BrooklynGirl

Cycles

I got my period over the weekend and for the first time in six years that means...absolutely nothing.  I'm not digging out the thermometer or the pee sticks.  I'm not calling the RE or filling my prescriptions for Clomid or Lupron.

Once upon a time, without any planning or forethought, I imagined that I would have three children.   I came from a two child family and when I was growing up, I admired the chaos and energy of larger families.

Now, well...I'm not ready to give up wondering about another child altogether, but I'm too consumed by my life right now to think about that very much.  It's like Tom Hanks' character at the end of Cast Away, carrying around the bottles of water with him regardless of whether he's actually thirsty.  Having gone without the water for so long, he still needs to know it's there.

With my history, staring down the barrel of 39, I don't know if my fertility is still there.  If I wake up tomorrow and decide that having another child is what I want most in the world, I don't know whether it will be possible.

So, perhaps getting my period doesn't mean nothing.  Maybe it means maybe.  Someday.  Maybe.

An Anniversary Song

Four years ago tomorrow I started this blog.  Things were not good.  I had been trying to get pregnant for almost two years and had begun seeing an RE--Clomid hadn't worked and a laparoscopy hadn't discovered anything useful.  I was beginning to think that I would never be successfully pregnant.  And I could think of nothing else.

Infertility was every insecurity in my life writ large: I couldn't get pregnant because I was overweight or because I hadn't truly established myself professionally or because I still had unresolved issues with my family or because there was just something wrong with me, some reason I wouldn't or couldn't or shouldn't be a parent.  These weren't thoughts I had ever or have ever had about another person struggling to build a family, but I couldn't help connecting them with my own situation.

Ultimately, I did find a path to parenthood: 3 failed IUIs, 3 early losses, one Factor V Leiden mutation diagnosis, and one IVF cycle later, I was a mother.  Compared to the struggles of my infertile blogging friends, it was a walk in the park.

With the birth of my son, a cloud lifted, but did not entirely disappear: every stumbling block I hit as a parent there was a voice in the back of my head. "See, you were never meant to be a mother," it whispered to me when The Boy wouldn't sleep or wouldn't eat or wouldn't talk.

That voice has gotten quieter, but it's still there--after the surprise of The Girl, after The Boy began to sleep and eat and say, "I love you, Mommy," after I began to trust my own intuition (sometimes) over the advice of Dr. Spock.  That voice is the reason why I continue to blog.

I haven't been as present here as I would like to be.  I hope to be here more and to spruce things up with a new look.  Until then, I thank you for reading.  Your companionship--though comments, emails, and so many wonderful blogs--has been an enormous source of strength.

Finally, with apologies to the  Cowboy Junkies, I thank my husband, my son, and my daughter for the life I could not have imagined four years ago:

And I don't know how I survived those days
Before I held your hands
Well I never thought that I would be the one
To admit that the moon and the sun
Shine so much more brighter when
Seen through four pairs of eyes than
When seen through just one

 

In The News

This week, there's a terrible story in the local news about a clinic that badly botched an IVF procedure, apparently mixing up the sperm that was to be used for fertilization. The story is getting a fair amount of attention be cause there’s a racial undercurrent that is not my focus here.

What I find interesting is this: the judge threw out some parts of the suit, including the parents' complaint that this mistake caused them mental distress. The judge wrote that "The birth of an unwanted but otherwise healthy and normal child does not constitute an injury to the child's parents."

I haven't read the original decision, but I'm guessing this is some kind of legal wrangling that means the parents can't sue the clinic for the expense of raising the child because that exact phraseology was used in a separate case where parents tried to do this when a child was born after a sterilization procedure failed.

Still, um, wow. First, it's interesting that legal precedent is so lacking in this area that the court referred to the sterilization case. It seems to me that there's a pretty big difference between not wanting any children and wanting children, specifically genetically related children. I'm not saying that families with genetically related children are in any way superior to those created in any other way, but if you go to a fertility clinic pursuing that end and the clinic takes your money and performs the expensive and invasive procedures required to achieve that goal, a goal they lead you to believe that you have achieved, and then you find out that's not what happened, of course that's mentally distressing. Of course, it is.

