Kid-Free Zone

Here’s an open request for all the parents out there: Please refrain from bringing children to an infertility clinic (as someone did to mine this morning). It’s like walking into a Weight Watchers meeting with a dozen Krispy Kreme donuts – it’s just plain wrong. I love kids – that’s why I’m going through this hell – but I don’t need a reminder on how far removed motherhood feels when I’m about to be poked, prodded and get intimate with an ultrasound wand digging around for follicles.

I get that you might be going through secondary infertility, and I’m sympathetic. Really, I am. I can get my mind around the fact that being unable to have #2 would be really, really hard, particularly once you’ve had the taste of pregnancy and motherhood. So if I can make that leap from here, can you please stop and think for a moment that bringing a baby into a room where women are gathered because they can’t have one might be just an eensy weensy bit insensitive?

Infertility is hard enough. Please don’t add insult to injury. Find a babysitter.

-J.

Does the House Always Win?

You'd think I'd have learned that I'm a really bad gambler when, the first time I was in Vegas, a dealer tried to help me while I was playing Blackjack. That's right - I had 16, and said "Hit me!" (mostly because I'd learned the hand signal for "hit me" and having had at least 123 free drinks, thought I was cool knowing the hand signal). The dealer said, "You have 16." And I said, "Hit me." And he said, "You have SIXTEEN." And I said, "Oh - stay."

Uh huh. And frankly, my luck hasn't really improved since that summer in 1990. When I buy scratch tickets, I never even win the price of the ticket back. The people scratching on either side of me are winning left and right. My husband got me a lottery season ticket - think we even won a free ticket? Nope - not even after a whole YEAR.

Plus, I'm bad with numbers. Math just isn't my thing.

But yet, like a gambling addict, I couldn't resist playing the numbers. I thought, "This time it'll be different - this time I'll win my money back, I just know it!" Uh huh.

The game this time was a little different - definitely no free drinks, no good music, no fun cards to handle, levers to pull or numbers to pick. Instead, I decided that if 69% of pregnant women get a positive pregnancy sign four days before their expected period, I'd be in that 69%. I mean, I'm four days from day 28, and I've had the worst ovarian pain torturing me since day 16. It was so bad on day 23 in fact, that I thought I was losing my appendix. They couldn't really find anything on an ultrasound - just a follicle that hadn't collapsed (who knew they did that? Who knew you had follices? Sex Ed in high school was really a Cliff Notes version, wasn't it??).

So of course I thought, gee, must be pregnant.

Well, unless I'm in the 31% (is that math right?) I guess I'm not.

Which is sort of terrifying, because until now, I've been able to blame it on bad timing. But this month we did IUI + Clomid, and my husband's "counts" were "excellent" and "well beyond what we look for!"

So, I sat down at the $6 First Response Early Pregnancy Test table (apparently the government did a study in 1999, and that was the brand that was the most reliable and actually had accurate results early - which of course I'd researched for three hours - after reading blogs where women said that when they got pregnant, they'd had bad ovarian pain...) and rolled the dice (or peed on them, as the case may be).

And....one pink line.

If I ever do have a baby, I think I am going to paint two giant pink lines around the top of the nursery in celebration.

For now, it looks like I'm going to have to stay in gambler's purgatory. Because hey, tomorrow, 83% of pregnant women get a positive test. And the day after that, 93% of women do!

Clearly, I'm not an addict.

Really, I'm not.

I don't have a problem.

Maybe I'll just buy a different brand of test - move to a different table, with a luckier dealer. Yeah, that's the ticket!

- L.

A Sticking Point

Giving yourself a shot doesn’t require any particular talents, but it is a bravery test. I passed last night – still can’t believe I was able to do it myself. But I guess there are a lot of things you become willing and able to do, against all odds, in order to have a baby.

Here’s what I’ve learned so far: like shopping at Wal-Mart, the key is to get in and get out. Don’t spend a lot of time looking at the needle, thinking about how you’re going to do it, deliberating over when and where to put it in, saying “Oh, I can’t believe I’m going to do this.” Just stick it in. The anticipation is much, much worse than the reality. I did have a bit of stinging last night and a tiny, itchy bump where the shot went in. But honestly (and I am a huge, huge wimp), that’s it. It’s not as bad as you think (and believe me, I thought it would be pretty bad).

It helps if your husband is with you, making you laugh by mocking the voiceover lady in the instructional video on the pharmacy’s website (“Make sure that the DOSE is lined up with the ARROW. Count to five…one. Two. Three. Four. Five.”).

-J.

Hope Springs Eternal

Infertility feeds on hope. Each new cycle offers a clean slate, a reason to put aside grief over the last failure and start daydreaming once again about getting your “Big Fat Positive” and sharing the good news with family and friends. It’s been a while since I’ve posted, mainly because several weeks ago I got news that, for a brief moment, made me feel that all that hope was unwarranted. And writing about it seemed not only impossibly difficult, but also moot.

I had a bad feeling in my gut about the last Clomid cycle, which began in mid-January. Although I had ovulated in December – for what I believe may have been the first time ever – my first ultrasound of the January cycle showed follicles that were slower in developing than what we’d seen the month before. I returned on the morning of January 28 for a follow-up and was told that I had three follicles – a 13 mm, a 12 mm and a 9 mm. For those of you not schooled in all things follicular, those are still on the very small side and should have been much larger – ready to rock & roll – at that point (day 17).

