It's a Boy!

Because you asked, I wanted to let you know that I had a baby boy on Tuesday, March 23, 8 lbs, 6 oz, and 20 inches long. He's amazing. I still look at him and can't believe he's mine.

The birth wasn't without complications. Pregnancy-induced hypertension led my doctor to induce me a few days early. Labor wasn't progressing. Then in an unrelated turn of events, I had some fairly significant bleeding, baby's heart rate dropped by half, and within 10 minutes of all this happening, I had a baby by c-section.

We ended up staying in the hospital for a week to get my blood pressure under control. I'm currently on medication for it. The long hospital stay probably interfered with my milk production, which led to some frustration and for a brief moment sent me back to that awful place where my body had let me down. The pediatrician was a little worried about his weight loss, but the lactation consultant on her staff helped us out a lot, and at yesterday's appointment he'd gained 4 ounces.

I have no words to express how I am feeling. I look at him and am just in awe that he's mine, that he came out of me, that we are a family of three now (four if you count the dog). I never in the darkest days thought we would finally make it here. I won't say that all the heartache was worth it, because I think I would be as appreciative without it.

But I will say that I wouldn't have had the strength to persevere until we got here without the support of all of you.

Thank you.

This Is It

This is the post I've been wanting to write for over four years.

I'm pregnant.

I'm 17 weeks along, expecting toward the end of March.

I don't think I have ever typed happier words.

I won't go into great detail other than to say this wasn't a surprise miracle, but it's a miracle nonetheless. We had a bit of a rocky start. After great betas, we went in for the "confirmation of pregnancy" seven-week ultrasound, and the doctor saw an empty gestational sac. After a long five days, we went back for another ultrasound before scheduling a d&c. And lo and behold, there he or she was, moving, squirming, with a strong heartbeat, in all his or her embryonic beauty.

Since then all has gone well. I've been tired but no morning sickness. I actually wanted some nausea to help me believe I was really finally pregnant.

One of the many joys of the last few months was meeting Millie and The Mister when they were here to meet Ms. FoodNetwork and BabyFood. They were as wonderful in person as I expected them to be. They were also the first people I told I was pregnant. It seemed right. Following their struggle to become parents helped me continue our path even when it seemed neverending.

We finally told our families and friends two weeks ago. I've never before made so many grown men and women cry. After so many years of unhappy tears, it was wonderful to be a source of happy tears.

We aren't planning on finding out the sex, but we do know that if the baby is a girl, we will name her after my late mother. If it's a boy, we're stuck. We'd like to go with a family name, but the options are less than appealing. We're not really all that concerned. That selecting a name is now our biggest hurdle is amazing and almost unbelievable.

I'm not sure if I'll post again. Heck, I haven't actually been the most prolific, but I did want to let you know that I wouldn't be here without your support over the years. I hope that all of you, with or without children, are able to find peace and happiness.

On the Road Again

Next week we head out to meet RE#5, if we count the a-hole from a few months back as RE#4. We've already had a phone consult with this RE, and I think we will really like him. (Oh wait, I just realized I've forgotten one RE, so we are actually headed out to #6. Shit, we've been at this too long if I'm actually forgetting people who have seen me naked up close and personal.)

Actually, we already like him. He answered all my questions before I asked them. He gave me his e-mail address! Voluntarily! I haven't even used it but knowing that I could just made me so happy.

The clinic coordinator has been great. We are really hoping this will be the last stop on our national travels before parenthood.

I want the blood draw last week to be the last time I am checked for infectious diseases, without having actually slept with a stranger. I want the hooha check next week to be the last one where the ute will be empty. I want to finally have a baby that I can name after my mother, who incredibly has been dead for three years now.

Of course, if we were to get pregnant with a boy, the latter might be a little problematic. My mom's name can be construed as a gender-neutral name, but then again so can Meredith, and I'm not convinced that male Merediths are all too happy about that. But then again, maybe naming our male child with a dubious name might let him in on what he's in for for the rest of his life with us as his parents.

Because after all, isn't having a child all about payback?

My Husband Is Having a Hard Week

There are many reasons why I am glad that I work from home, but none is more important than avoiding pregnancy announcements, pregnant co-workers, or any other baby-related events.

Of course, I'm not completely immune: yesterday I received a list of reasons why I should attend some training in September: Reason #2. You will get to see W. try to bend down to pick up a bug while 8 months pregnant, which I think will be worth it all right there. Bring your cameras!