When you choose IVF, you're choosing to attempt to have a child a particular way. As this couple said, "'We underwent a difficult and complex medical procedure for the sole purpose of bearing a child of our own.'" Now, I find the use of the phrase "our own" to differentiate between a biological and non-biological child pretty odious, but semantics aside, they have a point.

It seems to me that the legal decision to throw out the claim of mental distress is effectively throwing out the decision making process this couple went through when they opted for IVF. 

Thoughts?

Sending the Very Best

When I was in the throes of infertility hell, I didn't know how to talk to people.  People didn't know how to talk to me.  I was feeling sad, angry, isolated, and well, all sorts of things that I blogged about here.

As I just learned from Gawker, Hallmark, fortunately, has decided to come to the aid of people like me with this stunning new line of cards.

I want to believe that this isn't just Hallmark looking to cash in on the untapped market of infertility support.  I want to believe that someone might be cheered by receiving a card like this.

What do you think? 

Sending the Very Best

When I was in the throes of infertility hell, I didn't know how to talk to people.  People didn't know how to talk to me.  I was feeling sad, angry, isolated, and well, all sorts of things that I blogged about here.

As I just learned from Gawker, Hallmark, fortunately, has decided to come to the aid of people like me with this stunning new line of cards.

I want to believe that this isn't just Hallmark looking to cash in on the untapped market of infertility support.  I want to believe that someone might be cheered by receiving a card like this.

What do you think? 

Too Old?

For the last sixteen or so years, I have rung in the new year with the same group of friends.  In the earlier years, these celebrations revolved around some kind of "all you can drink" affair; eventually, they evolved to include a dinner component and sometimes a brunch the morning after.  Even last year, we dragged our four month old son to a New Year's Eve extravaganza (c0nveniently held a mere 15 blocks from our apartment) because staying home seemed way too lame.

This year, the party was again 15 blocks from our apartment, but this time, that seemed too far.  We had planned to get The Boy to sleep in his stroller (he regularly naps there happily) and then roll the stroller into a quiet, dark bedroom at our destination, but The Boy was kvetchy for most of the day and a good night's sleep seemed like it ought to be a priority.  So I stayed home (my husband went, but was home by midnight).

Is this a sign of maturity or decrepitude?

*****

I was sorry that this was one of the last news stories I saw in 2006.  I'm not sorry that the IVF was successful--it's hard to be unhappy when it actually works.  I'm just not sure it should have happened.

I'm not saying it should be illegal.  I'm not saying the clinic should have refused her.  According to this data, the life expectancy in Spain is 76 (and that's for those born in 1980).  Maybe this woman will live longer than that.  Maybe she has more energy than a woman half her age (at 37, I am not half her age, but I find just the thought of having newborns in 30 years exhausting). 

It just seems to me that this is bad press for assisted reproduction. It leads people to assume that IVF is easier than it is ("Even 67 year olds can have children!"), and it contributes to the impression that IVF is selfish--that it's something we do to get around biology (rather than something we do to "assist" biology).

Again, I'm not in favor of legislating who should and shouldn't qualify for reproductive assistance (because it's hard not to worry that I wouldn't have made the cut--too old, too short, too fat, etc.), but....I don't know. 

What do you think?

Coming Soon to a Fertility Clinic Near You

While not specifically aimed at IVF patients, this study seems to have obvious applications in a fertility clinic.

One can envision happy little needles (perhaps decorated in pink and blue?) that are meant to encourage patients to both "just relax" and "stay positive."  Of course they'll cost extra and won't be covered by insurance....

Conversations with Fertiles

My brother and sister-in-law are expecting their third child.  This news does not fill me with soul crushing despair as it would have some years ago, but following so close upon recent thoughts of my own, I can't say it doesn't give me a pang.

I'll get the usual provisos out of the way: I am happy for them; I am aware of the good fortune we have had--The Boy is here while many others are still waiting; I am not without ambivalence about trying--really trying--for another child of our own. 

