A third of a way through the hiatus: some peace and gratitude.

I record the hard times here, but I rarely bother to record the good times.

Today I'm feeling very peaceful and very grateful. I am a human being and humans look for patterns, no matter how spurious. For a while I, mired in self-pity, imagined my theme as I don't get to have what most people have, what I always thought I'd have.

I always thought I'd have a big wedding, with an enormous white dress and dancing till dawn. But when real life hit, we didn't have the money for a huge wedding, and getting married quickly seemed more important than getting married in the way I'd fondly thought we would. So this is what we had: a tiny, beautiful wedding, with our very dearest close to us.

So I'm trying this on as my new theme: Small things, done with great love (HT Mother Theresa).

Small things, done with great love, are not a bad way to make a life.


My beatific mood is helped by the fact that we've gotten some very good news. Small Boy was offered a place at a private school that we love but could never afford, with enough financial aid that we will be able to pay for it and eat food.

So yeah, feelin' lucky. Feeling peaceable with my uterus. I'll see where I am in a few months, but right now, the where-is-my-infant pain seems to be fading, not increasing.

thanksgiving

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing
(...)

Our son was born four months ago, born squawking lustily despite a small amount of drama. I could say that I've been speechless with gratitude, or exhaustion, or joy, and they'd all be right but also wrong. I've simply been speechless and I'm not sure why. But here I am.

I once said that infertility was like being on the outside of a locked door, a door that opens for other people but not for you. And that nothing that anyone says to you can ever change the fact that you are on the wrong side of that door, and have no idea if you'll ever be able to pass through. I once said that I'd keep patiently trying to pick the lock until I got through, someday, someday, somehow, but more than once I suspected that I'd never have anything to show for it but bloodied fingers.

Here, on the other side, I press my hand to the door and say thank you. I know I got here through luck, not skill, and I will try to pay for it by being thankful.

Our boy is bright and beautiful. There have been some struggles (a.k.a. My Long Lactational Nightmare) but he is growing strong, and this marvelous boy has taken two callow flibbertigibberts and somehow made mothers out of us.

Birth story and more later; at my current breakneck rate of posting, expect something before the next Presidential election.

Deepest thanks to all who have followed along and given me your presence and encouragement throughout this journey. It's meant a tremendous amount to me.

Now back to bed, where my wife and my own wee lad await.

13w3d rambles

I'm sorry for leaving this blog for so long, long enough that I've gotten a few kind email inquiries as to whether or not Everything is Okay.

Everything is Okay. I don't know to what I owe my powerful blog constipation, except perhaps that I am just sitting here quietly, gratefully, afraid to attract the envy of the evil spirits. We Jews are an extremely superstitious lot.

First trimester screening
Last Monday we had our first trimester screening. We got to see the wee babe on an ultrasound; for the first time it looked like a human being, not a blob in a snowstorm. That was a powerful moment, its power dimmed only slightly by the fact that omg I have never had to pee so badly in my LIFE. (note to the uninitiated: before ultrasounds, especially early ultrasounds, a full bladder helps to lift the uterus into better viewing position.) It was especially funny when the fetus would not assume the correct position and the ultrasonographer was thus forced to grab my ample belly and jiggle it forcefully. She was very sweet and apologized profusely, but whoah.

The ultrasound measurements are combined with bloodwork measurements to come up with a set of odds for Down syndrome and other chromosomal disorders. Our DS odds were, before the screening, 1:258; with the screening information, 1:5141. Other chromosomal disorder, baseline risk 1:452; after screening, 1:9021. These odds mean that we'd be crazy to do an amnio (miscarriage risk roughly 1:250), so we won't.

I am very grateful that there was such a noninvasive test that gave us the information to make this decision. Having the screening was a no-brainer for us, and there was no doubt that, if the odds had come back in a suggestive range, we'd have had an amnio. There are some disorders for which we'd choose to terminate and some for which we wouldn't, but in any case, I am a person who has to have all the information that is gettable. Sometimes I wish I were a take-it-as-it-comes person, but I never will be anything but an exhaustively-researching person. Sometimes this has served me well and sometimes it hasn't.

Work
I told my boss and my officemates. Only one person blurted out "How?" Everyone's been very sweet and supportive. Now that everyone knows I can stop wearing the baggy tops I've had on for the past ten weeks or so. I've been going around in plus-sized tops, which merely looked oversized and unflattering. Now I'm in properly-sized maternity clothes.

Wardrobe
Yes, I know that 13 weeks is ridiculously early for maternity clothes, but the sides of my pre-pregnant pants are not even in shouting distance of each other. Yes, I am enormous for 13 weeks, even now that my swollen ovaries have receded. No, I don't know why, except that I'm extraordinarily short-waisted and I guess it has nowhere to go but out.

