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.

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!

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.

Clomid Crazy

Okay, so I exaggerate a bit. It actually hasn't been that bad. Well, I say it hasn't been that bad. My household may have a different opinion. I've asked and they say, very quickly, that it hasn't been as bad as previous Clomid cycles. I'm not sure if I believe them but, either way, I feel like I have a handle on the crazy hormone fluxes this time around.

I got my new FSH results. Four years ago, when I first got my FSH tested it was a 5. That is an excellent number for anyone at any age. Now, at 37 years old, my FSH is a 9. That is...fair. It is actually a pretty good number for some one my age. Still, my ovaries are showing my age a bit. I was ready for this result. I knew the statistics. I knew that my age, and the fact that I haven't gotten pregnant after all this time, is counting against me. Monkey, ever the optimist, had a bit of a shock. He's a medical professional so he really likes to grab on to hard results of scans and test. This is the first time we've gotten a test that clearly shows our window is closing. I've tried to tell him this. I've showed him the statistics on fertility over 35 years old but I think he always thought of me as outside of those numbers. When faced with a change from 5 to 9 in FSH over the last 4 years he was taken aback. There in the lab result was a hard fact about me, about our only available egg producer and womb. For the first time in the last 5 1/2 years of ttc it really hit him that I might not get pregnant. Suddenly my sense of urgency seemed more valid to him. Suddenly, he had the same sense of urgency. It also has added a touch of sadness to him that wasn't there before.

On one hand, I like that he is finally on the same page as me. When I say I don't want to wait too long to do the full clinic Clomid cycles he heartily agrees. He has even mentioned months a little before what I was thinking! On the other hand, it hurts to see his optimism fading. Yes, it is realistic and appropriate but I hate to see the sadness in his eyes when he thinks about never having a kid.

Well, statistics and realism aside, I'm not out yet. My FSH shows good ovarian reserve and my estrodiol was good too. My post-ovulation progesterone test is on Sunday so we will see if that is responding to the med as well. My polyps are gone and unlikely to come back rapidly. My donor was able to offer 3 donations this cycle and, even with the weirdness of Clomid, I think I got the timing right. And if it didn't happen this cycle, well we still have a few more over the summer. After that we still have our full on infertility clinic rounds. Who knows, we could get lucky finally. We both hold on to that.

Mending heart

Over the last week or so I've notice something strange. When I see pregnant people, babies or young children I'm not struck in the heart with painful longing. Sometimes a little twinge of sadness but only for a moment. How did this come about? Is my heart mending from the last 5 years of infertility? That seems too simple to be true. I'm expecting the pain to return. I'm sure I will have bad days again. Days when the loss of my chance to parent will strike me so hard I can't breathe. But this last week has shown me I can have good days too. Someday, the good days will outnumber the bad. It is like my heart is giving me a little taste of healing to tell me I can return from the "land of IF" whole even without a child.