Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Big Boy/ Little Boy
A couple of months ago, very shortly after he began speaking in sentences, Turtle became interested in the idea of privacy. Where he learned the term I'm not sure, as his Dad and I seldom if ever use the word. It may be that his babysitter is more modest than we are. In any event, his conception of privacy delightfully betrayed the two-year old's basic belief that there is no division between mommy and me. "Go away, daddy," he'd order, "I need privacy with Mommy."
Tonight, for the first time, he asked for privacy for himself. I was giving him a bath and he began to splash. "Stop that," I said, firmly but calmly. "Sorry, Mommy!" he yelped almost before I could get the words out. We had just made it through a block-throwing incident, and he knew, I thought, that he'd better not push things. But we'd hardly resumed our boat race when he began to splash again. "I know it's fun to splash," I said, "but it's only fun for the one in the tub, the one who's already wet. Mommy's wearing clothes and she wants to stay dry." "Sorry, Mommy," he said. Then he thought for a moment.
"Mommy, I want privacy," he said. "Really?" I asked, shocked at this new development. "Mommy go away," he clarified. "OK," I said, looking for a compromise that would not involve leaving him unattended in a good 6 or 8 inches of water, "I'll turn around and I won't look again until you say I can." The boat race resumed along with the splashing.
And in that instant, I saw all the other separations he'll demand over the years, the privacy he'll want for illicit pleasures so much more dangerous than a simple splash in the bath. How will I protect him from himself, and from me, from my demands for perfection? "I can hear you splashing," I told him.
Later, on the way to bed, in his uncanny two-year-old way, he began to take stock of his own maturation. "Mommy, I no have a crib," he announced. "That's right I said. Can you tell me who has it now?" Not to be distracted, he repeated, "Daddy took da crib." We'd given it away as a hand-me-down fully four months ago and I was surprised to have him bring it up. "That's right," I said, "and now a new little baby sleeps in it, right? It was too small for you." I felt good about teaching him empathy, the importance of giving to others. "I climb out and Daddy took it away," he insisted with unflinching accuracy. In fact, Daddy did confiscate the crib for good one day about a month after the big-boy-bed had been introduced, a day when the nap-time stall tactic of requesting transfer from bed to crib devolved into the nap-strike tactic of climbing out of the crib.
"Well," I said, opting for perfect honesty with this small exacting boy, "it is true that Daddy took the crib away when you climbed out of it. That was a dangerous thing to do and you could have gotten hurt. But it was time to give the crib away anyway. We didn't give it away because you climbed out. We gave it away because it was too small for you. You were so big you had to scrunch your legs up inside it. You didn't need it any more and until we gave it to the new little baby, he had no place at all to sleep." I nattered on about all the space for playing we'd opened up in his room. He launched into a scientific catalog of all the changes in his room since his infancy. "No changing table, Mommy. That's a dresser." "Man brought the bed." "Daddy took my shelf." Wow, such loss, such longing, such nostalgia and such clear memories at two.
I wanted to comfort him in the face of all this change. I said, "let's get Freddie." You've had Freddie since you were a tiny little baby," I said as he nuzzled his favorite stuffed dog. "You've always loved Freddie." But he was on to me. "Mommy, Freddie no bark," he said. "Freddie no make a noise," he said pressing futilely at the electronic insert that used to making a barking sound when pressed. "Wow," I said, "Freddie did used to bark, and you have a really good memory. You remember what he sounded like when he barked, right?" "Yes," he said, sounding miserable, already learning the lesson that you can't go home again, not even when you're two and rocking in your mother's arms.
"Well, and you have blankie, right?" I asked, suddenly grateful for the continued presence of the disgraceful unraveling rag I used to swaddle him in. "Do you remember how I used to wrap you up in blankie?" I asked him. By the end I had taken to wrapping him loosely toga-style around his chest, just to give him the suggestion of a swaddle. He tensed and didn't answer me. "Should we wrap you up in blankie, tonight?" I asked him. "No!" he declared. "OK," I said, and we finished our book. Then I lay him down on his big-boy bed and wrapped him toga-style in his blankie. The silly phrases I used to repeat like a mantra and haven't used in a year came back to me: "I'm gonna wrap you up in blankie, in blankie, blankie, blankie. Blankie makes you feel totally safe, totally, secure. I love you son, oh yes I do, I love you to bitsy bitsy bits." He greeted the old game with gales of giggles. And then, with more rocking and singing, he slowly drifted into sleep.
Tonight, for the first time, he asked for privacy for himself. I was giving him a bath and he began to splash. "Stop that," I said, firmly but calmly. "Sorry, Mommy!" he yelped almost before I could get the words out. We had just made it through a block-throwing incident, and he knew, I thought, that he'd better not push things. But we'd hardly resumed our boat race when he began to splash again. "I know it's fun to splash," I said, "but it's only fun for the one in the tub, the one who's already wet. Mommy's wearing clothes and she wants to stay dry." "Sorry, Mommy," he said. Then he thought for a moment.
"Mommy, I want privacy," he said. "Really?" I asked, shocked at this new development. "Mommy go away," he clarified. "OK," I said, looking for a compromise that would not involve leaving him unattended in a good 6 or 8 inches of water, "I'll turn around and I won't look again until you say I can." The boat race resumed along with the splashing.
And in that instant, I saw all the other separations he'll demand over the years, the privacy he'll want for illicit pleasures so much more dangerous than a simple splash in the bath. How will I protect him from himself, and from me, from my demands for perfection? "I can hear you splashing," I told him.
Later, on the way to bed, in his uncanny two-year-old way, he began to take stock of his own maturation. "Mommy, I no have a crib," he announced. "That's right I said. Can you tell me who has it now?" Not to be distracted, he repeated, "Daddy took da crib." We'd given it away as a hand-me-down fully four months ago and I was surprised to have him bring it up. "That's right," I said, "and now a new little baby sleeps in it, right? It was too small for you." I felt good about teaching him empathy, the importance of giving to others. "I climb out and Daddy took it away," he insisted with unflinching accuracy. In fact, Daddy did confiscate the crib for good one day about a month after the big-boy-bed had been introduced, a day when the nap-time stall tactic of requesting transfer from bed to crib devolved into the nap-strike tactic of climbing out of the crib.
"Well," I said, opting for perfect honesty with this small exacting boy, "it is true that Daddy took the crib away when you climbed out of it. That was a dangerous thing to do and you could have gotten hurt. But it was time to give the crib away anyway. We didn't give it away because you climbed out. We gave it away because it was too small for you. You were so big you had to scrunch your legs up inside it. You didn't need it any more and until we gave it to the new little baby, he had no place at all to sleep." I nattered on about all the space for playing we'd opened up in his room. He launched into a scientific catalog of all the changes in his room since his infancy. "No changing table, Mommy. That's a dresser." "Man brought the bed." "Daddy took my shelf." Wow, such loss, such longing, such nostalgia and such clear memories at two.
I wanted to comfort him in the face of all this change. I said, "let's get Freddie." You've had Freddie since you were a tiny little baby," I said as he nuzzled his favorite stuffed dog. "You've always loved Freddie." But he was on to me. "Mommy, Freddie no bark," he said. "Freddie no make a noise," he said pressing futilely at the electronic insert that used to making a barking sound when pressed. "Wow," I said, "Freddie did used to bark, and you have a really good memory. You remember what he sounded like when he barked, right?" "Yes," he said, sounding miserable, already learning the lesson that you can't go home again, not even when you're two and rocking in your mother's arms.
"Well, and you have blankie, right?" I asked, suddenly grateful for the continued presence of the disgraceful unraveling rag I used to swaddle him in. "Do you remember how I used to wrap you up in blankie?" I asked him. By the end I had taken to wrapping him loosely toga-style around his chest, just to give him the suggestion of a swaddle. He tensed and didn't answer me. "Should we wrap you up in blankie, tonight?" I asked him. "No!" he declared. "OK," I said, and we finished our book. Then I lay him down on his big-boy bed and wrapped him toga-style in his blankie. The silly phrases I used to repeat like a mantra and haven't used in a year came back to me: "I'm gonna wrap you up in blankie, in blankie, blankie, blankie. Blankie makes you feel totally safe, totally, secure. I love you son, oh yes I do, I love you to bitsy bitsy bits." He greeted the old game with gales of giggles. And then, with more rocking and singing, he slowly drifted into sleep.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Failure
I am one of the youngest looking 35-year olds you'll ever see, five feet tall with a cute round face and big baby eyes. I see the signs of my own aging clearly in my face, the ever deepening under-eye shadows that are the curse of the sallow-skinned, the frown-lined brow calling out for Botox. But apparently what everyone else sees when they look at me me is a totally exhausted and very grumpy sixteen-year old inexplicably decked out in Eileen Fisher.
I was carded last week. When I laughed and told the waiter I was old enough to be highly flattered, he shrugged only half apologetically and said, "listen we have to card anyone under 30." When I told him I'll be 36 next month, he looked genuinely flabbergasted.
