THE NIGHT BEFORE

I work till 7 the night before the transfer, which is scheduled to take place on our nine-year wedding anniversary. I don’t plan to stay that late, but that’s what happens. Philip’s been working late basically every night, so I still beat him home. He’s just had a stressful conversation over the phone with his mom. Between that and work confrontations, he is totally out of emotional gas. But I don’t know any of that, and we do the nightly progesterone shot.

After, we talk about our plan for the evening, for the next day. I have two acupuncture appointments scheduled for FET day: one immediately before and one immediately after the transfer. “Two acupuncture treatments, huh?” Philip says. “Doesn’t that seem excessive?”

I bristle, answer probably too defensively. “No. I told you about the studies that have been done, that show acupuncture makes the most difference when it’s done both before and after—”

“Yeah, you told me,” he interrupts. So that’s when it starts, roughly speaking.

We walk out to the car to go to Target to buy me some fun socks for the procedure. This is a genius idea Philip had days ago to mark the significance of the day and give me a small treat, something to smile about.

Philip heads for the passenger seat, which irks me. I, with my sore ass, have to drive apparently.

He tells me he’s made an appointment to have my car serviced the day following the FET, so we have to figure out when to go drop it off. We could take it over after the transfer, or after our anniversary dinner, or early the next morning before work. None of these seem like agreeable options to me.

“Remember I want to plant roses after the transfer?” I say with strained politeness. This is a genius idea I had several days ago, to commemorate both our anniversary and the seed that would hopefully begin to grow in me.

His face hardens. “Yes, I remember. But we’ve already let the car go too long, and I don’t want to drive it all the way to the beach this weekend without it being serviced first.”

From there, the conversation gets more and more heated, and I am becoming manic, convinced he doesn’t care about my meaningful, romantic rose-planting vision — certain the car and work and everything else is more important to him than all the things I have been prioritizing: perfect Zen calmness, emotional intimacy as a couple, and absolute physical health, to make this body of mine a ready and waiting vessel.

In the parking lot of Target, I whip the car around. “I don’t want to buy these socks anymore!” I wail.

“Stop driving like a crazy person!” Philip snaps.

“This was supposed to be a special thing, and now it’s RUINED,” I howl. “We have spent so much money, and effort, and time, on this, and now here we are — FUCKING it all up with stress and fighting!”

A beat. My foot is on the brake, but we’re not in a parking spot. My heart is racing.

“Come on,” Philip says after a moment. “Park. I’ll figure out the timing of getting the car serviced.”

So I do, and we go inside. But I am still completely raging in my mind. I cannot believe he has sabotaged the incredible bonding experience of buying these socks. We stare at the sock selection glumly, and I grab the first cute pair I see: hedgehogs.

We go to pick up some Advil for him, and I make the mistake of looking at his face as we walk to the register. It is the face of a victim: sour mouth, dead eyes, defeated by his lunatic wife. And again a surge of fury courses through my bloodstream. I toss the socks aside, on a display of lotions or candles or something, in a passive-aggressive move that he totally misses.

When we get to the register, the cashier takes the Advil and says, “Is that it?”

I say “yes,” and Philip whips around and says to me, “What?! Where are the socks?”

“I set them down,” I say like a child. “I don’t want them to trigger this horrible memory.”

Completely exasperated, he forces me back to get the socks. “Where are they?” he demands. I point and mumble. He grabs them and barks, “Go sit in the car.”

“Gladly!” I say with Hollywood drama. I go sit in the passenger seat. I am so miserable I can’t even think straight. All my efforts to stay calm, all of my lofty sock-buying dreams, dashed.

We go to Tijiana Flats for some dinner. By now it must be almost 10 at night. We are hangry, and the wait is long. Fucking Taco Tuesday. We sit in tense silence. Once the food comes, we try to eat, but the site of my injection is throbbing, and I am still so upset and disappointed. Tears start to noiselessly stream down my cheeks as I take pitiful bites of my chicken flautas.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Philip says. “Stop crying.”

“I can’t help it,” I say, which is true. I have lost all control over my mind and emotions.

He rises from the table in a huff to get some takeout boxes. We ride home in silence, and somehow, in the comfort of our living room with some food in our stomachs, the fight fizzles out. We’ve both surrendered.

My mom texts me to say I probably won’t be able to sleep very well, but not to beat myself up about it. She’s right. I’m wide awake at 5 a.m., but I just accept it. I lay looking up at the ceiling, as excited as a kid on Christmas morning. It’s our anniversary; it’s FET day, a day we’ve been working toward since I took my first birth-control pill on March 25 in preparation for our egg retrieval. The sun starts to come up, and I’m thankful for the newness of every morning.

UN-SHRIVELING ONE MEDITATION AT A TIME

One thing I really wanted to try as part of Operation Un-Shrivel My Heart was guided meditation and visualization. There are lots of these programs for sale on the Internets, but I wasn't ready to shell out $20 or more before I even knew if I could sit still for that long.

