The Hobby Lobby SCOTUS decision, and why the implications affect infertiles

I don't know if there is a big following among infertile couples to watch and keep up with the news. I know when the hubs and I were neck deep in treatments, we were not avidly watching/reading.

So let me fill you in on something that happened this week.

Recently, a case involving Hobby Lobby made it all the way to the Supreme Court. Hobby Lobby believed that they should not have to cover certain kinds of birth control that they "believed" caused abortions because it violated their religious freedoms. The Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, agreed with Hobby Lobby.

There are a few reasons why this matters.

1. The birth controls that they did not want to cover include 2 forms of IUDs and the Plan B pill. For those of you unfamiliar with how these work, Plan B is like a massive dose of your regular old birth control pills. They prevent an egg from being released. If you have already ovulated, Plan B will NOT work. Meaning there is no chance that Plan B can cause an abortion because it prevents egg and sperm from meeting. The two types of IUDs are hormonal and copper. Hormonal IUDs work just like the pill or like implanon. It is a piece of plastic inserted in your uterus that distributes hormones for approximately 7-10 years. Again, it does NOT cause abortions because it prevents an egg from being released. The final IUD, copper, is the only one that can be considered an abortificant because the copper changes the pH of the uterus and makes it inhospitable for a fertilized egg to implant. Note, this only counts as an abortion if you believe that the second egg and sperm meet, new life has been created.

2. The Supreme Court, not wanting to define when life begins, ruled that it doesn't really matter whether or not any of these forms of birth control actually cause abortions, only that Hobby Lobby believes they do.

Yeah. Infertile couples, we got problems. Why does this matter to us? Because it is very easily setting a legal precedent for personhood.

What is personhood you might ask? Personhood is the common vernacular for personhood amendments, which convey the rights of personhood onto a fetus (giving a fetus/unborn baby legal status as a person). The bills claim that life begins at the moment of conception (when sperm and egg meet), and thus a fetus, zygote, etc., should be treated as a whole person.

Personhood bills have been introduced (and defeated) in several states, including (and I was surprised when this bill was defeated) Mississippi.

Most people who support personhood do so because they believe abortion is wrong. And whether or not you agree, I'm not here to argue that. Rather, I want infertile couples to understand the gravity of personhood on infertility treatment.

Can anyone tell me how IVF works? On its most basic level, an egg is taken from mom and sperm is taken from dad. They are combined, and when they start to divide, a zygote is created. Usually there are a ton of zygotes created (because mom is on fertility meds that make her produce a bunch of good eggs...if everything works the way it is supposed to). The Dr. then picks the best looking 2 or 3 zygotes and reintroduces them to mom where *hopefully* they stick and grown into a healthy pregnancy. But what happens to alllllll those other zygotes? It is not uncommon for a woman to end up with 8-12 healthy zygotes. Most of them are frozen (which is how couples can later do FETs). But what if mom and dad are done having kids? They lucked out, got pregnant with triples, and said "thanks, but we're done."

Typically, those zygotes are destroyed (think medical waste) because they are just a combination of cells, similar to removing a cyst or appendix. However, under personhood laws, those zygotes, frozen in a peti dish in some lab, are people. They have all the legal rights of a baby. If a careless lab tech were to drop a petri dish full of zygotes, he or she has committed murder. It would legally be the same as opening fire on a crowded mall and murdered 8-12 people.

Think this is a joke? You would be wrong.

A very real consequence of personhood is that it will likely prevent couples from being able to do IVF because legally every time sperm and egg met, a person had been created, thus voiding almost all steps in the IVF process.

What about ectopic pregnancies? An ectopic pregnancy is one where the zygote attaches to the fallopian tube instead of the uterus. Many women seek fertility treatment later because they lost a fallopian tube to an ectopic pregnancy. In modern times, these pregnancies are aborted early in the hopes of saving both the mother's life and her future fertility, as a pregnancy outside of the womb could never be brought to term.

Under personhood, the zygote growing in the woman's fallopian tube is as much a person as she is, and even though it cannot survive and will likely take her fertility away from her, cannot be aborted.

By agreeing with hobby lobby that IUDs and the morning after pill cause abortions, the Supreme Court is setting a legal precedent that life begins at conception. This rhetoric in our legal system will have serious implication for infertile couples.

I strongly encourage you, if you're not already, to start paying attention to what is going on. At the very least, get some info about the Supreme Court ruling. I am a fan of this one, debunking incorrect beliefs about what the decision actually says.

Best of luck, infertiles.

A looooooooong, overdue update.

I’ve stopped and restarted this blog entry so many times I’ve given up trying to keep count.

If you’re playing the home game, then you know that my husband and I found ourselves facing a big question mark when coming face to face with IVF. Neither of us felt 100% confident about spending the money on a gamble, and we knew we wanted to explore our options before we made a commitment.

So, we attended an adoption information meeting hosted by the DFPS (CPS). It was relatively short, and talked about a lot of the perks of adoption (kiddos getting their college paid for, the state paying for almost all of your costs, including the adoption class, background checks and certifications, etc). The meeting only lasted an hour or so and was followed by a question and answer period. It was, most certainly, a DFPS adoption sales pitch.

We were interested, but we still weren’t sold. We filled out our forms, mailed them in, and were contacted by a representative. We (I) explained that we weren’t sure if we wanted to move forward with adoption, but that we definitely wanted more information.

The woman I spoke with was very understanding and said many couples start out feeling that way. She encouraged us to go through the PRIDE class. If, at the end of it, we wanted to get certified, we could move forward with it. And even then, certification did not mean that we had to take kiddos if we weren’t ready. Basically, it was billed as a very flexible program. We could complete the course work, get our certification, and then go from there.

So, we decided to go ahead and take the class and get certified. The next class didn’t start until the end of May, and went for four Saturdays from 9am-4pm.  After a year with infertility treatments, a month didn’t seem like much of a wait, and so we did.

