Sitting on the Fence

Last night J and I sat down and did our dialogue.  It is something we learned to do while on the Worldwide Marriage Encounter.  We haven't had the chance to actually dialogue in weeks because he has been in school and studying so much.

We discussed:

•  not continuing treatment. 
• doing donor embryo
• getting matched outside of PNW or Madigan for donor embryo
• going ahead with a small set of donor eggs and taking our chances
• doing the guaranteed 2 embryos.

Honestly I'm tired.  I told him if his test came up with bad results we could choose the donor embryo program or decide to discontinue all treatments.

I'm not sure just how much more I can do.

If do one more treatment I'm going to say that is it.  If we are lucky to get several embryos then I'll do FETs until they are gone and we have our family.

I'm tired of not being able to afford jack because every spare dollar goes into the savings account.  I don't think it is selfish at all to want to start looking forward to using the savings account for something other than infertility treatments.  We have no retirement plan.  I'm going to be 44 next month.  Rather scary to even think about considering  I have no children.

I'm not going to say that I won't mourn the loss of hope if I do end up walking away from treatments.  I went through that with my first marriage.  It was hard.  I gave away all the baby stuff I had made and bought over the years in hopes of having a child.  Or I had thought I did.  Turns out I still had three baby shirts left that I had made by hand.  Those went into my chest of hope for this marriage.  I added in a single onesie I purchased, a free bib and a free bowl (given out by companies as promotions).

Truthfully, it is hard to see my life without a child.  I'm not sure why considering I've lived it this long without one.  I do know that this whole infertility adventure has almost wrecked my marriage.  No sooner did my spouse come home from Korea and I was having him do a SA.  Yes, the day after he got off the plane he got it done.

Between Korea and Iraq he was home for 6 months and we tried to conceive.  No luck.

After Iraq we still didn't have success.  No true pregnancies according to the doctors.

Much as I'd love to adopt I have to realize my health would be under the microscope.  What pregnant gal would willingly give up her child to someone like me?  I would, after all, be the primary caretaker of the child while J is away for training and deployments.  Not being negative Nellie here but I am being realistic.  Many of us know the hoops an adoptive family has to jump through just to be looked over by a pregnant gal.

Adoption has not only become a money making industry I swear it is like applying for a job or a loan where your application just sits on the desk and collects dust.  Let us not forget those videos the adoptive parents have to make too.

No adoption isn't for us unless a pregnant gal offers up her child to us without some agency being in the picture.

I worked with an older gal in her 50's back some ten years ago.  She couldn't have children and her truck driver husband and her wanted a baby in the worst way.  She told me they went through adoption agencies but because of his job and their advanced years they wouldn't be accepted.  So sad.  The gal was a nanny to my own cousins years ago.  She kept praying for a miracle like what happened to one of her friends.  Her friend was given a baby to adopt.  A teen couple came through her line regularly and one day brought in their infant and said to her, "take the baby, we can't raise it".  She called up her husband and her lawyer and started the paperwork immediately.  I doubt my co-worker ever got a miracle like that in the ten years since I last saw her.

So here I sit on the fence, I swear it is a picket one and it is sorely stuck up my bum, trying to figure out where do we go from here; while we wait on test results that have yet to be even drawn.

Trying To Educate The Public

I swear it was a losing battle this past weekend at the retreat.  Each meal that J and had to attend we were at different assigned tables.  I guess it was to keep the conversation lively.  There were of course a list of questions that we had to ask everyone at the table.  Two sheets of questions per table.  But you know how people stray from the questions they should be asking and get rather nosey.

At every meal J and I were asked, "do you have any children?".

My answer was one of the following:
1) none living
2) several miscarriages
3) I'm in fertile
4) I have endometriosis
5) we are still trying

The responses I would get from others at the tables ranged from sympathy to stupidity.  One gal named Julie has PCOS so she did understand the struggle to conceive.

One couple, Sandra and Jeffrey, at my table married at 19/20 and have five children.  Their response was that I just need to pray to God and he'll give me a child.  Mind you I remember something in the Bible about "God helps those that help themselves" (Acts 17:11) and I'm doing all I can with prayer and doctors to help God in giving me a child.

At the end of my dialogue with them explaining that it isn't that easy I got hit with the "why don't you just adopt".  I so wanted to say to them why didn't you?  But instead I told them that we have given thought to that and if what we are going through right now doesn't work that the next place we move to we'll start the process.  Most likely foster to adopt and I explained how parents don't mind putting their children into the foster care system but they don't like making them available for adoption which leaves not many children out there to be adopted.

