The Big Bounce

File this under random musings, infertility and otherwise.

Well, after writing about feeling pretty hopeless last week, I have entered another two week wait (for those not in the know - the time frame between ovulation and either a positive pregnancy test or your period) filled with hope.  Oh, not particularly hopeful for this cycle.  We've been at this long enough to know the likelihood of us being one of those few random infertiles who magically gets pregnant on our own is unlikely.  But I'm just generally hopeful for the future outcome of this not-so-fun adventure.

One of the reasons I'm feeling particularly hopeful this week is because we're going on vacation next week to Belgium and Amsterdam.  I've never been.  I am going to eat all of the waffles.  And all of the frites.  There won't be any left for the people of Belgium.  And spending the latter part of a two week wait in a foreign country is a pretty great way to take one's mind off of possible outcomes.  

And yet another reason to feel good - the old man turned 78 two days ago.  If you had asked me four years ago if Dad would make it to his 78th birthday, I would have said no way.  And I sadly don't have a crystal ball to tell me if he will see his 79th.  But I'm hopeful he will and in the mean time, we try to make every birthday we get as fun as possible.  Jeeves and I went out to Jersey to visit him and take him out to dinner.  We went to Savini, which is an Italian restaurant that we really like out there.  Here is how good the service is - I did not tell them when I made the reservation that it was Dad's birthday.  I did not mention it to the waiter.  But when dessert came out, there was a candle and they sang happy birthday.  They had overheard us wish Dad a happy birthday when we toasted, and they made a note of it.  Amazing.  And Dad declared it the best birthday yet.  I think that's hyperbole, but I'm glad he had fun.

Today, on the other hand, would have been my mother's 75th birthday.  As mentioned about a billion times on here, I miss her very much, and even more since the infertility business started.  Still, even though I wish she were here for her birthday, it doesn't feel like a sad day to me (Mother's Day and the anniversary of her death are still tough).  It seems I can look at it two ways - I can look at my mother's birthday as a sad day because she is not here with me to celebrate it, or I can look at it as a sweeter day.  The day my mother was born 75 years ago, how my sister and I wouldn't be here if not for her, and how I would not be the person I am now without her love and guidance.  When Mom died, we got so many wonderful cards from her co-workers and clients (she was a social worker at a place that served as a food pantry, and provided rent and utility assistance) telling us about the impact she had on their lives.  But the card I remember best wasn't even from that - it was from the year before she died.  It was a Christmas card from a co-worker that said "Merry Christmas to the woman who embodies the Christmas spirit year round."  I am focusing on that woman today, and how I can and should be more like her, and how even though it's sad she's gone, I had almost 28 years with her.  What luck, to have her as my mother.  John Green writes in The Fault in Our Stars, "There are two ways to tell a sad story and we made the funny choice."  At least for now, filled with all this hope, I am choosing the funny version.

And even though Elmore Leonard, whom I adored, would not approve of how verbose I am being here, I am sad he is gone.  I've thought a lot about him this past week.  Although he was 87, and that is a good long life, he was putting it out there, honing his craft right up to the end.  Something to strive for.  If you haven't read his work before, I think Fire in the Hole: Stories is a great starting place.  And it's only fitting that I leave you with his legendary rules on writing, "Easy on the Adverbs, Exclamation Points, and Especially Hooptedoodle."  I promise I'll go easy on the hooptedoodle from now on.

My eyes! My eyes!

One of the goals I set for myself this summer was to go to all the doctors I have been avoiding since we started going to the RE.  It wasn't really that I was avoiding my annual physical or skin check, I just am so tired of going to the doctor.  And every time I have a $25 co-pay.  So I just avoided all other doctors (except for the dentist).  Anyway, I was very good this summer - I went to my GP for an annual physical, saw my gynecologist to tell her what had been going on and get a pap smear, saw my dermatologist for an annual skin check.  But I kept putting off an eye exam.  I don't have an eye doctor in the city and I haven't had an eye exam in four years.  Part of it is laziness, part of it was that my eyes seem fine.  I didn't notice any real change in my vision.  But that all changed this week when I realized I was almost out of contact lenses.

I started wearing contacts when I was 24, and the brand I originally wore, which I really liked, is no longer made.  So in my late 20s I got switched to this other brand.  I never liked them.  After about six hours, my eyes itch and I've noticed that I always, always feel them in my eye, even when it's a brand new pair.  In a word, they kind of suck, and as a result I usually wear my glasses.  Still, we're leaving for vacation soon and if I want to wear sunglasses, I need the contacts.

So I made an appointment for an eye exam at a Lenscrafters because I just didn't give a crap and wanted to go somewhere within walking distance.  I should note that I have complained about my contacts to past eye doctors and they all basically told me that it's normal for the contacts to bother me after wearing them for 8 hours, and that they didn't see a point in switching my brand.

Anyway, eye exam was fine, nothing wrong with my eyes, my vision has degraded a little, so I have a new scrip.  The eye doctor noted that my eyes are dryer than normal, but that didn't surprise him because I am a ginger and super pale and have light eyes, and people like me tend to have dryer eyes (as well as a propensity for eye cancer and macular degeneration due to sun exposure!  Yay!).  We talked about how much I hate my contacts, and he was basically like, "Yeah, no shit.  This brand is no good if you have dry eyes, you need a brand with better lubrication."  And he also confirmed my suspicion that I should not be feeling my contact lenses and they shouldn't be bothering me after six hours.  So he switched my brand and gave me a sample and they are AWESOME.  I can wear them all day, they don't bother me at all, and my eyes are not dry and itchy, even after wearing them all day.

I left feeling vindicated.  I wasn't crazy!  I knew those contact lenses suck - why didn't I stick up for myself with all those other eye doctors?

I was reading a piece on the Well Blog over at the Times a few weeks ago.  It's a series written by a woman who has advanced ovarian cancer, but she's been living with it for quite awhile.  She talked about her oncologist and a lot of what she said resonated with me because it reminded me of Dad's and my relationship with his onco, Dr. T.  Anyway, the writer wonders whether it matters who you choose as your doctor when the gold standard of chemo protocols is pretty uniform.  Yet in the end, she knows that having a trusting relationship with her doctor really matters.  She writes:

The strange rightness of our relationship underscores how quirky the needs of cancer patients are. Some people want physicians with the best record of keeping their patients alive the longest amount of time. Others look for a Jewish or an Indian doctor or an older man of high rank. Some put their faith in a particular research center, others in a particular referral system. Some need a good deal of time spent on reassurance, others crave the clarity of honest disclosure, as I do. 

Because I trusted Dr. Matei’s truthfulness, I enrolled in many more protocols than I ever thought I would. In return, she gave me a priceless gift. While she implicitly accepted my conviction that the disease would kill me, she offered a limited quantity of quality time — four years in which I have been able to write . . . usually not about her. 

Although I profit from the research investigations of Dr. Matei, what I cherish is my sense that she will level with me when medical interventions cannot control the cancer and become pointless, or worse. Our monthly dialogues revolve around our families or our writing, and in the process I believe that she has discerned and respects my values.

This perfectly encapsulates why my dad chose his doctor - he respected that Dr. T leveled with him and didn't sugar coat things, and he believes that when the time comes, his doctor will tell him that it's time to stop pursuing treatment.  As a result, I know for a fact that Dad has done many more rounds of chemo and tried many more types of meds than he originally thought he would.  Because he trusts his doctor. 

