It's Been Rough

I won't lie. This past week has been one of the tougher ones in my history. The only time I can remember crying this hard or being on the verge of crying this consistently I was in elementary school and my best friend had just died unexpectedly from a brain aneurysm. I find myself being a hermit because I loathe crying in front of people and just about anything can set me off.

I skipped out on my niece's second birthday party and feel horribly guilty for it but it was two days after my negative beta. I did what was best for me. If I had gone one or all of several things could have happened...

• a. someone would ask me when we're having kids  
• b. someone would give me that puppy dog look because they know about our failed cycle 
•  c. someone would comment about how my niece 'looks exactly like' me 
• d. someone ie (my brother most likely) would have said something stupid and I would have gotten violent very quickly and finally
• e. I would not have been able to show affection to my niece like she expects which would have upset her and in turn everyone else including me.

I know I'm a ticking emotional timebomb and I have no desire to explode in front of anyone or to take anyone out with me when I go. All of the above scenarios would have resulted in a lot of ugly crying, a panic attack for being seen crying, and alot of explanation on the part of others for my behavior. No thank you. I did however send gifts.  My brother in his amazingly clueless manner got vaguely upset because he thought it would be better for me to be around my family during this time. Uh no. If he can't see why that's a bad idea then he doesn't understand the nature of the beast. I can barely step inside of town without having to blink back tears because everywhere there's babies and pregnant women and overheard conversations about babies, pregnant women, and adoption. Just going into Joann's for fabric was hard because I saw all the cute fuzzy fabric and yarn that I was just dying to make baby blankets with.
I can't say that my negative beta blindsided me. I was and still am well aware of the stats. At best its a coin toss. I am blindsided by my emotional reaction.
One of the things that is particularly hard to resolve is the damage that I did to my foot while working in order to pay for this cycle. It has been a month and a half since I left work and still not a day goes by without some level of pain. I am frustrated beyond words that before I took the jobs to pay for IVF that my foot was the best it had ever been in my life. No pain, no limping, increased movement etc. And now it is the worst it has ever been consistently. I could have handled this sacrifice if the payout had been there. But now its hard to think of all that I have lost for the sake of that one cycle. I hurt myself perhaps permanently for nothing, I spent more money on that one cycle than anything else in my life save our house.
I keep feeling like I am being pressured to move on and make a decision both from without and within. I know how I feel now that I don't want to do another cycle especially not a full blown one. At our clinic that would cost meds and all somewhere in the $25k range. That is almost a third of our remaining mortgage. That is almost four times the cost of my car or two times the cost of my husband's. I know if it were to work it would be worth it. I also know that if it didn't work I would become such an angry bitter resentful old biddy the world would not be able to handle me. I don't even know if I could handle me. And it would take a minimum of 6 months to get there financially and that's a cutting so far back you're on a bread and water type diet. I spent the last 9 months living exclusively for this chance. I don't know if I can handle living another 7 or so just for it to fail again.
On the flip side we've a couple friend, actually our bestman and his wife, who are adopting. Their profile went live recently and they will have spent about $18k when all is said and done. We have almost 13k in the bank from the car accident and there's a chance that we could actually spend less than what they are.
Both arguments are compelling and I'm having a hard time sorting through them. I'm thinking of going to a counseling session just to have an unbiased opinion.
At the moment I'm just trying to keep my head above water.