On the subject of maternity clothes: must. stop. shopping. I can't stop buying them. Something in my leathery and scarred infertile soul softens and heals a little with every piece I buy. Luckily my shopping tastes run to thrift store and clearance racks, so I'm not spending too much. But I really have to stop at some point.

Most recent Value Village find: a pair of "H&M Mama" black combat trousers. Adorable and so comfy! I have no idea where it came from, as there are (sadly) no H&Ms that carry the Mama line anywhere near me. But for $3.98 they were all mine.

Doppling
In other news: I bought a fancy-ass doppler real cheap over Craigslist, and have been restricting myself to doppling every other day. Doppling is a mixed blessing because

1. I am blessed with a generous allowance of abdominal padding. I don't know if that's why, but I find the wee one extremely hard to locate. At 13 weeks we should be finding it no problem, but in fact there's always a sweaty and tense 10-20 minutes, and a good 40% of the time we can't find it at all.
2. Not finding the heartbeat stresses me out.
3. Finding it, on the other hand, is a glorious high.
4. Every time I do it my darling feels it necessary to yell "don't dopple me, bro!" and then fall over in gales of laughter.
   

On the whole the calculus is clear, because not finding it doesn't stress me out nearly as much as constantly worrying about missed miscarriage would. Every time I've not been able to find the heartbeat I've found it the next day or later that same day.

The body
Physically I am still reeling with gratitude about what an easy first trimester I've had. No puking. Minimal queasiness. Fatigue, but not crushing fatigue. Moodiness, but not -- oh, okay, sometimes crushing moodiness, but it's been pretty transitory. My blood pressure started in early on the second-trimester dip, so my monitor is showing lovely numbers that it hasn't shown in a long time.

What else? The OHSS is pretty much gone and has been for a few weeks. The tummy is no smaller, but it's differently shaped. Before it was a sort of diffuse swelling. Now it's higher and pointier. When I tense my abdominal muscles it gets very pointy and odd-looking indeed. Of course I do this like ten times a day just because it's so cool.

The mind
I know a lot of people really hate the expression so beloved of formerly-infertile-pregnant- bloggers, NBHHY -- Nothing Bad Has Happened Yet. It doesn't annoy me, though. I hear it with a wry smile, and the knowledge of how sometimes merely acknowledging a lack of badness seems like an invitation to destruction.

I am relaxing. I am learning to hope. And I am so grateful for all the people who have held onto my hope for me, when I was too scared to hold it myself.

7 follicles, 7 days of stim

(note to Mel: no, haven't increased stims -- he felt that raising my dose at this point wouldn't produce more eggs, and he didn't want to speed development on the ones I have, which are already going kind of fast. 9-10 days is optimal, but at last check it looked like mine were going be be ready at 8 or 9 days. I'm hoping for 9.)


I've talked myself into a slightly better place. That better place is not in the general IVF boards, where crops of 15-20 eggs seem normal. No, that place is the Poor Responders board. There 7 follicles is doing well. Plenty of starving children starving infertiles people there would be delighted to have seven follicles. Seven's a lucky number, right? The Magnificent Seven is my darling's favorite movie, like, ever.

Chris and Vin want each other so bad. I'm just sayin'.

Okay, Magnificent Seven it is. I seem to recall that (spoiler alert, but it's a spoiler for a movie released almost 50 years ago, so boo ya) anyway, I seem to recall that three made it out alive. And three good strong healthy embryos would be just ace.

It's also struck me that I might not -- likely won't? get a 5-day blastocyst transfer. Have not really processed the implications of this. There's no good down that road. Never mind. I'm rolling with it. This is me, rolling.

As Vin once said

Reminds me of that fella back home who fell off a ten-story building. As he was falling, people on each floor kept hearing him say, "So far, so good." Heh, so far, so good.

Well. So far, so good.



I'm sorry to be so gloomy. I don't seem to be able to get out of that headspace right now. Recently a whole bunch of my friends-from-the-internets have gotten pregnant. People I really want to be pregnant. And to every one I've had the same reaction to the joyful peesticks: wincing and thinking to myself you might not want to be buying onesies just yet. I felt grimly sure that their parties would shortly come to an abrupt painful end.

But you know what? Every single one of those people is still pregnant and all look fain to have blessedly healthy babies. And I know that every single one of those people considered the chance of miscarriage and chose to celebrate the moment any way. Because that is what living is all about, innit.

It's the so far, so good. Because I'm going where gravity is taking me, so I might as well enjoy the ride. And you know, sometimes (maybe 30-40% of the time) there's a truck carrying mattresses driving by below, or a dumpster full of styrofoam peanuts, and the people who wailed on the way down are exactly as dead or saved as the people who didn't, except the people who didn't had a much better time.

So yeah.

So far, so good.

6dp5dt: HOLY CRAP

HOLY CRAP.
I don't seem able to say much else.

I've been randomly yelling "HOLY CRAP" ever since around 8pm last night.