At our first class, we found out that things were not exactly as we had been led to believe. The certification was not really a separate process from the class, and, at the end of our four week course, we were expected to have our home study and get certified.

We left the first class feeling overwhelmed at all we would have to do, but optimistic that we could get it done. Mike went out the next day and bought us the smoke detectors and outlet plugs we needed, and I started the process of tracking down a bed. You see, not only did our home have to pass the state’s code, like having a smoke detector in all bedrooms, having a fire escape plan posted in our home, storing ALL medicine (including OTC stuff like Tylenol and vitamins) in a locked cabinet, we also had to be 100% ready to have kids moved in. This meant beds made (including a crib because we wanted to be certified for an infant as well), towels and toothbrushes in the bathroom, toys and clothes in the rooms, everything.

It was scary to know that from the end of our first class, we had 3 weeks to transform our house from a place where a young married couple lived to a home for children ranging in age from 0-12. I felt some unease in it, but I knew that we had made a decision – we would finish the class and then go from there.

I just couldn't quiet the voice in the back of my head that wondered why we were only being given 3 weeks to get our home child ready if we would have the luxury to take our time once we were certified.

But, we kept moving forward, determined to get certified so we could have a chance to breathe.

It was during our second class that red flags really started waving. We had been told several times during our two classes (and while it seems silly to think that we learned a lot in only two classes, remember that at that point we were halfway through our certification classes…after only two weeks!) that we would only be certified for what they called level 1 cases. Our trainer explained that this meant we would only be getting kiddos that had been through mild trauma, and not the kind of stuff you read about in the paper.

Most of us took comfort in that, being wholly unprepared for the possibility of taking in kiddos that needed intense help (the kind we were not being trained to give).  However, there were clues that this would not exactly be the case. For example, their typical explanation of placement was something along the lines of “Johnny is in school. His teacher notices something is wrong and calls CPS. After doing a quick investigation, Johnny is sent to foster care and is placed that day in your house. Johnny was not allowed to go home from school, so he will arrive at your house with nothing more than he brought to school with him that day.”

So, pause button. How do we know what kind of trauma Johnny has been experiencing at home if he has only been picked up that day-- really, only a few hours before? How can the state ensure that they are not placing a violent or dangerous child in my home? And yes, I know that there are homes that are specifically certified to take on kiddos who are a danger to themselves or others, however, weren’t those kiddos most likely sent to a normal foster/adopt home first (a thought our trainer later, reluctantly, confirmed. “Oh, if you have problems, just give little Johnny’s caseworker a call and (s)he will have someone come pick little Johnny up and move him to a different foster home). Then we were told later, in another conversation/lesson, that often times kiddos that are dangerous to themselves/others have a hard time finding certified foster homes, so there is a good chance they will either have to stay in non-certified homes until an appropriate home can be found (obviously there was no comment on how long that could be) or, if we were just completely unable to help this poor child (yes, heavy on the guilt tripping) they would have to be sent to a resource treatment facility.

Any of this unnerving to any of you?

Then we started some minor role playing. As in, what would you do in this situation? Again, another time a red flag shot up for me. The scenario is that you’re in the kitchen and little Johnny is hanging out in the yard. You look through the kitchen window and see that your beloved dog snookums, who was running and playing with little Johnny a little while ago, is now tied to the back fence. Wondering if something happened, you head outside, only to find little Johnny has a pile of rocks and is hurling them at the tied up Snookums. What do you do? One woman in our class said that she would sit down and talk with little Johnny about how it isn’t nice to hurt poor little Snookums, and that she loves the puppy, so little Johnny should love him, too! Our trainer praised the woman who came up with that answer, saying that it was right out of the textbook.

Um. No?

I’m pretty sure that abusing a defenseless animal (and I’m not a big animal lover over here, but this freaks out even me) is not a minor problem. If little Johnny is in a bad mood and he kicks Snookums or shoves him off the couch, yeah I would be upset and have a conversation with him and likely ground him. However, little Johnny going out of his way to tie up Snookums and then abuse him is a major red flag, one DFPS didn’t seem at all concerned with.

So, that also had me a bit concerned about the types of kiddos who would be placed with us.

The final red flag came towards the end of day two.

We were talking about the state’s no physical discipline policy, which I’m kind of whatever about because it seems so obvious. Briefly, it says that you cannot use corporal punishment on your kiddos. I can understand the reasoning behind it. I don’t think it is right to spank a kid that came from an abusive household. It makes sense to me.

However, there was some fine print in that policy that I did take issue with. Namely, that physical punishment also included restraining. When pressed for details, our trainer explained that it meant, for example, if you told a child to go to their room or time out and they refused, you were not allowed to take them by the hand or arm and walk them to their room (this is called escorting). I didn’t really see that as being a problem or abusive in any way, but I continued to listen, a bit of unease growing in my mind.

She went on to explain that it also meant that you could not restrain the child in the traditional sense, either.

Now, already having all these concerns about the types of kiddos who are going to be in my home pinging around in my head, I asked for some specifics. What if the child is harming another of my kiddos  (like his/her sibling). Am I allowed to grab the child’s hands or hug his arms to prevent him/her from harming the other child?

No. Under no circumstances.

What if I foster an older child and he is physically stronger than I am and starts harming me. Am I allowed to restrain him or push him off of me?

No.

What if the child has autism (just for example. I have a niece with autism, and we were considering adopting kiddos with autism) and the child’s therapist recommends holding them as part of therapy. Is that type of holding (called therapeutic holding) allowed if under the order of a licensed child psychologist?

No.

Again, what if we are placed with a special needs child who is self harming, like banging his/her head against a wall or hitting him or herself? Am I allowed to keep the child from hurting him or herself?

No.