Finally, I found a free download from a San Diego-based fertility acupuncturist named Heidi Brockmyre. So one morning, a few days before the transfer, I sat down to try it for the first time. (First, I did a 15-minute relaxation yoga session using an app called Yoga Studio, which is $4 and worth every fucking penny.)

I swung open the doors of our guest room/would-be nursery, opened the blinds and spread a blanket over the bed for the cats. Then I sat down at the big white desk, lit a candle and pressed play.

I quickly found that I was comfortable with the exercise. It was like yoga for the mind. Her voice and tone sounded like a yoga instructor's, and the meditation even started out with a focus on the breathing. I just had to concentrate and follow the prompts.

Right away I got a message that I was in the right place. "You are safe. It is safe to open your heart to love," she intoned. Remember what I was saying in my last post about not feeling safe? About my heart being clenched shut? Yeah. Tears sprung to my eyes at how specifically the meditation spoke to me within minutes.

She walked me through the colors of the chakras as I visualized these radiating lights healing, opening, relaxing and protecting my womb, heart and mind. I could feel my heart rate slowing and my thoughts stop spinning.

She prompted me to send my future child a message, to consider what my baby needs to come to me. As I pondered this, trying to keep my mind receptive and open to a divine message, the cats started acting up. One of them began pawing at the closed closet door. I snapped my fingers at her. The the other started pawing. "Stop it!" I barked. Then one jumped up on the desk, weaving between my iPad and the lit candle. I tossed him onto the floor. Then the girl cat hopped up.

Angrily I jumped up from my seat and grabbed them both at once, pitching them into the hall and slamming the door. Resuming my meditation, I tried again to tap into the question about what my baby needs. I thought about how angry I was with my fur babies, who were just being curious cats, exploring a room that is normally off-limits and wondering what Mom was up to with this mannequin-level stillness and the candle and everything. And I felt like a shithead.

What my child needs, I thought, is the opposite of anger. So what is that? I had to look up antonyms at thesaurus.com: Contentment. Joy. Peace. Definitely not qualities I've been modeling over the last months and years ...

I thought about that Bible verse: The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Even thinking about the verse made me feel calmer, like I was a step closer to truth and goodness.

I looked up forbearance on dictionary.com: Patient enduring. I looked up endure: to suffer without yielding. Yield: to surrender, admit defeat, back down, give in, throw in the towel.

Could this stuff BE speaking to my situation any more directly?! I walked away from the experience feeling enlightened, centered, renewed. I felt grateful for my upbringing -- all the many verses and songs I was forced to learn as part of Sunday school and Bible class and youth group. I felt appreciative of spiritual mentors like Anne Lamott who showed that Eastern religious practices and Christianity aren't mutually exclusive (and can be, in fact, very complementary). And I felt thankful for technology -- for dictionary.com and the Bible app and Heidi Brockmyre's free download*.

I have done the same 15-minute guided meditation almost every day for more than a week, and every single time I do it, I hear a different message, a new word. Vessel: Remove the waste product from the silver, and a silversmith can produce a vessel. Healing: God heals the broken-hearted and bandages their wounds. Trust: Trust in God; wait in silence for him. Help: God is my refuge, strength, fortress and ever-present help. Love: God is love; anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister. Forgiveness: Forgive us for the ways we have wronged you, just as we also forgive those who have wronged us. And more: I am fearfully and wonderfully made. You will protect me from trouble. Be still and know that I am God. And just today: The desert becomes a fertile field.

There is a lot of really weird, confusing, upsetting stuff in the Bible, but I've been overwhelmed with the words of hope and encouragement that I've stumbled across as I've made space for silence, let words and thoughts materialize and marinate, and done simple keyword searches. I have no idea if I'm doing my "devotions" right or reading things in context, but I just don't really think God cares. I'm coming to him as I am and doing my best and trying to hear from him. He must like that, I have to think.

The meditation thing hasn't saved me from all stress and conflict. Philip and I have fought. Confrontations at work have bent me all out of whack. I still wake up nearly every day with a nervous pit in my stomach. I get overwhelmed with fear that this transfer may not work, and what then? And I've felt like a failure every time I flounder at being fully zenned out.

But overall, it's helping. I feel better. I feel like I've got a few more tools in my mental tool belt as I face each day. My heart isn't a full size bigger, but at least it's not a total raisin anymore.

*The one complaint I have about the guided meditation is the way she pronounces abdomen: abdamum. Every time she says abdamum, like three or four times over the course of the 15 minutes, I cringe. And now I've done it enough to know when it's coming, so I also pre-cringe. But the editor self in me just has to suck it up and deal, because it's free, and because it's so beneficial.

OUT OF HIDING

Since the roller coaster of our retrieval back in May, I’ve been all over the place, both physically and emotionally. Our protocol called for banking all (two) of our embryos, and our RE suggested taking a month off before starting the protocol for a frozen embryo transfer (FET).

