EVERYTHING I HAVE IS YOURS

I turned 33 a week ago. I've never been one to fear getting older, hide my age or dread birthdays. In fact, I love birthdays. And this one turned out to be particularly good. My husband and my dear friend Audrey had the amazing idea to secretly fly my sister Sarah down for a visit -- here we are at a restaurant two hours from home, where Sarah had sat waiting to surprise me at the table.

All kinds of planning went into the surprise, from booking flights, hotel rooms and restaurant reservations to organizing a beach barbecue with a small group of friends the following day. I keep saying to Audrey that I can't believe she went to so much trouble for me, especially on a non-milestone birthday. But she said it's been a tough year for me, especially regarding infertility and the scare with our cat Abbi, and she felt I deserved a fun weekend of celebration.

Looking back, it was a very tough year, not only because of my circumstances, but also because of my response. I threw myself into work travel; I hid from my mommy friends; I railed against God. I don't say that to be hard on myself; it's just where I was. But none of it was particularly helpful. The traveling made pursuing treatment more difficult; the bitterness in my heart toward others with children shamed me; the anger at God made me feel more alone and lost.

Coming into 2013 (before Abbi got sick), I started to move into a new heart space. I don't know how. Maybe it was the reality of approaching two full years of infertility, which allowed me to feel like I definitely belonged in the Infertility Club. At least I know where I stand; I'm part of an established community. I've been on this road long enough to anticipate the curves and speed bumps and emotional three-car pile-ups. I can practically put the car on auto-pilot.

But mostly, I feel like God has just nudged me gently forward. I don't feel the distance from him that I did a year ago. My heart feels more open to what he's doing, whatever the eff that is.

One thing he pointed out to me is that I can't be in Mexico and in the stirrups at the same time. That is to say, if I want to prioritize treatment, I can't keep flying off to Fiji and St. Lucia and the Dominican Republic. I have to physically BE HERE for pelvic scans and blood tests and injections. So I told my boss I didn't want to travel this year.

It felt like a huge sacrifice. It still does. I'm blessed with a job that has brought me to many exotic places over the last six years, and it's been one of the major distractions that has kept me sane during the infertility saga. But I can't have my cake and eat it too.

So, I let go. And each time I get another tempting invitation to somewhere tropical and lovely, I have to let go again. It's been a tremendous practice in "losing my life" in order to find it.

Another gift God has brought me is yoga. SO MANY people have said, "You're having trouble getting pregnant? You should try yoga. I think you'll like it." And as it turns out, a yoga class meets right in my office over the lunch hour twice a week.

I was intimidated to go, as I had never tried yoga in my life. I didn't even know what a downward-facing dog was. But a couple of friends kept prompting me (aka, God was prompting me), so I finally sucked up my insecurity and went. And I. Am. In. Love.

I can't even tell you what a prayerful space it has been for me -- the way the instructor tells us to set our intention for that day's practice, and how God brings words to my mind like healing, patience, prepare, acceptance or walk through the sadness. (Not to mention the physical benefits of improving circulation, building strength, increasing flexibility and releasing tension.)

Also, miraculously, we think we may have found a church we like. It scares me to write that sentence, as I feel like I might be falling in love after a few first dates, and I'm terrified I'm going to stumble on the giant bag of toenail clippings in the closet at any moment.

But so far, so good. It's not perfect, but it has a very authentic-feeling, appealing simplicity that threads through the scaled-down music, humble preaching, focus on Jesus and weekly response time. We've attended four times, and I always leave dwelling on some nugget I've gleaned from a song or verse or line from the sermon.

The fact that we may have actually found a church home after all this time is nothing short of divine. I have tried literally dozens of services over the 10 years I've lived in Orlando, and I've never been crazy about a single one. Now here's this little gathering of about 15 people, and it feels right. It's very hopeful.

Prayer station at church with guided response, visual aid and communion elements

Amid these spiritually-shifting developments, we attempted our second IUI cycle. I was beyond excited to start. We had taken a three-month break from treatment, thanks to our first canceled IUI cycle (my follicles hadn't responded to the meds at all), the craziness of the holidays, battles with our health insurance, and then the drama with Abbi.