As a working woman, I have mostly found my exaggerated youthfulness to be a serious annoyance. Whatever one may say about the cult of youth in this country, the fact remains that age equates with experience and competence for most people. Look young and they may proposition you at the corner bar, but they won't promote you to the corner office.
With an outer appearance that makes everyone assume I'm much younger than I am, I was totally unprepared to be given news so terrible it has taken my breath away. Flattened me bodily. I appear to have entered perimenopause at the age of 35.
From the beginning of my fertility struggles, back in 2003 at the tender age of 30, I have always had one thing on my side. "Don't worry, you're still so young," everyone told me. And so my secret fear has been losing the one straight arrow in my quiver, the ability to conceive with relative ease and to produce genetically sound embryos. As an archer, I've been working with a broken bow, a body almost unable to shoot straight and send a baby out into the world. Four dead embryos. Four missed miscarriages. One live birth. Hitting the target that one lucky time meant everything, of course. It meant a child. And it meant that if I could only manage the strength of arm, if I could only muster the will to try again, I could seize another arrow from the quiver and I might, just might, score the pot shot that would bring another child. Now I have only broken sticks and shreds of feathers, dreams in dust.
When I didn't conceive last month, I went to Dr. Cookie Pie and said: "Let's do day three blood work." She said, "Are you kidding me? You're absolutely fine." I said, "I'm an information junkie. I'm about to turn 36. Let's just do it and see where we stand." I'd had a couple, that is two, episodes of night sweats over the last 4 months, and it had given me a little nagging worry. I wanted to reassure myself. And I thought that if my FSH had edged over 9, it might be time to think about IVF, to freeze some embryos from 35-year-old eggs, to give myself a fighting chance to carry to term with a viable embryo.
To my utter shock and grief, my FSH cam back at 15.5. Cookie Pie, always the optimist observed that my LH was 4.5 (when it would typically also be elevated with elevated FSH) and insisted that it must be a lab error. They ran it again and the numbers came back 16.5 and 5. They ran them yet again, and they came back 17.8 and 6. Cookie Pie will not believe it and says we'll try again next month with a different lab. Maybe it is a false alarm. But I feel devastated. These are the numbers of premature ovarian failure, numbers so bad no IVF clinic would even touch me.
The first thing I did, after hanging up the phone with Dr. Cookie Pie, was consult Dr. Google about premature menopause, whence I quickly discovered that it's associated with, you guessed it, hypothyroidism. And that information makes me feel enraged. Because no one, no one, not one person ever mentioned this fact to me. No one ever said, you had better try to conceive again the very instant you give birth cause your days are numbered. On the contrary, everyone spouted platitudes about primed pumps. Somehow, in all my googling on Hashimoto's, I never came across that little factoid. Or maybe I believed the hype about how I'm actually 16.
I am soo sad I am moving through my days in an utter fog. Tears come unbidden whenever I let my mind wander, and so I mostly try to pretend this is happening to someone else. I've told no one but my husband and my mother, but I have the oddest sensation walking down the street that everyone can sense I'm barren, that I'm a walking black hole.
Only here, in the safe virtual world of my fellow infertiles on the internet, can I stand to take this news out and run my fingers lightly over it. Thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart for your comments last week. It means so much to know I am not utterly alone at a time when I feel so forsaken.
FSH.
Further Surprise of Hashimoto's.
Fantastically Shitty Hormones.
Failed Second-child Hopes.
Fucking Sorry History.
I was carded last week. When I laughed and told the waiter I was old enough to be highly flattered, he shrugged only half apologetically and said, "listen we have to card anyone under 30." When I told him I'll be 36 next month, he looked genuinely flabbergasted.
As a working woman, I have mostly found my exaggerated youthfulness to be a serious annoyance. Whatever one may say about the cult of youth in this country, the fact remains that age equates with experience and competence for most people. Look young and they may proposition you at the corner bar, but they won't promote you to the corner office.
With an outer appearance that makes everyone assume I'm much younger than I am, I was totally unprepared to be given news so terrible it has taken my breath away. Flattened me bodily. I appear to have entered perimenopause at the age of 35.
From the beginning of my fertility struggles, back in 2003 at the tender age of 30, I have always had one thing on my side. "Don't worry, you're still so young," everyone told me. And so my secret fear has been losing the one straight arrow in my quiver, the ability to conceive with relative ease and to produce genetically sound embryos. As an archer, I've been working with a broken bow, a body almost unable to shoot straight and send a baby out into the world. Four dead embryos. Four missed miscarriages. One live birth. Hitting the target that one lucky time meant everything, of course. It meant a child. And it meant that if I could only manage the strength of arm, if I could only muster the will to try again, I could seize another arrow from the quiver and I might, just might, score the pot shot that would bring another child. Now I have only broken sticks and shreds of feathers, dreams in dust.
When I didn't conceive last month, I went to Dr. Cookie Pie and said: "Let's do day three blood work." She said, "Are you kidding me? You're absolutely fine." I said, "I'm an information junkie. I'm about to turn 36. Let's just do it and see where we stand." I'd had a couple, that is two, episodes of night sweats over the last 4 months, and it had given me a little nagging worry. I wanted to reassure myself. And I thought that if my FSH had edged over 9, it might be time to think about IVF, to freeze some embryos from 35-year-old eggs, to give myself a fighting chance to carry to term with a viable embryo.
To my utter shock and grief, my FSH cam back at 15.5. Cookie Pie, always the optimist observed that my LH was 4.5 (when it would typically also be elevated with elevated FSH) and insisted that it must be a lab error. They ran it again and the numbers came back 16.5 and 5. They ran them yet again, and they came back 17.8 and 6. Cookie Pie will not believe it and says we'll try again next month with a different lab. Maybe it is a false alarm. But I feel devastated. These are the numbers of premature ovarian failure, numbers so bad no IVF clinic would even touch me.
The first thing I did, after hanging up the phone with Dr. Cookie Pie, was consult Dr. Google about premature menopause, whence I quickly discovered that it's associated with, you guessed it, hypothyroidism. And that information makes me feel enraged. Because no one, no one, not one person ever mentioned this fact to me. No one ever said, you had better try to conceive again the very instant you give birth cause your days are numbered. On the contrary, everyone spouted platitudes about primed pumps. Somehow, in all my googling on Hashimoto's, I never came across that little factoid. Or maybe I believed the hype about how I'm actually 16.
I am soo sad I am moving through my days in an utter fog. Tears come unbidden whenever I let my mind wander, and so I mostly try to pretend this is happening to someone else. I've told no one but my husband and my mother, but I have the oddest sensation walking down the street that everyone can sense I'm barren, that I'm a walking black hole.
Only here, in the safe virtual world of my fellow infertiles on the internet, can I stand to take this news out and run my fingers lightly over it. Thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart for your comments last week. It means so much to know I am not utterly alone at a time when I feel so forsaken.
FSH.
Further Surprise of Hashimoto's.
Fantastically Shitty Hormones.
Failed Second-child Hopes.
Fucking Sorry History.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Insult to Injury
When I was a primary infertile, a big part of my pain stemmed from a feeling of arrested development, that there was a key life stage that I was ready, willing, but inexplicably unable to enter. Watching all the fertile folk rolling by me as I trudged the path to parenthood was so dispiriting.
I always thought that the pain of secondary infertility could be no where near as severe. And in the beginning, it really wasn't. But, as the months go by and Turtle grows bigger and bigger while the cradle stays empty, the pain begins to deepen. And what I mostly feel is that I am so worn down and weary now.
It's like the first time you go for a run and you really overdo it and come home sore, you think--wow that was tough. But actually, you don't know the half of it. Because the moment you're really going to face a world of pain is on day two, when you hit the trail again with muscles already worn down from the first run. Oh, at first you'll think, this is great. It feels *soo* good to get moving again, to stretch out all the muscles that tightened over night. But a few miles out you'll realize that you've pushed yourself beyond endurance. It's then that you want to curl up on the side of the trail and die a peaceful death under a drift of brown leaves. And if, somehow, you will yourself to live, you then have to face the fact that only putting one foot in front of the other can ever bring you home again.
Right now, a summer chemical pregnancy (Maria and the Girls both scored, as it turned out...) followed by two months of disappointing negatives has me clutching my side and kicking at leaves...
I always thought that the pain of secondary infertility could be no where near as severe. And in the beginning, it really wasn't. But, as the months go by and Turtle grows bigger and bigger while the cradle stays empty, the pain begins to deepen. And what I mostly feel is that I am so worn down and weary now.
