Deadly Stigma

Growing up I had a couple teacher brave enough to try to get me the help I needed for my obvious depression and anxiety. If I had been failing or had been disruptive in class they would have had "reason" and backing of administration but I was a "good" kid. But I was so obviously hurting that these people reached out and tried to get my resistant and often angry mother to see I needed help. All she could see was the stigma. I don't blame her. That was all most other people can see most of the time. In her own way, she was trying to protect me. It almost killed me. In the end her fear of the stigma of mental illness killed her.

The stigma of mental illness is so strong people who care about me will sometime try to separate me from it. "We all have depression sometimes" they will say. Or "Depression is different" meaning different from those other mental illnesses...those 'crazy' ones, like bipolar or schizophrenia. Let me tell you, people, it isn't different. The stigma of mental illness effects us all. The stigma that is applied to a person with schizophrenia will apply to a person with depression. It will interfere with both getting the medical help and social support they need. The stigma of mental illness and the stigma of persuing help for mental illness kills people. It destroys lives. It is the stigma that makes it okay for insurance comanies to under-insure thier mental health policies. It is the stigma that makes it okay to ignore funding for community mental health services. It is the stigma that prevents more funding going toward researching the causes and early intervention of mental illness. 

I have chronic, debilitating depression and generalized anxiety disorder. I was like this as early as I can remember. I thought about suicide and death before I hit puberty. I didn't start getting any kind of treatment until I was 19 years old and I didn't get comprehensive mental health treatment until I was 25 years old. It is a combination of loving friends, pure luck and hanging by my fingernails force of will that I survived long enough to get the help I needed. I survived and continue to survive the stigma of mental illness.

So what is my point... Stop the stigma. Stop the stigma of mental illness in conversation. Talk about mental illness without shame. Stop the stigma in your own thoughts. Think about mental illness, see it as it is, as of our greatest global health challenges. Stop the stigma because, in my opinion, it isn't the mental illness that kills us. The stigma kills. 

The beauty of misplaced devotion

This post discusses adult themes and violence. Please do not read if you feel this would be unhealthy for you.


It was meant to be horrifying. For me, it was beautiful...and tragic. Of course tragic and insane...but still.... After I looked over at Author with my heart pounding and tears trying to build in my eyes and said "Am I completely fucked up for finding that amazingly moving?"

I'm talking about a scene from the tv show "The Following". It was in the episode titled "Welcome Home". I'm not going to explain the whole show here so if you don't know about it look it up. Also, spoiler alert if you haven't watched it and want to be surprised. Though it aired months ago so I think I'm safe from spoiling most interested parties.

In this particular scene, a devotedly submissive follower of the murderous cult fails, twice, at an important mission that has been entrusted to him from the leader himself. This guy is so completely committed to this leader that the only thing he can think to offer him as penance is his own life. The scene is done beautifully. The inner circle of followers are shocked and awed by what this man is offering for his failure. He tells the leader through tears that all he wants is for his life to mean something. He is implying that giving his life, his death, to this man whom he is devoted to will give his life meaning on a scale that he never could do on his own. Also, that this will release him of the pain and shame of his failure to accomplish his master's task. The leader takes this man's life, his gift, with the same grave respect that it was given. It is close and intimate. It is powerful. I was moved. It was a level of devotion that, as the submissive in 24/7 D/s, I can respect. Maybe, in my secret corner of my heart, I wish I could attain something like that level of devotion.

I know this is fiction. I don't worry that I'm falling into a twisted, morbid kind of fantasy version of D/s. In real life, this would be a criminal tragedy. In real life, I would call the cops on any dominant who ordered murder or suicide of their submissives or on any submissive who attempted these things with or without an order. I would be horrified at the manipulation of obvious mental illness. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All that stuff that shows I'm a generally well-adjusted person with a firm grip on reality and on the concept of ethical behavior.

But the fantasy....well...that is what stories are for, right?