See, I was feeling low. L-O-W. That morning's pee-stick had been stark white, and I was so very sick of staring at thin urine-soaked pieces of cardboard, willing them to say other than what they clearly said.

Just for fun (...) I decided to torture myself by doing one more before going to sleep. And HOLY CRAP. Within 6 minutes, a line, a respectable line, a line that I did not need a full-spectrum light to see.

Quavering, I yelled for my sweetheart. She dashed in, convinced that I was bleeding. I shoved the stick at her, and made her tell me about 10 times that I wasn't hallucinating.

Then I peed on three more (I buy them in bulk lots of 50, okay? shush.) As you can see, results were similar.

It just seemed so unreal. Eventually, after some hysterical typing with BFF, I went to sleep. I often wake up in the middle of the night, and when I wake up, I start thinking and thinking, usually dark thoughts, and I can't get back to sleep. Usually when this happens I pop on my headphones and listen to something soporific from librivox.org (I'm currently working on The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew). It lulls me right to sleep; I haven't had any bad insomnia since discovering this strategy.

Anyway, last night I woke up in the middle of the night, and I didn't put my headphones on. I just lay there, full of thoughts, light thoughts, joyful thoughts, hopeful thoughts.

This morning's first pee (supposedly the most concentrated) came out a good deal fainter than last night. I waited an hour and then tried again and it was a bit darker than last night. Dunno what that's about.

I know I'd be a fool to really celebrate this early. Chemical pregnancies are extremely common, especially with IVF. So, so early. Much too early.

But I've got something to celebrate. I've never seen a second line before, excluding the trigger shot. There's a chance here. There's a real chance. If it doesn't work out I'm going to cuss and try to move on gracefully. But right now, just for this minute, this second, I am pregnant.

And I am grateful beyond belief.

Thinking more about effort and luck...

This thoughtful comment from the lovely & talented Lil Jimmi sparked off some additional ranting on the subject of luck and achievements:

It's true that luck plays a huge part in how all this having a baby stuff turns out, but when it comes to trying to have a "natural" birth in a US hospital it's also a lot of work.

You've get a big fight ahead of you if you want to have a low-intervention birth. Here in Philly there is just one center city hospital that does L&D because it is not profitable. They don't want you to take up a room laboring naturally. They want you in and out. You have to go in with a plan and a team to fight for you.

So yeah I feel like we were the luckiest dykes on the planet being able to get the birth experience we wanted in a hospital, but it wasn't just luck it was work too.

BF too...there's probably 10% of people who have a blissfully easy time BF, but for the other people who are lucky enough to pull it off it's a Hella lot of work.

(please note that below is inspired by but not addressed to Li'l Jimmi, who I absolutely do not believe should be slapped in any way, ever)

Excellent point! I'm in no way saying that it was easy for those who conceived without medical intervention/had their desired unmedicated birth/breast fed/etc. My darling wandered by and looked over my shoulder and, as she is wont to do, dropped a pearl of wisdom:

Lucky doesn't mean you get it for nothing. Lucky means it is within your power to get it.

See, for every person who had to work really really hard for their unmedicated birth etc, there's at least one other person who worked just as hard and still didn't get it. And there might be someone else who worked harder, and still didn't get it.

So should you be proud of your hard work? Yes, of course, just as people should be proud of their hard work no matter the outcome (although they rarely are, unless the outcome is the desired one). But the fact that the ultimate outcome went your way, well, there's a good whack of luck in there, and I think it behooves all of us who have been lucky to be grateful for our luck. My particular rant was about people who are smug about situations that required a large helping of luck, and then think that they got what they got because they're clever, never crediting their luck. En passant they often throw out a few judgey statements that make some less-lucky people feel shitty about their medical interventions/failure to breast feed/etc.

In a broader way, the physical "luck" involved in the reproductive arena is somewhat like the "luck" of social advantage and the whole myth of meritocracy. It's another arena in which people constantly attribute to virtue something that required a whack of luck.

Example: I have a couple of degrees. I had to work hard for them, yeah. But there are plenty of people out there who've worked just as hard and because they didn't have some of my luck, they don't have those degrees. Can I be proud of the work I put into my degrees? Sure! But should I be smug about them, and assert that anyone can have these degrees if they just work as hard as I did? Should I turn up my nose at the degree-less, and make remarks about how I'm just not sure it's right for all those people to be running around out there without degrees? I can, but I should be slapped. My achievements are a blend of my work and my luck, my effort + unearned advantages, and all I can do is acknowledge both sides of the equation, and be grateful for the part I got for free.

In other news, cannot stop thinking about the 15 embryos in a dish, a dozen blocks from where I am sitting right now.

Maybe the reason I'm so engaged with this topic right now is because I am willing to trade not being praised if I get pregnant for not being blamed if I don't.

Two weeks from now it'll be over, one way or another. Two weeks from now I will be very grateful or very cranky.

Holy crap.