It's like the first time you go for a run and you really overdo it and come home sore, you think--wow that was tough. But actually, you don't know the half of it. Because the moment you're really going to face a world of pain is on day two, when you hit the trail again with muscles already worn down from the first run. Oh, at first you'll think, this is great. It feels *soo* good to get moving again, to stretch out all the muscles that tightened over night. But a few miles out you'll realize that you've pushed yourself beyond endurance. It's then that you want to curl up on the side of the trail and die a peaceful death under a drift of brown leaves. And if, somehow, you will yourself to live, you then have to face the fact that only putting one foot in front of the other can ever bring you home again.
Right now, a summer chemical pregnancy (Maria and the Girls both scored, as it turned out...) followed by two months of disappointing negatives has me clutching my side and kicking at leaves...
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Emotional Immunities
If I confess that I'm achingly homesick for the little boy asleep in the next room, will you tell me to sit up straight and think of the children in Sudan, or Zimbabwe, (or in Newark NJ, for that matter)? That's about the response that Judith Warner got when she devoted an entire NYT column to the theme of missing her girls at camp. And I'm sure that Judith and I deserve the scorn.
The thing is this. My husband and I leave tomorrow morning for a romantic weekend for two. (The hotel describes our room as a "bridal suite." Ahem. Not a lot that's bridal about yours truly, the lady who's been around the block and up the duff 5 times now. But I digress.) We have never left Turtle overnight before and I'm already feeling bereft. Stomach tied in knots, chest-heaving sighs, bereft.
I know that billions have done this before me. I know that strong marriages make strong families. I know that we'll have a a great time lounging by the water. I know that I should have better manners than to complain about such a problem in public in the blogosphere. But there you have it. I miss Turtle terribly and we haven't even left yet.
In fact, I am feeling rather resentful of my parents for tricking me into letting them take away my child. I literally just got into a "discussion" with my mother over how early they'll promise to get him back on Sunday. If you knew how utterly unsentimental about children I am in general, how ambivalent I was about motherhood in the first place, you'd be better able to understand my own bafflement at the emotions my psyche comes up with.
Why do you think it is that things can hurt so acutely, that, by any rational standard, are actually phenomenal privileges (see spending weekend in pampered relaxation in first world country)? My latest theory is that it must be a kind of emotional allergy.
One leading hypothesis on the rise of allergies in the West is that our bored immune systems are going hay wire. Engineered to fight off typhus, plague, and long winters without fruit, our bodies just don't know what to do in the sanitized world of handi-wipes, antibiotics, and 24 hour supermarkets. So our bodies turn inward and come up with lovely counter-campaigns (like my immune system's brilliant idea to attack my thyroid). Maybe emotions work the same way.
Maybe we are all born with the emotional range to make it through wars and floods and famine. Yet, because most of us cosseted Westerners just don't have much immediate experience with woolly mammoths, we operate most of the time in emotional overdrive. Our feelings are left to cycle through the intense highs and lows that would make lots of sense in tougher conditions, but sound ridiculous applied to the problems of the middle-brow American.
Sorry to go all philosophical on you. But when you're on the verge of a mini break-down over a mini-break, it does get you thinking...
The thing is this. My husband and I leave tomorrow morning for a romantic weekend for two. (The hotel describes our room as a "bridal suite." Ahem. Not a lot that's bridal about yours truly, the lady who's been around the block and up the duff 5 times now. But I digress.) We have never left Turtle overnight before and I'm already feeling bereft. Stomach tied in knots, chest-heaving sighs, bereft.
I know that billions have done this before me. I know that strong marriages make strong families. I know that we'll have a a great time lounging by the water. I know that I should have better manners than to complain about such a problem in public in the blogosphere. But there you have it. I miss Turtle terribly and we haven't even left yet.
In fact, I am feeling rather resentful of my parents for tricking me into letting them take away my child. I literally just got into a "discussion" with my mother over how early they'll promise to get him back on Sunday. If you knew how utterly unsentimental about children I am in general, how ambivalent I was about motherhood in the first place, you'd be better able to understand my own bafflement at the emotions my psyche comes up with.
Why do you think it is that things can hurt so acutely, that, by any rational standard, are actually phenomenal privileges (see spending weekend in pampered relaxation in first world country)? My latest theory is that it must be a kind of emotional allergy.
One leading hypothesis on the rise of allergies in the West is that our bored immune systems are going hay wire. Engineered to fight off typhus, plague, and long winters without fruit, our bodies just don't know what to do in the sanitized world of handi-wipes, antibiotics, and 24 hour supermarkets. So our bodies turn inward and come up with lovely counter-campaigns (like my immune system's brilliant idea to attack my thyroid). Maybe emotions work the same way.
Maybe we are all born with the emotional range to make it through wars and floods and famine. Yet, because most of us cosseted Westerners just don't have much immediate experience with woolly mammoths, we operate most of the time in emotional overdrive. Our feelings are left to cycle through the intense highs and lows that would make lots of sense in tougher conditions, but sound ridiculous applied to the problems of the middle-brow American.
Sorry to go all philosophical on you. But when you're on the verge of a mini break-down over a mini-break, it does get you thinking...
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Girls: 1, Maria: 0
Probably not the brightest idea to compare pregnancy hopes to a tragic romance in the first place...Off to comment on the blogs of all the fabulous IComLeavWe folks!
Thursday, July 24, 2008
My West Side Story
With apologies to Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim...
MARIA
I feel sleepy
Oh so sleepy
I feel sleepy and hungry and gay
And so pregnant
That hope is on the rise today
I have spotting
Light pink spotting
And the cramping, the peeing, oy vey!
I feel pregnant
Yes my boobs are very sore today.
See the pretty girl in that mirror there?
Who can that deluded girl be?
What’s the cycle day?
Number 24!
Could be PMS…
Still she hopes for more!
I feel hopeful
But so frightened
Could be puking, then crying oh boy
Cause I’ve been
Just a little pregnant before!
GIRLS
Have you met my good friend Maria
The craziest girl on the block?
You'll know her the minute you see her
She's the one who is in an advanced state of shock
She thinks she's knocked up
She thinks she's in Spain
She isn't knocked up
She's merely insane
It must be the heat
Or some rare disease
Or too much to eat
I mean come on please
Her doctor said no
Yet she says go!
This is not all
That smart as you know!
Once calm and cool,
Waiting resigned.
Now she wants a peestick
She’s out of her mind!
MARIA
I feel sleepy
Oh so sleepy
I feel sleepy and hungry and gay
And so pregnant
That hope is on the rise today
I have spotting
Light pink spotting
And the cramping, the peeing, oy vey!
I feel pregnant
Yes my boobs are very sore today.
See the pretty girl in that mirror there?
Who can that deluded girl be?
What’s the cycle day?
Number 24!
Could be PMS…
Still she hopes for more!
I feel hopeful
But so frightened
Could be puking, then crying oh boy
Cause I’ve been
Just a little pregnant before!
GIRLS
Have you met my good friend Maria
The craziest girl on the block?
You'll know her the minute you see her
She's the one who is in an advanced state of shock
She thinks she's knocked up
She thinks she's in Spain
She isn't knocked up
She's merely insane
It must be the heat
Or some rare disease
Or too much to eat
I mean come on please
Her doctor said no
Yet she says go!
This is not all
That smart as you know!
Once calm and cool,
Waiting resigned.
Now she wants a peestick
She’s out of her mind!
Monday, July 21, 2008
I Heart IComLeavWe
Wow, comments! From cool interesting women. My second try at blogging, like my second try at baby making, did not exactly get off to an auspicious start. But the IComLeavWe is a fine fine thing. And I hope it bodes well generally.
Now, I sat down here 5 hours ago when Turtle was napping with full intentions of writing a long post, having actually forgotten all about IComLeavWe. But then I saw all the great comments. And I remembered! After browsing many blogs; and leaving my required comments; and getting dinner for Turtle (which we ate picnic style on the floor in the living-room air-conditioning); and doing bath-books-bed with Turtle; and eating myself; and doing some more blog browsing, I am now wiped and brain dead.
But I do have a question. Why do you think the media is playing up motherhood so much right now? I was alive and sentient in the 80's and I feel quite sure that no one knew a damn thing about Goldie Hawn's cute little baby Kate until said Kate was grown and ready to be a movie star herself. Why do we hear so much about celebrity pregnancies now? Why the obsessive focus on motherhood? Even if you try to tune out pop culture, I bet you can name the crazy baby names of at least a dozen celebrity kids.
The reason I ask is this: how am I supposed to discern my own genuine desires for motherhood from the Pavlovian marketing of motherhood that I see around me every day? I mean, I think I do want another child. I think I want a sibling for Turtle. But can I or any other American consumer with a pulse honestly say it's not at least a little bit about the Pottery Barn kids?
Now, I sat down here 5 hours ago when Turtle was napping with full intentions of writing a long post, having actually forgotten all about IComLeavWe. But then I saw all the great comments. And I remembered! After browsing many blogs; and leaving my required comments; and getting dinner for Turtle (which we ate picnic style on the floor in the living-room air-conditioning); and doing bath-books-bed with Turtle; and eating myself; and doing some more blog browsing, I am now wiped and brain dead.
