Friday 17 April 2015

Would you tell someone you were infertile?

Today I found this really good article called Would you tell someone you were infertile?

The thing I liked the most about it is that people seem to talk more about the subject when they have overcome infertility one way or another. We don't hear about celebrities struggling with infertility, we hear about them having kids with surrogates, donor eggs, or adopting. And that's if we hear about it at all.

Where are the non success stories? As me, there are so many women struggling with infertility and with no happy ending yet. We hide in forums, and in some blogs. We might tell some close friends and family, but that's it. You don't hear about us in the news struggling to get the money for one more treatment, or about the suffering that we endure. You rarely hear about infertility classified as a medical condition with suffering equivalent to cancer, but it is there, it is real.

I am not asking that news should report about it, but it's not in TV, or movies. It is not talked about.

I do not have cable at home, but this week I stayed at a hotel for 2 nights and tried to watch TLC. The 2 main TV shows the whole time I was able to watch TV? "19 kids and counting" and "I didn't know I was pregnant". Basically everyone can have kids with only thinking about it? Where are shows like "Infertile and struggling" or "Fighting against time: An infertile journey", or my favourite name I read in a forum "Womb warriors".

Where do we fit in a society that expects you to be able to get pregnant just because you are a woman, and expects you to be a dad just because you are married?. Mother's day, father's day, church family events oriented to kids, company "bring your kids!" events. We sit on the sidelines watching and mourning. We mourn every month, we mourn every lost, we mourn every time we see a baby or a pregnant woman. We suffer in silence and wish people at the work event would just stop talking about their kids, or to please stop sending email after email about the surprise baby shower for X just because I am a woman. Stop. Being a mother is a wonderful thing, I know it, I am a mother at heart, but please stop alienating me and reminding me so much.

Thursday 16 April 2015

Monday 6 April 2015

The strength to go on, and the strength to stop

A lot of people talk about how much strength it takes to go on in this process, to try one more time, to give it just one more shot. I believe it takes incredible amounts of strength to stop too. To not try one more time and accept, to accept life as-is and stop trying to change it, to believe there is something else out there besides our current goal.

I am being forced again and again to contemplate that future. A future where I stop.

Before I started IVF I remember thinking how much I admired the women that didn't give up and tried one more time. Right now I don't know if I admire them, but I know I admire the women that decide to stop. The women that decide not to try IVF again and change their path. The women that decide to live life and stop trying to change it.

One IVF is enough for me. I don't know the outcome yet, but I am forced to see a future after this. I am forced to think about plan B and plan C. I have hope but hope is low. The light is low and everything is dimmed. Even though I feel like the light is gone, I feel comfort about going back to my life. To being happy again. To stop trying and let the future come.

God, I give up, I surrender. I had put my will on you, I decided to stop worrying and leave it all in your hands. Today I surrender. Today I not only put my future in your hands, and let you take care of it. Today I tell you that I will stop fighting. I will let you guide me. I will let you take me wherever you had planned all along.


I surrender.

Wednesday 1 April 2015

Two week wait... again

And here we are, in the 2 week wait again. Thinking of every little thing going on in my body, obsessing, reading about it, worrying about it. This wait has been a lot better than the previous cycles, I think I'm a bit more relaxed and feel more deeply that there is nothing I can do to change the outcome at this point. I know I'm not even half way through it (but more than a third!!) but last time I was obsessing since day 1.

Today is day 5, which can be read 5dp5dt in the forums. 5 days past 5 day transfer. Instead of thinking that I have to wait week and a half to know if it works, I'm concentrated on making it until this Thursday that I have acupuncture and Friday that I have an ultrasound.

Even like that the wait it's not easy. If I'm not completely engrossed on whatever I'm doing, I'm thinking about it. For example all these days I have been keeping an eye on my OHSS, but today I woke up feeling much better. So I have pretty much spent all day reading about the possibility of OHSS getting better but still being pregnant. Obsessive.

If I'm home I can distract myself, but the car and the office are the worse. In the car I feel the temptation of talking with J about it. At work I don't actually do work and browse all day for answers, write and read in forums, and in general feel annoyed that I can't be home. J keeps insisting that I take days off, but this is just starting!! I know that's it's silly that I don't take days off work and still don't work in the office, but at least I'm here. I can be available and I do try every so often, it's just hard.
Julia Wertz
I have seen lots of ideas to make it go faster, but what to do when you are stuck in the office and don't want to work? I should remove my Internet xD Maybe that will make me concentrate on work :)

The infinite wait continues.