One step forward, two steps back

It should be called the IF shuffle. Except there's no music. Just the sound of your own heart beating, the silence in the room, the tears you refuse to cry.
Right now we're in tortuous limbo yet again. We finally managed to do our third SA. They called yesterday to let us know the results were in and to schedule an appointment. They refused to let us have the results without an appointment which I frankly think is just blackmail. Especially since we sure as heck are not going forward with this Uro. Good or bad it doesn't change that fact. The appointment is on Monday. I'm a little pissed that we have to wait a whole nother weekend, but I'm more pissed about letting go of that copay when I know its going to be wasted and could be used for something else. We're operating under the assumption that everything is still horrible. We know for a fact it couldn't get any worse, but we aren't expecting it to get better either. It's a way to guard ourselves. Prepare for the worst and be pleasantly surprised if that doesn't happen.
Our step forward, DH finally opened up about our IF to his family. This week while his father was in for triple bypass surgery (he's out and doing good by the way) he confided in his family. This is a huge step for him. It made me happy to hear that he was willing to share. It made me just a tad giddy that his brother suggested a sperm donor as a solution to our problems. I have for the recorded suggested this only twice before, once before we knew what the problem was and we were going over all possible outcomes and solutions and once after. DH has been very much against it. I don't even bring it up because he has such a strong reaction to the option. Yay that someone close to him brought it up for me and even more yay that that someone was a man. I kinda feel a little guilty about those yay's.
Our two steps back. I decided a little while ago that I wasn't in the right mental frame of mind yet to truly consider adoption. Not with an open heart. And I refuse to go into it, if there's a chance at all that I wouldn't ever accept this path as the right one. Maybe one day it will be, but not until I know I've done all I can to have a child of my own, to be pregnant even just once. I told DH that for now I want to take adoption off the table. No more talks, no more suggestions. For now it's not an option that I can find peace with. Unfortunately he didn't seem to get that memo that off the table means off the table. We watched Shark Tank, a couple on there adopted. He looks at me and goes, "Look at that beautiful little girl that they ADOPTED." and yes he really did emphasis it like that. I didn't say anything just left the room. It irked me though. He brought it up in the car about a week ago. I reminded him that I didn't want to talk about it right now. Today he did it again. Out of the blue his voice came from the living room, "Hey would you be interested in adopting out of the country instead?" I got up from desk, patiently explained that it would cost just as much if not more to do so.  When he said donor sperm was off the table months ago I haven't brought it up again. I refused to make him feel pressured or guilty for that decision. He can't even leave my option off the table for a few weeks. I got a little angry, I admit. I reminded him again that I wanted it off the table for a little while. He kept pushing. So I pushed back, 'why are you so gungho about adoption if you won't even consider a sperm donor.' We got into an emotional conversation. It never got heated enough to become an argument but it still wasn't pleasant. He couldn't explain his stance. All the problems that he has with a sperm donor are the same ones we would face through adoption and then some. I told him that I wouldn't bring it back up again, that it was his position to do so and that he shouldn't bring adoption back in to the conversation because that was my position to do so. Afterall we're not going forward with anything unless we're both on board, right? He closed down a few minutes in, sat sulking on the couch tapping on his knee, and then went to bed about three hours early.
 I probably shouldn't have pushed back. But I can't help but feel that his stance is incredibly unfair. There's nothing wrong with me that we've been able to find. Why shouldn't I get that experience? And if the tables were reversed I would be fine with an egg donor, hell I would even be fine with a surrogate, because it would be related to at least one of us. It wouldn't bother me at all. I feel like he's saying if I can't be a biological parent then neither can you. And then I get angry and then I feel guilty for getting angry. And I feel like he's pushing and pressuring me towards adoption and I'm not ready. And then I get angry all over again.
I hate that this journey seems to be built on anger and guilt, anger and guilt sprinkled with massive doses of sorrow and just enough hope that it hurts when you get knocked on your ass. 
Oh and no call back from that job so I guess that didn't pan out either :(

