I’m Annoyed

I’m annoyed at everybody today.

I’m annoyed at myself for not being more stoic.

I’m annoyed at my husband for not feeling as pissed off as I do all the time.

I’m annoyed at every person I’ve ever known who’s gotten pregnant just because they were trying – or not trying. It’s mind boggling what I’ve done in my attempts at TRYING. I can’t even grasp the idea of actually having sex with my husband and thinking: this could be the time we get pregnant. Seriously, it’s like speaking Chinese. It doesn’t compute.

I’m annoyed at people who announce “we’re trying.” Although I probably did the same thing with my best girlfriends - you know – years the fuck ago when trying was fun and didn’t involve huge sums of money. I really can’t remember.

I’m annoyed because in my mail today came a bill from a collections agency. For $15 goddamn dollars that our old fertility doctor keeps trying to collect - from almost a year ago. $15 that I do not owe, that I’ve gotten at least 12 bills for, that I have had to stop what I’m doing and make phone calls about, that I’ve made trips to the billing department in person, and even after admitting that I don’t owe it, their fucking billing department STILL can’t get their shit together. I will let my credit score drop to zero before I pay that man one goddamn cent that I don’t owe him.

I’m annoyed because two weeks ago I was bouncing off the walls excited about NCIVF. Now all I can think is: this is just another creative, expensive, soul-consuming, painful, emotional attempt at another huge failure. Screw the power of optimism.

I’m annoyed because studies say that depression lowers your chances of conception. Can someone please invent a fucking fertility treatment that is not only fun, but makes me think: Yay, I GET to do this again! You know - like SEX. I want to hear fertile women say things like: "Damn, I wish getting pregnant were hard for me, so we could try that!" or "You're so lucky - you get to do fertility treatments!"

I’m annoyed at The Money. The shitloads of money. And for what? So I can spend months afterwards walking around in a haze – fighting with my husband because he’s not as sad as I am about this?

I’m annoyed over every stupid baby shower invitation that has ever landed in my mailbox (with the exception of one).

I’m annoyed because I can NOT go to baby showers. Put simply, I’m not emotionally equipped to deal with them. Although if I finally get pregnant - I will expect every person I've ever met to not only be there, but to come bearing wildly expensive gifts.

I’m annoyed at people that in their attempts to “shield” me from this living hell of cycle-failure-cycle, go out of their way to keep their pregnancy news a secret. I appreciate the motivation behind it - I do. But avoiding the elephant in the room does nothing but isolate me even more. And trust me, I can’t be much more isolated in all this than I already am.

I’m annoyed that infertility is so isolating. This is what all my “woe is me” stems from. With the exception of my spouse, who internalizes this either very lightheartedly, or not at all, or maybe just in the exact opposite way that I do, I am entirely alone in my circle of friends. So basically I just happen to live in the same house with someone whose wife is going through infertility. It. Fucking. Sucks.

I’m annoyed that when I get together with a group of women, I am always the only childless freak in the room. I constantly find myself the only one who is physically unable to contribute to any of the conversation. I’m down to one friend that I see on a regular basis who doesn’t ramble about her precious child, or bitch about late night feedings, or whine and moan about being pregnant.

I’m annoyed at women who have children and yet don’t even know what hCG is. Or how miserable a HSG test is. They don’t know my old friends Estradiol, or Bravelle, or Follistim, or Menopur, or Lupron, or Novarel, or Prometrim. They don’t know the disgusting uncomfortableness of Crinone. Or egg retrievals, or holding their breath for fertilization and cell counts. They really, really annoy me.

I’m annoyed by all the fertility doctors that invented everything I listed above. Seriously, you HAD to have gone through a lot of trouble to reproduce all the pregnant-human, nun-pee and horse-placenta hormones that you ruthlessly shoved into me with needles. Couldn’t you have just FIXED the fertility problem instead of trying to get around it?

I'm annoyed at fertility doctors with shitty bedside manner. Sometimes we "patients" just need someone to hold our hand while we're having a procedure done, or an IV placed. One small thing like a pat on the shoulder will go a long way and will probably increase those success rates that you're so desperately worried about. It also makes forking over the $12k a little easier.

