Nope

Fuck. Shit. Merde. Putain. Tears.

Not Pregnant (I think)

So things are not looking good. I have had a bit of spotting, and a pregnancy test done yesterday was negative. I have been having mega PMS. It isn't 100% confirmed (I did do my test a little early), I will know for sure tomorrow, but it is most probably a no. This "difficult" period reveals to myself just how fucked up I am. The mental tornadoes of dialog that go through my head are really insane.

I could not wait to do the test. A normal person would have waited for the blood test which was originally scheduled for Thursday, or would have done a home test the day before. Not I. I had to do it on Monday because I was going insane.

I am sad, and the grief is weird. I didn't cry until I passed by an American Apparel store yesterday and this was the link: I had bought a turtle neck there about a week before Anise was born, and I wore it every day until she was born. I had a flashback to the days preceding her birth and I was overcome with sadness. It brought me to her birth, the experience of which is still in me physically, and in a sad way. I don't know why. But I do know why. When they pulled Anise out they yelled "it's a girl" and I cried with joy. Then they yelled "she's flat" and it was a good 20 seconds before I knew if she was ok. Those 20 seconds got stuck in my body. I knew for a very brief moment what it could have felt like to lose her. This failed IVF is bringing up feelings of the fragility of life, and in particular Anise's life. How lucky we were that we got pregnant right away last time, and how lucky were we that she was ok. Now it seems so difficult and complicated, and we are now realizing that never having another child is a possibility. I was confident going in, that although our embryos are fucked up, my body fertility wise, was still young enough.

I feel somehow this is my fault. But that feeling of guilt is not me actually feeling responsible, it is more than that, it is my ego talking because if it my fault that it didn't work, then I can also choose to make it work, and that gives me an illusion of control. If I can control it, then I can make it happen next time. If only there were something more I could do. What do you have to eat to produce healthier eggs?

I don't have theories about when life begins. But if it does begin at conception, then even though this embryo didn't stick, I still touched its life. And my feelings of loss could be an actual loss of this life that was inside of me, even if only for a short time. And that is why I am scared for Anise.

Isn't it amusing how I can come up with all sorts of elaborate theories of loss and sadness, instead of just feeling it is normal to be sad and disappointed that this IVF cycle didn't work? I want to put up a brave face. Failure is part of these procedures, and I knew that going in. Some people have to do this 10 times.

And you know what bothers me the most about this whole thing? My weight. that is what I have been obsessing about. After all that it is only my vanity that matters.

At least I mourned yesterday, and was able to close the chapter. Then I woke up this morning with renewed false hope that there is a real possibility. Maybe it was too early for the test, and sometimes people have some spotting...

I go for my blood test tomorrow.

4 More Days

Putting the question out of my mind. Distracting myself. Not thinking about it.
But there is still a voice:

- I am getting my period
- My hair is still falling out, so I am not pg
- I have a bit of spotting, so it is my period for sure
- I am having hot and cold flashes
- I don't want to have to go through this again
- I should have rested more
- I should have gone for acupuncture
- I should have gone for hypnosis
- I should have gone to a naturopath
- I am too tired
- I am not ready for a baby
- I didn't call my new baby to me
- I am still nursing
- I have not been eating healthy enough
- I have not been exercising enough
- It is my fault
- I have nothing to do with it, it is pure luck
- I am getting old
- I don't even know for sure yet

The difference is this time I am not listening to this voice, but I am. Anise distracts, but every time I bend down (100 000 times per day) or pick her up (300 time a day) I feel that I am pushing that embryo out.

Wasn't I an intelligent, rational person? What happened to me?

4 more days...

Disappointed

I am feeling low. Very bloated, sore and low. At least I am having an emotion...

I have lost friends. Both virtual and local. I have lost friends before due to this whole infertility thing. But I didn't expect that this time. As far as my virtual friends are concerned, it is my own fault, I went away and I disappeared. But as far as my local friend is concerned, I have no idea what happened. Nor do I feel like speculating. It doesn't matter, but it does.

