recap

First, thank you everybody who has commented on my blog recently-- Amanda, Rachel, MDC mamas, thank you. Your thoughtful words help me more than you know.

I know what I want. I've always known. I didn't just wake up one day at 25 years old and decide that it would be quite nice to have a baby; it's not because starting a family is next on the to-do list. I have wanted children always; everything else has lead up to getting to a place where it was finally practical to try. It's something that has been in my mind, in my heart, forever. The only reason I'm questioning it now is because it's been so hard, so unexpectedly difficult, to get started-- miscarriage after miscarriage after miscarriage. So I have to ask, is it still worth it? Is it worth it to put myself through this, to put Don through this-- emotionally, physically? But it still is. I don't know at what point it wouldn't be, but we're not there yet.

And, it's not just 'a baby' that I want. Yes, I want a tiny, scrunch-faced, bright-red, nursing newborn, but I also want the toddler. The seven-year-old. The teenager. The adult (although it's hard to imagine.) I want our household dynamic to be less Mad About You and more The Burrow. I want a noisy, chaotic houseful of children... and eventually, for them all to leave and do their own thing.

What we don't have

Some people seem to have a single goal, one task to accomplish, to make their lives complete. They think, 'when I _____, then everything will be perfect.' Weight loss is one example; I've known women (well, girls, back then) who believed that if they could get their weight to X pounds, they'd be happy. Everything would be great, everybody would love them. The fact that everything else in life would be the same-- same parents, same friends, same job, same house, whatever-- was always ignored, as though being skinny were a ticket to a whole different life. (If that were true, wouldn't all the thin girls they knew be endlessly joyous already, instead of having their own issues?) I've also seen it with school and work: once I get into this school or get that degree or get hired by this company or get that promotion, life will be grand.

I'm afraid, sometimes, that I'm doing the same thing with starting a family: thinking that once I have a baby (or the four children I wanted before I knew how hard this would be), life will be perfect. Because it's been so unexpectedly difficult, required so much effort and concentration and emotional commitment, it's made the whole issue my raison d'etre instead of the sideshow it started as. For at least a year, getting pregnant and staying pregnant has occupied an enormous amount of my psychic space and has become kind of a monomania: everything will be perfect once we have a baby... and by implication, nothing can really ever be OK until we do.

On the one hand, I'm worried that like so many others, I'll eventually achieve what I want, only to look around and realize that it was a hollow victory after all, and that life (and I) hasn't really changed, except now there's a baby, just like everybody that I know or have read about, who pinned all of their hopes on a single goal only to achieve it and still be unfulfilled. On the other hand, though, maybe it's because everything else really is OK, and the only thing wrong in my life is this whole infertility/ceaseless-miscarriages thing. I mean, I've been ridiculously, embarrassingly blessed overall in terms of parents, family, Don, health, jobs, friends, etc, and this is essentially the first time that I've had real difficulty with anything. I'm not expecting a baby to change anything else-- how people see me, how I see myself-- so maybe that's a difference.

Another thing I've been thinking about is this: a lot of the things I do right now, I do with the expectation that eventually this will all pay off re: babies. What if it didn't? What if I knew right now, that Don and I would never have a family-- what would I do? What would we do? I've been fairly unhappy at work for awhile, but I've stayed because I have my health benefits through this job, because looking for a new job when you're trying to get pregnant (and therefore possibly going to be leaving again soon) is silly. The health insurance is no small thing when you're regularly seeing a specialist, and the new-job-seeking isn't either, if you plan to quit should you have a baby. On a similar note, I've been fairly lazy about moving up even in the same company (it's just over a year now since my last promotion), for a couple of reasons. The first is that, as I mentioned earlier, the infertility stuff is taking up a ton of my time and energy and the thought of trying to master a new position at work is not a good one. The second is sort of bad but I'll come clean: I don't want to upset the income ratio. I'm afraid that if I start making too much more money, whether or not I should "stay home" would start coming under question and I don't want that. Stupid, I know. I didn't even realize that I was thinking like that until the other night. So you see, there are all of these decisions being made based on the theory that soon we'll have a baby. What if we knew we wouldn't? I'd quit my job, no question about that. Find something else, not worry too much about the pay or the benefits. Spend more, save less. Drink more wine, take fewer vitamins. I don't know.

It's just weird to have my life revolving around this center that isn't even a something but the lack of a something.

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On a different note. I've been thinking about what the phrases we all insert into our conversations imply about how we feel. I have a friend that always exclaims, "...I'm serious, you guys!" when she's telling us something. Keeping in mind that we're not questioning it or laughing at her, I think it shows a real fear of not being taken seriously... She also uses the word "literally" all the time. I find myself constantly asking, "... you know what I mean?" or just, "... you know?" at the end of things, which rather hints that I'm scared of being misunderstood. Someone else, who consistently uses the phrase, "I'm the kind of person who ____" instead of just making a declarative sentence, ""I ___" What does it mean? That she needs to reassure herself that she's not alone in her viewpoints? Or that she doesn't have the self-confidence to just declare that she is x or y, or believes a or b. (I'm the kind of person who hates it when people claim to be the kind of person who...) I think we probably all have verbal tics that give away our social fears... personally I'm trying to drop the, "... you know what I mean?"

Completely Unrelated!

Why does Garfield hate Mondays? It's not like he had a job, had to get up and go to work. I don't even remember Jon having a job, really. A Monday to Garfield should be just like a Sunday or a Tuesday. It doesn't really make sense, they're just pandering to us working workers who would feel the empathy.

Plans to get chickens over the weekend fell through, which was probably a good thing as the coop isn't quite finished yet. Still needs wheels, a roof, and the window.

Saw a bumper sticker today that said, "Midwives, they help people out!" which just slayed me. Think about it, it's funny. I wonder if the car belongs to the midwife I talked to in February, before I knew I was a special case (and that I'd lose that pregnancy.) From what I can find, there are maybe four midwives here-- two practices-- so the odds are good, unless there are more around who just don't advertise their services.

