Never

I said I'd never wear "bell bottoms" and now my preferred style of jeans is "flare leg". I said I would never be a gardener and now I spend upwards of an hour a day tending to my flowers. I said I would never try In Vitro Fertilization if it ever came to that and this morning I am sitting at home waiting for Fed Ex to deliver $2500 worth of IVF injectable drugs.

Never is apparently closer than it sounds. Which may be a good thing. Just maybe it means my child is closer than I think. Maybe my gloomy predictions that I'll never get pregnant, never have a child will follow the same course as my other "nevers" and turn me into a liar. Being a liar never sounded so good.

Cyclical

Still reeling from the losses of my last failed IUI cycle - loss of hope, loss of my imagined child, loss of time, loss of money - it was time to start the next cycle three days later. Time to throw my hormones into overdrive and invite Hope in where she doesn't belong once again. So I trudged down to the pharmacy and paid my hard-earned $50 for the poison that just might, possibly, against all odds, allow me to become a mother.

Though Clomid and I had a rough start this month - I spent a day crying over my weight and perceived sloppy appearance - we eventually reached an uneasy peace. My one day of anguish was followed by several days mostly characterized by functioning numbness. I was grateful for a rest from flooding emotion but I was not (and still am not) fully myself. Maybe my mind is finally starting to protect itself by developing a little bubble that keeps me safely at a distance from any kind of strong emotion. I am a rock - I am an island.

Being a little bit of an island may not be ideal but it is a relief. My IUI day this month was like a breath of fresh air compared to last month - partly because of the weather and partly due to the death of my expectations. Last month Randy and I both awoke feeling not quite right, I ran into traffic on the way to the clinic and had worked myself into a stressed out frenzy about my lateness, and then I got disappointing news about how things looked once I was with the doctor. I left the clinic in tears, called in sick to work, and sat at home trapped in time - not wanting to do anything and not wanting to do nothing. This time the skies were a piercing blue and sun drenched the impossibly green grass as Randy and I woke. I got ready early and had time to collect my thoughts and straighten my surroundings before I left. At the clinic I felt calm and lucid - noticing things I hadn't last month and remembering to ask questions that had eluded my memory last time. Our chances looked much better this month and my doctor was reassuring.

I decided to try and capitalize on the positive vibes and extend them for as long as possible, thinking that they couldn't hurt my chances even if they didn't help - and that if nothing else it would be therapeutic for me. So I did a little shopping and then went home and tended to my flowers and read a book in the sun on my back porch. So if this cycle is successful - which I don't dare expect - I'll take a little happiness in the fact that he or she will have been conceived on a sunny, peaceful day.

Hope

Despite all its fans and positive reputation, hope is no longer a welcome visitor to my house - at least not in the infertility realm. I have told people of my aversion to hope and its intoxicating powers and have generally been met with looks of dissapproval and inquiries into my mental state. But hang around any group of infertility sufferers for very long and you'll find that this is a very common refrain. Hope becomes a cruel mistress offering you promises of all your dreams fulfilled only to leave you more hollow and more deeply cut when the inevitable blow of reality hits.

Every time I think I have broken my ties with Hope she wriggles her way back into my life despite my better judgment. Its the classic story of someone who just can't break free of that bad relationship, always giving into the temptation of comfort offered by its familiarity, its imagined potential - however small. I went into my current round of fertility treatments touting the dissolution of my relationship with Hope, agreeing with Randy and my close family that this was best. I would expect nothing and therefor stand to loose nothing besides money when it didn't work. But once again, as happens every month, I was seduced by Hope's charm and now I'm left feeling foolish and deflated.

This was our first month of IUI (intrauterine insemination)- a process in which I take fertility drugs, including an injected ovulation trigger. On the day of expected ovulation they take Randy's sperm and insert it through a catheter into my uterus, thereby giving the sperm and the egg the best possible chances to get together on their own. I told myself it wouldn't work. I didn't believe it would work. I've been failing this conception test for 22 months now and it would take a lot to convince me I could finally pass. We were just doing this as a last resort (we are not interested in In Vitro) - to say we tried - so we wouldn't always wonder "what if we had just done IUI - maybe it would have worked".

But how can you go through all the efforts required to do even a simple procedure like IUI without letting Hope in, just a little? Apparently its not possible, at least not for me, not at this point in my journey. Even dissappointing news about our chances the day of the procedure didn't prove, in the end, to be enough of a deterent to Hope. Uninvited, unwanted, and unhelpful, Hope barged into my psyche to get me worked up with what now seem like totally rediculous thoughts:

Maybe I should take my temperature one more time - a higher temperature certainly means I'm pregnant, right?