This fertility process makes me feel alone. The physical pain is real, but I don't get sympathy for it. The emotional pain is worse, and now that I have a child I don't get any sympathy either. I am trying not to be afraid, not to fear the failure. But it is hard. Although it feels greedy, I want another child. Other people can have them, so why can't I? I read once that people with secondary infertility are just as depressed as people who have not had any children. For me, the desperation is not at all the same, but my idea of a family always consisted of more than one child, and I would be unhappy if I could not conceive a second, but not as unhappy if I couldn't have any. People (those I choose to tell) keep saying to me that if it doesn't work then it's ok because I have Anise. Yet no one questions women who have no trouble conceiving who choose to have more than one, as if it were so unusual!

No one seems to realize that it is actual surgery. Here I am again, focusing on external validation. Why do I care what other people think? I rarely ask for support from people, and when I need it, I never feel like I get it. Obviously it is something I am doing that makes me feel disappointed, but what?

9 Lives

So we have 9 embryos. Nine little potential beings. We find out the results of the PGD on Friday, they day of the transfer. We may get none, we may get a few. Last time we had 10 embryos, only 2 were normal. But I am not going to speculate on the odds because there is no point in either worrying or getting excited.

Yesterday was painful. It hurt much more than last time, and I had to get more medication than usual. I was nauseous and dizzy afterwards and I threw up when I got home. Then I felt better.

When I tell people I am in treatment they sometimes react by saying "that is so exciting". I try, but I can't see it that way. Surgery is rarely exciting, and having sex to make a baby seems much more exciting to me. It is really strange, because I am not sick, but I have to take drugs that make me feel bad, and then have surgery and medication, just for the remote possibility of becoming pregnant.

The whole thing is surreal, and I am numb. I guess that is a good way to handle it. I am too distracted with Anise to really think about something else. It also helps that I am not in a rush. With Anise it was different, we were desperate. I am no longer desperate, it would be nice if it worked and it would suck if I had to go through this again because physically it sucks. Plus resting is not really an option. But other than that if I got pregnant later that would be ok too.

It has been strange this feeling of being disconnected. I am aware that my posts are boring, and I can feel that I am boring to talk to these days. I have been rereading some of my old posts, back when I had things to say. Where did I get all that energy from? These days my brain is quieter; something I have been trying to achieve for a long time. We have a nice routine going, and I am busy all day playing, feeding, smiling, going to activities. I literally have no time to think and that is a good thing. But it makes me a bore. Or I worry that I am escaping myself, hiding form emotions I don't want to confront? Ok, that was way too much thinking for me, time to go to sleep...

The Collection

Tomorrow is collection day. Otherwise known as egg retrieval. Wish me luck...

Chance

Funny. When I read my blog it doesn't really sound like me. I sound rather unhappy about motherhood, I sound stressed out and frustrated. I am not really, at least not all the time. I use this blog to vent, maybe I should write more of the good things.

Anise turning one has had me reminiscing a lot about giving birth, which in turn reminds me of my struggle with "infertility". I hate that word. Fertility issues is better maybe. Just like my birth story, my conception story was just as unusual.

We started trying in January when we were still living in Paris, I was 28 years old and never had a late or missed period. I could feel when I ovulate, and I hadn't been on the pill for a long time. we tried so hard not to get pregnant that I just assumed we would conceive right away. Now thinking back, I think I was already devastated right from the very first month that it didn't work. We were moving to Montreal in September, everyone said it would work when we moved back home (back home for me, away from home for Husband). It didn't until December, which felt really long. I miscarried at 6 weeks. It wasn't so bad, miscarriage was so common, at least I could get pregnant. What was weird though was the thought that not only had I had life in me, even if only for a bit, I also had death take place in me.

I conceived again in April, miscarried at 6 weeks. Then I went to a fertility clinic and I was officially infertile! (Well not really, I hadn't had 3 miscarriages, and I hadn't been trying for 1 year, arbitrary labels set up by doctors to try to define something which has no logic or definition). It took a year to conceive again, with one failed IUI mixed in (which I subsequently learned that is no more effective than having sex if no male factor infertility is involved, but at least the clinic made some money, and doctors could feel they were "doing" something). I miscarried again at 6 weeks.