But now we were emotionally ready, and the circumstances were right. We had been patient. We had kept our calendar open. I had attended an infertility seminar. And we had gotten everything straightened out with our health insurance, which amazingly covers the majority of the cost of the medications -- they were ready and waiting in our fridge.

Fun with making 25 phone calls to our insurance and various mail-order pharmacies

Infertility seminar -- wow, look at all the Orlando-area infertiles!

We dutifully went to the appointments and set Google alerts for all the days I was supposed to swallow pills or get injected with powerful hormones. The night Philip administered my first shot of Follistim (a follicle-stimulating hormone -- basically makes the eggs mature), I was scared but brave. We laid out all the paraphernalia and carefully read the instructions. And we did it! I didn't even die of ovarian hyperstimulation! Score!

Everything was right on track, and then -- boom. Too many follicles matured. There were three big fat ones, which could mean three big fat babies. Unlikely, but possible. The RE gave us a choice of if we wanted to continue the cycle or not. But there are so many risks associated with triplets, from the strain on my body to potential developmental issues in the babies to the sheer challenge of raising three babies at once, that we decided not to risk it.

I cried that entire day. It was a Monday, and I had dropped Sarah off at the airport that morning. I cried after the scan. I cried when I told Philip about the scan. I cried when the nurse called to say, yea verily, there are too many mature follicles. And when I got home from work, I laid on the couch and cried myself to sleep.

But then, remarkably, the next day, I felt OK. Still disappointed, but able to carry on. I called the nurse, told her our decision, and asked her to order the Follistim for the next cycle. I went to yoga. I organized a ladies wine night. I pep-rallied myself that we had to wait only two more weeks to try again, which really isn't that long of a time frame in the grand scheme of things. I chalked it up to a learning experience -- next time we'll dial back the meds a little and hopefully find the sweet spot. And I remembered a verse from church -- the parable of the prodigal son, in which the father says to the sulky older brother, "You are always with me, and everything I have is yours."

Around my birthday, people kept saying to me that this is my year. I hope they're right. I accept the reality that IUIs only work 30 percent of the time, but nevertheless I'm hopeful. I feel good that we're pursuing treatment more aggressively and with more focus. And I'm grateful and happy to be walking more closely with God again, for however long the feeling lasts.

TRY AGAIN

© Miranda Dodson 2013

Yesterday as I was in my bathroom getting ready for work, a radio segment came on NPR that totally caught me by surprise. Before I knew it, tears were streaming down my face, just as I was trying to apply my mascara.

David Brown, host of KUTX's Texas Music Matters, chose a song titled "Try Again" by singer-songwriter Miranda Dodson as one of the "five songs public radio can't stop playing." The song is based on Dodson's heartbreaking experience of multiple pregnancy losses.

Listen to the NPR segment here.

Download the interview with Dodson here (you must click the "download" button in the top nav bar).

Listen to the song here. (To download the song for free, right-click this link and choose "save link as.")

And get your tissues ready.

CAT PERSON, PART 2

I came home late from work a month ago to find my little girl cat, Abbi, clearly in discomfort. I thought she was constipated, as she kept squatting and straining around the house, but nothing was coming out. 

Alarmed, I called Philip, who was out with friends, and he stopped to get some fiber powder. We mixed it with some wet cat food to try to hydrate her and stimulate a bowel movement. She ate it — then vomited. Eventually she had bloody diarrhea in the hallway, but her distress only elevated. She began yowling in pain.

Totally freaked, we took her to the emergency vet at 12:30 a.m. They quickly identified that her bladder was as hard as a rock, and her urination was completely blocked. They were able to express her bladder, but an X-ray showed she had two bladder stones that would need to be removed as soon as possible. The next morning, we transferred her to our regular vet.

Abbi rides from the ER vet to the animal hospital sporting an IV bandage.