I should take my pregnancy test on Thursday, that way on Friday at work I can slip a note to my best friend that says "Don't tell, but you're not the only pregnant person in this room!"

I definitely need to take the pregnancy test by Friday, that way at Dad's birthday dinner I can announce to the family that he's getting a grandchild for his birthday.

I haven't had any spotting or cramping like I normally do the week before my period. That has to be a good sign.

Hope whispers these sweet lies to my subconcious, abedded by another cruel maiden - Nature - who apparently thinks its funny to allow my period to come late. Even a one day lag is like another crack fix to an infertile person. All the rationalizing and logical thinking in the world is no match for its power. I just go along with it, aiding in my own demise like an addict who is his own worst enemy.

In true fashion, Hope had her fun and has fled the scene now that reality has set in and its time for the hard part. I finally took the mystical pregnancy test this morning - the little stick that has so much power over my future. Randy and I thought it would be better to take it, now that its officially been more than 14 days (the two week wait, or 2ww as its known online), than just letting Hope build as more time went by without any sign from Aunt Flo - since my fertility drugs have been known to cause late periods. And once again, I failed the test. Rather than the response of indifference I was naively hoping for when we started the process, crushing despair has set in, inviting a whole new host of thoughts:

My life has turned into nothing more than a series of bad news. I'll never catch a break. What is the point in trying anymore?

Now I'm just fat and rundown with nothing to show for it. If I was fat and rundown with a child it would be excusable but now its just pathetic. I have the side effects of being a parent without any of the benefits.
I hope I don't run into anyone I know from my past. The last thing I need is to see an old peer looking great with her adorable children in tow. What will I say? Well...I have a husband so I'm not a total looser? Looks like we've both been busy.....you have the family you always wanted and I have a part time job that is beneath my educational level and a BMI that is above anything remotely respectable for my age?

Why did I let the doctor talk us into this? He doesn't know if my tubes are even open enough to release an egg. He just wants my money in exchange for the dream of a baby. Money I should be using to adopt a real baby.

What really gets me about all of this is that I had moved on when I though there was no chance of getting pregnant short of IVF. For those beautiful two weeks I gave up the fertility nightmare and felt real hope coursing through my veins. The genuine hope that stays through good times and bad, the kind that doesn't build you up only to watch you fall that much further. The hope that life after the fertility battle does exist, the hope that life can be more than a series of dissappointing and expensive obsessions, the hope that I could be a parent through adoption. Now, back in limbo, I pine for this hope and the freedom it brings. But as long as we are committed to this course of IUI I remain a entangled in my broken relationship with Hope, my old flame, my old enemy.

"I detest the fragile, morose person I've become. Even as I inhabit the skin of this humorless women, I never lose sight of the fact that this is not a person I want to be around. I resent her unfailingly dark mood. Her brooding. Her tentativeness, indecisiveness, her lack of resilience. I not only find her self absorption exhausting, but feel no sympathy for her, with her constant thoughts of me, me, me."

-An Empty Lap by Jill Smolowe

I could have written these exact words myself time and time over so I find it somewhat comforting to find them, exactly as they have crossed through my brain, spilling out of the pages of someone else's despair. At least I'm normal.....at least I'm normal.....at least I'm normal.........it is my only comforting mantra as of late.

Besides the jealousy I think the change brought about by infertility that cuts the deepest is my feeling of overall incompetence. I've always had my insecurities just like everyone else - maybe more than average at times but certainly nothing abnormal. In many areas I felt quite confident and competent, secure in my attributes and abilities. But that precious confidence is dissolving, bubbling up and vanishing layer by layer.

My anxiety creates in me a timidness, a bumbling unsteadiness which then serves to make me question my competence, thereby undermining my confidence. I am anxious because I never know what will send me over the edge - an innocent comment from a pregnant friend, a question like "when are you going to have kids?" from an unsuspecting acquaintance, a chance reunion at the grocery store with a former high school classmate, her darling toddlers in tow, still looking as thin and vibrant as she did the day we graduated.

I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirrored walls of the elevator I rode up to the fertility clinic's fourth floor offices yesterday. Dressed for work in what I used to think were at least semi-flattering khakis and and a decidedly unflattering Girl Scouts t-shirt, I shuddered as I took in the woman staring back at me. Overweight, droopy, lifeless......and worst of all, childless. When recounting this event to Randy he wondered what a childless person looks like and how that could factor into my physical image of myself. The key is that I would give myself more leeway if I had a child. Maybe I am overweight, droopy, tired - but at least I have a child. I'd be fulfilling my dream/purpose/responsibility - and that can go a long way in making up for a host of outward deficiencies in the quest for self esteem.