In the Cards

I do a tarot reading every Samhain night, aka Halloween. While I’m not nearly as spiritual as I once was, this one little ritual I keep. A tarot reading about the coming year.
It can be a little odd to watch your life laid out in symbolism. To see the foundation of the year as being caught by failure unawares with a warning not to despair. To see the past as two roads diverging in the wood, which one did I take again? To see the present spelled out as, I kid you not, the end of a cycle and being ready to move forward. Boy am I ever. The past and the present are easy to decipher it’s when we look at the future that things start to get hazy. Why? Because the future is colored by our perceptions and our desires. We will look for what we want to see or what we fear to see. In the spread I use depending on how you choose to interpret there are at least two cards representing the future. The first for me told me about contentment…alone. Being happy with what I’ve wrought by myself. It’s not the card I wanted to see. I wanted to see one of the two cards that I have dubbed the happy home cards. I didn’t get them anywhere in my spread.  The next four cards can be interpreted to be a future for each of the upcoming three months of the year  or they can be interpreted as investigative cards with the final card being the outcome. Either way the outcome doesn’t change. I see myself being led by emotion. I see a light at the end of the tunnel of an arduous journey. I see me being unsure of myself, of being overly analytical. And then I see the Sun. Another card for contentment. Contentment for the things in my life that I can do and those that I cannot do. At peace with the universe.  I want contentment, I want peace, but I can’t help but shake the feeling that it’s not going to be found where I want it to be. I keep seeing the alone flash. Boo.

Next I did two  past, present, future readings. One for adoption. One for IVF.
I pulled the happy home card for the future in adoption. Tears immediately pooled up in my eyes. I don’t even remember right now what the past and present cards were. I zeroed in on that card. All were minor arcana.
Then I did one for IVF.  I pulled the empress, which is close as you can get to earth mother for the present, and the moon for the future. The moon is uncertain, hazy. And the Hermit for the past. All were major arcana. Stronger influences.

Unsatisfied I did another spread, the dilemma. The dilemma pulled up as rational thought fleeing from emotions. Ivf’s choice pulled up as rest after a long struggle, but only a temporary rest, you have to go back to battle. Adoption’s choice pulled up that the outcome was already determined the events already set in motion. But if you change one thing, it changes everything. Then another card for a choice I’m not considering. Again contentment, sharing abundance. That third choice that’s the one I should go with. Pity I don’t know what it is.

My last card I pulled was the eight of pentacles. ‘Be wary of being so excited about the harvest, that you forget about the balance sheet’. This was the answer to my question of what should I do to be happy.

Does anybody else read cards? I’d love a second or third opinion. I’m using the Gilded Tarot.

 

Edited to add some second thoughts:  There are some trains of thought that put the major arcana as people. Only two major arcana showed up in my original spread. The lovers and The sun. Since the Lovers showed up at the crossing which means impolitely the problem that one’s probably a guarantee. It probably really does represent exactly what it says. The Sun as a person… doing a little digging I’ve found that in other decks the Sun often represents a child, either a boy or twins. Huh. See what I mean about how our hopes and desires become imprinted upon the reading.