Not only is the answer no, but the children will be informed of this before they ever come to my home. The child will have a caseworker who makes monthly visits, and we will have a worker who will make visits every other month. Both of these workers will interview the children to make sure these types of behaviors are not happened, and if they are, the kids will be removed from our home and our license will be revoked.

Excuse me?

So I’m not allowed to prevent a child from hurting me, other kids in my home, or him or herself. I’m not allowed to hold the child as part of therapy, and I’m not allowed to take the child be the hand or wrist and walk them away from a volatile situation.

Is hugging allowed? (yes my husband asked that) The trainer laughed off the question and said of course. I could understand his concern.

All of this really bothered me. I left the second class feeling really confused, like the state was either setting us up for failure, or trying to rush us through the system (thus the two weeks until we were certified) before we noticed these red flags.

I started talking to everyone about my concerns. And every. Single. Time. The answer was the same –“there’s something about that that doesn’t sit quite right with me.”

Finally, I talked to my mom and she told me a tale that pretty much confirmed a lot of the things I was worried about.

Her best friend growing up was unable to have kiddos. She and her husband adopted a son, and even though he had a lot of problems (I believe he suffered from Fetal Alcohol Syndrome) when he graduated high school, they decided they were ready to adopt again.

So, they went through PRIDE again and got certified to foster/adopt. They, like us, said they wanted a little time after their certification went through to get their house (and themselves I believe) ready to accept kiddos. However, the week their license cleared, DFPS called and asked them to take in a sibling group – of 6.

My mom’s friend was reluctant, but she agreed. Two weeks later they called back and asked her to take 2 more, even though she could legally only have 6 in her home. Well, about that time the 6 kids were moved anyway, and the two new kiddos moved in. These were also siblings, a boy and a girl.

Every time the boy would disagree with something my mom’s friend or her husband said, he would call 911 and report that they were “physically restraining him” and “beating him.” Now, this was a couple who had been through the system before. They had already raised one son from foster care. They knew the rules. And still they had to spend months fighting to keep their license because of a kid who lied because he wanted to go back home.

I talked to my husband about everything that was bothering me, and he agreed. Something just wasn't right. We felt like we were being forced into something that should have been our decision. We felt like we got into this for more information, and instead we were being rushed through. We felt like we were being told one thing, but being prepared to deal with another.

So, we decided that we were not going to finish the PRIDE course or get certified – a decision that we did not make lightly. Here we are 2 weeks later and, while we feel like we made the right decision for us, we still feel unhappy about in a lot of ways.

We decided that, in the future, if we go through it again, we’re going to take the 8 week course and really try to digest what they’re saying, ask a ton of questions, and try to root out where our problems come from and if they’re resolvable. We hope that, if we want to move forward with foster/adoption in the future, taking the class slower and having time to really prepare ourselves, as opposed to going into it simply looking for more info, will help us to get the most out of the program.

And that’s still not guaranteeing that we won’t have the same hesitations that we’re having now.

So, after all of that, where do we stand?

On rather shaky ground, it seems.

My sweet husband and I decided we would take the summer off from everything baby related – adoption, IVF, infertility, everything!

It just so happened that I needed to talk to my doctor about something, so I called the office. When the nurse called me back, we talked about my question and exchanged pleasantries. Towards the end of the conversation she dropped a bombshell on me.

The office is closing.

As in permanently.

As in effective at the end of summer.

Meaning that if we decide to resume infertility care after the summer, we will have to do it somewhere else. Which means new doctors and nurses and procedures and re-doing many of our tests. It means starting over.

I found out a few weeks ago, and I’m still shell shocked.

So, I’m really not sure where we go from here. I guess we shoulder on, find a new doctor, and try again. There’s just something about knowing we have to start over that makes me feel weary (even if it makes me feel slightly hopeful that a new doctor might find something my first doctor overlooked, or have a new therapy that my doctor didn't know).

I know we have a couple months, but in the fall it looks like we’re back at square one.

As always, thanks for the gift, infertility.

To someday...

I found this post at Brooke Hargett's Blog

I thought, with mother's day coming up this weekend, it was a nice tribute to someday.

“Someday” A Mother’s Day Tribute on Infertility

May 12, 2013 / brookehargett 

I stared at the numbers in the elevator, punched the second floor button, and blinked.

I was not a mother.  Again.

My reflection came into view, as the doors slid towards each other. Two broken halves of the same person.

“Hold the elevator,” a male voice said.

My hand shot out, instinct more than anything, sending the elevator doors open.

“Hey,” Matt said as he shuffled in beside me.  My co-worker.  ”Thanks.”

I nodded.

He positioned the bag slung over his shoulder on the railing, and leaned against the far wall, tipping his head up.  A sigh seeped out of him. ”Long night.”

Why does politeness in social situations trump everything else?  ”Why?” I asked, twisting the handle on my purse.

“I just found out my sister is pregnant.”

I blinked, as the sting shot to my eyes.  ”Congratulations,” I said, dropping my gaze.

“No,” he said, “She’s sixteen, so….”  He let the sentence hang between us, filling up the elevator.

“Oh.”  My lips pinched into a tight line, barricading my emotions.  I felt lightheaded, the injustice of it settling on me in a way that made my shoulders clench.

Five years.  Five years of waiting, hoping, testing, procedures, and then a sixteen year old who doesn’t even want a baby gets pregnant.  I wanted an explanation.  I wanted a promise.  I could keep counting days and plastering on a smile, and I could even shove that strangling ache into a dark corner somewhere in my heart, if I could just have the promise of someday.

I had amazing step-daughters.  I had an awesome marriage, to a man I adored.  I could be ok.  But I would never be complete.

Sometimes people tried to say things to make me feel better.  ”Your day will come.”  ”I envy you.  You have all this time to yourself.”   “Everything happens for a reason.”  They only made me feel worse.