I’m annoyed that I don’t have one friend that has ever said to me: all my crying and anger is normal and it will pass – but in the meantime feel free to be pissed the fuck off that there is actually Stork Parking at my local grocery store. Seriously, do I need a sign that will slap me in the face every time I need bread?

I’m annoyed that when we talk about our next phase of house-remodeling, we have to plan around a fucking nursery that may or may not EVER happen. And I'm super-annoyed that I actually lose sleep over deciding what color to paint said room "in the meantime."

I’m annoyed that when my husband and I discuss kids, I have to make a conscious effort to say “WHEN we have kids”, even though my natural response is “IF we have kids.”

Back in the Stirrups Again

It is with guarded excitement that I announce we are back on the baby-makin train. Yesterday we met with our new doctor. My first impression is that I LOVE this man. To start off the consultation, the first thing he said was: Wow, I’m so sorry that your stack of medical records is so thick. Me too, dude, me too. It’s officially thicker than our phone book.

He kicked back in his chair and said: Ok, tell me everything. This may sound like a simple thing to most people, but I’ve been to more doctors in the last 4+ years than most people go in their entire lives. It’s rare to find a doctor who listens. And not only listens (I have been known to shut a doctor up by just talking right over top of him/her), but truly WANTS to know.

After I recapped the last few years, he rambled off our options. Apparently this man thought we were still shopping around for a doctor – he also thought we were still trying to figure out our next option. I guess that’s the way it is for most people, but now that we can call ourselves infertility veterans, we know what’s up. Halfway through his sales pitch I piped in and said “We want NCIVF, when can we start?” I felt kind of bad, I could tell he was enjoying his well rehearsed speech.

Five minutes later I found myself naked from the waist down, wrapped in a fantastically small pink paper blanket with feet in stirrups having my insides churned with the ultrasound wand. “Yep, ovaries are lookin’ good, lining looks fine. Well, while you’re here, let’s go ahead and do a mock transfer.”

So as I said, I’m not used to doctors asking me to tell “the whole story.” Um, doc - did I forget to mention that my transfers are from hell, take an hour and a half with me screaming, blood pouring out of me? No? I didn’t? Let me go back and tell you more of the story: I need to be unconscious for transfers. My uterus is tilted enough for the medical journals. Can we just skip the mock transfer and then knock me out for the real one? No? It’s required to be an NCIVF candidate? Oh….ok then…..

The doctor promises me that he just needs to see what’s going on with my anatomy, he’ll attempt it, but if there’s any pain he’ll stop – he just wants to get a feel for how hard the transfer will be. The transfer begins, he is so fascinated with the twists of my uterus that there are now six people crammed into this tiny room because they just “HAD to see this.” They’re all ohhhhing and ahhhhing over the ultrasound screen. The doctor is taking still shots left and right to save for my real transfer. Not even five minutes later, with minimal amounts of uncomfortableness, he announces: “I’m in.”

Whoa? What? That’s IT? I’m desperately holding on to J’s hand waiting for the pain and he’s already done? I look at the screen – holy crap, he really IS in. And I’m not screaming, crying, OR bleeding profusely. This is fantastic – high fives all around.

After a few more quick tests, a few order forms for updated bloodwork, a couple of handshakes, we’re checking out of the office – it’s been less than an hour since we arrived. Quick, painless and we find ourselves back on the road to baby makin’. As we drove away into the sunset, J and I holding hands – filled with new hope, determination and smiles on our faces - I let out a sigh of content: It’s good to be back in the stirrups again…

Happy 2008

Any New Year's resolutions this year? I have come up with a good one for myself. Every year I have said: "This will be my year." Every year seems to get worse. So this year, my NY Affirmation is this: I can't control a thing that happens, but I can control how I handle it. So my resolution is to get my shit together, basically:

I will be sad when somebody gets pregnant, but I will remind myself that I wouldn't trade my life for theirs.

I will be sad if IVF doesn't work, but will remind myself that I'm moving forward. And regardless of the outcome, I am not doing this for nothing.

I'm going to take care of myself.

I'm going to try to forgive all the insensitive, ignorant people around me. It's not their fault they're not infertile too.

I will remind myself that The Hubby internalizes all this very differently than I do. I will not be mad at him when he doesn't join me in my sorrow.

