just a thought

Before you are allowed to adopt, you have to go through an extensive Home Study, so why not have something similar for people who want to have IVF... (especially if they already have several children.)

a guest post: So What Am I?

from my friend and fellow blogger Alicia:

My husband and I have been trying to have a baby for six and a half years. Coupled with endometriosis, infertility and miscarriages, we have yet to have a child.

Fertile people just don't get it. They say the most ignorant things. These are called platitudes. Statements that they make that are meant to make me feel better, but only makes them feel better and me feel worse. A platitude I often get is, "At least you're not infertile. You can get pregnant!"

Okay, great. So it's been six and half years and we still don't have a child to call our own after all this heartache, and you think you make me feel better by reminding me that I have been pregnant and lost those babies?

So this makes me wonder. What am I? If I'm not infertile because I can get pregnant (which ends in miscarriage) and I still don't have a baby after all these years, then what am I?

Alicia
www.yayastuff.blogspot.com

Thank you Alicia. I'm touched and honored that you wanted to post on my blog.

nothing to do with infertility or babies

I'm just going though a period where I feel like I can't say the right thing to anyone. In email, in person, on the phone. What is wrong with me?

I am going thorough some kind of change (no not THAT change). I want my insides to match my outsides.

I had a profoundly traumatic event in my life over 20 years ago that forever changed me. Changed me for the bad, unfortunately. And for some reason, I feel like I'm coming out of it. I'm not sure where I've been. I've been hiding within myself. Maybe it's because I feel we are closer than ever to having the family we've always wanted through adoption, maybe it's because I so look forward to thinking about someone other than myself, focusing on someone other than myself.

It's time for change. I'm not taking crap from anyone any more.

I started seeing a counselor last summer when I hit rockbottom with the infertility stuff. The deepest pit of despair, been there, done that, did not get a t-shirt. My life was over, what's the point of going on and being here if I can't be a mom. I will confess to you that I was so low, I actually thought of driving off a bridge, but I just couldn't do that to my husband. I'd been low before, but I was lower than low this time. I stayed in bed on weekends, hiding from myself.

I went to my NP. She asked me if I had a gun, among other things. No, I didn't have a gun. Had I stopped going to work. No. I'm a realistic depressed person, I knew I had to continue to go to work or I wouldn't get a pay check. duh. Reason wins over even when I'm depressed.

So, my NP sent me to a counselor (therapist, LCSW, whatever you feel comfortable calling them). I was a wreck. Cried the ENTIRE session. I don't know if she could even understand a word eeked out, I don't know if I did eek out any words.... She got the gist, I'm not happy. I want a baby and I'm not happy.

It was between that session and my 2nd session a week later that my life changed.

My aunt, who I'd seen recently for the first time in many years, called and said she didn't realize we had an infertility problem, she'd assumed that we didn't want children! ACK. She works in the maternity ward of a hospital and many young girls come in there complaining of cramps, denying any chance of pregnancy, give birth, sign over their babies and leave. Did my husband and I want a baby?

HELLO?!?!? Do we WANT a baby!

I saw the counselor the next week and she didn't recognize me from the puddle who had been there the week before. I had hope, the depression was lifting.

We'd thought adoption was out of reach financially until then. We have so much infertility debt... a post for another day...

Anyway, back to me changing. So, I started wearing a little make up this week. I feel different. I am beginning to feel human again, after 20 years. My husband will say I've always been human, always been beautiful. But I've never felt that in 20 years. Someone took something from me and it took the hope of adoption to get it back.

I want to be a mom. I want to be a good mom. I will be a mom. I deserve to be a mom. I will be a good mom.

One thing I learned early on from my counselor, two things can lift you out of depression (besides drugs - and that's only temporary):
#1. Hope
#2. Falling in love

I have hope. I even wear hope around my neck :)

Thank you for listening my dear reader.

Maybe this post did have to do with infertility AND babies...

today's rant: the way people treat their children

Ok, this memory has been haunting me so I'm gonna get it on the blog.

I was eating lunch at an outdoor café (part of a grocery store) anyway, there was a woman with her two boys seated near me. The boys were about 12 and 2 (interesting).

Mom wanted them to share a Yoo-Hoo. The 12-year old was going to get the Yoo-Hoo bottle and the-2 year-old was going to get a little plastic cup.

Well DUH! The 2-year-old wanted the glass bottle too. It's not rocket science.

He proceeded to throw a tantrum AS ALL 2-YEAR-OLDS do. (I am not a mom, yet this IS something I do know to be true).

Well, this mom starts yelling at the little one, tells him he is a naughty boy and she "can't stand the sight of him" and sends him to the other side of the patio. ("Scared for life" is what I was thinking.)

Yes, the thought did cross my mind: Kidnapping.

I just sat there a cried when I wanted to go get the little one and share my lunch with him.

This drama just broke my heart.

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Now, for something a former friend said to me. She has 2 boys, and one day she was complaining about all the yelling and fighting and I said something like try to see them for the blessings that they are, this too shall pass.

