Rooms

At our fertility clinic, there are two main rooms - The Room of Hope and The Room of Dread.

The Room of Hope is where you get your egg retrieval and embryo transfers.

The Room of Dread is where you get your fetal ultrasounds once you are confirmed as pregnant. The first time in there during my first pregnancy I had a nervous excitement. But upon my first scan, my doctor was cautiously optimistic saying the growth is a bit behind as they only want to see a three day difference at this stage. I hate that room because not once have I ever had any super certain positive news. Sometimes I have to go in for diagnostic scans of my uterine lining and I still have that dreaded fear from all the bad memories. My doctor picked up on that and said I'm going to like this room one day.

We were recently back in the Room of Hope to transfer our final two frozen embryos. We never received any bad news in that room so far as it is actually quite the opposite. We get amazing news - beautiful uterus! 19 eggs! 14 high quality embryos at day 5! 98% successful thawing of the embryos! We should be the poster couple for that room. Plus I'm always distracted anyway trying to control my full bladder.

So the roller coaster continues....if I get pregnant that is great news, but only step one as we have to go back to the Room of Dread.

Courage

A friend of mine from elementary school/high school posted this today on Facebook. A quote from another person regarding people's perceptions about infertility. I did not know of her struggles, but do know it is incredibly difficult to "come out" to so many friends, including those you have not spoken to in years about such a taboo yet common issue. I wrote a while back about my failed plan to do such thing. I find her to be truly amazing - and in time, I will have the courage to come out as well.


"Don't ever give up. Keep trying. You can't stop now. Maybe just one more IVF and you will get pregnant." This is one that really gets to me. I once asked a friend of mine who has worked with the terminally ill if when people in the late stages of cancer decide they can't bare any more treatment if they are met with this same kind of attitude. She assured me that they aren't. With cancer and other terminal diseases there seems to be a collective understanding that at some point that the compassionate thing to do is give up and die with dignity. The same kind of understanding does not seem to be there for us infertiles. I suppose that it seems to an outsider that there is always something more you can do and that if you "really wanted a baby you would do it." We did IUI, IVF, and ICSI. That is as much as we could do. We could not do egg donor or hire a surrogate or attempt another adoption. There was a time when we could do no more. There was a point when trying to have a baby started to feel like it was killing my spirit, damaging my relationships and draining our finances. However, since there are more things we could have tried, I often get the sense from others that I don't deserve to grieve over our childlessness, that we should keep going, and only when we have exhausted every option do we then deserve to grieve.

Infertility treatment, according to the statistics, is likely to cause anxiety and depression equivalent to that experienced by those with cancer or H.I.V./AIDS. With infertility there is guessing, hoping, and odds that are often different in theory than in practice. Infertility treatment takes a significant toll on your body, relationships and finances -- and it is up to each individual to determine when she can take no more.

My suggestion on what to say when you learn that someone is suffering from infertility is very simple: If you find yourself at a loss what to say or an impulse to say any of the previous things that you shouldn't, just say a heartfelt "I'm sorry" -- that is plenty." Tracey Cleantis

Why don't you just adopt?!

The next time I hear this question, often said as a revolution we must not have ever considered, I may just give them an earful. We went to our second info session tonight - the first session was at a different agency shortly after my third miscarriage last summer. Too tired to type after a long day, but in summary I would answer that question like "yeah sure, if it were only that easy...."

Group

A few months ago, I decided to attend our fertility clinic's support group meeting. Yes, the "hi, my name is ___ and we having been trying to conceive for ____ years" (or some variation of that). It was nice to meet others, and some spoke more so than others - about twelve women. I found many women were quite nervous and others quite at home. After telling a summarized version of my story (they were a bit taken aback), and then listening to others, I felt I was able to give some advice to many of those women in the initial stages of infertility. The subject of loss was not addressed that night - maybe other times it was. It was about 75 minutes and not nearly enough time for us all to really talk. On my way out, I started speaking with one of the women who was silent during the meeting. She told me she didn't find the meeting too helpful and found the hospital's support group meeting quite good. It is actually at my work, so I was initially worried someone who knew me at work would find out but I decided to try it.  I easily found the room as the note on the door said "Pregnancy and Infant Loss Support Meeting". I thought "oh shit" and looked back down the hallway to see who was around before walking in. It happened to be right next to the maternity ward of all places as the room bookings were tight that day. There I met a small group of women, and one spouse, who were quite sullen but very gentle towards one another. The social worker who leads the meeting requested we give intros and briefly our stories since I was the newbie. They all began to tell their name, their child's name, and when they lost them. Some in the second trimester, others while in labour. I recognized one of them as the co-organizer of an awareness walk my close friends are part of - three bereaved families who are making a difference by advocating for research, education, and awareness about pregnancy and infant loss. Their babies were stillborn but they were still born. Loss, at any stage of pregnancy, should not be a taboo subject.

