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.

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.

Finally over

My gyn NP sent me in to get a blood test and an hour later the results were officially negative. Not even a tiny bit of HCG in me. So, this was all just a giant head-fuck courtesy of my little friend Clo.mid. Who knows what it did to mess up my cycle so much. I'm assuming it was a serious delay of ovulation but it could have also been jacking my corpus luteum up so much that it took awhile to let go. No matter the why the what is still the same: No pregnancy....again.

My cycle is so messed up I'm taking off the next cycle. I don't want to go through the stress of trying to plan timing when I really don't know what my body is doing. We have plans to do the first Clo.mid/trigger shot/IUI in Aug/Sept.

What little extra hope I had after the polyp removal is dwindling. I'm moving back to baseline, that place where I'm just going through the motions to check the final steps off my list. I'm not quite hopeless but I wouldn't say I'm all that hopeful.

The last chapter

Bee contacted us last week to officially end our donor relationship. He's sorry. He wishes things hadn't worked out this way. Blah, Blah, Blah. Whatever. Really, I'm not upset with him. A little annoyed but I can't work up much anger at him. I've been through this before and I don't get terribly attached to donors anymore. After last month I expected this.

So, here is where we are: I'm done with donors. I can't muster up the energy or hope it takes to slog through and find a match. We feel we've done all we can ourselves. We have two Clomid/Trigger/IUI cycles waiting for us with our NP. We think that Feb/March 2012 will be a good time to do those. As I've said before, these are our "no regrets" cycles. The last thing we need to check off our list to feel like we did the best we could manage. We will use frozen sperm and jump through all the fertility clinic hoops for those last two cycles but if those don't work, well, not every infertility story ends with a baby. Actually, a majority of them don't.

After that we will go on with our lives. Our hearts will break, and mend. We will grieve our loss of the child that never was and then move on to celebrate the life we already have. Until then, I try take care of myself and to start learning to let go.

Getting impatient.

After 4 1/2 years of trying to get pregnant I think I'm finally getting impatient.

That isn't entirely true. I haven't really been patient by choice during that time. If we had the resources to get my ass into a fertility clinic I think we would have. If our insurance covered more infertility treatments/IVF or we could have gotten into a study. We could have the resources if we wanted to change our lifestyle and choice in work. Monkey could go work for some private clinic than only takes rich or over-insured people. I could go back to work full or part time to bring in more cash. But we like the way we live and what we do. Some people will pay any price, monetarily or emotionally, for a shot at having a baby. I guess Monkey and I have lower line. Life is too short and too unpredictable for us to make choices that would mean we'd be miserable.

Anyway, back to the main subject. Impatience. I'm ready to give those last two Clo.mid/monitor/trigger/IUI cycles a try. This isn't much of a big deal to a lot of infertility people but for me it is big. This will be the most intense thing I've done. I've done 4 Clo.mid/IUI cycles before but we didn't monitor or trigger. We plan on doing it in July/August.

We keep looking for a known donor. Well, we are kind of on hold until Monkey stops working 50+ hours a week. That should happen in 2 weeks. He'll get back to it again then. The summer cycles will likely be frozen sperm though.

::sigh:: I'm feeling a little hopeless...and very, very impatient.

Donor Disappointment

There is nothing that drags me down like looking for a known donor. Every time we do it we have to wade through a swamp of horrid responses but those aren't the worst. The really terrible responses are actually kind of entertaining and, at the very least, are easy to spot and discard. Next are the responses who are outside our, clearly mentioned, age range (20-45) or are not in our area. Then we usually are down to a handful of people we will actually contact.

This is where I really end up getting my faith in people tested. There is always one who thinks that asking if some one is disease-free equals practicing safer sex. Then there is one who is just now realizing that the part of the ad where we say "you must be willing to sign a legal document to relinquish your parental rights to the child so the non-bio partner can do a second-parent adoption" that we really do mean you are expected to sign a legal document...with your name. No, you can't just not tell me your name. My kid needs support and health insurance that Monkey can provide but only if he is allowed to adopt the damn kid and he can't do that unless you sign away your claim of parental rights! (Can you tell this last issue is the one that we ran into last night?) These two are the most common issues we run into. Usually, it wipes the list clean and we have to start all over again. However, things can get stranger. I had one potential donor crossed off because we go.o.gled him (yes, we go.o.gle all our donors) and found out he was convicted of a felony and lots of shady dealings.

::Sigh:: There are still a few guys on the list that might pan out. I'm not terribly hopeful.

This is our last cycle out of the game. If we don't have a new donor by my next CD1 then we are going back to donor boy and his severe lack of communication and very limited schedule. I suppose I should be thankful I even have that. I just really miss my first known donor.

Passed and Lapped

One of the hardest things about infertility is being passed and lapped by people you really want to be happy for. Friends and acquaintances who have tried long and hard to get pregnant finally do and you want to celebrate but it is like a knife in your heart that you have nothing to celebrate. People who are taking joy in the babes they worked so hard for and you want to be happy that they are enjoying parenthood but all you can think about is the possibility that you will never feel that joy.

I've been passed so many times. I honestly don't know how many times I've been lapped since I tend to wander off from people once they've gotten securely pregnant. No one I know personally has tried for as long as I have. No one I know has taken the limited intervention road that I have either. I didn't really choose this road. I have limited coverage and we are bogged down in student loan debt so those expensive interventions are mostly out of reach anyway. Time keeps ticking by, my eggs age, my body gets less "prime" and I feel more hopeless.

When I was 35 years old, and had been trying off and on for 3 years, I decided that 37 years old will be my reconsideration time. That is now 7 months away. Granted I didn't know I'd be taking a 10 month break in my 35th year, but I still think it would be good to reconsider where I'm going. I'm not willing to say I'll give up then. Maybe that will be when I toss financial caution to the wind and attempt to do some sort of infertility intervention extravaganza. Maybe I'll decide to put off deciding for another year. I promised myself that I'd quit by 40 years old but I left the last 3 years of my 30's open to whatever I thought I could handle. I don't want to leave this road without a baby but I also don't want to spend 10+ years obsessing over this. I'm hoping I never have to make this choice but I won't avoid it forever. I want a baby, desperately, but I also want a life that isn't defined by a constant quest for something I may never get.

Oh, fuck. Why can't I just get pregnant?

A break in the heartbreak

(but my heart is still sore.)

I started my period on Friday. (Which was also my 11 year anniversary with Monkey. Sucks to start that day but at least I got to have a martini!) I was pretty sure this was a no-go cycle anyway since the timing was all wrong due to donor boy not getting back to us until after I think I ovulated. Still, strange things happen in ttc so you gotta wait and see. I waited, saw blood and had a drink.

So now I'm officially on another break from ttc. We are in talks with a couple different potential donors, still some not quite local. We are thinking of using donor boy on months when the "out of area" donor might not be practical. But this month is for me to kick back and enjoy not having to think about when I might be ovulating or if I could be pregnant. Weird.

I keep wondering what it will take. What will it take to find a donor that doesn't make this more stressful than it already is? What will it take to get and keep me pregnant? What will it take for me to give up trying? What will it take to give up this dream?

What will it take? I wish I knew. If I knew the answers to the first two questions I would have the key to having a child. If I knew the answer to the second two questions I would at least know how much longer I'd be on this heartbreaking road. But I don't have the answers and I never really will. The worse part of this whole thing is not having the answers. No one knows why I haven't gotten/stayed pregnant yet. All I know is that no one can find anything obviously wrong.

I'm beyond tired of not knowing.