Needing a fix

I feel a little like an addict, I *need* to be shooting myself full of hormones and making morning visits to the RE's office. I read other people's blogs that are doing something, IUI/IVF and I'm not doing anything except waiting and it makes me a little crazy. Several times recently I've thought about us doing IVF again with our eggs/sperm but then I think about it and think about how crappy I'd feel if we wasted $13,000 + again and the feeling passes. I *know* the chances are better for us using donor embryos or donor eggs/sperm but the waiting is so frustrating.

On the homestudy front we went and got fingerprinted a few weekends ago, oddly at a gun range. The technician had trouble getting mine to work on the electronic fingerprinting machine so I may have to go back. Several of our references have sent in their letters, my brother, my boss and my best friend. I think we still have a few more out but they should be getting them in soon. We're hoping to get an appointment at the NEDC by the fall at least, their wait times are pretty long but hopefully once we get an appointment we won't have to wait too long for a transfer date (if nothing goes wrong). Until then I'm reading blogs of those couples who have gone through embryo adoption/donation, especially those who went through the NEDC, so I can get a better handle on the process. One of the bigger decisions we'll have to make is whether or not to use anonymous embryos or use embryos from a couple that we will 'know' (similar to open adoption). I'm leaning towards the idea of 'known' embryos, just because I want any children we might have to have the opportunity to know their genetic parents and siblings later on down the road. These are such big decisions to make and there's so little to go on because donor embryos are still such a new thing.

Where we stand

We are beginning the home-study process. We are currently undecided about domestic adoption. We thought we were on board but more reading/research has us unsure about the long-term aspects of domestic infant adoption. We are however still interested in donor embryos and we will need a home-study for that. We found a local agency to do it and just mailed off the initial paperwork/application to them last week. There was a fair amount of paper chasing just for the initial application so I shudder to think what the actual home-study entails. 

So we're pretty much back to waiting it out again. It's still hard because I know a lot of people with new babies and others who are expecting. Occasionally a wave of sadness will hit me if I think too much about last October, about where I should have been by now in terms of pregnancy, if it had lasted. Overall though I'm happy and excited for the immediate future. The summer, our trips, holidays, etc. I know that eventually our story will have a happy ending, it just may take a while longer.

Sunshine on an otherwise cloudy day

Yesterday was Mother's Day and I was inundated with it on Facebook, Twitter, Google Reader, even Saturday Night Live. This year it was even more bitter than in years past because I should have been pregnant. But I wasn't and I'm not. For me this year it was just another painful reminder of failure, of what I'm not, of what we're not. And to add insult to injury it was CD1.

We went to church and I had several people wish me 'Happy Mother's Day', not their fault, we haven't been going long enough for anyone to know us or our situation. We came home and called our mothers and then went to Lowe's to buy soil for the garden. We spent the rest of the afternoon working in the yard. Later in the afternoon my phone rang and it was my friend/neighbor (two streets back) Sarah. She had something for me and want to drop by. She came over and brought me some presents and a card and even hugged me despite the fact I smelled like dirt and sweat. I can't tell you how much it meant to me for her to do that. Besides being a thoughtful and kind friend, she's also an awesome gardener, quilter, knitter and generally great person. Her visit totally brightened up my otherwise gray day.

Sarah you're the best <3

Myth Busting

It's National Infertility Awareness Week and RESOLVE has this 'bust an infertility myth' thing going on and I thought I'd share some busted myths. 

Myth: Something you did caused your infertility (you are too fit, too fat, ate the wrong food, had a STD, etc.) 

Uh, no. I don't smoke, I've never used illegal drugs, I might have an alcoholic beverage once a month and I've never had sexually transmitted disease. My eggs are just crappy and the doctor has no explanation for why. My husband's infertility was caused by cancer, again not something he could control. 

Myth: People think IVF always works. Everyone who uses it is successful and has a baby. 

Wrong again. I've been through IVF twice. I have no babies. I'd also like to point out I underwent IVF #1 at age 24/25 and IVF #2 at age 29. Most women under age 35 have a 41% of a successful outcome with a single IVF cycle. Unfortunately, I was in the 59% of women under age 35% who did not have success. 

Myth: If you can't get pregnant, you can "just adopt." It's easy, quick, and inexpensive. 

Seriously? Who thinks this is true? Adoption is a difficult and emotional process for both the adoptive couple and the birth parents. The length of time for domestic adoptions from start to finish can be 12-24 months. Adoption is not inexpensive at all, domestic infant adoption can cost anywhere from $25,000-$30,000.

There are more submissions from more eloquent bloggers than I on RESOLVE's website.

