A couple of things have happened in the last week that have brought up *all* of the old infertility feelings.
The ones that have been there, but have been bearable.
The ones that will never really go away, but that weren’t seriously affecting my daily activities.
And now… they’re back. In all of their full glory.
Along with missing the foster girls we had.
I know it won’t be this bad forever, but it’s bad right now.
Infertility seriously sucks.
My cycles have always been regular. At least, as long as I’m not on birth control, but that’s another story. The whole time we were trying to get pregnant, my cycles were 24 days. Every once in a while I might make it to 25, but not often. After we gave up trying, I went back on birth control for a little while, but decided to stop because I didn’t like the unpredictability of not knowing when my period was going to come. Since I stopped taking the birth control – a little less than a year ago – my cycles have been getting longer and longer. I just finished a 31 day cycle – completely unheard of for me.
And I hate it. I hate that I get to the point where I’m actually contemplating buying a pregnancy test, “just to make sure” I’m not pregnant. I hate getting sucked into all of the emotions that go along with that. And I hate that I have no idea what’s going on with my body.
I can’t figure out why my cycles are all of a sudden so irregular. I’m not experiencing any large amount of stress, and it has been almost a year since I stopped taking birth control. I can’t figure out any other reason for the change. My fear is that I’m heading toward premature ovarian failure, or something. My FSH *was* 14.4 two three years ago. What if….? But I know that I’m not likely experiencing premature ovarian failure either.
Does anyone have any wisdom or advice?
March marks five years of trying to have a baby. I never thought we would make it to this point. I’m sure *no one* ever thinks they’ll make it to this point. No one starts out trying to get pregnant thinking, “I’m sure this will take at least five years….”
But here we are. Five years. My husband and I haven’t even been married for six and a half years yet, and five years of that time has been spent trying to have a baby.
Uselessly trying to have a baby.
That also means it has been more than two years since we gave up trying to get pregnant, and more than two years since we moved on to adoption.
And here we are. Still waiting.
I could have a four year old by now.
But thinking about that doesn’t help any.
Five years.
(Stolen and modified from a friend’s Face.book page; originally about the loss of a loved one.)
1. I wish I wasn’t infertile. I wish I had a baby.
2. If I cry and get emotional when you talk about the loss of my dream of having a baby, I wish you knew that it isn’t because you have hurt me. My infertility is the cause of my tears. You have acknowledged my loss and you allowed me to share my grief. I thank you for both.
3. Being an “infertile” is not contagious, so I wish you wouldn’t shy away from me. I need you now more then ever!
4. I need diversions, so I DO want to hear about you, but I also want you to hear about me. I might be sad and I might cry, but I wish you would let me talk about my desire to have a baby, the overwhelming topic of my daily life.
5. Just because I don’t want to hear about your baby doesn’t mean I’m not happy for you, it just means that it hurts too much right now.
6. I know that you think of me and pray for me often; I also know that seeing my pain hurts you too. I wish you would let me know these things through a phone call, text, card, a note or a real big hug.
7. I wish you wouldn’t expect my grief to be over in two, four or six years. I wish you could understand that my grief will never be over. I will suffer the loss of my dream until the day I die.
8. I am working very hard, so very hard, on my recovery but I wish you could understand that I will never fully recover. I will always miss what could have been, and I will always grieve that it never was.
9. I wish you wouldn’t expect me to “not think about it” or “be happy”. Neither will happen for a long time, so don’t frustrate yourself.
10. I wish you understood how my life has shattered. I know it is miserable for you to be around me when I’m feeling miserable. Please be patient with me as I am with you.
11. When I say “I’m doing okay,” I wish you could understand that I don’t “feel” okay and that I struggle daily.
12. I wish you knew that all of the grief reactions I’m having are very normal. Depression, anger, hopelessness, fatigue and overwhelming sadness are all to be expected. So, please excuse me when I’m quiet and withdrawn or irritable or cranky.
13. I wish you understood that grief changes people. When I lost my dream, a big part of me died with it. I am not the same person I was before infertility and I will never be that person again.
14. I wish very much that you could understand………understand my loss and my grief, my silence and my tears, my void and my pain. But, I pray daily that you will never understand.
I just registered my husband and myself for the foster care class we need to take. Yay! Another (baby) step forward. The class starts in the beginning of February. Other than that, there hasn’t been too much going on, besides working on the 78-question autobiography questionnaire. 78 questions is a lot of questions!
Earlier this week a pregnant woman I know through work found out the sex of her baby. I was there for the announcement. One of those things I’m never going to experience myself. And I’ve had a couple of situations when I’ve had to be sympathetic toward pregnant women who have missed appointments because of pregnancy-related things. I keep saying, “Don’t worry about it, I understand.” And I keep thinking, “I don’t *really* understand, I only wish I did.” I guess I’ve just been feeling a little sad this week. I know it’s to be expected, but that doesn’t really make it any easier.
This morning I had an appointment with a mom who has a baby. Watching her interact with her baby… watching her play with her baby… watching her comfort her baby…
I came home and cried at lunch.
I want that. I want a baby to take care of, and nurture, and comfort. Foster or biological, I don’t care. But I want a baby.