We have finished an entire bottle of multivitamins for men, an entire bottle of fish oil, and almost all of the L-Carnitine, which means it's been sixty days since I put Don on all this stuff, which means that it's been more than two months since the last miscarriage.

I could possibly be pregnant again, it's too soon to know. I don't know how I feel about that, except that I feel I have no real choice, as I'm compelled to keep trying by a force stronger than rational decision-making. (Which may not be all that strong anyways, as neither of us are much known for our powers of the rational as it is.) So, wait and see. I have a different mentality now about the chances for each pregnancy. It's sort of hard to explain. Before, I was convinced that each pregnancy was IT, the one that would be our baby. Everything I read, everything the doctors said, reinforced the idea that the odds were in our favor. There's no reason, they said, why your next pregnancy wouldn't work out! Even now, after four miscarriages and no successful pregnancies, the literature claims our chances for a successful try next time are still better than 50-50, and that's not assuming any kind of treatment.

Now I feel like this: clearly, there's something that makes it difficult for me (or us) to hold onto a pregnancy. It may be just the progesterone issue, or maybe it's that plus something else, something the doctors couldn't find or didn't look for. I did the progesterone religiously last time, but to no avail: could be "bad luck" (the doctors' theory), could be some problem with the method (maybe I'm not absorbing it properly, or once it's in me, it doesn't act right, or something-- I'm no scientist), or maybe there's another issue, either in general or with just that pregnancy-- a bad egg or a lousy sperm or a bad implantation. I feel like there's a number out there, that describes our odds of success. The doctors don't know it, nobody does. Is it one-in-ten? One-in-twenty? Or one-in-a-million? I'm veering towards the lower end because there's so much that's not wrong, so much that tested clean. But there's no way to know: it could be impossible but how to find that out without trying again and again? Everything we do is to push those odds higher: the progesterone, the supplements, the specialists. Maybe this next time, it will work because of some little change; maybe all the vitamins I'm force-feeding into Don will make his swimmer straighten up and fly right... if that was ever a problem. Maybe my megadoses of folic acid will make some kind of difference. We don't know. Maybe it will work because statistically, it's just chance, just a million different things falling into place. If our odds are one-in-ten for a good pregnancy, maybe this time the dice will roll right. Or maybe it will fail again. But I think I can be OK with that, maybe. Because I'm no longer telling myself that this next time is IT.

If you can't segue, then bullet point

-- My miscarriage is finally starting. One-half relief, one-half crushing disappointment. Plenty of pain and blood to go around. Once I know that a pregnancy isn't viable, then I just want it gone... knowing something that my body hasn't figured out yet is hard. I want it over with so that we can just get started on the next one. (I almost took the doctors up on getting the D&C, but my body is so good at miscarrying naturally that it seems a waste not to.) Except, there's always a tiny part of me that hoped that the doctors and their machines were wrong... that maybe there was a healthy embryo tucked away in there somewhere and we just couldn't see it-- maybe my uterus has a hidden corner or something. (Except that since I had the hsg done I know my uterus is exactly normal-shaped.) But still. I can't help but hold out a tiny bit of hope until my body gives up and the bleeding and cramping begin. Thank you, uterus, for recognizing the concept of weekend and holding out for me, and sparing me the trouble of miscarrying at work. I appreciate it, I do.

-- We've decided to do this just one more time. For anyone new to the game, this is my fourth miscarriage since last March-- what is that, sixteen months? It's hard physically, but mentally, (emotionally? sanity-wise?) I'm afraid it's pushing me over the edge. I'm losing the emotional stability and rational perspective that has always been one of my more advantageous traits. (Be honest-- you thought that stealing-a-baby-from-the-grocery-store thing was a joke, didn't you.) We can not just keep getting pregnant only to lose the pregnancy, ad nauseum, until we're both bitter, sad, shells of human beings. So we'll try to get pregnant again after the mandatory waiting period. We'll each take our amazing collection of supplements, the selenium and vitamin E and folic acid. I'll take my progesterone religiously, again. But if we lose the next pregnancy too, then that's it. That would be five, a nice round number to stop at.

-- At which point we'll start looking into adoption and etc. ("Etc" being fostering, theft, and those Law and Order: SVU episodes that start with a heavily pregnant woman getting kidnapped. Just kidding. Mostly.) But I've got a bone to pick with the general world about adoption. Don't get me wrong, I have no issue with the concept in general, but as soon as people find out about what Don and I have been going through re: trying to have a baby, they jump on the adoption train. Why don't we "just" adopt? Did we know there are lots of babies out there that need loving parents? Well you helpful people, did YOU adopt your children? Perhaps a better question is, why do you see adoption as the last resort of people that can't seem to have genetically related offspring? Don't stand there holding your self-birthed child and mouth cliches about adoption, as though we have no right to even try to have our own like you did. Because we are having fertility problems, suddenly those "unwanted" babies are much more our problem than yours. Why do I have to defend my right to want to get pregnant, when you didn't? Because we need help? Because our attempts at conception are so obviously intentional and can't be written off as thoughtless reproduction? As it happens, I have reasons for wanting "my own". Some of them are selfish. All of them are human. Don't misunderstand me, I'm not ruling out adoption. It may become our salvation. And of course we've thought about it. Find me a couple that's been through what we have that hasn't spent hours going over the idea. I just don't like the concept that us wanting to do what everyone else seems to do almost without thinking, is not okay. (Worst sentence ever, I know.)

