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.

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.

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.

Fears and hopes

My surgery to remove the polyp in my uterus is Monday. I've had my pre-op exam and instructions have been given. It didn't seem very real until my pre-op yesterday. Now it seems to hang in front of me full of hope and fear.

Fear because I'm not accustom to medical procedures, even minor ones like this one. I'm a pretty hail and hardy person. The last time I had any kind of surgery it was to remove my tonsillitis when I was 12. Monkey has been doing his best put me at ease. He was a very sickly child and his life has been filled with surgeries and procedures of varying seriousness. (The fact that he is so healthy now is a testament to how hard people worked to get him that way when he was a child.) Compared to the things he has been through this is nothing but I'm still a little nervous. The pre-op helped to calm me. I like to know everything, all the little details, and the surgeon was happy to talk me through it all. Between Dr. M, Monkey, and Author the fear has been dimmed down to a dull anxiety which seems perfectly manageable all things considered.

I think the thing I fear the most, really, is the hope this brings. After five years of trying, and failing, to get pregnant and never knowing why that might be I finally have a possible explanation. With that explanation comes a rather easy possible fix of the problem. This may be what has been getting in the way of a pregnancy. After this I'll be heading back into ttc-land with a fresh start. A truly fresh start with a cleaned out lining, a lower weight than a few years ago and a much better handle on my mental health. I'm afraid to hope too much. This may not be the reason I'm not getting pregnant. I may start ttc after this procedure and spend the next year on the same disappointing roller coaster that I've ridden for the last five years.

But, maybe...just maybe I will finally get that elusive prize. I have to hope, no matter how much I fear that hope. What else can I do? I'm just not quite ready to give up on this dream just yet.

How did it get to be 2012?!?!

Everything is moving so fast! How did we get ankle deep in to January already?!

I'm making good things happen in my life. I've been doing lots of new crafty things, started a (phone) photography project, plugging away at hooping, knitting outside my comfort zone, clearing out clutter and planning some redecorating. All of this is helping with the seasonal crap that has been bogging me down a bit.

December contained:
*A sick dog who is now all better after $1,000 of vet bills. That was after the savings I get for having a Pet Insurance Plan.

*An XBox 360 with Kinect as a holiday gift for the household. I'm not a big gamer but this thing is a lot of fun. Also, having my Hulu and Netflix set up through the XBox is super cool.

*A Nook E-Reader. I love it. So far I've been loading it up with knitting patterns and taking advantage of my local library's e-book lending. After a book resell trip to Powell's for credit I'll be loading it up with some books from their e-book offerings. (Nook is from Barnes & Noble but, unlike Kindle, they make it easy to put other format types on your e-reader.)

*A very crazy month of eating whatever I wanted...a bit too much. I'm back on the WW wagon to continue my healthy habit building.

*An Instagram photo challenge where I took a photo every day of December to match each day's theme. I'll be doing a post with a link to those pictures. I loved doing the daily themes but I've moved to weekly themes for 2012 to give me a bit more breathing room. If you are on Instagram and want to follow me I use the name "yeledov" so look me up!

*A lot of physical therapy for a moderate tear in my right rotator cuff. I'm improving slowly and have at few more months of this. It has put a serious cramp in my hooping practice but I work with what I have.

Coming up in January:
*Baseline ultrasound to double check that my reproductive bits are structurally normal. I've had one before but it was 4 years ago.

*Clomid Challenge Test without insemination. Now that I'm in the "elderly" age bracket for infertility my NP wants to check my response to Clomid again. I have another cycle of side effects and blood tests to look forward to. This will tell us if it is still worth the money and stress of doing the last two infertility cycles or if we should just throw in the towel now. Strangely, I'm not too worried about this. I think, whatever my problem is, it isn't my ability to ovulate.

*A landmark birthday for Monkey. He is crossing the 35 year line. I'm not sure why but this seems like a big deal.

*Lots and Lots of new crafting/art/knitting things.

I'm going to try to blog more. I'm still trying to decide if I need to make a creative arts blog as well or if I should keep it all mixed up here. Hmmm.

