LIFE GOES ON, EH?

The IUI failed, and I've been trying to sort out how I feel about that, which is hard, because my feelings seem to change on a moment-by-moment basis.

When I first took the pregnancy test and that single negative line traveled across the result window without any delay or equivocation, I was not surprised in the slightest. Prior to taking it, I had tried to envision a plus sign, and I couldn't even do it; it was unfathomable. So my first reaction was something like, Yep. That's what I thought.

I went and laid back down in bed, where fury at my own dysfunctional body washed over me. I had done all I could think of for it -- prenatal vitamins, yoga, massage, a nutritious diet, hormone-boosting drugs, perfectly washed sperm placed directly in my uterus without passing go. Still, no dice. WTF. How deceptive this body is from the outside, looking so healthy and normal. It betrays me every month, letting down not only me, but also Philip, my parents, our families, and everyone else who so lovingly hopes and prays for us faithfully.

Oddly, Philip and I had plans to go water-skiing later that day. Water-skiing isn't something we do regularly; in fact, we had never water-skied together in the entire 10-year history of our relationship. But it was the perfect activity for the day you find out you're not pregnant after your first IUI. We basked in the sun on a speedboat. I savored every drop of two bottles of Mike's Hard Lemonade. I water-skied with abandon and wiped out epically. I was happy to be alive and thankful to have an answer.

The next day wasn't so great. My period arrived in full force, and I physically felt terrible. Philip and I had a hard discussion about our upcoming trip to Bolivia in July. We feel called to go; we're very excited to meet our sponsored child of the last 10 years; we have an amazing itinerary planned. But do we keep trying to get pregnant before we leave? If we actually succeed, there are questions about the safety of recommended vaccines, risks with high altitude, and uncertainties about the remoteness of some of the areas we plan to visit. But it seems crazy to not try. The odds of me getting pregnant are low, and we can't plan our lives around what-ifs. Plus, three months off from treatment seems like an eternity.

It was a stressful conversation -- and one in which Philip made a compelling argument for pressing on with treatment. He reminded me of all the ways infertility interferes with our life: the strain it puts on our relationship, the isolation is causes between us and our friends with kids, the general frustrating and irritating feeling of life being on hold until we get this all-consuming issue resolved.

On Sunday evening we dragged our asses to church. I mean dragged. We had been arguing; I had cramps like a mother #<(&er. But somehow we got there, and as usual, we were thankful we went. Afterward we ended up having dinner at Tijuana Flats with a young married couple from the church. We had only spoken with them here and there at the end of the service, and I'd guess they're about five or six years younger than us. So we were SHOCKED to learn that not only had they also been trying to conceive for two years, but they have the same fertility doctor!

It was an amazingly comforting conversation. I wouldn't wish infertility on my worst enemy, but it can be such a relief to connect with another infertile couple. It's like, you're not alone; you're not crazy; it's all truly as much bullshit as you think it is. It felt like God throwing me a bone.

And then, just like that, it was cycle day three, and I was back at the fertility clinic with my old friend the transvaginal wand. I was grumpy to be there, but I was nice to the sonographer; as she poked at my cervix, we chitchatted about how roaches come into the house when it rains.

So into another treatment cycle we go, risks and sacrifices and upcoming travel and all. My mom texted me, "Life goes oh, eh?" and it's true. I keep living, keep trying, keep swimming through the confusing storm of emotions, keep searching for the silver lining in each day. Picking up my Letrozole at CVS tonight, the guy next to me in line was looking for something to help his brother's cough. "He has lung cancer," he told the pharmacist matter-of-factly. So I gotta keep perspective. Also, who can despair when there are new episodes of amazing shows like New Girl and The Mindy Project airing on TV?

Yours truly, tearing it up on Lake Maitland

NATIONAL INFERTILITY AWARENESS WEEK

It's National Infertility Awareness Week, which is quite appropriate, because I don't think I've ever been more aware of my infertility than now, during the second agonizing week of my two-week wait after our first IUI. We don't know yet if it worked, but that doesn't stop me from obsessively trying to figure out if it did or not. I reason out all the known factors over and over and over again in my head. It's all I think about, no matter where I am or what I'm doing. But I keep coming to the same conclusion: There's about as good a chance that it worked as that it didn't. We'll just have to keep waiting.

It seems that the waiting is driving everyone around me nuts. My parents, my sister-in-law -- even my boss -- are going nuts wondering. But believe me, folks, NO ONE is going more nuts than me.

It doesn't help that every night, I have to insert a tablet of progesterone into my vagina. What the progesterone does to my system is essentially like PMS on crack-cocaine. I'm exhausted. I'm constipated. I have headaches and boob aches and cramps.*

Worst of all, my emotions are going bonkers. It's almost like I'm standing outside myself, watching this crazy person cry and get mad and then suddenly laugh and then bounce between half-finished tasks with total ADD, and I'm going, "What is WRONG with that girl?! Pull it together, sister! You're a mess!"