-- Random reasons for wanting to conceive own offspring: I want to feel what it's like to have a baby move inside me. Want to waddle down the street, hugely pregnant. Want to give birth. Want to breastfeed-- maybe for a long time. I am a mammal, dammit. I want what every hamster, bat, blue whale and grizzly bear--as well as most female humans-- want, on the most instinctual, animalistic level imaginable. It's a primal hunger, a force. I want to send my own genetic material into the future, for unimaginable, untold generations. Every living creature lives to do that, from the E. coli in your colon, to those blind fish that live in caves, to the morning glories climbing over our front porch, who busily make flowers and seedpods every day. I want to see what my children would be like. Would any of them have my green eyes? Would we be able to trace traits to my parents, my grandparents? Perhaps I'd have a child that more closely resembles-- in looks, or personality-- my brother or sister than me. "You are so much like your uncle, did you know that?" Would they have our intelligences? Our stubbornness? Or perhaps they'd be completely different. Sometimes the apple does fall far away; we all know someone that is completely different than either parent. That would be cool, too.

--I play with Mendel, trying to figure out statistical likelihoods. My paternal grandfather, a Russian Jew, had blue eyes. (If you don't know, that's fairly unusual.) Because of that, even though my dad has the much more typical dark, dark eyes of his mother, he carries a gene for light eyes, so marrying my green-eyed mother made it possible for me to have her green eyes, and my brother to have (our grandfather's? Or something from our mother's side?) blue, and my sister to get his deep brown. Meanwhile, my dad's sister, who of course also had dark brown eyes but was carrying the recessive gene, married my uncle who has the standard dark eyes, and they had three brown-eyed offspring, my cousins. But any of them could be carrying an unexpressed blue-eyed gene, which has manifested again in my cousin Robin's baby; even though both she and her partner have brown eyes, this dark-eyed, dark haired couple has a baby with blue eyes and (so far) red hair. My long-deceased grandfather's blue eyes have shown up again, two generations later. Because I married someone with beautiful hazel eyes, it's certain that our children would have light eyes-- blue, green, or hazel. That stuff fascinates me, and I always assumed that one day I'd see it carried out into the next generation. Yeah, I know, it's a stupid reason to have kids. But tell me that you didn't spend hours wondering (when you were pregnant, when you were trying, or just whenever) about the same kinds of things. Hoping that some defining trait of a well-loved relative would manifest in your own offspring, wondering if the baby you carried would have your height or your husband's non-height. The first thing a family does upon seeing a new baby, is to start arguing over its features. Mothers will inform anyone who is listening that so-and-so (usually the dad) looked JUST like that as a newborn. It's a cliche, and yet the fact that it's a cliche demonstrates that it's not just me who has this selfish desire to see my own traits, my husbands, and my family's, be re-born.

So before you write me off as selfish for trying so, so hard to get pregnant (and stay that way), you had better have adopted your own children-- and not as a last resort when nothing else worked. Only then can you prove that you didn't have the exact same reasons-- or ones just as silly-- for having your babies the traditional way.

Sigh.

OK, well, so I'm back. Yeah. Many things to write about now. I'll start with a confession, because those are always fun. When I announced that I was taking a break from posting, it was because I'd just found out that we were pregnant again. My plan to get knocked up on our first cycle of trying again was fairly successful, making it our second time for a first-try pregnancy. If that makes any sense. I lost the desire to discuss the pregnancy here, though, for a couple of reasons. For one thing, my parents and brother were coming to Virginia to visit us, and I wanted to wait and share the news in person, for once, rather than over the phone; somehow dishing about it here several weeks before telling them didn't seem right. The main issue, though, was just that we've been through this so many times now, that my thoughts and emotional patterns have become repetitive. I couldn't stomach posting daily about how I was scared. Excited. Scared again. Hopeful. Worried. It's the same every time.

My family came to town, we told them our news, and all was joyous. Our ultrasound was scheduled for Wednesday afternoon, and I decided that if it looked good, I'd come back here with the sonogram pictures and announce the pregnancy. If it was bad news, I'd come back to sob about another failure. Well, there are no sonogram pictures here today*. I am in that lovely span of time where I get to wonder whether I'll miscarry naturally again, or have to have a D & C. Did I mention that Don was on a business trip when I found out? And that I had to call him and tell him that we weren't having a baby after all? He had wanted me to put the ultrasound off for a week so that we could be together for it, and I demurred... I needed to see in there and see what was happening so badly that waiting another week seemed impossible.

Even though this is our fourth loss in a row, the doctors are adamant that it has nothing to do with the other three. Seriously. This one is random, couldn't have been helped by anything, just plain bad luck. You know how most women that have a miscarriage just have one, and it turns out that there's nothing wrong with them, and they have healthy pregnancies afterwards? This is that kind of miscarriage. It's hard for me to wrap my mind around the idea, that after three other losses, we get the "random bad luck" miscarriage that is an anembryonic pregnancy, more commonly called a blighted ovum. It seems like more than our fair share of bad luck, like the universe is fucking with us. But since when is life fair, right? Things could be worse. They can always be worse. We had a second ultrasound this morning, just to make absolutely sure there isn't anything in there-- no missed twin, nothing like that-- before making the decision to stop the hormone treatment, since doing that would end even a healthy pregnancy. I did ask the doctor about Don's side of the fertility equation**, given the substantial age difference between us and the decades of hard living, but he essentially pointed out that as Don's gotten me pregnant four times in sixteen months, his sperm is not really to be questioned. But he gave me a list of vitamin and mineral supplements for the man, so I just spent a week's pay at Whole Foods for things like selenium and Vitamins C and E. It's interesting what we do when we have no control over a situation, isn't it? Oh, and I'm still infatuated with this RE practice. After the feet-in-stirrups part of a visit, they have me get dressed and come into an office, so that we can talk across a (round) table as fully-dressed adults, rather than continuing to talk at me while I'm still on the table, naked from the waist down and wrapped in a sheet. The added dignity is nice. Plus, I was twenty minutes late for my appointment (remind me to tell you that story some time, it involved our new truck*** getting towed from the parking lot at work, leaving me stranded with no ride, no cash, no debit card) and they were very gracious about it. Then they made a special appointment for today, a Saturday, for the followup since it's so hard for me to get out of work. If we get pregnant again I wonder if I could stay with them the whole time (assuming that is longer than a few weeks) instead of transferring back to the obstetrician.