My ovulation went MIA during our month off; by day 23 of that cycle, there was still no sign of it. I went for an acupuncture treatment and asked my acupuncturist to make me ovulate. No joke, the next day I got a positive on the ovulation-predictor kit.

All told, the cycle dragged on for 37 days, and after that, I had to endure a month on birth control. I threw myself into any distraction that would help me not think about the endless weeks stretching ahead of me before we could put an embryo to use.

I threw an elaborate bridal shower for my sister in Illinois. I spoke at a wedding conference in Colorado and extended the trip to do some hiking and exploring with my hubby. I went on a press trip to Anguilla. I closed another issue of the magazine at work (always a crazy whirlwind with late nights at the office). And then Philip and I were back in Illinois for my sister’s Fourth of July wedding weekend, complete with a bachelorette party, a family barbecue, two fireworks displays, a rehearsal dinner and the big event.

I was having a blast — and completely throwing my routine or any concerns about diet out the window. I consumed carbs and sweets like no one’s business. I had Starbucks mochas for meals. I drank like a fish at the bachelorette party. I felt high-strung and sleep-deprived, but I was basically too busy to think about how I was feeling. (In the midst of all the craziness, our evening young-adult church service closed, but we barely had time to process our disappointment.)

As soon as the big wedding weekend was over, I tumbled into depression. There were no more wedding-related parties that demanded hand-made banners. There were no more trips on the calendar. Work became a manageable 9-5 affair. And I was back in the stirrups at the fertility clinic, faced head-on again with this miserable struggle of infertility.

In concert with my change of pace from manic to sober, pregnancy announcements — from fellow infertiles — flooded in. A good friend who has been on this journey for three years with me finally conceived, and all three of my favorite fertility bloggers were either expecting or welcoming their new little one. Another good friend also announced her pregnancy, and while this couple didn’t go through infertility, they had been one of our few childfree friends left to call up on a Saturday night.

I can’t describe HOW ALONE this makes me feel. Or, as strange as it may sound, how unsafe. I had carved out all these little safe places for myself where I wouldn’t be faced with the heartache of seeing pregnant bellies and newborn babies and happy, rambunctious families — desires impossibly out of my reach. Work had been safe; church had been safe; family had been safe; my infertility community had been safe. Now nowhere feels safe. Pregnancies and children are invading everything, and it feels like I’ll forever be locked out. No promise of a future family. Nowhere to fit in.

I have to admit that it seems like God, or the universe, or whatever, is forcing me out of seclusion back into community. I can’t hide away anymore; I have to face my fears and pain. I have to just FEEL my pain. I do a million things to try to cover it, force it away, distract myself from it, numb it. But now I have no choice but to be with it and acknowledge it and let it just sit on my heart like a heavy, aching stone.

The timing also seems significant, with our impending FET. It’s hard to know how to think about it. Everyone encourages me to be hopeful, optimistic. But my tender, wounded heart has so many walls around it, such a history of disappointment and despair, that when hope comes knocking, there’s no way the drawbridge is coming down. The “realistic” side of me tries to hedge my bets and brace for bad news.

But I’ve been challenged by the story of one of the fertility bloggers I mentioned above — one who never gave up hoping, one who pressed on with natural remedies even after five years of trying and multiple failed medical treatments. Finally, she conceived naturally, after eight long months of persevering with acupuncture and clean eating — both things I’ve tried for a month or two at a time, but never stuck with that long. She also changed her mindset — she stopped avoiding baby showers; she started a fertility support group. She made a conscious decision to open her heart and focus on others, rather than hide away licking her own wounds, as I have done.

So my first step has been to change my diet. I’ve been eating whole foods only — fruits and vegetables, lean meats, nuts, eggs. I’ve cut out coffee, soda, alcohol, simple carbohydrates and refined sugar (except for the occasional serving of dark-chocolate-covered almonds). It’s only been a week, but I feel empowered already by the healthy choices I’ve made — and I think it has helped improve my mood too.

The mind/emotional aspect is harder though. My acupuncturist says to envision myself eight months pregnant — huge belly, swollen ankles I can’t even see. She says to go in the room that would be our nursery, the one where the door always stays shut to close out another painful reminder of what we don’t have. She says to bring my energy in there, to bring life and activity into the room. She said to bring in a plant. And then a massage therapist, who knows nothing about my story, recently told me to get some white roses (a Google search revealed that white roses are traditionally associated with new beginnings, and a bouquet communicates, “I’m thinking of you.”)

So I am working up my courage to try these things. I’m researching visualization. I’m trying to be more disciplined in my speech when I feel inclined to be negative. I read through an issue of Fit Pregnancy, which took immense bravery. And I started a secret Pinterest nursery board, which even as I type it makes me feel ashamed, as though I’m an imposter, or am setting myself up for greater disappointment and loss.