Chugging along

Several seemingly random topics to cover today.
First....I finally got my dad to read a story for my storybook cd. He complained and grumbled all the way up to the time I counted him in. It took less than 5 minutes and as soon as I stopped the recording he started grumbling again. Sometimes I just want to sit there and shake my head at him.  I don't know why he insists on playing the grizzly bear when inside he's cotton candy. One of the gems from that short time...'I'm not gonna croak anytime soon and even if I do the kid's probably better off not knowing me.' Gee, dad, that's a wonderful sentiment. *eyeroll* My mom and I keep reminding him that its not necessarily just for in case he 'croaks' so much as it's a really nice idea.
A few weeks earlier my brother asked me why I hadn't asked him to read a story. I was a little dumbstruck. Honestly I hadn't even considered him. I don't know why but while I can imagine losing everyone else in my life for some reason I never think about losing him. I don't know why that is. And even though it never occurred to me to ask him, it was also because it never occurred to me that he would even want to be included in this project. He's not exactly warm and fuzzy unless he gets a couple shots in him. I told him that I didn't think he would want to do it. His response was, ' well you knew dad wouldn't want to do it either.'  I think maybe I hurt his feelings and that was something I certainly hadn't intended to do, but it got me thinking. So after I finished with my father's story I sent my brother a text, mainly because it was raining outside and I didn't want to get soaked to walk up to his apartment, telling him to come on up and pick out a story and to tell his wife, J, that if she wanted to read one she could come up too. I waited and waited. Thirty minutes passed and no reply. So I sent him another one letting him know I was planning on going back to my house in about an hour. Again no reply. I waited the full hour and then left feeling even more confused. Why did he make an issue of me not asking him, if he didn't want to do it in the first place? I really don't understand people.
I have however thought of a way to improve my idea even more. I think I will scan in all the pages of the book along with a picture of whoever is telling the story and make a dvd out of it. With my husbands audio engineering expertise he should be able to eq and master the sound any way I want it and I can handle the rest. I had, at one time, casually mentioned creating a movie instead of just sound but everyone shied away from that idea pretty quick. lol. Everybody is concerned about how they look and how they sound. It's kinda funny in a way.
Moving on... I discovered recently that PepsiCo offers its employees $8,000 in adoption assistance. Pretty nifty, right? Makes me want to go work for them. Our friend who is actively pursuing adoption just quit his job and got on with Fritolay which is a subsidiary of PepsiCo. Of course the employer he quit from is also my husband's employer and guess what...no adoption assistance. Bleck.
I have so many questions about their journey. They asked me to take pictures for them for their profile book, at first I was jazzed about it. Then they asked if I could take nice pictures that didn't look posed or professional. Huh. That actually makes it alot harder. My husband doesn't seem to understand that creating posed pictures that don't look posed is actually more difficult than regular posed, even though I use natural posing techniques usually. They said the adoption agency strongly suggested not using professional posed pictures. Never heard that before. But I told them I'd make a  go of it. Then they mentioned that the homestudy wouldn't be finished for a year. Huh. My somewhat limited research and lurking on adoption boards certainly hasn't suggested that. Most homestudies seemed to get done in about 3 months. I'm so confused, so so much conflicting info out there.
Finally my grandmother just finished organizing/helping with a fundraiser/benefit for a local couple who are in deep with medical expenses. She's had alot of years of experiencing doing similar things for 'Pokey' which is the affectionate nickname we've given to the building that is now just a community center but used to be the local senior citizen's center and even further back the school where my grandmother attended as a child. Any rate they raised $7,000 for the couple in one night. Wow. I have to say that gives me a little bit of hope if we need to fundraise ourselves.
Speaking of fundraising, tomorrow I get to be a part of a charity event supporting our local no-kill animal shelter. I did pet portraits for them last year and was able to raise $100 for them. They were so pleased that they asked me back again this year! I'm excited to see everybody's furbabies. My favorites from last year were the Irish Wolfhounds. I so hope they'll be back again this year and even more hopefully that maybe they'll stop by my booth.   

Well if you've stuck with me for this long how about a song. This one is my new favorite and it's lifting my spirits when I badly need it.  BTW she's accepting videos as to what you think is 'Brave'. I thought about doing one on infertility and adoption but a. not a filmmaker  b. not out of the infertility closet just yet   c. its not just my journey but also my husband's and he's not comfortable at all with being open about our situation.