P.S. Oh yeah, and we bought the house. It is ours. Or more accurately, 20% of it is ours, and the other 80% we will slowly buy back from the bank over 20 or 30 years. So at least one definite, constructive thing has happened this year, which is nice. Before, I was joking with Don that in future years, we will look back and remember 2007 as the year we wed, 2008 as the year we became homeowners, and 2009 as the year of the first baby. It is not entirely too late for that, since this one would have been due in February, but I am having a hard time believing that we'll ever successfully sustain a pregnancy.

*Interestingly, they still *take* the pictures for a failed pregnancy, they just don't give you copies for your fridge. I think that's probably a good idea, because otherwise I might go around showing people, "...and here's where there should have been an embryo, and yet look! It's not there! That's called an anembryonic pregnancy! Isn't that an oxymoron? Because you'd think the definition of being pregnant would be that there's an embryo inside you!" Instead, the photos get stapled to something in your file. My file is starting to look impressively thick.

** The only test they've done on Don so far is a chromosomal analysis to make sure that he doesn't have any genetic abnormalities.

*** We bought a new truck a little while ago, I don't think I ever mentioned it here. Although it's half mine (I paid for half of it and my name's on the title too) I think of it as Don's truck because it's replacing his 1993 Ford Ranger. This one is *exactly* the same truck, except that it's a 2006 and a beautiful dark red color instead of silver.

Poultry at Large

Want to update, but nothing to report...AKA, the story of my life. The buying-a-house process seems to be moving agonizingly slowly, even though I know that everything is actually happening on or ahead of schedule. Termite inspection, house inspection, house appraisal. It's just that our landlord is pretty desperate for the sale, and as first-timers, Don and I are wee helpless babes calling our loan officer every day. Speaking of appraisal, does anyone know what we want the result to be? Seems to me that anything higher than what we're paying for the house is a bad thing, since property taxes are based on it, but my coworker is convinced otherwise; something about resale value. But I am pretty sure that resale value is completely market-based; nobody is going to pay more for a house than it's market value just because the bank says it's worth x. Yes? No? We seem to have a closing date, however, so unless something goes wrong we'll be in our house* by the 3rd. Which, incidentally, is the day my parents and brother are coming to visit us for the weekend. I really, really want to be able to say "Guess what WE just did!" I'd also like to be able to say,"... AND we're pregnant." But that won't happen for a couple of reasons, not the least of which being that if I get a positive pregnancy test, I tend to call my mom within hours or days, not weeks.

I tested this morning and got a negative, but it was too soon. Essentially I wasted a test knowing that even if I am, it's too soon to tell. At least it was the free test that came with the ovulation kit. I shall test my inner strength by not testing again for awhile; after all, I'm already doing everything I'd do if I knew I were pregnant, e.g. the progesterone, vitamins, aspirin, etc. It's not like last time when I had to find out as soon as possible... Unfortunately, I've always disappointed myself when it came to the inner-strength resolve of not testing early.

I have looked up the city regulations, and there is nothing keeping us from having a small flock of chickens in our yard, or beehives. We may not keep pigs or sheep, however, unless intended for immediate slaughter, and goats are never allowed. Additionally, no poultry can roam the city "at large", unless it is a trained carrier pigeon. I love The Law. (Alert, we have Poultry at Large at 14th and Main... that's right, a chicken right in the street. Ack, it can fly! I'm going to need backup!) Do people still keep homing pigeons? THAT would be a fun hobby, it's almost like owls and you could pretend Harry Potter.

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*In our house is a funny way to look at it, since we're buying the place we currently live in. No moving into a new home, no shiny new keys. I wonder if we should have some sort of ceremonial re-entry, as in 'we leave for the last time as renters, and reenter now as owners'? With sage?

...Part Two

I'm in that lovely period of anticipation known as the Two Week Wait, those days between when one might have gotten pregnant and the earliest one could find out if this is so. Doubtful that this is our month, due to an unscheduled reappearance of Don's Terrible Neck & Back Pain (those pesky discs). This leads to dialogue like this: "What do you mean, you're in incredible pain? Do I care? FERTILIZE ME NOW!"-- that is thankfully internal. My mouth actually said things like, "poor baby", and "I'll go get the Advil." Still, we have a chance. And every time that we've gotten pregnant, I was previously convinced that it wasn't going to be our month, so I don't put too much stock in that feeling now. I am popping the prenatals, the aspirin, and the progesterone-- or I would be were it an oral medication. I guess "gingerly placing the progesterone" would be more accurate. What's bad is that I've had constant headaches lately, possibly due to this insane heat/ humidity, or to the stress of applying for a home loan. No Advil allowed in the two week wait...

We are officially preapproved for the loan, and nothing on their list of requirements is out of our reach, so things are looking good on that end. The termite inspection went well. But there are a lot of things that could go wrong, so I'm not overly excited (with a 'c'!) so far. My brain hurts, so must go now.

If you want coherence, go read a novel

Project House: still waiting for loan application to be approved. Because THAT'S not a nerve-wracking few days, is it? Signed a bunch of paperwork with our landlord (aka the Seller, aka the Agent. He wears many hats.) that would usually not be signed until after he sees our pre-approval letter. Huh.

Project Baby: AM OVULATING TODAY. Got the simpering digital smiley face on Clear Blue Easy's ovulation kit this morning, backed it up with the more prosaic two-matching-lines kit from Accu-someting. They agree with each other. I've been so wrapped up with peeing in a cup every morning (I've gotten REALLY GOOD at that-- no splashing, no overflow!), testing with two different tests (what if one of them DOESN'T WORK?), taking my vitamins & etc, that I almost forgot that in order to get pregnant, we'd still have to have sex at some point. Thank goodness Don had the presence of mind (or something) to remember that bit.

Project Sister Coming to Virginia to Take Back the Dog We've Been Caring For for 9 Months: complete, amid much heartbreak and sadness. Our place is too quiet now. Alice seems a bit lost. Don may or may not have cried. We miss you, Cocomo! Come back any time!