Well she sent me a nasty email and told me I was blessed to not have children among other things.

I replied that she was sorely mistaken and that she is the one who is blessed.

She responded that she felt sorry for any child that I adopted.

It was at this point that I severed all ties and started praying for her boys.

Of course, this makes me think "what did I do wrong" that women who treat their children as anything less than blessings get to have children in the first place and I don't....

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Why why why don't people who've had children so easily not see them for the blessings that they are. How can they take these little innocent ones for granted? How can they possibly think their lives are worse than mine.

Whenever someone tells me how bad it is having children, my reply is "consider the alternative: my life, childless." It's not for sissies.

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Now, my infertility friends who have been blessed with children (one way or another) they all see and treat their children for the blessings that they are.

it's happening again!

"oh surely you'll get pregnant now that you are trying to adopt!"

don't these people get it? there is something physically WRONG with me that I can't get and stay pregnant.

I really need the "oh lucky me infertility AND your stupid comments" t-shirt!!!


ack!

a bad, bad case of the "what ifs"

• what if we hadn't moved from a metro area to the country to raise our children
• what if I still had my city salary!
• what if the doctors had figured out what my problem was with TTC 5 years earlier
• what if any or all of my 3 babies survived
• what if I had health insurance that covered IVF
• what if I didn't have a problem with infertility at all
  
• what if I could turn back the clock
• how did I get here? this is SO not what I had planned for my life
• what if I could be happy not being a mother (not gonna happen)
• what if adopting a baby were as easy as adopting a puppy (which is what everyone else seems to think)
• what if my little sister gets pregnant and gives birth
  
• what if
• what if
• what if

I'm what ifing so much lately I'm loosing sleep. Maybe putting it out there will help. Do you what if?

DO NOT go it alone! trust me

I cannot stress this enough, DO NOT go through this alone. Please please PLEASE find someone who understand infertility to talk to. Please trust me, been there, done that. I do speak from experience. It is my goal to help others.

If I cannot have biological children, I'd like to help others achieve their dreams, or at least manage their infertility.

I have a friend who came to me over a year ago. She is in her 20s and having a difficult time TTC. Her OB kept saying "you have plenty of time, just keep trying." My friend knew what I've been through, so she asked for my advice, which of course I'm more than HAPPY to give.

I suggest ANYONE who has been trying 6 months and is not pregnant seek the help of a reproductive endocrinologist. This is also what I told my friend. She followed my advice, and I am overjoyed to report she gave birth to a healthy baby girl just this weekend!!! All she needed was little clomid to help her along. She is one of the lucky ones. But if she had followed the advice of her OB, she could still be TTC.

She has been kind enough to acknowledge that without me she would not be pregnant. I am extremely happy for her. Anything I can do to keep anyone from going through what I've been through, I'm happy to help.

But please, don't try to go it alone, you do need support, even if it's an online forum, speak to others who understand it really does help. Check out RESOLVE'S website and see if there is a support meeting near you. Try online, there are many forums. Email me, leave me a comment. I'll do anything I can for you.

five stages of grief

My counselor told me I am going through the "5 stages of grief," grief for not being able to be a biological mom.

I was terribly, terribly depressed last summer, did I mention that already? I actually thought about driving off a bridge. That's when I knew it was B-A-D! If you get to this state, please seek professional help. I did and I'm glad. It has helped me immeasurably. Or talk to someone, anyone, ME even! I understand the pain of infertility. I would not wish infertility on my worst enemy (and yes, as a matter of fact, I do have a few).

I think I'm stuck in the anger stage, I think I've been here for about 4 years, so I don't know how long these stages can last, but they totally relate to infertility and it's pains. Um, well, I guess I've been to stage 4 and now I'm back to stage 2, interesting how that works... We are all unique...

The five stages of grief are:

1. Denial:
   • Example - "I feel fine." or "This can't be happening, not to me!"
2. Anger:
   • Example - "Why me? It's not fair!" or "How can this happen, I hate this world!"
3. Bargaining:
   • Example - "Just let me live to see my children graduate." or "I'll do anything, can't you stretch it out? A few more years." or "I will give my life savings if..."'
4. Depression:
   • Example - "I'm so sad, why bother with anything?" or "I'm going to die . . . What's the point?"
5. Acceptance:
   • Example - "It's going to be okay." or "I can't fight it, I may as well prepare for it."

the mommy orphanage

I wish I would have thought of this. I need to get there, to the Mommy Orphanage, so someone can choose me.

am I the chicken or the egg

I have no friends. Infertility has been a long lonely road for me, there's no denying it.

But, which came first, did I retreat into myself when all my friends were having babies, going to school plays, celebrating birthdays? or did they stop inviting me to be around because we now longer had child-free lives in common. (man! I hate that term "child-free." one doctor told me it was time to face that fact that I was going to have to life a child-free life, it like germ-free or something, it's just not a term that should be used IMHO.)

So, do I not want to be around people who have children or do they not want to be around me because I don't have children.

