Twisted Ovaries

WWCSTGTPBIYSNTTYBKUINO

Woman Who Can't Seem To Get Themselves Pregnant But If You Stand Next To Them You'll Be Knocked Up In No Time (or WWCSTGTPBIYSNTTYBKUINO* for short) continues.

Yesterday we had a Halloween party, and one of Aidan's sisters-in-laws was there.  She is very nice.  She is very kind.  She has the most perfect well-behaved and sweet little girl in the history of well-behaved and sweet little girls.  She has always accepted me and been friendly to me.

She is also very pregnant.

She got up the duff at the same time as our IVF cycle in May failed.

No one in his family knows we're doing IVF-we don't tell them and we don't plan on telling them.  His sister-in-law is visibly pregnant with their first son (they wanted to find out the sex) and, during our fireworks last night, she laughed and held a hand to her stomach-"He doesn't like the fireworks!" she giggled.  "He keeps punching me!"

I should be well into my second trimester now.  We should have already told his family about it.  I should already be showing.  There would be a list on the fridge of names, a list which Aidan's kids would contribute to.

Instead, I pour myself another glass of vino tinto crappo.

Later, after they've left, Aidan and I sit on the couch.  I hold my wine.  I sigh.  "I wish I was still pregnant," I venture.  We don't talk much about it. Talks about it haven't gone well.

He nods.  "I know," he replies quietly.  "I know."

And that's where we are.

*Yes, Anita.  I'm totally using it and keeping it.  Bravo on that one, it was brilliant.

PS-hopefully the funny comes back soon.  I can be funny again.  I just keep getting my ass kicked.  Fucking WWCSTGTPBIYSNTTYBKUINO.

I Told You So

So, not only is practically every blogger knocked up, but one of my old neighbors is knocked up.

She's even knocked up through IVF. 

One of my neighbors told me, tragically, "She even had to have IVF twice!", her voice lowered as though poor egg quality is an airborne contagion.

"No!" I said, shocked.  "Not twice!" 

Indeed!  Because I'm headed for ROUND FIVE.  ROUND FIVE, so...man.  Poor girl.  Two whole times.*

Oh and her?  My other neighbor who was going to go for fertility treatment as she wasn't pregnant yet, and she had tried one whole time (as in One. Round. Of. Drunken. Fumbling.  Sex.  Once, in 6 years I should add) and since she wasn't pregnant it was the end of the world, she was clearly infertile?

Yeah.

She's pregnant too now.

Now do you believe in my powers?**

Fuck everything.

 

*But I am happy for her, considering I know how the IVF train goes.

** I have no powers, other than to knock back alcohol at high velocity and recite every line to the movie Clue.

La la la la la

This is where I say things like:  Wow!  Neat-O!  So cool to be back!

So, like, my neighbor?  She's pregnant.  And my boyfriend's uncle's wife's brother's niece?  Pregnant.  Everyone is pregnant!  Happy happy happy!  I go away and come back and more people are knocked up.  You didn't get knocked up while I was away?  Just wait.  I'm away for a long weekend in two weeks, I'm sure you'll find yourself firmly up the duff then.

Whatever.

So we're back.  We stayed at a distillery.  When we booked it, I remember thinking: If I'm up the duff, I just won't drink the whiskey!  While pregnant I remember thinking: No whiskey for me, but that's ok!  While I was there, I thought: Fuck it.  More whiskey, please. 

Acupuncture tomorrow.  Let's see if a few little needles can turn me into Polly-fucking-anna or something.

PS-http://twistedovaries.com now works to get here, too.

It's been one of those weeks, and it's only Tuesday.

I read about Thalia's recent stress, and thought:  I understand that.  It sucks and it's embarassing and it makes you feel violated.  Above all, it makes you feel angry as somehow?  Blogging is a way to get it all out.  When some family members that I am estranged from showed up on my other blog where I used to write about fertility treatment, I knew I'd have to get a new site-an anonymous site-and try again.  It makes you angry to do that-it's like starting over, and starting over without a net.  That Thalia's blog was found is bad enough, the fact that it was her clinic that found it is, perhaps, just as bad.  My clinic knows that people talk about it online-they've mentioned it to me.  I rarely discuss the people themselves there, but I do think that it's important to be able to be candid and honest about the treatment we're getting and how it affects us. 