Our regular vet performed surgery to remove the stones later that day. We bit our nails through the entire procedure, which ended up taking twice as long as normal, as one of the stones was so wedged in Abbi’s urethra that the vet had to stop surgery and consult a specialist over the phone about how to remove it.

Eventually the vet called us to say the surgery had been a success, and Abbi spent two nights recovering in the animal hospital.

Visiting Abbi at the animal hospital after her first surgery

When we went to pick her up on a Saturday, the flippant vet tech wasn’t much help in communicating to us what to expect — the tech said some blood in Abbi’s urine would be normal, and she also said Abbi hadn’t been eating, but hopefully when she got home, her appetite would return.

Abbi was in terrible shape when we got her home. Her abdomen was severely distended. Her fur was greasy, and she wouldn’t clean herself. She kept moving around and couldn’t get comfortable. She didn’t want affection. She wouldn’t eat or drink, and she didn’t try to use her litter box. Was this normal? We didn’t know, and the vet was now closed for the weekend, so we couldn’t call to ask.

Abbi with her distended abdomen and shaved belly

Concerned that Abbi would become dehydrated, we force-fed her some water out of a syringe. At one point, Abbi retreated to my dark closet alone, which scared me immensely. We oscillated about whether or not to take her back to the emergency vet, as we’d already spent a couple thousand dollars, and the ER vet is terribly expensive. We decided to continue to monitor her. It was a long night of waking up every few hours to check on Abbi. She didn’t seem to be sleeping, but she was still alive.

The next day was worse. She began to urinate, but it was bloody, and it was just leaking out of her; she was totally incontinent. We had to keep her shut in the laundry room with scrap towels, which kept instantly getting soiled. It was terrifying and exhausting.

After another long night, we dropped her back off at our regular vet in the morning. We didn’t hear from the vet all day and assumed no news was good news. We called a half-hour before the vet was closing to get an update. To our shock, the on-duty vet (not our regular vet) said an X-ray indicated that Abbi had fluid (translation: urine) in her abdomen. The vet felt uncomfortable taking next steps, as Abbi wasn’t his patient, and our regular vet had been out sick.

Basically, Abbi had sat in a kennel all day with an IV while urine was poisoning her blood stream, and this vet had done nothing for her.

We drove straight to the animal hospital to talk to the vet in person. He was very defensive, saying he had been overloaded with patients all day. We asked him if we should take Abbi to the ER vet, and he was ambivalent. He offered that we could leave Abbi at his clinic overnight (no staff stays the night with the animals at this hospital), and he and our regular vet would run some tests in the morning (provided she was back from being out sick).

There wasn’t a chance we were doing that. We paid $150 for nothing and drove Abbi straight to the ER.

The ER vet was immediately very concerned. She said she was going to run several tests on Abbi’s vitals, and Philip and I should go home to get some rest. But back in our bed, we were too upset to sleep. Melting into tears, we asked each other, “How did we get here?” The surgery to remove bladder stones was supposed to be fairly routine, and now our precious cat’s life was in danger.

We decided to go back to the ER vet, driving the quiet midnight streets in silence. They allowed us to sit with Abbi in a treatment room while we waited for the test results. Wrapped in a towel in my lap and hooked up to an IV bag, she barely moved. She would begin to nod off, but then her body would spasm; she was in too much pain to sleep. Philip dozed on the bench, and it was so quiet. My heart squeezed tight to bursting, I thought, This is it. This might be the last time I ever hold her in my arms.

Philip gives some love to Abbi while we wait to have her vitals tested.

After about an hour, the ER vet determined that Abbi’s kidneys were failing; she was dying. 

“Abbi’s bladder is not in tact,” she said. She recommended that she insert an emergency drain to get the urine out of Abbi’s abdomen as an immediate life-saving measure. So for the second time in four days, Abbi was administered anesthesia and went under the knife. Philip and I sat out in the empty waiting room and clung to each other, weeping.

“Are we losing her?” I choked out through sobs. “I feel like we are. I feel her slipping away.”

