Q&A (it's almost go time)

39 + 4







Q: When are you due?

A:  Friday is 40 weeks. Thursday I am scheduled to start induction. Today is Tuesday. The Month is March. The years is 2016. I'm due March 11, 2016.

Q: Boy or girl?

A: Boy!

Q: How was this boy conceived?

A: With lots of love and science

Q: Has this pregnancy been hard?

A: Once we got passed the initial "will he stick around" phase, this pregnancy has been a total cake walk. I mean, there was mild nausea in the beginning, insane heartburn and acid reflux throughout, gross, troll-like swelling in my feet for the duration - but otherwise, I have honestly felt pretty great. And I have been freaking, crazy productive. Take that, pregnancy brain promoters.

Q: What's a pregnancy brain promoter?

A: People who insist that pregnancy = not being able to think. Or do much of anything. Certainly not be productive at anything other than months of baby prepping. Now, I absolutely recognize that every pregnancy is different and I've been incredibly lucky. But I also think there is a lot of silliness out there that says once you are expecting, you must cease to be effective at your job and you must only be able to talk and think about baby related things. I actually had someone try to convince me (another woman!) that women lose 4 IQ points per child. She was so certain of this fact, she read a study after all, that I had to go and look it up myself. The study was a joke. That she clearly did not get. Instead, she believed it 100% and tried to convince others of it in the WORKPLACE. Heaven help us all.

Q: So what have you accomplished while being pregnant?

A: I planned and executed a national conference. Not just event planning, but content planning -The Whole Thing (with help, of course - but I lead it). I continued to develop training programs and manage people. I completed a certification. Oh, and I opened up a therapy center with my husband. I basically have worked two jobs since October. And both jobs required a great deal of thinking and planning and executing. To say I am proud of what I have accomplished would be a huge understatement. I have kicked ass.

Q: So now that baby boy is almost here, will you quit your jobs and be a good stay at home mom?

A: No. And I'm so tired of this question. I hate all aspects of it. Especially the assumption that staying at home is best for the child and working should just be if you *have* to. But if you can afford to stay at home, and choose to work, then you must be one of those "career women" who need to climb a corporate ladder for personal validation and need to make enough money to pay for her fancy shoes and purses. UGH. No, no one has said this to me verbatim. Yes, multiple people have said this to me in a very round-about, coded sort of way. To set the record straight, I am not and never have been a ladder climbing career person. I have enjoyed a good deal of success over the years. But that has been purely a byproduct of the fact that I actually enjoy working. I have worked since I was 12 years old. I get immense satisfaction from creating and contributing and expressing myself out in the world and I find providing financially for myself and now my family to be very rewarding. Working hard is a deeply ingrained value of mine and one that I never anticipated turning off when I became a mom. In fact, I think it is even more important as a mom. Girls with mothers who work grow up to be more effective in their careers and make more money. Boys with mothers who work grow up to be better partners because they are more inclined to share home and work responsibilities equally. It's true. Look it up. Now, will it be easy for me to leave my baby and go back to the office while he is in daycare? No. I've already shed tears about this and I know there will be more to come. It will be a bitter sweet transition. Much like every single aspect of parenting. But I know that does not make it the wrong choice. It's just that underlying grief that accompanies every transition in life. And I support women who choose to stay home.  Anecdotally, everyone I know who has made the choice to stay home never enjoyed working in the first place, even as a carefree single woman. They hated it. They couldn't wait to have a baby and an excuse to stay home. And I'm totally cool with that - when they own it. It's when they try to turn their choice into a morally superior choice - claiming their decision is based on what is best for the CHILD. That's when I call bullshit.

Rant done.

Q: Are you ready for baby boy to arrive?

A:  I think so? I don't ever know how to answer that question. Can you ever, truly be ready? I doubt it. But I think we're as ready as we can be. Nursery is all set. Loose ends have been tied up at both work and therapy center. Dogs are groomed. House is as clean as it will ever be. I suppose we are totally ready for everything to devolve into complete chaos.

