Cycle Day 4

This is always the easiest part of the cycle for me, when there's nothing to do, nothing to worry about, except to wait until my period ends and the ultrasounds start to see if any follicles are growing.  No possible pregnancy today, but no possible negative on a test, either, no need to check for spotting, no possible new bad news.

It's been so long, so many years and months and cycles of thinking about gearing up for a possible pregnancy or hoping for one or mourning the possibility of one yet again, that I can't even really remember what life was like when it was always like it is right now, at this easy part of the cycle, this tiny sliver of respite.

And I can't image what it will be like when I'm past this stage of life, either a parent or living child-free--I can't even imagine who I willl be then, since this has been the reality for so long, and since I feel like I've had to give up so much of my former life to focus so much of my energy on TTC in my 40s. 

I used to, simultaneously:

• Live in 2 countries, Japan (where T is from), and the US, where I'm from--spending about 4 months a year at home, 8 months a year in Japan
• Teach writing at the college level in the US
• Run my own writing company
• Run an award-winning global literary series
• Publish articles and essays in major publications

Now I'm just infertile.

I live full-time in Japan because the traveling is too hard on the effort to conceive.  I no longer teach.  I no longer run my literary series.  I no longer publish.

I go to the fertility clinic and struggle to communicate with the nurses and doctors in Japanese.  I try to exercise gently every day and meditate and fight off despair. I try to eat well.  I try to remember every day how lucky I am to be with my husband who I adore, and I try to love him well. I try to ovulate.

But at base, it feels like all I am is just infertile.

What's Getting Me Through Today:

• A new, pre-ovulation MP3 I downloaded from Anji online (http://www.anjionline.com/).  Don't love it but I like it.  It's calming and I like having something new to try and it's a nice variation to my standby favorite, the Bellaruth Naperstak MP3s.
• The new batch of "healing" soup I made based on a recipe from a Chinese Medicine cookbook called A Spoonful of Ginger (http://www.amazon.com/Spoonful-Ginger-Irresistible-Health-Giving-Kitchens/dp/0375400362), which I love. Basically, I simmer chicken pices (about 2 1/2 pounds, with bone) with smashed ginger (6 slices), smashed scallion (6 stalks), water (9 cups) and sake (1 cup) for 1 1/2 hours.  Then I take  serving or two of that broth (and freeze the rest for later, for whenever I need chicken broth or want to make a new soup) and add whole spinach leaves, including the stems, and swiss chard, sliced into thin strips, and I simmer that together with salt and pepper for about 10 minutes.  And I felt really good after eating it!

Cycle Days 2 & 3

Just home from dinner, and from 2 and 1/2 glasses of wine I allowed myself to have since at least I know for sure that I'm not pregnant.  Suddenly, having my period doesn't seem so bad.

What's Getting Me Through Today

Wine

My Question for Today

How much restriction can we put ourselves through if the effort to conceive last years? I've read all the stuff that says no caffeine, no alchohol, no white sugar, etc., and I can see the importance of this after ovulation or when you're actually pregnant, but seriously, how do you last years and years without any of this?

One of my IF saviors, who I mentioned in my last post, Bellaruth Naperstek, talks  in one of her meditations about the importance of accepting that you can't force anything to happen, that you can only invite it to occur in its own time, and in the meantime, all you can do is "live your life, fully and completely, taking gentle good care of yourself."  So how do I live a normal, full, joyful life when I'm constantly trying to restrict myself?

My solution has been to allow whatever I want during my period, and then 3 cups of coffee and 3 glasses of wine a week before ovulation, and then only one cup of tea and no alchohol (or just a sip here and there of DH's wine) after ovulation.

It's still not perfect, but it's my mid-way solution.  And of course I still feel guilty a lot of the time that I'm not cutting out, 100% of the time, everything anyone has ever said could compromise fertility...

Cycle Day 1

My first cycle of my 44th year starts now.  2nd cylce after my last failed IVF (my 4th).  3rd cycle after my last miscarriage (my 2nd).  31st cycle of trying, not counting months without blood due to IVF meds and 2 brief pregnancies.

The 1st cyle of our last year of trying, since my husband, T, and I have decided to try until my 45th birthday.

Two days since I broke down and took a home pregnancy test, which somehow always feels like a failure of character or strength.

Part of my doesn't even want to write about this last year of trying.  It feels like infertility has taken so very much out of me and I have nothing leftover to spend on creativity or expression.  But the other part of me can't bear to spend another year, this last year of trying, barren in both baby and words.

What's Getting Me Through Today

• A cup of coffee and a glass of wine, since during my period I allow myself a break from all the lifestyle restrictions that come with TTC at an "advanced maternal age."  I once read a book from a Chinese-medicine Dr who wrote that women should not pursue any fertility treatments during their periods, since it's a time to rest.  I doubt by that he meant for me to drink wine and coffee, but if I can't create a baby, at least I'll be creative with semantics.
• Circle & Bloom's CD1 recording (MP3) in their natural cycle fertility program.  Feel mixed about this program sometimes, but I love having a recording for every day, like a tiny slice of solace meant for each point in my cycle. (http://www.circlebloom.com/get-started/natural-cycle-fertility-program/)
• Bellaruth Napersak's MP3s.  I usually listen to the fertility ones, but sometimes during my period, I listen to the tracks of grief, actually.  Helps me feel like I'm moving on.  I really love her stuff: http://www.healthjourneys.com/Product_Detail.aspx?id=11
• Yoga!  It's the one thing I've gotten out of this whole infertility experience that I know is a plus, no matter what the outcome.

