The Eternal Guest Room

It’s here – another year. I had a tough time ringing in the New Year. It brought up a lot of sad thoughts and emotions. 2009 is over, and 2010 begins. I have two lines of thoughts about this.

The first one is: Thank God. Good riddance, 2009. You totally sucked.

We started off 2009 hopeful and excited. Surely, this would be our year. In January we learned that Darek’s surgery had been successful, and his numbers had improved. In April we learned that they were even better – on the low end of normal, but way better than the original numbers.

In March, we passed the two-year mark. We had been “trying” for 2 years. It stung, but in the midst of the positive results we felt that it was just around the corner.

I went to my doctor to make sure everything was still OK on my end. I was still with my regular ob-gyn and she had me get a super fun procedure called an HSG. It revealed that my tubes were both open, but also showed a very small mass on my uterus. My doctor didn’t think it was anything to worry about, and specifically said she didn’t recommend having it removed. So we did 3 rounds of Clomid, thinking surely this will give us the extra boost we need, even though I didn’t technically need the drug for its intended purpose (I ovulate just fine on my own, thank you very much; at least I have that function covered).

That’s when everything came crashing down. On the day I found out the last round of Clomid hadn’t worked, I found out a friend was pregnant (thanks, Universe…really, thanks). Something inside of me just snapped. I admitted it was finally time to see the RE. It was the beginning of a very rough 5 months.

Unfortunately we kept having to push back our RE appointment since Darek got a new job around that time. When we finally went in September, he outlined a plan for us to do 3 IUIs  before the new year. We knew our insurance was about to change and really suck, so we were relieved that we’d have 3 opportunities before that happened. Three IUIs should have done the trick, statistically and optimistically speaking.

But of course they found a cyst, and that took away a month. I was upset, but did some math and figured we’d be able to squeeze in two IUIs before the end of the year, so we’d have a pretty good shot. On December 1, we finally had our IUI. Everything was perfect – I had the correct response to the drugs, Darek’s numbers were acceptable, and the doctor and nurses ushered us out of the office with smiles and choruses of “good luck!”

It failed, and I went in for a saline sonogram and got the news I expected but was still devastated to hear: a huge polyp was there. I’ll ring in 2010 with surgery to remove it. If we’d been able to do it in 2009, even just a week earlier, it would have cost about $500, but with the new insurance and ridiculous deductible it’ll be close to $1700.

2009 was not a fun year. It was not full of good things. It brought a lot of bad news.

Every step held a set-back. That expression about taking one step forward and two steps back definitely applies to how we felt this year. This was our third New Year when I thought for sure I wouldn’t be drinking at our party. It was our third holiday season to go through the grief of not having a child with us, born or expected. We watched more people get pregnant. We watched more babies be born. We watched other peoples’ children grow up and start walking, start eating with forks, start talking. We watched as other people moved on to kid #2 when I remember how upsetting it was to see kid #1 be born before we had one of our own to look forward to.

The emotional toll of our cumulative losses put a strain on our marriage as well as each of us individually. It was a year of ups and downs but the downs were definitely felt much deeper. Dealing with infertility is an extremely isolating experience. I felt disconnected from friends and family. Though some of my relationships grew stronger, others became more distant or even almost non-existent.

Another year gone is another year that we suffered disappointment and grieved for our losses. Twelve to thirteen losses per year. It’s hard to look at it like that.

But I have a second line of thought as well:

We are knocking out one more obstacle. Maybe this will be the answer. Maybe this will be our year. 2009 is over, and we have a fresh start in 2010.

It hurts to hope, but it hurts not to hope. So this year, we will hope. We won’t forget the past 3 years, but we’ll try to look at this year as a new start. We’ll try to think of this as a clean slate. The beginning.

The holidays are hard.

Another year has gone by, and we’re still where we were 3 years ago. We thought that by now, we’d have one more stocking to put up. We’d have someone else to buy Christmas presents for. There would be small feet in festive feety pajamas. We thought there’d be 3 of us.

We had a quiet Christmas. It was hard to think about the holiday without very sharply feeling the loss, so it was a little different than usual. We didn’t decorate, we didn’t put up a tree, we didn’t hang stockings on the fireplace. There was no Sufjan Stevens Christmas music playing in the background and no greenery scattered throughout the living room.

We did exchange presents, and we did take our annual Christmas photo. But instead of taking it in front of the tree, we took it where the tree usually is. In that corner we have a tall candle holder that holds 39 tealights. We lit them all, and that was our Christmas tree. 39 months is about the length of time we’ll have been trying to have a baby once we can start trying again (after healing from the surgery). So we found some significance in that.

We spent the afternoon with Darek’s family, and that was nice. They understand what we’re going through, and there’s comfort in that.

I’m mostly just glad Christmas is over this year.

Well, it didn’t work.

No Christmas miracle for us.

I have a sonogram picture on my desk, but instead of those photos with the hard-to-see babies in there, there’s a picture of a huge polyp. Turns out that might be a problem. So I’ll be having surgery sometime next month to have that removed.

Merry Christmas to us.

I realized after a phone conversation yesterday that I may not have been totally clear on where we are and what’s going on. So, a few points that I thought we should make:

Yes, we did the IUI. It was very weird and extremely surreal, but everything went correctly. We spent the day together and did the whole process together, as much as possible.

Yes, Darek gave me shots. He stabbed me in the stomach 3 times, and it wasn’t too bad. I kept my eyes shut and concentrated on breathing (I’m truly the biggest baby about shots). The nurse gave me the last shot at the doctor’s office, so it was 4 total. I only got one bruise and one red mark.