I never expected my self esteem to be so intertwined with my ability to become a mother. In fact, I remember reading about the "I'm less of a woman" woes of infertile women and thinking they were being silly. Now I understand - and I think its innate and chemical - a useful trait for a species that hinges their continued existence on procreation. And for me at least, its not about being less of a physical woman - I'm realistic about medical problems and don't attribute any mystical or magical qualities to the process of a sperm fertilizing an egg. For me the shame and self deprecation lie more in the realm of my (so far) failure to actually be a mother, through whatever means.

Not being a mother or even a potential mother at this point excludes me from a club I desperately want to belong to. Well meaning friends and family have told me that no club exists and I shouldn't worry about it. And while I am bright enough to understand the basic obviousness that there is no overarching organization with membership dues and monthly meetings, I also know that there is, indeed, a club of sorts, and that I don't qualify for it. Women who have children (much like co-members of a club) naturally gravitate to each other and easily become embroiled in conversations that inadvertently exclude me. Mothers and new mothers especially are cherished and given special privileges such as a holiday to celebrate their existence, a premium designated parking spot at the mall, and special concessions because they deserve it - they are working so hard. Women who are or have ever been pregnant share a camaraderie that calls to mind the friendships of old combat buddies - and you wouldn't understand because you haven't been there - is the unspoken (or sometimes spoken loudly) message that any infertile woman feels written upon her soul.

And like the awkward 13-year-old I imagine has crawled into my skin and invaded my consciousness, I don't hate this elusive club of cool kids - I covet it, I sensationalize it, and more than anything I just want to be accepted into it. All of my pain and feelings of rejection can be erased if I can just get in. I don't even care about the other rejects back at the infertility lunch table. I'll abandon them in a heartbeat if it means admittance to the club. That is how fragile my self esteem has become.

Green

I've never considered myself a particularly jealous person. I struggled with the same minor pangs of envy that everyone experiences from time to time but in the big picture I was always able to put the blinders on and focus on my life as its own entity - what others had was largely irrelevant to me. But that was the old, pre-infertile Kim and now everything has changed.

Of all my personal changes I think it is the intense jealousy that has really knocked the wind out of me. Nobody is fully prepared for what infertility will do to them but I still have trouble believing that I could ever be as jealous as I frequently am these days. I have never felt such intense feelings of envy - and maybe never such intensity in any of my emotions to date. The jealousy - in my case a dangerous coctail of envy and a keen sense of injustice- cripples my ability to maintain a gap between my emotions and my actions (something I used to think I was pretty decent at).

The crippling jealousy invades many aspects of my life - first and foremost my friendships. Of course, as fate would have it, I have many friends who are pregnant or are new parents. My best friend is due next month. She is the prime recipient of most of my jealousy, a victim of circumstances often mired up in my misery. As many young and naive women do, when we were relative newlyweds we fantasized about getting pregnant at roughly the same time, quitting our jobs on the same day, supporting each other through midnight feedings, and taking our babies on walks together to pour the foundation of their inevitable life-long friendship.

Now she has everything I want and I feel as though I am left in the dust with nothing. It was easier to ignore when she didn't look pregnant and I got pretty adept at pretending nothing was different. But now, with her cute basketball bulge I am forced to confront the subject along with every painful insecurity it brings up every time I see her. There are darker days when I feel as though I can't even look at her below the shoulders because the jealousy and rage swirl up like a tornado - I can almost feel them in the pit of my stomach - in my empty uterus. I have been brutally honest with her about my feelings, and once I even humorously suggested that she pretend to be a sitcom actress who has to hide her pregnancy on camera by carying large objects in front of her at all times.

Though my sitcom actress idea was meant to be absurd there are plenty of examples of my jealousy induced behavior reaching absurd levels. I sometimes feel angry when my friend makes the tiniest complaint or observation about her pregnancy or some days even when she mentions the pregnancy or baby at all - to me or anyone else we might encounter. Though our friendship has always centered around a playful banter that outsiders have often mistaken for mean-spiritedness I often find myself taking the banter too far and even voicing venomous critiques of her opinions. Many times I realize mid-sentance that I'm crossing the line but fail at my brain's attempts to censor myself. And at the end of the day when I replay the shameful conversations over in my mind I know that they were about my infertility even if we were talking about something completely unrelated.