At the end of the day, it's about the support to try to get through this.  Our partners are wonderful but, even from the bare biology perspective, they can't empathize with everything we think and feel.  For me, this is why my blog is here for me-it's a corner where we can all gather round, drink tequila, and wish we were knocked up after all. 

Anyway, I'm off out of town.  I'll see you next week, at which point we will only be one week nearer the next cycle of treatment, which suffice to say isn't very near at all.

The Crappiest Club Ever

I had another acupuncture treatment yesterday.  I kind of like them, because they really want to know the details of bodily fluids.  Mucus?  Let's describe the consistency.  Bloating?  Let's examine.  Blood clots?  Squealy delight of all the gory detail.  It's like being in biology class and being allowed to actually discuss how a blow job hitting a gag reflex makes your sphincter tighten, or English class, where you have a teacher that throws Silas Marner across the room with a thud and sighs, conceding that it really is one of the most boring books written, ever. 

I tell her about the period I just had, aka "The Hemorrhage-Soon to Be a Major Motion Picture Starring Sarah Michelle Gellar".  It only lasted for three days but was so forceful it was like hooking a fire hose to my snatch and putting out a block of council flat fires.  The cramps on day one had me heaving over a toilet they hurt so badly.  But hey-three days.  Not bad. 

And it was virtually clot-free, which is unusual for me-I usually look like I've dropped a toilet bowl full of M&Ms the first three days, so clotty am I (hope you don't have a high squick factor, as I'm going all out on this one.)  The acupuncturist says that's the work of the acupuncture-the design is to maximize blood flow to the uterus-the treatment should prevent clotting in general. 

So slap my face and call me a convert, because it worked.

I tell her about the concrete uterus I had, and how actually, post period, it still feels like that.  She nods sympathetically (she is very sympathetic, which is great.  She also has no issues talking about bodily fluids, which makes her my most favorite acupuncturist in the world.)  She tells me that it's a side effect of miscarriage, and I may feel that way for a while.

Excellent.

Which brings me to my Crappiest Club Ever. 

Miscarriage is something that affects many, many women.  Too many, sadly.  There are Grief Forums, there are books, and there is, of course, the best helper ever-alcohol.  But what there seems to be is a lack of information.  This blog gets a lot of hits from women Googling about miscarriage, and it seems to me that we women?  We just don't have all the answers about what the hell is happening from a physical perspective. Miscarriage is the dirty little secret, that thing you whisper about in the hallways.

So lemme correct something:

MISCARRIAGE HAPPENS AND IT FUCKING SUCKS, SO DEAL WITH US AND EXPLAIN WHAT MAY HAPPEN TO OUR BODIES.

Yes, we bleed.

Yes, we cramp.

Yes, we have big blood clots, the size of which make us wail as we understand what's happening.

You know what else we can have?  Concrete uteruses (is that uteri?  I never know.)  We get really, really hormonal-mine came up in the form of severe almost PMS-like bitchiness.  What comes out of us, well...truthfully, it doesn't smell very nice.  We can have headaches and are really tired.  The bleeding is composed of absolutely incredible quantities.  Some pregnancy symptoms may continue-I still threw up a lot, but the breast tenderness went away, as did the smell/food aversions.  We may have some or all of these symptoms...but no one tells you.

A lot of that goes away with the first period (which can take 6-8 weeks to arrive), but as has now been explained to me, the body sometimes needs two cycles to get over itself.

And that's just the physical stuff. 

Emotionally you're a fucking basket case.

I couldn't watch anything with pregnancy, babies, or fertility.  I still can't read blogs of people that are knocked up.  I watched mindless TV.  I watched films I knew were safe (note to infertiles who are not knocked up and are bitter about it: Children of Men is a good film to watch.  It's about a future where people can't get pregnant.  It'll feel like old hat to you.  I could've watched that fucking film over and over again, I was all: Thank God, a film where there is only one baby, and it's a metaphor.  And when the woman had the baby?  It was animatronic. Yessssssss.)  You may cry.  A lot.  You may drink.  A lot.  You will most likely rage about how unfair it is.  A lot.

It's the Crappiest Club Ever.  I thought about starting a web page, a forum for women.  You have IVF Connections, how about Crappiest Club Ever connections, where you'd never tell another woman, "I'm so sorry.  But hey-children are exhausting!  Want one of mine?"  Where the support would come in the form of lots of swearing, and more than a little: "I'm here-want to talk?" in the middle of the night, when the nightmares are too much for you and you just can't bear the idea of "why?" anymore.