I pretty much chose my RE because they were affiliated with a university and they accept my insurance.  If I had been going on SART statistics, I would have preferred to go somewhere else.... but those places don't accept my insurance.  Still, I'm happy with Dr. M and I have been since we first met her.  I think a big part of it is that I don't feel like she's unnecessarily shoving me towards IVF, and because she didn't push us in that direction, I trust that if and when she tells us it's time to move on from IUI, it will really be time to move on.  I've read a lot of reviews of REs in the City and one of the main complaints people seem to have is bedside manner, or that they feel like they are just a number and not a person.  I generally think REs are just not great in this department.  At the same time, if I ever felt like my RE wasn't listening to me or wasn't considering the questions I pose to her seriously, I'd be out of that office.  Dr. T's job is to give Dad as much quality time on earth as he possibly can.  Part of that involves monitoring Dad's side effects and his mood, making sure that he isn't pressing Dad to go further than he can.  But my RE's job is to get me pregnant.  Maybe REs ought to look at their job more holistically, as some oncologists do, but generally they don't, and I'm okay with that.  I don't need my RE to make sure I'm feeling okay emotionally. But no matter what the specialty, whether you're an eye doctor, an RE, or an oncologist - if you're not listening to me then you're not doing your job.

I guess this is the long way of saying that I wish I hadn't spent 8 years wearing contact lenses that I hate.  I won't let something like that happen again when it comes to my health, especially with getting pregnant.  

Living in an infinite fiction

Last year I read The Fault in Our Stars by the amazing John Green and it was hands down my favorite book of the year.  It so far blew away every other book I read, there was just no competition (maybe if I had read Wolf Hall or Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk last year, there might have been a little competition, but I read those books this year).  It doesn't seem to matter how many times I recommend TFiOS to people, I can't get anyone to read it.  I think because everyone thinks it is going to be a SAD BOOK about CANCER.  I will say our dear narrator Hazel has cancer.  But it's not really a book about cancer.  And yes, there are things in the book that are sad, but there are many things in the book that are happy, hopeful, and very, very funny.  The book is being turned into a movie, and the director, Josh Boone, said this about it (side note, he read it right after a close friend of his died of cancer):  "John's book came along just when I needed it. It pierced my heart and helped me deal with my grief. I laughed and cried and was left with an overwhelming feeling of hope. That our lives matter, that the love and kindness we share with others reverberates long after we're gone.

"  I couldn't agree more.

Anyway, early in the book Hazel meets Gus and the two of them become fast friends, exchanging their favorite books with each other.  Gus's favorite book is a silly series based on a video game, but Hazel loves it and she remarks, "It was exciting to live again in an infinite fiction."  I'll get to that in a minute.

Emotionally I was really struggling early in the week.  I was definitely feeling hopeless and angry and I had no idea where to put these feelings.  I started a new cycle, and I decided to let Jane, my acupuncturist/herbalist, do whatever she thought best.  Next cycle we'll go back to the RE for treatment, and while I'll keep doing acupuncture, you can't really take herbs when you're doing that stuff.  But as I was dumping my herbs into a cup, it just all seemed so pointless.  "None of this is ever going to work," I thought to myself.  "We'll never have children, every last avenue will close to us," that cruel voice in my head said.  And then I thought if I can't get my emotions in order and have a little hope, then of course it won't work.  Good old magical thinking - I was damned no matter what I did or thought.

I went through work, and even though I usually like to cook when I'm down because it helps me take my mind off of things, the thought of doing anything other than sitting like a sad lump on the couch just seemed impossible.  So I told Jeeves I just couldn't cook dinner tonight, and we went back and forth on whether he should come home and work, or if she should stay at work that evening (he's especially swamped with work right now).  I think he could tell that I just needed to sit on the couch and watch multiple episodes of Orphan Black, washed down with a big glass of wine.  Our apartment is smallish and we only have one TV, so if Jeeves needs to work from home, I can't watch TV.  So he stayed at work that evening so I could watch my infinite fiction.

And that is what snapped me out it.  I don't know how it works.

So, Orphan Black.  OB is a Canadian television show that airs on BBC America.  I started watching it On Demand because I read a lot of positive reviews on the television blogs I frequent.  I don't want to give too much away because the discovery of what is happening is half the fun.  But I will say that our main character is Sarah.  She's a bit of a grifter and she's just come back to town via train (I think it's set in Toronto, though they never specify).   While at the train station, she witnesses a woman who looks exactly like her throw herself in front of the train.  Who was this woman, this twin?  Sarah was in the foster care system her entire life, so she could theoretically have a sister, even a twin sister.... or is there something more to it?

Anyway, watching a couple episodes of Orphan Black took me out of myself, dumped me into this world of fiction, and helped me clear out some of my crap feelings.   I've always found solace in the fictional world, whether it a book, a movie, or a TV show.  When studying for the bar exam, I saw basically every movie that came out because it was 2 hours of relief from the stress.  After my mom died, I became a total Battlestar Galactica junkie.  And where would I have been without season one of the Real Housewives of New Jersey the week that Dad was diagnosed?  I'm not saying it's a cure-all, or that every shitty feeling I have is gone now.  But with infertility stuff, there isn't always a neat way of dealing with these feelings.  I don't think you can bury them, but at some point you need to put them aside and just do something else.  For me, that's getting sucked into an infinite fiction.

I'm feeling better now, and part of that is because we finally got our results from the thrombophilia tests (aka the recurrent pregnancy loss blood tests).  I am normal.  While that doesn't guarantee that I won't have another miscarriage, at least we will know it's not from some sort of clotting disorder that could have been treated.  So we'll be ready to start again with the RE in September.

And now if you'll excuse me, these episodes of Pretty Little Liars aren't going to watch themselves.

Spinsters get up for breakfast

That's a Lady Edith quote, she being a useful spinster and all.  I've been thinking about Lady Edith a lot this week, but my thoughts on Downton Abbey will wait for another time.

I feel like I've been spending all my blogging time talking about infertility stuff, and even though I feel like I could talk about it ad nauseum, I do other things and think about other things too.  Mostly I think about food. 

The other day I mentioned to Anh, perhaps my biggest blogging cheerleader from back when I started this thing all those years ago, that I was blogging again.  Her first words: “Are you blogging about food?  Oh, I hope you’re blogging about food!”  I felt so sad that my blog posts have not only had nothing to do with food, but have generally been mope-tastic.  So this food post is really for Anhabella.

Jeeves and I eat at a lot of great places, but mostly I cook for us at home.  So I’ll start out with some recipes I tried this summer that worked out very well.  Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures – I don’t really bother with pictures of things I’ve cooked.  Also, almost everything I’ve cooked falls into the “healthy” category because I’m pretty anal about eating a lot of vegetables ever since Dad was diagnosed.  We don’t eat a lot of meat at home, and if we do, it’s chicken or fish (although we did have a really good dry aged NY strip for our anniversary dinner at home). 

Back in the spring, I went with my friend Tati to Frankie’s 457 in Brooklyn for lunch.  We shared a fennel, parsley, celeriac salad to start.  I’m not generally a big fennel person (I don’t love licorice as a flavor), but this salad was amazing.  So I found the recipe online and made it at home.  It wasn’t quite as good as the version at Frankie’s, but still so good and worth making.