Thoughts: that smiley face is pretty damn condescending. I mean, we are presumably intelligent, well-educated women. We do not require a flippin' smiley face to say, "yay! you're ovulating!". Seriously? Stop infantilizing the fertility-challenged.

It really sucks to realize that your zipper is down at the grocery store, where you've gone straight from work. And subsequently realize that you haven't used the bathroom in hours. How many people noticed that zipper? HOW MANY?

It is surreal to hand the rent check to the landlord and have him say, "If this works out, I'll be giving half of this back! Not to mention your damage deposit, the downstairs tenant's damage deposit, and half of her June rent!"

The bank has a website where you can check the process of your application any time. I hope they don't track how many times an applicant checks the site, or read too much into that. Every 2o minutes is normal, right?

It seems that Don doesn't really enjoy being woken up by having pee-soaked tests thrust towards his face. I can't see why-- I mean, smiley face! Right there! Exiting news.

To think, for some people it's free

OK, so I was all exited and smug because a jumbo, nasty bill came from my infertility doc's office, but it had all been covered by insurance, (thank you!) leaving me only fifteen dollars left to pay. (Which really makes me wonder-- why? Do human people ever actually look at these bills? Why cover over nine hundred dollars' worth of procedures and etc, but leave the last 15? Anyways.) You know how you're supposed to read through those bills to make sure you're not getting charged for stuff that wasn't done to you? Nothing like seeing, "catheterizing" on that list and going, "yup, yup, sure do remember that catheter! At least my bill's correct!"

Right now I'm less exited, having been informed that the twice-daily progesterone supplement that is my future offspring's only chance for survival, is NOT covered, for the stupidest reason involving how it's billed or something. It's going to cost me sixty dollars a month until we conceive, then $120/ month for the first three months of the pregnancy. (Hopefully.) AND, I have to use ovulation-prediction kits every month to pinpoint exactly when to start the hormones; I thought those would cost about what a pregnancy test does, seeing that they do the same trick of analysing the chemical content of urine. They don't. So, a couple of those kits every month, also until we conceive again. Essentially, trying to concieve is going to cost over a hundred dollars a month until we get lucky. I ran all this by Don, with the inevitable conclusion: conceive ASAP, save $$! It's going to be a busy month...

But first, we get to go camping* with not one dog, not TWO dogs, but two dogs AND a cat**! This is going to be super, super fun. Or, at the very least, give us good vacation-from-hell stories for another few years.



* What, isn't that how everybody celebrates their one-year marriage anniversary?
** She gets LONELY if we leave her behind! I know I swore she'd never come camping with us again, but it will be different this time. Really.

Answers, Answers!

Apparently, my progesterone sucks! It should be at least 10 parts per whatever (and I've heard 25 is better); mine is 6.8. This is fantastic! Out of the sea of perfect test results, a Problem has reared its monstrous head and announced, "it is because of ME that you can't hold a pregnancy! Me! ME!" And not a hard-to-fix problem, either. What is also amazing is that the doctor himself called me the very next day after I took the test. I could get used to this kind of care... We had quite a long discussion about progesterone deficiency and treatment: using ovulation-prediction kits to know just when to start the supplements, and whether I'll stay with the suppositories or go for the intra-muscular injections. (Ewww.) On the bad side, I was (am, actually) at work, so this lively talk of periods, ovulation, and suppositories took place in the bank lobby. Hey, it's really slow and there were no customers. I think that the doctor's average patient is probably a bit older than me (seeing that he's an infertility specialist) and perhaps more mature. All I know is that I have a tendency to giggle, especially at things like this:

Doc: ... and so if it were me, I'd probably stick with the vaginal suppositories for now.

Me: that sounds really funny coming from a man. . .

I mean, it's not possible, you know? See? Anyways. Very happy, have answers, can get started baby-making again ASAP. The only nagging doubt right now is that I had been supplementing progesterone already for the last two pregnancies, but maybe it was just too little, too late? I hope so. I hope this will be the safety net I was searching for.

Netflix, Buffy, Harry, Doctor

A lot of nothing has been happening in these parts lately, hence the lack of updates. Perhaps the most exiting new development is this discovery: Seasons of television shows, on DVD, through Netflix! Oh, my. For someone with a slightly addictive personality, this is so dangerous. For example, Don was out of town most of last week (business trip), and I may or may not* have watched 12 hours of Gilmore Girls** within four evenings. Because you can get whole seasons! In order, from the very beginning, with no commercials... it's lovely. The difficulty is in remembering that you can pause the show, instead of subconsciously waiting for the commercial break to visit the bathroom or whatever, and finding yourself desperately having to go much later, not having realized that there are no commercials. It's like watching a PBS documentary-- you don't want to walk away, and yet there are no breaks! I'm working on adapting to this "DVD" concept.

Don and I are working our way through the first and second seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer too, a show that featured prominently in the early days of our friendship and thus has a nostalgia factor that's almost as appealing as the show itself. I think that any Harry Potter fan trying to come to grips with no more Harry, would do well to rediscover Buffy. Almost a year after the final book release, and I'm still saddened by the End of Harry Potter. Oh, sure, we can always re-read the books. There are movies still to come, but... whatever. To me, the movies were always a pleasant diversion, nothing more. Certainly not cannon. And yes, that encyclopedia sounds great, but it could be years more in the making. I miss that feeling of anticipation for the next book, the hours spent theorizing, analyzing details of plot and character, the heated discussions in person, on the phone, online. It's hard to close that chapter-- the chapter in which Harry Potter was this ongoing, alive thing-- even a year later. I have yet to find something that engages me the way it did.

Almost all of the lab results are back from the RE's office now. The doctor (!) called me this morning to let me know that Don's chromosome analysis was normal, and we had a chat in person about what's next. Which turns out to be... nothing. They have exhausted their battery of tests, and everything is normal. The only thing left is the progesterone, which they drew for this morning. I've been supplementing the stuff for the last two pregnancies, though, so it's probably not our issue. Especially considering that previous tests have showed it in normal range. Still, the doc said he'd write me a new prescription for it anyways, since it can't hurt. Either way, we're free to start trying again whenever we'd like. Since we have the daring to hope for a baby by next Mother's day, that means pretty soon.

