It's Like Riding a Bicycle

At least that is my opinion, anyway…

Although I am a mother, I didn’t achieve a pregnancy without medical intervention and without the genetic assistance of others.  And even though I had the honor of carrying my child and experiencing a pregnancy, I am still infertile.

Infertility is like riding a bicycle.  Even though you have taken months off of actively trying to conceive a child, it seems like the muscle memory of your brain just remembers how to fall back into the pitfalls of being an infertile.

Some people speculate that once you have had a baby, your body somehow “learns” how to get pregnant.  This is why you hear of all of the stories – you know the ones…“I know someone who did 8 IVF cycles and finally had a baby and when their baby was 10 months old, they miraculously got pregnant on their own.  Maybe that will happen to you too!?!”  I know this happens.  I know people in the online ALI community who have had this miracle occur and I am truly happy for them.

Do I think I will be one of them?  Nope.  But apparently my unconscious thoughts somewhere in the depths of my mind are hoping this will happen.  I get a reminder of this every month. 

Here are the Facts:

• We are not preventing.  We are not “actively trying”.  Intercourse in our house is timed – but rather than to my cycle it is to when we have the most time and energy for each other – the weekends.

• After Carder was born, I have noticed some changes in my body.  My cycle is still as short as ever (24-25 days) and my periods are still very painful.  But I now experience the tell-tell signs of ovulation every month.  For instance, Egg white cervical mucus is now a monthly occurrence for me – in abundance.  I no longer have to look closely to determine if it is there.  Now, I can easily tell when I wipe and there is no need to get my fingers involved in the process.
• We did achieve one known documented pregnancy that didn’t involve a petri dish and an embryologist.  The documented beta level was only at 45 and I lost the pregnancy by 5 ½ weeks.

The Conclusion:

I am a lunatic infertile whom apparently thinks she is having a miracle baby.  Needing to have intercourse more than once (or at all) in fertile window of 3 days be damned.

Case in Point: 

Last month my cycle was 24 days long.  On day 22 or 23 of this cycle, I had some cramps that I would have sworn AF was coming any minute.  She never showed.  By day 25 when AF hadn’t arrived, I was mentally tallying up every possible pregnancy symptom that I was experiencing. 

I have cramps but no spotting.  I am soooo tired I can barely stay awake after 4pm.  I am absolutely starving but at the same time I think I am going to throw up.  I think my nipples look darker…I must be pregnant.

Derek and I have a conversation about “what if” I really am pregnant and we ponder cute baby names (it’s totally a girl by the way).

I calculate a due date.  I ponder whether I will higher risk due to the preterm labor with my previous pregnancy and will be put on bed rest.  I calculate how much extra this will cost us at daycare.   I think about all of the cute ways we can announce the pregnancy to our families and friends.  I wonder what kind of big brother Carder will be.

I practically had my hands perched on the keyboard to Google “Early Pregnancy Symptoms” and was contemplating run to the drugstore to buy a stick to pee on.

And then the rational side of me took hold of the optimistic side and shook the hell out of it. 

"GET A HOLD OF YOURSELF!!!  YOU ARE INFERTILE.  THE CHILD YOU BORE ISN’T EVEN GENETICALLY RELATED TO YOU!  THE ODDS AREN’T GOOD.  HAVE A GLASS OF WINE AND CHILL THE FUCK OUT."

So I drank some wine (while thinking to myself that I may be pickling my possible child and wondering if it will be my last glass of wine).

And the next day the bitch showed up.

Thank God I didn't go out and waste my money on another damned stick to pee on.

You would think that one of these days I would abandon all hope...At least I no longer sit on the toilet and cry about it, right?

Why, Oh Why, Do I Do This To Myself???

AF is late.  I had some spotting mid week last week and was sure she was about to arrive, but she never showed.  And although I know that it is absolutely ridiculous for me to even THINK that there is a chance that we could have gotten pregnant this month, that is exactly what I found myslef thinking this weekend.  Funny enough, Derek asked me if she had arrived, I answered No, and he responded with "Wouldn't it be funny if after all of this we got pregnant this month?"  Yup.  That would be pretty darned funny.  Especially since we didn't really try at all this month.  We didn't prevent, but there was no temping, no OPKing, no U/S to look at folicles, no shots in the stomach, no pills to make me grow more follies, no meds to grow my uterine lining...you get the picture.  Wouldn't it be freakin' hilarious if "Aunt Jane" was right and all we had to do was relax???

I actually spent some time contemplating if our faint HCG numbers last month at 8.8 that had fallen to 3 had somehow miraculously turned around and gone back up.  A highly unlikely explanation, I assure you (and probably not a single recorded case in history) but the thought still crossed my mind.  Especially since that would make more sense than us getting pregnant on our own without medical assistance.