But there's nothing I can do. The smallest annoyance sets me off and makes me aggravated beyond imagination. Then the next minute, I'm sobbing over something very serious, like it started raining. I'm exploding with nervous energy, but there's nowhere to direct it. The inside of me looks like a twisted, googly-eyed snow monster that terrifies everyone but really just needs its sore tooth pulled.

Thankfully, Philip has been very patient. And also, I don't know how evident my inner turmoil is on the outside. By most appearances, I think I still look pretty normal. I mean, I'm showering and applying makeup and what not.

So what happens if I'm not pregnant? I'll cry and be very, very sad for about a day or two, and then we will return to our regularly scheduled programming. I don't know why I'm dreading that so much. I try to cheer myself with the condolence prizes of wine, soda and boot camp class, but the reality is, I really want to have a baby. It's beyond all rational thought that I want to fully surrender my freedom in exchange for sleepless nights, poopy diapers and inconsolable crying, which will eventually give way to disobedience, begging for candy and spilling everywhere, which will eventually give way to sulking and getting into car wrecks and choosing terrible people to date.

And that's BEST-case scenario! Worst-case includes painful possibilities like serious health problems, behavioral issues and loss.

But here we are, striving and striving after it, risks and all. And the thought that it may never come to us is a boulder on my chest.

Regardless of the outcome, I may be a little radio-silent on this blog for a bit. I'll either be processing a miracle or processing a crushing disappointment, and my ability to compose anything articulate will be seriously hindered. Thanks as always for your prayers and interest in this saga, and thanks for your patience as you await our news, one way or the other.

*If you are thinking, "But wait! Those are early pregnancy symptoms!" I would like to share with you my belief that there is no such thing. "Early pregnancy symptoms" and PMS symptoms are identical. They are caused by progesterone, which is in your system after you ovulate, regardless of if there's a fertilized egg or not. The only real early pregnancy symptom is a missed period.

VULNERABLE INFERTILES AND SNAKE-OIL SALESMEN

When you are undergoing fertility treatment via assisted reproductive technologies, you may think to yourself, “I should go get acupuncture. I have heard many times that acupuncture can be quite complementary to Western reproductive treatments, and people continue to recommend it to me.”

What you might do is go ahead and make an appointment at an acupuncture clinic that has been recommended to you by friends — including one friend who had success with IVF.

Then you might drive all the way there at 8 a.m. to fill out five lengthy forms and have a consultation with an awkward, mustachioed man in what amounts to a closet. He may check your pulse and glance at your tongue, quickly concluding that your pulse is weak, and your tongue looks infirm — signs of run-down internal organs. Then he may demonstrate complete ignorance about Western fertility treatment, contradict himself, confuse you regarding the safety of taking Chinese herbs, and refuse to treat you because you just had an insemination and there is a small chance you’re pregnant. Then he might bid you adieu, but only after charging you $25.

The next day, you might go to yoga and feel like a failure. Every pose may feel strained, and you may feel like you can’t keep up. You may dwell on your weak pulse, ill-looking tongue, and malfunctioning kidneys and spleen. You may think about how you strive and strive to do everything in your power to be well — the disciplined exercise, the careful stress management, the scrupulous diet, the restraint when it comes to sugar, caffeine and alcohol — and how none of it matters; you’re still an unhealthy, infertile mess. You might lay in shavasana, silently ball your eyes out and assume that your yoga instructor thinks you are an emotional train wreck.

But then it might dawn on you that said mustachioed acupuncturist might just be a giant asshole, and that it might behoove you to seek out an acupuncturist who actually has a clue about your lifestyle, your condition and the treatments that typically accompany it.

You might have someone suggest to you that you call the fertility clinic to see if it recommends any specific acupuncturists.

This is good advice.

When you call your fertility nurse, she will tell you to stay away from Chinese herbs while undergoing hormone-injection treatment. She will say it’s safe to have acupuncture after an IUI. And she will give you a recommendation of an acupuncturist who has a whole section of her website devoted to the use of acupuncture in conjunction with Western fertility treatment.

So, if you think to yourself, “I should go get acupuncture,” the first thing you should do is call your fertility nurse. Then you will avoid all mustachioed swindlers who make you feel like shit. This has been a public-service announcement.

PURSUING POSITIVE

inseminate |inˈseməˌnāt|
verb [ trans. ] (often be inseminated)
introduce semen into (a woman or a female animal) by natural or artificial means.