But I am attempting to get myself into that mommy headspace — and trying to open up my shriveled, clenched heart. (I even thought about buying a pregnancy gift for my sister-in-law and inviting them over to dinner, though I am FAR from being ready to activate that plan!)

So for now, it’s one step, one hour, one injection at a time, being kind to myself but also trying to push a little more in a positive direction each day.

THE HURRICANE

For the past several weeks, I’ve felt like I’ve been caught in a hurricane — winds blowing at 100 miles an hour, floods crashing into what I thought were safe places, Philip and me precariously afloat on some piece of broken door that drifted by. Then the rain lets up for a moment, and we bank up against a hill, secure and relieved. But then the winds change direction, and again we’re pelted with stinging rain and sent spilling back into the roiling water.

Finally, over the last few days, calm has returned. The sun is shining, we’ve picked up the scattered pieces, and we’re taking solace in the few precious belongings that were saved.

The stimulation process had gone smoothly enough. Ever the fretter, I had worried that the meds would turn me crazy, or that we’d miss an injection or forget some appointment and ruin the cycle. But everything went fine. Philip played the role of nurse like an all-star, and I didn’t experience any concerning side effects from the drugs. It was a lot to remember, but we took it one day at a time and managed to stay sane.

In the midst of the stimming, there were many impossible decisions to be made. Fresh or frozen transfer? ICSE some or all? Genetic testing or no? Transfer one or two? What to do with potential leftover embryos in the case of divorce or death? What credit card to use to pay such a monumental bill? It was a lot to think and pray (and argue) about.

I was also under a major deadline at work. There was nothing to do about the insistent stress but work hard and try not to fall behind. On the deadline day, Philip and I went in to our clinic for a pre-op appointment and had to see a different RE within the practice, who sent us into a tailspin of doubt over one of the decisions we had made. I spent the night re-agonizing over the choice with my parents on the phone, ultimately deciding to stick to our original course.

The day of the retrieval fell promptly on the day after the deadline. It went smoothly, and initial numbers left us ecstatic.

I felt physically awful. I had abdominal pain and was tired and foggy. I started running a fever and felt achy all over. A stabbing, pinching pain developed in my right shoulder. I missed an extra day of work and didn’t feel up to resuming my exercise routines. But I took comfort in our numbers — lots of eggs, lots of embryos. These are the results everyone dreams of.

Three days in, and things were holding steady. We told our parents; everyone was rejoicing.

But five days in, everything fell apart. Eighty percent of our embryos deteriorated. The fate of the remaining handful was still uncertain. I got the message before work on a Friday, sitting in my bathroom, and I wept. Philip sat beside me silently, passing me tissues.

Sunday was Mother’s Day. Still reeling from Friday’s news, we rallied to spend the day with Philip’s family. I shielded myself from potential triggers on such a sensitive day — no Facebook, no TV. I had done my shopping weeks ahead and was prepared to focus on Philip’s mom and grandma.

But bam — a piece of wind-driven shrapnel struck us out of nowhere. A family member (who knows our situation) jubilantly surprised everyone with a demonstrative announcement of their first pregnancy, just a year into their marriage, and the news knocked the wind out of our lungs. We drove the long way home, winding through lonely country roads, and more tears streamed down my face.

Monday morning brought another doctor’s appointment, and I cried again, seeing the beautiful numbers crumble on the computer screen. Our RE was grave, apologetic, dejected. We tried to follow along in our grief, hearing snippets like “donor sperm or eggs,” “next IVF cycle,” “one of only three couples” in her career to ever see such a dramatic decline.

For the next two days, as I awaited the news on the final fate of our frozen possibilities, I could barely eat. I felt like I was on the verge of vomiting. The tips of my fingers were numb. I desperately searched for something to put my hope in, grasping awkwardly for God — my hope had been in numbers, but the numbers were failing me.

Finally the call came: There was going to be a transfer in our future! The number of embryos we had sounded impossibly small after our initial reports, but it wasn’t zero, so I melted with relief and welled with gratitude.

Still, there was barely time to relax. The crunch was on to plan a bridal shower for my sister, happening in just two short weeks, so I threw myself into crafts and online shopping and swirls of planning emails. It went off like gangbusters.

Now, on the other side of the shower, the retrieval, the big work deadline, I finally can exhale. We decided to take the month off from everything fertility-related, and I feel like me again. I can run; I can have a glass of wine; I can make plans. I can be lighthearted. I’m not scared or sad or overwhelmed.

Not being in treatment reminds me of how good I feel when I’m not in treatment —  how much I loathe the appointments, the injections, the blood draws and vaginal ultrasounds. The bleak waiting room and banal small talk with the carousel of staff members at my clinic. The waiting on pins and needles for the nurse’s phone call. The rise of hope and the crash of disappointment. Filling out my calendar with estimated treatment dates and having to edit them, shift them, and edit them again based on ever-changing, fickle information. I’m half a person when I’m in treatment — this inert, depressed, anxiety-flushed shell of myself. I hate it.

