Words, words, words...

I spent five years working as a newspaper reporter for a good-sized daily newspaper. I liked the job, and I was good at it. It wasn’t until I left the newspaper, got married, moved to a different state and decided to switch careers that I discovered I probably should have been honing my writing skills in other avenues, as well. I started looking for a job in public relations, and they asked for my writing samples.

Me: What kind of newspaper stories are you looking for? Business? Education? Meeting coverage? Political? Enterprise (journalism-speak for a long, drawn-out story about a subject I pulled out of my ass)? You name it, I have it! Hundreds of articles![all the while flashing a broad, over-confident smile]

Them: Well, do you have samples of any other kinds of writing? You know—besides newspaper articles?

Me: Um, there was this book I wrote in the 4th grade…

Without even realizing it, I had spent the first five years of my post-college life in a rut. Why write anything on my own when I already spent all day writing? Sort of like how male OB/GYNs don’t like to…well, you can figure out for yourself what they don’t like to do. I couldn’t even bring myself to keep a journal; it was too much effort.

Fast forward to 2007. I find myself, for the first time in my life, actively—enthusiastically, even—writing just for the hell of it. Except, I won’t be able to share my blog with anyone. Ever. M is the only one who knows I began a blog, and I don’t think he’s even read it yet. I have already revealed too much to risk letting friends and family members read it. I am finally exercising my greatest talent, yet the only witnesses are strangers. How’s that for irony?

I have recently been getting lots of Google hits. It makes me a tiny bit paranoid about the status of my anonymity, but not enough to start masking medication names, like Clo*mid. Actually, I welcome all of you Googlers; it’s how I found some of my favorite blogs! Also, it’s rather flattering that I might be able to provide some information for all the despairing infertiles out there. Of course, these days I’m more likely to depress Googlers than inspire them, but hopefully, someday, I’ll be a success story.

So, I go on writing—albeit in obscurity. Sigh. You all better appreciate the treat you’re getting—I normally charge quite the fee for my writing services!

My dream babies

I dreamed last night that I was pregnant. It was one of those dreams that feels very, very real—until you wake up.

The details are a bit hazy, but…I was at the mall (?), talking to a friend I hadn’t seen for a while, when suddenly I had this dawning realization I was pregnant—with twins. And that I was far enough along to be showing a teensy bit.

You wanna know what my first thought was? “Oh, good—now I don’t have to suffer through the first three months of worrying I’ll have a miscarriage.” I was thrilled to have skipped through the entire IF and first trimester process, with all the pain and heartache behind me already. Like I was magically transported into my future.

I woke up feeling terrible. Something wonderful that I believed to be true was not, in fact, true. Yet I’m not sure whether that ruined my day or not. I’m bummed, of course, that I’m not pregnant. But man, did it feel good to feel that good!

Here’s the thing: I know, without a doubt, that I will be pregnant someday. However, how in the world will I be able to handle the time between now and then?

Screw the statistics, Part 2

I had an appointment with my allergist today. I am allergic to grass, which means that during May and June, I can be pretty miserable if I’m not heavily medicated. Basically, all the medications I take are antihistamines. That sucks, because anyone—including several of the women from my infertility support group—will tell you that antihistamines dry up cervical mucous.

At first, I was all for trying some herbal remedy in place of my trusted drugs. But now, I saw screw it. I simply cannot be prostrate with misery this allergy season. If that means my next medicated cycle is a bust, so be it. (And no, I will not be waiting until after allergy season to resume trying to conceive.) I will stick my finger up my hoo-ha every day and dutifully record what I feel, and if I don’t feel any EWCM around ovulation time (assuming I do ovulate), then I’ll know why. At the very least, I’ll have even more information about myself and how my body works. And that’s really what infertility treatment is about, isn’t it?—gathering more and more and more information about yourself.

Women taking antihistamines get pregnant every day. Why shouldn’t I? (Boy, that post sounded very angry, didn’t it? Well, I’m just sick of this infertility thing taking over the rest of my life! So there! (makes an obscene gesture at infertility) )

This and that

I spoke too soon about the met. I ramped up to the top dosage over the weekend, and it’s really kicking my ass. I’ve had bad dreams and restless sleep for the last few days, which may or may not be related. I’ve also been rushing to the bathroom a lot, and this morning, as I was driving to work, I was feeling so nauseous I almost didn’t make it. At the moment, I’m feeling better, but it comes and goes. I know, I know—I can go back to the previous dosage. But the way I see it, I’m going to have to be at 1,500 mg eventually, so I might as well get the initial side effects over with now, rather than later. Plus, I feel like I have a better shot at possibly ovulating this month if I go up to the top dosage sooner (yes, I know that’s a shot in the dark, too, but a girl can hope, can’t she?).