You know, the weirdest part of the whole paragraph above is that the doctor called me. That has never happened before. Nurses call me. Receptionists call me. Doctors do not call me. And they do not say, "Well, if you're coming down for a blood test now, I'll rearrange some things so that we can sit down and talk for a few minutes while you're here." I finally find a doctor like this, and now I am essentially leaving his practice because they've done what they can. Ironic, yes?

Before, we had three completely unexplained miscarriages ... they could have been the result of any number of common problems. Now, we have the same three; completely unexplained, that are the result of anything except any of the usual causes of miscarriages. It's not my blood-- not a clotting disorder, nor bad antibodies. Not my genetic material, nor Don's. Not my uterus, not my tubes. And most likely, not my hormones. It's hard to wrap my mind around this bit of failure by modern medicine. Most definitely, a problem exists: three consecutive losses, no babies, it falls outside the probability of chance. And yet, the problem is undiagnosable. According to the doc's statistics, we have a 60% chance of carrying the next pregnancy to term without any kind of medical intervention. Considering that the chart lumps together everyone under 35, and combines those with 3 and those with 4 losses, it's probably a bit higher than that. He said, I can take a baby aspirin every day; even though all of the bloodwork came back normal, "It can't hurt and you never know". I can start supplementing progesterone even earlier, starting days after ovulation instead of waiting until we know we're pregnant.

I can just hold my breath, and hope that that "60%" actually applies to us.


************************************************
* I definitely did.
** Don likes this show too. I'll bet that a lot of men do but don't admit it.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

My uterus is beautiful. No, really, it is. It looks just perfect; the right shape, nothing hiding out in there, no cysts, no growths, no abnormalities, tubes all clear and leaking X-ray dye into the rest of my abdominal cavity...( Something I'd rather not consider. Where does it go after that?).

Which leaves us with absolutely no ideas re: the chronic miscarriages. Every test I've taken has returned nice, shiny, positive results. No blood-clotting factors, no overzealous antibodies, no chromosomal abnormalities. And now, a lovely, healthy-looking uterus. The doctors are doing a karyotype on Don's chromosomes now. They are to check my progesterone level later on this cycle, and we've both been prescribed a broad-spectrum antibiotic, in case there's some kind of infection involved. (Something that's easier to just treat than to look for, apparently.) But, Don's genetic material is already proven, I've was taking prescription progesterone for the last two pregnancies, and... an infection? Seriously, the odds of that being our problem are pretty small. But we're slowly ruling out all of the major causes... I'm afraid we're about to enter Unexplained Infertility land, the diagnosis that comes only after you've spent all your time and money to figure out what's wrong. The doc stated that he has confidence that our next pregnancy will work out, but that doesn't make me feel particularly warm and fuzzy. After all, he would have said the same things about the other pregnancies-- everybody else did. And while we've done scads of testing, we haven't actually changed anything since the last miscarriage, with the exception of this antibiotic regimen. I guess what comes next will depend partly on that progesterone test. If it measures low (and I think it will), then I want them to change my prescription. Either make it stronger (twice as much in every suppository), or change how it's administered, so that I take it orally or via injection. Also, I want them to write enough of a prescription so that I can start taking it way before I can even get a positive pregnancy test-- from ovulation, not twelve days later. Every month.

It turns out that the test wasn't nearly as bad as the medications I took in preparation for it. From now on, I will inform all future doctors about my extreme drug sensitivity, because my low level of pain tolerance is nothing compared to my complete inability to metabolize drugs properly. The procedure wasn't bad at all-- uncomfortable, but over in twenty minutes. But I was still throwing up from the Percoset (or was it the Valium?) four hours later, and spent all afternoon in bed with a wicked headache. Next time, I will just steel myself for the pain, take a few Advil, and refuse prescription painkillers. They are not for me. (Which is really too bad, because for the first hour or so, I felt REALLY good.)

*******************************************************************

P.S. Don turned to me last night during a commercial, and said, "Next year for Mother's Day, I'm going to get you that." I can't remember what it was, but his confidence that by this time next year, we'll be celebrating Mother's Day touched me. (Oh, I remember now. A box of Rice Crispies cereal. You'd have to see the commercial for it to make any sense at all.) I want to be pregnant again by mid-summer, assuming that by then we'll have exhausted any available tests or treatments, and it's looking that way.

P.P.S For this test, they had to do it a certain number of days after my period. Easy... just wait for period, call and make appointment. For the progesterone, he said to call X number of days BEFORE my period starts. Am I the only one that sees the difficulty in this?

P. P.P.S. Becca, how can you, as a vegan, support breastfeeding? You know that it's.... DAIRY, right?

Forget Percoset, prescribe me Prozac

Today's money goal: NO books and NO magazines for at least one month, starting today.
Next week's money goal: split tax refund deposit between savings accounts.

Speaking of which, was anyone else's refund abnormally large this year? It's kind of hard to compare because both our incomes increased year-over-year, and we got married, but it seems like a lot to me. We did owe extra state taxes, though. (You know what I miss about Texas? No state income tax.)

Next month's money goal: build a bumper in my checking account so that it doesn't drop to alarming single digits between paychecks. (Harder to do when you get paid once a week, instead of twice-monthly like normal professional people.)

Mental-health goal: stop freaking out about the HSG. I will be calm. Calm. Calm does not include biting finger-nails to below the quick, or being unable to sleep... Whatever they find in there, we can work it out. Answers are better than no answers. No matter what happens, we will someday, eventually, have our babies. We have time.

Don and I were discussing the possibility that we could end up having to do IVF, depending on what turns out to be the problem, and how often IVF leads to multiples. Twins are fine, but his take on triplets: "It just doesn't seem like a good idea to have more babies than the number of breasts you have, you know?" Surprisingly, my idea to grow a third boob to support a potential triplet was not well-received.

