Saturday, January 21, 2006
A Bit of Hystery
Okay, so I haven't posted too much to this blog. It's definitely off to a slow start. Part of the problem is I don't feel like posting if I don't think anyone else is reading. I may start sharing this with people, people who don't know me. But to make it relevant, I feel a need to share a bit of my hystery...er, history.
Prior to 2003: I didn't want kids. Hubby didn't want kids. We traveled, I completed an MBA degree and climbed to the position I wanted at work, and we both enjoyed our independence. Life was good.
Children just didn't have a place in my life. None of our good friends had any, and except for a niece 2,000 miles away with whom we don't have much contact, there were no children in our families, either.
Feb. 1, 2003: I slipped on some ice in the driveway and broke my wrist. This was the same day the space shuttle disintegrated upon reentry...kind of a sucky day all around, you could say.
As it turned out, that fall on the ice became a pivotal moment for me. When I got the cast off about 6 weeks later and had this limb that didn't work so well, it left me with a vague feeling of depression and a hyper-awareness of my own aging.
Summer 2003: It became apparent that my dad's health was failing. Both of my parents, at this point in their early 80s, were becoming frail, shells of their former selves. As an only child, and one with no cousins, either, it hit me that I'm it, the end of the line.
On top of all that, I don't deal well with the reality that they really need someone to take care of and nurture them (more about this in another post). Of course, it doesn't help that they live in the middle of nowhere, a nowhere that's over 600 miles away from where I live. It's also a nowhere that feels very foreign to me. I never lived there myself and quite frankly, I don't like it there at all.
I went to visit them that July and it bothered me that I felt unable to nuture them. When I'm with them, I fall into the role of the petulant 15-year-old teenager. I know, very immature. In the back of my mind was the thought that perhaps because I never had kids, I had never learned how to care for others selflessly. I felt bad about that, and still do, because it puts a strain on my relationship with them, but I didn't know how to change my attitude back then, or even now.
The day I returned home from that trip, I returned to the announcement from two of my dearest (and also childless) friends that they were expecting a baby. The news hit me hard, particularly coming on the heels of my time at my parents' house. I was struggling to process this announcement of theirs...you see, I've never been able to stay good friends with people who have become parents. I think it's an inevitable drifting apart that comes from different priorities and having less in common. I wasn't sure how to deal with the realization that these two people, to whom I felt so close in spite of the fact that they live four states away, would be traveling down the parental path. Would we be able to remain friends, or would my closeness to them be reduced to a relationship of merely exchanging cards at the holidays, as had all those other friendships of people who had become parents?
This feeling became even more complicated about six weeks later when other friends, also adamantly child-free, let me in on the secret that they were "trying". (They weren't successful and probably never will be, as they are about 3 years older than we are.)
Fall 2003: That vague sense of the blues I had had since my wrist fracture continued to intensify into a sense of feeling something was missing from my life. After several weeks of introspection and soul searching, I discovered within myself a longing to have a baby. Perhaps that feeling had been lying dormant in me all along, and it took the events of that year to bring it to the surface. I started to research conception over age 40. I stopped taking The Pill, although my doctor had been urging me to stop anyway, because of my age.
Of course, I had to tell my husband what was going on. He was shocked, to put it mildly, after all those years of my so adamantly not wanting kids. At first, he was not on board with this idea. Who could blame him...I had spent months thinking about this, and then dropped it in his lap one October evening.
I can't say exactly what changed his mind. That Thanksgiving, we flew down to see my parents. On the long drive from the airport to their house, we talked about it and I told him I knew I was about to ovulate and felt really fertile. His response: "Let's make it happen!"
Well guess what...the first month we tried, I got pregnant, finding out less than a week before my 42nd birthday. I think both of us were in a state of shock.
That shock was only to last a month or so. To make a long story short, I started having some spotting that turned into light bleeding, got in right away for an ultrasound, was diagnosed with a blighted ovum and on the day of what would have marked my 10th week of pregnancy, when into outpatient surgery for a D&C. The day after tomorrow will be the 2nd anniversary of that day.