Once my grandmother told me I couldn’t get pregnant because of the choices I’d made. I don’t even know how to talk about how that one affected me.

That night I called my girlfriend to talk.  I couldn’t talk about it often.  What was the point?  Focusing on it only put it under a magnifying glass, shattering me.  I’m so glad I called though, because this conversation was pivotal.

My girlfriend had been through a similar situation, and I knew she would know, even if I couldn’t get the words out, she would know.  Sometimes there are people in life that are so in tune with you that you don’t even have to say anything.  She’s like that.  After ten years of wanting a child, she has an incredible son and is a wonderful mother.  She would get it.

That night she said the only thing that anyone ever said to me, before or since, that made me feel any better.  I want to share it with you now, on mother’s day, because there were a lot of mother’s days that were tough for me.

She told me that someday,  I would became a mother, however that happened, through procedures, through adoption, through any number of ways, I could be a mom.  And once I had my son or daughter in my arms, all the time, all those years, all those heartbreaking moments, wouldn’t be able to touch me anymore.  I would remember them, that they happened, and be able to talk about them, but it would be like remembering a dream.  The sharpness of the hurt wouldn’t be there anymore.  That I had a someday, and all my hurt would be replaced with a love like I’d never known, a healing love, that patches up all the scars butchering your heart right now.

And you know what?  She was right.  It took me seven years.  Seven years is a long time.  Now I have an amazing son, and I am honored beyond words to be his mother.  My girlfriend who gave me that advice is my son’s Godmother, and I am so thankful to her for her words of wisdom all those years ago.  She helped me more than she’ll ever know.

I looked at my son today, and thought of you- all the women who are where I was years ago.  Wanting.  Needing.

I want to tell you that you have a someday.  In one way or another.   A day when it won’t hurt anymore.  So happy future mother’s day to you.  Revel in your someday.

A post to share and an update on adopting considerations

I read an article today - Tales of an Infertility Survivor. It was a beautifully written piece about a woman who (as the title says) views herself as a survivor of infertility, even though she was unable to get pregnant through ART (assisted reproductive technology) or at all for that matter.

Something she said really hit home for me.
"There are times I look back and see tons of causalities on my infertile battle field. Money gone. Relationships strained. Giant chunks of my life spent in waiting rooms of fertility clinics all over New York City. But, I guess the biggest loss of all was my marriage. Five years into my fertility struggle and six and a half into my marriage, that relationship crumbled. I used to think that my infertility caused my marriage to fail, but in retrospect it seems more that it magnified other problems that already existed and some relationships just don’t survive a perfect storm like that."

And once again I was struck by how lucky I really am.

I know what you're thinking. How can a woman who has always wanted kids feel lucky in her infertility? I don't think I'm lucky to be infertile. In fact, it is the kind of thing I always expected for my life. I tend to have the worst luck in things. So, it came as not a big surprise that life handed me another lemon with infertility.

That's not why I consider myself lucky. I know what a destructive force infertility can be. I've seen it's power, and I often felt like I was being swallowed alive - unable to breathe, think, live. And yet, through all of it, I had an amazing man by my side. I'm not saying that every day we were together was bliss, far from it on some days, but I do feel that we've been going through infertility together. Never once have I felt like I had to travel this maze of tests and doctors and diagnoses and disappointment alone. I always knew that he was there with me, and it brought us so much closer.

I trust that we can fight major battles side by side. That's something I didn't know before facing the big I, and it's something I don't think most young married couples know they can do together.

And while I would never wish infertility on anyway (including myself, obviously), part of me is glad for the knowledge that my marriage has been forged in fire and proved itself made of strong metal.


That being said...

We're still in the throes of adoption consideration. In Texas, you are required to take a class, the PRIDE class, before being considered for foster/adoption from CPS. We're still not 100% certain we're going to move forward with adoption, but after our meeting with DFPS, we're strongly considering it.

So, we're going to go ahead and get our certification (which, on top of the PRIDE class, include 2 background checks, fingerprinting, piles and piles of paperwork, a home visit, a home study and an in depth investigation into our personal and family life) in case we decide to move forward.

It is quite a novel feeling to think that we could hear the pitter patter of little feet (or the clomping of teenage feet) in our home by the end of summer.

Another positive is that adopting through DFPS is completely free, unlike the $30,000+ it can cost to adopt an infant. Basically, the only thing you have to pay for is your court and filing fees, which the state reimburses you. So, that has definitely been a big consideration, remembering that, at this point, our options are free adoption from CPS, $10,000 for a gamble on IVF or $30,000+ on an infant adoption gamble.

So, there is a lot to think about right now. It is yet another battle my husband and I have found ourselves facing as we try to create a unified front to make it through the adoption requirements.

I guess we'll see what happens.

Just when you think you're okay... And other fun infertility musings

Hello my poor, neglected blog.

Things have been...tense lately. Let me fill you in.

If you've been following along at home, then you know that, at last count, my husband and I were trying to decide whether or not to go one more round or just quit while we were behind and start saving up for IVF. We decided we wanted to go ahead and start saving.

So, things have been quiet on the doctor front - in that there have been no doctor visits and no invasive scans to put up with. No missing work, no excuses to my boss. No more nosy co-workers across the hall wanting to know why I've been taking so much time off.

That part has been kind of nice.

What hasn't been nice is the constant nagging in the back of my head. The one that can't believe I'm even considering paying $10,000 on a gamble. The one that keeps thinking about how much they would shorten my mortgage. The one that is in denial that IVF is really our last hope of getting pregnant.

A week or two ago, that nagging voice finally got loud enough that I opened a dialogue with my husband about it. It and all the other fears I have about IVF. And he told me he'd been having a lot of the same concerns.

It didn't really surprise me. I don't think he was every really excited about IVF, but he wants to be a dad more than anything so he was willing to go along with it.