The bottom line

In the USA we have this belief that you can achieve anything if you try hard enough. I was raised with the belief that, if you properly applied yourself, your smarts could get you what you wanted in life. In Western medicine there is a prevailing additude that a patient should pursue every avenue, regardless of the cost. Whether that cost is in money, overall health or quality of life. 

We are, at times, a truly stupid, short-sighted culture. Sadly, more often than not.

So much of my life has been about unlearning these beliefs. It has been the hardest unlesson ever. This time it is in the subject of infertility. Monkey and I have decided not to do the last two medicated cycles. We have decided to stop trying to get pregnant. We are "giving up" our babyquest.

I tried as hard as I could for six years. I applied every ounce of my brain power to books, studies, charts, and tracking. I tried alternative medicine...just about everything I could try. I looked to Western medicine with tests, medications and a minor procedure. Monkey and I always agreed that IVF wasn't for us. We don't think there is anything wrong about it just that it wasn't what we wanted. That said, I think if we had it offered to us for free (in money anyway) the temptation might have been too much for us to pass up. However, it is not free. Not free in money, risk to my health or my continued quality of life. 

And that was the bottom line really. I have devoted six years, nearly half the time Monkey and I have been together, to attempting to grow a fetus inside me. I'm done. I want to see what else life can be for us. We knew the success rates for unexplained infertility, with perfect cycles and obvious ovulation, and with how very long we had tried. The likelihood of those last two medicated tries resulting in a pregnancy were tiny. Not worth the mental and physical strain it would put me through. The only thing with better success, and not much better at that, was IVF. So, we quit. I quit, for my health, for my quality of life, for the chance at a different life than I imagined for us. 

Monkey thinks about private adoption. I am not thinking about anything. Adoption can be just as stressful and heart-wrenching as infertility, especially for alternative families like ours. I'm not ready to think clearly about diving into that. Right now we are rethinking possibilities for our life. We are...satisfied with our decision. Not happy about it but at peace with it, I think. Some days it still hits me like a knife in the heart. Some days I feel so light to be free from a horrible burden of constantly trying. It may always be that way. I'm okay with that.

Mental Illness is no party

On Saturday we had a party for Monkey's birthday. As an extrovert, this was as big a deal for him as the PS3 we got him. There was food, friends and games. 

I sat upstairs listening to the party. I cooked a ton of food and a special cake for the gathering, helped set up the house for guests and then ran upstairs before the first person arrived. I listened to the laughter and talking. Heard people praise my food and enjoy each other's company. I had zero interest in going down to join them. Actually, it was more like negative interest. I felt guilty for this. This is "anti-social" of me. This is "rude" and "inappropriate". That is what society and my upbringing tells me. What my brain tells me is "danger danger danger danger". This goes way beyond being an introvert. Thanks to Social Anxiety Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder and the up/down of my Clinical Depression I spent my spouse's birthday party ease-dropping, feeling guilty and anxious. Fan-fucking-tastic. 

The truth is it isn't my fault. The truth is that I was giving Monkey a great gift by taking care of myself so he could enjoy his party without worrying about me. The truth is there is nothing to feel guilty or ashamed of. I'm trying to remember that. I'm trying to learn that. I have an illness. The meds aren't working all that great so self-care is my only resource. 

I'm trying to accept that I have disabilities, that these aren't weaknesses or faults in character. I just wish I could have been there with Monkey. 

Isis' countdown

My oldest cat, Isis, is nearly 14 years old. I've been with her longer than I've been with Monkey. Last May we had a benign lump on her forehead removed. Last month we found another lump under her left shoulder and had it checked. I really didn't think anything of it. I thought it would be like the one on her forehead. It was bigger and growing faster but she isn't bothered by it at all. Well, it turns out to be a kind of connective tissue tumor that grows fast, sends out tendrils and difficult/impossible to get it all out. To take it out would mean cutting and digging out a large amount tissue from a relatively slender, small cat.  To top it off she has developed a quiet heart murmur that, in cats, is associated with heart disease. I had to make a decision. Do I put my elderly cat, who likely only has a year or so left on average, through an invasive surgery to remove a tumor that likely will return in about six months? Yeah, that is pretty much a no-brainer if you focus on quality of life rather than length. She will not be getting another surgery. The tumor will grow. Eventually it will make her shoulder uncomfortable. When she starts showing signs of pain or extreme discomfort I'll talk to the vet about ending her life.