This old hen

At 37 years old I am solidly in the "elderly" category for a woman trying to get pregnant. I started this journey at 32 years old. A year later we did the basic infertility work up and found nothing wrong. "Keep trying" I was told "sometimes the mystery resolves itself". Now I'm back in infertility treatment and the basic work up has some different weight to it. Now there is an "age factor" to my infertility. Though the work up is exactly the same the focus is different enough. Looking at my FSH at 33 years old is to make sure something isn't "wrong" with me. Looking at my FSH at 37 years old is to see how far the natural aging of my reproductive system has gotten and if it is enough to have me give up then and there.

So I'm going in for a pelvic ultrasound to make sure there are still no masses in my uterus and my ovaries look normal. Then I'm doing a Clom.id challenge test, without insemination, and blood work to see if my body can still get poked and prodded into making some decent eggs or if my laying days are over and it is time for the soup pot.

It feels strange. I've had these tests before, nothing surprising. This time, however, the results will decide if those last two IF cycles are worth a try or if I'm already out of the baby-making game. Stranger still, I'm not sure which result I'm hoping for anymore.

Leaves fall and I fall with them

I have major depressive disorder. When you look at my family history it is pretty easy to assume that a good chunk of this disorder is a result of a bad roll of the genetic dice. I don't process serotonin and dopamine in ways that keep my mood generally stable.

Depression is cyclical with me. Late fall and winter are the hardest times. This was made even worse with the anniversary of my mom's suicide landing on December 1st. I was hoping with the amazing success of my latest drug therapy and the changes in my life that I would escape my usual Fall/Winter depressive episode. No such luck. Of course, some of this is situational. The issues with infertility and the impending unsatisfied ending of my ttc journey is a huge stressor that isn't making the season any easier. We are also trying to clean up our finances and that isn't any fun no matter what the season. In general though, my life is very good. "The house guest", as Monkey and Author call my depression, doesn't seem to care that things are generally good. My mind is a funny ol' place right now. And though it is not nearly as bad as it was this time last year, I'm still struggling.

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.

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.

Leaves aren't the only thing changing

I think the biggest change is how I'm feeling about trying to get pregnant. As of right now we are planning to do one insem each cycle with Bee until early next year. Once we've saved up enough we will do my last two clinic infertility cycles. I'm already thinking beyond those cycles to giving up. Of course, I've been thinking about that for awhile but, well, I guess I'm making the assumption that they won't work. I don't expect to get pregnant but I have to try. I have to check it off the list so I don't feel regret sometime later. Grief I will feel no matter what I do but I don't want to have regrets.

As a result of my lack of hope, I'm feeling pretty detached from the process. This weekend starts my fertile period. We emailed the dates to Bee and he hasn't gotten back to us yet. I'm indifferent. We could do an insem this cycle or not. Monkey, however, is not making the "it won't work" assumption. He can't really think about after the infertility cycles to giving up. Though he says he would be fine to give up I don't think he ever imagined we'd get to this point. It isn't a real possibility in his mind yet. He truly believes that, somehow, between now and then I will get pregnant and have a baby. I don't believe that at all. As I said before, I'm only doing these last attempts so that I know in my heart and my mind that I did whatever I was capable of to get pregnant. If Monkey is right and I do get pregnant in this process I will be completely and utterly shocked. It will actually require me to shift my life view back to what it was before I lost hope. Well, some of it anyway. I rather like some of the downsizing ideas that have come out of planning a different life.

Monkey and I have always been on different stages in this ttc process. I always feel like I'm a step or two ahead of him in it. I guess that isn't unusual since it is my body we are working with. I have to think ahead every two weeks and beyond. He has less to do in the theoretical stages of becoming a parent this way. He is thinking about it more now because he is trying to prepare for the possibility that it really won't happen. It makes me sad to see him trying to hold back the grief. I know all too well what it feels like.

To a certain extent I'm just ready for this to be over. I consider the possibility of giving up before the IF cycles but only for a moment. I need that closure. I need that final option behind me to let go. So now I'm in a ttc limbo with nothing to do but go through the motions and wait to see what happens.

The beginning of the end of another beginning.

October marks five years of my life focused on trying to get pregnant. I've had a few long breaks in those years. One break was almost a whole year its self. However the thoughts, emotions and planning of ttc was never very far off even on the breaks.

