by Band Back Together | Nov 22, 2015 | How To Help A Friend With Infertility, Infertility, Neurological, Nerve, and Spine Disorders |
I’m an ordinary person with (semi) ordinary desires. I was a skinny bitch before I got married, but six years later, I can’t even fit one leg into my old jeans. The youngest child of Bible-thumping Southern Baptists, I was an honors student, youth group member, and basically a good kid.
Until the boy next door.
Age 15, was determined to prove I was not the naive loser across the street, so I rebelled. I hated my life during high school. I hated the rules my family had – no one else’s family seemed so strict. I hated that I was different. I was diagnosed with a neurological disorder at eleven, I spent most of my teen years trying to be normal. I wanted to be like the other kids, not the freak who’d gained weight and slept too much thanks to her medicine. I managed to graduate from high school with honors, was accepted to an in-state, public university, and I was determined to help other freaks like myself.
Six months into college, I met my future husband. My husband wanted to start trying for kids immediately. I was an independent, stubborn college graduate who wanted a career before starting a family. But I’m only <insert age here>, and I’m just not ready for kids. I could have said that line in my sleep, I repeated it so often.
Finally (says my husband in the background – FINALLY!), I caved. Having been on various maintenance medications since adolescence, childbearing was not an overnight decision for me. Doctors had to be consulted, medications slowly eliminated from my bloodstream, alternative therapies considered.
After two months of planning, I threw away my birth control. My own little piece of feminine power was gone. After having had several pregnancy scares and supporting several friends through their unplanned pregnancies, I never dreamed it would be so hard.
31 cycles later, I’m still trying. Over two and a half years of sex on a schedule, peeing on sticks, and praying month after month after month. 26 months in, my husband finally agreed to be tested. The verdict? His swimmers are intact, mobile, and raring to go. Male ego still intact, he went with me for my tests. Blood tests, hormone levels, ovulation tests, all came back normal.
Until the HSG. One fallopian tube appears completely blocked. I have no idea why because my insurance won’t cover infertility testing and we can’t afford a specialist and exploratory testing. I have a few friends who know of and support our efforts, but no one really understands. How can they? Until you have faked a smile through baby showers and children’s birthday parties and yet another holiday during which Grandma asks when you will finally start a family, how would you know the constant emotional ache of an empty womb?
I’m scheduled for a consultation to see if an ovulation induction drug may help, but that’ll be out-of-pocket. I have no one who really understands what this feels like – the constant frustration and disappointment and guilt that I’m keeping my incredible, loving husband from being a father. In all fairness, my closest friends are wonderful and supportive, but I don’t want to be all whiney and “woe is me and my pitiful plight,” so I don’t really talk about it.
I feel the kick in the gut when yet another “guess who’s expecting!!!!!!!” post pops up on Facebook. I smile on the outside and congratulate the happy couple.
I ask myself why I didn’t start trying to have children earlier. I’m 28; he’s almost 31. If it was going to be this hard, I should’ve known somehow so I’d have more time to fight it. I should have known. Hell, I was on so many medications as a child, I’m surprised I haven’t sprouted gills. I didn’t get my period for two years as a side effect of one particularly difficult prescription.
I should have known.
The worst part is the fear that I somehow deserve this. I know intellectually I don’t, but what if this is God’s way of telling me that my genes don’t need to be passed on? Why should I force an innocent child to go through the hell I did as a kid? How fair is it to have kids, knowing there’s a 50% chance my child will be another “survivor” of my condition? What if this is punishment for being a rebellious teenager? I wasn’t a responsible kid; hell, most days I didn’t care if I got caught. What if I DO deserve infertility? What if I did this to myself? These words look so strange on the screen, but what if it’s true?
Yes, I’m asking the question that no couple struggling with infertility wants to ask and what no doctor says: what if this is my fault? How can I look my husband in the eye and tell him he picked a reproductive dud? How do I tell my parents who want a grandchild so badly?