I’ve gotten really into Smitten Kitchen, and if you haven’t bought her cookbook, do yourself a favor and get it.  Everything is relatively easy to make and I have not had a single bad meal from it.  And from her website, I’ve made some amazing zucchini fritters and two carrot recipes: a carrot harissa salad and roasted carrots with avocado.  We get carrots every week from our CSA and it’s pretty easy to make them delicious.  Oh, and also her crunchy salad is divine!  A great way to use up cucumbers and radishes and any other crunchy vegetable you want.

I’ve also been baking a lot because we signed up for the fruit share of our CSA this year.  One particular thing I baked that turned out quite well was this cherry rum cake.  Quite easy to make.  Not healthy at all, but that’s fine – dessert doesn’t need to be healthy.

And where have we been eating?  This time I have pictures!  Back in June, I went to Craft with Roo, Devon, and her husband.  Three out of four people at the table had the fried chicken.  It was stupendous – moist on the inside, crispy (and well-seasoned) on the outside.  I’m a Top Chef fan and I recalled the fried chicken challenge from this season.  After eating Craft’s fried chicken, I can see why Tom Colicchio is so picky.

Jeeves and I went out to dinner at Alder, Wylie Dufresne’s new, casual place.  It was quite good, although a few things really stood out more than the rest.  We particularly liked the asparagus dish (not currently on the menu) and the chicken liver toast.

At the end of June, we went to see Eleanor Friedberger at the Music Hall of Williamsburg (I really heart her).  I tend to rag on Brooklyn a lot.  It’s not that I think there aren’t good things there.  I know there are good things there.  It’s just that I feel they tend to be overhyped and overcrowded.  One night a couple of years ago we went out for dinner at this new pizza place somewhere in Brooklyn.  Our friends who live near it went on and on about how great it was supposed to be.  It was completely mediocre, in my opinion, and I think everyone was just excited because it was the first thin crust fancy pizza place in that neighborhood.  After dinner, we spent 30 minutes going from bar to bar before we found a place where we could actually get a seat.  And people say Manhattan is crowded.

Anyway, I had super low expectations about our pre-show dinner at Allswell, but dinner there was really, really good.  I had the flatiron steak – perfectly cooked and super flavorful (and we learned that you need to have flatiron steak cooked medium, not medium-rare, otherwise it will be too chewy).  Our appetizers were good, too, and if I had been in the mood for a non-alcoholic drink (instead of the wine I had, because why not?), they had a mocktail option.  The only downside is that it pays to get there on the earlier side as they tend to run out of stuff.  By the time we left, all of the entrees except for one were sold out.

Over the 4^th of July weekend, we had a whirlwind of good food.  4^th of July in NYC is the absolute best time to go to places that are usually very crowded.  So, on the Friday of that weekend we hit up Pok Pok Ny (Thai food out in Brookaleen, again), on Saturday we went to Mighty Quinn’s BBQ in the East Village (with Reefy, of course, because I feel it’s wrong to eat barbeque without Reefy), and on Sunday we went to Uncle Boon’s (more Thai food) on the Lower East Side.  Each meal was fantastic in its own, unique way.

At Pok Pok, we put in our name and waited down the street at a bar until they called us. The standout dish was this pork belly in curry.  I could drink a cup of that curry sauce straight.  Super flavorful.  The papaya salad was great too. 

At Mighty Quinn’s, we agreed that the brisket was kind of dry.  But the brontosaurus rib and the pulled pork – fantastic.  The sides were generally good, though I actually felt like there was too much meat in the baked beans.  Reefy did not agree with me.  We had absolutely no wait there – thank you, holiday weekend!

Uncle Boon’s was my favorite meal of the weekend.  Absolutely every last dish we had was fantastic. Unfortunately I have no pictures of it.... I'm not sure why.  We were eating there with Dave and Jess and they certainly aren't the types to judge me for taking food photos, but I think it must have been because we were so hungry, we descended upon the food like those crazy beetles in the rain forest that eat everything in their path.  The mee krob (spicy sweetbreads) and the spicy chicken and banana blossom salad were particular standouts.

For Jeeves' birthday at the end of July, we went to Wylie's flagship - WD-50 and had a great tasting menu.  But before dinner, we went to Attaboy, a bar on the Lower East.  Attaboy is now in the space that used to be Milk & Honey.  It has a similar vibe, but you don't need a reservation, and the bar has been lengthened.  Best of all, it's run by Sammy, our favorite M&H bartender.  Sammy was tending bar when we stopped in and we got to have a couple of exceptional cocktails.  Dinner at WD-50 was phenomenal, although a little less quirky and molecular gastronomy focused than our first visit a few years ago.  My favorite dish of the night was a cold egg drop soup with uni.  I pretty much love anything with uni.

And now for the big dinner of the summer (I know, we're fucking ridiculous - the big dinner?  Like the rest of these were little trips out or something.).  Jeeves got us a reservation at the Chef's Table at Brooklyn Fare to celebrate our second wedding anniversary.  I was a little nervous about this dinner because it is a) very expensive; and b) they send an e-mail of rules, such as dress code (fine, no biggy), no picture taking (ugh) and no note-taking (what?).  So I have no pictures of this meal, and I can't give great details about each course because I can't remember all the ingredients.  What I can say is that the food was absolutely 3 Michelin star worthy.  It was perfect.  One course was uni on this tiny brioche with a truffle gelee on top.  It was the best bite of food I've ever had.  Hands down.  There were so many incredible sashimi fish courses - types of fish flown in from Japan that I had never even heard of before.  Unbelievable osetra caviar with potato.  A Wagyu beef course that was cooked to perfection.  A memorable chocolate and apricot dessert.  The service was professional, but it was not seamless and not particularly warm.  And the pacing of the courses was far too quick for Jeeves' and my taste.  Still, for the food alone, it was memorable and worthwhile.

Phew, and that's been our summer of eats.  No wonder I've gained weight.

Slap Out of It

I feel like this post is just going to be brain vomit.  Sorry.

So, there's a thing on the show Cougar Town where our heroine, Jules, changes common phrases that she thinks don't make sense so that they will make more sense to her.  Anyway, that's the point of "slap out of it."  Jules is feeling down that her son is going off to college, and she tells her friends she needs to "slap out of it."  Her boyfriend points out that the phrase is "snap out of it."  And Jules argues that snapping isn't going to knock her out of her funk half as well as a slap to the face will.  I had forgotten about this phrase until Wendy told me the other day that she needed to slap out of it.  And today, I really, really need to slap out of it.

It was a very baby heavy weekend.  That is generally fine with me.  I know some IFers struggle around babies and little kids, but I usually find I have no problem with them, they don't make me sad at all.  I don't know if it's because I have nephews, or I have so many friends with kids.  I just don't equate other people's kids with disappointment or sadness about my own situation.  Pregnant ladies are another matter.  Anyway, Friday we went out with an old friend of mine from college, Brian.  Brian was one of my absolute besties in college, but he's spent the last 10 years out in California, so we don't get to see each other much.  He and his partner just adopted an adorable little girl, and it was so great to see them so happy, and also to hear about their long adoption process.  It's nice to know someone in real life who has gone through that process and had a happy ending, since it's possible that could be us some day.

And today, Sunday, we went out to brunch with some friends who have kids of varying ages.  At one point in the conversation, two of the moms were discussing mom stuff, and I was kind of spacing out.  One of the moms tried valiantly to keep me included, but there's only so much she could do.  I mean, I can't really contribute - I can listen, and ask questions, but I can't contribute.  It's nice to be around my friends and their kids, all of whom are adorable and fun, but it was a little bit of a reminder of how there can be a barrier, and it's nobody's fault, between people with children and people without.  There was actually a nice piece written about that subject on the Times Motherlode blog this week by a woman who has kids.  