That's all I have time for now. Sorry for grammatical errors. Hope to be back here soon. But it might just be in another year. Who knows.

Peace and love

We're having a baby!

That China Life

Hi from Hong Kong.

I'm sitting in my hotel room, overlooking the city, eating spicy pumpkin curry and drinking a tequila sunrise. A very weird combination but the language barrier makes it a bit difficult to order room service so I just said yes to what I could understand.

A business trip to Asia. It sounds so glamorous, I know. And, yes, some of it is. Flying business class overseas? An experience everyone should have at some point. Preferably on someone else's dime. The lie-flat seats and the linens and the food, all worth it. This is my sixth trip to Hong Kong but the first four of those trips were in coach. And I wanted to cry. Every. Single. Time.

The hotels are pretty great, as well. The Crowne Plaza and the Regal are far and away better than the Courtyard's I'm used to staying in on business trips back home.

And then, of course, there is simply the privilege of spending time on the other side of the WORLD. That particular blessing is not lost on me.

But there are downsides. Like spending eight days away from home. My husband and I don't even go on vacations for that long, and here I am, by myself and away from home for eight friggin' days. And this isn't even the longest. My first trip was to both Hong Kong and Malaysia and was a full two weeks. It's lonely. I miss my family. I miss my dogs. I miss my routine. Add to that the 12 hour time difference that only serves to keep you even more disconnected from those at home, and the whole experience starts to lose it's shine.

So, anyway, here I am. Work is done and I'm trying to occupy myself until I head home in another 40 plus hours. The pumpkin in my curry is under-cooked. But the tequila did it's job. My life is good. Even the lonely bits.

It keeps me grateful.

Even as I bitch and moan.

dumb and dumber still

Hi from Kansas City.

First things first: our last ditch cycle was canceled. Mostly due to lab errors (LAB ERRORS, WTF) but also because I'm done. Done. For real this time.

Being done was a hard place to get to. And here's why:

The photo above is a screen shot of my chances of having a "take home baby" through IVF (based on SART's IVF success predictor). If you click on it, you will see that my chances are very low. But they are not zero. So, of course, my immediate reaction is this:

It would be easier to walk away if my chances were truly zero. But my ultimate desire is to be a mom, not to be in perpetual fertility treatments. And so I am walking away.

We paid our $16.5k. Six frozen eggs belong to us now.

The donor is anonymous. I know her medical history, have a glimpse of her personality, and I know what she looked like as a child. It was her eyes that drew me in. It's only fitting that I have found 50% of the genetic ingredients of our future child in an online database. That's how I found my soulmate, Laney, afterall. I saw her picture on the animal shelter website and it was her eyes that drew me in. That's also how I met my perfect-for-me-if-only-perfection-truly-existed-husband. Online. Again, it was his eyes that drew me in from the start. And so why not my future child? Let's keep things consistent, shall we?

Current feelings: relieved and a little bit excited, even.

Current fears: how many embryos will we get from this batch of six? I really want to have two children from the same donor. Two children who have the same story. I know this donor is "proven", meaning, her eggs have turned into children for other families, That gives me a little bit of relief. I also know that there are other families who used frozen donor eggs who have gotten two children out of a batch of six eggs. But there are also many who have gotten just one. Or NONE. While donor eggs will certainly give us the best chance of having a child, it does not mean that it will be a guarantee.

In just over a week I will be heading back out to Hong Kong for work. I'm hopeful that I will use that time away to really dig in and process my thoughts more over here. I am still debating whether or not to share this blog with family and friends and make it publicly searchable. On one hand, it's easiest for me to express myself in writing. I also feel a responsibility to add my experiences to the IF and DE communities.

On the other hand, privacy.
I like privacy.
A lot.

Anger and Courage

I'm not sure which daughter is responsible for our latest decision.

We picked our donor. We were thisclose to parting with $16k. And then we got cold feet.