“I don’t know,” Philip said, holding me and trying to be the strong one.

The thought of potentially losing Abbi weighed on me so heavily, I couldn’t breathe; I had never felt such an acute loss, not even when my grandparents had died. “I can’t bear this,” I gasped.

Finally the ER vet emerged and said the surgery had been uneventful, and we should go home and try to rest. There was nothing to do now but wait and hope the drain helped bring Abbi’s vitals back to normal. In the morning, we would have to take Abbi to a specialist for another surgery to repair her bladder, and likely a blood transfusion.

After a couple hours of fitful sleep in our bed, we drove back to the ER vet to pick up Abbi. Riding in the car to the specialist, she didn’t struggle or cry; she was so weak. By this point, she hadn’t eaten in five days.

At the specialist, it was more testing and more waiting. Finally we were able to sit down to consult with the surgeons. I was wearing my pajamas, had no makeup on, and was utterly exhausted. Through tears, I weakly asked if Abbi was going to live. “We don’t know,” they said. “We’re going to do all we can for her.”

Before we left, they let us say goodbye to her. She was in a wall of kennels, sleeping. The surgeon opened the gate and nudged Abbi awake. As soon as Abbi heard my voice, she popped up and began head-butting my face. “I love you I love you I love you,” I urgently whispered into her fur. I kissed her head, and then we were rushed out. I wondered if I would ever see her alive again. Abbi’s vitals had stabilized after the insertion of the drain, but we had no idea what the surgeons would find when they opened her back up.

They sent us home to try to get a little more sleep. After another restless nap, we got up to get the house in order, laundering bloody towels and stowing away Abbi’s toys, so they wouldn’t be painful reminders. We went for a distracting run, then again waited for the phone to ring.

For the third time, Abbi went under anesthesia and endured surgery. When the surgeons finally called us at the end of the day, they said they found that the original incision had begun to leak, so they sewed it back up using a different technique. They also inserted a catheter to hopefully prevent scarring/blockage in her urethra, and they gave her a blood transfusion.

Amazingly, our little Abbi had come through both the transfusion and the surgery and was recovering. The surgeons couldn’t guarantee that she would be home-free, but for now, things were looking hopeful. For the first time in six days, we felt like we could exhale.

For the next week, Abbi stayed at the specialist animal hospital with the catheter in. We visited her every day, and she was always thrilled to see us. She had begun to eat and drink almost immediately after the second bladder surgery. She was bone-thin and loopy from her pain meds, but as soon as we removed her cone, she bathed herself and napped in our laps in the visitation room.

Visiting Abbi at the veterinary specialist

We were cautiously hopeful. At home, we showered AJ with attention. Finally, Abbi’s catheter was removed, and she seemed to be able to urinate. She was still straining and peeing small amounts frequently, but she seemed to be emptying her bladder. We were finally able to bring her home. A urine culture showed she had two types of bladder infections, so we were prescribed antibiotics to give to her.

Abbi’s recovery was slow. At first, she wouldn’t eat her special new diet food; she would only eat canned tuna. She was too weak to jump up on anything. She didn’t want to sleep in our bed with us, as she always had. She hissed at AJ if he even looked at her. She had to wear her cone of shame, which she hated, so she didn’t mess with her stitches.

A week after bringing her home, we went back to the specialist to have her stitches removed. Then the cone could come off for good, which improved her mood somewhat.

The next Saturday, however, I observed her going in and out of the litter box several times in the space of an hour, only urinating a few drops each time. So back to the specialist we went. This time we were given an anti-inflammatory medication for Abbi’s bladder.

Finally, four weeks after this all began, we took her back to the specialist for the last time. They cultured her urine again, and it was clear of all infection. The vet gave her a clean bill of health! Later that day, Abbi finally seemed like herself again. She and AJ curled up in my lap together while Philip and I watched a movie. 

