Weirdest cycle ever

Well, so far anyway.

I'm on CD25 and I've had one - one! - day of mucus. And I was feeling generous in my scoring that day (10yx1). Whaaaaat is going on?

Usually my peak day is in the CD16/17 day range. A few months ago I had a day CD21 peak day. But it's never been stretched out this late. Or did I just skip over ovulation? So frustrating.

This is my third cycle using tamoxifen, by the way. Third and last!

When I shared these details with Mr. M, his immediate response was, "Maybe you're pregnant!"

Oh, my optimistic husband =)

While that would be nice, I think that would fall in the category of "verifiable miracle" because I don't see any signs on my chart that I've even ovulated, let alone conceived...plus, my body feels like it's in "pre-peak" mode, if you know what I mean. And I for sure had a real period at the beginning of this cycle. Nope, all signs point to "tamoxifen is doing freaky things to my body and I want it out of my system..." or "my body has decided to just give up and forgot to let my brain know."

Anyway, it's just frustrating.With my luck, peak day (if it shows at all) is going to show up this weekend, when we're visiting friends and sleeping on an air mattress in their living room...not a good place to get I's on the chart! Ack.

+EcceFiat+

Retreat. Relapse. Revelation.

Retreat.

 

We went on a retreat last weekend, deep in the mountain woods. We stayed at a big old home, normally meant for family reunions, I think. It was BIG! Eight bedrooms, a big kitchen, dining room, living room, basement. Mr. M and I got there early and he spent an hour transforming the basement "rec room" into a chapel =) Accomplished with the help of religious pictures from our home, gold-colored tablecloths, moving couches, stacking furniture, etc. (Forgot to take a picture!!) It was an incredibly peaceful room - you felt like you were tucked away from the world.

It's bigger than it looks from this angle. And there's a porch on the side and back.

 Context: the Wednesday before retreat, I had a painful test that yielded disappointing results. And the week before that, we had found out that our current apartment would probably not be approved in an adoption home study. Plus, being a married couples' retreat, our fellow retreatants were going to include a seven-month pregnant woman and a mother with her two-month old. (All the couples are good friends of ours, and they know about our IF struggles; but this was not going to be an infertility retreat, that's for sure!) So I knew this retreat would be intense - I was taking into it a very bruised and battered heart, bracing for more medical appointments in the coming weeks.

 

The retreat structure was simple: meals together, silence, talks by our spiritual director, time for silent prayer, rest, conversation with your spouse. The setting was so perfect. Tucked in the autumn woods, far away from traffic, no cell phone or internet service, ahhh. Lots of room to walk and think and pray.

View of the woods through the back screen door. Everything smelled so woodsy =)

Relapse.

 

I thought it would be intense...and I was right. 

 

The very first talk, Father walks us through a catechesis on marriage. "Matrimonial," he begins, "comes from the Latin word for Mother..." Oh darn it, why did I think I could get through this without tissues? I got up twice during that talk to blow my nose and dry my eyes. Once when the group was asked to describe motherhood, and all I could think was, That's not me, not me, not me. 

Father was quick to add throughout that a married couple's call to be father and mother does not depend on actually having living children. Its about their fatherly or motherly care for other people. My head gets that...my heart apparently does not. As Father talked, I felt this chasm open up in my soul, the oceans of grief bubbling up once again, threatening to spill out of my eyes. Why not us? Why not us? my heart pounded. Motherhood...that's a door I've locked and sealed, because to look behind it is too painful.

From that first conference throughout the entire day on Saturday, I grieved as I haven't allowed myself to do in a long time. Through Father's words, through silence, through having nothing to do but pray and be still, God invited me to go with Him to a place deep within that I generally keep under tight lock and key: the place where my heart is bleeding and crying over not being a mother...the room where I keep all my hopes for motherhood, all my dreams for a future child. Come with me there, I heard Him say. I'm there too.

Beautiful mountain scene to lighten the mood =) We took this from a panorama near the house.

Maybe some journal entries can give a better picture of the state of my soul during the retreat:

Thoughts (1st break)

I can't hear what anyone is saying b/c the sound of pain, heartache, grief  & rage is so strong in my ears. It blocks everything else out. And no one else hears it, which is all the more isolating.

