Color Me Curious
oozey mess
@theartofmadeline
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RMH
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"
ojovivo
Product Placement
let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open
if i look back, i am lost
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Fai_Ryy
occasionally subtle
Claire Keane
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EXPECTATIONS
d e v o n
Monterey Bay Aquarium
The Stonewall Inn
PUT YOUR BEARD IN MY MOUTH
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@myrtleinfertile-blog
You can’t make this sh*t up
In a single weekend...
I got diagnosed with the flu
I got diagnosed with tonsillitis and needed to get on antibiotics that increase risk of miscarriage
My husband found out he’d have to have rectal surgery
My dog took a turn for the worse
Just stop...
...asking “So how have you been?” each time you see me.
I avoid catching up because you always start a conversation with this triggering, thoughtless question.
Because I am absolutely terrible and I am kinda ok. I am both, usually simultaneously. If I one-dimensionalize it, and respond with “terrible”, I’ve laid down the heavy before I have even had a chance to offer you a beer. If I simply say “ok”, I am being dishonest and feel disingenuous, right off the bat.
Either way, that question sets the tone for a crap time together. I feel instantaneously disconnected.
Besides, you should somehow know all of that without having to ask. You should be able to read minds, or be so deeply empathetic that you already feel the answer without having to ask. You’re already behind sending me texts of encouragement, without prompting. All your “Thinking of you” greeting cards must have got lost in the mail.
So just stop.
A lil’ ray of sunshine...
It’s been an incredibly tough go, mentally transitioning following the decision to do IVF. Nothing more terrifying or marriage-rocking. I am grateful that my latest blood test shows "my FSH and Estadiol look good indicating adequate ovarian reserve”. So despite coming of geriatric age, infertility wise, I still have the goods...
Taking Inventory
55 months spending half the month desperately hoping for a positive pregnancy test, just to be crushed.
Nearly 1,700 days consumed with thoughts related to getting pregnant and starting a family.
26 trips to my Reproductive Endocrinologist, who is an hour away, one way. The majority of the office visits were less than five minutes as they were just “procedural”. Most required a vaginal ultrasound. Most also required I take the day off work due to the clinic’s limited scheduling. I had to plan my vacations, celebrations and work life around my cycle and the limited appointment days/times available. A decent percentage of the time I drove home crying, due to hormonal upheaval and a feeling of powerlessness after receiving compassionless care.
4 IUIs. Each IUI required 3-4 trips to the infertility clinic, waiting at the pharmacy for my prescription, and 1 trip to the lab for blood work.
6 rounds of Chlomid, 5 with trigger shot, each making me a total and complete hormonal bitch for 7-10 days per month. First round resulted in perhaps the second biggest fight my husband and I have ever had in our 15 years together about (you guessed it!) trying to start a family.
9 positive at-home pregnancy tests and one glorious week of pregnancy.
1 ambulance ride and 4 follow up appointments to see OBs to get a final diagnosis of ectopic pregnancy.
Countless blood draws in the lab to monitor serum HCG for weeks following treatment with methotrexate, a chemotherapy medication.
1 diagnosis of depression with anxiety resulting from the trauma of infertility.
Saturating 1 overnight pad per hour with blood, resulting in a day spent in the ER four months after my initial ER visit, leaving exhausted and without a diagnosis.
0 children added to our family. But if I can change that number to 1, you could multiply each bullet point ten times over and I’d be completely fine with that.
Strength
Strength isn’t holding it all together. Strength is breaking down as a result of leaning right into the pain of your trauma. It knocks you down. And don’t buy the lie that you need to jump right up. Stay down and cry all that misery right out of you. It is quite all right to spit in the face of anyone who tells you otherwise.
Strength is cloaking yourself in “it might not be ok” instead of spoon-feeding yourself a dose of faith. Strength is swimming, sinking, diving in a squid-ink sea of your darkest fears. Strength is the truth, regardless of how ugly.
Permanence
The darkest part of infertility is the threat of permanence. If we do not conceive within the next few years, my time is up. All my cards played. Nothing to do but go home and cry and face a life I didn’t sign up for.
Infertility, losing a limb, having a spouse or child die. Those things are not resolvable. You can learn to cope, come up with some “new normal”, but life will permanently and horrifically changed.
Infertility is not like having your house burn down, divorce, or losing your job. Those traumas are temporary, with the prospect that what you get on the other end of it could be even better than what you started with.
Increments of time
I think most people chunk up their lives into daily or weekly increments. Infertility has caused me to see my life through the timeframe of months. And one month is a fucking long time. The month starts with a sob-inducing swipe of bloody toilet paper. That initiates 1) making a doctors appointment and then 2) calling work to get the day off for the doctors appointment. Next is five days of PMS-generating medication. Then waiting a few days, a second doctors appointment, another day off work and a scheduled time to get his sperm up in my business. Then a week for blood tests. Then another very very long week desperately hoping that I don’t see a single spot of blood. But I always do, and the cycle begins again. Each of those 28-31 days grinds by torturously slow. All the time not invested in procreating feels like a distraction to keep my mind from collapsing in on itself from the weight of all the pressure to become a mother. With each failed month, our odds continue to diminish and the threat of never experiencing parenthood goes up.