Now Abbi is eating and drinking normally; her scar is healing; she’s playing with her toys; she has the strength to jump up onto counters and desktops again. She has even put on a little weight (though we’ve gone from calling her “Little Chunk” to calling her “Little Nugget.”) She is still urinating smaller amounts at a time than before this all happened, but we think it’s due to some scarring in her urethra, and this will be her new reality.

Abbi curled up with her mom

During this nightmare, countless people said they were praying for our little Abbi. I’m so grateful for their prayers, and I so thankful God spared her little life. I don’t know why he did, but it amazes and humbles me every time she hops in my lap and loves on me in her little Abbi way.

Even as was I sitting at the computer writing about the loss of my childhood cat, Alex, all those years ago, I unexpectedly started to cry, and Abbi came rushing up to me, showering my tear-streaked face with her kitty kisses.

I know she and AJ won’t live forever, and eventually Philip and I will have to say goodbye to them. And eventually we’ll rescue more kittens from the shelter and start all over again. But for now I’m just enjoying our “two chats” — “dos gatos grises.” And I am more of a cat person than ever.

CAT PERSON, PART 1

The author pictured with her baby sister and a decorative hanging mobile of cats wearing dresses

To say I am a cat person is a grave understatement. Loving cats is part of my DNA; it is an absolute truth. From my earliest years, I can remember blowing out the candles on my birthday cake and wishing for a pet cat — to be specific, a fluffy white cat. I decorated my childhood room in a tasteful motif of fluffy white cats: They lined the wallpaper border, stuffed ones were piled high on my bed, and figurines dignified every surface.

When I was nine, my parents finally surrendered, and my dream of adopting a kitten finally came true. We went to the shelter, but as it was Christmastime, all the kittens were taken — except one. A 12-week-old gray domestic shorthair remained.

We lifted him out of the kennel, and he purred and rubbed his cheeks on us. I remember him standing on my dad’s shoulders. When we put him back in the cage, he mewed desperately and stretched his tiny paws out of the spaces between the wires toward us.

I had to have him.

“He’s not white,” my mom pointed out. “Are you sure you don’t want to wait till we can find a white one?”

Hell no, I didn’t want to wait! I’d been waiting nine agonizing years! It was settled then. We brought him home, and I picked out the name. It came to me like a revelation: Alex P. Kitten, after the lead character in Family Ties (it was the ’80s, after all).

Alex was my best friend from that day forward. My mom fed him and cleaned his litter box, but he was my cat. He fell asleep in my arms every night and rushed to my side anytime I cried. We invented games together and basked in each other’s affection. The poor guy never had a cat treat or a real toy in his life, but he hijacked all of my smallest stuffed animals and dropped them victoriously at my feet. Owning a cat was everything I had dreamed of and more.

The author pictured with bodacious bangs and Alex as a kitten

I moved to Florida when I was 22, and Philip entered my life a few months later. He met my beloved childhood cat on several visits to my hometown, but Alex was diagnosed with kitty cancer shortly thereafter. Sometimes I think the stress of my absence was too much for his little feline body.

My parents called me the night before the entire family was scheduled to fly to Orlando for Thanksgiving. Alex was failing, and he couldn’t be left alone while they were all visiting me. They had made an appointment for the next morning to put him down before they headed to the airport.

We were all on different extensions of the phone, weeping together. Alex had been a true part of the family, a faithful companion for more than a decade. He had seen me go from a little girl with poof bangs and a sprawling Barbie village, to a teenager with her first boyfriend and her first car (a baby-blue 1967 Dodge Coronet), to a college student venturing off on her own for the first time, to a real adult with her first grown-up job. I wasn’t just losing my sweet little pet cat; I was losing an entire era of my life.

The next morning, my parents found that Alex had passed away while they slept. In the night, my father had felt Alex run across his chest and leap into the air, never landing. It was a dream though; Alex had been far too sick to run or jump. To this day, I’m flooded with gratitude that Alex chose to go that way, to spare my parents the guilt of having to put him down, and to allow his owners to come together later that afternoon in Florida and grieve as a family.