I knew that she was nearing the end of her life. Indoor, well-cared for cats average 12-15 years. I've heard of much older cats but those aren't the average and I'm realistic about these things. But knowing now that I will likely have to euthanize her in the next six months to a year makes it a bit more on my mind.

Isis isn't our only geriatric pet, just the oldest. I know this is just the beginning of the next few years of our pet population decreasing in the house. I'm very much a realist when it comes to life and death of pets but I'm still feeling a little sad.

Under the blanket

I'm deep in my depression while I wait for my new meds to prove effective...or not. I'm spending good portions of my day under a fluffy red blanket on my couch. I'm doing my best. I am surviving.

Rather than blather on in a less than entertaining way about my pointless sadness I shall direct you to one of the best, yet entertaining, blog posts on depression I have ever seen. Enjoy.

Hyperbole and a Half : Adventures in Depression

After that I suggest you wander around her backlog of posts. They are hilarious and wonderful.

It is illogical.

I am a very logical person. I like to think things through. I like steps, processes and formulas. I often write notes and to-do lists in outline format. (I don't speak in a logical way but that is a whole other story.) Even my creative endeavors, baking and knitting, are ones that follow logical steps along with a bit of instinctive direction. I am very proud and very attached to my ability to logically think things through.

I think it is because of this trait that I suffer more than necessary with my mental illnesses. There is nothing logical about what is happening in my mind. I'm sure that deep in the biochemical level there is a logically explainable dysfunction that will someday be discovered but that is my "brain" not my "mind". I have two minds, almost like two identities, during a depressive and/or anxious episode. One is the logical and reasonable mind that sees all the illogical feelings and reactions. It says "I am depressed and crying yet my life is very good. I have loving partners, good health care, all my basic needs are met, and I have a wonderful amount of extra comforts. This makes no sense whatsoever." My logical mind, however, is locked in a glass box by the raving emotional nut ball that is my depressive mind. I'm not even going to try to articulate what that part of my mind sounds like. My logical mind sees all the crazy spilling out but can do nothing to stop it. The medications, when they work, help quiet the crazy part of my mind and let my logical side take most of the control.

Right now, while I change and adjust my new medications, the crazy mind is more often in control. With therapy and a lot of self-care, I can get the logical mind in control for small parts of the day. I can be functional but only in short bursts and at great cost. The rest of the time crazy-mind is running the show. I'm trying to accept that. If I manage to accept that, during those times, logic will not be likely perhaps I would suffer less?

The house guest

I could see it coming. I've gotten very good at spotting it lurking around the edges of my brain. Oozing into the folds of thought. Depression has claimed me once again. The "house guest", as my household calls it, has moved back in. 

I white-knuckled my rational brain through Monkey's surgery knowing that he needed me to be present and able. Thankfully, his recovery has been so uneventful and rapid that I wasn't needed for very long. As soon as he didn't need me I crumbled. Monkey and Author could see it coming too so they were ready for it, though hoping for the best. 

I used to be almost paralyzed with fear when I saw the darkness coming to swallow me. Now I feel like a person preparing for a bad weather. Put up the storm windows and check the flashlights. I can't stop it once it has begun to build but at least now I'm able to lessen the impact while I weather the storm. 

I've started on yet another new medication. Will this one help? More importantly, will it keep working for more than a year or so? There is no way to know. Psychiatry is full of very educated guesses. No one knows exactly how or why these medications work or don't work for some people. It is like juggling when some balls are invisible and you don't know how many there are. But I have try because the other option is to live in this darkness and I just can't accept that. 