The more we talked, the more we realized that we both felt the same - we want children. For us, having children feels more important than having biological children.

So, we're going to an adopting information meeting with the department of family and protective services (DFPS). It's no commitment, so we're just going to get some info.

We want to make sure that, regardless of what we decide going forward, that we have as much information about our options as we can.

And strangely, once we started talking about adoption, I felt a sense of calm start to come over me. And it's stuck around. I haven't looked to closely at that feeling yet (I want to wait until after we go to the meeting next week) but I think I'm going to find that I'm a lot more excited about adopting than I was about trying IVF.

Long before we ever started trying to have kids, long before infertility was even a word in our family vocabulary, my husband and I considered adopting anyway. We talked about maybe having one or two biologically and then adopting another one or two. It's something I had forgotten. And here we are considering adoption as our only method of having children, and I'm reminded of how good an idea that sounded just a few short years ago.

And yet, even though I feel better, feel more calm, infertility raises its ugly head at unexpected times. My husband and I went to see Noah this weekend (it was kind of meh). Noah's son's wife is infertile due to a wound to the womb. It wasn't really a big deal until she broke down to Noah -- his son should have a wife who isn't damaged, who can give him children, who can give him the kind of life he deserves.

Yeah.

One of those times I'm glad movie theaters are dark. It was so one point that it was hard to concentrate for a little while as I got swept up in some of the emotions I've been working to box back up. And still, my hand holder was there. When she started talking, he looked over at me, saw I was crying and grabbed my hand. He held it tight until the tears passed, then whispered that he loved me.I am truly blessed to have such a man in my life.

Well, I say that...

Last night we went out to dinner with his mom. I genuinely like my mother in law. She is a very nice lady, and I enjoy spending time with her.

My sweet husband told her about our adoption meeting next week. I guess I should have anticipated her response.

"Well, you know, a lot of people who adopt get kids and then they finally relax enough and they get pregnant on their own. So, you know, keep that in mind."

Can you see my eyes rolling right now?

Yes, because the reason I can't get pregnant, my medical condition, my resistance to medication (all of which we had just spent 15 minutes talking about) is because I can't RELAX!

I know she didn't mean to be inconsiderate or hurtful, which is why I didn't say anything to her. But it still sucks that she can't see the implications of what she was saying.

So. As always. Infertility sucks.

Hopefully we'll get some good/interesting news at this adoption meeting, and it will help steer us in the right direction for us.

Infertility, won't you be my valentine?

Another doctor’s appointment today…or should I say last doctor’s appointment today.

Let me back up.

Last week I wasn’t doing so well. I didn’t handle the news that this was a failed cycle with much grace, although I would really love to blame that on the daily 200mg of clomid. But I guess it doesn’t really matter too much why.

So, I took the week, got my emotional crap together and had another appointment on Monday. Basically no change, except that my doc actually counted all my follicles on the different planes of my ovaries. I was apparently wrong in my previous post when I said we had 10-15 follicles respond. We actually counted 16…on just the right ovary. So, really I had closer to 25-30 follicles respond, and still no dominant follicle.

Fast forward to today. One more appointment. No change. I still had about 30 follicles, none bigger than 5mm even though this was CD19. So, my doc told me, because I had already paid for it, I could come in for another scan sometime next week to see if I had a follicle start to mature. However, he said that he didn’t think there was a chance of it happening.

We talked a little bit about moving forward and what we were going to do, and I shared with him that my husband and I were thinking about going on birth control pills while we saved up for our IVF. He did not like that idea. He help trying to tell me that there is a chance, an impossibly small chance, that my husband and I could get pregnant on our own because our only problem is that I don’t ovulate regularly. However, I reminded him that the reason I even ended up in his office was because I had gone seven months bleeding three out of every four weeks. I explained that I did not want to go through that again, and I was willing to waive that slim chance of pregnancy in favor of regulating my menstrual cycles.

He then told me that, if I was interested, there was one more medicine that he would be willing to try with me called Letrozole. I have done very minimal research on Letrozole on my own, and didn’t really know much about it. As I have said before, one of the things I like best about my doctor is that he is a straight shooter. He doesn’t lie to me or mislead me, and he gives me the information so I can make my own decisions. So, I really appreciated it when he told me that Letrozole is not FDA approved for treatment of infertility. It is actually a medicine used in patients with breast cancer because it reduces the amount of estrogen and forces the body to produce more FHS (thus causing ovulation). Sounds okay to me so far. I didn’t like that it wasn’t FDA approved, but I was willing to listen. Until he told me that the women who used it for breast cancer and got pregnant had a much higher rate of birth defects. Then I found out that animal studies show the same thing. There really haven’t been any studies done that look at birth defects in women who only use it for fertility, but he informed me that his office does use it for women who are clomiphene resistant and they’ve never had any birth defects. He said this is likely because you take it for a short time, like clomid, and by the time you actually get pregnant the medicine is out of your system.

However, I just don’t know if I feel comfortable using a medicine to try and get pregnant that causes birth defects. From what I’ve read, Letrozole is as effective as clomid at inducing ovulation, however there have been no studies looking at whether or not it increases actual pregnancy or live births (not even discussing whether or not those are healthy births).

So, my husband and I are going to have a nice long talk about whether or not it is something we want to do.

If it is, we will be going back next cycle to try one last medicated round.

If not, I’m going to go on BCP and we’ll take our 2ish years to save up the money to try IVF.

Stay tuned, because the road might be getting a little bumpy up ahead.

Forget love...infertility is a battlefield

Today was a bad day.

Today was one of those days where I let my grief and my pain overwhelm me.

Today was one of those days where I came home from work and collapsed at the foot of my bed, dropped my head to my arms and just let go.

Today I cried (and I mean ugly cried), I screamed, I wallowed.

Today I let despair take over, and I lost myself in it.

