"What did you expect?"

This is what my husband said to me as I'm stumbling out of the clinic this morning, blinded by tears that just won't stop and weak with sadness and 2 1/2 years of emotional exhaustion. It is a question worthy of exploration. What DO I expect?

I expect to wake up from this nightmare one day and have all of it go away.

I expect to NOT be the 1 woman out of 10 who are dealing with infertility.

I expected to be able to have as many babies as I wanted in exactly the time frame that I wanted them.

I expect to get what I want if I try as hard as I possibly can.

I expect someone to be able to give me a good reason that my 31 year-old healthy body is failing me.

I expect there to be an answer.

I expect a miracle.

I have always liked my RE because he doesn't beat around the bush. He is very kind and compassionate, but also very realistic. This morning I felt like he was wielding a red-hot poker and with every kind and compassionate statement he made, it was stabbing me in my heart.

"Your eggs are just not robust enough to support a typical menstrual cycle - hence your spotting and short luteal phases" STAB!

"Even with your normal FSH and fairly young age, I think it's likely you just don't have much ovarian reserve left" STAB!

"I'd give IVF a 30-35% chance of pregnancy for you" STAB!

"Egg donation would definitely be your best statistical option" STAB! STAB! STAB!

Not that I was necessarily surprised by any of these statements. It was just so damn painful to hear them out loud. Even after 2 years I still am in awe that those statements are describing ME. Me, who got pregnant the very first time I ever had unprotected sex. Me, who at 27 was still one of the first of my high school friends to have a baby. Me, whose body from the outside is the picture of health. Me, who in every other aspect of my life, has it all. What cruel irony!

I actually don't cry very often. About anything. Most of the time I get angry rather than sad. It felt pretty good to cry for a change. I think DH was shocked.

Anyway, it became very apparent that I need to get a serious handle on my grief before I can rationally make any decisions about how to proceed. I called around and was actually able to find a therapist in town that I don't know (I'm a social worker in a small town, so there are only a handful of practitioners that I don't know or have ever worked with in some capacity or another) who can see me tomorrow. So I'm going. DH wants to come, but he's not sure he can get off work in time, but I'm going regardless. I feel good about it. I am pretty comfortable with talk therapy and have done it a few times times in the past and it was helpful, so here's hoping...

In closing, I am reminded of the story Welcome to Holland. I think it's mostly used in relation to parents finding out their child or baby has a disability, but I also find it relevant to pretty much any situation where things just don't go as planned. My mom, who worked in the disability advocacy field, had it on a poster hanging in her office for many years. I've always really liked it, but lately it has even more meaning...

Welcome to Holland
Stoy by Emily Perl Kingsley

When you’re going to have a baby, it’s like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It’s all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, “Welcome to Holland.”

“Holland?!?” you say. “What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I’m supposed to be in Italy. All my life I’ve dreamed of going to Italy.”

But there’s been a change in the flight plan. They’ve landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven’t taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It’s just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It’s just a different place. It’s slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you’ve been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they’re all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say “Yes, that’s where I was supposed to go. That’s what I had planned.”

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.

But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn’t get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things... about Holland.

c1987 by Emily Pen Kingsley. All rights reserved

My Holland includes the best friends I could ever ask for, a great job, a supportive community, a wonderfully loving husband and the sweetest, smartest, most gorgeous little girl who loves me more than anyone in the whole world.

Another CD1 passes by along the way...

So...strategizing again...

I decided not to mess with progesterone right now to try to lengthen my cycle. I *despise* the vaginal suppositories and taking it orally makes me really nauseous, so why bother when I'm pretty sure it's going to be a couple months before i can get in on an IVF cycle anyway. I got the schedule from the head IVF nurse last week, and my natural cycle is not going to coincide with any of the next 3 IVFs. Not even close. Sooooo, I guess I'll just wait and see what Dr. G says on Tuesday. I must stay strong in my intention not to take any bcps this time around. Dr. G can be very convincing, and I don't want to waver, even if he temps me by giving me the opportunity to get in on the March IVF cycle. I don't deny, it is tempting. But I'll just kick myself if I take the bcp and then something goes wrong. I need to trust the intuition that I've had for many, many years that my body is very sensitive to hormones. I just need to wait it out and be patient.

Sometimes I ask myself why I don't take progesterone every month. Most people with short luteal phases (usually longer than my pathetic 7 days) take progesterone regularly to lengthen them. Why don't I do that? I guess the answer has two parts:

1. As mentioned above, I really do hate progesterone. I don't like how it makes me feel and I don't like taking hormones. I already get nervous about all the fertility drugs I've taken and really hope I don't acquire ovarian cancer or some other horrid disease as a result of all this unnatural treatment I've done thus far.

2. I guess I'm still not convinced progesterone does anything for me. I've had two pregnancies, both with documented low progesterone at 7DPO and AF-like bleeding when AF was due to arrive. I've done at least 10 cycles with progesterone supplementation and 0 pregnancies resulted from all those cycles. So....my odds seem to be better without it. My ob/gyn doesn't really believe in progesterone supplementation anyway, but she's always indulged me when I've asked for it in the past. My RE, typically, puts everyone on mega-doses of it!

There is a full lunar eclipse tonight and we have a clear sky. It is GORGEOUS!

The Final Hurrah Begins

Steve and I have decided to give IVF one final try. After a very emotionally intense discussion the other night - the first one we've been able to have in a long time that didn't result in him angry and me crying -- he told me that he loves me very much and really just wants to do whatever I need to do to be able to move on with our lives. I told him that frankly, that was going to mean having another baby one way or another. I gave him the option of pursuing adoption or another IVF cycle, as I don't really have strong feelings either way at this point, and he chose IVF.

I tried to get him to explain to me why he so anti-adoption, but he couldn't really articulate it, other than saying he didn't really want to adopt internationally. I told him about my online friend Melissa's adoption story, and how many, many people are still doing domestic adoptions. I told him I had the name of the supposed best adoption lawyer in Kansas. I told him that I thought we could at least start on the homestudy and initial paperwork without investing a huge chunk of money. But -- he still wants to try the IVF first. Financially, it's not really an issue because my dad has already offered to pay for as many tries as we need (yes, he's very generous that way, and I am very fortunate), so I called and scheduled a consult for February 26th.

Maybe this is naive, but I really feel like if we can just get through an entire IVF -- retrieval, transfer, everything - and it fails, I'll be able to close the door on the fertility treatments. I realize that probably most people say that, and then many go on to do more tries, but I just don't think my marriage can take much more. I can't even believe I'm saying that - and not that I really believe that Steve and I would ever get divorced, but it's definitely taken it's toll on both of us. Steve is hurting too, and sometimes I forget that.

So -- I'm already strategizing. I'm on CD12 now, which means AF should arrive around the 18th or 19th. I'm trying to determine whether it would be beneficial to hold off AF with progesterone, so that I could be on CD2 or CD3 and get labs and a baseline u/s done at my appointment on the 26th. That would only be beneficial, I guess, if I could get right in on an IVF cycle. I should probably call and talk to Jane, the IVF nurse, about the dates. I'm going to tell Dr. G that the only way I want to do this next try is without Lupron and without birth control pills. I know they like to use BCPs to get all the women cycling together, but I really think those pills in combo with the Lupron are what caused me to over-suppress last time. If I have to wait several months until my natural cycle coincides with an IVF cycle, fine. No bcps, though!

Ahh, the child arrives. Most go for now :)