But I do have a question. Why do you think the media is playing up motherhood so much right now? I was alive and sentient in the 80's and I feel quite sure that no one knew a damn thing about Goldie Hawn's cute little baby Kate until said Kate was grown and ready to be a movie star herself. Why do we hear so much about celebrity pregnancies now? Why the obsessive focus on motherhood? Even if you try to tune out pop culture, I bet you can name the crazy baby names of at least a dozen celebrity kids.
The reason I ask is this: how am I supposed to discern my own genuine desires for motherhood from the Pavlovian marketing of motherhood that I see around me every day? I mean, I think I do want another child. I think I want a sibling for Turtle. But can I or any other American consumer with a pulse honestly say it's not at least a little bit about the Pottery Barn kids?
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Secondary Infertility to the Second Power
Do these entries seem stale to you? Have I lost my edge as a blogger, however dull that edge already was? Is there a recycled, refried, retread quality to my thoughts?
Maybe the worst part of this most recent miscarriage is its awful "back to the future" quality. For many sufferers of secondary infertility, the first child arrives without incident and then the sudden onset of fertility problems comes as a nasty shock. It has happened to several of my friends and I truly understand what a brutal experience it is.
Yet. What I'm going through as a second-time infertility sufferer is different and carries its own particular pain. I am not for a moment going to compare my plight to that of someone in the midst of primary infertility. "One is better than none" cannot begin to sum up the joy that Turtle brings me. Still, I am going to dare to compare myself to regular secondary infertility sufferers and say that I have secondary infertility squared. Secondary Infertility to the Second Power, if you will.
Here's the thing: I emerged from primary infertility sadder but wiser. I had learned patience. I had gained perspective. To get those things, I worked really really hard, in typical type-A fashion.
I started a blog. Joining a community of women on the world wide web made me feel cared for and competent at a time when neither feeling came often. I wrote lots of angry essays and lots of sad ones and more than a few sentimental ones. I also managed a few that were actually funny, if you like gallows humor, and I'm such a compulsive good girl by nature that I'd never spent much time trying to make anyone laugh before (wouldn't be proper). I liked finding that side of myself.
I went into therapy for a little while. I joined a support group. I rebuilt relationships with family members that needed attention. I read countless medical journals, web pages, and women's magazines and I honestly thought that I'd discovered a reason for my miscarriages in the form of inadequate thyroid hormone. I marveled that anything good could come out of the experience, but in the end I felt like a stronger more resilient person, someone who'd learned a little more humanity and humility, someone who knew how to be deeply grateful for motherhood and how to treasure every moment of my son's all too fleeting babyhood.
I coped. I achieved closure.
And god damn it, the closed door has swung back open again. I don't wanna cope. I don't wanna think up clever new ways to say how much infertility sucks. I don't want to teach myself all over again not be jealous and spiteful of pregnant women. Especially not pregnant women I care about. Like my amazing sister in-law. This woman threw me a beautiful shower for Turtle 3 years into her own infertility hell. She even hand-crocheted him a blanket. NO matter. Now, another two years later she has enraged me by making it through her first nausea-free trimester with twins after her first IVF. What kind of person would feel nothing but coiling snakes of jealousy towards someone as deserving as her? I don't want to be that person. I hate myself for being that person. But can I just ask, how DARE she hopscotch right past me to have 2 kids at once, all the while glowing and proclaiming that pregnancy has made her feel the healthiest she has ever felt? How have I slid back to this bad place?
I feel as if I've graduated from from high school only to be ordered to go back to ninth grade detention, with that really nasty math teacher with the saggy two-shades too-dark pantyhose glaring over her glasses at me. How the HELL do I get out of here. Do I really have to take Algebra I again and fight those nasty rumors started by the popular girls? Do I really have to get my heart broken again by one feckless teenage boy after another? Are you gonna make me apply to college again? I been here. I done that. And I am soo, soo, sick of it...I just wanna get on with my life.
I'm a recurrent miscarriage relapser. I'm back on the sauce folks and this time the binge is gonna be ugly.
Maybe the worst part of this most recent miscarriage is its awful "back to the future" quality. For many sufferers of secondary infertility, the first child arrives without incident and then the sudden onset of fertility problems comes as a nasty shock. It has happened to several of my friends and I truly understand what a brutal experience it is.
Yet. What I'm going through as a second-time infertility sufferer is different and carries its own particular pain. I am not for a moment going to compare my plight to that of someone in the midst of primary infertility. "One is better than none" cannot begin to sum up the joy that Turtle brings me. Still, I am going to dare to compare myself to regular secondary infertility sufferers and say that I have secondary infertility squared. Secondary Infertility to the Second Power, if you will.
Here's the thing: I emerged from primary infertility sadder but wiser. I had learned patience. I had gained perspective. To get those things, I worked really really hard, in typical type-A fashion.
I started a blog. Joining a community of women on the world wide web made me feel cared for and competent at a time when neither feeling came often. I wrote lots of angry essays and lots of sad ones and more than a few sentimental ones. I also managed a few that were actually funny, if you like gallows humor, and I'm such a compulsive good girl by nature that I'd never spent much time trying to make anyone laugh before (wouldn't be proper). I liked finding that side of myself.
I went into therapy for a little while. I joined a support group. I rebuilt relationships with family members that needed attention. I read countless medical journals, web pages, and women's magazines and I honestly thought that I'd discovered a reason for my miscarriages in the form of inadequate thyroid hormone. I marveled that anything good could come out of the experience, but in the end I felt like a stronger more resilient person, someone who'd learned a little more humanity and humility, someone who knew how to be deeply grateful for motherhood and how to treasure every moment of my son's all too fleeting babyhood.
I coped. I achieved closure.
And god damn it, the closed door has swung back open again. I don't wanna cope. I don't wanna think up clever new ways to say how much infertility sucks. I don't want to teach myself all over again not be jealous and spiteful of pregnant women. Especially not pregnant women I care about. Like my amazing sister in-law. This woman threw me a beautiful shower for Turtle 3 years into her own infertility hell. She even hand-crocheted him a blanket. NO matter. Now, another two years later she has enraged me by making it through her first nausea-free trimester with twins after her first IVF. What kind of person would feel nothing but coiling snakes of jealousy towards someone as deserving as her? I don't want to be that person. I hate myself for being that person. But can I just ask, how DARE she hopscotch right past me to have 2 kids at once, all the while glowing and proclaiming that pregnancy has made her feel the healthiest she has ever felt? How have I slid back to this bad place?
I feel as if I've graduated from from high school only to be ordered to go back to ninth grade detention, with that really nasty math teacher with the saggy two-shades too-dark pantyhose glaring over her glasses at me. How the HELL do I get out of here. Do I really have to take Algebra I again and fight those nasty rumors started by the popular girls? Do I really have to get my heart broken again by one feckless teenage boy after another? Are you gonna make me apply to college again? I been here. I done that. And I am soo, soo, sick of it...I just wanna get on with my life.
I'm a recurrent miscarriage relapser. I'm back on the sauce folks and this time the binge is gonna be ugly.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
The Gift that Keeps on Giving
After much pulling of hair and gnashing of teeth...after getting through the fourth anniversary of the due date of my first lost child with a new fourth loss to mourn...after much websurfing and downloading of information on hyperemesis for my family...I decided to try again. Now! I just decided I want one more child and I want to get a pregnancy over with as soon as possible, both because I am sick of this life-in-limbo stage and because I am afraid of my rapidly advancing "maternal age." The husband and I had long talks and agreed that I would be entitled to perfect princess treatment for the duration of any pregnancy (the man, though lovely, does not play nurse well naturally). Dr. Cookie Pie said she'd give me an HCG shot right away, just to speed things along. And the final deciding factor was that, by rare chance, I have no work projects scheduled for August, meaning I'd be unusually free to languish in bed vomiting. Sounds like a plan, right?
I went in to Dr. Cookie Pie to get the shot on Monday, but she wasn't totally happy with the look of my uterine lining. She also said I wasn't ready to trigger, that the follicle needed another couple of days. Come back Wednesday, and you'll be good to go she promised. This actually meant postponing my departure for a business trip from Thursday afternoon to Friday morning in order to be present for the neccessary conjugal event. (No joke that declining fertility with age is correlated with decreasing frequency of sex!) But no problem, I have my priorities straight. I rearranged things so I could be here through Friday morning. In the meantime, Dr. Cookie Pie said we should check my estrogen levels, and promised to have the results STAT. I did notice that she added an HCG level on the lab order, and you'd think this would have rung a bell, but it really didn't.
So imagine my surprise when she called me personally at home at 7 AM this morning to tell me that my HCG is still hovering at 8 from the LAST pregnancy and that I shouldn't waste a trip to her office. It was, really, an extraordinary kindness on her part. And how impressive that she essentially called this from her first 3-second glance at my uterine lining on ultrasound. There's a reason why I call her the smart cookie sweetie pie. But all I heard was, sorry, honey, you're still a very little bit pregnant.