Inevitably my mind floats to what we’ll do if these transfers fail. Others in my life go there immediately as well. I can’t even count how many people have brought up adoption to me. I told Philip I would neck-punch the next person who approached the subject, but then it was my mother, so I didn’t follow through.

The suggestion of adoption touches some deep nerve for me. For one, it implies that this IVF cycle is already over, when it’s not. It also invalidates all of the other options available to us, not the least of which is another IVF attempt, in addition to surrogates and donors — and simply choosing to live child-free. It’s also not the same thing as conceiving and carrying our own child; it’s not some one-for-one replacement for such an innate desire. Lastly, it belies how HARD adoption is. I know five women personally who are now parents because of IVF, while I know two couples who have gone through failed adoptions. Adoption is uncertain, expensive and often drawn out for years. It’s not some simple solution.

It’s also not something I’ve ever deeply desired or felt particularly called to.

That said, I don’t know how I would feel if these treatments fail. Maybe adoption will become an option for us, or maybe we’ll just be ready to let it all go — to live our lives, travel, and love on each other and our cats, not constantly burdened by this life-consuming and heartbreaking yolk of attempting to build a family.

I try not to think about it. For now, there’s still hope in this current IVF cycle, so I’m going to cling to that. And I’m just going to try to be a regular human for a few weeks, basking in the calm before another storm.

RESOLVE TO KNOW MORE

National Infertity Awareness Week ends in 12 minutes, so I'm going to try to whip out a post before it's too late and the moment passes forever. This year, the theme is, "Resolve to know more." I've been pondering on this theme all week ... What to say about it ... What I think about it.

As it turns out, I'm pretty good about knowing more. I started out this fertility journey by reading every word of Toni Weschler's Taking Charge of Your Fertility, so I knew all along that our timing was solid. I started using ovulation predictor kits pretty early on too. I read blogs and articles. I attended an open house and a free IVF seminar given by our clinic. I studied every haphazard paper and brochure they threw at us. I made giant lists of questions for the nurse. I tried acupuncture and read about eating for fertility. I bought books and signed up for newsletters. I spent hours on the phone with my insurance company and compared medication prices across four different specialty pharmacies. I scoured through reviews of Fertilaid and other fertility-enhancing supplements. I attended Resolve support-group meetings. I powwowed with other infertiles and picked the brains of those who had gone before.

So where has all of that gotten me? I sit on my sofa at the close of my third NIAW with a full head and an empty womb.

I was talking with Philip about the theme, and we wondered if ignorance is bliss. Some women go through this fertility-treatment process not knowing much of anything about the (scary) meds they're taking, about the (depressing) odds of the therapies they're trying, about the (infuriating) specifics of the failures of their own bodies. And I think often, they might have an easier time of it. They trust their doctors; they do what they're told without questioning; they believe it will work. And I think it might save them considerable time, confusion and anxiety.

Still, I was never going to be one of those women. I'm a researcher. I study how to do something, and then I do it. I don't leave things up to chance or luck or other people. And I don't wait around for God to magically step in and fix my problems either. I work. And I work fucking hard. I stay up late. I learn. I do. And experiencing infertility has only made me more this way.

I can tell you what (three) companies in Orlando offer insurance plans that cover IVF. I can tell you who the best fertility doctor is (mine) and what clinic has the highest success rate (mine). I can tell you about the benefits of acupuncture. On a miserable Christmas-break day spent on the phone with my insurance company, I found out it actually covered $2,000 worth of our IVF drugs. And Philip and I spent our entire Saturday today resolving to know more about the sign-up bonuses and travel rewards of various credit cards, so that when we unfairly have to pay out of pocket for IVF, we'll at least get something in return.

I can't tell anyone to resolve to know more, because maybe your defense mechanism in dealing with the pain of infertility works precisely because you know less. But I know that when I weigh it all out, I'm glad I know more. In the end, when we've reached our resolution, I won't have any regrets. Either we'll have a baby, or we'll know we did everything in our power to make one. I won't wonder if there was some clue I missed or some thread I didn't pull hard enough.

And that's all I hope for my fellow IF girls. I don't want anyone to give up because they just didn't know enough. If you hit a wall, consider if maybe you need to know more. Plus I'm here, and I know a lot. So don't be afraid to ask me questions!

STILL FIGHTING

These last couple of weeks were rough for Philip and me. It began with our final IVF consult, which did not go awesome. Here are some things that happened:

1. The cheerful woman who came in to take my ultrasound chirped at me: "Let's see if that cyst went away!" To which I replied, "Uhhhmm, I don't think I have a cyst?" She frowned and claimed that my nurse had just told her we were checking for a cyst. I've never had an ovarian cyst in my life, to my knowledge.

2. We found out our stimulation injections were going to start a week later than I thought, and I had to stay on birth control for another week.

3. My nurse tried to rush through all the injection instructions while Philip was in the bathroom. I interrupted her: "Can we please wait for my husband to get back? He's the one who will be administering these injections."