But anyway, the part that has me really needing to slap out of it involved a phone call on Saturday afternoon.  A very close friend of mine (I'm not going to name her because it's her news and her business and I'm sure at some point in the future on the blog I will specify who, but for now we will leave it as "a very close friend.") called to tell me that she is 12 weeks pregnant.  I had not know she and her husband were trying, and for some time, at least until a couple of years ago, she and her husband were uncertain about whether they wanted children.  I had noticed a softening in their stance in the last year or two, but still, she had not specifically told me that they were trying.  In retrospect, there were plenty of Easter eggs that I missed.  Anyway, my first emotion was surprise/shock, and that was quickly followed by happiness.  Honest and true.  I was really, really happy for my friend and her husband.  I had always hoped they would have children, I think they will be amazing parents, and while I definitely don't think parenthood is for everyone, I really did think that they would maybe regret it if they never became parents.

We talked for awhile about how her pregnancy is going.  And my shock and happiness continued for maybe another hour after I got off the phone.  And then I cried, and they weren't happy tears.  My friend has known all about my infertility, the miscarriages, etc.  She knew when it was taking us awhile to get pregnant, she knew about when we first went to the RE, all the tests, the IUIs, everything.  And even though I know completely that the decision to have a child and that process is no one's business and I certainly don't feel entitled to know what's going on between my friend and her husband in that regard, a small part of me did feel hurt that she didn't confide in me.  Especially because I told her a lot of things that I would not have told her if I had known she was undertaking this process.  Like, did she really need to know the details of my miscarriage and D&C in her first few weeks of pregnancy?  No.  I wish I hadn't told her any of it.  I probably said a bunch of dumb shit too.

Beyond that, there was of course the "so happy for her, so sad for me" part.  The only thing I can compare that to is that scene in Julie and Julia when Julia finds out her sister is pregnant and she bursts into tears.  Her husband puts his arm around her and Julia chokes out, "I'm just so happy for her!"  And of course, I then felt like an asshole for having even an iota of a negative emotion around something that is nothing but wonderful news for someone I love so very much.   

A week before my mom died, this same friend was on vacation with her husband, and I had just been chatting with her about her upcoming wedding and the trip she was about to take, etc.  She was at a very happy phase in her life, and I was in a very unhappy phase in my life - I'd just been dumped by some loser, I had a job I hated, a ton of school debt.... and I was on the phone with my mother, talking to her about my shitty day.  And my mom asked about Friend, asked what she was up to, and I told her about Friend's vacation and how much fun it sounded, and that wasn't it nice that her future in-laws had given them their airline miles so they could fly for free?  And my mom said to me, "Oh, Meggie.  It will be your turn soon."  And then I cried.  Because my mother always knew exactly how I was feeling, and she knew exactly what to say to me, and she didn't judge me.  And all this bullshit infertility stuff makes me miss her so much more. She knew how to slap me out of it.

I expect good old Aunt Flo in another day or so, and I'm sure that's not helping my funk.

Dear Friend has a sister who is also undergoing treatment for infertility, and we actually have cycled at the same time in the past, serving as texting buddies to cheer each other on, and to buck each other up after a loss.  My first thought after I got off the phone with Friend was how her sister, who has been at this for 3 years, must be feeling.  I texted her, "I just heard Friend's good news.  Sending you love and hugs."  She wrote back, "Thanks.  Right back at you."  That, combined with Stupid Stork's hysterical new post about the lizard in her house, was about as close to a slap as I could get.  I don't have my mom to slap me out of it anymore, so I'll just have to do it myself, like the tough broad that I am.

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics

"Here is the stat that the doctors gave Mr. and Mrs. Spicer: One in four.  That's the last stat I'm going to give you, because so what?  So what?  Stats don't mean anything.  Every time Joe Pepitone steps up to the plate, it's new.  It doesn't matter if he's hit five hundred home runs or if he's struck out five hundred times.  It's a new thing.  And no one can predict what's going to happen, except that he's Joe Pepitone, and he's going to try his darnedest, and he's not going to let anything get him down, and he's going to fight his way through no matter what, and he's got all his friends behind him, and if you don't think that matters a whole lot, then you don't know how to get from first base to second.  Because stats don't mean anything."

-Gary D. Schmidt, Okay for Now

Last week we got the results back from our karyotype test - we're both normal.  That was a huge relief.  And even though I knew that statistically speaking, it was unlikely that one or both of us would be abnormal, I found myself really nervous on the day I called for the results.  I thought, well, statistically speaking, it's the minority of couples who need help getting pregnant.  And statistically speaking, it's the minority of couples who have a miscarriage in a given pregnancy.  And it's an even smaller minority of couples that have more than one miscarriage.  So seeing as how we're already in this tiny minority, why wouldn't we be in an even tinier minority that also has an inherent chromosomal defect?  Happily we are not.

When Dad was first diagnosed, I spent a lot of time reading online forums populated by other caregivers and cancer sufferers, and it started to really make me sad.  Dad's five year survival probability was in the single digits and Dr. T (my dad's fucking amazing oncologist) basically told us that if Dad decided not to do chemo, he'd die in a year, but with chemo he should probably have two years.  My dad's decision to do the chemo will be the subject of a post all on its own, but let's just say that two years sounds a whole lot better than one year when it comes to dying.  And as I was reading (and comparing) our situation to what other people were going through on these forums, I just found myself sinking down into this dark world where MY DAD IS DYING ALL THE TIME.  And what's the point of having Dad for two more years if I'm going to spend those two years obsessed with him dying instead of enjoying his life?  So I decided not to partake in these forums anymore, but right before I stopped, I read a post where a woman said, talking about her dad, that the stats don't mean anything when this is your life.  The stats can tell you that this situation is dire, but everyone affected by cancer is an individual and everyone's outcome is different.  And if you get bogged down in those stats, you will make yourself miserable.  And in the end, that's exactly what Dr. T said to us (and what he continues to say to this day) and we've been very lucky that two years stretched to four years, and we'll see what happens next because the stats don't apply to us now.

Other IF bloggers have very eloquently debunked a lot of myths involving statistics and infertility, but my personal favorite is Aramis from It Only Takes One's post about the law of averages and how every cycle is a new cycle, just like every flip of the coin is its own new toss and the chances of it being heads or tails is still 50/50.  It's so easy to look at other pregnant women and think that there are only so many women who will get pregnant in a given year, and if that lady walking around Whole Foods is pregnant, and oh look, there's another pregnant lady at Whole Foods, then that's reducing my chances of getting pregnant!  Of course that's not how it works, that's not how the statistics of infertility work.  

I try to remind myself that actually the statistics are on my side that I will someday get pregnant.  Still, I can't help but sometimes think that I might wind up in the ever dwindling minority of people who keep failing.  But statistically speaking, IUI shouldn't have worked for us - I've read the studies - but it did work for us, twice.  So while I'm going to keep using the scientific studies to inform my decisions on my treatment and care, if I get too bogged down in the stats, I'm going to sink into that same dark hole I was in four years ago, reading cancer forums.  When we start a new cycle, it is a new cycle.  The game starts over again, but this time we'll have a little more information and that's a good thing.