That's my reason #1 for NOT attending.

My husband, on the other hand, works in an office. You'd think that he wouldn't have too many problems, because he works in an almost exclusively male office. (Think computer engineers.)

But yesterday a co-worker sent him an email offering up a potential new hire. My husband clicked on the attachment. He was expecting a resume but got an ultrasound. Who does that? Really? Is that normal these days? If so, it's just another reason why I wonder how we would fit in if I do finally get pregnant.

We had already been trying for two years when we attended this co-worker's wedding.

And then somehow this co-worker ended up in my husband's office with another co-worker, who announced that his wife is pregnant with number two. When we attended their wedding, we'd already been married for six months.

Combined with last week's announcement, my husband is having a rough time.

I think sometimes it's easy to forget how much this bullshit affects our husbands. Now is not one of them.

Signs You've Been At This Too Long *Updated*

+You get all excited that your period is late. Well, what some women would call normal, 28 days and counting 31days. But you aren't pregnant; two tests and a period have proven that.

+In fact, you read up on cycle lengths and learn that increasingly short cycles (like the 21 day-ers you've had on and off for the last year) followed by a long cycle is a sign of the other P word, freaking perimenopause, not pregnancy.

+Your husband, who is traveling, calls to say that you are no longer going to visit his family this weekend because he can't. You immediately ask, "Who's pregnant?" and ding, ding, ding, you're right.

The niece who had a shotgun wedding the first month you were trying and got pregnant for a second time days after your mother died is indeed pregnant, for the THIRD* time since you've been trying. And she's not even 25 years old.

*IT'S TWINS. ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?

+Your nieces on your side of the family are old enough to have email accounts and to have them hacked resulting in your getting emails like this moments after you get off the phone with said husband: "i hate you aunt z your fucken anoyang ass fuck shit you are gowen to go to hell." My name, her name, and the names of her brother and sister were included. I just finished deleting the account for her.

+You are within seconds of publishing this post to your freakin' GARDEN blog where people think you are normal and optimistic and don't curse.

What is that T. says? Good times, good times.

"What Size is Your Family?"

Yesterday I spent all day with a bunch of women--about 40--that I didn't know very well and had not meant in person. I was very much looking forward to the event but was anxious about the moment when they would all start to discuss their children and/or grandchildren. I had prepared some answers in advance to the questions that might come my way. If I have answers prepared in advance, I am less likely to get emotional and/or cry. This event was not the place for discussing infertility, and I didn't want the IF part of my life to intrude in this part of my life, which has brought me some salvation from the IF ogre.

Fortunately, those "mommy" moments were brief and primarily limited to a car ride with just three of the other women. They talked about the bargaining with the husbands over childcare, blah blah blah, etc. I know these are important topics, bonding topics for mothers, but I usually just zone out until they are over.

One of the other women noticed. I knew the question I had been dreading was coming over the headrest. But then she asked it in such a sweet way, "What size is your family?" that I almost started crying because I felt so touched. I wish all people could ask in that way. It acknowledged that we--my husband and I--are already a family. It was an open-ended question, so my answer didn't completely stop the conversation or lead to an awkward pause as my answer to the "do you have kids?" question usually does.

Out of all the wonderful events and experiences yesterday--and there were many--the one that made me the happiest and has stuck with me the most is that question. I found out later that the woman who asked it is a therapist. She must be a good one.

I wish all fertiles could use such language that includes us instead of excluding us.

When Do You Stop?

When do you stop secretly hoping that you will get pregnant? When, despite your years of nonsuccess, do you stop thinking that this will be the month? I know that I shouldn't admit this, because it doesn't fit so well with my usual jaded bitter persona, but every few weeks I still think this will be the month.

I've been very busy lately and got confused about how far along I was in my cycle. Thinking that I was a week farther along than I was, I began to think I was pregnant. I had no spotting and little cramping. Of course, this was it.

In less than two minutes, and without the help of any online calculator, I was able to calculate the due date, come up with how and when to tell my husband—it's always a different way--how and when to keep it from my sister when she visits in three weeks (don't ask), if I could wait to tell my friends until we went on a girls weekend in June, how I might not be available in October to do some of the physically demanding volunteer work I ordinarily do, and how I felt about having a December baby.