Not only did I lose the last baby, I can't have the next baby, cause my body has still not accepted the facts. I believe it was Anne Lamott who said if you want God to laugh, you should tell her your plans...
I went in to Dr. Cookie Pie to get the shot on Monday, but she wasn't totally happy with the look of my uterine lining. She also said I wasn't ready to trigger, that the follicle needed another couple of days. Come back Wednesday, and you'll be good to go she promised. This actually meant postponing my departure for a business trip from Thursday afternoon to Friday morning in order to be present for the neccessary conjugal event. (No joke that declining fertility with age is correlated with decreasing frequency of sex!) But no problem, I have my priorities straight. I rearranged things so I could be here through Friday morning. In the meantime, Dr. Cookie Pie said we should check my estrogen levels, and promised to have the results STAT. I did notice that she added an HCG level on the lab order, and you'd think this would have rung a bell, but it really didn't.
So imagine my surprise when she called me personally at home at 7 AM this morning to tell me that my HCG is still hovering at 8 from the LAST pregnancy and that I shouldn't waste a trip to her office. It was, really, an extraordinary kindness on her part. And how impressive that she essentially called this from her first 3-second glance at my uterine lining on ultrasound. There's a reason why I call her the smart cookie sweetie pie. But all I heard was, sorry, honey, you're still a very little bit pregnant.
Not only did I lose the last baby, I can't have the next baby, cause my body has still not accepted the facts. I believe it was Anne Lamott who said if you want God to laugh, you should tell her your plans...
Monday, July 07, 2008
Hello Darkness My Old Friend
When Dr. Cookie Pie called me with the test results the week before last, she said, "I'm sorry, I have bad news." My heart leaped in my throat and I thought, "oh, no, please not a chromosomal abnormality." When she said the chromosomes were normal, I heaved a sigh of relief. I am strangely grateful to have had another unexplained loss. This is the faceless devil I know.
If I'd had a chromosomal loss, I'd have a whole new set of worries now about declining egg quality, about the prospects of ever having another living child. Yes, I still feel a savage anger, but also, somehow a perverse pride. My little Crumps (that's embryos so small they measure not from head to toe but only from crown to rump) are perfect little Crumps. The fault lies with my body, not my progeny.
I don't know how, but I bonded with this little one. My husband claimed to have a lucky feeling that the baby would be a girl, but I was certain beyond certain he was another boy. And I wanted him too.
The day this wished-for son was conceived (we did an HCG trigger shot, so I was very conscious of and optimistic about conception) I accidentally prepared an entire dinner made of foods beginning with the letter "P"— grilled pork tenderloin with peaches, spring peas, and new potatoes. I had planned the menu around spring foods, purposefully wanting to celebrate birth and renewal. But I never meant to pick all "P's." It seemed so funny and so fated when it turned out that I was *P*regnant. I decided that, though I've never nicknamed an embryo before, I'd call this one by a "P" name and picked "Peeper" for the little spring frogs that seemed to be singing my joy.
Last weekend I went outside after dark, walked down to the frog pond and screamed the loudest most furious primal scream that I could. And the singing frogs went silent. Soon after it began to drizzle; they never made another peep that night. It was an eery moment, one that made me feel, somehow, as though the galaxy had noted my grief and despair.
I know I am a lucky, lucky woman, a woman whose father's house has many rooms. It's just that here in the birthing room the ceiling has fallen in and I'm choking on plaster dust, and the furniture is in ruins, and I don't know whether to try to clean up or whether I'd better just scuttle on off down the corridor into the darkness.
If I'd had a chromosomal loss, I'd have a whole new set of worries now about declining egg quality, about the prospects of ever having another living child. Yes, I still feel a savage anger, but also, somehow a perverse pride. My little Crumps (that's embryos so small they measure not from head to toe but only from crown to rump) are perfect little Crumps. The fault lies with my body, not my progeny.
I don't know how, but I bonded with this little one. My husband claimed to have a lucky feeling that the baby would be a girl, but I was certain beyond certain he was another boy. And I wanted him too.
The day this wished-for son was conceived (we did an HCG trigger shot, so I was very conscious of and optimistic about conception) I accidentally prepared an entire dinner made of foods beginning with the letter "P"— grilled pork tenderloin with peaches, spring peas, and new potatoes. I had planned the menu around spring foods, purposefully wanting to celebrate birth and renewal. But I never meant to pick all "P's." It seemed so funny and so fated when it turned out that I was *P*regnant. I decided that, though I've never nicknamed an embryo before, I'd call this one by a "P" name and picked "Peeper" for the little spring frogs that seemed to be singing my joy.
Last weekend I went outside after dark, walked down to the frog pond and screamed the loudest most furious primal scream that I could. And the singing frogs went silent. Soon after it began to drizzle; they never made another peep that night. It was an eery moment, one that made me feel, somehow, as though the galaxy had noted my grief and despair.
I know I am a lucky, lucky woman, a woman whose father's house has many rooms. It's just that here in the birthing room the ceiling has fallen in and I'm choking on plaster dust, and the furniture is in ruins, and I don't know whether to try to clean up or whether I'd better just scuttle on off down the corridor into the darkness.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
My Newest PIN Number
Dr. Cookie Pie called with news yesterday. We are back in the bleak no-man's land of utterly unexplained pregnancy loss. My latest miscarriage was of another genetically perfect male. This means that I have conceived and carried five boys in a row, only one of which (one of whom?) lived to be born...only one of which lived to become a who. A little boy whose small warm body is my only shield against looming despair. Gravida 5, Para 1 as the good docs like to say. It feels right now as though my whole identity can be summed up this way: 5_46XY.
Friday, June 20, 2008
Swiped from behind by the Claw of Fate
To anyone who's still here reading, hi and thank you. I am doing OK, but only OK. Plunging back into infertility and loss after believing I'd somehow tamed the beast is deeply painful to me. Many moments, many days even, I think I'm fine, only to be brought up short by some unexpected reminder: today a cheery email about a friend's new pregnancy, yesterday finally facing the task of picking up from the dry-cleaner the maternity shirts I'd sent out a few weeks ago in burst of optimism. Then I'm reminded that repression of emotion and elimination of emotion are not actually one and the same.
Mostly I've coped by throwing myself into work and burrowing my nose in Turtle's curls. It should be enough and I want it to be enough, a career I care about and a great kid I adore. But a lot of times, those dark-hours-in-the-middle-of-the-night times, it's not enough. And I don't really know what to do about that unwelcome, uncomfortable fact.
The truth is that I thought this last pregnancy was going to kill me. I had an official diagnosis of hyperemesis (which Zofran made a dent in only for a day) and I was soo miserable with the nausea that suicide or abortion were suddenly *almost* seeming like viable, rational options. Pregnancy bloating notwithstanding, I actually managed to lose six percent of my body weight in three weeks. So I really never, never want to be pregnant ever, ever again. I get a bit panicky at the mere thought of going back to that bad place, spewing acid through my mouth and nose every few hours around the clock, unable to keep anything down, unable to stand up I'm so dehydrated, unable to summon the will to live.
And yet I want another kid.
Not only do I have a job I love and a kid I love, but both of these incredibly important things suffer terribly when I'm pregnant. Pregnancy is truly the very hardest thing I've ever done. I find it completely incapacitating. There's so much that I'm good at, so much that brings me joy in life. Pregnancy simply seems not to be my thing.
And yet I want another kid.
If you're still reading at this point, you're probably shrieking, "why don't you just adopt for the love of God?" And I'm thinking about it. But my husband really, really does not want to adopt. And he really, really, really wants another kid. Several more kids if the truth be told. And the fact is that my fourth pregnancy produced an adorable child, a child so sweet, so sensitive, so silly, so funny, that I walk around fearing fate will snatch him from me because no one deserves to be this lucky. How could I not want another kid?
And so the loss of this latest pregnancy leaves me spent. Agreeing to get pregnant this last time took all the courage I have because every pregnancy, frankly, has been as bad as this one was. With no baby to show for it, I just feel like I can't face another. I'm fresh out of courage. I am flailing with rageful impotence at the unfairness of the world, cracking my whip at the empty air as that wily beast infertility snarls at me, taunting me just out of reach.
Have I mentioned that the no-heart-beat sonogram was on my 1/2 birthday? That I am 35 and a half years old? That I really don't have time to take a "wait and see" attitude?
But I get up everyday and try to be OK.
Mostly I've coped by throwing myself into work and burrowing my nose in Turtle's curls. It should be enough and I want it to be enough, a career I care about and a great kid I adore. But a lot of times, those dark-hours-in-the-middle-of-the-night times, it's not enough. And I don't really know what to do about that unwelcome, uncomfortable fact.