I felt quite out of place at first and told them so, but they told me that some of them had miscarriages and infertility too so many of the themes are quite similar. My jaw dropped when I heard how one woman had three miscarriages and then a stillborn. It is a two hour meeting, and at some points there are silences but it is not uncomfortable. Someone will start talking about the same theme or something else. After the meeting, they said they hope I wasn't scared off by their stories. I have been in contact with them a few times since, outside regular meetings. They have termed it the "baby loss friends".

There was a long hiatus during the holidays as the social worker was away. This was difficult for many of us knowing the holidays were going to be tough. One woman said a couple weeks ago that she feels the need for "group" soon. When my other friends ask me how were my holidays, I give the cheery answer, or the tempered answer, because no one wants to be the downer. When asked at group, the real answer comes out. For quite a few weeks now I felt I have been doing quite well, much more at peace and balanced despite knowing the last frozen cycle was coming up. Highly distracted with work craziness and my Master's project was probably a part of it but they were not the instigators. I made dinner for two different groups of old friends this past week, something I haven't done in ages because it has been hard to plan things when I am in my "2 week wait take it easy time" or "I'm pregnant and who knows if I'll miscarry time" or "I just miscarried and ain't in the mood to host time". Over the holidays, Gerry and I resolved to try to get some normalcy in our lives again. This was an attempt. After both dinners I started to feel quite blue. I felt the need for "group". I couldn't really pinpoint why, other than that need to really say how I feel and figure out if it is just me who feels awkward in some social situations and what to do about it when that occurs. 'Til group....

Happy Tears!

I had not spoke with a friend I met through this journey for quite a few months. We caught up today over a long conversation. After her multiple losses over seven years, she is now pregnant at 24 weeks! Huge yay!! I always tear up (happy tears) getting news like that!

3+1 does not equal 4

While we were in Seattle a couple weeks ago, we went to a fertility clinic for a second opinion. The doctor came in after reviewing our file and short summary I had provided. She said she was very sorry for our four losses. I quickly corrected her and said we had three miscarriages; then she gently pointed out that the faint positive line of the home pregnancy test from our recent frozen cycle is considered to be a chemical pregnancy. Ouch. So for a while since then I would consider ourselves as 3+1. Now, I am coming to grips with 4 losses. Aside from a couple more tests she recommended and options for embryo screening, she thought we have been fully tested and have a good chance of a viable pregnancy and encouraged us to keep trying.  Same advice our doctor has given us here. Explaining the "unexplained" comes down to finding the right egg and sperm as we start to age. Since we started conceiving at the age of 34, I refuse to blame the age issue but do see it as a contributing factor in this phase of our journey. She told us to have hope. This article sent to me by my cousin today, "Finding Hope After Miscarriage", is timely:

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/10/finding-hope-after-miscarriage/?hp

One year I was pregnant four times. I was 38 and newly married. I got pregnant the first time in January. A few weeks later, I miscarried.

For every season of that year, I have a photo of me holding a pregnancy test with two pink lines marking positive. By summer my smile is tentative.

Each pregnancy followed its own, idiosyncratic course. One ended gently, just days after a home test turned positive. Another hung on 10 weeks, the embryo’s heart stopping after we’d seen it pulsing during two previous ultrasounds. Another pregnancy my doctor tried to save by prescribing progesterone. That only caused the little bundle of cells to cling to me too tenaciously, long after it stopped growing.

Still, each new pregnancy brought renewed hope. So did the battery of tests that found nothing wrong, and the doctor who advised us to just keep trying.

I was no spring chicken, that doctor pointed out. Most early miscarriages are caused by embryos with genetic abnormalities, which are more common with older eggs. Chances were I’d eventually catch a good egg. But what he and no one could understand was why I got pregnant so easily. Usually women my age simply took longer to conceive.

After each loss, my despair lasted as long as the requisite month I was instructed to wait before we could try again. Soon after that, poof, I’d be pregnant.

My husband and I fumbled through that peculiar roller coaster of hope and heartache, inventing our own ways of dealing. We stopped thinking of pregnancy as a baby on the way, instead referring to ours as BOCs, short for “Ball of Cells.” We became expert at managing my morning sickness, knowing which smelly blocks to avoid, which foods not to cook.

