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+

On living in the present moment

Another amazing passage from Fr. Philippe's book Interior Freedom. (Catholic Mutt, did you get to this part yet? =))

It's in the section called "The Present Moment." Here he discusses how living in the present moment is key to a life of interior freedom because, for one thing, we can only exercise freedom now, in this moment. (One of those "duh" principles that I forget so often - I find myself obsessing over past choices, as if I could change them, or projecting into the future what I "would" do in such and such a situation. Impossible.)

Some of my favorite lines from this section, and why I love them:

"We have very little hold on the future either. Despite all our foresight, plans, and promises, it takes very little to change everything completely. We can't program life in advance, but can only receive it moment by moment."

Amen. This strikes a chord because I want to program life in advance! I want the guarantee that the future will pan out the way I envision it, at least eventually *cough* baby *cough*...receiving each moment as it comes is a challenge. But when I really do it, it's so life-giving. I can take a deep breath, relax, and concentrate on this moment: right now I will love, right now I will accept, right now I will be with God. 

"The ladder of perfection has only one step: the step we take today."

I just love how he says that. Of course I hope for growth in my spiritual life, but regardless of where I've been or where I'm going, the only forward-motion I can make is today.

A quote from St. Therese of Lisieux: "I only suffer for one moment. It is because people think about the past and the future that they become discouraged and despair." Fr. Philippe's commentary: "Nobody has the capacity to suffer for ten or twenty years; but we have the grace to bear today the suffering that is ours now. Projecting things into the future crushes us - not experiencing suffering but anticipating it."

This is the home-run passage for me. The first time I read this (over a year ago) my eyes immediately filled with tears and I had to put the book down and just let these words enter my heart. Not experiencing suffering but anticipating it...yes, I had been doing just that! I've grieved not only the present lack of a child now, but also into the future (IF does that to you!). In my saddest moments, I'm sad not just because of everything I don't have now in terms of motherhood, but everything (so I tell myself) that I will never have - no first steps, no first birthday, no hearing "mama", no little hand in my hand, and on and on until I think I've suffered through the lack of every possible moment from the child's birth until their high school graduation!

Projecting things into the future crushes us...I think that is so true. I just don't know what the future holds for me. I just don't. Yes, I could be childless forever - but won't God give me the grace to bear that, day by day? It's exactly as Fr. Philippe says - no one can bear a 10 or 20 year dose of suffering all at once. And thank God, it doesn't come that way! I only suffer for one moment said St. Therese (during her final illness, by the way). Just in this moment I can bear the suffering of IF. I long for a child now and it hurts now and my heart aches now - but I don't need to anticipate all the other suffering that I'm sure is in my future. This passage had a huge impact on shifting my thinking in that regard.

"The best way to prepare for the future is to put our hearts into the present."

Short and sweet. I want to paint this on my walls, tattoo it on my arm, write it everywhere. When I feel like my life is going nowhere, or like I'm stalled in my tracks, I want to remember this. If I put my heart into the present moment, and really work to cultivate virtue and holiness now - to become more loving, more patient, more like Jesus, then if I become a mother someday, I'll be that much more prepared! And if I don't, well, is it really a loss to be more loving and patient? =)

The bottom line is, I only have today. I only have this moment. Jesus, free me from worrying about the future, and especially from suffering from things that haven't even happened yet. Help me to see You right here, right now. You catch all my tears, and you hold me when I cry. Help me to open my heart to what you are teaching me right now, even in this valley of tears.

+EcceFiat+

Thoughts on adoption, part 2: being different

For the "processing thoughts by writing" file.

I wrote on Monday that one of my reasons for wanting to adopt an infant is to get the attention that's given to the mom of an infant, and how I think that's something that needs purified in me. I certainly didn't mean to suggest that adopting an infant is somehow wrong or selfish (not that I think anyone thought that). In my heart of hearts I would love to experience all the sweet infant moments with a child, whether biological or adopted. Who knows if I'll get the chance to do that?

Here's another way that I think adoption would purify me: it would free me from the need to be/seem the same as everyone else. What I mean is, the normal course for a married couple is to have children of their own. It's expected, it's common, it's natural, it's what happens to most people. In fact, it happens more than once to quite a lot of people. (That seems like such a magical "other world" to me - having not only one child, but more than one? Unfathomable.)

Adopting is not the normal course of events. It's different. It's rarer, more unusual. Not counting the adoptive moms I know online (who I am very grateful for!) I don't know any peers in real life who've adopted or are in the process of adopting. Mr. M's brother and SIL adopted (and then had quadruplets - they have seven kids now, crazy!) and I want to talk with my SIL next time we're visiting. And I have an aunt or uncle who adopted my cousin (and then had a biological child). But I don't know anyone at church, work, or in my immediate network of friends who's adopted, who's thinking about adopting, or who's in the process of adopting.