Inch by Inch...

The much-anticipated HSG (uterus + dye + X-ray test) is going to be done next week, rather than in late May or June. I am exited to be getting this under way, already, and am enjoying the contrast to the usual waiting, waiting, waiting. Now I just don't know what to hope for, in terms of results.



On the one hand, I'd love a nice, healthy, normal (albeit leaning towards the left) uterus. On the other, that would still leave me without a diagnosis, or answers of any kind re: the recurring miscarriages. But, a badly malformed, unfixable uterus would be even worse, and pretty much put an end to our baby dreams. I guess what we need is either a slightly messed-up thingie, or else a perfect one, plus answers coming from elsewhere, like the testing they're about to do on Don. Although that could be bad, too, depending on what comes up. Please, let us have a fixable problem!

Falling for dogs that aren't your own

Good news, part A: I have normal chromosomes. (Insert major sigh of relief here!)

Good news, part B: Don's insurance seems to cover paternal karyotyping.

Irksome news: My RE office has misplaced Don's insurance information, so I have to bring it to them again. Just as I did two weeks ago! This is not helping with that recurring feeling I have of being on a repeating loop of time.

I'm not that worried about Don's genetic material, for various reasons that I won't put here. The next logical step in the Neverending Fertility Quest is (of course) the Uterus Exam, the timing of which is a fragile thing: depending on my cycle, my work schedule, and the doctor's schedule. I think we're looking at the end of May, maybe? I ovulated freakishly late this month, so I have no idea when to expect my period... The challenge right now is remaining un-pregnant until all these tests can be done. Now that we've gotten pregnant on the first or second try three times in a row, we take it a bit more seriously than before. . .

And on the Interesting News front, my sister is finally coming to claim her dog. You know, the dog we agreed to watch from August to October, and have had ever since? The dog that Don has completely fallen in love with and doesn't want to give back? This is going to be painful. (For him.) It should be noted, though, that Don is kind of easy when it comes to dogs. He falls in love with every dog that he spends time with, and that loves him back. I'm sure he'll get over it, right?

Right?

*******************************************************************

Two days ago was the anniversary of our first miscarriage. I can't believe it has been one year, already, since this. On a brighter note, it was also the 7-year anniversary of Alice's adoption from the animal shelter.

Tax Day

Public Service Announcement: the people working in banks are not tax experts. We are not CPAs. We have never taken a single class or lesson in tax preparation, because that's not even close to our job; we know enough to file our own taxes and that's about it. It is not even legal for us to offer tax advice without being certified to do so. Thank you.


Don and I filed our taxes last night, which was weird: April 14th is so early for us. There's nothing like the promise of a juicy rebate check to get us to fall in line. Tonight will be the first April 15th in quite some time that didn't feature (literally) 11th-hour preparations... I'm not sure what to do with the evening now. Not to mention that it was our first time that we could claim "married, filing jointly" instead of "single": how utterly romantical. To honor, to cherish, and to share a single 1040 form...


No interesting results from all those blood tests yet. The four that were being re-run came back normal, but the one that is new and exiting (genetic karyotype thingie) won't have results for awhile yet. I probably won't be able to do the HSG until May, as my coworker's heart surgery seems to outrank my exploratory procedure. (What, there's something more important in this world than my uterus? Surely not!) So, the whole fertility thing is going kind of slowly. Sometimes I feel fine about that, rational, but sometimes I just feel frantic as I feel the weeks slipping by, still undiagnosed and nonpregnant. I wonder how old I'll be when (if?) I finally have a baby in my arms... something I thought would have happened quite some time ago now. Anyways....

I love that Googling "washing mildewed towels" nets 11,700 hits, and that wikiHow has an entry specifically for it. It makes me feel less alone in the world to know that so many other people have forgotten the towels in the wash.

Bits of thoughts

Blood tests: annoying.
Having to fast for said tests: more annoying.
Having the blood tests take three times longer than expected, done by an incompetent student nurse with no people skills to speak of, thereby making me stumble into work late and dizzy with hunger, as my get-breakfast-after-fasting-and-bloodletting time had disappeared: really freaking annoying.

Next time, I am going to show up as early as possible, pack a snack, and request the good nurse. Live and learn and all that.

We watched Walk the Line on cable last night. It didn't suck, but why on earth did the directors decide to let the actors sing, instead of dubbing in the original voices of Johnny Cash and June Carter? Their incredible sound was kind of the whole point, and without it, the movie is kind of flat.

Everything is lovely here. Beautiful, cool-rainy-breezy weather, flowers everywhere, trees budding. Saturday held the first farmers' market of the year, and it was like a festival. I think Virginia is taunting me for thinking of leaving for the land of Oppressive Heat.

House of the Absent-minded

Alice loves coffee, especially mochas. Naturally, the caffeine and chocolate isn't good for her little doggie system--and, you know, Hey! I was drinking that, damn dog!-- so I quite often stash my coffee cup on the windowsill, or the mantel*, or on top of the piano... anywhere that's too high for our quasi-suicidal puppy to reach. Because Don and I each have the attention span of a ... wait, what was I saying? Anyways, the cups stay there more often than not, while we wander around thinking, "what the hell did I do with my latte?", while it grows cold and occasionally moldy on the windowsill. Naturally, doing the dishes requires going from room to room collecting whatever dish-wear has accumulated in that room (and DON'T suggest that all of your dishes are in the kitchen. Who do you think you are, Martha frickin' Stewart? Tell me there aren't any forks under your sofa and I will declare you either neurotically clean, or having no dogs in the house.), but it's not that natural to remember to check atop the piano or mantel shelf for mugs, so sometimes they stay there for some time, sadly. The funny thing is that we were both raised in tidy, normal households, in which coffee mugs made a neat rotation from kitchen to dining room and back, with no interesting day-trips to, say, the ironing board.