Darkest fear
Infertility is living day after day, month after month, year after year, with my darkest fear slung over my shoulder. With each unsuccessful month that fear grows in intensity. It’s a wonder I get anything done cloaked in something so heavy and piercingly black. Some days I collapse under its weight. Other days I can temporarily pretend its not there. But wearing that fear for years has shaped me into an uglier, less capable version of myself.
Insecurity
A tiny little tap on my shoulder, then a quiet, nearly inaudible whisper in my ear:
“This isn’t happening to you because you aren’t worthy of it happening to you. You are less-than. In fact, you are almost pathetic.”
One reason I feel alone...
...is because if my husband found this blog, or my journal he would almost certainly claim that I am self-involved and obsessive and like me less for having read them.
Before I started journaling, I had a therapist encourage me to start a journal to help me cope with anxiety and depression. I told her I couldn’t because “What if someone found it and read it?”. She said “Then people would see how hurt you are and want to help you”.
Not my circumstances, lady.
Leaving on a jet plane
I heard a beautiful story about parenthood and expectations the other day that went something like this:
Getting pregnant is kind of like planning an exciting trip to Italy. You do a bunch of research, make plans, save and loved ones share in your excitement. You get on the plane with your Italy guidebooks in hand, tense anticipation building as you fly over the vast ocean beneath you. And then after a long flight, your plane touches down and you hear “Welcome to Holland!” over the loud speaker. Shock, disappointment and grief floods over you when you realize that despite your planning, you will not be touring Italy. But if you invest all of your energy feeling sorrow about the trip you aren’t on, you wont appreciate the beautiful country that you have in front of you to explore.
Initially, I felt a pang of comfort hearing that story. I thought of all the things I appreciate in my life and of my loved ones. But then, considering the analogy deeper, I found myself settling back into feelings of longing and despair.
Because I not in Holland. I am sitting on a cold, unpowered plane on the tarmac, peeking out the window at the other planes careening past me, engines powerfully humming as they lift into the wide, blue sky. I’ve been sitting alone in the dark on this immobile plane for about 60 months, if you round down.
I’d been dreaming about my own trip for years before I got married. My homebody husband told me he’d rather leave his feet planted. But it took him 5 years to ask me to marry him, so I figured he would come around to the idea of a fantastic trip across the ocean.
No such luck. Once married, he became steadfastly opposed to travel. People encouraging him to pack his bags and adventure out only caused him to get more defensive about staying home.
Eventually it became apparent to him that I would consider my life stunted and unfulfilled if we never left our house. All he would need to do is supply fuel to our aircraft and I would take care of the rest.
We’ve now made many attempts to get up in the air. Bags in hand, we’ve made many trips to the airport, only to sit for weeks waiting for a plane that would never take off. Each month, a crushing disappointment. Months cumulated into years, with endless hours spent packing, scheduling flights, purchasing tickets, going through airport security and waiting, So we hired a travel guide, and a batch of mechanics and aeronautical engineers to help improve our chances of getting off the ground.
This summer, for the very first time, we heard the engines scream to life! Total elation overcome us when the plane began to back out of the gate. But then dark smoke begin to fill the aircraft from a fire that continued to grow in intensity. The cabin attendants encouraged us to stay calm as they investigated the danger from the growing flames. When we all felt confident in a diagnosis of ectopic pregnancy, we evacuated the aircraft. We spent two months next the burning wreckage, knowing it could literally explode at any moment. Once all that was left was smoldering ashes, I returned back home to wait and eventually try again. Its hard to explain, but even though I was choked with smoke and licked by flame, hearing the engines fire up and feeling the sensation of forward movement gave me a new sense of hope.
It was not long lasting, as I was stuck at home for months following the explosion. No jaunts to the airport meant our destination began to feel like an impossible dream.
Last month I finally made the familiar trip to the airport, and felt both sorrow and hope for having to walk through those doors again. We boarded, and felt good about the preparations we had made this time. Unfortunately this morning, the captain came over the loudspeaker to direct us to remove our bags from the overhead storage compartment and exit back into the airport. The tears fill up my eyes as we locate our car in airport parking, and see the airport getting smaller in the review mirror as we drive off.
This spring, we are going to fork over an exorbitant amount of money to have a world-class team takes over operation of the aircraft. We will sit in first class as every mechanical component is inspected and a pit-crew fuels up the tank. But like all things, planes can not stay in service forever. So even if we have the finest staff supporting our goal, it only takes a faulty wire or a missing screw to keep us grounded. And at some point, our plane will begin to rust and crumble apart.