Based on this news, I expected the nurse calling later that afternoon to tell me that the cycle was cancelled and we would need to move on to a stronger Clomid dose next month. Instead, the not-so-nice nurse (through this process you learn the precise definition of bedside manner, and that a health care provider is either going to have it or not) told me they were cancelling the whole megillah. In addition to producing less-than-optimal ovulation results, Clomid was thinning out my uterine lining, which is not such a good result when you’re trying to get an embryo to attach to it. So the fertility drug was making me less fertile. Because what would an infertility experience be without a healthy dose of irony?

Here’s what ensued following that phone call: hysterics. I did not know a person could cry like that. Several times, I thought I might puncture a lung or otherwise injure internal organs. I cried because I honestly, honestly thought Clomid was going to work. I put on a good show of pessimism (cautious realism, I like to call it) – but it doesn’t take Freud to tell you that has defense mechanism written all over it. Underneath that, I had been hopeful to the core. I was genuinely fearful of moving on to the vaguely ominous world of injectible medications, the next step once you call it a day with Clomid, which in my mind – beyond seemingly absurdly complicated – could make me the proud mother of a litter of six babies.

After several days of moping and obsessing over what had been lost – namely, a relatively easy journey in the land of infertility – I started to perk up. Partly because I talked myself off the ledge of despair and slowly back into the realm of hope (This will work BETTER than Clomid! And with fewer moodswings!), and partly because I had to perk up so I could get on with my life instead of sinking into a deep depression. I started reading Dr. Alice Domar’s book, Conquering Infertility (Lisa – you are so right about her – she is a living, breathing genius. This should be required reading for anyone going through this.) I started reading about the gonadatropin (injectible) drugs and found encouraging info. And I had another rendez-vous with my good friend hope.

I started Gonal-F last night – this is the drug that will stimulate my ovaries to produce follicles for ovulation. I must stop right here and say that I never, ever thought I’d see the day when one of the things my husband and I would do in the bedroom would involve a needle, some alcohol wipes and a pinch of fat from my lower abdomen. Hilarity ensued when he got ready to inject it, holding it like a dart aimed at the bullseye of my stomach. Once I convinced him to use a more humane grip, sweat literally ran down my forehead as he prepared to put it in, following the video instructions on my pharmacy’s website. But then: Almost nothing. The slightest pin prick and a count of five and it was all over.

The plan is to take these injections for four days, with an ultrasound scheduled for Thursday morning to see how things are coming along. I can handle this. I have all the hope in the world.

-J.

And now, for some good news!

If you're dealing with infertility, most of what you read and hear is probably very discouraging. I was shocked when I learned that having not conceived after trying for a year meant that we only had a 2% chance of conceiving per month. TWO PERCENT!? This 2% apparently accounts for those all too common (and really frankin annoying) stories("my friend Angie tried for years, and as soon as she adopted, she got pregnant!" "I know two women who just stopped trying and stopped thinking about it, and voila - pregnant!")


But today I read something that amazed me: in the United States, women in their 40s have more unplanned pregnancies than anyone other than teenagers! Not that I'm rejoicing in unplanned pregnancy - but I am pretty damn happy to read (for once) that lots and lots of women over 35 get pregnant - even (or especially, since the statistics no doubt reflect not using birth control) when they aren't trying.

So, for today, a statistic that should make us feel better about our fertility - finally!

- L.

Clomid Isn't the Devil Afterall...

I'm starting to realize that most of my assumptions during this whole fertility/infertility process have been completely wrong. I was deathly afraid of Clomid - having (stupidly) trawled the internet for whatever I could find, I was sure I'd be bathing in a tub of ice to get rid of the hot flashes, be sick to my stomach all day, be unable to go to work because the bloating would prevent me from fitting into anything but pajama bottoms. Instead, I felt a little sick the day after I started taking the Clomid (100 mg dose, for those of you who know about this stuff) and had a headache off and on all week. But other than that, nothing. I definitely felt what I assume was ovulation (on day 16, which is about 3 days late for me) - pain in an area that just has to house my right ovary - so hopefully the Clomid worked.

Unfortunately, the IUI surprised me in the opposite way. I expected it to hurt when the nurse inserted the tube thingy (I really have no idea what it's called - it's certainly not a needle but not a tube either, really) but that didn't hurt at all - in fact, I didn't even feel it. Then she said, "okay, now you should notice that the cramping will subside." Instead, I had severe cramps that were so bad that I threw up! Apparently I had a reaction to the prostaglandins - the stuff that they couldn't spin out when they separated the sperm (for those of you who are new to this, IUI means intrauterine insemination, and basically, they take your partner's sperm sample, "spin" it so only the sperms are left, and then they insert those directly into your uterus). When I looked up prostaglandins I saw why - they are used to induce labor! Basically they force contractions - lovely.

I have yet to talk to anyone who has had an IUI and has had this happen to them - most women don't even feel it. Lucky me! I felt like such a baby - crying on the table and unable to walk (until I had to get to the bathroom for an ahem emergency).

All I can say is, I really, really hope this works - because if it doesn't, I'm really going to dread the next IUI.

If you're about to have an IUI, don't worry - apparently very, very few women have the problem that I had...but I'd take a few Tylenol just in case!