The Deafening Sound of Nothing

You know, I can track the length of my fertility battle back to a phone conversation in January of 2015.  My friend Jennifer and I were getting online to buy early bird tickets to Outside Lands in August.  I was all, “Let’s definitely get the tickets, but just a heads up I’ll probably be super pregnant by then, so I may need to sell mine.”  So confident!  So optimistic and excited! Even if it took me a couple tries to get pregnant, I would still be too far along to dance and run from stage to stage, so I was certain my festival days would hit the fritz.  But fuck it, I’ll buy the ticket JUST IN CASE.

I went to Outside Lands that year.  And you know what, I went the year after that as well.  And you know what, I could’ve gone this year too. 

Cause I’m still super NOT pregnant.  100%, A+, highly UN-pregnant.

How did this happen?  How have I wound up with nothing?  IVF #4 just ended with the deafening sound of emptiness.  We did not produce any viable embryos.  Nothing to send for testing.  Nothing to transfer.  Nothing to freeze.  Just, nothing.    And there is no sound more deafening in the world than nothingness. 

I can’t get my head around it, this nothingness.  I find myself thinking often about that phone call in early 2015.  I remember what it felt like to be so hopeful, to be so sure that it would work.  Calculating potential due dates with each insemination.  Taking notes on stroller types.  Printing out “Top 10 must read books for expecting moms.”  Making a “Pregnancy” bookmark folder with all of the online parenting resources I might need.  I think about it now and I don’t have the slightest idea how to reconcile that optimism with today’s results.  I am finding myself, more often than not, completely blank.

I constantly fight.  I fight off feeling stupid for thinking it would work so easily.  I fight Anger and Bitterness screaming at me that hard work doesn’t pay off.  I fight Jealousy pointing at all the babies and children that aren’t mine.  I fight a suffocating feeling of Failure and Inadequacy.  I fight the Sadness that wants to be alone with me, so we can listen to the nothingness in my head.  And I fight Perspective, who reminds me constantly that I am not alone, that many have it worse than I do, that I have so much to be thankful and grateful for...but to whom I can sometimes only reply that I just feeling mother fucking sad. 

Mostly, I am afraid that the emotional heaviness and anger that have crept in to my life have found a permanent home, and this is just who I am now.  That my enthusiastic, hopeful, optimistic heart has gone dark.  But I can’t let that happen.

So I fight, and sometimes I win. Sometimes I lose miserably.  But when I win, I know there is hope.  There are still options.  Still things to try.  I have the most amazing friends & family, a heart full of love, a happy home. I have a lot to fight for.  Even when I cry, I can still laugh at a picture of Hank** through the tears.  I feel a lot of hope in that.  And I wanted to share my feelings.  Because frankly, googling “how fertility treatment has changed you” wasn’t really yielding helpful results.  Because, really, doesn’t the Internet always just make you feel worse?  So this is where I stand now.  A bit beaten up.  Convincing myself I am not defeated, and searching for happy places to make me smile as I head to the plate for another chance.  I don’t even know if the pitcher will pitch to me.  But if they do, I swear a homerun is coming. 

**Follow Hank: @mybestfriendhank.  You will not regret it.

  

Whack-a Mole, Lunatic Edition

Where to start?

Hey people. Hi. Sooooo….guess I haven’t written in a while? (I sound like Olaf from “Frozen” when I read this to myself.  That makes sense to me, but probably only also to Marlie.  Well, it’s a sheepish tone, I’ll tell you that.)  “Hi Sven’s family, nice tooo meeeeeet youuuuuu.”

Anyway.

Hey, I’m no Hemingway.  Did you know that Hemingway used to write 500 words a day?  Or was it 5,000? Well it was a damn lot, I’ll tell you that, and it was 500 (or 5,000) more words than I’ve written since my last post.  And he still kept up a vigorous business of drinking through Paris streets and camping at the base of tall mountains.  Come on, man!  I digress.  I just mean to say, I’m aware that most writers…write.  Even when they have nothing to say.  Especially when!

So I’ve perfected the Art of Anti-Hemingwayism.  (aka “Not Writing”)  I kept waiting for THE GREAT UPDATE before writing, but I have to say, the whole Baby Battle has turned into a game of whack-a-mole, Lunatic edition. (That’s the edition where, just as you get the hang of whacking the moles, they add more holes – but now with baboons and blobfish and that spitting dinosaur from Jurassic Park that steal your mallet and just laugh at you with ugly animal faces). 

Except the blobfish.  He can’t laugh.  He just stares at me, blobbing.

So, my Anti-Hemingwayism can go the way of the dodo, and I’ll be a mature adult with perspective (it’s hard! <whine>) and say that, while I don’t have THE GREAT UPDATE, I do have AN update.  After almost 4 months since my last post, I’m still on IVF #3.  I had my Egg Retrieval right before Christmas, and after some testing, and re-testing, and waiting, I am left with ONE embryo who is frozen in happy lullaby while my body prepares to transfer it.  And my body is NOT BEHAVING. I’ve started, stopped and restarted a couple different hormone regimens and now, at 5 estrogen pills a day, I’ll just tell you that if my next appointment doesn’t show the right results I am going to HULK SMASH the exam room, wield the ultrasound wand like Don Quixote, take ALL the pink starburst in the office FOR MYSELF and throw the yellows and oranges at the nurses’ station. 

Wait.  Mature adult.  So yeah, I’m fucking tired.  And I am SO SICK OF WAITING.  I’m just sick of thinking about it.  Sick of talking about it. I’m sick of putting everything else on hold while I WAIT…while I try to steel myself to handle more unknowns and to be strong and optimistic, which feels like a full time, conscious, exhausting effort. This has become so all-encompassing.  My friends and family have been SO amazing, listening to me talk about this for over 2 years, I PROMISE when I eventually have a baby, they will not only be a superhero (no, really, this baby better be able to fly, or have x-ray vision, or create chocolate cake from thin air), but they will be so kind and loving and grateful to you all, who took care of their mama when she was trying to whack-a-dinosaur.

I’m just realizing that the blobfish would be the worst creature to put into whack-a-mole cause he doesn’t move.  He would just pop up, slowly and blobbily with his squishy nose, and when you whack him he just smooshes.  But I guess at this point the baboon stole my mallet anyway and Jurassic Park dinosaur paralyzed me with his spit, so I have to just watch Blobfish ooze onto the board.  See what I’m dealing with?

Love to you all!

Fertility warriors:

17 eggs retrieved

10 mature

7 fertilized

3 survived to Day 5 blast and sent for testing - AA, BA, BC (BA and BC were actually Day 6)

AA and BA: chromosomal abnormalities

BC: chromosomally sound, and frozen

Feel free to message me if curious about estrogen/progesterone cycles.