Charter someone else’s jet you say? Or maybe join another inviting family on their mystery vacation? Both diluted suggestions hurt my heart, and my husband is a “no-go” anyways.
It’s not a healthy thing to compare woes. Everyone has underlying pain that torments them, at varying degrees and varying points in their lives. Each is equally valid. If you are in Holland, and grieving Italy, then grieve away. But the longing to cut through the clouds and see something new is completely crushing. And the plane is so cold, so dark, and so isolating. I truly enjoy and appreciate my beautiful hometown and the love that resides within it, but this is so much more than a travel bug. I have a need to fly.
Waited too long...
I’ve had my shit together at all the wrong times in my life. When you’re young, and wandering, and a little scared and lost, people bend over backwards to shower you with support and guidance. Somehow, I steadfastly had it together during that phase of life. Now I’m at the phase where I should be supporting my own little ones, but they don’t exist. And people just don’t know how to offer help to a mid-thirties childless woman who historically “had it all together”.
Appopriate blog?
I've been TTC for 4.5 years. Will be 35 years old this year. Had an ectopic pregnancy with IUI #4. Husband was initially resistant to infertility treatments. We've been diagnosed with male factor infertility. I'm clinically depressed and have been greeting 3am with anxiety attacks for the part couple months. I journaled regularly for months. But it actually seemed to make my isolation and depression worse. So, upon suggestion by a CSW, I tried annoymously blogging. As to get a "response" to my vulnerable thoughts. Initially Tumblr seemed like a good platform for joining a community of want-to-be-parents. But most my posts go unfollowed, unshared or unliked. Is Tumblr not appropriate for my goals? If it is appropriate, what should I be doing different? Or what other forum, blog or community group would I be better suited to join?
What if...
... all I get is my single ectopic pregnancy? Followed intermittently by a monthly dose of intense and overpowering dejection? With a side order of angry husband, and broken students, and conditional debilitating mental illness?
Infertility and FWK
FWK. Friends With Kids. Practically describes, well, ALL of my friends.
I’ve just about cut myself off from my FWKs. Initially I was just too busy working, going to doctors appointments and avoiding alcohol to have a lot of time with my friends. Then I realized they were slipping away, so I gave-it-a-go hanging out with them and their kids over summer, and left these encounters with tear stains down my face. Being the only non-parent amidst parents is isolating. It made me feel sidelined and disconnected. It was crushing looking at them wipe that little nose or soothe their crying babes, knowing I may never have those experiences. And it’s not polite to say “PLEASE can we talk about anything other than who is pregnant again, tough decisions about TK programs, and how child Z has another ear infection”. In fact, it’s a real dick-move to say something like that. Because their little monsters are at the center of their universe, and rightfully occupy most of their waking thoughts. They’re righteous to want to talk at noisome about their life with them. So I sit around, with little to add, distantly thinking about how anything that once connected us seems to be drifting over the horizon. And wondering if I don’t ever conceive, if we just won’t be compatible friends anymore because our lives are just so different.
So I’m fishing for actual responses and suggestions here:
I want to spend time with my FWKs, without their kids. I’ve tried by attending “girls out” dinners, but that fucking irresponsible 15-year-old babysitter of yours seems to always back out last minute, so you bring along those little ragamuffins. Or two hours is too long to go without breastfeeding. Or your husband wants to take a nap while you’re out. Or its just assumed that once you are a Mom, you will be bringing along your ducklings everywhere you go.
So when I get the “We should really hang out!” text, I just respond with that dumb close-mouthed smiley emoticon. Because I can’t sort out a polite way of saying “I’d love to hang out with you. JUST YOU”.
Can infertile folks relate? And if you have kids and have never struggled trying to have kids, is there any conceivable way that I could request to do things without my friend’s kids in tow? Is that even possible?
Whole
What does it mean to be whole? I feel like “whole” is only something you notice when you don’t feel it anymore. Are we ever really “wholly” ourselves? Can we be whole in isolation, or is connection a required factor in the equation that sums up to “whole”?
I’m not feeling whole when I am alone, and I am not feeling whole when I am surrounded by people who love me. I am incomplete in either scenario.
It’s almost cruel reflecting back to when I felt whole this last summer. A positive pregnancy test led me to feel like that empty space inside of me was instantly filled to capacity. Existing with its absence for so long, the juxtaposition of un-whole to suddenly whole was striking and life-giving. And short lived. That force bled right out of me in that Emergency Room, and continued to do so for months.
So now it’s like trying to reposition yourself, but every position is uncomfortable. Eventually you settle for something because you have no choice, but it still feels wrong. With little promise that it will ever feel whole and right again.
Chlomid
Thoughts I only think when I am raging on Chlomid:
“If you wanted it done a specific way, why didn’t you just fucking do it yourself?”
“I’m three seconds away from murdering that middle-age man who is making me wait because he parked at the gas pump to buy that tiny ass couple of coffee”
“Of course I want ranch for my fries, bitch”