The truth is that I thought this last pregnancy was going to kill me. I had an official diagnosis of hyperemesis (which Zofran made a dent in only for a day) and I was soo miserable with the nausea that suicide or abortion were suddenly *almost* seeming like viable, rational options. Pregnancy bloating notwithstanding, I actually managed to lose six percent of my body weight in three weeks. So I really never, never want to be pregnant ever, ever again. I get a bit panicky at the mere thought of going back to that bad place, spewing acid through my mouth and nose every few hours around the clock, unable to keep anything down, unable to stand up I'm so dehydrated, unable to summon the will to live.
And yet I want another kid.
Not only do I have a job I love and a kid I love, but both of these incredibly important things suffer terribly when I'm pregnant. Pregnancy is truly the very hardest thing I've ever done. I find it completely incapacitating. There's so much that I'm good at, so much that brings me joy in life. Pregnancy simply seems not to be my thing.
And yet I want another kid.
If you're still reading at this point, you're probably shrieking, "why don't you just adopt for the love of God?" And I'm thinking about it. But my husband really, really does not want to adopt. And he really, really, really wants another kid. Several more kids if the truth be told. And the fact is that my fourth pregnancy produced an adorable child, a child so sweet, so sensitive, so silly, so funny, that I walk around fearing fate will snatch him from me because no one deserves to be this lucky. How could I not want another kid?
And so the loss of this latest pregnancy leaves me spent. Agreeing to get pregnant this last time took all the courage I have because every pregnancy, frankly, has been as bad as this one was. With no baby to show for it, I just feel like I can't face another. I'm fresh out of courage. I am flailing with rageful impotence at the unfairness of the world, cracking my whip at the empty air as that wily beast infertility snarls at me, taunting me just out of reach.
Have I mentioned that the no-heart-beat sonogram was on my 1/2 birthday? That I am 35 and a half years old? That I really don't have time to take a "wait and see" attitude?
But I get up everyday and try to be OK.
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
I'm the Fat Lady Singing
Well, it's well and truly over. I had a D&C yesterday. (The embryo still measured 6 weeks 1 day, with no heartbeat.) We'll see what the cytology results are... I was so, so, so ill through the very end that my feelings are as much of relief at my release from misery as of grief at my return to the world of loss. Not sure what getting back to normal will mean for me now...emotionally or physically. How many of these pounds are simple bloat and how soon will they go away? Have I mentioned that I think I may be finished with this circus? Thank God, truly, for Turtle.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
The Ambiguity Has Put on Weight
"The clarity is devastating. But where is the ambiguity? Over
there in a box...But is the truth, as Hitchcock observes, in the
box? No, there isn't room, the ambiguity has put on weight."
--Literary criticism, courtesy of Monty Python.
--Big fat crowding-out-the-truth ambiguity, courtesy of Dr. Cookie Pie
--Box, courtesy the ultrasound machine
So, I went in for another scan today. Because I'm crampy and anxious and I wanted to get the bad news over with. And, the embryo is still measuring 6 weeks 1 day, which, for those of you keeping score at home, is unchanged from 2 days ago. Oh, and there was no heartbeat. The clarity is devastating. But, Dr. Cookie Pie feels the embryo "just looks bigger." No, she doesn't mean edema (the swelling of the fluid-clogged embryo beginning to break down). Edemic embryos start to look black, she says, and mine looks white. The ambiguity is over there in a box. And she thinks the fetal pole is easier to see. And she sees an endothelial lining that could be a sign of the creation of cardiac tissue. But is the truth in the box? Dr. Cookie Pie has tentatively scheduled me for a D&C for Tuesday. The ambiguity has put on weight.
there in a box...But is the truth, as Hitchcock observes, in the
box? No, there isn't room, the ambiguity has put on weight."
--Literary criticism, courtesy of Monty Python.
--Big fat crowding-out-the-truth ambiguity, courtesy of Dr. Cookie Pie
--Box, courtesy the ultrasound machine
So, I went in for another scan today. Because I'm crampy and anxious and I wanted to get the bad news over with. And, the embryo is still measuring 6 weeks 1 day, which, for those of you keeping score at home, is unchanged from 2 days ago. Oh, and there was no heartbeat. The clarity is devastating. But, Dr. Cookie Pie feels the embryo "just looks bigger." No, she doesn't mean edema (the swelling of the fluid-clogged embryo beginning to break down). Edemic embryos start to look black, she says, and mine looks white. The ambiguity is over there in a box. And she thinks the fetal pole is easier to see. And she sees an endothelial lining that could be a sign of the creation of cardiac tissue. But is the truth in the box? Dr. Cookie Pie has tentatively scheduled me for a D&C for Tuesday. The ambiguity has put on weight.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Annie and the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Pregnancy
Hi all. I've been too busy puking to post. In fact, I felt so low I started a post detailing each and every time and place I've puked, all the ridiculous embarrassing disgusting episodes of the last 14 days. Lucky for you I had to stop to vomit again in the middle of drafting and lost the post.
By the time I rolled into the RE yesterday at 6 weeks 4 days for the Great Big Wonderful Find-the-Heart-Beat Sonogram I was so faint and dizzy with dehydration I could hardly stand. And, guess what? Embryo measuring 6 weeks 1 day. No Fetal Heart Beat. The Hoped-for Happy Little Embryo is instead Undeniably, Non-Viably, Dead, Gone and Demised.
Dr. Cookie Pie, being her usual sunny self, is not willing to call it over till I hit 7 weeks on Friday, but she held out little hope. This looks an awful lot like the missed miscarriages of pregnancies 1, 2, and 3. She did give me a nice prescription for Zofran which is how I can now manage to sit here trying for gallows humor.
I feel, sad. Sad, sad, sad. I feel sad that my body is sooo bad at this pregnancy thing. I simply cannot state strongly enough how much I loathe pregnancy nausea. The sickness makes me feel trapped like some doomed donor character in a Kazuo Ishiguro dystopia. I feel my body becomes literally enslaved. It makes me want to die. The nausea was so bad this time I simply did not now how I could possibly endure another ten weeks of it. Much as I wish for Turtle to have a sibling, I just do not know that I can face this again.
My family can hardly believe this negativity. Buck up, good cause, stiff spine, stiff upper lip, rose and thorns ya know, soldier on, shoulder to the grindstone, tally ho, heave ho, who cares? But this is my fifth pregnancy and I think I am finally hitting the fucking wall. In just ten days Turtle learned to run away sobbing at the sight of me vomiting. Who needs it? I want to enjoy a happy life with the kid I have.
Who knows what a longer perspective will make me feel, but this is the place I find myself in right now. I hope to make it to a D&C to find out if this is another mysterious loss or if this one may be chromosomal (since I am now, oh joy, 35). If this *isn't* chromosomal, I'd say the thyroid-hormone replacement theory is shot to hell because I was *very* well supplemented this time.
Well, then. Carry on. Sally forth, why don't ye?
By the time I rolled into the RE yesterday at 6 weeks 4 days for the Great Big Wonderful Find-the-Heart-Beat Sonogram I was so faint and dizzy with dehydration I could hardly stand. And, guess what? Embryo measuring 6 weeks 1 day. No Fetal Heart Beat. The Hoped-for Happy Little Embryo is instead Undeniably, Non-Viably, Dead, Gone and Demised.
Dr. Cookie Pie, being her usual sunny self, is not willing to call it over till I hit 7 weeks on Friday, but she held out little hope. This looks an awful lot like the missed miscarriages of pregnancies 1, 2, and 3. She did give me a nice prescription for Zofran which is how I can now manage to sit here trying for gallows humor.
I feel, sad. Sad, sad, sad. I feel sad that my body is sooo bad at this pregnancy thing. I simply cannot state strongly enough how much I loathe pregnancy nausea. The sickness makes me feel trapped like some doomed donor character in a Kazuo Ishiguro dystopia. I feel my body becomes literally enslaved. It makes me want to die. The nausea was so bad this time I simply did not now how I could possibly endure another ten weeks of it. Much as I wish for Turtle to have a sibling, I just do not know that I can face this again.
My family can hardly believe this negativity. Buck up, good cause, stiff spine, stiff upper lip, rose and thorns ya know, soldier on, shoulder to the grindstone, tally ho, heave ho, who cares? But this is my fifth pregnancy and I think I am finally hitting the fucking wall. In just ten days Turtle learned to run away sobbing at the sight of me vomiting. Who needs it? I want to enjoy a happy life with the kid I have.
Who knows what a longer perspective will make me feel, but this is the place I find myself in right now. I hope to make it to a D&C to find out if this is another mysterious loss or if this one may be chromosomal (since I am now, oh joy, 35). If this *isn't* chromosomal, I'd say the thyroid-hormone replacement theory is shot to hell because I was *very* well supplemented this time.
Well, then. Carry on. Sally forth, why don't ye?
Thursday, May 15, 2008
The Absurdity of Motherhood Advice Writing
This is going to be a quicky, but I wanted to set down something I've been thinking about. No woman writer has any valid basis whatsoever for commenting on whether mothers ought to work or stay home.