For me, infertility is a daily battle. Every single day the pain of what I’m going through, and what I’m being denied, rears up. And every day I have to fight hard to keep it from winning.

Today I lost that battle.

After a long talk last night, my husband and I decided that if this cycle is unsuccessful, we’re going to take a long break. Our doctor has said the next step he’d be willing to take with us is IVF, a procedure we simply can’t afford. At least, we can’t afford it right now. We’re thinking that if this cycle is unsuccessful we might take a break from all the treatments and start saving the money we would have spent. Hopefully, it means in 2 years we might be able to afford one round of IVF. And then we’ll be done. 2 more years of saving, waiting and biding our time - one final infertility treatment. If it is unsuccessful, we’ll walk away from treatment all together and find our peace in another path to parenthood.

We’re not set on this plan yet, but it’s what we’re talking about right now.

Honestly, even after our first failed cycle, I don’t think I realized how much I was depending on this to work, and how much pain was waiting for me if it didn’t.

Today I just don’t have the energy to fight.

Cycle Day 10

And yet another in the endless string of doctor’s appointments.

Cycle day 10. Clomid on days 4-8. Had 10-15 follicles respond, no dominant follicle, no follicle over .25cm.

My doctor told me that due to my unpredictable response to the clomid, he won’t be doing another clomid cycle with me. In fact, he isn’t interested in doing any more drug cycles because he can’t control the outcome.

So, appointment Monday to see if I have any dominant follicle growth. If not, he told me the only other treatment he’d be willing to do with us is IVF.

Not a very good day. To say the least I guess.

Another Manic Monday

Okay. So cycle one was a bust. I called my doc’s office Monday morning and let them know I wouldn’t be coming in Tuesday for my lab appointment because Aunt Flo had already arrived and I knew there was no bean. So, they scheduled me for Thursday to come in and start cycle 2. Which was fine…except that Monday at 1:30, the office called and said they had a cancellation and they would really like to get me in that day. I said sure, what time? 2:30…

So, after flying back to the mainland and making it to the office at 2:34 (oops) I got to meet with my doc, who seemed very sincere in his condolences over my failed cycle (he ended my appointment by saying that it was nice to see me again, even though he’d rather he didn’t have to see me because I was off pregnant…but barring that it was nice to see me again, lol).

We did an ultrasound and had a chat.  He said he saw some good things, like no cysts/follicles left behind. He even said starting my period was a good thing because it meant I had ovulated and had responded to both the clomid and the hCG. However, as I said before, he was a little disappointed that I only had 1 follicle mature, even after being on 150mg of clomid. So, what he wanted to do was move me up to 200mg and see if I could get a response and have multiple follicles mature (last cycle he said he was hoping for 2 or 3). Although, he said there was a possibility that he would stair step me up to 250mg if he needed to.

Joy.

As miserable as I was taking the 150mg, I can’t imagine what kind of wonderful is in store for me at 200mg. However, I am most certainly not afraid to try. So, today is Wednesday (cd4) and I get to start my massive dose of clomid tonight. Then, ultrasound on Tuesday to see how things are progressing.

I’m a little nervous that I will have too much of a response and that I’ll have too many follicles mature for it to be safe to try this cycle. But I guess that’s a risk I have to take? This whole medicine tweaking thing kind of blows.

I’m not as excited about this cycle as I was about last cycle. I guess that is to be expected, though. I told my husband that this cycle I want him to back off of all the “just stay positive” crap. It’s not me. I’m cynical and I keep my expectations low to keep from getting hurt. It’s just my way. Staying positive didn’t really do anything last cycle except stress me out that I wasn’t being positive enough for everyone else. Frankly, I don’t particularly care if my husband and my mom think I need to keep a good attitude. Being positive doesn’t make an egg mature. It doesn’t help an egg get fertilized. It most certainly won’t help a fertilized egg stick in my uterus. All it does is set me up for disappointment when the cycle fails.

Maybe that’s the wrong attitude to have, but I don’t really care. I’m not a positive princess. I’m cynical sally.

For now I’m going to take one day at a time, focus on what I need to be doing, and let myself feel whatever it is I am feeling without judgment. If I feel hopeful, then I’m going to be hopeful. If I’m feeling defeated, I’m going to throw myself a pity party and camp out in my bedroom with a book.

Maybe I’m being a little too dramatic. Oh well. I’ll suck it up.

And I’ll probably be keeping my fingers crossed anyway. A friend, colleague and mentor of my once said I always seem to have a unique blend of sarcasm, cynicism and timid hope in my approach to life. I think it probably applies to my approach to fertility as well.

So I guess that’s all I’ve got to hold on to – sarcasm, cynicism, a tiny ribbon of hope. Maybe it will be enough to get me through.

I don’t know if anyone out there even reads this damn blog, but I have to ask (just in case). Anyone know of any success stories at 200mg of clomid with PCOS?

Two Week Wait Over

Aunt Flo arrived on Sunday.

One more week...

So I’ve reached the halfway point of the two week wait and I’m feeling miserable.

Not only do I have a cold, but I’m still getting the rolling nausea that I got after the hCG shot. At first I was only nauseous for the first day or two and had a break. But this weekend it came back full force. I spend Sunday night unable to decide if I should blow my nose or vomit (thankfully I never did throw up) and I got basically no sleep. Monday I woke up still nauseous, but, remembering that eating lunch helped the day of my hCG, I grabbed some cereal to munch on. I felt immediately better, although whenever I had an empty stomach throughout the day the nausea came back. Today (Tuesday) I woke up feeling better, but around lunch time the nausea came back.

Additional side effects of the shot have been sore boobies (especially in the nipple region). I would also say tiredness, but that could just be because I haven’t been sleeping well. Lol. Also, my left ovary was very sore/tender all weekend, and is just now starting to feel better.