Regardless, I have been a little concerned about it.  I have been on a self imposed hiatus from prenatal vitamins since the last beta.  To be honest, I haven't even been taking a multivitamin with much regularity this month.  And on top of that, I have not held back from partaking in several alcoholic beverages.  I haven't been staggering drunk by any means, but red wine and I have been good friends the last 4 weeks.

But she hasn't shown up yet.  And I felt a bit queasy most of the day.  It was like deja vu - boob grabbing and all (not sore BTW).  So, just a few minutes before I began this post, I completed the familar task of peeing on a stick.  It was a cheap Dol.lar.Store test but it was all I had in the house.  So I went for it.  Of course, it was a BFN.  I expected no more than 1 line to show up.

The reason I am posting about this is that, strangely enough, even with all we have been through and knowing that there is really not a chance for us to conceive, after all this time and all of the disappointment that we have been through, there I was again - hoping.  I wonder if it will ever REALLY go away.  Will there come a time (when we are sitting around with our adopted child/children) and AF is late and I don't spend half of the day thinking about whether or not I might be FINALLY be pregnant???

I hope that day comes.  But even if it doesn't?  I would settle for wondering about it while sitting around with my future children...

I guess I will give it a couple more days to see if she shows up before I contemplate the possibility anymore.  I will probably be a good girl and take my vitamins and stay away from the wine for the next couple of days, just in case, though.

Not Our Miracle

Although I heard the news on Monday afternoon, I am still processing it and dealing with how I feel.  The hopeful 8.8 that we heard on Friday had dropped to 3.9 by Monday.  The nurse said it was now a negative and I didn't have to return anymore for follow up bloodwork and to stop taking my meds.

I have stopped taking everything.  Every time I use the restroom, I expect for AF to be arriving but she hasn't shown her ugly face yet.  With every twinge down there, I think about her pending arrival - how when she shows, that thick beautiful lining that I worked so hard to build up will be shedding from the walls of my uterus and bringing with it my precious little embryo that just wasn't strong enough.  It won't resemble much and probably won't even be visable in the post-IVF hell that shows after an unsuccessful transfer...

What I really feel like posting about right now is not our future options or how I know I will come out stronger on the other side.  What I really feel like posting about is something that is so minute that it shouldn't even be entering my contious thoughts.  Really - you will think I am nuts.

What is this trivial item???

My tag line on my the BBC. 

As I contemplated the shedding of my uterine lining, I wondered "Does this count as a miscarriage?  Should I update my tag line on BBC to 2 Angels?"  But the worst part about this is that in this thought pattern, I realized that really, throughout this IVF process, I didn't have just 1 Angel.  My total embryos transferred has been 7 which brings my total of known live embryos in my uterus to 8.  And there were 18 more that never made it out of the petri dish.  Crap.  That is a total of 27 known embryos of ours that never stood a chance. 

27. 

That is a lot of babies that I have been unable to bring into this world safely.  I half jokingly told my best friend over lunch that I felt like a baby killer.  I know.  That is an absolutely TERRIBLE way to look at this situation.  Really, someone probably needs to slap some sense into me for having these thoughts.

But I guess what makes me so worried about this number?  Why would anyone chose to give me THEIR babies to grow in my uterus if I couldn't get my own to nestle down in there???? 

Logic tells me that the fragmentation means some sort of genetic anomaly that prevented me from carrying a child of our own to term and that any strong healthy blastocyst would stand a chance.  After all, Dr. C told me that my uterus is just fine even though it has it's own anomaly.  And logic would also argue that the only blastocyst we transferred at least implanted and gave us an HCG of 8.8.

But that damned emotional/hormonal/irrational side of myself is screaming that I don't stand a chance at carrying a baby so why even bother to try someone else's embryos?  Wouldn't I just end up losing them too and having to add them the list of carnage???  It is screaming at me to just give up any hope of ever seeing an ultrasound with my baby in it.  It yells to forget about feeling the baby move or kick for the first time.  It tells me that I should not even bother about daydreaming about Derek kissing my swollen belly and looking at me in awe as he gets to feel it move for the first time.  It whispers that having a nurse hand you your baby all covered in goo after labor is over-rated.  It taunts that breastfeeding will never be in my future.

Maybe I should just remove anything about angels from my tag line on the BBC.  It makes the decision that much easier.  Besides - I think I would have some people un-friend me with a statistic like 27 angel babies in my tag line.  Yup.  That sounds like a plan.

Shit - I guess I should sign off while I can.  I think I see a man with a straight jacket coming for me.  And even if he wasn't on his way, some of you that know my home address might be sending him FOR me after reading THIS post. 

Oh, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde can eat their heart out.  Leave it to a woman with infertility to really go ape-shit nuts!  I think I have them beat.