Post-Op Rundown

Well, let's start with the fact that Monkey is doing great. Everything on his end went perfectly. Our household ran like precision clockwork getting him prepped and deposited in the care of the pre-op team. We even managed to get them to let both Author and myself in the pre-op room. Monkey was dosed to high heaven on Versed (a sedative) to get him to relax a bit in prep. I've been on one dose before my polyp removal and I was quite relaxed. Monkey, who is much smaller than me, took three doses! He was rather tense. Then they wheeled him away to the OR and Author and I turned back to wait.

Not three steps past the waiting room door I burst into tears. I'm rather proud of myself for lasting that long. Author and I went to sit with family to wait the predicted two hours. And then it was two hours...no word. Two and a half hours...nothing. Three hours and Author and I are fidgeting and staring intently at the beeper the receptionist gave us. Him and I both are telling each other "it is just an estimated time" "he was a bit late getting out of pre-op anyway" and so on. We are watching minutes by now and at 3hrs and ten minutes our buzzer goes off and we dash to the desk. The receptionist tells us that they are closing Monkey up and ushers us into a "consult" room. 

If you've ever had bad news at a hospital you will know about the consult rooms. Bad news isn't the only reason for them. Patient privacy is the primary use for them but you can't help but panic a little when you don't expect to be sent to one. It is a closet-like room with a few chairs, a phone on an end-table and a door. Nothing else. Seriously, not even a coat hook. Author, sheet-white and stone-faced, and me, tears already streaming, shuffle into the tiny room clutching hands. Horrible complications are running through our heads but we don't talk about them. What a terrified pair we must have looked like. Dr. M pops in, takes one look at us while shutting the door, and quickly says "He is doing great." Turns out that Monkey also has some endometriosis messing about and Dr M decided to remove as much as he could find to prevent any future issues. That is what took a little longer. I thought Author was going to pass out from relief....or maybe that was me. That last hour of waiting and the 10 minutes waiting in the consult room was one of the worse experience in my life. I hope I won't be repeating it any time soon.

Wrapping up Monkey's surgery, there was one night spent at the hospital then the released him back home. It is now five days since the surgery and he is already decreasing pain medication and walking around often. Another couple days and he will be ready to go out for a cup of tea or something. The healing is going faster than any of us could have hoped for. 

I am so glad this is behind us!

Preparing for the waiting room.

Monkey is having surgery this Saturday.

I believe I've mentioned it before but I'll give a quick background just in case. Monkey has been dealing with some serious menstrual issues for over a year. A few months ago we found out it was all due to a rather large fibroid making his uterus go wonky. His Doc decided that getting a complete hysterectomy (that is just the uterus and cervix but not the ovaries) was the best option for him. Monkey was thrilled. He hated having a period and the fibroid was making it 10 times worse. I was happy for him. He had a solution to his problems and he wouldn't be bothered with monthly bleeding anymore.

Surgery day is fast approaching and, though I know this is a common operation, it is still major. I've been with Monkey for nearing 13 years and this is the first surgery we have experienced. Monkey is a surgery superstar. He had several surgeries as a kid and young adult. Some of them were pretty big deals. But they were all before I met him. I've never had to sit in a room holding his wedding ring waiting for some one to tell me he made it through fine. I am terrified. I know it is a very small chance that anything could go wrong. I know the statistics. The surgeon is actually the one who did my polyp removal so I know how kind and careful he is. Still, they will wheel away the love of my life, put him under, and cut things out of him. And I can't do anything but wait. I am scared to bits of losing him, no matter how astronomically rare the chance of that happening is.

My brain knows it will be okay. My brain is in control of being sure that I have what I need (Xanax, knitting, tissues), that Monkey has what he needs (distractions) and that everything goes smoothly. My brain knows that it will be a heart-thumping couple hours and a few weeks of careful recovery and then our world will go back to normal.

Kink hoopla & real life

I make a big deal about starting to post more about my kink and D/s part of my life and immediately go on to post about marriage rights and medical maneuvering. Ha! Well, I believe I did mention that it was only part of my life and, quite honestly, it gets pushed to the background when other life stuff gets heavy. This fact, this "real world D/s" kind of situation, is one of the reasons I decided to keep my blogging integrated. Many kink blogs out there are purely kink-oriented so you don't get to see how the power dynamic naturally ebbs and flows around things like tax bills, the car breaking down and the dominate partner needing emotional support while preparing for a surgery. That is real life and real 24/7 D/s. It isn't like the books.