My shameful jealousy continues even on days when I have a brighter and more productive attitude that assures me I will become a parent one way or another, through fertility treatments or adoption. The envy shifts then from being about actual pregnancies and babies into the realm of finacial injustice. I feel supremely bitter, forgotten, and picked over when I think of how much I will ultimately have to spend on getting my baby while others get theirs for free. I sometimes feel what I feer is genuine hatred toward anyone who just took a couple rolls in the hay and wound up conceiving without a needing even a thought as to how to pay for it. My hatred grows when I imagine these Fertile People as ungrateful and unaware of how lucky they are (which I often do).

My hatred/jealousy of the fertile world has affected so many aspects of my life. I'm not as good a friend as I used to be. I have a victim mentality. I think about myself all the time. I don't enjoy social situations like I used to. I think that many of the other changes I have noticed in myself stem in some way from the jealousy and all are intertwined, sometimes hard to differentiate. The jealousy has had the principle role in changing me, my personality, and my outlook. I don't want to be this person and yet I have become this person. So I am turning to the advice of others who have been there - others who can assure me that I am normal - that many go down this road and make it to the other end.

"Infertility changes you. It is a time when you find yourself disconnecting from those you love the most, your family and friends. A time when you pull back from the world and focus inward becasuse isolating youself can actually feel better than remaining a part of the fertile world.

Its not that you want to separate from those around you: in fact, you want to be right there with them, a part of the fertility club that includes your mother, your sister, friends, even the next-door neighbor's fifteen-year-old daughter. But you have no choice. The gap between you and the fertile world widens, and it becomes harder to be around those who now seem to disappoint you at every turn...

.....Luckily we have found that most of the time the people you moved away from will 'stay on the line' and wait for your return after the crisis of infertility is over. It is an amazing phenomenon which we have seen happen over and over again. With the arrival of resolution there comes a peace to relationships that at one time seemed damaged beyond repair."

-What to Expect When You're Experiencing Infertility

by Debby Peoples and Harriette Rovner Ferguson

Recognition

This morning it hit me how much infertility has changed me as a person. I sometimes think back to the pre-fertility battle me and I barely recognize that person. In my fervent reading on the subject I am consistently reminded that this is quite a normal phenomenon and that I will, ultimately return to some kind of "normal" state. But now, mired in the cave-like mess of it all, its hard to see a way back to to the entrance or even a tiny path leading to a new patch of sunlight.

Part of this changed life-course, my path through the cave, is visible to those around me. It involves the surface changes - the added activities in my date-book, the e-mails to my employer asking to find coverage for me during yet another doctor's appointment, the time and date of which are determined jointly by nature and the office staff, my needs not considered. I had a moment of pause when I found myself bent over my dining room table last night wating nervously for Randy to give me an injection of medicine which will prompt my ovaries to release their egg(s). How did I get here? I consider myself unlucky for having to endure these hassles but hassles can be dealt with as a part of everyone's life - everyone has their own unique circumstances which present them, from time to time, with a disproportionate to-do list full of inconveniences and these are not much different.

Its the changed parts of me that are not as obvious to outsiders that really make me feel like I have lost my way - lost my old identity. The next few posts will each highlight a deeper aspect of myself that has been transformed by infertility. Maybe it is my way of grieving for the me that used to be, maybe it is my attempt to piece together a sort of blueprint of my old self to serve as a guide in case I ever get to rebuild. Maybe it is my desperate quest to get others to understand that this is a big deal and that I have a good reason for becoming so messed up.

Well....You Can Always Adopt

My husband and I have heard this time and time again during our now 21 month old all-out battle with fertility - as have most people who have publically acknowledged they've had trouble making a baby. Its as simple and obvious as that. Just press the "adoption" button (maybe Staples sells one next to their supply of "easy" buttons) and your set. I'd like to find the Adoption Button - the button that removes my desire for a child who shares my husband's red hair and my smattering of freckles, the button that fulfills my innate yearning to feel a baby growing inside me while sharing in the right of passage/the womanly badge of honor that is morning sickness and midnight cravings. Please point me in the direction of this magical button that instantly fills out mountains of paperwork and spits out the $20-40k needed to complete the adoption process. If such a button existed I think I would be able to understand this comment - "well, you can always adopt!" uttered so often by well-meaning fertile people to comfort those of us who've lost out in life's fertility lottery.

So obviously its the perfect thing to name this blog- a very personal account of my ongoing battle for fertility and possibly a journey into adoption. Maybe its my natural cinicism boosted and fed by 21 months of failing at something that should be so easy, failing though I'm doing everything "right" and working harder at it than the majority of the population. Maybe its because I want to claim the phrase in the name of infertility hopefully sucking away some of its power and removing "second best" implications the phrase bestows on the adoption process. Or maybe because on some level I feel like adoption is where my journey will ultimately end and I'll wind up wondering what took me so long to get there....