At the time, it didn't bother me. In fact, I'm sure the doctor was surprised at my overall demeanor: I was laughing and joking in the recovery room. Part of that is my public approach to difficult situations. When I'm nervous, I crack jokes. But even more, I felt that, having become pregnant on the very first try, I was infinitely fertile and would be successfully pregnant again in no time.
It wasn't quite "no time" but I peed another positive my the end of that summer. This one didn't last too long. I had gone for a bloodtest at my OB/Gyn. They called the next day to say my numbers didn't look too good. By the time I got that phone call, I'd already started bleeding. I had read about chemical pregnancies and the call from the doctor's office only confirmed what I already knew.
This time, it hit me harder. Not only was I now even older, just months away from turning 43, I was frustrated and realized I'm not infinitely fertile after all.
2005: After a few more months of trying, I felt it was time to get ourselves tested to see if we were just wasting our time, or if there was any hope, I got the name of the top reproductive endocrinologist in the area.
I never really intended to start fertility treatments, but it is a slippery slope indeed. All the tests showed us to be healthy, reproductively speaking, even at our ages. My system just needed a little "tweaking". So it was full steam ahead with bloodtests and shots and and pills and transvaginal ultrasounds.
To sum it up, the ensuing months involved five IUIs, the last of which ended in another chemical pregnancy. In polite medical terms, the RE basically told us it was time to "shit or get of the pot" and move on to in vitro.
I wasn't sure I wanted to go there. At best, the odds of success were less than 15%. My insurance covers much of it, but with a deductible that would still cost us a few grand. Even more importantly, I am one of those people who would rather be a quitter than a failure. At odds like that, failure was almost inevitable.
My biggest regret in going forward with IVF in spite of the odds was that I didn't have a good coping strategy for dealing with the failure of the procedure.
That's where I am today. Struggling to cope with the realization that I probably was infinitely fertile at one time, but only during the years that I was too stubborn to admit I'd changed my mind and really did want kids. I have about $300 worth of fertility medication in the fridge, left over from that failed IVF. Not sure what to do with it at this point. Even my RE said it wouldn't cause any harm to try an IUI again, but am I just throwing good money after bad?
I need to come to peace with my reality. It's a struggle, the biggest of my life so far. Meanwhile, my parents are older, even more fraile. I have to take my head out of the sand and deal with that situation, too.
It's a time of emotional weakness when I so badly need emotional strength.
Prior to 2003: I didn't want kids. Hubby didn't want kids. We traveled, I completed an MBA degree and climbed to the position I wanted at work, and we both enjoyed our independence. Life was good.
Children just didn't have a place in my life. None of our good friends had any, and except for a niece 2,000 miles away with whom we don't have much contact, there were no children in our families, either.
Feb. 1, 2003: I slipped on some ice in the driveway and broke my wrist. This was the same day the space shuttle disintegrated upon reentry...kind of a sucky day all around, you could say.
As it turned out, that fall on the ice became a pivotal moment for me. When I got the cast off about 6 weeks later and had this limb that didn't work so well, it left me with a vague feeling of depression and a hyper-awareness of my own aging.
Summer 2003: It became apparent that my dad's health was failing. Both of my parents, at this point in their early 80s, were becoming frail, shells of their former selves. As an only child, and one with no cousins, either, it hit me that I'm it, the end of the line.
On top of all that, I don't deal well with the reality that they really need someone to take care of and nurture them (more about this in another post). Of course, it doesn't help that they live in the middle of nowhere, a nowhere that's over 600 miles away from where I live. It's also a nowhere that feels very foreign to me. I never lived there myself and quite frankly, I don't like it there at all.
I went to visit them that July and it bothered me that I felt unable to nuture them. When I'm with them, I fall into the role of the petulant 15-year-old teenager. I know, very immature. In the back of my mind was the thought that perhaps because I never had kids, I had never learned how to care for others selflessly. I felt bad about that, and still do, because it puts a strain on my relationship with them, but I didn't know how to change my attitude back then, or even now.
The day I returned home from that trip, I returned to the announcement from two of my dearest (and also childless) friends that they were expecting a baby. The news hit me hard, particularly coming on the heels of my time at my parents' house. I was struggling to process this announcement of theirs...you see, I've never been able to stay good friends with people who have become parents. I think it's an inevitable drifting apart that comes from different priorities and having less in common. I wasn't sure how to deal with the realization that these two people, to whom I felt so close in spite of the fact that they live four states away, would be traveling down the parental path. Would we be able to remain friends, or would my closeness to them be reduced to a relationship of merely exchanging cards at the holidays, as had all those other friendships of people who had become parents?