I just want to start running & not stop until I am far, far away & have left the pain behind - except that's impossible b/c the pain is in me, in my broken body, my fruitless womb.

I feel like I'm living behind a thick glass window & am screaming at the top of my lungs but no one can hear me & everyone else is acting as if nothing is wrong, everything is perfect, words like mother & father & child are just normal, run of the mill words instead of arrows w/ such power, such beautiful force that they pierce to my very soul & leave me wounded, bleeding, swords in my heart like Mary.

I know the anger is hiding grief, because if I stop shouting, I'll weep.

For the record, Father's talks on marriage were great. I took a lot of notes and plan to ponder them. But from that very first morning, it became clear that my retreat was going to be about addressing my grief, and my anger towards God. I felt so raw that it scared me...

By the afternoon, I felt so weepy that I skipped out on the final conference of the day. (It turned out to be about suffering and hope, ha!) I'm usually not a skipper, but I was afraid that I literally would start weeping in front of everyone and I'm not humble enough to do that...

So I went for a walk in the woods, and I came upon a bench overlooking an idyllic fall scene.

The most beautiful place I've ever cried my eyes out.

I sat on the bench and just cried. Ugly cries. Cries you don't want anyone to see. Sobbing, sniffling cries. Cries from the heart - Why, God? How long, o Lord? Where are you?? It felt awful and healing and terrifying and refreshing all at the same time. 

I thought a lot about grief in those moments. About the fact that infertility is such a unique kind of grief. No one has died (of course miscarriage is its own kind of grief - I haven't experienced that, so I can't speak to it), so why all the tears? There's just a huge lack. Someone is missing. Someone whom you've never met. Doesn't that sound strange?

And the grief doesn't hit and then fade. There's no clear break - the person is dead - and then you know that that's what you have to accept, that's what you have to wrestle with. (Hopefully it's clear that I'm not trying to minimize the grief after death - just pointing out some differences with IF grief.) But with infertility, there's such an uncertainty, it's almost unbearable! If I just knew that we would never conceive, that would be the hardest thing in the world to digest. But at least it would give us a clear message, a clear "no," and we could grieve and move forward. But every month is a "maybe" - every month there's hope, and then grief - it's like I was crying over the accumulated grief of the past 29 months of hoping for a baby. That's a lot of grief! It's like barnacles on a boat or something - every once in a while, gotta take the hose and get those suckers off!

So yeah. I had a good cry. It was cleansing, in the end. And I felt God there, there in my grief, more than I have for a long time. I'm sure He was there all the time  - I just was too angry at Him to look.

Revelation

I'd be lying if I said the retreat was fruitless. On the contrary. To my broken, wounded heart, Jesus gave me such a word that I'm going to live off of that for a while...

It happened during mass on Saturday. I was grieving, yearning for comfort, asking God, What about us? We're not mother and father. Our marriage isn't living out physical motherhood and fatherhood. What do we do now?

From the stillness of the cross, I hear...Love. Just love.

Great. What a Sunday School answer! "Love" Come on...it can't be that easy.

But then I got off my high horse and let it sink in. This is what I wrote in my journal later:

"Just love," Jesus says to my heart. "Just love and let me take care of the fruit."

Love is never wasted. There is always fruit. Sometimes that fruit is so physical, so tangible, that you give it a name, clothe it, feed it. ("That's the kind of fruit I want," I say to Jesus.)

But sometimes the fruit of love is intangible, unmeasurable, invisible. Invisible even in our own eyes. 

"How easy it is," I think. "How easy it is to have a child, to be able to point to someone and say, 'That is our fruit. That is our love, made visible.'" Again, my concern for outward things.

Love. A verb. Something to do, now. Small enough, big enough. Enough.

Love is suffering. Love is giving yourself. Love is entregarse [a Spanish word that means "to entrust yourself completely to another"]

So yeah. Love. That's the message I got from God. Love. Love my husband - maybe that love will be manifested in a child someday. Maybe it won't. Love those whom I serve. Love the poor. Love my friends. Who can argue with that? Love is always fruitful. That was the big word of comfort I received. I am not wasting my life!!!! it said to me. Even if I never become a mother, mine is not a wasted life because I can love!