And how do I go through the endless days in this haze of despair without someone who understands?
I didn’t know whether to post this here on Band Back Together. I know The Band is here for anything, but my life and my problems seem so…ordinary. I tell myself, you don’t have it so bad, you know. I don’t like to complain, and I don’t like to draw attention to my imperfections (hell, they do a good enough job on their own… no help needed, thank you very much).
But..I changed my life’s plans to have a family.
What if I gave up my dreams for nothing?
by Band Back Together | Nov 19, 2015 | Anxiety, Infertility, Unemployment |
I want a baby.
I want one so bad that I can feel the aches and pains as if I’d been punched in the gut.
I turned 30 this year. I know intellectually that 30 does NOT mean all is lost. Emotionally? It feels like the beginning of the end.
I FINALLY got my husband on board with infertility testing. Seriously? Took freaking forever. He wants a baby just as badly as I do, but apparently he thinks they come from the brier patch or some shit. He did his testing, and he got the high five from my doc when everything on his end turned out fine (seriously, a high five. You can’t make this shit up).
Then I got laid off.
Sonofabitch, I seriously got laid off and half of our monthly income is gone. Unemployment in my state is a joke, but hey, it’s better than nothing, right?
But “nothing” is what it means for any future infertility testing, or treatment, or any of my hopes and dreams. Even once I find a job, the momentum is gone, and my husband isn’t on board anymore because there’s so many other things he wants to do with that income (i.e. shiny toys). Fuck this shit.
Yes, I’m pissed. I’m pissed because I gave up my dreams for a family and to be married to this man, who admittedly, is pretty darn perfect in every other way.
He’s supportive and loving and attentive, but he doesn’t have the ambition or attention span or whatever to actually TRY for a baby in the medical sense. So, I basically gave up my lifelong ambitions and dreams for something that may never happen.
Fuck you Universe.
How can this be happening?
I’d like to say that I know everything will work out fine in the end, but my overreaching anxiety keeps me from being that optimistic. Instead, I cry when he goes to work.
I cry and I hope that this month will be the magical band aid. “Maybe this month will be the month that defies all odds, right?” Yea, it hasn’t happened yet. 55 months since we started trying. 4 years, 7 months and we still don’t have a baby, and there’s no indication it will happen anytime soon.
A blocked Fallopian tube, fibroid tumor, hemorrhagic cyst, and God knows what else because I can’t afford further testing. Basically, I’m fucked.
My reproductive system has said “Fuck You” in a magnitude of epic proportions.
But all I want is a baby. I used to daydream about how I’d tell my family and what I’d name my child. I’d imagine life with several children and how sweetly chaotic it would be. I’d think about the best places to live in our area with access to the best schools, and how many children we’d have.
Now all I want is one.
Just one healthy baby.
Is that really so much to ask?
by Band Back Together | Oct 29, 2015 | Anxiety, Depression, Infertility, Miscarriage |
We waited for him.
We prayed, we hoped, I cried. Miscarriages.
We spent money that we didn’t have and I went for daily ultrasound, blood work, tests. Infertility. Devastated and alone.
I blamed myself because I could have been a better person and been a better wife and a better friend.
We tried three months of infertility treatment which included shots, pills, and having people know your private parts better than you do.
Epic failure.
Depression.
A miracle! They call it “Spontaneous Pregnancy” – something that was not supposed to happen. Overwhelmed with joy and gratitude to God.
Anxiety
by Band Back Together | Sep 6, 2015 | Anger, Anxiety, Faith, Family, Fear, Guilt, How To Help A Friend With Infertility, Infertility, Invisible Illness, Loneliness, Marriage and Partnership, Romantic Relationships, Shame, Stress, Trauma |
I don’t think anyone knows the isolation that infertility brings with it unless they’ve lived it. Sure, we have several friends that we share all this with. Or rather, I do. I don’t know that my husband, Brian, has really told anyone what we’re going through. If you know him in real life, you know that he is silent about things that bother him. If you don’t know him, I cannot stress how quiet and private he is. But most of my friends know what we’re going through, and a few of our family members. Most people are unfailingly supportive, even if they don’t understand a bit of what’s going on.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t make it any less lonely, and doesn’t make me feel like less of a freak. Save your breath — rationally I know I’m not a freak. But that doesn’t keep me from feeling that way. And no amount of support from my very fertile friends makes it less lonely. Infertile friends — we are blessed with a few of those, too, though I wish they didn’t have to go through it either — make it even easier.
