Last day of the Blog challenge

Day 30 -Tell us about a friendship you lost or a relationship that changed for the worse because of infertility.

Wow, what a depressing way to end the challenge!  I don't want to say I've seen a lot of drama queens on the boards - but it's so true.  Even people you think you've gotten to know can some times go a little cray-cray!  And so I can see how this may happen to others.  But really I cannot think of a relationship lost.  And yes, some have changed...but for the worst? No.  Whatever changes have happened in my relationships were true an organic in nature.  No one has said anything so outrageously mean spirited that it changed our relationship.  Every comment has been well-meaning (even if it hurts). 

So instead I wanted to look at how my relationships have changed for the better. 
*crickets*
Sadly, I can't really think of that either!  Sure, my friends that have kids (all under 3 years old) call a bit less (Which is totally understandable when you have so much less "me time").  And yes, sometimes they don't have much else to talk about then their kid -but I can see how I might get that way once I have one.  Hell I sometimes feel all I can talk about is my infertility!  But eventually we find other things to talk about (even if it's just reminiscing about the past). 
So I guess what I'm saying is yes, some of my friendships have changed slightly.  But not for the better. And not for the worst.  Just because time changes situations, and you adjust.  And thankfully, IF has not changed my relationship with Jeff, my parents, his parents, etc. 
I have enjoyed the blog challenge, it forced me to think about things I wouldn't have posted on my own about and post more often.  I actually wish there was some "Random topic" blog  roll for those times when I feel like blogging, but I am uninspired.  I think this has motivated me to seek out topics that make me be introspective or share more about myself than just my IF.  I hope I have not bored you guys to much with this 30 day experiment. 

Blog Challenege Day 29 & 7 Stages of Anger

Day 29:  If you knew you'd be facing IF, is there anything you would do differently in the past? Aside from seek treatment earlier? No.  I love my husband with all my heart and wouldn't change being with him for the world.  And since we started trying as soon as we got married, I have no regrets...OK, maybe I wished I had tried for a job with IF coverage harder back when I first lost my job a few years ago.  But whatever.  You can't change the past, you can only move forward.  I am trying to accept that.

So a fellow 3T'er made me think today about the Seven Stages of grief and I realize it fits so much for various IF struggles...especially the one I'm currently in with our latest failed attempt.  Any one recognize these feelings?! Yeah, I thought so!

1. SHOCK & DENIAL-  You will probably react to learning with numbed disbelief. You may deny the reality at some level, in order to avoid the pain. Shock provides emotional protection from being overwhelmed all at once.  Riiiiiight.  I moved past the shock and denial quickly this week, but I know on failed cycles I sit in the denial phase for a while.
2. PAIN & GUILT-As the shock wears off, it is replaced with the suffering of unbelievable pain. Although excruciating and almost unbearable, it is important that you experience the pain fully, and not hide it, avoid it or escape from it with alcohol or drugs.  Screw you Psychologists, I'm drinking a little!  You may have guilty feelings or remorse over things you did or didn't do. Life feels chaotic and scary during this phase.

3. ANGER & BARGAINING-Frustration gives way to anger, and you may lash out and lay unwarranted blame. Please try to control this, as permanent damage to your relationships may result. This is a time for the release of bottled up emotion. You may rail against fate, questioning "Why me?" You may also try to bargain in vain with the powers that be for a way out of your despair ("I will never blank again if you just blank") I believe this is where I have been at for days.
4. "DEPRESSION", REFLECTION, LONELINESS-Just when your friends may think you should be getting on with your life, a long period of sad reflection will likely overtake you. This is a normal stage of grief, so do not be "talked out of it" by well-meaning outsiders. Encouragement from others is not helpful to you during this stage of grieving.During this time, you finally realize the true magnitude of your loss, and it depresses you. You may isolate yourself on purpose, reflect on things and focus on memories of the past. You may sense feelings of emptiness or despair. OK, I'm isolating myself a little too.

5. THE UPWARD TURN-As you start to adjust, your life becomes a little calmer and more organized. Your physical symptoms lessen, and your "depression" begins to lift slightly.  So you're telling me the over eating and wanting to drink will lessen? That'll be good.  For now, screw you IF and pass the potato chips.

6. RECONSTRUCTION & WORKING THROUGH-As you become more functional, your mind starts working again, and you will find yourself seeking realistic solutions to problems posed by life. You will start to work on practical problems and reconstructing yourself and your life. 

7. ACCEPTANCE & HOPE-During this, the last of the seven stages in this grief model, you learn to accept and deal with the reality of your situation. Acceptance does not necessarily mean instant happiness. Given the pain and turmoil you have experienced, you can never return to the carefree, untroubled YOU that existed before this tragedy. But you will find a way forward.  I hope all of us will not only get to the "hope" stage, but move even beyond that to Success. 

Blog Challenge: Day 28....the (someday?) nursery

What do you use the “nursery” for right now?