In other news, yesterday was our 2nd anniversary. M and I went to the Syb*aris, a romantic overnight retreat place with private whirlpool tubs, etc. It was his Christmas gift to me. It was a nice, relaxing night, even with me running to the bathroom every once in a while.

Hello, my name is Ann, and I'm an infertile

Last night, M and I went to an infertility support group meeting in our area. I had visited the group once before—the facilitators are wonderful women who both had twins through IVF—and I was excited for M to experience it. Except, by the end of the night, I ended up feeling worse than I had felt before the meeting. I’m not sure exactly why, but I can take a few guesses:

1) I had finally gotten to a place where I could coast along, focus on the rest of my life and semi-patiently wait for next cycle, when I can start Letrozole. But then, I talked about the frustration of infertility for two hours, and suddenly I was back in the depths of depression.
2) When I mentioned I will be starting Letrozole soon, one of the women (who doesn’t have PCOS, but does have long cycles) immediately said, “Oh, I tried that. It didn’t do anything for me.” My face must have visibly fallen, because one of the facilitators immediately said that medications work differently for different people. Intellectually, I know that, but it still hurt to hear someone say that the medication I’m looking forward to using didn’t work for her.
3) There was a woman there who is going the “natural route” with a naturalist, etc. Unintentionally, she made the rest of us feel like the medications we are taking are doing nothing but screwing with our bodies.
4) I felt like I was rehashing many of the feelings I had already worked out on my own, except this time it was a new audience I was sharing those feelings with.
5) I discovered that my IF clinic is one of the most expensive in the area. Great. So should I get to IUI, I’m going to have to either suck it up or switch doctors.

I think support groups can be wonderful. However, I’m going to stick with just blogging for the time being. In this venue, I can write my thoughts without any interruption of judgment, and read about the trials of others at my leisure. Somehow, it seems to intrude in my life a little less than sitting around the table with a bunch of fellow infertiles, all of us convinced that we know what treatments are the best way to get pregnant.

I'm still feeling a little bummed, but I'm hoping I'll be able to snap out of it over the weekend.

Becoming a "baby person"

When we started trying to conceive a year ago (and I mean really trying to conceive—temperatures, CM, the whole kit and caboodle), M tentatively asked me whether I really wanted a baby right then, or if I just wanted to prove I could have a baby. See, my plan had been to start trying a year after we got married because I knew I had PCOS (although I didn’t have a name for it at the time), and I knew it would take a while.

I indignantly replied that of course I wanted a baby—how could he even think of saying that?! Yet, looking back, I think maybe M was on to something (he’s wise like that). I knew I wanted children (2.5 of ‘em), but I wasn’t a big “baby person.” When someone brought a baby into the room, I wasn’t one of the women who flocked over, begging to hold the wee one. I cheerfully told everyone that I preferred children when they were maybe 1 or 2, and had more of a personality. I only wanted a baby for myself because a) I couldn’t bear the thought of a life without children and so I wanted to start early, and b) babies eventually grow into small children that are loads of fun.

That was then. Now, after having proven to myself that yes, I am indeed infertile, I love looking at babies. I’ll see one in a restaurant and have difficulty tearing my eyes away. I watched “Three Men and a Baby” last week and marveled over how utterly perfect Mary the baby was. At this point, I think I am more ga-ga about babies than I am about toddlers. It makes M happy. As he puts it, “Now I know you really do want a baby.”

I do. I really, really do.

Screw the statistics

As someone who just started taking metformin (and the side effects have been very minimal so far, thank God), I was not very comforted to read the doc’s latest post over at Infertility Blog. According to this very recent study, met does little, if anything, to help women with PCOS get pregnant. And, of course, according to other sources (the Internet is vast, my friends, vast) the statistics are equally as grim for Clomid, Femara, IUI, and pretty much every other method of procreating short of IVF for PCOS-ers (I realize I’m over-generalizing here, but stick with me—I’m trying to make a point).

So I’ve come to this conclusion: Screw the statistics. For me, achieving pregnancy will be like finding a needle in a haystack, a wolf in sheep’s clothing…oh wait—wrong metaphor. It’ll take nothing short of a miracle to get me pregnant. It’s a good thing I’m a Christian, because my faith that God will find a way to make me a mother is the only thing that’s keeping me going right now.

I know there are many of you who are very, very sick of hearing people say it will all happen “in God’s time.” And believe me, I don’t like anyone telling me that, either. But it doesn’t mean I can’t comfort myself with my faith. For me, it’s a comfort that God has it all worked out in that file marked “Ann’s Life.” I had thought it would be impossible to find the perfect man for me, yet lo and behold, M came into my life (I’ll tell you that story some other time).

So far, the science of the human body has failed me miserably. I’m going to do what I can to overcome the science part of it all, but I’ve never claimed to be a biology expert. I’ve just got to keep believing. It’s all I can do, right?