You know what's funny? There's that stereotypical, close friendship between women and gay men (or at least, a certain kind of gay man and certain kind of woman); Will and Grace, Bridget Jones and Tom, etc. It is commonplace in popular media, and perhaps, for all I know, real life. Why isn't there a similar stereotype for lesbians and men? Men in general don't seem particularly enamoured with (real) lesbians. I wonder why the difference?

I forgot to mention that I saw one of my ovaries during the ultrasound on Thursday, which was awesome. The other one seemed to be hiding or something. I hope it exists, at least, but I'm not too worried on that score, seeing that we conceive easily. And apparently my uterus is leaning to the left. Dr B's take on it: "Whether it's a perfectly normal uterus that happens to be left-lying, or whether it's that way because or a deformity is still up in the air until the HSG." Thanks, doc. It occurred to me that I've been worrying that they'll not find anything wrong with me (diagnosis: unexplained infertility), but what if they find something that's not fixable? That would be even worse. Like if it turns out that the ol' uterus is so jacked up that even surgery wouldn't help; it would mean that we'd never be able to maintain a pregnancy. I got one of the girls at work to promise she'd consider surrogacy, but somehow I don't think Don will go for the idea.

Speaking of work, the past week was unutterably bad. I kind of thought that since I'd come out in the open about my ambivalence towards the job, it would suddenly turn OK for awhile, like when you are thinking about breaking up with someone and they get much nicer all of a sudden; or the way your hair always looks amazing the day you're scheduled for a haircut. Instead, I had the worst week ever, and am even more ambivalent than before. (Although I still can't stomach the idea of losing my health benefits. Gaah.)

Somehow or another, Spring has arrived with me barely noticing. Too caught up in my own crap, I guess. It just doesn't seem right... this time last year, I was all exited about Spring-- the daffodils, the rain, the dogwoods-- and being pregnant (for the FIRST time!) and thinking how great it was going to be, to be pregnant all summer. Now it's the same season, but I'm all cynical and pragmatic. I want to be that naive, hopeful girl I was only a year ago, wide-eyed and appreciative of the beauty surrounding her.


*We don't have a fireplace, but we do have a fireplace mantel. Go figure.

(none)

I have started and left unfinished many entries in the past week-- I think I have thinker's block. Of course part of it was that my RE appointment was today, and all I could do was whine about the waiting. Also, it's hard to follow up after a post like the previous, you know?

Thoughts about the RE appointment.

1. Why are so many REs and obstetricians men? I would love to think that thousands of male doctors just really, really want to help us women/ couples get pregnant and deliver our babies, or that they just find the whole reproductive process incredibly interesting, but I can't help but feel that the money is a major factor. There seems to be a lot more money in these fields than, say, pediatrics or family medicine. This clinic is downright posh, part of a spanking-new medical complex, and filled with luxe touches. I wish it was a sign of their success, but insurance companies have to pay for unsucessful treatments, too.

2. I like old-fashioned hospital gowns that are actually made of cloth and have sleeves and tie in the back. So much better than either the paper gowns or the kind where you have to snap the sleeves together.

3. I have a bad feeling that the next test (the HSG) is going to be scheduled for the exact day that I'm supposed to attend a training conference thingie. The clinic only does these procedures on Wednesday mornings, apparently, and the only week it can be done is the week after one's period started. That translates to one day out of the entire month in which this procedure can be done, and--if I can hazard a guess as to when my period will come-- that is one day of work I can't miss. What the hell.

4. The good doctor has prescribed me Valium and Percocet to take before the HSG. He is apparently reccommending them because of my reaction to the Pap smear/ vaginal exam. I have previously been under the impression that this is an uncomfortable-bordering-on-painful experience for any woman, but now I'm thinking maybe not? It's not as though we really discuss these things. Given my oversensitivity to drugs of any kind, how am I going to handle both of these at once, and on a work day? Oy vey.

Thoughts on work/ Things that are good about my job:

The hours. Always home before 5:30, never have to be there earlier than 8. It would be hard to go back to a retail-type job after that.

The pay. Not that I'm making tons of money or anything, just that I'm priced out of entry-level for most types of work. The only way to maintain what I earn is to stay in the same field and utilize my experience, but that wouldn't be any better than just staying here.

The benefits. Of which I am partaking liberally at the moment.

Not that any of that changes what I said previously--that it is making me unhappy and nuts-- but it makes it harder to just chuck it all and get a job making espresso drinks somewhere, or working retail, or waiting tables. In a way, it was all easier when I was making ten dollars an hour and not worrying about health insurance.

titles are for creative people, not for me

Don and I are not trying to get pregnant right now. Common sense dictates that we wait until we have at least a hint about what's going on with our failed launches, rather than just getting pregnant again right away and (presumably) losing it again. (Isn't one of the definitions of insanity to repeat the same action over and over, but expect a different result?) So why then did getting my period make me sad? Instinct? Habit? My optimistic subconscious whispering, maybe it will be OK this time? Here's a hint, subconscious: you keep thinking that, but you're zero for three. Nothing is more annoying than baseless optimism, you know. Please join me in the real world, where getting a period is a good thing! Or, at least a neutral event, unless it's so painful that I have to leave work early, as happened yesterday. Thank you. In the meantime, I'm trying to adjust to the fact that I won't be having a baby until I'm 28, most likely. That was SO not the plan. I had a plan. Hello Universe, didn't you read the script? Do you just wander onto the set tossing out random lines?

I've decided that doctors' visits are our new couples-hobby. Some couples take salsa dancing, some go hiking, some do bible study; we visit with doctors and compare notes after. I think we'll start hiking next-- all of the fun and bonding, but much less expensive and it burns more calories.

Still no decisions made re: Don's vehicle or lack thereof, which is OK with me. I especially liked our most recent conversation, which included this exchange: "Well in THAT case, it would make more sense for you to get the new car, and me to just take over yours, right?" Yes. Yes! But no. That would be totally unfair. We've also mulled over motorcycles, scooters, and bicycles with varying degrees of seriousness. Thank goodness his feet work just fine.