But when I’m in that exam room, having my lady bits poked and mishandled by the doctor and his ultrasound wand of pain, I am alone. When the Clomid headache sets in and I can’t even think straight, no one else is going to deal with that pain for me. When we schedule our love life, it’s just the two of us. When my cycle abruptly ends with the inevitable period, it’s just me.
That’s isolation.
That’s infertility.
But what really shocks me is the unexpected ways that infertility continually separates us from our family and friends. While it colors how I look at the world, it also colors how people look at me.
Between daycare and lessons, I come into contact with about 11 or 12 families each week. I have at least one doctor’s appointment each month and sometimes more, since I’m always having blood work and such, I need to let the affected parties know that either Brian will be here with the Munchkin Coalition, or that I’ll be late for lessons. None of them get too nosy or pry into my personal life, and all of them offer their support quietly, discreetly, and in a very sincere manner.
Except for one person. Who feels the need to tell me (again and again and again) the three stories she knows about other people suffering through IF, and how easy it was for her to get pregnant with her multiple children, and how she just can’t imagine how horrible it must be. And then, she says it…. “I am SO glad I didn’t have to do any of that! I just got pregnant so easily!” And laughs.
I’m not kidding you. She laughs at the misery of others and her amazing good fortune. One of these days I’m either going to punch her, or tell her what I’m thinking. Which is “Me, too. I’m glad you never had to go through any of this, because you couldn’t take it.” Nothing says “You’re a Freak” like that kind of statement.
My next example is a conversation I had with a family member who has expressed absolutely zero interest in our fertility situation until a recent phone call. Which, I have to say, was lovely and all that, but also really strange after two years of completely ignoring the situation.
It’s hard to catch someone up after two years of constant flux and ordeal. She then said “I wasn’t sure if you wanted to talk about it or not.” Um…yeah. I have a blog about this, ya’ll. It’s pretty much all I do talk about, it seems. Asking how it’s going makes me feel like you care, like you’re interested, like I’m not alone. The only reason I don’t talk about it 24/7/365 is because I know how that would annoy people.
So instead I wait to be asked, and feel separated from my family.
Finally, a very sweet friend recently made a comment that showed me just how much people must view me through what I’ve come to think of as The Infertility Filter. After all, it doesn’t just color how I see the world, but also how the world sees me.
We were talking about her family, and her new niece. She related an adorable story about her nephews as well. We rarely get to see them, so it was neat to catch up and think of them as little people and not as the babies we last saw. We parted ways and about 10 minutes later my phone beeped. She texted to apologize for her story, because she thought the content might have been inconsiderate and hurtful given our infertile state.
Granted, after I spent the next ten minutes really thinking about it I was able to see how someone could have taken offense or been hurt, given the actual content of the story she shared. If they were seriously sensitive and felt the world revolved around them. I, however, love to hear stories about other people’s kids — I spend 5 days a week caring for other people’s children, right?
Even though I was completely un-offended and hadn’t spared it a second thought until she texted, I appreciated her concern.
But I also had to wonder — who else is censoring what they say because I can’t get pregnant? Are we the topic of conversation when we’re not there? Are we your dinner conversation? How often are we referred to as “Brian and Andrea. They can’t get pregnant.” Or “this couple we know who can’t have a baby”.
I hate being pigeon-holed anyway, but to be ostracized by perfectly well-meaning people is kind of a bummer in and of itself. How many stories are we not hearing because someone is worried about our reaction or our feelings? Sure, it’s thoughtful. But it’s also terribly isolating.