It connects so well with my favorite line ever from Pope Benedict: The vocation to love cannot be impeded by an organic condition. (He's talking specifically about infertility there.) I want to cry with joy when I hear that. My vocation to love is not impeded by my inability to conceive, by the polyps in my uterus, by the lack of a child in our home! It's not!! I can still love, and my life can be beautiful.

In conclusion, I think I need a retreat about every month =) Barring that, just more time to be with God, to feel His comfort, to feel my own grief. This has been quite the journey, that's for sure.

+EcceFiat+ 

SHG test & results

My first and hopefully (please God) last sonohysterogram is over. It was probably worse than I expected, to be honest. Tuesday night I was feeling pretty bummed about everything. A year ago, I had a surgery to remove a polyp. More than a year ago, I had an HSG (not to be confused with an SHG...). And here we are, still childless. The night before the test, there was an unbidden parade of people in my mind who have all gotten pregnant within the last year...go away, please! I love you and your babies, but I'd like some space to grieve, okay?

 

Yesterday morning Mr. M kindly drove me to my appointment, knowing I probably wouldn't feel like driving afterwards. It was great to have him to distract me beforehand too.

 

Arriving at my doctor's office, my heart sank. I feel like I'm developing post-traumatic stress disorder from that place...the only magazines they ever have are pregnancy and parenting mags. There are pictures of babies and pregnant women everywhere. Of course I'm usually the only not-obviously-pregnant woman in the waiting room. Sigh.

 

I got called back, got some Advil (I forgot to bring it with me - whoops) and went to the sonogram room. Surprise surprise, more babies on the wall. LOTS of babies - there were a bunch of those 4D ultrasound pictures on one wall, a diagram of pregnancy on another, and a framed photo of a dozen babies with that Mother Theresa quote about babies and flowers on a third. Can't they have a separate IF sonography room with pictures of bunnies and flowers and sunsets or something? 

 

The procedure itself was awful. I mean, how can that not hurt when they're poking you "down there"? It's so awkward and uncomfortable and cold and just ugghhhhh. Thankfully there was an extra nurse in the room who kindly held my hand the whole time. I don't care - I'll be a baby about it. Speculums are an instrument of torture in my book...and when they were doing the actual sonogram, my distended uterus (they inflate it or something) hurt really bad whenever the wand would press against it. Like, really bad.

 

It finally ended, thank God. I think they were all concerned about me because I practically started crying during the procedure and said out loud, "That really hurts!" 

 

And the results are...polyps are back. Plural this time (it was only one before). I'll have a full follow-up in October after the radiologist reviews the pictures, but dang it. Polyps, again? The sonographer said that could mean another surgery. For what purpose? I'm wondering. Didn't seem to work the first time.

 

Driving to work, half-crying, half-talking with Mr. M (God bless him, he was so sympathetic and felt horrible that I was in pain), I just felt so angry. Angry that I had to go through another horrible procedure. Angry that my uterus has polyps in it instead of a baby. Angry that I might be facing another surgery. Angry about our situation. It just stinks. I didn't feel like putting a happy face on it.

 

(Adoption is looking better and better - during the procedure, I thought, "I'll fill out forms all day long rather than go through this!")

 

I'm just glad it's over. I guess it had a diagnostic purpose, but man is that a rough way to start the day! Thank God we have a retreat this weekend. I wish it started right now...

 

+EcceFiat+

Tuesday evening rambling thoughts

Tomorrow is my sonohysterogram procedure. Ugh. I know there are worse things in the world, but still. Ugh. If it's anything like a hysterosalpingogram (did I spell that right?) it will be bearable. I hope that it actually yields some results and I hope I'm feeling well enough to go back to work afterwards. I'm taking off on Friday to go on a retreat with Mr. M (so excited about that!!) so I'm scrambling to get my work done.