Even when life gets hectic the D/s is still there and we have little ways of keeping things centered. It took us years to find these little things that keep us going during those "ebbing" times. There is one thing in particular that never stops. I wait to eat at dinner until Monkey says I can. It seems such an unlikely ritual for me. Having an eating disorder makes me very triggery around any thing involving food. I have a hard limit about controlling my food because my feelings about food can change in an eye blink. Somehow this works for us though. It is a ritual that takes all of 3 seconds and makes us both reconnect almost every day. As a household we eat dinner at the table together almost every night so it is wrapped up in a household, non-D/s, ritual that we have all committed to.

Other rituals come and go in our life but this one stuck even in the most distracting life situations. Sometimes this ritual is the only overt D/s we have months at a time. It is our touchstone to the other, more complicated, aspect of our relationship.

One pill forward, two pills back

I have been trying to manage my chronic pain in ways that don't leave me zonked out 24/7. I've tried a specific old-school antidepressant that helps pain sometimes. I'm already on a couple other meds to manage my mental health so it had to be a balanced add-on since it could go toxic on me. As we increased the dose some of my nerve pain did go away. Great, right? Everything comes with a price. The last increase has made 3 hour afternoon naps a regular thing (along with a full night sleep) and it has become very obvious that it has increased my appetite, making my binge eating disorder more difficult to control. Fab. Just as I was thinking this med wasn't quite balancing out on the pro/con sheet I got a mildly frantic message from my doctor's office. Getting a mildly frantic message from your doctor's office...ON YOUR BIRTHDAY...is no way to round out the day. After a little phone tag I was told that my levels were too high on my last blood test and that the med could be moving into toxic levels. I needed to decrease today. Great. The thing about antidepressants is you can't just stop taking them. You need to slowly decrease. So I'm slowly stepping down off this med and my nerve pain is showing up again. To be extra whiny about this I will say that with the returning nerve pain I also still have the negative side effects of taking the med.

I hurt, I am sleepy all afternoon, I can't seem to CBT* my way out of the Halloween candy, and I have no idea if my blood levels are still high enough to be toxic. Fan-fucking-tastic.

All whining aside, I know that I have plenty of other good options to try. I have great support from my household and have learned how to deal with my pain in other ways. I see my doctor this week and we will discuss what else is available to me. I actually feel positive about trying something new. But you got to get the whining out somewhere and the interwebs are a vast space in which to dump all that whine!

*CBT: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. A type of behavior modification that has proven effective in dealing with any unwanted behavior...like emotional eating.

Threading the Loophole

Same-sex marriage isn't legal where I live. Despite the two extremely liberal cities in my state, the haters managed to pass a constitutional ban. (Ptthhhhhht) We do have a Domestic Partnership union that gives us, in this state, all the rights and obligations of marriage. As we all know, this doesn't change the fact that, federally, Monkey and I are legally almost perfect strangers. (I say "almost" because, since I don't work, he gets a small tax deduction for financially supporting a "non-related" adult.)

This is all about to change though. Not, of course, because the federal government has changed the rules but because Monkey feels that he is less F and more M and figures he should make it legal. By changing Monkey's driver's license sex marker from F to M we are suddenly allowed to marry...a federally recognized marriage.

I've seen others stumble into this loophole but usually with people who are......making a more traditional transition. Monkey had breast reduction (not removal) years ago and has no interest in going through that again to remove the rest. He considered taking hormones but he already has some endocrine problems and some other chronic health issues that would make taking testosterone a very, very risky thing. Monkey is unusually short, curvy-hipped. and soft faced. Even if he did top surgery and T he would never, ever pass and he doesn't care. He is male-ish identified and is happy with his identity.