I could go on, but you know what I mean. Of course, I was wrong with the dates, and I wasn't close to being pregnant. I wasn't even close to having a normal length menstrual cycle. It's back to twenty-one days so rationally, intellectually, I should know that the odds of my getting pregnant are miniscule. But in my dark, cold heart of hearts, I still secretly believe that it will happen.

While we will certainly not go back to the evil RE I mentioned in the last post, there are others I should be contacting. There is a way that has much a greater chance for success at my getting pregnant. But the question I've been considering lately is whether it matters.

There's been a discussion on IVF Connect.ions that hits on the same issue I've been grappling with—-"Is It Too Late for a Baby to Make You Happy." In many ways, the dream is over. I wanted to get pregnant like every seven out of eight couples. I wanted to have sex, make a baby, pee on a stick, and deliver a healthy baby 40 weeks later.

I didn't want to adopt. I'm not judging other people's choices. I've never had any doubt that I could love an adopted child. And maybe if we had made the decision to adopt earlier, we would be parents now. I just no longer have the emotional reserves to embark on adoption, a whole 'nother roller coaster.

It's just that I wanted it all. I wanted a genetic connection to my mother. I wanted to wonder if the baby would have my nose (I hope not!) or my sense of humor (now you're talking). Now I'm supposed to come to the realization that I want to be a mother, not just pregnant with my egg and my husband's sperm, more than anything. That once the baby arrives how it got here won't matter.

Intellectually getting there is a whole lot easier than getting my heart there.

About three years, in May 2005, my husband and I were in San Francisco. We were on a break before our first IVF. We'd already been through all the testing, three months of clomid, three clomid IUIs, and a laparoscopy; we were skipping the injectable IUIs. A family crossed in front of us: a married couple with a newborn being pushed in the stroller by the wife's mother. The baby's grandfather walked with his son-in-law. Despite a wonderful weekend, I started to cry and told my husband that that would never be us. He said yes, yes, it would be.

And I said no, no it wouldn't, because even if we did finally have a baby, my mother would never walk done the street pushing our baby's stroller. She had already been in the nursing home for ten months, unable to walk or talk or communicate, and she would die in less than two months. So that dream was dead.

We're now faced with a dream that is so far what we wanted. I feel like sometimes we're saying, "We wanted this, but we are now willing to settle for that." And the that for which we are settling keeps moving. We said we'd never do X, but we did. Then we said we would never do Y, and yet here we are considering Z. Is this something where we want to settle? Where we want to get the best we can, even if it's not what we wanted?

And yet, even if we get pregnant, if I have a baby, it won't be the picture of parenthood we had imagined. My friends' children are all older. The youngest is four. We won't be raising our children together. My mother is dead. My father-in-law is dead. My mother-in-law really should be in an assisting living facility.

If we actually have a baby, we may only have one. I know it's a bit crazy to be objecting to having one child when I haven't actually ever had a positive peestick, but that's part of the dream that is no longer available to me.

What we wanted was just to be normal, or at least feel normal. That will never happen. I will never be who I was before infertility or before my mother died, although I'm not entirely sure I was normal then.

I had just turned 36 years old when we first started trying in earnest. Since then I have known many women, in real life and online, with infertility and without, who have gotten pregnant at 36, at 37, at 38, at 39, and at 40 years old. I've even known women who’ve easily gotten pregnant at 41 and 42. And yet, I haven't.

I've told my husband that even if we do have kids, we won't be "those people," the people we wanted to be when we had started trying to get pregnant. We won't be able to take it for granted that we will end up with a live, healthy baby. We won't be able to gaily discuss having another. We won't feel as comfortable participating in the parental griping. We won't fit in with "those parents" any more than we currently fit in with any parents.

I'm not sure I want to just be a mother. I want it all—pregnancy, birth, etc. The longer this process has gone on, the more I feel cheated. Is it better to get as close as possible to a dream that you know will never quite be the dream you had imagined, or is it better to drop that dream entirely and chose another where you might get everything you want even if that everything will never be as much as the everything of the original dream?

At what point does the dream deferred become simply the dream denied?

I've tried to make sense of all this, to gain some meaning from it, and at this point, there's little sense I can find in any of it. I would gladly give away some of my hardwon wisdom. I know now that suffering and pain, while universal, are not doled out universally. I don't think it has anything to do with some people subconsciously attracting bad things. I just think bad shit happens.

Could I just have a little blissful ignorance? Oh, and a baby, because I really, really want one. I mean, I'm pretty sure I want one even more than J. Lo did. And look at her, she got "natural" boy/girl twins.