Well, because of paying for fertility treatments and so on, we have decided to stay in our townhouse rental until at least March 2013 (we signed a year and a half lease with our landlord in order to get one month free; which was my idea.  The lease runs out right when DH gets his annual bonus - which would be used for a home down payment someday.)  It's a split level (actually four levels: The entryway & garage have the Loft and our bedroom suite above it.  But go up a few steps from the entryway and it's our living room & kitchen.  Go a few steps down from the entryway (below living room and kitchen) is what I call the "Man's Den", second bathroom, laundry room and guest room. 

This is my view of the loft from the couch.  

Because I would not want to walk down three levels from our bedroom and across the house to get to our phantom baby, we have agreed that if we got PG and had the baby before March 2013 (So we'd need to get PG by this summer), we would use the loft as a nursery. It's right next to our bedroom and looks out over the living room. Currently it is our "office". It has an "L" shaped desk and a book case. We would move these down into the Man's Den and put the crib going along the wall to the left, the changing table in the middle of the wall with the door to our bedroom. And if I feel there is room, a rocker chair & foot stool. (I have not measured the crib we will get from SIL but the changing table is downstairs in our guest bedroom currently). If we happen to have twins...then we will have the two cribs end to end from the wall to the door and hope the changing table will fit along the wall to the left because obviously we don't want it too close to the railing. We figure this situation would work well enough until we move out (which we hope will be March 2013, but if finances dictate we stay here, we figure it's fine until the child is out of the crib and in a toddler bed. And then if we needed to change the Man's Den into a bedroom/play room we could. Or we could just do away with our guest bedroom.

I admit, I have even contemplated putting two rings in the ceiling, then hanging a curtain rod from them and putting up a curtain so that the baby would be enclosed from the living room.  That way I could close it or pull it back and have it tied back.
We've lived here for almost four years, so yes - I have had plenty of time to really think about this. So there you have it...what we currently have in our future "nursery" and what I'd do to turn it into one. 



blog challenge day 27

Talk about a time you taught someone more about infertility. This week! I had to explain to people why we got canceled. Several people thought we were doing IVF, they asked things like "can't you freeze the eggs and do it in a few weeks?" Um, yeah. It doesn't work like that. And my BFF Barb asked "well if it's canceled, why are you out $800?" So I explained the cost of cd3 b/w and U/S_$475. Cost of follow up U/S. Cost of consult and sperm wash, cost of drugs, etc, etc comes to over $800. She suggested we have a keggar as a fund raiser if I ever need IVF. Gotta love friends like that! But I think every.single.time. I have a talk with some fertile about IF, I am teaching them. Because there is so much the average person doesn't know.

Blo Challenege Day 26

So I have to admit that yesterday is possibly in the running for the worst day of my life.  It's at least in the top five.  I spent much of today at work alone (thankfully) with my anger.  I got off work at 2:30, came home, started cleaning the kitchen and put on 90's music on iTunes.  This seems to have helped a bit.  Nothing like escaping back to an easier time in life! 
But I am not one to abandon a project....so here it is dear readers: Day 26 of useless ramblings from Kati! 
Day 26 - Were you the product of infertility? Was anyone you know the product of infertility? How do you know? Or do you just suspect based on circumstances like age differences between siblings, time between marriage and conception, etc.


I am not the product of infertility.  My mother always used the "I just had to hang my clothes next to your father and I'd get Pregnant" line.  (Just what you like to remember when you're dealing with IF yourself.)  I am the product of a m/c though...I've been told several times that my mother had been four and a half months along with a boy that she m/c due to crawling through a window when she locked herself out with my toddler brother inside.  The doctor told her, the easiest way to get over the pain, was to wait a month and get PG again.  Oh so easy!  Well, it was for her.  I came along very soon after. 
Jeff is also not from IF dealings...His parents were married for five years before having him.  But it's because they were young.  His mom said they waited to have children, and gave her daughter the same advice (who did also wait several years to "enjoy being married" before trying.  Since Jeff was 36 when we got married, she didn't pass on this advice to us LOL.  Good thing!
I do know a few adopted kids that are a result of their parents dealing with IF, most namely Skippy (Matt Schipper).  He's told his mother of our struggles and passes on her sympathy from having dealt with that in the early 80's. 
There is also a family friend, who now has a 13 year old daughter as a product of IVF.  She's an amazing girl who is 13 going on 35. 
And finally, I suspect my cousin.  Because I know she was told at age 18 her endo was so bad she'd never have kids.  But after about 8 years of marriage she got PG.  She was about 33 at the time, and it would have been about 1999, so I know there had been advances and I know women with endo on 3T.  But since I've only seen her at weddings and funerals in the past 15 years (maybe five times in those years) - I don't feel close enough to come right out and ask her. 
With these various stories, as well as the few women at work that told me of their stories from the 90's going through IF, and personally knowing a girl from HS who's dealing with it, and of course my friend Lauren - I have no trouble believing the statistic of 1 in 8 couples face IF.  So when you feel "everyone" around you is getting pregnant try to remember this statistic.  Because there are sure to be many more people who just don't feel comfortable talkig about it, but are suffering silently.  None of us are totally alone in this fight. 
And now as I write those last few sentences a few tears are starting to roll down my cheek, so I will go listen to so angst from Alanis Morrisette to stop it. 