Yes, we honestly do welcome questions, but no, just don’t ask us if it worked.

Just one more thing I want to mention: it’s very rare for the first IUI to be successful. People almost always do more than one, and on average it takes 3-4 IUIs for success.

Basically, an IUI is supposed to put you on par with “normal” people – and though it can happen, not many normal people get pregnant on the first attempt. It seems like they do, but I’ve decided that’s because those are the people who love to tell how quickly it happened; the people who spend months at it tend not to bring that aspect up.

I think that’s about it.

This weekend one of my most bestest friends is flying into town to spend the weekend with me for my birthday (which was yesterday – that’s a whole other post though). One of the things that has made this whole thing extra hard is that my closest friends don’t live anywhere near me, so I hardly ever get to see them. So I’m excited for this weekend. It’s given me something to look forward to.

So that’s nice.

There’s not too much to report. We’re just waiting, waiting. Always waiting.

Waiting is hard.

It’s so easy for other people to marginalize the waiting. They say “it’ll happen” and “when the time is right.” It sounds great, but it’s super hard to believe it after waiting almost 3 years. Every month is a whole new wait, and every month is a whole new loss. We grieve our loss every month, and there’s no end in sight.

A friend once described this road as “living your life in 2-week increments.” There are the two weeks when you know for sure you’re not pregnant, and the two weeks when you think – and hope against hope – you might be. Rinse and repeat.

It messes with your head.

The waiting doesn’t sound so bad, but it really is.

Fortunately I’ve had a couple of great friends that have been really supportive – checking in on me and hanging out with me. One even came over with pumpkin bread, yarn, and crochet lessons. I can’t even tell you how helpful that’s been.

And that’s about all that’s going on right now.

We finally saw Pixar’s Up.

Let me just say this… REALLY?  The movie’s been out for half a year and NOBODY thought it might be a good idea to warn us that it’s about a couple who can’t have children, they grow old, she dies, and he’s all alone?!  REALLY?!  “Have you seen Up yet?  Have you seen Up yet?!  It’s sad.”

Of course, once you get past the first twenty minutes, it’s really good… if you can see through your tear encrusted eyelashes.

Also, it’s not for kids.  But that’s ok ’cause we don’t have any.

So we finally have some sort of an update, if anyone’s still out there looking at this.

Went in this morning for a sonogram to see if those pesky cysts were still going to keep us waiting. Last month they were borderline; the problem wasn’t the size, but the fact that there were multiple cysts close to each other. I got worried this morning when they showed up on the screen, and she started marking the cysts and putting the sizes into the computer. She told me that the nurses would decide if we could go forward or not.

I sat by myself in a room for 10 long, anxious minutes, sure the news was going to be bad. The nurse finally came in and told me that she’d had to ask the doctor.

And the doctor gave us the go ahead.

So. Here we are – ready to try this thing.

There are no guarantees, of course. Statistics vary, but the success rates are generally given to be between 10-20%. That’s not great. And the average number of IUI cycles that it usually takes to get one to work is 3 or 4. So we may still be entering a long road of waiting, and of hope, and of disappointment.

There’s even a chance that the procedure might get canceled, if there turns out to be a chance of having multiple multiples. So there’s not even 100% certainty in that. How much that would suck after Darek giving me 3 shots is hard to say. Hopefully that won’t be a bridge we have to cross.

But we’re excited; for the first time, there’s actually something we can do. We know when to expect things. There’s a huge sense of comfort in that. We even know exactly when we find out if it works or not.

I just want to ask for one favor. We’ve said before that we’re happy to have people ask us questions about this stuff. We honestly mean that. But we have just one request – please please please don’t ask if this worked. If it doesn’t work, we’ll let you know when we’re ready to. And if it does work, we want to have a little bit of the luxury that “normal” people have when they make their announcement to the world, at their chosen time and way.

So that’s where we are right now. It’s not much, but it’s nice to have a little bit of good news for a change. The last time we had any kind of good news was in April…so we were definitely due for some.

It’s nice to have some hope again.

I got the dreaded question today…

“So, any news? You going to have any kids?”

It’s gotten to the point where I usually just say “yeah, we’ve been trying to do that for over two and a half years now,” but this was one of those situations where that wouldn’t go over so well. So I did my deer-in-the-headlights shrug and nervous laugh, and later went out to my car to cry.

I don’t know why this is a question that people think is appropriate to ask a casual acquaintance or, in this case, an ex-co-worker that hadn’t seen me in at least 2 years.

I absolutely don’t mind when a close friend or family member asks in a way that’s caring and not just nosey. I welcome those questions, and I mean that.

But it is 100% not appropriate to ask someone you barely know when they are going to have kids. How did something so personal become such open territory? You have no idea what their story is. And a question like that can throw someone like me off for the rest of the day.

I find that if I keep myself busy and distracted and don’t think about this stuff, I can be ok. But when I hear another person’s Big News, or have to be around someone who is obviously pregnant, or have to deal with questions like the ones I got today, I go back to being not ok.

And it sucks.

As far as an update as to what’s going on with us lately…

We’re still just waiting.

And it sucks.

We should find out in the next week or so whether we can move forward with an IUI. I’ve pretty much given up hope with anything ever happening naturally, and though I rationally know that it’s still a possibility, I grieve that loss of hope every day. Sometimes it’s harder to hope than it is to give up hope.

So. To sum it up – we’re just waiting right now. Story of my life.