My vagina has been seeing a lot of action lately. Two pelvic ultrasounds. Two encounters with a speculum in less than a week. Two acts of “timed relations.” A pap smear. A catheter and a syringe up the cervix. And now progesterone tablets inserted vaginally every night. In the past two weeks, six different people have been all up in my hooha’s business, not including me. It’s amazing to think of my teenage self, who occasionally would sneak a shy peak at my nether regions in my bedroom mirror. Now it’s like a popular attraction at a freak show. Step right up to see the amazing bearded lady! What, too far?

The good news is that my first IUI went off like gangbusters, so now I just have to wait for two agonizing weeks. The IUI was scheduled for this past Friday, and I had taken the whole day off. I was nervous, so I did everything I could think of to relax in the morning. I booked a lovely professional massage. I did 10 minutes of yoga. I even had a devotional time and read the Bible.

When we got to the treatment room at the fertility clinic, the nurse told Philip his sample was “A+,” news about which we were both very pleased. Philip prattled on about the Tigers as the catheter and syringe went in, which was a welcome distraction from the weird and uncomfortable dilating and cramping. Afterward I lay on my back for 15 minutes visualizing a swarm of swimmers surrounding and assailing my unsuspecting egg. (Eggs? Who knows how many mature follicles I ended up with this time.)

I spent the rest of the day on the couch in my sweatpants watching New Girl and Mindy Project. It was basically paradise. I also received many encouraging texts from friends, which made me feel very loved. And also kind of vulnerable. I mean, my boss had even hugged me and wished me luck the day before. No secrets here. (I also argued with my parents last week about testing early for pregnancy, something I am somehow pretty disciplined about not doing. They are DYING to know if this worked or not.)

Fast forward two nights, and I am being rudely awakened at 2:30 a.m. by my cat AJ horking on the bed. For fuck’s sake, cat. I fling him off, but not before he’s able to puke a bit on the duvet. Then he makes a beeline for our high-pile Pottery Barn rug. Seventeen hundred square feet of hard wood and tile, and the cats ALWAYS want to cough up their hairballs on something soft and hard to clean.

So now we’re wide awake, and I have to pee. But am I allowed to pee? Philip strips the duvet and wipes up the spew on the floor while I Google “progesterone tablet vaginal urinate.” The message-board community tells me not to pee, or the progesterone will all just come right out. Philip also does a little online research and tells me the next morning, “I was on a blog last night called Stirrup Queens. That sounds like porn.”

“She has twins through IUI,” I respond. What a weird, weird thing this infertility world is.

I lay awake for about an hour trying to think of anything besides my full bladder. Eventually I fall back asleep. I make it another three hours before I pee out all my progesterone support at 5:30 a.m.

Sunday morning I am standing at the sink washing strawberries. Philip tells me about a cutesy pregnancy announcement he is viewing on Facebook: a Disney-loving couple standing in front of Cinderella’s castle. They’re both wearing mouse ears and holding a mini pair of mouse ears over the wife’s stomach. My face must fall a little, because Philip says, “How do you feel?”

“I feel progesterone leaking into my underwear,” I say.

It’s hard to feel positive. Everyone says I should think positively, but in my heart, I don’t believe this is going to work. Every time I start to imagine a positive pregnancy test — the joy of my friends and family, the thrill of buying baby stuff and designing a nursery — some scolding voice in my head goes, “Stop it, you fool. Why would this work? It doesn’t work for most people. You don’t deserve to get pregnant ‘so easily.’ Don’t get your hopes up. In two weeks we’ll be sobbing into our pillow. Prepare for THAT, you sap.”

Geez, that voice in my head is mean! Very Gollum-ish, in fact.

I continue to strive for that positivity (but Master looks after us!). Not necessarily that this will work, but that no matter what, everything will be OK, I will carry on, we’ll be a step closer, and God is in control.

He sent me such a reminder the night before the IUI. Philip and I had gone on a date and were driving home at 10:15 at night. About a mile from our house, we passed a young woman walking on the side of the road with her three small children. Philip immediately noticed her and voiced concern to me.

“Turn around, and we’ll ask her if she needs a ride,” I responded. So we did. And she did. As soon as she and her kids were safely crammed into the back seat of my 1997 Saturn, I heard her murmur, “Thank you, Jesus.”

They had spent the day at the hospital near our house. Her youngest son had broken his arm. By the time they were discharged, the bus from the hospital was no longer running, so she was wandering along Orange Avenue hoping to stumble across another bus stop. They had been at the hospital for seven hours and hadn’t had dinner.

We took them to McDonald’s and drove them the six miles to their apartment, located in a low-income part of town. As soon as we dropped them off and pulled away, I choked, “How would they have ever gotten home?!” Philip and I both cried, thinking of how God had placed us on that street at that exact moment.

It was a reminder of how blessed we are — our $100 steak dinner juxtaposed with a McDouble; our warm, beautiful home compared to a tiny, rundown apartment in a dangerous neighborhood. And it was an assurance that even when it seems like God is MIA, He’s still present and involved and working for good.