One more week. Can’t wait to find out. J

All hail the two week wait

So my last post was on Monday. I said that I’d had some cramping starting the night before and a little nausea after taking the hCG shot and I was hoping that would be the end of it.

Ha.

I should have known nothing ever goes easy for me. Today is Wednesday and I have been nauseous pretty much constantly since then (which let me tell you, makes baby dancing feel like I’m lost at sea with 30 foot waves). My ovaries have been crampy and sore, and any quick movement causes them pain (so, double sucky for the baby dancing…not to mention when we were and I had a big O it was excruciating…worst orgasm of my life). Apparently it is common to “feel like someone kicked you in the ovaries,” as I read on so many blogs and forums, after clomid and especially with the hCG shot.

Joy to me.

Additionally, I had some major bloating (like my pants barely fit kind of bloating) and a general feeling of crap.

However, I woke up this morning with no pain. No ovary pain, no bloating, no crap feeling. I am still a tiny bit nauseous, I imagine from the hCG in my system, but nothing I can’t live with. So, I’m assuming that all of that means my doctor was right, and sometime last night my big beautiful follicle released.

And now we enter that hell period known as the two week wait. For those of you unfamiliar with the term (although I can’t imagine why you’d be neck deep in an infertility blog without knowing what the two week wait is) it is the two week period after you ovulate before you find out if you’re preggers. There’s about shit that can be done during that time because your egg has released and all the baby dancing in the world isn’t going to help.

So, now I’m stuck in limbo. And today is only day 1. For, potentially, the first time ever, I’m 1DPO (day past ovulation). It’s also the first time ever that my husband has felt the very real stress of trying to conceive. Friday night I had a break down (and he was a wonderful shoulder) and finally explained to him how awful the last 3 years has been. How broken I felt, how every month we didn’t get pregnant made me feel more distant and hurt, and how I had started resenting him, myself and our sex life as just a big clusterfuck of infertility. He listened and was sympathetic, but I don’t really think he understood.

This week, though, that changed. My husband has always wanted to be a father, and so now that we are going through fertility treatments, he is finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. However, all of the treatment so far has been for me, as our only infertility factor (that we know of) has been my PCOS. Other than coming to all of my appointments and holding my hand during the worst of it (like my HSG), his biggest involvement was his semen analysis.

But this week things changed. I pumped myself full of drugs, we dropped another $80 on a shot, and I endured yet another vaginal ultrasound which revealed one mature follicle. I had done largely everything I could to get us ready. Now, in his eyes, it was on his shoulders to impregnate me (I tried to explain to him that it wasn’t on his shoulders, but he got all boy-ish and brushed me off). He got very stressed out, to the point that he couldn’t even eat without feeling like he was going to throw up. Then, after dinner he took a shower (I think he was trying to work himself up—he was so worried he would mess everything up). When he got out, I laid down in bed with him and we just listened to music and made fun of R Kelly music videos (a midget? Wtf R Kelly?). I think he almost murdered me, haha. He finally told me that he’d been so stressed all day because the doctor told us we HAD to baby dance exactly 34-36 hours after I took the shot, and he was so worried that something would happen and we wouldn’t make it. So, because he was all in his own head, he couldn’t even think about getting into the mood. I told him that realistically, ovulation occurs 34-40 hours after the shot and that it is best to try and catch it early, but that if we don’t make it exactly in that 2 hour window, it will be okay.

It was like I could see the weight come off of his chest. He held me and we laughed and he calmed down significantly (and, amazingly, once he calmed down we were able to still get our baby dance in during the 34-36 hour period, much to his delight). I think it was the first time that he’s ever felt the stress I’ve been under for the last 3 years. And after we baby danced I explained it again to him, and this time I could see the empathy in his eyes, and I think a little bit of wonder, too. I think that, going forward, he might cut me a little more slack when I get all wound up about this baby making stuff.

It’s been a miserable 48 hours. But, now it’s behind us. Hopefully we’ll get pregnant this round (I hope these aren’t words that I will look back on years from now with amusement at their naivety) and we won’t have to go through this again anytime soon. And, even if we do, at least the two week wait exists as a buffer so we have time to gather ourselves before we go through it again.

Good news? Great news!

Aaaaaand another appointment this morning. My little 17mm follicle, the one I was so worried wouldn’t grow to 20mm by Monday, blossomed to a whopping 26mm this morning! My left ovary is still a mess of underdeveloped follicles, but I have that one, and it looks beautiful.

So, my doctor wrote me a prescription for an HCG shot this morning and told me I needed to take it today then do the baby dancing exactly 34-36 hours after. Well, I guess none of the pharmacies in our area keep it in stock, so I got to take an hour long trip to go pick it up (which kind of sucked). And the damn thing was $200. Luckily, the pharmacy took pity on the fact that insurance wouldn’t cover it, and they let me use an in house coupon for 60% off, so I ended up only paying $80 for it (which is still freaking expensive). I had to do my own injection, but the needle is very small, so I barely even felt it go in.

Oh! Another positive, I don’t have to have any more doctor’s appointments for two whole weeks! Lol. AND, my next appointment is just a lab appointment to see whether or not I’m pregnant. So, I’m done with doctors, ultrasounds and pills for this cycle. And now that my injection is done, all that’s left to do is baby dance and wait.

Cue the music! J

Last night I started having some cramping around my ovaries. Definitely not period cramps, but it is noticeable and a little annoying. I imagine they’ll get worse over the next day or two. *sigh* I haven’t looked into side effects for the HCG shot, but I know that I started feeling nauseous about an hour after taking it. I had some lunch and my tummy settled, so I’m hoping that’s the end of it.

I guess I’ll know soon enough

Keep your fingers crossed for me and send lots and lots of baby dust my way.

Today was a good day!

Finally some good news!