An unintersting update

Nothing interesting happening right now. We've put another IUI off indefinitely, it's just too expensive without much chance of success. It makes more sense to save for something more expensive but with a higher success rate. I also broke it off with Dr. Needles Saturday. I really enjoy acupuncture (in spite of the dirt tea) and I 100% believe it's helped me and I would recommend  it to anyone However, we aren't cycling right now and in order to save money to cycle again at some point I had to break it off. We just can't save for more treatment while continuing to pay $135 per week for treatment and tea (especially such crappy tea). He did wish me luck and I told him I would probably come back to some point, I'm just not sure when.

I've read two of the three adoption books we bought and Doug (slow reader that he is) is  halfway through one of them. I've liked all of them so far, most everything I've read makes sense to me, there haven't been any big surprises. I enjoyed the stories about ordinary people who adopted. I feel like we aren't the 'perfect couple' that people might choose to parent their baby and so it gives me hope that somebody might choose us one day, even without the white picket fence.

I went to church yesterday, Doug was out of town so he didn't come with obviously. It's the same church we went to briefly several years ago but didn't join.They seem to be a pretty progressive group but with a  fairly traditional service, which I like. I did see one of my professors from last semester there (awkward) but he didn't see me. Towards the end of the service one of the pastors read anonymous prayers members had written on scraps of paper. One of the prayers was "I pray for a baby for our house." My heart sunk a little for someone else then, someone else who is going through this shitty, shitty situation too. 

We're still muddling through, thinking a lot and trying to make decisions. Sometimes it feels like this whole thing is like pushing an anvil uphill. Every.single.thing. is complicated and requires phone calls and consults and a lot of money. I wonder if we'll ever be able to take a deep breath and relax? There has to be an end to the madness eventually. 

First-world-problems & tangible hope

This last cycle has been more difficult for me than in the past. Maybe it's because I'm mad at myself for entertaining the possibility that something miraculous could happen and it would work. Maybe it's because we're edging closer and closer to the reality that we will not be biological parents. Maybe it's because we have spent $6,000  in IF treatments since the beginning of this year (let alone last year) and we have nothing to show for it expect an empty savings account. Whatever the reason it's been hard - then I read this post at Funny Little Pollywogs and I gave myself a kick in the arse. I don't 'know' Lacie but I have been blog-stalking her lately and her statement about having a broken heart but having so much more rang true for me. I *do* have a broken heart and we are dealing with a crap situation but we are also incredibly lucky. We have good jobs, we have housing, food, supportive family and friends. There is so much sadness and misery in the world right now and I need to be thankful for the things I have. That doesn't make me any less heart-broken but it does put things into perspective. Now on to the tangible hope part.

Besides blogging about infertility, I'm also a knitter. On my other blog I write about baking and knitting and other stuff. I learned how to knit during a particularly icy Saturday afternoon five years ago. Since I started knitting I have happily made things for other people and their babies. People I was related to, people I was friends with and sometimes people I didn't know. Every time I knit another little hat I would also wonder when it would be time to knit for my own baby. Time passed and I still had not needed to knit for my own little one. At the beginning of this year I decided that now it was time to knit for us, for our future baby, because we will have one, however he or she comes into our lives. 

So I've been knitting for us. Since the first of January I have knit these little things. Two hats (huge pom pom courtesy of my friend Sarah), a vest, a sweater, an owlie snuggle sack with matching hat and right now on my needles is another sweater. I have caught myself picking these little knit things up and thinking about the time when there will actually be a baby to wear them. Every day brings us closer, even though we don't know when or how.

Keeping my head above water

Still here. We're planning on dIUI #2 (overall IUI #5) in April. We're also making some moves towards other options, nothing concrete yet, just preliminary stuff. I'm feeling a little better, although the last few weekends I have barely wanted to leave the house. It's much easier to be at home where I'm insulated from the outside world. I'm still seeing the acupuncturist, although since we aren't cycling I'm down to one session per week instead of three and I haven't been very good about drinking all of my tea every day. Oops.

I bought several adoption books for us to read, The Adoption Decision, The Family of Adoption, and Parenting Your Adopted Child. There doesn't seem to be a book (that I can find yet) written about embryo adoption/donation, so I'm of looking for a book on third-party reproduction to see if some of that can apply. 

I have come to a realization that if embryo adoption/donation does not work, I would like to go the egg donor route at some point so that I could have the opportunity to be pregnant. That's a really important thing to me and I realize that we may end up adopting domestically first and then maybe in a few years doing donor-egg. I have been perusing adoption agencies too and have found a couple of good contenders. They're located out-of-state but their philosophies fit better with our lifestyle and beliefs.

All and all we're both hanging in there. We're planning a massive road trip across the country for early-June and we're getting really exciting about that.