4. After being shuttled from an exam room to a nurse's office, we were shuttled to the checkout area, then shuttled BACK to the nurse's office so that, at our request, our doctor could give us a wham-bam overview of preimplantation genetic screening (PGS) of embryos, a test the doctor had never brought up to us as an option.

5. After all of this stellar customer service, we went back to the checkout area, where the clerk asked us how much we owed. "I don't know?" I replied. She made a phone call and then said, "That'll be $11,710." <commence choking on my own saliva>

Would you like to know what is stressful? ALL OF THAT. Being caused unnecessary alarm about an imaginary cyst. Getting my carefully plotted timeline thrown into the dumpster. Getting overwhelmed with information when my partner is taking a quick pee. Getting herded from room to room like cattle. Getting the world's most rushed explanation of a very complex, controversial testing procedure. And then being charged an astronomical amount of money for all of the above.

The appointment threw me into a massive funk, and in the midst of that funk, we had to make progress on two giant homework assignments: Figure out what credit card to apply for that would yield the best rewards for spending upwards of $11K, and read/decipher a pile of jumbled papers about PGS so we could let our doctor know asap if we wanted to do it.

Oh, and by the way, in the middle of that, Philip was trying to get his mom signed up for health insurance via the Affordable Care Act before the deadline, AND he was working on filing our taxes.

So what happened was, we started bickering. A tense moment here, a moment of lashing out there.

Things came to a head on a Saturday night. We were out at a pub crawl in our neighborhood for a friend's birthday, and I didn't want to be there. I just wasn't in the mood to be celebratory and crazy with a bunch of people I didn't really know. Plus, we'd been trying to cut out alcohol consumption ... Philip wasn't in the mood to babysit me, and on the walk home, our patience ran out. There was yelling in the streets. There was sweater throwing. There was stomping on said sweater.

When we got home at 2 a.m., the quarrel escalated to even higher comical telenovela levels. We were both drunk and tired. At the height of the argument, I ran out to my car barefoot with no license like I was just going to drive away. (Where the eff was I going to go?) Philip followed in his underwear, angrily hurling my shoes up onto the carport and standing behind my car to block my path. The standoff lasted for awhile before I agreed to come back inside if he would get my shoes off the carport roof. He did.

The next day, we laughed about the dramatic fight, but we were war-weary. Usually weekends are our time to reconnect and recharge, but we went into the following workweek completely drained, and the bickering continued. My closest ally was distant and cold. The loneliness I felt was crushing.

On a Thursday night, Philip went to see a friend perform in concert while I ran a 5K race. I tried to meet up with him afterward, but I had the venue wrong. I stood inside Austin's looking in vain for a group of people who were at Stardust. Back in my car, I started crying maniacally. I was bawling so hard I had to pull over. I let the sobs just wrack me; I wailed as loud as I wanted. I cried until I was weak and shaky.

Is this when it happens? When the infertility becomes too much? When the couple doesn't recognize each other anymore? When they finally give up on each other?

Philip texted me, offering to leave and bring us dinner.

I replied: "No don't leave. I tried. I've cried what's left of my makeup off. I'm smelly. I'm going to take a shower and go to sleep. I feel really bad for dampening your evening. I'm lonely and unhappy and that doesn't make me an appealing wife."

He wrote back, "I'm coming home."

He decided to keep trying, to continue fighting for us, like he has since the very earliest days of our relationship. He had plans with some friends on Saturday, but he canceled so that the two of us could reconnect. We slept in, made love, made breakfast. We booked a kayaking tour near Cocoa Beach, and after, we sat overlooking the water enjoying nachos and mixed drinks. We prioritized each other; we prioritized relaxation. We traveled the distance back into each other's space. And in the following days, he lovingly studied all the medication instructions and bravely injected me with very high doses of artificial hormones.

SCOPING OUT MY INSIDES

Would you like to hear about my hysteroscopy? OK!

So I was very nervous. Everyone kept telling me, "Oh, it's no big deal," which made me mad.

"It IS a big deal!" I huffed to Philip.

"No one can win with you," he replied. "You'd be upset if they told you it was a major deal and scared you."

Which was true.

I took great care to pick out my surgery-day outfit: the baggiest, comfiest, frumpiest sweatpants and hoodie. I took extra care with my socks. The socks are the only personal item you leave on for a procedure like this, and it's like being initiated into a very select sorority to wear your first pair of infertility socks. I chose a fuzzy black pair with snowflakes. Yes, those were the perfect socks, good job.

At 10 p.m. the night before, I remembered that the nurse had instructed me to douche. Have you ever douched before?  It is the most abusive thing you can do to yourself, on a number of levels. I didn't happen to have any douches sitting around, so off to the CVS we drove. The CVS was closed. "Well," I said, "the rapey Walgreens it is." I literally witnessed a robbery at this Walgreens once. At this point, Philip and I got into a fight. Because that is what you do when your nerves are on edge about an impending surgery and you're off buying a douche late at night from the rapiest drug store in town.