IUI #3 Canceled. Only two live sperm found

This mostly is taken straight from my post on 3T so if you've read that, you know this already.  So we went in at 11:30 for our scheduled IUI#3. And then they called us into the consult room...which I immediately thought - that's weird, normally we go into a treatment room. The nurse then informed us it was because with the sample they only found two live sperm. Two. Ffffuuuucccckkkkkk.
Unfortunately, many of you might remember my husband had health issues due to some severe allergic outbreak in October that caused him to be in the hospital twice and be put on a very high dose of steroids for three weeks. We were told that since sperm have a life of about 70 days, and it's been 88 days since his last dose (he tapered off) that it should be OK to go ahead this cycle (This was from the docs that treated him for the allergic reaction. We were stupid and didn't consult RE about it.) We had thought about getting another S/A done before starting this cycle...but since at that point it would have only been about 70 days we decided to skip it. Big Mistake!
Now we've wasted about $950 out of pocket for nothing. I'm still in pain from huge follies and nothing to do but wait. We ended up meeting with the RE and he first started saying because DH's numbers have gone down over the last year it looks like IVF is what we need. But once we explained about the steroids, he agreed we should make a an appointment with a new Uro (last time we saw one was July 2010, and it wasn't the one the RE suggested because that one is downtown about an hour away). And we should get an S/A done in about a month to see if it was just due to the steroids. And he had DH pee in a cup to see if it's some valve that can get "broken" and instead of making the sperm come out, it forces it into the bladder so he would instead pee out sperm. Weird...never heard of that one. So we'll hear later today if they found any sperm in his urine.
But now the plan is repeat S/A in one month, see new Uro in six weeks (or whenever we're able to get in but he figures with how popular this doc is, that's about the time frame). And if things improve from steroids being out for sure, cycle again in about two and a half cycles.
The only good thing, is being in a doctors office - we were given about five minutes for me to cry. And then I had to move on in order to talk to the doctor. Clearly I am devastated because I was really trying to work on positive thinking, and had told myself this was it. It was going to work. Only to not have a shot at all. But I've moved past the crying stage much faster than if I had been told this over the phone. Now I'm just very angry! Mad at the world. And that poor DH feels really like it's all his fault. His fault for having MFI. His fault for having gotten sick back in October. His fault for only two sperm and a canceled IUI. I've tried to tell him repeatedly that it's not like he purposefully did any of this, none of it is his fault. But I can see it's hard on him too...which just make my heart break more.
*And to Jezebell, thank you so much for the donated drugs. I hope you don't feel like they were wasted...I plan to use the rest if we're able to cycle again in two months. If not, because of low sperm issues again, I plan to donate them on to someone else before they expire.

Blog Challenge:Day 25...real life IF'ers I know

Blog Challenge:  Have you ever bonded with someone IRL over IF?
The simple answer is yes - quite a few people!  First off, there are my GTG Chicago gals....Mari and Amber.   They both were going through treatments then, when I was still in the first six months of getting the Dx of MFI.  But talking with them the first few months, getting a sense of what might lay ahead was really helpful.  And since they both had twins, I keep getting a sense of what I may have laying ahead if I get blessed with two at once! LOL.

Next, is my close friend Lauren.  I've mentioned her before in earlier blogs.  How she started TTC about 9 months after me.  And how I convinced her to see a doc because I thought she had PCOS (she did) and how I recommended my RE to her (she went) and how now she's PG (after IUI #2).  There were those five months where we were both Dx as infertile together.  But since it was different Dx, and her journey was over so quickly, I don't think she really knows the extent of pain.  And how what she says now as a pregnant women can still really hurt.  It's great she got PG so quick, but at the same time - she just doesn't fully get it.

And because we are so open about our IF, I also have learned three women I work with and a family friend all dealt with it to have their children...but back in the 90's.  It's amazing how with the passage of time, they seem to think of everything as fairly simple or make comments about how "there must be great advancements".  I'm sure there have been some, but it's still really difficult!  I wish I didn't feel they were minimizing IF so simply.  And I know they are trying to give me hope...but they brush their IF aside so quickly like "It took over two years to get PG with her.  But you'll get PG soon."  First off, we don't know that it will ever work...there is that chance that it won't.  Secondly, two years is a long time!  And now I'm at the two and a half year mark!  Don't brush it off like it was nothing!  I swear, when I do finally get success...I will never make comments like that to other IF'ers.  I will always first tell them how sorry I am, that I know the pain and uncertainty. 
Wow, this post was supposed to be about bonding - but it's been more about me saying how the people IRL did it wrong!  I don't mean to...they all did help and give me hope.  I guess I just feel alone in the continued struggle sometimes...like everyone has success, and forgets us left behind so easily.