I also explained to this ignorant couple that adoption isn't free or cheap.  Adoption takes a long time too.  My parents were the exception when they adopted my brother 44 years ago from Catholic Charities.  Things were truly easier back in the 1960's when it came to adoption.

I think that the worst part of it was when the husband of  Sandra, Jeffrey, the couple that wed when they were 19/20, said to me that I just need to relax.  I swallowed my bile and vented when my husband and I got back to our room.  I had to leave our meal early.  I couldn't stand to be around such ignorant people for any longer or else I would have made a scene.

So my infertile friends, I tried to educate the public. God commanded that we go forth and multiply (Genesis 9:7) and He didn't state how we went about it did he?  I did what I could given the fact that I was at a religious retreat, this one sponsored by the Roman Catholic church.  The very church that doesn't believe in abortion, birth control or infertility treatments.  Is it any wonder I couldn't get my message across? 

I think that if a person is fertile they should and could be a bit more sensitive when they ask a question about children.  They could be a bit more open-minded and realize that not everyone can just fall on a penis and get pregnant.

Making Plans With The Army

Wait did I just make a title for this post that is an oxymoron?  I think I did.

The Army spouses out there know what I'm talking about.

Right now we are waiting to possibly find out a potential assignment if J is able to re-enlist.  Mind you they are still over strength in his MOS which means that he might not get an assignment and might have to go to a school instead.

So we are sort of making plans.

The only plans we are making it stop using my DNA to achieve pregnancy by the end of April.  We will then look further into genetic surrogacy using an offer of a friend, donor eggs, and foster to adopt.  We would like more than one child so the chance of having our children being related to one another is most likely slim but I figure that since I'm not related to my husband, thank GOD!, then should it really matter if my children are related to one another or to us?  Why does a family have to be made up of people being genetically related?  It doesn't.

So this is where I stand in making plans around and with the Army.  I can plan to adopt once I know where we are headed.  Until then it will be just a dream.

Happiness is Making a Sale

I listed this pretty Yellow and Binkie print striped baby 0-3 months size crocheted hat in my shop this morning.

I woke up to a sale over night.  It made me smile of course to know that someone out there likes what I make enough to want to purchase  the item.

I've always had an inferiority complex growing up.  What ever I did was never good enough for my family.  It wasn't me that was the problem but the fact that they were hard to please.

Yesterday I made the above hat and I made this hat too.  I kept really busy.  Usually I can only make one hat a day with everything else I have to get done.  I put in more hours yesterday on crafting and less on the internet promoting.

The most time consuming part of having a small business is the advertising.  I would rather spend more time crafting.  With that in mind it looks as though I'm going to end up paying out for advertising so that I can spend more time creating.

I'm not being cheap. I'm being frugal. I have a really small business and I want to keep the overhead costs down.  I think it is also being wise to rationalize the business expenses and remind myself of the goal of using the funds to pay for donor eggs or adoption.  However, with the holidays almost upon us I have rationalized that having an advertising budget would be quite wise so that I can keep up with the potential client requests.

Well it is time for me to finish up this post and get back to the advertising and creating portion of my daily program.   Wishing everyone out there much happiness today.

Maybe

I put this cute little new born to three month size hat into my shop this morning.

I've now run out of baby yarn.  Oh I still have more baby items to list but that is because I used up all my yarn crafting them.

The company of the yarn brand I was using contacted me by mail today and sent me a prepaid envelope to include a knot I had in one skein.  Oh I had a few other knots since I called them up about the issue but I'm only including the one I phoned about.  They are going to replace the skein and I have my doubts I'll ever purchase that particular brand of yarn again.

This morning started out foggy and cold.  I'm still hoping that the grey, or almost white, sky will turn to blue once again.  The tomatoes on one plant are almost fully ripened while the other plant is still green.

Looks like AF will be here in time to ruin my magical weekend.  My seventh anniversary is this weekend.  J and I have been trying to putty over the damage that infertility has left behind.  The closeness that we once had under the illusion of it will just take "a bit of time" to make a baby is shattered.  We argue over little things which are so inconsequential that to an outsider we'd look like a parody of married life.  We do love one another but the problem is that we don't have our legacy.  We wanted a child.

I've given up on my own DNA.  However, that does not mean that I will magically have a child by donor eggs.  Odd are with my killer womb that I will miscarry again.  Stage III Endometriosis doesn't leave very good odds for getting pregnant and staying pregnant.  Oh and let's not forget the age factor.  I know that bed rest will be the prescription.  With that known J and I have to come to a decision.  Do we go ahead and take that expensive risk?  We want a child.  Or do we cut our loses now and just work on the marriage?