Coffee is the best thing to douse the sunrise with

You guys, this picture over here is high tech coffee business happening in my kitchen.  I'll get to that in a minute.  I have been addicted to caffeine since I was 14... maybe younger.  When I was in high school, I didn't like the taste of coffee, so I drank a can of Coke every morning - I know, sooo good for you.  Wendy [for newer readers, Wendy is one of my oldest and dearest friends] tried to break me of my caffeine habit and I agreed to go sans morning Coke for a week.  After two days, she brought me over to the vending machine and bought me a Coke - that's how horrible I was to be around with my caffeine detox.  When I was 16, I went on a trip to Seattle and I've been drinking coffee ever since.

Last year I cut way back on my coffee intake.  I read a lot of books suggesting that if you want to get pregnant, you have to cut out caffeine, alcohol, sugar, blah blah blah.  I know some women who cut out coffee altogether, but the best I could do was limit myself to one small 6 ounce cup per day.  I would drink it in the morning at home before I would leave for work.  At that point, I was working in the morning through the afternoon, and then going to class in the evening.  It's tough getting through a three hour class without another cup of coffee.  The worst part was that in the summertime, people walk around with 40 ounce cups of beautiful iced coffee.  I love iced coffee so very much.  I look forward to it all winter, just waiting for that moment when the weather turns enough that I can get a giant iced coffee of my very own.  

Coffee was the thing I struggled with the most, that I missed the most, in those many months of trying.  When I would see those bastards walking past me with giant iced coffees, I'd want to knock it out of their hands.  

After the miscarriage, I knew we were going to have some time off before I had to go back to being really good.  So I got to enjoy some wine, and what not, but what I was really excited about was the coffee!  More coffee!  Iced coffee!  To cheer me up, Jeeves made cold-brewed coffee so that I could have iced coffee every morning (with a little milk and simple syrup mixed in).  He used this recipe to make it.  The above picture is the process of straining the coffee into a container we can keep in the fridge.  But I will note that he makes a much smaller portion because we don't have room for 8 quarts of iced coffee in our refrigerator.  No matter, though - it is divine.  It has made me so very happy.

My friend G who has struggled with infertility long ago made the transition to decaf (even though she readily admits it's not the same), and even when she's on a break from this crap, she sticks with the decaf because transitioning back and forth is so hard.  I know that in September when I have to drastically cut down on my coffee intake again, I'm going to have to deal with caffeine withdrawal on top of all the other good stuff that comes with cycling.  But oh, for this summertime iced coffee, it is so worth it.

"I think people get scared with things that look or seem different than them."

Welp, it's been a steamy week in NYC.  I hate heatwaves so much more since I moved to New York from Jersey.  Part of it is because I spend a lot more time outside now - I walk to and from work, the grocery store, basically any errand I have to run involves at least a 10 minute walk.  As I result, I discovered a couple of years ago that I'm quite the face sweater.  It's lovely, having a sweat mustache and goatee.

Jeeves and I went out to visit his parents in the suburbs this weekend.  We both grew up in the 'burbs, and I've only lived in NYC for three and a half years at this point, so I really freaking love being somewhere with a backyard, a Target, and grocery stores with giant carts.  I go out to the old man's house a least every other week, and when I do I get to drive around, cook in a big kitchen, and hang out with Kate's parents on their deck, watching the bats swooping down out of the dark as they snack on mosquitoes.  I. Love. It.  There were no bats to enjoy out in Westchester this weekend, at least in my in-laws' yard, but it was still really nice to admire my mother-in-law's (I call her "Ammie," which is a variant of "mother" in Hindi) tomato and blueberry plants and buy an insane amount of Ziploc bags at Sam's Club.

Ammie asked me at one point if I thought we would ever move out of the City.  Ammie knows about our infertility issues and about my miscarriages.  She's been very kind and never pushes me to talk.  I know I'm very lucky because I've read so many blogs about women whose own parents or in-laws are total pills about the whole shitty situation.  Anyway, I told her that we thought we'd like to move out of the City someday if we have kids.  But if we don't have kids, we'd probably stay, unless a job took us elsewhere.  

And this leads me to my bitch-and-moan fest about yet another crappy thing about infertility - the inability to make any sort of concrete plans for the future.  Jeeves and I really hemmed and hawed about re-signing our lease this year.  We both sort of thought/hoped that by this point we would have a baby, or be close to having a baby.  That obviously didn't happen.  So when our lease came up in May, we had to decide whether we would re-sign for one year or two.  We live in a nice one bedroom, but like all one bedrooms in Manhattan, it is on the smaller side and we definitely would not want to have a baby in here for very long.  We ultimately chose one year, which seemed really smart when I got pregnant this past May, but now seems a little less smart since we will definitely not have a baby before our lease is up next May.  

I'm also sort of ambivalent about the idea of living in New York for the rest of my life if I don't have kids, but I see no point in moving out to the 'burbs and drastically increasing our commutes if it's just us. (I know, I know - we can adopt, and maybe we will, but I'm not ready to make that decision yet).  

And then there's the job situation.  I am a lawyer, unfortunately, who made the excellent decision a couple of years ago to stop being a lawyer and go back to school to get a library science degree.  While I was in school, I got a part-time legal job with the City.  I actually really like my job.  I work with a bunch of retirees for the most part, and they are both funny, nice, and comically grumpy.  The best part is that it is incredibly flexible - I can literally work whatever hours I want, whatever days I want, as long as I am there twice a month for an important meeting.  The job is relatively interesting, not stressful at all, and pays fine considering all the other stuff.  It's pretty much the perfect job to have if you're undergoing treatment for infertility and/or caring for a parent with cancer.  Which is why this job has been impossible to give up.  What I really want to do is work in a library.  I have my M.L.S. degree now, and I'm really excited to be a librarian.  But I just can't undertake a full-time job when I periodically have to disappear for treatment.  I've considered looking into a part-time job that I could do in conjunction with my current PT law job, but I've been lazy about it.  Because what I really want is to be a full-time librarian, but I can't see doing that until we resolve this infertility bullshit.

I don't want this whole post to be whiny doom and gloom.  There's plenty of good stuff to report.  Good old AF showed up this week - huzzah!  Honestly, for the last 14 months, AF's arrival was depressing.... until I had a D&C and feared that I'd never see her again.  So I'm glad that I've got a cycle again.  It makes moving forward more real.  And this week I get my blood drawn for Recurrent Pregnancy Loss (RPL) testing.  That's the last thing I have to get done post-miscarriage.  And it looks like Jeeves and I are going on vacation to Belgium the first week in September.  So that's pretty exciting.

One of my main goals for the year was to read 52 books.  I did great for the first six months of the year, but when we found out about the miscarriage, I started having trouble focusing on novels.  I can start a book, but I can't seem to finish it.  I'm 35 books in, and I know I'll get to 52, but it's been a bit of a struggle lately.  So I was pretty excited when Ammie lent me her copy of Far From the Tree by Andrew Solomon.  I've heard great things about it.  I actually skipped right to the autism chapter, since my middle nephew, Cooper, is autistic.  The title of this post is a quote from Carly Fleischmann, who is autistic and is able to communicate through typing.  I'm looking forward to reading the rest of it.  Non-fiction can be a great palate-cleanser for me.  After that, I can go back to reading too much dystopic sci-fi and epic fantasy.