I will not wallow in sorrow. Being sad is one thing, but no more weeks on the couch crying over this mess.

I'm throwing away my Victim Status and I'm going to kick some ass in 2008.

The Pioneer

I met a woman in the bathroom at J’s company Christmas party not long ago. I was standing there washing my hands and I heard this lady at the vanity beside me sniffling and grasping for tissues off the counter. She had her back to me so I couldn’t tell if she was crying. I asked her if she was ok and she responded with the candor that you can only find in the ladies room after a couple glasses of wine: “Oh, I’m fine, I’m going through chemo and it makes my nose water.” She was almost laughing at herself, which took me by surprise. I mean shit, I can’t even get through infertility without tearing down the walls around me - and this lady is laughing over chemo. Before she even started her next sentence I had decided this woman was my new hero.

Without any prompting she started telling me her story – she had been battling colon cancer for years. When they found it the doctors told her she only had a few months to live, but she beat it into remission. In fact she spent several years toting her “Cancer Free” declaration. But it came back. And she said this was her last round of chemo – she wasn’t doing it again. And the cancer didn’t seem to be going away. She said she had heard about some experimental cancer trials going on at Johns Hopkins and she was trying to get enrolled in them.

Somewhere in the conversation I told her about my upcoming breast surgery. How scared I was. I told her about all the hormones I took for IVF and even though I thought I was ok, I couldn’t help but wonder if I hadn’t created the perfect storm in my body for cancer.

We probably talked for 20 minutes in the restroom. I can’t begin to describe how incredibly wonderful this woman was. How sympathetic, how outright, how bold, how calm, how courageous. How comforting.

I have zero religious belief in me, but I’ll admit there was a split second when we walked out of the restroom that I expected her to disappear – perhaps my guardian angel arrived right as I needed her? It seemed too coincidental to be true.

But she didn’t disappear. She met her husband at their table and 5 minutes later I glanced over to see this woman breaking bad on the dance floor. My fucking hero.

I thought about her a lot after the party. I wondered how she was doing – but I had no idea how to get in touch with her.

I didn’t have to. About a week after my lumpectomy – she found me. J called me from work and said he had just gotten back from lunch and had this bizarre cryptic message left on his voicemail from some guy at work that he’s never even met saying his wife met me at the Christmas party and wanted to see how my surgery went. He had left her number. So I called her back.

She was on the phone with a doctor at Johns Hopkins when I called. I offered to call her back, but she told me to hang on. A few minutes later she was on the phone. Chemo had officially failed and she was in the midst of trying to get approved for the Johns Hopkins study.

They claim to have a possible “cure” for cancer. But this is in no means just popping a pill and waving a wand over you. The “cure” was discovered by accident. A few years ago a man came into the hospital with a very large cancerous tumor. However, he came in for something different – liver failure. During the course of treating him for liver problems, he contracted some strain of strep and died. When they did the autopsy they discovered that this form of strep had completely destroyed the cancerous tumor. It was completely gone.

So after loads of research, they took this strep bacteria, stripped it of the pieces that are deadly and injected it into the cancerous tumor of a 78 year old man who volunteered to be a guinea pig knowing he was about to die anyway. He died a few weeks later – but not from cancer. He provided them with a huge amount of knowledge about how this bacteria works – how it kills the cancer, but the treatment got the best of him.

My friend from the restroom has volunteered to be the next in line for this experiment. And let me add that she has not only volunteered, she is doing so with the utmost enthusiasm. She is excited about a treatment that she may very well die from.

As I type, she is going through preliminary tests that will decide if she is qualified for this experiment. And her biggest fear is that she won’t. She is scared because (in her words) if she is going to die anyway – she wants to go out knowing that she has provided doctors and researchers answers that might keep somebody else from going through her same ordeal.

She wants to be a pioneer in the medical field. She wants to be the one that kicks cancer’s ass. She wants to be the one that saves lives. She wants to be the hero. She wants to move forward instead of waiting for the next bad thing to happen to her.

And she is. She’s already a pioneer – she’s conquering life’s hardest obstacles with enthusiasm and courage and a beautiful positive spirit. She’s also a hero. And I know just from the short time I spent around her, there’s no way this woman is just my hero.