~~~~~~~~~~~
Still waiting to hear back about my husband’s job interview. I don’t want to send in our application for fost-adopt until he has a job. Because *I* want to be the primary caregiver. And if he’s not working, then that leaves him to be the primary caregiver. Because I’ll need to bring home the money. I’m still praying that he gets this job. But I’m starting to lose hope.
~~~~~~~~~~~
I just want a baby.
It seems like at work lately, there have been so many pregnancy and baby related things. A pregnant coworker going on maternity leave. Someone who has a pregnant wife. Client’s parents who are pregnant, client’s parents who have babies, client’s parents who have x number of kids under the age of five… it has been a daily thing. But, by some miracle, it actually hasn’t been bothering me as much as it used to. I’m still sad. I’m still longing for a baby. But, for right now at least, all of the daily reminders aren’t making me *more* sad. It’s kind of a strange thing. I’m not sure if it will even last. I know I’m always going to have bad days – days that are harder than others. But maybe I’m moving forward a little? For a long time, I felt like I was stuck in the trauma of infertility. And now, even though it’s still heart breaking, it doesn’t feel quite as traumatic anymore. If that makes any sense.
Has infertility felt traumatic for anyone else?
We had another foster child placed with us last Friday. She’s six, and she stayed with us for a little over a week at the beginning of the summer (as a respite placement). It’s most likely a short term placement though. She’s having lots of visits with her mom, and things look like they’re heading toward reunification. So we’ll see.
As much as I love the girl we have now, and the two girls we had earlier this year, I’m still longing for a baby. And I’m starting to feel a little hopeless – it seems like it’s never going to happen; not meant to be, or something. Our new foster girl came with a lot of stuff, so I actually had to take apart the crib we had in her room (we have a cradle in our room still). I put the crib in storage wondering if I will ever even need to take it out again. We’ve been licensed since last November, and we still don’t have a baby. We’re licensed for two though, so we could take a baby if a call comes in, we just need to get the call!
For those of you here from IComLeavWe… My husband and I started trying to get pregnant in March, 2006. We started with the RE in March, 2007, and over the course of the next year, learned that he has very low sperm count, and my FSH is high. In December, 2008, we decided to give up on trying to get pregnant and started to move toward adopting through foster care. We had our first placement in February of this year (two girls, ages 2 and 5), and they were with us for just under three months before they went to live with family who wanted to adopt them. Now we’re on placement number two…
My lap was last Wednesday. They found some endometriosis… hopefully the surgery will help with the cramps? Nice to know there’s one more issue that could have played into the difficulty in getting pregnant. Or something.
What I really want to write about is the nurse who did most of my pre-op stuff.
First, she was going through all the basic questions… smoke? “no”, drink? “sometimes”, pregnant? “No!”. She told me I said it with conviction. I said, “Infertility.” She proceeded to tell me about her friend, who just had her baby, that was conceived after treatment cycles failed, the couple gave up, and relaxation ensued. Of course. The nurse then told me all about how she told her friend all along that she just needed to relax and “have fun with it.”
I decided to let it go. I passed her off as being clueless, and told myself at least it was a good momentary distraction from being freaked out about the surgery.
Apparently though, her ignorance was just warming up. She came back a little while later and was looking through some of my medical history. I used the infertility clinic through my HMO, so all of my infertility medical info is connected with the rest of my chart.
The nurse comments, “Wow! You’re really young not to have any eggs!”
I think: Seriously? Yes, my FSH is high and I’m only 31 (29 at the time it was measured), but that really doesn’t mean I don’t have any eggs. Is she *actually* saying this to me? I say, “Yeah.”
She says… “I really need to get my FSH checked because I want to have one more baby and I’m old. I didn’t have my first one until I was 40, but the doctor told me then that I still had plenty of eggs and plenty of time to have more kids.”
Seriously?!?
I’m surprised my jaw didn’t fall on the floor, I was so shocked that she said that. She needs to go to sensitivity training, or something. How on earth can people be so dense?
*****
In other news, I’m still unemployed and we’re still waiting for another foster placement. I’m planning to wait for a baby this time. There’s a five year old foster girl that we watched for just over a week who could potentially be placed with us longer term. I’m completely in love with her and I’m hoping we get her for a while at least. There’s some chance she’ll be going back home though. (We’re licensed for two, so we could take her and still wait for a baby.)
I’m still having horrible cramps, which seem to be getting worse, and I really don’t want to continue with the birth control pills. So, since I’m not working now and don’t have much to do anyway, I decided I’m going to go in for a lap. It’s on 6/30. Maybe they’ll find some endometriosis and get rid of it and that will help with the cramps? Hopefully…
I’m a little nervous about it. I’ve had surgery before, but not since I was about 8 (?), and I don’t remember much of it. (I had my tonsils taken out and all I remember is getting paid a nickel for every sip of juice that I took.) Can anyone who has had a lap done tell me what I should expect? Especially what I should expect after the surgery? I can be kind of a wimp when it comes to pain.
Kind of funny that I’m doing this after we’ve stopped trying to get pregnant. Too bad getting rid of endo can’t fix our dismal sperm count. Or my FSH.
Back into the fire 