That makes the whole thing feel even more daunting. And it makes me feel like if we go down that path, we're going to stick out like a sore thumb. One day I'm not pregnant and the next, bam! we have a child. And maybe a child who looks nothing like us, or an older child.

I'll admit it - I'm scared of being different. On the one hand, I feel like I've grown a lot in being comfortable being different by having fertility issues. I've kind of grown into that, I guess, over the past two years, and I feel like I can be myself and not worry about what others are thinking re: our family size. On the other hand, I still keep our IF struggles quite hidden. Most of our close friends know, plus our immediate families, but lots of others don't, or at best, have guessed. Starting the adoption process, and getting to the point where we'll ask for help and/or give people a heads up that a child might appear in our home without me ever being pregnant - that's scary to me. It's scary to be different, to grow our family in a less usual way.

Sometimes I beg God just to be normal. Just to have the normal life of getting married and getting pregnant. Of having the mom struggles of sleepless nights and teething babies, instead of having anxiety over treatment options and a sense of failure at my body.

To be normal. I guess that's a pretty common desire, right?

But I know that's something that needs to be purified too. Last time I checked, Christ calls us to be saints, not to be "normal," whatever we take that to mean! I'm pretty sure by now that this IF journey - however long it lasts, and may it please be over soon - is part of my growth in holiness. How could it not be? At the least, I don't want to squander all these trials!

I'm probably worrying over nothing. If we do move toward adoption, we'd tell people slowly, and they'd get used to it, and probably would overwhelm us with their love and generosity. (Already two of our best friends offered to donate to our adoption fund.) And "being different" would probably start to feel normal, just as "being different," i.e. fertility challenged, has become its own normal, which is good and bad, I guess. (Bad because at the end of the day, it's not normal to not be able to conceive. Good because it brings a sense of peace and acceptance.)

I want to have this attitude: If my path is different, if my life looks really different than the others around me, so be it. I trust you, God, that you can make my life beautiful. Please help me not to idolize being normal and fitting in. Help me be brave to follow You, even if that is into a place where we feel alone.

Jesus, I trust in you.

+EcceFiat+

Thoughts on adoption: oh, the admixture of self

I've been thinking about adoption lately, about every angle of it. I've read a few books that have been helpful, several about the logistics of adoption (what's a home study, how much does everything cost) and one about deeper issues, I guess you could say. (discernment of adoption, tips for raising an adopted child, etc.) And there are a lot of thoughts percolating up. Here's one.

One of the books I've read is by Dr. Ray Guarendi: "Adoption: Choosing it, living it, loving it." I thought it was really good, although not all of the sections applied to us. One thing he helped me to see is that adopting an older child (older than an infant) is doable. Because one thing that really scares me about adoption is that the child could have pretty severe "issues" that we couldn't deal with...and I have the impression that that's more possible when you adopt an older child.

Anyway, Dr. Ray had a lot of good advice, both personal and professional, that has encouraged me to rethink the question of adopting a toddler or older child. (More on that later, maybe.) But I realized something (thank you, Holy Spirit). Here goes a big slice of humble pie...one reason I want to adopt an infant is that I want the attention of being the mother of an infant! I've seen a lot of it in the people around me: the new mother gets meals taken to her, is the center of attention after mass, gets "oohs" and "aahs" and "what a tiny baby!" and is just celebrated all around. (As it should be! It's no easy feat to have a newborn in the house!)

"Ahem," says God. "Do you want to have a baby...just to get the extra attention?" Well, sheesh...when you put it that way!

"Admixture of self" indeed! Man, this whole IF experience is so darn purifying! God is progressively stripping away my selfish motives and re-orienting me toward Him. Toward what really matters. And something makes me think that what matters most is not showing off a brand new baby to the world...

Anyway, just some thoughts. More are percolating...

+EcceFiat+

Five happy things

1. I'll start with the biggie. I got a new job! Or, more specifically, I got a promotion. It all happened so fast my head is spinning...the day after we returned to town with our new car (the same day we had a long talk about adoption and finances)...the very next day, I found out about this job opportunity. I applied immediately, got an interview the next week, and was offered the job this past Monday. Crazy! I have to keep pinching myself because it seems so surreal. And the timing...the extra money will definitely be a nice boost to our adoption fund!

About the job...it's prompted a lot of interesting reflections. Like: this is the first time probably since my wedding that I've heard "congratulations" so many times. Now of course deep deep down I'd like to hear that word for a different reason...but it's still pretty nice and very affirming! And: we have a friend who applied for a job the same week but didn't get it. I was very sensitive to how I told him my news...catching the parallel? =) Being on the receiving end of pg announcements has taught me a thing or too!