I don't know the answer.

can I just say this?

If I hear from one more person about "God's plan for me" I'm gonna scream.

It's usually people with children who say this to me and it makes me feel like they and God both think I shouldn't be a mom.

That's when I get a bad case of the "where did I go wrongs?" I'm a good person. I don't even run over dead roadkill. I try to live by the Golden Rule and do unto others. But with each birthday that passes I feel like "where the heck did I take a wrong turn that ended with with me here, and childless?"

Maybe when people say stuff about God's plan for me, they think it's comforting? It's not. It makes me feel like a complete failure has a human being.

Does anyone else feel like this?

And now on to adoption, where someone went through our life with a fine tooth comb to see if we are worthy of being adoptive parents. We had physicals, we had fingerprints, we had background checks, we had someone come and look through our home all to see if we are good enough. We were approved, but I had such a fear of failing the home study, of someone saying "you are not good enough."

Do people with other illnesses feel this way? or because their illness did not prevent them from having children it's a different ballgame?

infertility lingo

This will be useful for those of you just getting into infertility treatment and/or for those of you with a friend or family member suffering from infertility, hopefully.

• TTC = trying to concieve
• IUI = Intrauterine insemination is a procedure which involves placing sperm inside a woman’s uterus to facilitate fertilization. This fertility treatment does not involve the manipulation of a woman’s eggs, and therefore is not considered an assisted reproductive technology (ART) procedure.
• ART = Assisted Reproductive Technology
• IVF = In Vitro Fertilization is the process of fertilization by manually combining an egg and sperm in a laboratory dish. When the IVF procedure is successful, the process is combined with a procedure known as embryo transfer, which is used to physically place the embryo in the uterus.
• GIFT = Gamete intrafallopian transfer is similar to IVF, but the gametes (egg and sperm) are transferred to the fallopian tubes rather than the uterus, and fertilization takes place in the tubes rather than in the laboratory. GIFT also involves a laparoscopic surgical procedure to transfer the sperm and egg into the tubes. GIFT accounts for approximately 2% of assisted reproductive technology (ART) procedures in the United States.
• ZIFT = Zygote Intrafallopian Transfer differs from GIFT in that the fertilization process still takes place in the laboratory versus the fallopian tubes. It is similar to GIFT in that the fertilized egg is transferred into fallopian tubes, and it involves a laparoscopic surgical procedure. ZIFT accounts for less than 1.5% of assisted reproductive technology (ART) procedures in the United States.
• FET = Frozen Embryo Transfer (Frozen embryos are sometimes referred to as snowflakes.)
  
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a safe place

Let me tell you about a group of infertile girls I know. They hang out at FertilityForums.com. This is a great group of girls (and guys) who are all in different stages of their infertility journey.

Rather than going Raising Arizona on us, please get yourself to a forum where you can meet others who understand what we are going through. Trust me, it's a huge help. I've been hanging out there for 3 or 4 years now and these girls have gotten me through some tough times.

why me & infertility sucks

Ok, let it all hang out. I know if it's crossed your mind once, it's crossed it a million times. Please feel free to let loose with your "why me's" and "infertility sucks" here. No one will judge! Please know you are not alone.

a conversation with my hairstylist

So I will talk to pretty much anyone who will list about infertility and adoption.

During my haircut Friday, I was talking to my hairstylist about is. She does not have or feel the need to have children. Unusual.

Anyway, she brought up the fact that years ago, before infertility treatment was available, what did people do. They accepted they could not have children and adopted or did nothing. We wondered what it was like during that time to be infertile, and if it was easier to deal with then the playing field was level.

Now some can afford unlimited infertility treatment and can continue until they are blessed with a live birth. Others of us are able to afford little treatment and have to discontinue treatment without being blessed with a live birth.

Was it easier to live with your infertility when it was more black and white? Yes you can, no you can't? And more difficult now knowing there is treatment out there you cannot afford? I do not know the answer. But I thought this was an interesting discussion none the less.

facts & tips for dealing with infertility

• Ob/Gyns are not equip to help the infertile girl. I recommend you start with a reproductive endocrinologist or as they are know RE. They can help diagnose your problem.
• Fertility peaks at age 27. No one ever told me that. This is a very helpful piece of information.
• Once your problem is diagnosed, you must be aggressive and tell your doctor what you want. Chances are, they will start you out on clomid. The plain truth is it's cheap. So it has been my experience that this is the firs thing everyone tries.
  
• Clomid does not work for everyone. Don't waist too much time on it.
• If your doctor is not treating you (medically) the way you want to be treated, it's time to move on to a new doctor.
• You are in charge of your fertility treatment, never forget this. You are paying for your treatment (and chances are it's not covered by your insurance) so be sure you are getting the care you want and need. You decide when it's time to get more aggressive with your treatments, when it's time to move on to something else. It's your body, it's your life. You don't have time to waste where fertility is concerned.
• If you want to be a mom, you will be able to stick yourself in the belly with a needle, this is a very small thing to overcome in the route to motherhood.