I went in for baselines on April 1. My hormones all came back in a pretty decent range (for me, anyway). And so we made the last minute decision to try again this cycle before moving on with donor eggs. There are a million reasons why this won't work. And why this is tantamount to throwing both logic and money out the window. But hope is not often logical. And we have grown accustomed to losing money. And maybe this time we will get lucky. And if not, then maybe this will be what we need to feel truly confident about closing the door on this method of family building.

P.S. I realize I never finished my last post. One day I will. But not today.

39

In honor of my 39th birthday tomorrow (gulp), here are 39 things I am grateful for, in no particular order:

1. All of the stars from the TV show, Friends, are still (and will always be) older than me.

2. In fact, Courtney Cox is nearly 12 years older than me. And she looks killer in a bikini. I'm so going to be her when I grow up.

3. I am in a solid place career-wise. I can hold my own in a variety of situations and I am really good at buying time by bullshitting my way through things until I better understand them. I'm pretty sure that's what being an adult is all about.

4. My sweet Laney is still alive and well.

5. My parents are still alive and well (hush, I said these were in no particular order).

6. My husband buys me pretty things.

7. But I could totally buy them for myself if I wanted to. (Girl Power, Bitchez)

8. I am finally jumping through the remaining bureaucratic hoops to get my MFT license. (🙈)

9. I will one day turn my struggles to conceive into a personal mission to help other struggling women and men build their families in non-traditional ways.  

10. I am grateful for technology and it's role in helping me maintain friendships and learn from other's experiences.

11. I am also grateful that it's highly likely that I will own a flying car before I die.

12. I am currently sitting in first class.

13. On my way HOME

14. People are truly shocked when they learn my age. I'm finally appreciating this.

15. I'm on my way HOME. To my HUSBAND.

16. I'm going to Disney World tomorrow.

17. I saw both my niece and nephew come into this world.

18. And my baby brother.

19. Who is now 21 and in the Marines and still texts me and gives me the BEST hugs.

20. I will become a mother (God willing and the creek don't rise) this year.

21. I still have time to have two kids and then get my Courtney Cox body by Courtney Cox age (I have no idea why I am so obsessed with Courtney Cox and her age and her body).

22. I am totally embracing my age and refusing to attend any more concerts unless there are SEATS. 

23. My husband is taking me to see Wilco again in April. And there will be SEATS. And even a TABLE. To lay my DENTURES on. 

24. I am excited about totally adult things like getting my pool deck painted/stained next week. Woot.

25. I am so much more emotionally stable than I was 10 years ago. That's something for everyone to be grateful for.

Landed. To be continued...

The new normal

My husband and I have yet to pick a donor and I have already spent over $100 on children's books explaining donor-assisted reproduction in a fun, sweet, and most importantly, normative way. I am so grateful that there are so many books to choose from in the third-party reproduction genre. I know how critical it is for children to know the truth of how they came into the world and for that truth to be wrapped in love and empowerment.

This year is the 20th anniversary of the once very controversial book, Heather Has Two Mommies. When it was first published it was met with a flood of protest. The book was written at a request from two lesbian moms who wanted to help their daughter feel loved and empowered as she entered into preschool, knowing she would inevitably be faced with her own questions and questions from her peers about her family structure. 

I doubt the republication of this groundbreaking book will be met with the same level of ignorance and intolerance as it was 20 years ago. I know there will be some, but for the most part, I believe our society is moving in a positive direction when it comes to recognizing and embracing the wide variety of family structures that exist and are possible. And that is something to be celebrated. 

As a human race we must evolve beyond the notion of "traditional" and "non-traditional" families and instead take a more rational and scientific approach to family building. No longer should tradition be held as a measurement for whether or not a family is a "good" family or a "bad" family. Instead of using the immature valuations of good and bad and right and wrong we need to look to a measurement of health that relies on both qualitative and quantitative research. Does this family have stability in caregivers? Are all members, both children and adults, respected? Does this family practice empathy or is secrecy, silence, and judgement the rule? These are just a few of the questions that help to determine if a particular family structure is a healthy one. And the answers to these questions are not dependent upon whether or not the family structure is "traditional" or whether or not the children were conceived "naturally" or with the help of science (see Dolce and Gabbana controversy).