One of media commentators' favorite pastimes is to report on how Shocked, Shocked they are to see well-educated women opting out of the workforce. Sundry recent writers have addressed the topic, in books from The Feminine Mistake to The Ten Year Nap. And then, of course, there are the ACK's of the world (my acronym for a certain anti-feminist public figure soo irritating and opportunistic I won't dignify her with an actual reference to her name: hint her initials form the sound Ack!) who opine not only that all women should stay home but also that all women could afford to do so if they weren't too selfish to stop buying Blahniks.
In actuality, the life of the writing woman is entirely unlike almost any other kind of working life. By definition, writing is flexible and forgiving work. You can do your thinking and mental drafting anywhere. You can stop and start your sentences at will. The act of formulating thoughts in writing gives unequaled opportunity for self-expression. So whether it's mothers who write about how women shouldn't work (duh, what do they think they're doing themselves as they write?) or mothers who write about how women should work (while basing their judgment on their own enjoyment of the most flexible and fulfilling possible working conditions) none of the mothers writing professionally on whether motherhood and work can successfully combine has even an ounce of credibility to comment on the question.
This, I think, is why I was so wholly unprepared for how transforming and transcendent I would find motherhood. I used to read the anti-feminist sell-outs, the women laughing all the way to the bank as they earn top dollar telling other women to get out of the workforce, and think: no way could they possibly have anything valid to say. I used to read the feminists who affirmed that a having a child doesn't mean losing your mind and I would bow deeply as I said "amen." But the simple truth is that having a child so expands your heart that the mind can, in fact, begin to seem less all-important than it once did.
I think that having professional skills, the security of one's own income, and adult contacts outside the home are things all women deserve. But I also think that the drive to nurture a child is so deep, so elemental, that denying its force has seriously undermined feminism. I think what most women want are the flexible meaningful kinds of work that all the authors of motherhood manifestos quietly take for granted.
Whether it's anti-feminists critiquing working mothers or feminists exhorting them, too many advice writers seem to think that mothers in the workforce will, by definition, act as men. News flash: few of us want to be men. And I think it's time to stop pretending that the male work model is the one by which mothers should succeed or fail.
What we really need to advocate for now are not so much women's rights as mothers' rights: mothers' rights to do meaningful remunerative work in limited and flexible hours; mothers' rights to retrain and reenter the workforce without stigma after years or months devoted primarily to family care. A childless (and especially a single, childless) woman is the equal of or even the better of any man anywhere. But a mother is another creature altogether and it's time to admit this fundamental fact.
One of media commentators' favorite pastimes is to report on how Shocked, Shocked they are to see well-educated women opting out of the workforce. Sundry recent writers have addressed the topic, in books from The Feminine Mistake to The Ten Year Nap. And then, of course, there are the ACK's of the world (my acronym for a certain anti-feminist public figure soo irritating and opportunistic I won't dignify her with an actual reference to her name: hint her initials form the sound Ack!) who opine not only that all women should stay home but also that all women could afford to do so if they weren't too selfish to stop buying Blahniks.
In actuality, the life of the writing woman is entirely unlike almost any other kind of working life. By definition, writing is flexible and forgiving work. You can do your thinking and mental drafting anywhere. You can stop and start your sentences at will. The act of formulating thoughts in writing gives unequaled opportunity for self-expression. So whether it's mothers who write about how women shouldn't work (duh, what do they think they're doing themselves as they write?) or mothers who write about how women should work (while basing their judgment on their own enjoyment of the most flexible and fulfilling possible working conditions) none of the mothers writing professionally on whether motherhood and work can successfully combine has even an ounce of credibility to comment on the question.
This, I think, is why I was so wholly unprepared for how transforming and transcendent I would find motherhood. I used to read the anti-feminist sell-outs, the women laughing all the way to the bank as they earn top dollar telling other women to get out of the workforce, and think: no way could they possibly have anything valid to say. I used to read the feminists who affirmed that a having a child doesn't mean losing your mind and I would bow deeply as I said "amen." But the simple truth is that having a child so expands your heart that the mind can, in fact, begin to seem less all-important than it once did.
I think that having professional skills, the security of one's own income, and adult contacts outside the home are things all women deserve. But I also think that the drive to nurture a child is so deep, so elemental, that denying its force has seriously undermined feminism. I think what most women want are the flexible meaningful kinds of work that all the authors of motherhood manifestos quietly take for granted.
Whether it's anti-feminists critiquing working mothers or feminists exhorting them, too many advice writers seem to think that mothers in the workforce will, by definition, act as men. News flash: few of us want to be men. And I think it's time to stop pretending that the male work model is the one by which mothers should succeed or fail.
What we really need to advocate for now are not so much women's rights as mothers' rights: mothers' rights to do meaningful remunerative work in limited and flexible hours; mothers' rights to retrain and reenter the workforce without stigma after years or months devoted primarily to family care. A childless (and especially a single, childless) woman is the equal of or even the better of any man anywhere. But a mother is another creature altogether and it's time to admit this fundamental fact.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
See, I Told You I Could Post More Than Two Days in a Row!
Hi. My ultrasound today was pleasantly uneventful. We saw a sac, so there is definitely a uterine pregnancy going on here. It dated shy of 5 weeks, which is quite accurate, and there you go. Not a lot else to say, though to my amusement Dr. Cookie-Pie praised my great big corpus luteum (baby's got balls). On the one hand, this is good news as everything looks much more "text book" than things started out with Turtle. On the other hand, nothing means much at this point because my 3 losses started text book and took till between 7 and 12 weeks to go south. The one thing I will say is that I am already feeling seriously queasy, and this *is* a departure for me. It almost defies imagination to think that I'm going to feel this way (and much, much worse) for another TWELVE weeks if I'm LUCKY. It's enough to turn this neurological Buddist (thank you David Brooks*) into a biblical fundamentalist. Nothing but the commission of original sin could possibly justify this torture...
On another note, I want to say a word of welcome and encouragement to all the people who find their way to this site looking for answers on miscarriage and thyroid. I am humbled reading the referral info on my site meter. I hope you will find some solace in reading about a success story, but I know that I really never did get inspiration from anyone else's luck. I always just thought that the bitch in question hadn't been set up for the kind of hard-core suffering I was surviving. Lovely, I know, but infertility can make even a natural Pollyanna like me into a cynic. All I'm saying now is that my main hesitation in continuing this blog at all is the possibility that my complaints about nausea etc. will irritate the ovaries right out of some infertile woman who stumbles here looking for something resembling useful medical information and finds only my ramblings.
To the person who googled "infertility story Turtle," you made me cry. I guess one person more evolved than I am *has* taken a little bit of pleasure from hearing about Turtle and I'm very grateful to know it.
Please let me know if you come if you need support or if there's anything in particular you just wish I would not say. If you want to reach me, comment don't email. I am so behind on email for work that I am not checking blog email at all, even as I fantasize that maybe Get Up Grrl is desperately trying to contact me in the hope I'll agree to proofread her memoirs...
I guess that's a wrap then. I feel both optimistic and non-committal at the moment. Dr. Cookie-Pie, who exudes enthusiasm at all times, said to me today, "oh my gosh, are you just soo nervous?" And I was like "hunh?" She'd had to practically wake me from a snooze on the exam table, that's how tired I am. Elevated TSH does wonders for combating anxiety/ inducing stupor, I'll say that for it...
*This is, incredibly, the SECOND time I've liked something Brooks had to say, the other time being the being the occasion of his publishing a thoughtful piece on Obama a while back--before McBush nabbed the Republican nom and Brooks went back to being reflexively partisan...
On another note, I want to say a word of welcome and encouragement to all the people who find their way to this site looking for answers on miscarriage and thyroid. I am humbled reading the referral info on my site meter. I hope you will find some solace in reading about a success story, but I know that I really never did get inspiration from anyone else's luck. I always just thought that the bitch in question hadn't been set up for the kind of hard-core suffering I was surviving. Lovely, I know, but infertility can make even a natural Pollyanna like me into a cynic. All I'm saying now is that my main hesitation in continuing this blog at all is the possibility that my complaints about nausea etc. will irritate the ovaries right out of some infertile woman who stumbles here looking for something resembling useful medical information and finds only my ramblings.
To the person who googled "infertility story Turtle," you made me cry. I guess one person more evolved than I am *has* taken a little bit of pleasure from hearing about Turtle and I'm very grateful to know it.
Please let me know if you come if you need support or if there's anything in particular you just wish I would not say. If you want to reach me, comment don't email. I am so behind on email for work that I am not checking blog email at all, even as I fantasize that maybe Get Up Grrl is desperately trying to contact me in the hope I'll agree to proofread her memoirs...
