meds and a wedding with the in-laws

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 My meds arrived on Wednesday. I had them delivered to my office and I had to sit with them under my desk while I worked all day. All I really wanted to do was tear them open and research how to get everything started - instead of working. Carrying the boxes back to my car was a bit of a haul, but I made it home safely and then my husband and I opened everything up.

Follistim
Menopur
Lupron
Diazepam
Doxycycline
Novarel

I had some Crinone stashed from our previous IUI cycles - enough for this IVF cycle - so we didn't have to order that and it saved us around a grand on our meds. The final total was around $2,400.00. Remember about three weeks ago when I was excited to discover we had some drug coverage? Well our insurance covered everything except the Follistim and the Menopur - we even got those drugs at a discount through our pharmacy - so we're pretty grateful. We know there are some people out there who are paying for medications like this a monthly basis for other chronic health conditions and we pray that we don't have to use these drugs for long.

In other news we went to a wedding on my husband's side of the family yesterday. All you need to know is that I was stuck in a hotel over-night with my M-I-L and S-I-Ls. We decided not to tell them our room number, though I don't think they would have bothered us anyway. Everyone was civil and chatty. A few glasses of red wine helped out a lot for me. My S-I-Ls were up to the same old shenanigans - what can only be described a binge drinking. One had a bottle of vodka in her purse that she was talking pulls off all night - that was with all the free white wine she could drink from the open bar. They get on my nerves, so perhaps I spend too much time focusing on their negative habits. But you seriously shouldn't drink that much when you have a baby to take care of - especially when you have two DWIs under your belt.

I usually leave family events with my in-laws shocked at the amount of alcohol consumed and also shocked that the individuals drinking are allowed to get in their cars and drive home.

My mother and father-in-law paid for everyone's room but ours. I didn't say anything. I didn't even complain to my husband. We don't need their free hand-outs - they don't know that we're doing IVF - but this year alone we have paid out over 20 thousand dollars in adoption and infertility treatment fees. It's better that we're working for everything ourselves, but I felt the sting of that.

Anyway, the wedding is behind us. I was dreading it - and it went well. No big scene with my in-laws. Now the only thing that I can obsess and worry about is our upcoming IVF cycle. One more week until we start our Lupron injections. Four weeks until our transfer.

I've been off coffee and wine - except for a few occasions (last night being one of them) but now I'm really going to stay on the straight and narrow path of good food, rest, acupuncture and hopeful, positive thoughts.

Sorry for complaining so much about my in-laws everyone, but hopefully I can leave my negativity here and move on with happier thoughts.

Jillian

12 baby sweaters (and silence)

I've been knitting baby sweaters for a while now. Before I realized that I would be struggling with infertility it was always a joy for me to knit a baby sweater for my sister, cousin or friend that was pregnant. I've cast a tidy number off my knitting needles these past five years. I'm showing twelve here, but the real number is probably around twenty.

I've thought a lot about infertility - specifically about what makes is so painful. (Haven't we all, right?) I finally articulated something in my mind today that I wanted to write down - just to get it out there.

When I was knitting these baby sweaters for the women in my life I was taking part in the society of women in my world. I don't think you can recognize that code and conduct of a society or social group until you are for some reason on the outside of it - as I am now. When I was knitting these sweaters I was filled with hope and excitement - in part because I like to make something pretty and useful - but also because I was riding on the hope and confidence that someday it would be my turn - to receive a baby sweater for my child. Soon it would be my turn to have other women be hopeful and excited for me.

That hasn't happened.

Most of the important women in my life, my mom, mother-in-law, sister, sisters-in-law, cousins and female relatives and friends know that my husband and I are struggling with infertility. They are - so far - all fertile. I have knit something for every one of them that has had a child.

Everyone - except my sister and closest cousin - have remained silent about my struggle with infertility. Some people think that commenting on our ongoing quest to adopt is a way of broaching that topic - and even though an adopted child would be great - that's not acknowledging the pain I've experienced with our infertility.

This sucks for me.