And probably the strangest effect of the new job...for the first time in a long, looooong time, I've thought, "It's okay that we don't have kids right now. I'm pretty excited about what's ahead." Don't get me wrong: the desire for motherhood has not gone away! But having a new, exciting opportunity to sink my teeth into is taking a bit of the edge off the longing. And to be perfectly frank, this new job would not have happened if I would have gotten pregnant on my time schedule. Yes, I know that's assuming a lot, but the fact is that not becoming a mother when I wanted to meant that I could build up the experience and skills needed for this job...I still want to be a mom more than anything else, but I'm not un-grateful for my new job! (if that makes sense)

And one final funny story - it's been a bit of a whirlwind getting connected to all the new people I'll need to work with in my new position, and in a flurry of emails, I look at what I'm about to send to a new contact and read, "I'm looking forward to working with me." Whoops! Thank God I proofread that! I'm not that narcissistic, I promise =)

2. On to another happy thing...college football starts today. I'm happy about this mainly because it makes Mr. M happy =) We will be watching the ND game with our two little neighbor boys upstairs, who Mr. M is trying to indoctrinate into being ND fans. He bought them hats and everything...and he bought me this:

notre dame dress with leprechaun

It needs some leggings before I wear it in public...but it's comfy, and if it makes Mr. M happy, well that's pretty easy!

3. Last weekend when our priest friend visited (the priest who married us), he said mass in our living room! That was really cool. 

Our living room set up to say mass. The pitcher is full of water, which we got blessed.

After mass, Father blessed our home. He forgot his aspergillium (the stick with the ball top that's used to bless things) so I pulled a small evergreen branch off a tree outside. That worked quite well!

4. Our garden is cranking out the tomatoes! My favorite: cherry tomatoes. 

Yummmmmmm

We're also getting a lot of Romas, basil, and zinnias. I love summer gardens. 

 

5.  Last happy thing: three day weekend!!!! I needed this so badly after such an intense - in a good way! - work week. Besides the Notre Dame game, we're having a cook out with friends and my parents on Sunday, and then have nothing planned for Monday. Just the way I like it =)

What I've been up to

A few updates, in no particular order.

• Mr. M was diagnosed with a concussion from his car accident. We found this out from a neurology doctor this past Monday, although we had suspected it before that due to his continuing headaches and a few dizzy spells. The neurology doc prescribed steroids, to help with the inflammation in his head and neck. He can also keep taking pain killers. This has become a longer trial than we initially anticipated, and it's been tough on both of us. Of course tough on Mr. M, dealing with headaches, dizzy spells, and now side effects from the steroids (insomnia is the main one); tough on me to see him in pain. (And honestly, I'm learning a lot about how much I need to grow in selflessness and compassion! In putting Mr. M first, putting his needs first.)
• In other medical news, Mr. M is also doing 9 hours of physical therapy for his neck. And he went to the ER on Wednesday because of sharp head pain. That was scary...I left work to meet him there (he got a ride with a friend). Head pain freaks me out. You never know what's going to happen, and we're talking about your brain! Thankfully, the doctor said he definitely does not have brain bleeding or something really serious - the pain he had was just par for the course after a concussion, and the steroids should help. 
• CD1 has come and gone. (On CD5 now.) No surprise at all there. For the record, it's hard to conceive in a cycle when your husband has a car accident on peak day! (in case anyone was wondering) And really, this cycle overall was a total bust. It was my first cycle with tamoxifen and the only change I saw was increasing my post-peak phase from 11 (last two cycles) to 13 (although I've had 13-day luteal phases before). I also flunked with CM - it was pitiful, except for the car accident day, ha! I did take B6 for the first time, but it wasn't consistent because I didn't get the right kind (sustained release) until day 10 or so. So this next cycle will be a "real" B6 cycle plus tamoxifen. And hopefully we won't have any life threatening incidents on peak day this time =)
• In better news...I have a job opportunity that is very exciting. It's basically a step-up in my current office. I had an interview on Thursday and might hear back this week...that's all I can say for now.
• In other good news...we found out - out of the blue - that Mr. M is going to get paid for a class he's teaching this fall. We weren't sure if he would because it's a class set up to give the PhD students teaching experience. (He's going to teach non-degree adults about the theology of the body.) But he will get paid! And a generous sum at that! Going into the adoption fund...!!
• We've watched a bunch of movies this week when both of us have been too exhausted to do anything else in the evenings. I recommend: The Impossible (about the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami...hard to watch some scenes, but epic and inspiring), Life of Pi (helps if you read the book first, but still really good), Mega Mind (cartoon with Will Ferrell - pretty funny). I don't recommend that new Oz movie. The dialogue was laaaaame and the plot was really predictable.
• I've also been doing some canning. Our garden is exploding with tomatoes! So far I've made salsa and dried cherry tomatoes, and today I'm going to can whole tomatoes. I also made peach jam and pesto. I need to share some pictures of these! =)

SUCH a beautiful day outside here! Thank you God, for a completely unstructured weekend! We have a priest friend visiting us (the priest who married us) but he's gone all day today for a baptism. Tomorrow he's going to say mass at our house (cool, huh?) and give me spiritual direction and other than that we have nowhere to go...bliss...

Have a great weekend, everyone!

+EcceFiat+