What I'm Wondering about Today

How do we find positive things in this infertility experience, especially if it hasn't resulted in a baby?  Is there anything I can take from this will have actually made my life better?  So much of it is just sheer heartbreak, and sometimes I'm terrified I'll look back, at 45 when/if I give up then, and think, I spent 4 years of my life devoted to this effort, and what do I have to show for it?

Fertility & Positive Thinking: Tool or Trap?

Two recent pieces of news/writing have prompted this post:

1. A new article in Reuters about a study showing that stress may not have any impact at all on IVF outcome: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/25/us-fertility-stress-idUSTRE71O0B520110225
2. A post by the wonderful Deborah Lynn of The Resource Guid for Pregnancy at 40: http://www.over35newmoms.com/testimonials.html?entry=on-becoming-our-infertility

So here's my take on positive thinking, negative thinking, and the stress of feeling overwhlemed by infertlity:

In the world of women over 40 who are trying to conceive, the latest mandate is not to take your prenatals or avoid coffee: it’s to think positively.

In the more than two years I’ve spent in my “40+-and-TCC” online group, positive thinking has come up more frequently, and passionately, than any other topic.  When to start thinking positively (Envision your follicles growing with every shot!), what daily actions you can incorporate into your visualization-regime (Keep imagining a baby seat in the back every single time you drive your car!), and, most importantly, what to do when spirits flag (Never, never let the negative get inside your head.)

The advanced-maternal-age sector, along with the infertility community at large, has embraced the pop-culture trend of “if you build it, they will come,”  spawned from such best-sellers as The Secret and Creative Visualization: Use the Power of Your Imagination to Create What You Want in Your Life. But nowhere today does the admonishment to visualize success seem to ring more loudly—or, I’ve begin to think, more problematically—than in the Over-40-and-Trying-To-Conceive sector.

The support and caring and love that accompany the admonishments I mention above from my TTC online group: these are real and admirable and invaluable, and in no way to I mean to diminish that.  But their insistence on forcing us to deny or push away the stress and even the feelings of hopelessness that are an inevitable part of having our hopes dashed month after month: this is what I fear is harmful, actually.

As one oft-cited expert has written, “You can think yourself (in) fertile! It’s your choice.” And herein lies what makes the positive-thinking mandate so tricky: the corollary that the failure to conceive stems not from biology but personal shortcoming.  Similar criticisms have been made of applying positive thinking to the effort to overcome cancer, depression, etc.

But there’s another problem with compulsory optimism: the stress it can cause through denial of the natural lows accompanying infertility.  A handful of experts are starting to explore this paradox and the link between the suppression of negative feelings and an increase in cortisol, a chemical that may inhibit conception.  As Dr. Lisa Rouff has written, “It can be common for some infertility patients to [try to] maintain a very optimistic outlook… [But there are] pitfalls of this type of thinking as it relates to infertility treatment.” (http://www.lisarouff.com/blog1/index.php)

I’d like to propose an alternative to enforced optimism—and the only mind-set that has worked for me after four IVF cycles, one miscarriage, diminished ovarian reserve, and eight pregnant friends: allowing ourselves to experience our full range of emotions, and limitations, with compassion and acceptance, and then embracing our fierce potential to create our strongest possible bodies, ones that will eventually support either a healthy pregnancy, a deep appreciation of all we’ve already built, or a vibrant child-free life.  I’m not advocating giving into the despair infertility can cause, or allowing it to overtake us forever.  But I am advocating allowing ourselves to acknowledge it―and not blame ourselves for it―and even to feel it fully, before we expect ourselves to move on to what I believe is the true opposite of negative thinking: not willful positive thinking, but realistic thinking, supplemented with pride in ourselves for all that we achieve and create when we make it through one more day of infertility.

Missed Birthday

Today would have been our baby's first birthday, if it had ever been born, if it had ever lived past 8 weeks and 5 days, if its heart had kept beating.

I'm not sure what one is supposed to do on a missed birthday after a missed miscarriage after the only pregnancy one was ever able to concieve, after 27 straight cycles of trying (minus the 3 during the actual pregnancy-of-the-baby-that-never-was, the one after that baby-that-never-was's "missed" miscarriage, and one additional one when one and one's husband were on different continents and thus unable to try procreating), after 3 IVF cycles, 4 embryo transfers, and over two years straight of monthly minor heartbreaks or major depressions, depending on one's state of mind when one's period shows up yet again.

Does one cry inconsolably?  Hold some sort of missed-birthday ceremony?  Increase one's dosage of Zoloft?

I've done none of the above.  But I did stay in bed until past noon.  And then watch reruns on TV.  And then had a muffin and a coffee, neither of which is allowed on my fertility diet.  And then decided that I just couldn't take this feeling of being in limbo one second longer, with nothing to show for it.

So now, against all my better judgment perhaps, I'm writing out loud. About being infertile, in limbo, and in total confusion about how one goes ahead with one's life in any kind of productive way when one cannot seem to reproduce.

My questions:

1. How does one make anything meaningful, achieve anything worthwile, while being chewed whole and spat out daily by the soul-sucking experience of infertility?
   
   --and, perhaps more easy to answer:--
   
   
2. How does one mark the birthday of a baby-that-never-was?