----

I read an article online this week that depressed me. I know, I know I should have steered clear - it was not an article written with infertile gals in mind, that's for sure. If I could petition for one thing in the internet world it would be that no one ever, ever again writes an article on the theme of "top 10 reasons to have children early in your marriage" or something to that effect. I just don't get it - having children is not something you can just decide to do, and whammo, a baby. Right? But maybe that's how it happens in the universe outside of infertile land.

I mean, articles that begin with "top 10 reasons to..." usually are about something the author is convincing you to do: "Top 10 reasons to paint your bedroom yellow"..."Top 10 reasons to vacation in Jamaica"..."Top 10 reasons to get a degree in criminology" or whatever. "Top 10 reasons to have a baby"....? Not the same.

I get it. They're trying to convince people who are anti-baby that babies are wonderful and gifts of God. But it invariably makes children seem like something you do rather than something you receive. And it invariably touches all my sore spots and reminds me at how tragically sad it is that me and so many others are still waiting for their families to grow beyond two.

If I wrote an article called "Top 10 reasons to have a baby right away," it would list things like:

"You won't have to decline invitations to baby showers and baptisms because you know you'd be crying in the bathroom half the time anyway."

and

"You won't have to endure invasive, painful procedures to try and trouble-shoot why you and your husband haven't gotten pregnant after two years"

and

"You'll be able to give happy news to your family at Christmas and not dread the questions and hints about grandchildren."

Etc.

(Bitter much? Sometimes it just sneaks out...)

I don't know. I'm probably being over sensitive. I tried to examine my feelings - why did that article hurt so much? - and came up with two reasons.

1. I'm jealous of the attention that pregnant women and mothers get, especially within the Church, and want someone to notice us and our marriage and affirm that we're contributing something valuable to the world.

2. I'm jealous of people who seem to sail through their reproductive years having children when they want to have them, with seemingly not a thought to the fact that not everyone finds childbearing easy, and that not everyone lives in the happy clappy world of positive pregnancy tests and cutesy pregnancy announcements and choosing baby names and talking baby shop and baby baby baby baby.

(Whew! There's a good bit of bitterness I need to pray through, apparently...)

I just want us all to be in it together. I want to feel like I have something to offer the world, even though I don't have kids. I don't want to feel jealous. I want to be happy for others, but I also want some acknowledgement that I'm not crazy, that having kids is not something you "do" but something you "receive," that moms and non-moms can encourage each other in holiness (just like wives and single women can too).

---

Conclusion: I need to pray a prayer like the Litany of Humility more often. "From the desire of being praised, deliver me, Jesus...From the fear of being forgotten, deliver me, Jesus...That others may be praised and I unnoticed...That others may know the joy of motherhood..." (I made that last line up.) What a challenging prayer to pray! That I may be small, and humble, and unnoticed, and forgotten, while others are praised and esteemed...because God sees. He knows. He cares.

Jesus, I trust in you.

+EcceFiat+

What I learned at my first adoption meeting

This past Tuesday, I went to my first ever meeting about adoption. It was an information night hosted by a local agency - very local to us. It's in a business park only a few minutes from our home, so that was convenient (and went in the "pro" column in our pro/con list). There were about 20 people there, and the woman I sat next to was very friendly, which was nice, especially because Mr. M couldn't come with me.

I was really impressed with the two agency workers who led the meeting. They were both very knowledgeable, were able to answer everyone's questions, and also seemed personable and easy to work with. You could tell they really cared about finding good homes for children, and helping birth parents through such a difficult time.

I had a number of questions answered, some encouraging, some...not so much. I think the biggest benefit of going to a meeting like this, other than starting to discern whether this agency would be a good fit for us, is getting to ask those very specific questions that I've been wondering about, and get an answer from a professional.

One question was: what happens if we start an adoption, but move away before we receive a placement (that's adoption-speak for "adopt a child"): this is a real possibility for us, since Mr. M will be searching for jobs all over the country next year. The answer was relieving: if we moved "out of area" (this agency works in three neighboring states), then we'd have to update our home study through a local agency, but could still receive a placement through the first agency. In other words, our progress wouldn't be totally disrupted by moving. That was a relief.