A lot of the time, people with infertility isolate themselves. We really don’t want to make people uncomfortable or uneasy. We don’t want to be seen as abnormal, so we keep our problems hidden away. We don’t put our needs and concerns on the prayer list at church. We don’t ask friends to accompany us to the doctor for moral support (at least not after the first time you turn us down).
We don’t offer information, and we are crushed when you don’t ask. Quietly crushed. It’s so terribly easy to believe that we are all alone in our struggles, especially for couples who don’t know any other infertile couples. The longer we’re infertile, the more it builds up, and the lonelier we become.
That’s one reason I blog. Granted, I started blogging before we were “trying”, and I’ll hopefully still be blogging long after we have children, so it’s not technically an “infertility blog”. And yet it is.
I found that when we really started having trouble getting pregnant a lot of my information, ideas, inspiration, and encouragement came from the blogging world. I learned more from other infertile people than from doctors or journal articles. I want to give back to that. I want to be a source of information and encouragement to other infertiles out there who have just received a diagnosis, or just finished their fifth failed IUI, or who have discovered that Clomid doesn’t get everybody pregnant right off the bat.
So I make it a point to live our story out loud and proud. I won’t act ashamed of my infertility, and I won’t pretend it doesn’t exist to make someone else comfortable. I won’t be silent about something that affects so many people, and I won’t make anyone else feel embarrassed either by their fertility or their ability to pop out kids like it’s easier than breathing.
If you got here through a search, you are not alone. Pull up a seat, pop open a bottle of water (no booze in the infertile zone except CD 1-4), and share your stories. Ask questions.
If I can’t answer, maybe someone else can. Let’s learn from each other, and lift each other up. Need prayer? You got it. Need to gripe about how much this sucks, how cold your doctor’s hands are, or how much you really hate scheduled nookie? Go for it — we’re listening.
You are not alone, you don’t have to be isolated, and you are okay.
If we are all determined to do this right out loud, infertility does not have to separate us from them.
by Band Back Together | Sep 1, 2015 | Adoption, Infertility, Infidelity |
My first husband and I were married for ten years. Almost the entire time, I was desperate to have a child. We tried everything short of in-vitro fertilization, with no luck. Eventually, we were able to adopt, but that desire for a child that I could carry in my own womb was overwhelming.
After four years of marriage, I found out he had been cheating on me. As time went on, I came to discover he had always cheated on me, and the number of women was terrifying.
Aside from the fear of STDs, my worst fear was that in the middle of my infertility hell, he would impregnate one, if not several, of his mistresses. After all, he had done it before!
When we had been married for five years, he admitted that he had another “potential” child. He tried to claim that this child may not even be his. That son was only six months younger than his second child with his first wife – who he also tried to claim might not be his.
I tried to tell myself that these things that happened before me didn’t matter, but I could quite never shake that feeling that if he’d done it once, he would do it again.
We divorced shortly after our tenth anniversary. He married his mistress of three years. She left him when she realized he was cheating on her, too. Irony at its best. I remarried, my ex eventually gave up his rights to our daughter; she was adopted by my husband, and I gave birth to an amazing little boy.
It has been eight years since he left me for Wife #3.
His birthday was last week. I wish I could forget that date, but unfortunately, it’s a permanent fixture in my head. His sisters and his mother took him out to eat for his birthday. One of the sisters posted pictures on Facebook from the dinner.
At first, I just scrolled past them, but a sense of morbid curiosity made me go back and look through them. Few things are as satisfying as knowing that your ex is falling apart without you.
Sure enough, he looked like crap. He’s put on weight. He’s not aging gracefully. It makes me much too happy.
Among the pictures was one that made my heart stop. There was a little girl. She was about the age of my daughter. I knew she didn’t belong to either of my former sisters-in-law.
In another picture, she was standing next to him with her hand on his shoulder in a very comfortable, affectionate position. Looking at the two of them together, I was stunned to see that she looked exactly like him. Same facial structure, same chin.