October also brings my 37th birthday. About a year and a half ago I decided that 37 was a good age to seriously reconsider continuing the babyquest.

Monday I got an email from our donor, Bee, saying that his life has been taking some crazy stressful turns. As a result, though he would really like to continue helping us, he can only do it if we are able to do a "more targeted approach". We have yet to hear from him exactly what he means by that. We assume it means doing one insemination a cycle. Though I do not blame him for the sudden turn in his life (a big part of it is a family illness) I'm still very disappointed. I really thought things were set for a good long try with this donor.

So all of these things hit me at once. The five year anniversary of our first ttc cycle, my 37th birthday in a few weeks and my donor limiting access unexpectedly. Usually when setbacks hit me on this ttc journey I bounce back, after a "life is fucking unfair why can't I have a baby" tantrum, with an adjusted course on the quest. This time was a little different. This time I didn't have the tantrum, though I did end up crying a little. This time I started to wonder "Is it time to start thinking about giving up"? I've never thought this particular thing before. I've thought about what it would mean to give up. I've even wondered how I would know when it was the right time to give up. However, this is the first time I've actually thought "is it time"? I feel like this is a sign that the time for giving up is getting closer.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not giving up yet. Monkey and I have decided that, for now, we will keep trying with Bee until January. At that time we will do our last two Clo.mid/trigger/IUI cycles available to us. After that, well, I'm starting to explore the other possible ending of my ttc journey. The one that doesn't end with the birth of a baby. I've mentioned before that adoption would be, at best, complicated if not impossible due to my open poly household. I'm not sure I want to go through that. As a result, most of what I'm considering is what my life would be like if I don't become a parent.

How would I feel about that in the long term? I know in the short term I would be heartbroken and grieving but I would work through that. When I hit menopause would I regret giving up before my cycles did? Would I always have that knife to the heart feeling when I see babies? Would I regret not jumping through all the hoops to attempt adoption? I'm big on researching. I went hunting for books and blogs on living childfree after infertility. There are very few that exist. Even fewer are available at my, usually well stocked, county library. I know there are lots of people who go through infertility and don't end up with a baby at the end. Where are all their stories? It feels rather lonely in this place in between giving up and going on.

BFN Blues

Started bleeding today. I guess 1st time with new donor luck isn't in the cards for me. I am handling these letdowns better than I used to but nothing really takes the sting out of another failed cycle.

At least I get my martini tonight.

The perfect cycle

The perfect cycle means nothing in trying to get pregnant. When donor visits are timed perfectly with fertile windows, you are feeling relaxed and healthy it feels like it should guarantee success. That isn't how this works. But still, when you have the perfect cycle, hope raises just a little. It all seems more possible that it will end with a positive pregnancy test, a worry-free pregnancy and a healthy birth. If only.

I've had more perfect cycles than I can remember. Obviously, it didn't mean anything about success. The one time I managed to get pregnant over the last 4 1/2 years of trying it was a comedy of errors. My cycle started while I was at a conference, at which I caught the worst stomach flu I've ever had in my life and my donor was out of town for my prime fertile days. Yet, this imperfect cycle resulted in, at least, a conception and a brief implantation.

You can't count on perfect cycles. I know that from painful experience. Yet I can't help but feel a bit more hopeful when everything falls into place so smoothly. I usually fight against this extra hope but this time I think I will embrace it. Who knows, maybe that will help too!

The hunt

The time has come. Monkey is no longer working 50 hr weeks. He is down to just his full time job. The cold he came down with while stressed to his limits is starting to fade away. His first real weekend in about 3 months starts tomorrow night.

It is time to hunt for a new sperm donor.

Monkey and Author are my sperm wranglers. Well, Monkey is the wrangler and Author helps with separating the good from the bad. We consider this a division of labor. He deals with the sperm and I will deal with..well..the labor ::chuckle:: plus everything else that goes along with the whole pregnancy package. As a result of this deal I'm not involved in the first few screenings of potential donors. When we use frozen we have so little control that we actually don't care who we get as long as they have a history of pregnancies. Known donors are a lot more complicated but there are other advantages. The one time I actually did get pregnant (I miscarried) was with a known donor. I wish we still had access to him. Damn dream job offer in the UAE. Pttht.