Someone else asked how much money you should plan to have before starting with an adoption, which is something I was wondering too. The answer was: you pay in sections - first the money for the home study, then a deposit to join the waiting list, then a much bigger amount once a child is placed with you. Ideally, it would be good to have all the money ready to go when you join the waiting list, since it is possible (although unlikely) to receive a placement right away. But they also said it's possible to have just the money for the home study and deposit, and have a letter from your parents (for example) promising to pay the balance if you get a placement right away. Obviously that isn't possible for everyone - it could be for us, but that isn't something we've broached with my parents. Another option is taking out a loan if you need the balance $$ right away - not ideal, but doable. So that helped to clear up some questions for me. For us, I think our preferred route would be to have the money (in cash, so to speak) for the home study, deposit, and part of the balance ready, and then when we start the home study, start fundraising, so hopefully by the time placement rolls around, we have enough. But this all seems so abstract right now.

Going to this meeting helped convince me that the agency route would be best for us (not an attorney). I really like the idea of a "complete package" - to know someone is providing counseling for the birth mother, that there's a team of experts I could turn to, and that there's post-placement support. One adoption book I read said you should figure out your "neediness scale" when considering agency/attorney options, and I think my neediness level is pretty high =) I don't think I'm up for screening birth mother calls myself, for example. I'd appreciate the professional help.

Wrapping this up...one answer I got was definitely NOT what I was hoping for...towards the end, I asked what kind of requirements there are for the kind of house/apartment you have. The answer was that you don't need to own the home (good), in our state you need to have a separate bedroom for the child after 6 months (okay), and it needs to meet basic fire safety standards. Hmmm...I had to ask a specific question afterwards about that one, because our apartment (our lovely, cozy, pleasant, spacious apartment) is a basement apartment, and two rooms - our bedroom and guest/sewing room/future nursery - are completely windowless. And I had a sinking feeling that that would not fly with the fire department...

And I was right. I asked that specific question after the meeting, and one of the agency workers emailed me the next day to say, sorry, but the fire department would probably not OK our apartment as safe.

Sighhhhhhhh.

I get it. I get needing two escape routes, and I get that we are not up to fire code in our delightfully dark bedroom. But man - HUGE bummer! Our first step for adoption now looks like this:

1. Find a new place to live.

(Have I mentioned that we live in an expensive part of the country? And that our current apartment is by far the biggest place we could get for this price? And that we just moved here at the end of June? And that I love our apartment? Like, really love it? It has a patio, it has a washer and dryer, it has a spacious kitchen, it has no windows in the bedroom which makes it nice for sleeping...oh wait, that "perk" is not as good as I thought it was...)

I had a good cry about this latest discovery that night. And then I perked up, and remembered that we're not financially ready to proceed with adoption yet anyway, and that we're both really used to moving - this is the fourth place I've lived in the last 5 years. So it's not a complete disaster.

But it's still disappointing to realize that we're basically stalled on adoption while we're here. But I'm glad I found that out now, and not after we started our home study and shelled out a big chunk of money. So thank you, efficient agency lady.

Next steps? Save money. Look into one more agency in our area (why not?). Pray. Wait. Hope. Pray some more. Try to get a child into our below-fire-code apartment the "old fashioned" way =) ha ha

+EcceFiat+

cycle recap and next steps

Cycle day 1 again. Bummer.

This isn't really a "cycle review" because I didn't get any professional advice on this cycle. Just a reflection on the past cycle.

This was my second attempted and failed cycle using Tamoxifen. I really have no clue what the point is in taking it. That's been my problem from the beginning - there's no clear symptom or condition that Tamoxifen is addressing. It's just trying something to see if it will work. So far it hasn't. My luteal phases are fine - 12/13 days, the same as always.

But it's seriously messed up my CM, which was pathetic both this cycle and last. And that, in turn, messes me up psychologically. It's hard to convince myself that relations are worthwhile (on a night that we might not otherwise feel like it) when I don't see encouraging fertile signs, if that makes sense. So that's probably a factor too. Bleh.