My optimism wears heavy boots and is loud*

I went to visit my dad this week (the Old Man, which yes, I do call him to his face), and we started talking about his brother and his brother's wife.  The Old Man is going to turn 78 in August, and his big bro is 82.  He's in very good health now, but he's a cancer survivor.  Unlike Dad, they caught my uncle's cancer before it metastasized and he's been cancer free for over five years now.  My aunt, on the other hand, is in very poor health, has been mostly confined to a wheelchair for a number of years, and just had her leg amputated.  Although she seemed to be doing well, was getting fitted for a prosthetic and was doing physical therapy, she has since fallen a few times and seems to be doing worse than she was before the amputation.  Anyway, Dad was telling me that sometimes it's hard for him when he talks to his brother because his bro is such a positive person - he's always so upbeat no matter how poorly his wife is doing.  He always believes it's going to get better.  And then Dad gets on the phone with his sister-in-law and she's so negative (understandably) about everything.  Dad feels badly for her, but he really worries about his brother, whether he'll be able to maintain his optimism, how he would react if his wife dies, and the physical toll caring for his wife might have on him.

You'll have to bear with me while I get to my point.  I was never a very optimistic person, and I always used to focus on the worst case scenario.  It just seemed to me that it would be best to expect bad things to happen because then you wouldn't be blindsided if they did actually happen, and if they didn't, you could feel pleasantly surprised.  A therapist I went to years ago once asked me how it feels to dwell on poor future outcomes and I told her it felt crummy.  She asked if it made the bad thing less awful when it actually happened.  I said, no, I still generally felt really miserable when the bad thing happened.  Her point being that I was wasting a lot of emotional energy expecting and dwelling on the worst case scenario when it didn't really gain me anything.  That's not to say that I wander blindly around in a peppy, Pollyanna-ish fog, but I do try to limit how much I hang on to those negative thoughts.

When Dad was diagnosed, I went from a general pessimist to more of an optimist.  I'm not entirely sure why.  The statistics have always been stacked against us - the five-year survival rate for stage IV colon cancer is currently 6%, but it was even lower when the old man was diagnosed over four years ago.  We had no reason to be optimistic.  But I just felt really confident that the chemo would work for him.  But I also sort of felt like I had to be positive and upbeat for Dad, because sometimes it's tough to do that for yourself.  None of this upbeat thinking stopped me from bawling on the day we found out the first round of chemo was actually working - I still felt the intensity of that relief acutely, and I was still (am still, actually) nervous before every CAT scan result.  In fact, before each CAT scan result, I think about how to buck up Dad if it's bad news.  But I still feel optimistic for Dad, even though we both know that someday he is going to die from his cancer.

None of this optimism has really translated to our infertility treatments, especially when it came to the IUI.  When Jeeves and I started our first IUI cycle, I was so sure it would not work for us, that we were wasting our time.  Right after the cycle started, I went out to dinner with Roo and another friend and told them about what was going on with us and the IUI.  Roo said, "I have a really good feeling about this!" (the eternal optimist, that Roo).  I said, "I'm glad that somebody does."  She asked what I meant and I explained how I was kind of down on the whole thing.  I said I had thought for awhile that I was an optimist, but now I wasn't so sure.  Basically, I still feel optimistic for other people, I still believe good things are going to happen for other people - I really do.  I've just been struggling to feel that way for myself.

Which is why, when my dad told me about my uncle and aunt and his concerns, in my self-centered way I related it back to my own situation.  Jeeves is such a positive person, he totally believes that we will have our own baby someday.  And he has to spend a lot of time bucking me up, reassuring me, lifting me.  On the one hand, that's kind of how marriage goes sometimes.  But on the other, I realized that it's not fair to always put him in that situation.  I need to work at being more optimistic for myself.  If I could believe in my heart that my cancer-riddled father was still going to be around a year after his diagnosis, and then a year after that, and a year after that, then I can believe that in some way, we will be parents someday.

*that's a Henry Rollins quote

Arrange your face

I'm not a cryer.  I used to be.  But not anymore.  When Dad was diagnosed with cancer, I sort of came to the conclusion that as his primary caregiver, I wasn't going to be allowed to cry anymore.  That doesn't mean I never cry at stuff, I definitely do, but it's more to prove a point that I don't get weepy anymore over "silly" things the way I did when I was younger, and I'm much more able to talk myself out of tears when I feel them coming on.

In the days following my D & C, I found myself on the verge of tears a lot.  I know that kind of sounds like a "well, duh, you had a miscarriage and it's sad" sort of thing, but that's not what I was crying about.  I was crying about really dumb stuff.  In the days before the D & C, I cried, and I sort of made my peace with the situation.  But I later learned that after a miscarriage - be it natural or medically-induced - your hCG levels start to plummet and that can cause moodiness and other good stuff.  So that's the background.

I read Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel earlier this year.  It's the first book in a planned trilogy, historical fiction with Thomas Cromwell as the main character.  I loved it, it was one of the best books I've ever read, and I'm very much looking forward to reading the sequel, Bring Up the Bodies.  I like to listen to NPR podcasts when I walk to and from work, and on the Monday following my D& C, I was pleased to see that Terry Gross of Fresh Air had posted an interview with Hilary Mantel.  The first half of the interview just deals with Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, Mantel's thoughts on Cromwell and Henry VIII in general, and so on.  In the last ten minutes of the interview, which I was listening to on that hot day as I walked home from work, Terry Gross asks Mantel to discuss her lifelong battle with endometriosis.  Mantel explained what endo is and then in her typical, matter-of-fact, British way, stated: "I suffered from it, I think since I was 11 years old. It wasn't diagnosed; I kept getting sent away and told that it was all in my mind. When I was 27, the whole thing came to a crisis, and I had surgery, big surgery. I lost my fertility. I didn't have any children; I don't know whether I would have been able to have children. Unfortunately, that surgery didn't cure the condition. It came back, and I lived with it for the next 20 years. It's now died back, it's quiescent, but it's done a lot of damage to my body."

I knew that Mantel was married, had been married for a long time, and I knew that she didn't have children.  But I never realized that she suffered from endo and infertility.  And by this point on my walk home, I'm snotting all over the place with big fat tears running down my cheeks.  And the real reason, the real thing that was making me cry, aside from how frankly she spoke about her problem, was that Hilary Mantel has led a really interesting life, she is an incredibly gifted writer, and her work means something to me and to other people.  And long after she is gone, it will continue to do that.  Of course I logically know that if I never have children of my own, my life will still have value and meaning.  Of course.  But if I'm being honest, I don't always feel that way.  I worry that if I can't have children, my life will mean less, will be less fulfilling.  But hearing Hilary Mantel talk, it made me feel a little more like my life can still be full and rich and worthwhile not just for me, but for other people even if I don't have kids.

Then she started talking about her personal feelings on religion, and I teared up again in the middle of Duane Reade because I agreed with so much of what she said.  But that's neither here nor there.

Thomas Cromwell of Mantel's telling would totally not have approved of my weepiness - that's the point of this post's title.  Cromwell is always instructing himself and his underlings to "arrange your face" so as not to give anything away, to keep from looking shocked or angry or pleased when negotiating.  Ultimately, though, my hormones stabilized and I stopped crying while walking to work listening to podcasts.  And now I'll leave you with a little Wolf Hall.  In this scene, Cromwell is talking to his wife about Queen Katherine, whom Henry VIII is trying to divorce:

"He doesn't like her crying."
"Men say," Liz reaches for her scissors, "'I can't endure it when women cry' - just as people say, 'I can't endure this wet weather.'  As if it were nothing to do with the men at all, the crying.  Just one of those things that happens."
"I've never made you cry, have I?"
"Only with laughter," she says.