Anyway, Monkey is on the lookout again starting this weekend. We aren't counting on finding some one for summer inseminations so I have a back up plan. We have two Clo.mid cycles left with my NP. She will only do them if I go for monitoring and do a trigger shot. I think it is time we took those last couple tries. We'll use frozen and do the IUI at home. (Yay for having a nurse practitioner for a partner!) I'm aiming for the cycle in mid-July. August has too many concerts and out of town things so that will be my rest cycle between medicated cycles. If by some amazing chance we have a donor by then, well, we may just do one anyway but with fresh.

I'm so tired of this. I just wish I knew what the result would be. I wish some one could tell me "Keep trying! You will be a mama bear yet!" Or "It is time to hang up the speculum and move on to accepting that you won't have a baby." I guess since I'm not so tired of ttc to give up then all I can do is keep trying until I get that pregnancy.

Deserving

One of the comments I hate the most on ttc/infertility communities is "you deserve this." It is used to absolve any guilt people have of getting lucky and leaving the rest of us behind. It is a good thing to elevate guilt, especially in the infertility community, but the flip side of this statement is troubling. It implies that somehow those of us who haven't gotten pregnant don't deserve it yet. That we haven't suffered enough or we aren't good enough. That we aren't deserving. That disturbs me.

I've been striving, working, suffering for a pregnancy for the last four years. I've been taking care of my body to the best of my ability. Eating well, taking vitamins and cutting back on alcohol and caffeine. I have tracked my cycles, agonized over donor choices, coordinated schedules and read every conception, pregnancy and parenting book I could get my hands on. If this concept of "deserving" is true then what have I done to not deserve this? Why do good people, who have gone through a hell of a lot more than I have, not deserve this? Why do drug-addicted criminals with no interest in improving their lives get knocked up wily-nilly, keep doing drugs and living crazy deserve parenthood?

The answer is that deserving doesn't come into getting pregnant. There are great people, caring and dedicated to becoming wonderful parents, who never have a child. There are horrible people who only care about themselves, are abusive and hateful, who have a gaggle of kids. Even adoption isn't really about deserving, even though the system tries to say it is. (Trust me, I know enough adoptive parents to have seen that "deserving" only gets you the application.) Becoming a parent is a huge amount of luck. Maybe it is bad luck if you didn't want to be a parent or maybe it is the best luck in the world when you've been trying for 4 years and thousands (or tens of thousands for some people) of dollars of treatments. But ultimately that luck, that element of chance, is the biggest factor in whether or not you become a parent, deserving or not.

I am deserving. Monkey and I will make wonderful parents. We just have to hold out for our luck to change.

25lb smaller

I have lost 25lb in the last 10 weeks. This amazes me. I'm in awe that this is actually working.

::Background note: I'm obese, with no related diseases, and have almost always been fat to some degree. I have binge eating disorder. Back in 2005 I recognized and accepted that I had a severe eating disorder. I started to address it. Back in January of this year I found a cognitive behavioral therapy program that is, obviously, working really well for me. I also joined WW to help with the portion control and general lifestyle changes.::

I'm still losing a little fast, even though I'm constantly evaluating my food and exercise to make sure I'm not doing some sort of eating disorder flip side behavior. Monkey (who is a medical professional) is also keeping an eye on me. He is comfortable as long as I'm eating a balanced diet (I am) and not losing muscle (I'm not.)

As for ttc, my doctor and my women's health NP both agree that I can continue trying while losing weight as long as I'm being very careful about my nutrition. Also, as soon as I get a positive pregnancy test I'm suppose to stop following WW but I can keep up with the CB therapy because that isn't about food. It is about emotional relationships with food. (WW has a way to put it on hold for pregnancy and return when you are 6+ weeks post-partum. They adjust your plan to allow for extra calories for nursing parents.)

It has been a long time since I've lost weight. I don't think I've ever done it in such a healthy way. I feel like it may actually be possible to live without being constantly overwhelmed by my eating disorder. That is my ultimate goal. I will likely never be in my ideal BMI and I certainly will never be considered thin but I feel like I'm getting healthier every day. I feel like I may actually get out of the "obese" range someday. It is a very hopeful feeling.