That's when we hit a low. It seemed there was nothing to be done. I was fertile, ovulating so we believed that there was no treatment available. But there was! IVF with PDG (pre-implantation genetic diagnosis). We went for it one year after the third miscarriage. The egg collection was uneventful, things seemed to be going well, we had 12 eggs, 11 conceived, 10 survived. However, on day 5 the test results were in: 8 out of 10 embryos has a genetic malformation, and each of them a different abnormality. they named some of the problems, one had downs, one turners etc. It was really weird to hear them say that. There was one embryo that was fine, and a second for which there was no result (that sometimes happens). It sounds bad, but if PGD were to be done on every IVF there would always be some embryos that were abnormal, what was unusual were the number of abnormalities for our age, and the fact that they all had different problems. It seemed they had only seen this a couple of times before, and there is no explanation. we both had genetic testing done and we were fine, it seems it is the combination of us that created this problem. In other words we could potentially have conceived naturally, it is all chance. It could have taken us 10 years or 1 month. The geneticist explained that we could do this again and have 10 healthy embryos, or none. It also explained the miscarriages, and the difficulty conceiving. I suspect more people have this problem but don't know it. When you hear stories of people going for treatment, nothing works, and then a couple of years later they conceive naturally, it could be the same problem.

How lucky we were! Lucky amongst the already unlucky, it worked! And on the first try.

How I tortured myself trying to find a mind/body connection. I went for acupuncture, took herbs, I went for therapy, posture techniques, homeopathy etc. I think my Chinese doctor was wrong, it wasn't my liver. It was purely a technical genetic issue.

Pee

Just as I was thinking about writing about sadness, Karen posted something about sadness. Weird. Eerie actually because that keeps happening.

I haven't had a chance to write and I have been craving it. Of course by now I have forgotten everything I wanted to say.

I had a scary dream, a dream about my own mortality. This is the first time in my life I have had a dream like that. I know my thoughts about my own death have changed since having a child, because now I really can't die, and not because of my own will to live, but for someone else. But that dream led to another dream about having more kids, or rather not being able to.

I (we rather) want more kids. At least one other one, maybe two. And I am suddenly starting to panic that it might not work. It has made me realize that I think about having another as if it were a sure thing and that is not a good way to think. I thought that I had learned my lesson about planning and waiting and wanting, but I guess not. I use the notion of "another kid" to help me get through the nostalgia I am already feeling for Anise. Instead of confronting the sadness of Anise never being tiny again, or never fitting into that cute dress ever again, I shrug it off and think "there will be another one". As if I will relive this whole experience again. Or as if to relive giving birth again, but this time it will go the way I wanted it to go.

I dream of having a family, and in my fantasy that includes more than one child. But I have a family, and I almost couldn't have one child. Recently I have been reliving the pain of the four years we struggled with infertility. I don't know what triggered it, and it should be behind me now, but I am afraid I will relive it again. The pain was insidious it was there all the time, and it turned to anger and frustration mixed in with hope and optimism which led to even more pain.

I had 3 miscarriages, all conceived on my own, after having taken a while to get pregnant. But for me the miscarriages weren't that bad because they brought hope. The worst was waiting every month. Every month that I didn't conceive was another miscarriage. Then the IVF. I hated it because by then I had lost my optimism and I was bitter. But then it worked! Out of that bitterness came immense joy. We were very lucky amongst the unlucky. What if it doesn't work next time?

Why am I thinking of that now? Where is this sadness coming from? Something isn't feeling right. Is it just plain old stress? I have a lot of concerts coming up and a lot of work to do, and now work is impossible because Anise doesn't nap any more and is at an age where she needs a lot of attention. I feel like I am questioning my whole career too much, I feel I am in limbo. I wish I could decide, either quit and do something else, or continue with my work but be happy with it.

My mom is now here so that I could do some work, but I am sneaking off to write this instead. My dog (who has fleas) just peed in the house when I was gone and Anise just crawled in it. Nice.

I guess I better go.