This feeling became even more complicated about six weeks later when other friends, also adamantly child-free, let me in on the secret that they were "trying". (They weren't successful and probably never will be, as they are about 3 years older than we are.)
Fall 2003: That vague sense of the blues I had had since my wrist fracture continued to intensify into a sense of feeling something was missing from my life. After several weeks of introspection and soul searching, I discovered within myself a longing to have a baby. Perhaps that feeling had been lying dormant in me all along, and it took the events of that year to bring it to the surface. I started to research conception over age 40. I stopped taking The Pill, although my doctor had been urging me to stop anyway, because of my age.
Of course, I had to tell my husband what was going on. He was shocked, to put it mildly, after all those years of my so adamantly not wanting kids. At first, he was not on board with this idea. Who could blame him...I had spent months thinking about this, and then dropped it in his lap one October evening.
I can't say exactly what changed his mind. That Thanksgiving, we flew down to see my parents. On the long drive from the airport to their house, we talked about it and I told him I knew I was about to ovulate and felt really fertile. His response: "Let's make it happen!"
Well guess what...the first month we tried, I got pregnant, finding out less than a week before my 42nd birthday. I think both of us were in a state of shock.
That shock was only to last a month or so. To make a long story short, I started having some spotting that turned into light bleeding, got in right away for an ultrasound, was diagnosed with a blighted ovum and on the day of what would have marked my 10th week of pregnancy, when into outpatient surgery for a D&C. The day after tomorrow will be the 2nd anniversary of that day.
At the time, it didn't bother me. In fact, I'm sure the doctor was surprised at my overall demeanor: I was laughing and joking in the recovery room. Part of that is my public approach to difficult situations. When I'm nervous, I crack jokes. But even more, I felt that, having become pregnant on the very first try, I was infinitely fertile and would be successfully pregnant again in no time.
It wasn't quite "no time" but I peed another positive my the end of that summer. This one didn't last too long. I had gone for a bloodtest at my OB/Gyn. They called the next day to say my numbers didn't look too good. By the time I got that phone call, I'd already started bleeding. I had read about chemical pregnancies and the call from the doctor's office only confirmed what I already knew.
This time, it hit me harder. Not only was I now even older, just months away from turning 43, I was frustrated and realized I'm not infinitely fertile after all.
2005: After a few more months of trying, I felt it was time to get ourselves tested to see if we were just wasting our time, or if there was any hope, I got the name of the top reproductive endocrinologist in the area.
I never really intended to start fertility treatments, but it is a slippery slope indeed. All the tests showed us to be healthy, reproductively speaking, even at our ages. My system just needed a little "tweaking". So it was full steam ahead with bloodtests and shots and and pills and transvaginal ultrasounds.
To sum it up, the ensuing months involved five IUIs, the last of which ended in another chemical pregnancy. In polite medical terms, the RE basically told us it was time to "shit or get of the pot" and move on to in vitro.
I wasn't sure I wanted to go there. At best, the odds of success were less than 15%. My insurance covers much of it, but with a deductible that would still cost us a few grand. Even more importantly, I am one of those people who would rather be a quitter than a failure. At odds like that, failure was almost inevitable.
My biggest regret in going forward with IVF in spite of the odds was that I didn't have a good coping strategy for dealing with the failure of the procedure.
That's where I am today. Struggling to cope with the realization that I probably was infinitely fertile at one time, but only during the years that I was too stubborn to admit I'd changed my mind and really did want kids. I have about $300 worth of fertility medication in the fridge, left over from that failed IVF. Not sure what to do with it at this point. Even my RE said it wouldn't cause any harm to try an IUI again, but am I just throwing good money after bad?
I need to come to peace with my reality. It's a struggle, the biggest of my life so far. Meanwhile, my parents are older, even more fraile. I have to take my head out of the sand and deal with that situation, too.
It's a time of emotional weakness when I so badly need emotional strength.
# posted by Martian1 @ 12:32 PM 