I feel very cheated and let down that the society of women in my world is so brittle and weak that it's not robust enough to also contain my infertility.  How hard can if be to acknowledge my struggle on a private and sincere level? It should be something that we teach our daughters. This is important and painful to some people and it needs to be acknowledged. Who can teach them this?

Me? At this point all the women in my life pity me and think I'm a crazy B-I-T-C-H.

I don't expect acknowledgement from everyone - that would be too much. But from someone? Anyone?

Today I found out at work that one of my cousins and his wife had their third child. They named their son the same name as my husband. They excluded us from their email announcement about the birth of their son.

I was (and am) devastated. (Though that is fading fast.) I knit their first child a baby sweater by the way - the purple and blue striped one.

This whole infertility thing could make me into a really bitter person - if I let it. I'm really trying not to let it. I may stop knitting baby sweaters for other women though.

keeping it together

I made it through the family gathering. It was better (but also more terrible) than I thought it would be. On the surface everything went fine. There were two infants there - one a nephew and the other a cousin - both were born during the time that my husband and I have been trying. It was just bittersweet to look at them. 

If things would have worked out differently . . .

My sister-in-law was there (with the nephew). It was difficult to see her - though I tried not to show it. Two years ago we were gabbing all about how we wanted to start families and, well, hers started and ours didn't.

She never said one word to me about my infertility. She just ignored me.

I was (and still am) very hurt by her behavior. She did explain self-righteously after I asked that she felt it wasn't her place to comment on our infertility, that it should be personal and private. It was so hard last summer being a despairing wall-flower during her pregnancy. Always asking her how she was doing while she pointedly ignored our struggles.

I just don't think her behavior was right, but she feels justified and this entire situation with my husband's family has turned into a nightmare.

I guess I was raised to try to comfort and help people. If I knew someone was suffering I would try to help them. I feel bad about the times that I know I've said insensitive things to people in the past. I know I probably say a dozen insensitive things every day. But if I know someone is struggling I try to help them. And I don't like seeing other people slighting them.

Infertility is hard. I think most pregnant people would wish to see their infertile friends get pregnant, but you just can't order that sort of thing up.

There have been other women who have reached out to me and said kind things - just not my in-laws. Anyway, it's hard to go to family get-togethers and watch my sister-in-law bouncing her baby around. She has no idea how gutted she would feel that baby was just a hopeful dream that kept slipping out of her reach and someone else was smugly jiggling their baby in her face while giving her a pitying look.

I'm going to avoid family gatherings for a while. I went to this last one because I felt like I had something to prove, but when I came home there still was no baby and I don't think I proved anything to anyone.

family gatherings

Before infertility I enjoyed hanging around with my husband's family and friends. Looking back I have to admit that part of my enjoyment rested in a steady belief that soon we would be the smug parents of a growing family. Soon I would be a busy mother chasing her toddler around the room to the humorous comments of observing grandparents and aunties and uncles.

But our infertility has put a stop to that.

It's hard to keep going to family gatherings and say hello to some of my husband's cousin's wives who are on their third and fourth children. They just don't comprehend our situation.

We have a gathering that we can't avoid next week. A cousin is visiting from Ireland. She has an infant who is the same age as our nephew. I'm sure my sister-in-law and her husband with be there with said nephew. The talk will probably be all about babies and I will find myself in the backyard doing a poor job of hiding out with the host's poodle.

I don't want to go - but it can't be avoided. Everyone will know why I wasn't there. That I couldn't take it.

They have no idea how hard it is to attend family gatherings and put on a happy face.

I'm counting down the days of our IVF cycle. I hope that this doesn't end in more pain and despair. I know I can't place my hope and faith that this cycle will work . . . if I do that I will end up more hurt than ever.

I have some modest hope that it will work. (That hope is so strong, but it's tempered with experience.)

Will having a baby and being a mother make attending family gatherings easier? Will I ever forget how people slighted and ignored us during this difficult time? Will I come out a bigger and better person?

I hope so.