Not sure, maybe I will.  It occurs to me that a miscarriage is a time when a woman needs support the most.  Then again, we all grieve differently.

For me, it was good to know that one more period is maybe what I'll need to get rid of my hard uterus.  Still on track for kicking off the next cycle in January.  I am still feeling positive about the cycle, too.

I am an idiot, of course.

Coming Out of the Woodwork

There are a lot of things that you should and shouldn't say to someone who struggles with infertility.  There are also many things you should and shouldn't say to someone who miscarries.  The infertility list has been done (among them: Relax, why don't you adopt?, and does that mean you'll have 6 babies?) but the miscarriage list is slightly different.  The best thing to say to someone who miscarried is:

"I'm sorry.  Want to talk about it?"

If the answer is no, change the subject.  Immediately.  If the answer is yes, just listen and nod.  There's nothing to add, nothing to heal.  It's just listening.  Don't do it with pity, don't reach across the table and hold hands.  Just nod and listen. 

It's easy to get things wrong, and even those on the infertile/miscarriage side of the fence get it wrong.  Last week on the phone Statia was telling me about her latest symptom and the words were out of my mouth before I could engage my brain: At least you're pregnant and get the symptoms.

For this, I am very sorry, Statia.  That was a shit thing for me to say.  But our girl, she glibly either ignored it or didn't hear it (maybe she is a cute Monchichi snuffed up on hcg) and thus eased on the conversation. 

One thing they say to never tell a woman who miscarried is this: Well at least you know you can get pregnant.

Ironically, Aidan said it to me and it didn't upset me at all.  I did have an interuterine pregnancy, so yes-I can get knocked up and it can stay in the right spot.  Excellent.  I was, to be really honest, comforted by that.

And so it is that I now sees infertiles coming out of the woodwork.

Three days ago at work I was getting a cup of coffee from the machine.  One of the project managers I work with stood by me and was rubbing his hand over his eyes.

"You ok, mate?" I asked. 

"Yeah.  Problems at home," he replied wearily.

He'd confided in me a while ago that he and his Mrs. are going through IVF, and have been for several years.  She'd been through four cycles in the UK and one in the US, a cycle in New Jersey which yielded 5 follicles, none of which contained any eggs.  He had a vasectomy (this is his second marriage, he's got three teens from his first) and she has unexplaiined infertility as well.  They have never had a single positive.

"IVF?" I asked quietly.

He nodded.

"I'm sorry, man." I said, a hand on his shoulder.

We stood there silently.

"How long have you been trying?" he asked, finally.

I was surprised-I'd never mentioned to him that we'd been through IVF as well.  I decided to own up. "A while.  We just had another cycle.  It ended in miscarriage." I said.

He nodded grimly. "At least you know you can get pregnant," he said sadly.

I didn't take a single ounce of offense.  Coming from another veteran, I took it for what it was-comfort, envy, solidarity, another soldier in the 2ww camp. 

"Maybe sometime you and my Mrs. want to talk about it?" he asked.

I nodded.  "Sure.  You can pass my number on to her."

And we left it at that.

Two days ago I ran into another guy, a project manager that works for me.  He was buying a home improvement book.

"Hey man!" I said, grinning.  "Buying a house now?"

He smiled.  "Yeah, she's finally exerted enough pressure.  We're buying a house."

I knew she was also keen to get married and have babies.  She's much younger than he-at 25, she's 30 years his junior. 

"Does that mean you'll make an honest woman of her?" I asked.

"No, no." he said, laughing.  "But we are going straight to the next stage."

"What...babies?" I asked, startled.  He has two adult children, and has maintained he didn't want any more.

"Yeah," he said sadly.  "We went to the doctor yesterday.  We have to go through IVF, you see."  He went on to explain about his male factor infertility.  "She's really upset," he finished up.

Strange that this should happen so soon.  I nod-such a coincidence.  They even live near me and will likely use the same clinic I do.  "Look, man...if you want to talk about IVF, what it involves, things like that...Well, I'm here to talk.  I understand.  I mean, I really understand."

And he looked up at me then.  "You, too?"

I smiled.  "We're everywhere, man."

He smiled back.  "Thanks.  We will take you up on the offer about talking about it, if that's ok."

And just like that, I'm a veteran surrounded by others.