Also I am trying to find as many excuses as possible to say the word "douche."

So we studied the douches for awhile until we found the right one. Then Philip acted squeamish about carrying the box. No, I was not having that.

"I'M the one who has to douche, AND I'm the one who has to undergo the surgery -- I think you can handle carrying the box!" I said indignantly.

"I'm not only going to carry it," he said. "I'm going to hold it out to the cashier dude face-up like this." And that is what he did.

This particular douche was medicated, which means you mix in some iodine, which turns the liquid in the bottle a lovely shade of dark purplish-brown. Then you grit your teeth and slowly squirt it up into your hoo-ha via a very phallic-looking plastic wand, which feels cold and icky, and then the brown liquid trickles back down into the toilet. I have no idea why anyone would voluntarily choose to do this.

My douching mission complete, we went to bed and arose promptly at 6:30 the following morning so we could be to our clinic by 7:30. A very kind surgery nurse led me to a little room with lockers to undress and don a handsome hairnet and some paper booties over my awesome socks. I also had to take a pregnancy test, which always makes me roll my eyes.

Then I laid in a hospital bed in a small curtained area for awhile and stared up at the ceiling, where a light tile showed a colorful ocean scene full of fish and other cheerful marine creatures. A nurse came by to explain the procedure to me, and another nurse came to insert my IV while Chicago's "After All that We've Been Through" played tenderly over the muted sound system.

I was also handed some post-op instructions. I was not, under any circumstances, to:

1. "Drive a car, if a child, no bike riding, skate boards or gym sets."
2. "Drink alcoholic beverages (not even beer)."
3. "Make any important decisions such as signing legal documents."

Not even beer?! And there goes the big house closing I had planned for the same day as my hysteroscopy. :/

Philip got to join me after awhile, and he told me about an episode of Inside the Actors Studio playing on the TV in the waiting room, in which James Lipton was very self-congratulatorily sharing about a book that Matthew McConaughey had personally sent him.

"And James Lipton was challenging us," said Philip, "to go back and watch all of Matthew McConaughey's romantic comedies and realize what an amazing actor he's been ALL ALONG."

The anesthesiologist came in and gave me a quick rundown of what to expect from the anesthetic. And then it was go time. I walked myself into the OR, clutching my hospital gown closed behind me, and climbed up to lay down on the table.

The staff immediately got to work. A tube started blowing air into my nose, and my legs went up into the most serious stirrups I'd ever seen. "I like your socks," said one nurse, and I remember a brief feeling of victorious pleasure at the compliment. Then they started to strap me in, which felt claustrophobic for about one second before I started to slip off into dreamland and suddenly felt cozier, calmer and more tucked in than I ever have in my life.

Moments later I came to sudden consciousness and cried, "I'm still awake!"

"We're all done, dear," said the nurse.

Next thing I knew, I was laying back in the hospital bed in my curtained corner, feeling drowsy and crampy but overall pretty damn chill.

"Your heart rate is a lot slower now than before the procedure," Philip said. The nurse came and asked if I wanted soda crackers, water and Tylenol, and I nodded. She brought me this tiny bottle of water with a straw in it, and I sipped it quietly like a 5-year-old.

Time passed slowly or quickly -- I wasn't terribly with it. Then it was time to get up and change back into my clothes. I walked back into the little locker room in a bit of a daze and looked at myself in the mirror. I had electrodes stuck to the bare skin on my chest. I allowed myself a brief moment of self-pity, because really, I did look pitiful in my hairnet and electrodes, and who would have ever thought I'd have to go through all this nonsense just to MAYBE have a baby someday?

Then I snapped out of it and peeled the electrodes off. I got changed without further incident, until I somehow jostled a plastic basket of menstrual pads on a shelf and it tumbled to the floor, spilling maxis all over the place like some sort of slapstick act. I cleaned up the mess, shaking my head, and exited.

Outside the locker room, the nurse showed Philip and me some images of the inside of my uterus, which kind of looked like a fleshy pink balloon. Then we walked out into the waiting room, where I encountered my friend Alison, who is also seeking treatment at my clinic, and burst into hilarious laughter. "Fancy meeting you here!" I bellowed, while everyone else in the room looked on with puzzlement.

Then we drove home, and I proceeded to wolf down a blueberry muffin and some apple juice and then sleep for four hours on the couch. I felt some pretty bad period-like cramps and had a little light bleeding, but that was the extent of the aftermath. I was back to work the next day.

Later when we met with our RE, she said she had removed a "skin tag," as well as some "redundant tissue" inside my uterus, but that it was nothing out of the ordinary, and the tissue shouldn't have affected my fertility. They sent the tissue off to a lab to be biopsied, and results came back normal.