  

Okay for now

I'm stealing the name of this post from an excellent middle grade/YA novel by the same name.  The novel has absolutely nothing to do with the theme of this post, but I always like to plug a good book.  

Watch out, this one's a doozy.  Thanks to Ned Ryerson for that.

I haven't written on this blog in just over a year, and I have obviously fallen way off in recapping Jeeves' and my adventure in France which was (jeez) almost two years ago now.  Since that trip, we've been to Italy and Portland/Seattle/surrounding PacNW environs.  Also little trips to Chicago and Cincinnati.  I may get back to recapping the Paris trip at some point, but for the time being, I want to talk about something else.

Not sure what inspired me to start writing on this blog again, although the number of blogs I have been reading lately probably has something to do with it.  Yeah, I've been reading a lot of blogs kept by fellow infertiles lately.  But I have no desire to keep a blog solely focused on that aspect of my life.  I understand why people do it, but when I'm in the middle of a treatment cycle, I really don't want to share the details of it with others, with the exception of my acupuncturist and a close friend who has dealt with infertility (and therefore knows what all the numbers mean and all the slang and abbreviations, and knows how I feel about everything before I even have to voice it because she's already been there).  And since my miscarriage, I feel even more sure that when we eventually start treatment again, I'm not going to want to talk about it.

So here's my thought on the matter - I will periodically be posting about infertility here.  I won't always be posting about infertility.  I'll hopefully be posting again about books and articles and movies and restaurants and food (glorious food!) like I used to.   I won't be posting details about my treatment cycles, although I'll surely still post about my feelings and thoughts and what not.  For those of you who read this blog because you know me in real life and you're just following along, I promise I will try to limit the gory details.

Here is how we got here, if you don't already know:  Jeeves and I have been together for over 7 years now, we've been married for just under 2.  We both always knew we wanted kids.  I went off the pill in April 2012.  Got my first post-pill period in May 2012.  In June, I started "charting" (that means taking my temperature when I wake in the morning every day and putting it on a little chart to determine if I am ovulating and how long my luteal phase is).  Everything looked pretty good on my chart, it seemed like I was ovulating.  In July, I started using ovulation predictor kits (OPKs).  I was indeed ovulating properly.  And if you're a fellow infertile, yes, I read Taking Charge of Your Fertility cover to cover.

By early September, still not pregnant despite everything appearing fine, I started to get really nervous.  I was 34 and time seemed of the essence.  My aforementioned friend who has dealt with infertility for many years wasn't far from my mind.  I've never been one of those people who assumed I'd just get pregnant without any problems.  So I made an appointment to go to a reproductive endocrinologist (RE).  She recommended a battery of tests: general blood tests for both of us, a hysterosalpingogram (HSG) for me, a semen analysis (SA) for Jeeves, and a variety of cycle-specific tests for me (estradiol, FSH, progesterone) and anti-mullerian hormone (AMH) which can suggest if you have diminished ovarian reserve.   Long story short - every one of my tests came back just fine.  Totes normal.  I was shocked.  I was so sure if anything was wrong, it would be with me.  Jeeves's SA showed an issue - fine volume, count, motility, but very low morphology.  A follow up a month later showed the same thing.  

Our RE told us it wasn't impossible for us to get pregnant without help, but that it might not happen without assistance.  She diagnosed us as "unexplained infertility with mild male factor."  She recommended we try three cycles of intra-uterine insemination (IUI), and if that didn't work, move onto in vitro fertilization (IVF).  If you're wondering why I'm spelling everything out and linking, it's because I've found that the majority of people in my life honestly did not know the difference between IUI and IVF before I told them about it.  We were okay with this because IUI is covered by our insurance, but IVF is not.  Still, I've read several studies that indicate in women over 35 (I wasn't there yet, but close), with partners who have poor morphology, there was absolutely no benefit to IUI.  I asked our RE about this and she said she still thought it was worth a try, but no more than 3 cycles.

We decided to take a couple more months and try on our own.  Nothing happened.  Beginning of February, I did IUI #1.  Exactly 14 days after my insemination, I got my period (good old Aunt Flo, or AF to anyone who spends time on infertility boards).  I was still charting at this time and had seen my temperature dip, so I knew it was coming.  I went in for my day two baseline (for the non-IFers, when you are in treatment, you usually go in on day 2 or 3 of your cycle for a "baseline" blood test and ultrasound to make sure you don't have cysts, check your uterine lining, get blood drawn, and get your marching orders for meds).  That afternoon, while shopping for baby clothes for other friends (Super fun.  Not depressing at all.  Right.) I got a call from my clinic - I could not start my clomid (that's the medicine I take to make sure I ovulate some pretty eggs) because my pregnancy test came back positive.  "That's not possible," I told the nurse.  "I have my period - and it's not spotting, it's a real period."  Nevertheless, I would have to come back in and get my blood tested again in a few days.  I realized immediately it was probably a chemical pregnancy.  On the one hand I was sad, of course, but on the other, I thought - hey, my egg and Jeeves's sperm actually DID something!  That's a change!  Over the next two weeks, they tracked by hCG levels (aka betas).  In a normal pregnancy, your hCG doubles every 48-72 hours.  My next beta was in these parameters - could it be that this could possibly work out?  Ha ha.  No.  Two days later, it had only gone up a a few points and my RE called to tell me this was not a viable pregnancy.  Next beta then did double normally!  Could my RE be wrong?  No.  After that, they fell.  It was disappointing, but not crushing since I had always known having a full-on period, low basal temperatures, and crappy low betas was not a good thing. 

IUI #2 was just a plain old big fat negative.  Nothing to see here, folks.

IUI #3 started out disappointing - my follicles developed much more slowly than they had the previous cycle.  We got through the insemination, and I tried really hard to not feel hopeless about the whole thing.  In the meantime, I started researching IVF protocols so I would be prepared when meeting with our RE when this IUI cycle surely failed.  But something happened - my temps didn't fall like they usually do before I get my period, and I started having pregnancy symptoms.  At 12 days post IUI (12dpiui), I took a home pregnancy test (HPT) and it was positive!  Jeeves and I were so happy.  I took one every day after that, hoping it would get darker, and it did.  My first beta at 14dpiui was 118!  That's great!  Great great great!  My next beta  few days later was 476!  Beautiful!  A doubling time of 48 hours - perfect!  I should note that most clinics only require 2 beta tests and then they schedule you for an ultrasound a couple of weeks down the road.  Not mine - mine requires, like, 4 or 5.  Beta #3 was 856 - a 56 hour doubling time, so that's okay.  At this point, Jeeves and I were feeling pretty good.  I hate the beta roller coaster, but it seemed like we could maybe be happy now.