Even though the name and sex identifier change would have happened no matter what I can't say the loophole wasn't a tempting part of the decision. I'm not exactly sure how I feel about that. As a homemaker, it would be much better on our tax bill if we are federally married. And, as a person coming to realize that I'm more disabled that I like to admit, it would be a much safer position. But, what about the injustice of this loophole? The only thing that is changing is Monkey got a letter from a DMV certified therapist to make them change the F to an M. Now we have access to all the marriage perks? I'm personally thankful for this loophole as it will make things easier for Monkey and I but I still feel a little shady for exploiting it.

What is in a name?

Today Monkey changed his name. He changed his first name to what just about everyone calls him. He also changed his last name and, in doing that, changed my name as well.

First, a little back story. Monkey's paternal grandparents were immigrants with a very obviously Polish-Jewish name. His grandmother was having a seriously difficult time finding a job and suspected it was due to antisemitism. She chose to shift her married name, and her children's names, to something not so conspicuous. She found a job shortly after. Who knows it the name change actually worked but I know that this kind of thing was (and still is) very common among immigrants wanting to assimilate to the American culture. However, this assimilation and Americanization of Monkey's family name always bugged him, especially since the rest of the extended family stuck with the original name. When Monkey felt ready to do a legal gender change he decided to tack on changing to the original family name.

Several years ago, I changed my name. My mom had died and my dad had disowned me so I didn't feel very attached to my given name and only used it when I had to give the actual legal name. I chose a new first name and took Monkey's last name, the Americanized one. I knew it was possible that I would have to change my name again. That doesn't bother me. I can't say I won't get a giggle at the confused looks I might get when my extremely Irish looks are matched up with my new, extremely Jewish-Polish name. Funny thing, my given first name is a very Jewish name but my mom had no idea. I use it as my middle name now.

So soon there will be a flurry of activity changing the name everywhere. At least this time I don't need to go through the court order stuff. But that is another post...

An Obligatory Warning

I have had a few responses to my post about talking more about the more adult aspects in my life. All of them were positive which is wonderful (Thank you interwebs people!). I knew some would be fine with it, including one or two who are as kinky as I am. Yet, I still felt I need to do an obligatory warning before diving into a lot of poly, sex and D/s stuff. I can't figure out why that is. What am I afraid of? Hmmm. Perhaps, it is because I'm kind of edgy even in the kinky community. These things are a big part of my life but I haven't been putting them to the front of my mind. There is a backlog of things waiting to be dumped out of my head in a messy pile of sweat, lube and a few tears. 

Well, the obligatory warning is an easy thing to do and it will comfort me for some reason. I might as well do it and move past it. 

An obligatory warning: I am about to post more about some things about sex and kink.. This is to encompass more of what is important in my life. Just to give you a bit of an idea of what I will be talking about I figured I should describe a bit of my identity. I am submissive, a masochist, polyamorous, queer (in the broadest sense), and very sex-positive. I live in a D/s relationship with Monkey and Author. Monkey and I have had this kind of relationship for 12 of our nearly 13 years we've been together. Author and I have only ever had a  D/s relationship. I'm very service-oriented (when I'm healthy) but I am also into BDSM. I'm considered an edge player which means I do things that other kinky people might think are extreme. I am always surprised by this because Monkey, Author and I are very focused on being risk-aware about everything we do. It doesn't seem edgy when we have been so careful about possible harm. This is just a warning that some of my posts might include things that cause me to cry, be bruised, or bleed. This is just a reminder that all of this is completely consensual. 

So...that's it. The warning has been posted. I'll let this sit for a few days and then, hopefully, I'll have some time to talk about this other part of my life. 

The other things in my life.

I've been thinking....

This was never meant to be a ttc/infertility blog. I meant it to encompass all the different facets of my life. However, ttc/infertility hijacked my brain, hell, my life! I rarely blogged about anything else. Well, now that part of my life is coming to a close, most likely without me becoming a parent. I have been pondering what to do with this accidental ttc/infertility blog. 