This is a Recording

You may remember the idea I had to record my grandparents reading some stories for a future little one. This weekend I took off down the road with my laptop, storybook, and a dinky little microphone that I've had for years. My Nana was more than happy to participate. The first thing that we recorded was this song called 'Little Man' that my grandma likes to sing. I never liked it a whole bunch because the duck gets shot. But it's part of my childhood. Next I had her pick a story from the book, which is an omnibus collection of Little Golden Books. She picked 'Goodnight Little Bear'. We got through it pretty quickly only messing up a teeny tiny bit. My Nana is a good storyteller, she does the voices and the noises both. I reassured her that she did not in fact sound like a total hick. Then while she wrote out a script for another song, I pinned down my grandfather. He hemmed and hawed about it for a few moments but still sat down and began looking through the book for his story. I knew the one he would pick out. 'The Color Kittens'. My grandfather loves kitty cats. As I positioned the mic close enough to pick him up, he straightens his back and tucks in his chin. I signal him to start and am immediately amazed at the change in his voice. Deeper richer. I would have never imagined his reading voice would be so much different than his speaking voice. He adlibbed a little here and there which only served to make a truer reflection of who he really is. It recorded beautifully. I was amazed at his voice. It reminded me of this old record I used to have that had the story of Sleepy Hollow on one side and Rip Van Winkle on the other. His voice was just that awesome. If he could stay on point he would make a wonderful narrator. Then my Nana and I headed down to the creek to record another old favorite, 'Blind Child's Prayer'. We decided to record it down there because when I was little I used to lay in her lap in the swing listening to her sing, the creek burble, the leaves whisper, as she gently wove her fingers through my hair with one hand, patting out a beat with the other. I was hoping it might pick up some of the ambient noises. It didn't, my cheapo mic wasn't powerful enough but it did make a very crisp very clear recording of her voice.
Afterwards we went for a walk. My brother met us on the way back and asked what we had been up to. My Nana told him immediately obviously thinking he already knew. I had wanted to keep it a little bit of a secret. Maybe its selfish but I wanted to make this for MY future little one. And I knew what would happen which it did. My brother asked me to make him a copy for his daughter when I finished. I mean she already has access to our grandparents, she sees them two to three times every single week. I guess it is a little selfish, but now I don't really have that option. I agreed to give him a copy when it was finished.
My parents got home a little later and I attempted to corner my Dad. That didn't work. He refused to participate citing a headache, being too busy, he wasn't croaking anytime soon, not in the mood, blah blah blah. Maybe I can catch him on another day. My mom and I retired to my old bedroom and sat down to listen to the recordings i'd already done. That's when we realized that 'Little Man' hadn't recorded completely. Don't know why, maybe the jack slipped out of the port. So I'll have to bring it all back out there again next weekend to redo it anyways. Then Mom recorded mine and my brother's favorite childhood story 'The Pokey Little Puppy." She messed up and got tickled. She wanted to redo it but i loved the little laugh in her voice that made her all the more real in the recorded version. That's the version of my Mom I'd want my kid to know anyways.
I'm going to try and get my husband to use his fancy recording software to put it all together and EQ it properly in the end.
It feels good to get this done. I know that its preparing to make the best of a horrible situation. It's a little morbid in a way. But I'd rather be a little morbid and a lot prepared than to be in denial and miss out on this opportunity and consequently cause my future child to miss out too. My grandmother assured me once again that no matter what happened, iui, ivf, adoption, they would support me and love whatever child we brought into the family.

Where am I?