Every failed cycle I threaten him with divorce.  This is me being mean.  I want to give him a chance with a "normal" woman.  He is younger than me by nine years.  He still has plenty of time to find someone that will give him that gift of life and legacy.  This is mean being stupid and full of self pity too.

I have a lot of growing up to do.  Babies aren't everything.  I'm bombarded daily by pregnant bellies.  All I have to do is look out my living room window from my chair and I see young moms (think late teens and early 20's) walking by with big bellies and pushing a stroller on their way to the school to pick up their other kid.  It's enough to make any infertile scream.  I can see why my two infertile neighbors keep their front blinds drawn tight.  They don't want to see it either.

This is me venting.  AF is coming.  She never stays away for long.  Some how she always finds me.

J has stated that he is fine without children too.  He states that if we had kids he wouldn't get as much attention from me.  Well that is true but I have told him that the child would pay attention to him.  Heck kids love to nag their parents.

Wanting something for such a long time doesn't always make the effort of getting the thing worth it when you finally get it because some how it's just not the same after waiting all those years.  We have made so many sacrifices in our marriage and careers to just have that chance to have a child.  Was it worth the heart ache?  I'd have to say NO.  But we wouldn't know how it was to turn out if we didn't try.

I think our marriage will survive as long as we work together and remember the reason why we first fell in love.  Infertility is only a small part of our life path.  For now it seems huge.  For now it seems to have taken on a personality of it's own.  If we do donor eggs and it fails I think we'll walk away hand in hand, or at least I hope we will.  It will be behind us one way or the other knowing that we exhausted all possibilities.  Maybe adoption will be our future.  But until a few more unknowns are removed we are still going to be in limbo wondering what that future might be.

I just called him and told him I love him. 

CD 7

Today I listed four jewelry items in my ETSY shop.  This is a photo of the chain maille bracelet that J made for the shop.  Its 8 inches in length.  I told him to be careful and consider making a few smaller ones too.  I have a small wrist, just under 6 inches around.

Its CD7.  The OPK line is starting to darken.  Will I have a chance with my shitty eggs this cycle?  Who knows.  But I'm going to give this cycle my best effort.  I'm still going to enjoy my life.

J and I are still hoping to move onto donor eggs soon but we, alas, have to wait on the Army.  So until we know how much money we have to use for donor eggs everything I sell in my ETSY shop, see the link at the side of my blog, will go to cover the infertility treatments or possible adoption fund that the medical insurance doesn't cover.  After paying out-of-pocket for numerous IUIs and two IVF we have to be careful with what money we have left in the savings.  If J does have to leave the Army we'll need that money to survive on until he can find steady work.  Time has run out on us trying to conceive without the aid of medical intervention.  Hopefully my shop will yield a few dollars to help pay for a bit of the process of getting a child.

We have not ruled out adoption.  Adoption is just going to take a lot longer and more money than going the donor egg route.  I hate to even think that the donor eggs will fail because then well, I'll just break down and cry and cry and cry.  Not like I haven't done enough crying already.

Why donor eggs?  Well as we all know men tend to bond more quickly with someone they have something in common with.  What is better than sharing DNA?  I will more than likely bond with the baby while it's in my womb.  I could care less about my own DNA except for the fact that it would have saved us a chunk of change that we could have put into the child's college/trade school fund.

So here I sit watching the line darken and having some hope for a possible easy future.  Ugh, there is no "easy" with endometriosis so I'm not sure why I even used that word.  But I think that most of you know what I mean.  If all goes well I'll be ovulating right around the time the RE checks me out which will be on Tuesday.  Fingers crossed, legs wide open, eyes covered by crossed fingers that I see some follicle and not MEGA huge cyst activity on the ultrasound machine on Tuesday.

CD28

Ah the clomid is working over time to mess up my cycle length I can see.  I normally have a 24-26 day cycle.  I'm not pregnant any more or possibly never was since the two lines I got twice last week could have been a figment of my imagination.  The final hpt was negative.  The spotting has started.  On to the next cycle.

J and I have sat down and discussed more options.  He finally spoke up.  He is worried about my health.  He doesn't like what all these drugs are doing to my body.  I don't either.  We are talking about only trying for a few more cycles until he deploys and calling it quits.  No donor egg cycle.  No adoption.  Just living our lives without children. 