I guess that's a wrap then. I feel both optimistic and non-committal at the moment. Dr. Cookie-Pie, who exudes enthusiasm at all times, said to me today, "oh my gosh, are you just soo nervous?" And I was like "hunh?" She'd had to practically wake me from a snooze on the exam table, that's how tired I am. Elevated TSH does wonders for combating anxiety/ inducing stupor, I'll say that for it...
*This is, incredibly, the SECOND time I've liked something Brooks had to say, the other time being the being the occasion of his publishing a thoughtful piece on Obama a while back--before McBush nabbed the Republican nom and Brooks went back to being reflexively partisan...
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Sick to My Stomach
Just read the bad news over at Finslippy. I feel so terrible for Alice. And, lets be honest, so terrible for myself. Sick to my stomach and I'm not even nauseous yet. I don't know how anyone gets up the courage to try again after a loss except by means of the sheer fact that there is no other way forward but forward.
Still, as I sat down to type this Turtle came running up to me and said "Book!" "Are you going to read a book?" I asked him and he said "Yes!" then climbed up on my bed where he has been entertaining himself by flipping pages and singing "Hoppy to, Hoppy to." His birthday is next week and we have been priming him with many rounds of "Happy Birthday to You," which he is tickled to try singing himself. As I listen to him, I think I should be singing "Happy to Have You." And so I know that whatever happens with this new pregnancy, I am already one very lucky woman.
"Mommy read" means it's time for me to go, but I do plan to try to be a bit more regular with the updates. First ultrasound tomorrow. I suppose we're just hoping to see a sac this early on...
Still, as I sat down to type this Turtle came running up to me and said "Book!" "Are you going to read a book?" I asked him and he said "Yes!" then climbed up on my bed where he has been entertaining himself by flipping pages and singing "Hoppy to, Hoppy to." His birthday is next week and we have been priming him with many rounds of "Happy Birthday to You," which he is tickled to try singing himself. As I listen to him, I think I should be singing "Happy to Have You." And so I know that whatever happens with this new pregnancy, I am already one very lucky woman.
"Mommy read" means it's time for me to go, but I do plan to try to be a bit more regular with the updates. First ultrasound tomorrow. I suppose we're just hoping to see a sac this early on...
Monday, May 12, 2008
Holy Moly Hallmark Moment (Maybe...)
Well, this time I am well and truly knocked up. (So says my blood test today, 16 days post ovulation). I am thrilled, but, like anyone with a long history of losses, also so apprehensive to be back walking the cliff's edge once again. The sunset views are supposed to be beautiful from here, but dusk is still hours away and in the meantime I'm afraid to look down.
Once an infertile, always an infertile, in mind if not also in body. I've come to realize that for the "type A" personality (which, let's face it, describes a disproportionate percentage of us older would-be mothers who've been focused on career etc. for years before trying to conceive) the hardest thing about infertility is the total loss of control. We all cope in different ways, but I think at base what we want is some element of influence over our fates. For some it might be prayer or lucky charms, for some it might be medical data and scientific theory. I've dabbled in all of those.
But more than anything, it now hits me, that my own chief coping mechanism is the comforting belief that I'm highly (almost magically) attuned to my body. It feels important to me to be intimately, intuitively aware of my own innards. Last night, lying awake at 3 AM and wondering what that cramp meant and whether my insomnia was stress-related or the sign that my thyroid levels are already out of wack (Thyroid, said today's labs, but you guessed that, didn't you?), I had the absurd thought that I wish I could google my own body, just have a search engine that would allow me to surf the interbodynet and generate data about all the relevant chemical levels and associated activities of my reproductive parts.
You know, I still think I actually did conceive in that March cycle. I didn't come back to write about it here, but I had a *very* heavy period that month (and oddly long at 9 days instead of my usual 4-5). Then, in the April cycle I didn't spend even one hot second thinking I was pregnant. Never so much as contemplated peeing on a stick. I just felt completely different. And I wasn't pregnant. And when my period came, it was moderate and normal.
So when Thalia, who is a lovely and supportive blogfriend from way back, logged in to tell me that I was in fact crazy with all my chimerical theories (or that's how I read it anyway) I retreated away from my newfound pledge to blog. I didn't realize why her well-meaning scientific facts bothered me so much at the time, but I now see that she unintentionally threatened my favorite coping mechanism. In truth, I probably can't divine my own body-status but I'm at least getting better at understanding my psyche, one step at a time!
So, the "scientific data" says that my HCG level is "very good." Dr. Cookie-Pie didn't specify and I didn't ask. We sweated over the early numbers so much last time I feel determined not to fall into that particular trap again. My progesterone was an unassisted 39, so even though I supplemented with Turtle, we're doing nothing in that category for now. Meanwhile, the dang TSH snuck up from 1.5 to 3.2. Should be under 2 and is the suspected culprit in my prior losses, so we've upped my synthroid dosage post-haste. Now I wish I had upped it as soon as I ovulated, but at the time I was afraid that if I didn't conceive this month I'd become hyper-thryroid and interfere with next month's ovulation. At any rate, my recollection is that it was at around 4.5 at the time of the Great Halloween Surprise of 2005, so I'm trying not to panic.
Anyway I'm too tired to panic. But I'm not yet at all nauseous (I never am at the very start). So I am free to just feel sleepily, dreamily, happy. I was pretty sure yesterday, Mother's Day, that I was pregnant. And I realized it was the happiest I've ever felt about a pregnancy. The very first time I became pregnant (FIVE years ago) I was so scared at the thought of becoming a mother that I hardly managed to enjoy the news before the whole pregnancy ended abruptly at seven weeks. The three times after that, I was always happy to conceive but also terrified of miscarriage. Now, though I remain highly aware of all the ways things could go very wrong for me, I have beautiful living proof in Turtle of the way they could go very right. So, for just this little moment, I'm very happy. Almost hallmarky if you must know...
Once an infertile, always an infertile, in mind if not also in body. I've come to realize that for the "type A" personality (which, let's face it, describes a disproportionate percentage of us older would-be mothers who've been focused on career etc. for years before trying to conceive) the hardest thing about infertility is the total loss of control. We all cope in different ways, but I think at base what we want is some element of influence over our fates. For some it might be prayer or lucky charms, for some it might be medical data and scientific theory. I've dabbled in all of those.
But more than anything, it now hits me, that my own chief coping mechanism is the comforting belief that I'm highly (almost magically) attuned to my body. It feels important to me to be intimately, intuitively aware of my own innards. Last night, lying awake at 3 AM and wondering what that cramp meant and whether my insomnia was stress-related or the sign that my thyroid levels are already out of wack (Thyroid, said today's labs, but you guessed that, didn't you?), I had the absurd thought that I wish I could google my own body, just have a search engine that would allow me to surf the interbodynet and generate data about all the relevant chemical levels and associated activities of my reproductive parts.
You know, I still think I actually did conceive in that March cycle. I didn't come back to write about it here, but I had a *very* heavy period that month (and oddly long at 9 days instead of my usual 4-5). Then, in the April cycle I didn't spend even one hot second thinking I was pregnant. Never so much as contemplated peeing on a stick. I just felt completely different. And I wasn't pregnant. And when my period came, it was moderate and normal.
So when Thalia, who is a lovely and supportive blogfriend from way back, logged in to tell me that I was in fact crazy with all my chimerical theories (or that's how I read it anyway) I retreated away from my newfound pledge to blog. I didn't realize why her well-meaning scientific facts bothered me so much at the time, but I now see that she unintentionally threatened my favorite coping mechanism. In truth, I probably can't divine my own body-status but I'm at least getting better at understanding my psyche, one step at a time!
So, the "scientific data" says that my HCG level is "very good." Dr. Cookie-Pie didn't specify and I didn't ask. We sweated over the early numbers so much last time I feel determined not to fall into that particular trap again. My progesterone was an unassisted 39, so even though I supplemented with Turtle, we're doing nothing in that category for now. Meanwhile, the dang TSH snuck up from 1.5 to 3.2. Should be under 2 and is the suspected culprit in my prior losses, so we've upped my synthroid dosage post-haste. Now I wish I had upped it as soon as I ovulated, but at the time I was afraid that if I didn't conceive this month I'd become hyper-thryroid and interfere with next month's ovulation. At any rate, my recollection is that it was at around 4.5 at the time of the Great Halloween Surprise of 2005, so I'm trying not to panic.
Anyway I'm too tired to panic. But I'm not yet at all nauseous (I never am at the very start). So I am free to just feel sleepily, dreamily, happy. I was pretty sure yesterday, Mother's Day, that I was pregnant. And I realized it was the happiest I've ever felt about a pregnancy. The very first time I became pregnant (FIVE years ago) I was so scared at the thought of becoming a mother that I hardly managed to enjoy the news before the whole pregnancy ended abruptly at seven weeks. The three times after that, I was always happy to conceive but also terrified of miscarriage. Now, though I remain highly aware of all the ways things could go very wrong for me, I have beautiful living proof in Turtle of the way they could go very right. So, for just this little moment, I'm very happy. Almost hallmarky if you must know...
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