To put it bluntly, I want to get back to writing about my commitment to living in a D/s relationship with Monkey and Author. (For those not in the know, an educational quickie! D/s is short for Dominate/submissive. This dynamic falls under the larger umbrella of BDSM practices. For a definition of that acronym, google it yourself as I haven't the time to do a Kink 101 class.) However, my blog is listed and pops up on searches for queer ttc. This means many people who may not be comfortable with overtly sexual and kinky subject matters, let alone a lifestyle 24/7 D/s relationship, may show up here. They may be surprised and disturbed by suddenly surfing to what they think is a ttc/if blog and finding themselves knee deep in the ramblings of a kinky submissive. 

On the other side of this, I am a kinky lifestyle submissive who was trying to get pregnant and deal with infertility. I don't like the idea of compartmentalizing my life into separate blogs. I've done it before and it felt very unnatural. It felt like I was hiding my submissive, kinky side. Like I should be secretive and ashamed of the way I am and the way I live. This, of course, is a load of bullshit. I am proud of who I am and the dedication I have to service. I'm not ashamed that I'm a masochistic either.

So here is my dilemma. Do I abandon this blog so that ttc/if followers and searchers don't get freaked out by the newer focus? Or do I continue my blog as it was first intended? A messy mash-up of my life as a kinky, submissive, poly, housemaker, hippyish, punkish, chronic pain suffering, infertile, depression-having, genderqueer. 

I put the question out to the interwebs. Dear readers (all 3 of you) and guests, what are your thoughts? 

Yesterday, Monkey and I talked...or I talked and he mostly listened. I told him it felt pointless to continue with donor inseminations. We've been doing this, off and on, for six years. We figured we have done at least 36+ cycles. We've tried different methods, different donors, acupuncture, herbs, Clo.mid, IUIs at home and in clinic. I've been tested up, down and sideways with nothing really wrong. If the polyps were the big problem I should have conceived by now and the polyps were definitely not there for the first couple years of ttc. I felt there was no realistic chance, after all this time, that I would get pregnant just by shoving sperm in me each month. Something is wrong in some subtle way that we can't detect. I wanted to quit the inseminations and reserve my energy for the two medically-directed cycles. Actually, I'm not sure I want to do even those but I couldn't take that small chance that forcing the system might actually work.

It was so hard to watch Monkey caught in a tug of war between his natural optimism and his logical nurse's brain. He knew I was right about our chances. He knew it was an energy drain with very little possibility of any success. He also really wants to believe that I could still get pregnant. In the end, logic and statistics won out but it hurt me to see his optimism fade. 

So, we have stopped trying until January when we will make one of our last two attempts at having a kid. This is it. We are coming to the end of our ttc-turned-infertility journey. After everything we have been through, no matter how it ends, I feel relieved.

Hoping for a bfn?

As the date of my expected period approached I had two wished. One, that it be late so I didn't need to deal with it while camping (it was) and two, that it would definitely arrive (it did). I actually was hoping to not get pregnant.

For the first time in six long years I've truly had enough. I still find myself sad when I hear that yet another one of my old group of friends has had a baby. I still mourn the loss of the experience of pregnancy and parenthood but even with all that I find myself more and more excited to start the life after infertility. A life where I can make plans without wondering if I'll have to cancel them because I'm pregnant or have an infant. A life where I can redirect all that energy back into my (ahem) adult interests. A life where I can put the sex and BDSM toys back on the freakin' walls! The different life that is waiting for me when we stop trying. I am 99.9% sure that I will never get pregnant and I'm finally okay with that. I'm ready to transfer all the energy it takes to ttc (tracking, sperm donor wrangling, inseming, testing) and move it on to other parts of my life.

So what now? Have I given up? Hell if I know. I only got back from my camping trip yesterday and CD 1 is today so I haven't really had time to talk with Monkey about my feelings. I suspect that, no, I am not giving up quite yet. Monkey isn't in the same place as me with this. I'm willing to keep going for awhile for him. At this point I'd be so shocked if we hit that 0.1% chance of pregnancy that it would likely take me a couple months to mourn the loss of the life I imagined without a kid! Ah, what a mind-fuck that would be!

