Or so I thought. The pain and the bleeding were exceptionally bad. I called in sick to work. Without going into detail, it became clear that this was not a period. I was miscarrying.
Fortunately, I had been unaware that I was pregnant, and evidently it was pretty early. Still, it was an emotional blow.
In August of that same year, nearly 2 years into this epic, I started getting a really obnoxious pain in my lower right side. It was consistent with symptoms of appendicitis, so we went to the ER. They found nothing, and recommended I go see my OB. Joy. I figured now was as good a time as any to get that ultrasound done, since I’d put it off for the better part of a year.
I saw my OB again, and was promptly read the riot act for not coming to see her when I miscarried. I’m not sure what she thought she could do – I knew the signs to watch for as far as infection and hemorrhaging, so it wasn’t necessary. But, anyway, it was in the past. She couldn’t explain the pain in my side (which had not subsided), but thought it might be ovarian cysts. She was certain I had poly-cystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS).
I came in for the ultrasound. It was clean. No cysts. In our discussion afterward, she said that “sometimes women don’t ovulate, and we don’t know why.” As far as she was concerned, the best plan of attack at this point was Provera.
This is where things really went south. I asked her point blank about side effects of Provera, especially in comparison to Clomid. Mood swings? No. Excessive cramping/bleeding? No. Headaches? No. Sleeping problems? No. She said that I might experience some bloating, but otherwise, the side effects were minimal. She wrote out the prescription, and sent me on my way.
I filled the prescription that night. The insert listed all the horrific side effects it could have, but the inserts always list everything from bleeding cuticles to having your ruptured spleen come out your nose, so that the pharmaceutical companies don’t get sued…so I didn’t think anything of it. After all, my doctor told me the side effects were minimal.
She was wrong. I’d go so far as to say she lied to me. It was HELL. Joint pain, nightmares, insomnia, massive headaches, inability to concentrate, and the mood swings…dear lord, the mood swings. I knew something was wrong when I had a complete and total emotional breakdown on the interstate. Something was very, very wrong. Then the depression kicked in. Terrible, terrible depression.
I did some reading online. As it turns out, the symptoms I was experiencing are not only associated with Provera, they are COMMON. Further, there is a blatant warning that Provera is counterindicated for patients with a family or personal history of depression (I have both), and that patients with a history of depression MUST be monitored VERY closely by their doctor while taking Provera.
I called and asked to speak to her. She didn’t return my calls. There were no appointments available. Finally, I reached the end of my prescription (I was afraid to abruptly stop taking them), and Aunt Flo showed up with a vengeance. I called in sick to work for 2 days, which is very, very unlike me. During that time, I left half a dozen messages telling her I needed to talk to her ASAP. I needed to know what to do, because I was completely losing it, and I was NOT going to take another round of Provera…but I needed to know if there would be more problems if I didn’t continue taking it. She never returned my calls.
Eventually, I got in touch with my doctor back in Seattle, and she assured me that discontinuing the Provera would not be a problem, and recommended I avoid hormones (well, DUH…).
I was done. No more doctors. It was time to seek alternative treatments. I had long been open to alternative treatments – my osteopath had worked wonders on my back pain and such, etc – but hadn’t really considered them for this. A friend had told me that acupuncture was used to treat infertility, but my phobia of needles kept me from looking into it. After the Provera, my rational mind said: Look, the worst that can happen is “that needle hurts…take it out.”
A friend recommended me to a midwife. My midwife then recommended a local acupuncturist.
This is where things start looking up. Stay tuned…
Flunking “Applied Biology 101” since Sept 2003
I suppose it doesn’t make a lot of sense to start blogging now, after 4 years, but better late than never, right?
For those not familiar with me, I’m Lori. I’ll be 27 soon, and my husband, Eddie, is 26. We have been trying to conceive since September of 2003. Obviously, since it’s September of 2007 and we still don’t have any kids, we’ve been failing. Miserably.