Family is everything. Families are the building blocks of our society. If families are healthy, then society flourishes. 

Healthy families, not merely traditional families, need to be our new normal. 

On being brave

I am not a fearful person in the traditional sense. I don't freak out over bugs and spiders. I will gladly go on a roller coaster or would happily skydive (if only I felt strongly enough about it to part with the money). And I don't get anxiety over traveling by myself, even in a foreign country. 

I am by no means a reckless person, but neither am I skittish one.

Research is king. And Brene is a boss.

I can be, however, an emotionally fearful person. I have a hefty fear of being vulnerable and I will work hard to try to avoid it. And when I can't avoid it, I struggle with a deep sense of shame.

But Life, she is clever, and she has a way of forcing you into vulnerable situations. While infertility has not been the Only Thing that has forced me into vulnerability (relationships do this to me all the time), it has certainly been The Biggest Thing and The Hardest Thing and The Longest Thing.

[that's what she said]

To be clear, no one has "shamed" me for not being able to get and stay pregnant. Not my husband, not my family, not my friends. The shame I feel is entirely self-inflicted.

I grew up with a mother who loved nothing more than being a mother. It was and is her most important role in life (though it could be argued that it has now been replaced, as it tends to happen, by being a grandmother). My mother verbalized her pride and gratitude around motherhood often. She was and is the Mother of All Mothers and I could not be more thankful for that and for her. But my weird little brain turned her pride and gratitude into self-judgement. If being a mother is the most important role in the world and I am unable to become a mother, then I have failed. My other accomplishments in life are empty and meaningless unless I am carrying, birthing, and raising a child. My mom would never have said such a thing or believed any of what I just wrote to be true. But deep in my brain, buried under rational thought, this is what I believe.

And then there is the shame of being self-involved. By its very nature, infertility throws you into a very self-absorbed place. Your attention goes inward to every sign and signal your body is or isn't giving you. And when your infertility includes endometriosis and a march towards premature ovarian failure, those signs and signals can be both physically uncomfortable and a total mind fuck. Near constant aching ovaries? Physically uncomfortable. Waking up multiple times a night drenched in sweat at the same time you are trying to "think positively" about your next IVF cycle?  Mind fuck.

And in addition to obsessing over signs and signals, there is the constant juggling of doctors appointments, the guilt of spending so much money on something you can't be sure will ever work, navigating questions about when you will start a family from well-meaning but clueless bosses, the list goes on and on.

For nearly five years I have been intensely self-absorbed. Logically, I know that I have done my best and that so much of the self-absorption is simply the nature of the cards I've been dealt. But that doesn't stop me from going into a full-on shame spiral whenever I am reminded how my body's inability to work as it should has dominated the first few years of my marriage. Or how it has, on many occasions, stolen my ability to be light-hearted and playful and instead left me a bit dark and disconnected. Even when I have purposefully set aside all family building conversations and endeavors for months at a time, in an effort to give my husband a much needed break from the ever-present weight of infertility, I have never been able to completely unhook from it. I drag it around with me wherever I go. There is no taking a vacation from your body.

I want to be a good mom. And a big part of being a good mom, I think, is working through this shame I have around my inability to produce a genetic offspring. I owe this to my future children. They deserve to come into this world unhindered by my emotional baggage. They need to be mothered by someone who is both brave enough to take them on roller coasters and brave enough to face her own vulnerability and emotional discomfort. And they certainly need to be raised by a mother who can handle the hard conversations about his/her/their existence without unwittingly passing on shame.

Dear children of my heart,
I cannot promise I will be perfect or have it all together, but I can and will promise that I will do everything in my power to keep you from unfairly inheriting my shame.