After Memorial Day weekend, I went for beta #4 and knew I was in trouble when the doctor called instead of the nurse.  My beta was 2146, which is a 95 hour doubling time.  Not so hot.  The RE was worried about a possible ectopic pregnancy (that's when the embryo implants in your fallopian tube, or anywhere else other than the uterus).  They wanted me to come in the next day, when I would be 5 weeks and 5 days pregnant (5w5d) for an ultrasound to rule out ectopic.  That day was one of the crummier days of my life.  Don't get me wrong, it's not up there with the day my mom died or the day Dad was diagnosed with cancer and had emergency bowel resection, but it was definitely crummier than most other days of my life.  Definitely crummier than when we got bedbugs.  Our RE (it's a group practice so on this day, the doctor I saw, who is very nice, was about 6 months pregnant herself.... the irony of that was not lost on me) basically was concerned that what turned out to be my corpus luteum was possibly an embryo attached to my ovary.  In my uterus, she saw a small gestational sac, but she couldn't rule out that it was just a hematoma.  So she sent me down the road for a high resolution scan at the snazzy high risk ob/gyn.  The high risk OB thought it was stupid that I was there, said it was clearly a corpus luteum, agreed that he couldn't see anything in the gestational sac, but also said it was really too early to know anything.  

Thus followed an awesome ultrasound roller coaster.  At 6w5d, after making peace with the fact that this would probably be a blighted ovum (where the embryo implants but then never really forms, thus leaving an empty sac), our RE saw a yolk sac!  Could it just be that my tilted uterus (yeah, found out I have one of those) was preventing us from seeing the bean?  Possibly!  No, dopey Megs, but it's cute how hopeful you get sometimes.  At 7w3d, our RE could see the fetal pole, but there was no heartbeat and it was measuring at only 6 weeks.  She was pretty sure this was not viable.  She sent us back to the high resolution scan people and they confirmed at 7w4d - I had what is called a missed miscarriage, which means the embryo died, but your body is too dumb to do anything about it.  I talked to my RE at length about what to do and in the end decided to have a D & C at 7w6d.  It went fine.  I'm glad I did it instead of waiting weeks for it to happen naturally.

Unfortunately, genetic testing of the product of conception (POC) was cross-contaminated with my awesome cells, and so we will never know if it was a chromosomal issue (most likely) or something else.  In the mean time, my RE is having Jeeves and me karyotyped to make sure there is nothing wonky with our chromosomes, and I am having a whole bunch of blood tests soon to make sure I don't have an immune or clotting disorder that makes me more susceptible to miscarriage (aka, a recurrent pregnancy loss, or RPL, blood panel).  

Today, just over 4 weeks since the D & C, my hCG level finally dropped down to 8, which is not quite negative (anything below 5 is negative), but means I can stop being a pin cushion at my RE's office for a couple of months until we start this bullshit over again.  

Hopefully in September, we'll try IUI again.  As you may have noticed, I have had 3 of these IUIs and my RE had said she would limit it to 3.  But since I got pregnant 2 out of those 3 times, she thinks we should stick with this rather than move onto IVF.  Works for me.

That is the story.  I have been feeling all of the feelings since then.  I know that if Jeeves and I get pregnant again, we will never get to be one of those happy pregnant couples.  We will always know that one positive home test is meaningless, that two or three good betas are meaningless.  Maybe if we get a heartbeat on an ultrasound I will feel happy, but I know too many other women who got that far and had miscarriages.  We know how the sausage gets made now, there's no turning back.  

The truth is, I am okay.  I was really sad for awhile, and really jealous of every pregnant woman I saw for several weeks.  The hardest part has been feeling like we can't move forward - we are stuck in this waiting room until my tests are done and I have a period or two.  On the other hand, I realize that having a break is probably the best thing for me.  

I had a couple of minor epiphanies about this whole situation this past week.  I was reading an article in the Times about women in Ohio who were recently freed after a decade of captivity.  They made a video to thank people for the support, and Michelle Knight said, "I will not let the situation define who I am. I will define the situation.”  My first thought was, wow, that's a great sentiment.  And it got me thinking about the labels we wear and how they define us.  My husband and I are experiencing infertility and early pregnancy loss.  But that does not define who we are.  For me, I define myself as a wife, daughter, sister, auntie, friend, ginger, New Yorker, New Jerseyan (in my heart), erstwhile litigator, hopeful librarian.  Those labels define me.  Infertile does not define me.  Does it influence how I feel and think about certain things?  Sure.  Will I remember all this stuff if we ever get pregnant?  Definitely.  Will I be honest about how hard it was for us to have a child, if we ever have children?  Absolutely.  But I am going to define this situation, not the other way around.  

The other epiphany involved my mother.  Mom died very suddenly of what we assume was a massive heart attack over seven years ago.  We were very close.  Her death was very hard on me (and did indeed define me for awhile).  At the time she died, I was 27, which is still a pretty young age to lose your mom, even though I was an adult.  I had only one other friend, Roo, whose mother was dead.  And actually, seven years later, although I do know other people in my age-group who have lost their mom, Roo remains my only actual friend who is motherless as well.  When you are in your late twenties and thirties and your mom is dead, life is different than it is for other people who still have their moms.  When my mom first died, I was jealous of other people who still had their mothers.  It passed.  Of course I still wish my mother were here, but she's not.  For better or worse, I am in that crappy exclusive club of people whose moms are dead.  And our path is different.  Lots and lots of people get pregnant with no trouble.  Lots and lots of people never have a miscarriage.  That's not my life.  And there's no use pouting about it.  My path is different.  This realization made me feel a little less angry at every pregnant woman I saw.  My friends who still have their moms?  They didn't steal my mom.  My mom isn't dead because those other moms are still alive.  And I don't want someone else's mom - I want my mom.  Likewise, those women aren't pregnant with my baby and their success is not my failure.  And I don't want their baby - I want my baby.  This doesn't mean I won't have bad, jealous moments, days or even weeks.  But I realize my path to having a child is different, and hopefully we'll have better luck next time.

Day 3 - I am NOT waiting in that line

We got up and took the Metro to the Eiffel Tower on the morning of day 3.  We pretty much knew right from the start that there was no way we were going to the top - I had read that the lines can be crazy and we didn't want to spend all day waiting.  Also, Sacre Coeur has a superior view of the city, and we had already been up there.  So.  We got to the Eiffel Tower, took a lot of photos, admired the iron work, laughed at the people waiting in the 3+ hour line, and then walked over to the Trocadero.  From there we hopped on a Metro to see L'Arc de Triomphe.

The Arc is pretty, but the best part is walking along the Champs-Élysées.  I sang the Champs song a lot.  It goes like this:


Aux Champs-Elysées
Aux Champs-Elysées
Au soleil sous la pluie
A midi ou à minuit
Il y a tout c' que vous voulez
Aux Champs-Elysées

I learned that song in middle school.  Jeeves thought I was making it up.  It's real, though, people.  There are verses and stuff but I only remember the chorus.

Anyway, then we hopped the Metro and went to a small street in Paris that has several restaurants that specialize in Brittony-style crepes and cider.  It. Was. Amazing.

We went to Cafe Josselin.  Here are our crepes and bowls of cider.

That crepe was the size of my head.  After lunch, I took a much-needed nap and Jeeves went to a wine store called Lavinia where, without me to rein him in, he goes a little wine crazy.  

Dinner that night was at L'atelier de Joel Robuchon.  I've had dinner before at the L'atelier in Las Vegas, which was exceptional, but Jeeves hadn't been to one before.  It was very good, but not as insane as I expected it to be.  I especially didn't think it deserved 2 Michelin stars.  Anyway, the highlights of the meal were a corn gazpacho with creme fraiche and caviar, and quail with truffled whipped potatoes.

So, we walk along the Champs again, and decide to hop the Metro and try to take a nighttime Seine river boat ride.  It's beautiful and we get to see the light show at the Eiffel Tower.