He has a daughter.
A daughter that is too old to have been conceived after he left me.
Hoping that I was wrong, I sent a message to his sister asking her who the girl was. When she didn’t answer back, I knew I had my answer. She finally did answer more than 24 hours later, saying she wasn’t comfortable answering questions about her brother.
Confirmation.
If that little girl had belonged to anyone other than him, she would have just said so. Not talking about her brother was the proof I was looking for.
At first, I was furious! Enraged! Pissed!
How DARE he get some other woman pregnant when I had suffered for so many years to have a child with him!
I sent the picture to several friends and family members, to get their opinions of whether or not I was imagining things and jumping to conclusions. Everyone agreed: that’s his daughter.
And who knows how many more children he has running around in this world!
I was still shaking several hours later when I went to bed. I couldn’t sleep, thinking about confronting him. Whether I would punch him or just slap him when I saw him. After a few hours tossing and turning, I finally fell asleep.
The next morning, however, I was fine.
I realized it really didn’t matter.
I always knew there was a good chance that it would happen. I was grateful that I didn’t find out about her when I was still married to him, or I would probably be in prison for murder right now.
My daughter and I are free of him. He can’t hurt us. And the fact is, he is not worth the time and energy it takes to be angry with him. He is a scumbag, he has always been a scumbag, and he will always be a scumbag. Who cares how many illegitimate children he has? That’s his problem, not mine.
I believe in God. I believe that one day we will all have to answer for our sins. My ex-husband is going to have some pretty major sins to answer for someday.
I think I’ll just worry about my own life.
by Band Back Together | Feb 22, 2015 | Anger, Faith, Feelings, How To Help A Friend With Infertility, In Vitro Fertilization, Infertility, IUI, Jealousy, Stress |
I remember the day that we were finally diagnosed with unexplained infertility.
Unexplained infertility means that there’s nothing wrong with either one of us and no medical reason that we shouldn’t be able to have a baby. We spent so much time and money just to find out there wasn’t a damn thing wrong with us. Five years of trying, with not even one scare, and there nothing wrong.
After finding out we had unexplained infertility, we joked that we “just didn’t do it right,” but peel back the layers of joking, and you found a lot of ugliness. Ugly things like anger. And depression. And jealousy. Oh, and there was pain – lots of pain.
To find out that there was nothing actually wrong with us, but that medically it was still a problem was very frustrating. We had struggled with infertility for years.
We talked to our doctor about our options and I immediately began researching our situation and possible options and solutions. We could try to take fertility drugs that would make me produce several eggs in one month with the hope that the sperm would have a better chance of fertilizing one of them. Cheap and less than a 50/50 shot. We could do intrauterine insemination or in vitro fertilization. More expensive and even more expensive, and not much better odds.
All of those options frustrated and saddened us. We wanted to have a baby the old fashioned way. We didn’t want to “buy” a baby or have a baby “made” for us in a petri dish. We thought about it. We talked about it. I prayed about it.
We decided that fertility treatments were our only options at this point. For us, the “medicine” for having a baby was coming to terms with not only the fact that we’d never have a baby the old fashioned way, but also coming to terms with the fact that we wanted a baby so badly that we would do whatever it took to have one. The “medicine” was the love that we had for one another and our future family. The need to see what the two of us put together would produce. The need to get rid of the constant clouds hanging over our heads every month that passed where there still wasn’t a baby.
Two fertility treatments and three kids later, I’m so glad we decided to take the necessary steps to have a family. God gave us a bumpy, rocky road to travel down, but made it worth it. I am grateful and very humbled by the blessings that we have received.
I think of all of the other men and women still struggling with infertility. The ones that have done in vitro 5 times and still don’t have a baby. The ones that can’t afford fertility treatments. The ones that don’t even know yet that there’s a problem. I send my prayers and best wishes to them.
I know how hard the process was for us, and how hard it was to deal with every single day.