I wasn't supposed to have sex for a week, but eff that noise: I wasn't going to let my last chance to try to conceive naturally get thrown into the trash, especially since I had heard of other people who got pregnant naturally after having had a hysteroscopy. So we tried, and my hopes were soaring, because I had also started acupuncture again, as well as Chinese herbs and supplements with hopeful names like "Fertilaid" and "Pregnitude."

But, alas, nope. My period came right on schedule, and with it the usual tears, alcohol drinking and angry prenatal-vitamin boycotting. But then as always, I got my shit back together, and now we move onward full steam ahead to IVF Land.

GUESS WHO'S BACK

<Walks hesitantly onto stage. Taps microphone. Clears throat. "Hello? Is this thing on?" Looks out at empty auditorium. Takes a deep breath ...>

Sooooo, I'm back. As un-pregnant as ever, but not quite so angry. I've spent the last, hmm, let's see, seven months feeling pretty guilty about virtually yelling "Fuck everything and everyone!" and then dropping the microphone and disappearing off the face of the Internet. It's how I was feeling at the time, and honesty is good, but I could have said it all a little more nicely. For example, "Hi, kind people who actually spend their precious free time reading my ramblings, I think I need a little break from this."

So, I'm sorry. I apologize. I don't blame you if I'm talking to no one now, as you probably gave up checking to see if I've updated long ago.

For some reason I've been feeling the urge to write again. They say time heals all wounds, which isn't exactly true, but it does allow space for some reflection and distance from the injury. My thoughts have started to well up inside my brain once again, and I'm beginning to crave an outlet.

I was just so mad when that last IUI didn't work. Like just furious. It hurt so much more than any other disappointment we had faced thus far. I don't know why. And I just had to be done for awhile. I wanted to focus on my new position at work. I wanted to have a normal, festive holiday season -- not a miserable one dwelling on my childlessness. For the next several months, I didn't want to be heartbroken, sad-sack, infertile Erika; I wanted to recapture some of my pre-infertility carefree spirit and be thriving, enviable Erika -- great husband, great job, great cats, great house, weekend warrior, jet setter.

And I did, for the most part. The sadness of infertility was still there, in the background, but dull. Philip and I ran and boot-camped. We spent a weekend in New York City. I spoke at a wedding symposium in Saint Lucia. We bought a new car. We got invited to visit friends in Cartagena, Colombia, and on a whim booked tickets the day before Thanksgiving to fly out the day after. We spent Christmas with my whole family in Illinois, and we spent MLK Day in a tent in the Florida Everglades. It was a whirlwind, it was intense, it was gloriously distracting. All the while my eggs got older, but I was (mostly) too busy to think about it.

I said we'd revisit fertility treatment again in 2014, and we are. We are laying the groundwork for IVF, slowly checking off our clinic's prerequisites. We attended the seminar; I got tested for rubella immunity. Philip scheduled his labs, and I scheduled a hysteroscopy. We also switched doctors, a decision I feel good about.

I never wanted to need IVF. I claimed as an ignorant 29-year-old that I would never do it, that I'd "just adopt" if I ever found myself unable to get pregnant. I still don't want to need IVF. I'm giving acupuncture another go and pounding a crazy cocktail of vitamins, supplements and Chinese herbs in the hopes that I'll be one of those magical people you hear about who was "just about to start IVF" when they conceived out of the blue. Unlikely, but it can't hurt, right?

But now that I've (mostly) got my head around the idea and gotten the ball rolling, it's exasperating how slowly the process is going so far. More diagnostic surgery, more RE appointments, three weeks of birth control ... it's starting to look like it'll be summer before we really get this show on the road, and I'm impatient as hell.

And what about my infertility demons? My silent suffering? My perpetual state of resolution-less limbo? It's back in full effect, proportional in large part to how hard we're trying. The more treatments we undergo, the more money and effort we throw at this, the more failure hurts.

My friend Vicky says everyone has their crosses to bear, and she's allowed to say that to me because she had her second son only with the help of IVF. And it's true: Everyone suffers, one way or the other. I like to think my suffering is the worst kind, but it's not. Why am I so precious about infertility? Sure, it's a unique kind of pain, but isn't all pain unique?

I heard the stories of two friends (who already each have a child) who went through miscarriages -- a loss I've never had to bear, a loss that takes a toll not only on the emotions but also on the body in a very brutal, physical way. And while I cried for them, I also felt like something had been taken from me. No longer could I wear my pain badge like I'm the only survivor, the only strong one, the most afflicted. It's a horrible, shameful thing to admit, but it's the honest truth.

So have I become any wiser during my absence from this blog? I think yes, a little, but only because the passing months just allow more time for life to happen -- more babies were conceived and born (much to my great envy), but also: Other babies were lost, new friends came out as infertile, and on a broader scale, jobs were lost, marriages ended, houses were broken into, grandparents passed away. Everybody muddles through this life thing, and I've realized we need to celebrate when we can.

Then again, you're catching me on a good day, when I haven't cried or screamed or moped about infertility. :)