When we first started discussing the thought of even having a baby, Eddie was on deployment. We had just gotten married in December of 2002, and he was shipped out January 13. What was supposed to be a routine training exercise turned into an 8 month deployment. During this separation, I decided to start doing some reading, because I knew NOTHING about pregnancy, birth, or anything. NOTHING.
I discovered the iVillage message boards shortly after Eddie went on deployment, and have been visiting them ever since. I spend most of my time on the debate boards, and looking back, I can honestly say that my views about pretty much everything are dramatically different now than they were back then. Much of that will become apparent in as this blog evolves. I also read, read, read, and ended up with a monstrous collection of books about all things baby, from conception to kindergarten. The clueless was, at last, clued in (well, as much as one can be by reading, observing, talking to other moms, etc).
By the time Eddie got home in September of 2003, we were ready to have a baby, and I went off the pill. Neither of us had even the faintest inkling of what lay ahead.
Before I get too involved in this blog, I do want to extend a sincere thanks to everyone who’s kept me relatively sane through all of this. You’ve been immensely supportive through all of this. You all know who you are – the ones who have sent me encouraging e-mails, let me cry/bitch/vent, offered hugs or cyberhugs when I desperately needed them, who cheered with me when things were looking up and cried with me when the bottom fell out, and have been rooting for us since day 1 – you guys rock. Seriously.
And a special thanks to my husband. Eddie, you rock. I can’t imagine staying sane if I was going through this with anyone but you. Our marriage and our love have only gotten stronger through all of it. I love you, babe.
So now you know who we are. This blog may be at times funny, at times sad, at times full of the kind of language that would get a kid’s mouth washed out with soap. There may be some TMI now and then, though I try to keep the gory details to a minimum. With this topic, it’s kinda hard to avoid some mention of unmentionables. I apologize in advance.
Please feel free to e-mail me or to leave comments. If you’ve been there done that, or something resonated with you…I’d love to hear from you.
For those not familiar with me, I’m Lori. I’ll be 27 soon, and my husband, Eddie, is 26. We have been trying to conceive since September of 2003. Obviously, since it’s September of 2007 and we still don’t have any kids, we’ve been failing. Miserably.
When we first started discussing the thought of even having a baby, Eddie was on deployment. We had just gotten married in December of 2002, and he was shipped out January 13. What was supposed to be a routine training exercise turned into an 8 month deployment. During this separation, I decided to start doing some reading, because I knew NOTHING about pregnancy, birth, or anything. NOTHING.
I discovered the iVillage message boards shortly after Eddie went on deployment, and have been visiting them ever since. I spend most of my time on the debate boards, and looking back, I can honestly say that my views about pretty much everything are dramatically different now than they were back then. Much of that will become apparent in as this blog evolves. I also read, read, read, and ended up with a monstrous collection of books about all things baby, from conception to kindergarten. The clueless was, at last, clued in (well, as much as one can be by reading, observing, talking to other moms, etc).
By the time Eddie got home in September of 2003, we were ready to have a baby, and I went off the pill. Neither of us had even the faintest inkling of what lay ahead.
Before I get too involved in this blog, I do want to extend a sincere thanks to everyone who’s kept me relatively sane through all of this. You’ve been immensely supportive through all of this. You all know who you are – the ones who have sent me encouraging e-mails, let me cry/bitch/vent, offered hugs or cyberhugs when I desperately needed them, who cheered with me when things were looking up and cried with me when the bottom fell out, and have been rooting for us since day 1 – you guys rock. Seriously.
And a special thanks to my husband. Eddie, you rock. I can’t imagine staying sane if I was going through this with anyone but you. Our marriage and our love have only gotten stronger through all of it. I love you, babe.
So now you know who we are. This blog may be at times funny, at times sad, at times full of the kind of language that would get a kid’s mouth washed out with soap. There may be some TMI now and then, though I try to keep the gory details to a minimum. With this topic, it’s kinda hard to avoid some mention of unmentionables. I apologize in advance.
Please feel free to e-mail me or to leave comments. If you’ve been there done that, or something resonated with you…I’d love to hear from you.
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