MIA

So, yeah, I've been missing all summer. I've been feeling pretty ambivalent about this blog. There is so much about ttc here. Coming to this blog seems like I must post about trying to get pregnant or infertility and that feels so...burdening. I do post about other things here but, well, after 6 years of ttc dominating my life those other things are few and far between. Blogging is good for me and I want to continue doing it. I just haven't figured out if it is time to retire this blog and start a new one or continue this one with a commitment to write more about the rest of my life? This will take some thinking.

In the meantime, here are some bullet point updates.

• I'm still ttc with our latest known donor through the end of the year. We have put off our last two infertility intervention tries until at least January. I don't plan on continuing ttc after those tries. I often forget when my period is due now because I only pay attention around insem time. I've been emotionally distancing myself from the process with very little effort.
• Monkey is having a hysterectomy in November because of a hefty fibroid that has taken over his uterus. This doesn't really effect our ttc options as Monkey has never been a possibility for so very many other physical and mental health reasons. It does effect timing and this is why we are postponing the IF tries. I can't imagine trying to handle Clo.mid, IUIs and trigger shots while he is preparing, having, and recovering from surgery. Thankfully, the surgeon is confident that it will be laproscopic surgery so recovery time should be only a few weeks. 
• I've spent the summer really trying to accept and embrace a modified life due to my chronic pain conditions. It has changed the way I do things HUGELY. It is still a struggle not to just push through the pain and finish this or that task. I still hate having to pace myself so carefully. I have managed to accept that I must do this or I will end up even more physically disabled than I already am. 
• I've started baking bread weekly to supply the house rather than buying it. (We do have a back up loaf of store-bought bread this week because I've been sick.) I'm really hoping to get a winter veggie garden up and running as well. This is part of embracing homemaking as my career. I feel like there are so few role models for what I'm doing. I'm no June Cleaver and don't want to be. I'm learning to make my own ideal for being the homemaker for my household (with or without kids).

So, that is the highlights. I'll be posting here still until I decide if I need a clean slate blog or if I want to embrace my baby-crazy past and let the current blog evolve with me. 

I'm off to listen to horror fiction podcasts (or maybe some Nine Inch Nails instead) while I dye some sheets black, clean the bathroom and mop floors. (Yeah, definitely NOT June.) 

Preview of the end

Over the last few years, Monkey and I have drifted away from a specific group of friends. This included drifting away from attending any Jewish events because those friends were also part of the queer Jewish community here. We did this without talking about it or thinking about it too hard but both of us knew it was because of kids.

Monkey and I were the first in this group to start trying to get pregnant. Others started having kids either through birth or adoption. All of them had some struggle or another. One tried for 3 years and had a very tough pregnancy. Another did foster to adopt and had some very rough experiences. I just found out that another couple had a baby via IVF recently. I'm happy all of these people have now had a kid and settled into new family life. In the past five and a half years that we have been trying I've watched this group of friends go from zero kids to several. When Monkey and I started, everyone thought ours would be the first kid in the group. Now we are almost the only ones without kids. We are the only ones that wanted kids but don't have them.

I recently ran into one of this group at a store. We hadn't talked in well over a year. We chatted a bit. I could see in her eyes she wanted so badly to ask if we were still trying. That is when I realized what it would feel like socially to give up on trying. My city isn't very big, our Jewish community is small and our progressive community is downright tiny. Unless I completely stop attending Jewish events, I'm going to run into these families at some point. At some point after giving up I will have to start telling them we gave up. We, the first to start trying, were the ones left empty-handed. The thought of looking across the synagogue to all these friends with kids around them just makes something crack in my heart. It wasn't until I ran into this friend that I realized how hard the social aspect of giving up would be. It isn't just about telling them we couldn't have a kid. As nice and understanding as these people are some of them are going to say something that unintentionally cuts deep and I will have to deal with that, hopefully gracefully.

I haven't given up yet. I know that there is still a chance, small as it is, that I could get pregnant and have a child. There is a chance that Monkey and I will feel emotionally able to look into adoption if we don't have a kid. But because of how slim our chances are now, I can't help but wonder at this possible future.