Had another appointment this morning (what does that make this, like the 500^th this cycle, lol). I have ONE (yes one) follicle that has grown! It is at 17mm, so close to the magic number 20. It is the same one on my right ovary that was at 11-12mm on Monday, so it has grown a full 5-6mm in the last 4 days! It is slow growth, and not the 2mm a day my Dr. was hoping for, but it is still growing.

I’m so excited! Even though my Dr. said that he would like to see me have 2-3 follicles that size, one is better than none, and I’m excited that at least now we have a chance. It is such small progress, but I couldn’t be happier after all of the bad news we’ve had over the last 2 weeks.

My left ovary still has about 10 tiny follicles on it, and none of them have developed. Womp womp.

So, basically I have a follow up on Monday. IF everything looks good AND my little 17mm follicle has grown another 3mm over the weekend and hit the magic number, I’m going to get my HCG booster shot! However, my doc said that because I am so far along in my cycle (you know, because of the whole stair step clomid thing) there is a chance I could ovulate prematurely this weekend. SO! We have been prescribed baby dances on Friday and Sunday…just in case. J I’m all smiles today.

It’s so nice to finally have good news instead of bad.

Another (dis)appointment

Today I had my follow up appointment. I can’t really say it went badly, but it also didn’t go well, either.

On the plus side:                                                  

I had one follicle on my right ovary that had grown to over 1cm (I think either 1.1 or 1.2cm) which means I responded to the clomid some.

On the negative side:

My left ovary had about 10 follicles respond. Even though they are all small, my doctor said it means we will not be stair-stepping up to 200mg of clomid like he was planning.

Which means that I’m done taking medicine this cycle. I’m not really sure if that should go in the plus column or not. It’s more a fact than anything.

It also means he doesn’t think I’m going to be a good candidate for continuing clomid, although he let me know, again, that he thought I would be a good candidate for IVF *sigh*

So, I have another appointment on Friday to see if my 11/12mm follicle has grown large enough to possibly work. If not, we’ll talk treatment options again. I’m not very hopefully that my tiny little follicle, which only grew 6ish mm in the 7 days I was on 150mg of clomid, will grow another 8ish mm in the next 4 days. Trying to do that whole “staying positive” thing, but all in all it’s not really helping. I’m feeling really bummed out and discouraged.

To follow up on my increased clomid experience. Blegh. The 150mg of clomid really affected me. I was up in the middle of the night with nausea, my breasts were EXTREMELY tender (so much so that even the pressure of laying on my side hurt them). One night I woke up in the middle of the night very dizzy, like the room was spinning. So, all of that and still no real reaction. *sigh*

I’ll report back in after my Friday (January 10) appointment. I’m not hopeful it will go well.

(this is just for my later reference, ignore the link) http://www.nichd.nih.gov/health/topics/PCOS/conditioninfo/Pages/infertility.aspx

Starting Clomid…again…

So, my New Year’s Eve appointment didn’t go very well.

I had my u/s and my doctor said that my ovaries were not responding to the clomid the way he would like. Basically, I had some follicles that responded, but they were only .5 cm in size, when they needed to be 2 cm.  Then he mentioned that after 5 days on clomid I should have shown more progress.

Hold the phone.

Five days?

The prescription I got (that he wrote) was only for four days. He said it wasn’t likely that not getting the 1 extra day of clomid had any real effect on my follicle size, but he went off to do some research.

When he came back he informed me that we are going to try something called the stair-step protocol for clomid. I don’t think he is very familiar with it, but I appreciate that he is trying to make up for screwing up my prescription (and potentially wasting the $500 that we spent on this cycle). Basically the protocol is as follows: start clomid at 50mg on cycle day 4 or 5. Take for 5 days and have u/s. If there is not a good response, immediately start taking 100mg for 5 days. Have u/s. If there is still not a good response, immediately start taking 150mg for 5 days. Because he started me out on 100mg and I had minimal response, we essentially stated on the 2^nd step so he started me on 150mg per day for the next 5 days. Right now I’m on day 3.

I have to say with the higher dose I’ve noticed more side effects. I’m nauseous a lot and my boobs have been very tender. I take it at night, and I’ve woken up both nights with nausea. So that really blows.

I have a follow up appointment on Monday for another u/s to see if I responded better to the higher dose. He told me that 150mg is the highest dose because after that there is no difference in response rate. Basically, if I don’t respond to the 150mg of clomid, I’m not going to respond to clomid at all.

Which is another thing he told me. Because we started out at the 100mg, he expected to see more of a reaction out of my ovaries, so he thinks there is a good chance I am clomiphene resistant. He then told me that his office’s protocol for clomiphene resistant patients is IVF. That’s it. No intermediary steps, no other treatments. If I go in Monday with follicles that still haven’t responded, this will be my last round on clomid. On the plus side, it means we haven’t spent 3 or 4 cycles (or $1500-2000) on a treatment that didn’t work. On the down side, husband and I decided before we ever got into this business that we were not interested in IVF.

So, if we find out on Monday that I’m clomiphene resistant, we’re basically done trying to conceive.

I have a hard time even writing that sentence. I guess I honestly thought that we’d come in, do a couple of rounds of clomid (because not ovulating was my only problem) and get pregnant. It never really occurred to be that we’d go through fertility treatments and not come out the other side with a pregnancy. I guess it is needless to say I’m not doing very well emotionally right now. At husband’s urging, I’m trying really hard to stay positive. There is still a chance that I will respond to the higher dose of clomid, and if that’s the case we need to be ready. At the same time, I feel like what little hope I had has been ripped away from me. *sigh*

I’ve done some research online about clomiphene resistance, and there are several studies that suggest there are other medications that can be used with clomid for a better effect. However, based on my Tuesday appointment, my doctor doesn’t seem really interested in trying them. So after this cycle we may go get a second opinion somewhere else. Either way, Monday will be a game changer for us.

Keep your fingers crossed for me that Monday goes well.