Now, after not doing much of anything for awhile, all of a sudden there's a number of fertility-related stuff coming up:

• I'm giving Tamoxifen one more month, just to say I tried it. 
• I'm still using B6 but it's not doing anything. Maybe it just doesn't work for me, or maybe it's the Tamoxifen - don't know. I'm going to use up my 60-tab supply of 500 dosage and then cut back to 100 dosage. I'm hoping my CM will bounce back after the Tamoxifen is out of my system.
• Next Wednesday I have a sonohysterogram scheduled. My excitement is minimal. Actually I'm not excited at all to have another uncomfortable, invasive procedure. But at least this one seems to be more rationally related to my situation. The goal is to see whether there are still polyps in my uterus, since I still have irregular mid-cycle bleeding. And I think this test can find any other uterine abnormalities that could be interfering with conception. Plus I can have it done at my doctor's office and not at some big downtown place right down the hall from the IVF clinic (where I had my HSG done way back when).
• On October 1st, I'm meeting with a new doctor to get a second opinion. She has a relatively new practice in our area, is closer than my other doctor, and helped a friend of mine conceive after 6 years of trying. The friend said she's wonderful to work with, and I'm curious to see if she'd have any different suggestions for tests and treatments because I feel like things are running dry with my current doctor. (Much of that is my fault for dragging my feet on stuff she had recommended.) I figure one office visit can't hurt, and maybe we'll get some fresh ideas, or decide that she's easier to work with, or something.

And in non-medical related plans, I'm attending my first ever adoption information meeting tonight. Mr. M can't attend due to a scheduling conflict - boo. This agency is literally 5 minutes from our house. I have no idea what to expect, and no real expectations beyond getting a feel for who these people are and whether we want to talk with them one-on-one. At the least, it will be a nice distraction from the CD1 cramps and general yuckiness. Afterwards, I plan to come home and polish off the last beer in our fridge =)

+EcceFiat+ 

One of those days

It’s Monday. It’s cloudy outside, which makes me feel lethargic and sad. And I’ve got a bad case of the baby blues…sometimes it just hits you, you know? Those days when it seems like every woman on the entire planet is pregnant or a mother, except for you?

 

This weekend we attended a wedding, which was beautiful. I sang in the choir and had a birds-eye view of the ceremony from the choir loft. The bride had the most gorgeous lacey train. So beautiful.

 

I love weddings, especially when I know both the bride and groom and know they’re prepared (as prepared as you can be!), in love, and the beauty of the sacrament is just there. But man, all the mention of children…I got teary-eyed several times. “Will you accept children lovingly from the Lord…?” I remember saying that at our wedding just filled with so much hope and excitement and anticipation for the children that God would give us. And here we are, still childless 2+ years later. Coming to the end of my 3rd Creighton chart (after a year of sympto-thermal charting). It stings a little bit.

 

Okay, a lot. I have a hard time watching our wedding video now, seeing the nervous exhilaration on our faces, knowing the dreams that were – are – so precious in my heart, for our love to be concretized in a new little person. I can’t watch the footage from our rehearsal dinner where our friends are teasing us about honeymoon babies (so pleasant at the time – now I can’t bear it – most of those friends are on to their second child by now).

 

And in so many of the prayers at the wedding: “Lord, please bless your servants with children…May they see their children’s children…” and so on. So beautiful. Because marriage is ordered toward children! It just is. Our bodies are ordered toward physical fruitfulness – and it really, really hurts when they don’t reach that destination. It hurts because it’s such a great good.

 

And of course now with weddings, it’s hard not to think, “One more person who got married after us and could get pregnant / have a baby before us…” I tried so hard to keep focusing on the bride and groom, praying for them, and yes, praying for them to be blessed with children and be spared the heartache of infertility. How could I wish that on anyone? And yet I know I’ll feel hurt and sad if I hear “news” from the happy couple soon…

 

So many mixed emotions.

 

So today, it just stings. Childlessness stings. My heart feels tender and vulnerable. I’m not up for pregnancy announcements or birth announcements. I deleted an email from a friend about her new baby nephew, without opening the picture…just can’t take it. (I did say congratulations to her, btw.) Because children are so good, and adorable, and everything wonderful, and sometimes it just stings.

 

+EcceFiat+