As an adult, I knew I wanted to adopt more cats (to be specific: two male kittens from the same litter, so they would be companions from the start), but I was determined to wait until the time was right. I had read that moving a lot stresses cats out, and I didn’t have a home to call my own.

Even after Philip and I were married, it didn’t seem like it was time yet. We wanted to buy a home, get settled, and wait until our work travels slowed a bit and we could focus on our new little kittens. In the meantime, I bought a book titled Total Kitten Care and read it cover to cover. I was going to be the best cat mom who ever walked the face of the earth.

Finally, two years after getting hitched, the time had arrived. We drove to the shelter, and I was so giddy; I felt like I was nine all over again. When we arrived, there was even a litter of solid-gray kittens! But when we took them out of their cage, the signs were all wrong. They were lethargic and disinterested. They didn’t want to snuggle or play; their tails didn’t pop up in curiosity and respect.

Philip said, “These aren’t the right kittens for us. We’ll come back next week.” I cried like a child.

But somehow I survived another week, and when we went back, that litter was gone. In its place, a new litter of eight-week-old gray kittens had come to the shelter, two males and a female. One of the males was already spoken for, so I was uncertain, because I wanted two boy cats, just like my Alex. But when we pulled the female out of the cage, she nuzzled right under my chin, purring uncontrollably. Pretty soon she was asleep in my arms. The little male played with Philip with gusto. We looked at each other and knew.

AJ (short for Alex Jr.) and Abbi came home with me a week later. We kept them closed in the laundry room overnight, and in the morning, I threw on my white robe and went to check on them. As soon as they saw me, their tails fluffed out in terror — what was this towering white creature?! But when I sat down on the floor and picked them up, they exploded into purrs and crawled all over me with relief and pleasure.

Our new little fur balls

Abbi sleeping on my chest as a kitten

Philip's not too sure about these two troublemakers.

AJ uses Abbi as a pillow.

Philip and I have always taken cat ownership very seriously. We cat-proofed the house and zealously researched litter boxes. We bought expensive pet food, stocked up on toys and treats, and purchased Christmas stockings for them. Philip even hand-built them a scratch post.

AJ enjoying some new toys

We kiss and love on them relentlessly and play fetch with their toy mice. We take them to the vet every year for a check-up, and we switched them to lite food when they started getting a little on the round side. When we travel, we make our cat-sitters come daily, and we load them up with detailed care instructions.

Most of all, our cats have become a hallmark of our relationship and a connection only Philip and I share. We started calling them “chats” after going to France, and we have endless inside jokes about their behaviors — Abbi sleeping in her “chat hammock”; AJ being a “vampire”; Abbi doing her “scootches and rolls”; AJ wanting “violent pets”; Abbi making an “announcement” anytime she jumps up onto something; AJ being a “chomp chat”; the two of them watching “chat TV.” Philip and I send each other photos, and the cats keep us company when one or the other is away traveling. AJ is the playful one, always up for a “mouse hunt” or a session with the teaser toy, and Abbi is still the snuggler (her favorite spot is draped across both Philip and me on the sofa).

AJ and Abbi still love the "chat hammock," but Abbi has ultimately claimed it as her own.

When they came into our home almost five years ago, they elevated us from being a couple to being a family. And as we’ve wrestled with infertility these last two years, they’ve come to mean even more to us. They’re our children, our source of comfort and entertainment, a bright spot as we face the monthly disappointment of, yet again, not having conceived.

The best of friends

Abbi, especially, is our baby. Our little lap cat, the one that forcefully head-butts our faces, kneads our stomachs while falling into a trance, and cries in distress when Philip and I argue. Every morning she demands the “big show,” when Philip or I clean the litter box and fill their food bowls — she loves to watch. She has such a loving, sweet personality that we actually call her “the Schweetie” more than we call her “Abbi.”

Abbi on my lap

That’s why it was so distressing when I came home late from work a month ago to find her clearly in discomfort. I thought she was constipated, as she kept squatting and straining around the house, but nothing was coming out.

TO BE CONTINUED