And yet it's hard to hear this news without being reminded of my own inadequacies in the reproductive department.  To wit, the following conversation in which my oldest niece learns the good news (which was recounted to me over the telephone after the fact):

Niece: There's a baby growing in your tummy?

Sister-in-Law: Yes.

Niece: Who put it there?

Brother (interrupting): I did. [insert manly swagger here]

Sister-in-Law: Don't tell her that; we don't want to get into all of that right now.

Brother: What else are we going to tell her?  Who else could have put it there?

BrooklynGirl (screaming inside own head): The nice man at the fertility clinic?

The Last Word

This topic has become tiresome--especially because in their third attempt to get it right, Resolve (and Joe Isaacs in particular) has once again missed the mark.

Here is the text of Isaacs' letter of clarification to Newsweek:

Raising the issue that infertility among younger women is on the rise and highlighting the lifestyle and environmental factors that may be contributing to this troubling trend are important services to your readers ("Ask the Pro/Infertility," TIP SHEET, March 13). If young women better understand these risk factors to their fertility, they can then take action to—it's hoped—reduce threats to their childbearing ability. However, in focusing on the impact of such things as age, weight, exposure to contaminants and smoking, your article excludes mention of the medical causes of the disease of infertility in women, including ovarian dysfunction, endometriosis, blocked tubes and other structural malformations and hormonal disorders. For many women, infertility is caused by underlying clinical problems which often can be successfully addressed with drug therapy, medical procedures and/or surgery.

This letter confirmed for me that his earlier remarks were not taken out of context: he is, quite simply, a terrible advocate for infertile people.

Here are my quibbles:

1.  "If young women better understand these risk factors to their fertility, they can then take action to--it's hoped--reduce threats to their childbearing ability."

What are you saying here, Joe?  I can read it at least two ways.  Are you saying that it’s hoped that young women will amend their slutty, boozy, druggy, fatty ways, and in so doing, automatically reduce threats to their childbearing ability (in which case, those of us who are infertile should simply be blamed for not having done so sooner)?  Or is the hope you mention here one that your theory is correct and that amending our slutty, boozy, druggy, fatty ways does in fact reduce threats to childbearing ability after all? Because it would really suck to piss off all these infertiles over something that was just a theory.  You know?

2.  "For many women, infertility is caused by underlying clinical problems which often can be successfully addressed with drug therapy, medical procedures and/or surgery."

Well that sounds awfully easy.  Much easier than it is.  Something you might know if you had any personal experience with drug therapy, medical procedures and/or surgery and the emotional and financial consequences thereof.  And, of course, sometimes that drug therapy, medical procedures and/or surgery don't work.  But don't sweat the details. 

Whatever.  It's disappointing that Resolve squandered this opportunity first, to explain infertility to the general public, and second to apologize for such a poor explanation.  Is this really the best the infertile community can do?

Totally Insufficient

For a couple of days now, I've been trying to come up with a calm, rational response to Resolve's reaction to the Newsweek brouhaha, and I will tell you that I cannot.  It's rare that an apology offends me more than the original iniquity, but that's exactly what's happened here.

First, I think it's a cop out to begin by saying "Unfortunately, we cannot control the content or tone of what is ultimately published in the press."  This is a little like Bush claiming that the war in Iraq is going just fine--it's just the media that's saying it's not.  Yes, the media gets it wrong much of the time, but knowing that, it's up to Resolve to do what they can to make sure an accurate story is written.

And it seems to me that they had the opportunity to prep for this interview since they "were told [the article] would be focused on the environmental factors that can affect fertility."  Knowing that this would be the focus of the interview, Resolve had the opportunity to pause and say, "Hmmmm....how exactly do we want to talk about this?"

Because here's the thing Resolve folks: you clearly got a lot of angry mail/phone calls from we bitter infertile folks*, but that's nothing compared to the mail/phone calls you're going to get when the naive 25 years olds--whom you've assured will have no problem getting pregnant if they "[p]ractice safe sex, maintain normal weight, avoid environmental toxins, don’t smoke and limit alcohol"--start bumping up against the medical causes of infertility that were completely ignored in this article.

*Must be the booze, food (or lack thereof), drugs, sex, and lack of exercise making us cranky.