I learned to recognize the signs that I’d conceived within days of the event. I’d blink up from my computer at work, or pause while eating falafel on a bench, and the world would appear suddenly shimmery and strange. I’d be hyperaware of my body, the beating of my heart, the fringe of my eyelashes, and I’d know something in me had shifted. A few weeks or a couple of months later, inexplicable despair would hit, something I came to regard as the telltale sign that the pregnancy had ended and my hormones were crashing.

Though only 1 or 2 percent of couples experience recurrent pregnancy loss — defined as more than two miscarriages in a row — miscarriage itself is remarkably common, happening to roughly one quarter of all known pregnancies. But you’d never know it until you mention your own. Miscarriage, like early pregnancy, is still a largely private affair. Unlike births and deaths, it has no rituals to mark it. Even close friends can feel at a loss with no script to follow. Co-workers rarely hear of false starts. One’s life moves on as if it never happened.

This quietness in the face of something that feels, to some women, so physically and emotionally overwhelming can be confusing. It can make it all feel shameful. Even the word “miscarriage” itself implies the woman has done something wrong, has carried her child incorrectly. Perhaps this is why nearly everyone I know who has gone through it has some theory blaming themselves — that they should not have taken a plane; that they had sex at the wrong moment; that they weren’t taking the right supplement or were taking the wrong one.

The dearth of research surrounding miscarriage only fuels the isolation and remorse. Fertility specialists generally default to treating women who lose pregnancies the same way they do women who have been trying for years to conceive. One reputable clinic wouldn’t see me when they learned I was pregnant. When I explained I’d already had three miscarriages and needed help staying pregnant, the receptionist said that insurance wouldn’t cover pregnant patients and that positive thinking might be what I really needed.

A doctor at another clinic wanted to shoot blue dye in my uterus to make sure nothing was blocking my husband’s sperm from reaching my eggs. When I pointed out that things couldn’t be blocked — I got pregnant easily, after all — he shrugged, saying that was part of treatment.

Two months after I had surgery to remove my fourth pregnancy, I fell pregnant again. Just like the last time, nausea hit hard by week 5, and by week 7, we saw a tiny heartbeat. “Is it too much to ask for that heart to keep beating another 80 years?” I asked my husband, and we laughed and laughed, because we knew exactly how much that was to ask.

But a little over seven months later, I was holding our son.

A year later, his being here feels less like the lucky fluke I know it to be than a wondrous inevitability. While it’s a cliché, I now have trouble imagining life without him. But if I try, of course I can imagine that. After all, I once did imagine that I might never carry a pregnancy to term. Perhaps this is why the mystery of what went wrong and what finally went right continues to haunt me.

I still sometimes visit the message boards filled with women who have had 3, 6, 9 and more miscarriages. A few, like me, are of what doctors call “advanced maternal age.” But many others are in their 20s and early 30s, women who also get pregnant easily and, after much testing, still have no answers. Together they puzzle their way through a world the medical field has largely overlooked compared to the more lucrative business of getting women pregnant. They announce pregnancies with headlines like “It Begins Again.” They share tips for managing the physical pain of false starts as well as the grief. They bond over the belief that after some magical number of losses, they will cradle the babies they long for.

---

Kendra Hurley is an editor at the Center for New York City Affairs at The New School, where she writes about issues affecting New York City’s low-income children and families.

Uh oh, Oprah's stressed...

I was watching TV tonight and Oprah said "she is the most stressed person... more than anyone she has ever met or knows." It's her choice to live her life the way she does and not slow down. Others don't have choices about the stressors in their lives. So my reaction was: wow, I think she needs some new friends! Come hang out at my support group for an evening!

p.s. I didn't just blog this, I submitted a comment to her website!

Dear Toren

Dear Toren,
We went to your memorial today. It should have been your first birthday party. I met your mom from grief, misfortune. My first baby, "Puck" (it was playoff time), was due 1-11-12. That's the date I remember from all my pregnancies. Just five days after you, and it was supposed to be at the same hospital. We live around the corner from your family and if destiny went a different way, I would have likely met your mom from the mommy group at the community centre.

The service was beautiful, your dad spoke eloquently, your mom was brave, and your big sis Esme was as cute as can be (I refrained from pinching her cheeks - this time). It was the first time I saw your picture - oh what big cheeks you have! Just like Esme.

You beautiful, sweet, baby boy.

Hello 2013

Hello 2013,
Last year on NYE, I shed some tears as the clock struck down to midnight at a small gathering of friends. That was tough as I don't show my emotions like that. Gerry and Vivian told me 2012 would be a much better year. Nope, it kicked our ass, but we got back up. Gerry said 2013 couldn't be any worse and I told him not to tempt fate!

So dear 2013, you better not be a bitch to me. Unlucky 13 or not, I've had more than my share. So all the best for this year, okay?