I used to pride myself on knowing who I was and where I stood. I was a constant. I wasn't swayed by peer pressure or the things on tv because I knew innately who I was. I assumed that self-awareness would carry me through the rest of my life. I would always be the old soul. Like so many other things Infertility seems to have taken that away from me. I don't know where I stand anymore from moment to moment.  The latest ground that seems to be crumbling beneath my feet is on the subject of adoption.
I always thought that adoption was an amazing option. I thought growing up that it would be nice to adopt someone. So when trying to conceive started taking longer than anticipated adoption naturally came up. I started doing research, lurking on an adoption board, preparing myself mentally for the realities that would come with that choice. When we were officially diagnosed with male factor infertility, the adoption option became more real. We knew that IVF simply wasn't cost effective. Not to mention the invasive procedures and copious amounts of drugs that are necessary in a single IVF cycle. I don't take tylenol unless the pain makes it hard to function. Together we ruled it out. Then as the journey progressed and I did even more research, we ruled it back in. Adoption became further down the line of options. With my husband's last SA even IVF started to look like a pipe dream. Adoption inches closer.
Last night my husband came home from visiting with a friend. I've been trying to get him to go and talk to this friend for months. I know he needs someone to talk to as much as I need my dreamers. I was relieved that he finally went. His friend is starting the adoption process due to male factor infertility. Hubby came home in a whole different frame of mind then he left that morning. He was excited, exuberant even. I was happy for him. Glad he had someone to talk to. Then he said, 'Hun, how bout we skip all this treatment stuff and go straight to adoption.' I'll admit I'd rolled that thought around in my head more than a couple of times in the past couple weeks. But when he said it aloud and excited, something broke inside me. The tears started welling up immediately, my throat clogged up, I couldn't talk without my voice cracking. It wasn't til he said it out loud that I realized how much I'm not ready to go there. I surprised myself completely with my gut wrench reaction to a simple suggestion. I don't know who I am anymore. Now I can't help but be over whelmed with guilt. And I don't even really know where it's coming from.
Hubby keeps asking these questions. "Is it just that you want to experience pregnancy?" "Is it just that you want a kid that looks like us?" Is it just.... JUST. It's not JUST anything. It's everything all together. Never experiencing pregnancy or childbirth,no maternity pictures, no baby shower, not being able to see myself in a child, having to pay thousands upon thousands of dollars, having someone judge me and my ability to be a parent, the possibility of a failed match, especially a last minute one where I've loved that baby for 2 weeks or more before the revocation period is over, having to have that talk with the child, hearing them say even once that I'm not their real mother, knowing that eventually they'll want to find their bio mom and me feeling like I wasn't enough if they need that. Yes they grew within someone else for 9 months but I was there for 18 years! I'm their real mom. And you can forget about those huggy feely open adoptions where the bio mom comes to visit for Christmas and birthdays. No..no..no you can't have your cake and eat it too, darn it. Not in my world. And what bio mom is going to pick closed off me over open Sally over there. All at once all these thoughts came crashing down on me and they were real not just nimbusy what-ifs. And I realized that I'm terrified. I'm really really scared. And I shouldn't be, right?
Maybe lurking on the adoption board wasn't the right thing to do but I watched these women experience incredible heartbreak from failed matches. I cried for them. They bounced back and tried again and sometimes tragically they had to do it all over yet again. I know that a late failed match will destroy me emotionally. I will not bounce back. The husband agrees and said, 'Well if that happens its the ultimate cosmic signal that we just shouldn't have children at all'. That didn't help at all, though I'm sure he thought it would.
I don't know where I am because the landscape is constantly changing around me, and through its changing its changing me as well.
My real life experience with adoption was limited. The closest I got was a kinship adoption, when my parents took in my 15 year old cousin. For three years she was my sister. I was young, I don't remember the time before her. The day she turned 18 she packed her bags and left, didn't even stay for the party we planned, didn't open her gifts, or eat cake. I didn't see her again for years and by then she had a kid of her own. By then I was angry. I'm still angry with her for leaving us, for taking our love and pretending we were family and then leaving the first chance she got and fracturing my youth.
I used to think adoption was helping someone. But knowing that what I want is infant adoption, I can't help but feel that I'm not really helping someone. There are waiting lists a mile long for infants. If I don't do it, you can darn well bet someone else is eager to take my place in line. And then there are the adopted kids who grow up and talk about how adoption ruined their lives, even if they were placed with loving families. I'm having a hard time seeing the positives anymore.
Rationally I think this is all part of the grieving process. Irrationally I feel like a bad person. The husband has since assured me that he's not ready to start the process either, not yet. That I shouldn't feel bad, but I do. I've always been supportive of adoption, why can't I be supportive of it for me?
I feel like I'm floundering and just plain lost right now.
If you would have asked me two weeks ago, heck even two days ago, about adoption I would have been overly positive and optimisitic, hopeful. Where did that person go? How did she just disappear into thin air?
I could really use some insights, some positive experiences, some reassurance that my emotions right now are normal, anything to shed some light on the situation while I fumble around in the dark.