There is no shame in calling uncle when you've done two IVF, numerous rounds of clomid ( I started those when he was in AIT in 07) some with IUI in 2011, and trying natural too.  We've done it all for what we could afford.  Its now getting to the point that if I don't get pregnant soon I can't see myself chasing after a baby if it even ran into the street.  Oh I would surely try but don't forget I often use a cane to walk with; today I used my cane.

So this is where we are going.  We will slowly fade away from the fertility treatments and slip comfortably into middle age knowing that we did our best.  There is no shame.

I've been looking more into pet adoption and will continue to hold off for a while yet.  IF per chance I do have a miraculous pregnancy I want to have a pet free environment.  I was and still am allergic to dogs.  J has a mild cat allergy, his mom has a bad allergic reaction to cats.  I don't want to risk our off spring being subjected to asthma attacks related to allergies.  I have them and it not fun.

For now I'm going to concentrate on fixing my health.  I have an endoscopy this week at the gastroenterologist office. When I eat my stomach gives me sharp pain.  When I don't eat my stomach gives me sharp pain.  I'm guessing here, maybe an ulcer since I've had them before.  Thank you stressful life.

And The Nightmares Continue

I'm starting to think that this whole trying to conceive business is traumatizing me more than the abuse I survived.  Seriously though, the nightmares I've been having are all about pregnancy and children themselves.

Last night I had two nightmares.  The first one woke me up and if I wasn't screaming in real life I know I was in my dream.  In my dream I was pregnant with twins, I've been pregnant with twins in real life too, and my family and friends were throwing me a shower.  I'm not the party type and usually don't like to be the center of attention.  All of a sudden my friends were gone.  I was left with my mom, dad and brother.  My mom and my brother were destroying everything in sight while my dad was holding me back from stopping them.  They were yelling at me and telling me that I didn't deserve to have a child.  My pregnant belly started to shrink like a balloon that had just been unknotted.  Of course that made me scream.

Second nightmare was that I was trying to adopt an older child.  Maybe the sandy haired kid was about the age of 7 or 8.  He was into everything that J and I both liked and then some.  The kid was a perfect match for us.  Of course the adoption fell through and we were devastated.

I haven't told J about either of the dreams.  He knows that I have issues with my own family from all the abuse.  Luckily I did have a session scheduled for this morning with my psychologist.  I told her everything.  Its really understandable for me to have these dreams from what she said.  It just doesn't make it any easier knowing that I have them and will probably continue to have them for a while to come.

I hate when my fears become nightmares.

How do you, my followers, cope?

Making Cookies

Today I'll be making the Nestle' Toll House Peanut Butter & Milk Chocolate chip cookies.  All for the guys at the COF of course.  I usually make something for them on Wednesdays and have J bring them in on Thursdays.

Most likely I'll get started on making the cookies this afternoon after the appointment at the FLC (family life center).  Yes we still go to the FLC quite often.  I guess finding some time to talk to a mediator does help as our marriage is staying strong.  Its far from perfect and we do continue to argue but I know of no couple that doesn't argue when each feels as though they have a valid point.


Making cookies gives me the chance to feel useful.  I know the soldiers love my baked goods.  I know they love the cookies the best because they are more portable and less messy.  Right now our trying to conceive has been put to the back burner.  I rather feel a bit useless because most of the females in my neighborhood are either pushing around strollers or pushing about their big bellies.  My husband said its like they are flaunting their ability to have a baby, something we might never have.

Yes we are trying to deal with the fact that we might never have the chance for a biological baby.  Adoption, with my spouse being in the military, isn't as easy as it could be.  If we are short on time at our duty station then we are a risk.  If he could be deployed we are also a risk.  State adoption agencies don't like to give babies to parents when one might not be there to raise the child.  For us it will have to be private adoption and I know its expensive.  Our best bet truly is to just keep trying to have a child of our own.  Maybe down the road, possibly at our next duty station, we'll apply for the foster parent program.  Two of my aunts were foster parents and they loved the foster children as if they were their own blood.

Thinking of what I might be missing by not having a child makes me depressed.  Baking improves my mood since I am a foodie.  Call it aromatherapy at its best.  I like knowing that my baking skills are making other folks happy and the smells in my house are just wonderful.

I'm not going to give up hope just yet.  Technology keeps advancing.  Now if only my checkbook would grow accordingly to keep up with the price of the technology. 

Tomorrow is Fibromyalgia Awareness Day.  With any luck I'll remember to post about this problem and how it affects my every day life.