So Close

Names

**Baby Stuff Mentioned**
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So it is time to start thinking of names. For the babies that is. Which is a bittersweet exercise because I have already gone through this process before. But ok, lets not dwell on that.

Despite several helpful suggestions from Julie, I have not taken to the names of Malcolm XX and Malcolm XY and other equally useful suggestions. Look, what else can you expect from someone who is naming her child Batman, whether it’s a girl or boy.

Now I am a firm believer in ‘each to their own’, do what makes you happy, but I can’t do the whole cutesy rhyming / same letter names for twins. Bobbi and Boston. Allan and Alanna. Kyle and Kail. It just doesn’t do it for me. Plus I don’t go for spelling seemingly ordinary names in unusual ways by adding lots of ‘y’s or whatever. Brytannyy. Etc.

I am also not into fashionable names like Madison or Sky or Cloud / Cumulonimbus or whatever. DH and I are simple, plain people.

Or how about naming your child after the place he/she was conceived? Not going to work because ‘Newlands Surgical Clinic’ just doesn’t have a nice ring to it. And what will I call the other one? Newlands Surgical Clinic II?

Here in SA, some people do a terribly naff thing (you Americans don’t use the word naff, but it is a great word to use, it means ‘unfashionable, outmoded, vulgar, socially inept, worthless or faulty’, a fantastic word, one of my favourites, it’s a British thing), any way, back to the point. Here in SA, a few people combine the parents’ name in some convoluted way to make up a new name for their child. Even if I was so stupid as to do this, I don’t think a combination of Tertia and Marko is going to work. Terko? Markia? Termarko? Sounds like Tomato.

I think we have chosen the names we like. I say ‘think’ because I told Marko that we need to start thinking of names and I had two I liked, but he could / should suggest a few he liked. So he suggested a few to which I responded: too naff, too common, revolting, stupid, no ways, you must be joking, no. I then told him my names and asked what he thought. His reply was “why are you asking me when you have made up your mind already”. Which was a bit rude if you ask me, I am allowing him to participate, if he hated the names I would pick another.

Interestingly enough, having second names is not that popular here in SA. Neither Marko nor I have second names, so neither will our children. Second names are odd to me, it’s like why bother? It’s not as if you are going to use the second name. What’s its purpose? A back up? A spare name in case you lose the first one? But I do know that it’s the done thing in the US. So not knocking it, just not into it.

So I think we have chosen our names, simple plain names, because that’s how we are. I don’t think I am going to say them out loud yet, you know, that jinx thing that hangs over my head. If Thursday’s appointment goes well then I might say them out loud.

The Pain Olympics

It’s difficult not to engage in the Pain Olympics. Husbands seem to do this very well. You know how their illnesses are always worse than any one else’s? Like their flu is pneumonia, their headache is a migraine? We all do it in some way or another.

Because there is so much pain that proliferates in the infertility world, it is I suppose inevitable that some form of Pain Olympics will take place, i.e. my pain is worse than yours.

As I lay awake in yet another one of my spells of insomnia, I wrote up a post about this in my head. I was going to write about it this weekend, then I read this brilliant post on the same topic. Please go read it (it’s really good) and then come back here. Please.

She puts it so neatly. As a Left Brain thinker I like logic, numbers and order. I love to quantify things. As I have mentioned previously, I think there is no greater beauty than in the symmetry of 1 + 1 = 2. Perfect, neat, ordered. The qualitative stuff mystifies me.

So back to the pain scale.

I know that every one who is in the infertility hell experiences pain. It is, after all, extremely painful to go through months and months of trying to have a baby only to face your period at the end of each cycle of hope.

And yes, comparisons and competitions don’t do us any good. Your amount of pain doesn’t affect how much pain I feel. And in all honesty, I wouldn’t want any one to feel the pain I have been through.

And yet. I do feel as if there should be some acknowledgement of the pain of a ‘lifer’ on Infertility Row.

I want to explain why having a few failed cycles of IVF is so much more painful than trying to conceive the old-fashioned way (i.e. sex) or even IUI’s to be honest. It’s about reaching the end of the road.

You see, when you busy trying to conceive through sex, there is the thought at the back of your mind that if this doesn’t work, then there are other things to try. There is Chlomid (not invasive and hardly expensive), or if that doesn’t work IUI or IUI with injectibles. There is an option, a back up plan, a plan B. And of course I acknowledge that not every one can afford to go even this far, so baby-making sex represents the end of the road for them.

Then when you do IUI’s, it is more invasive, there is monitoring, there are sometimes injections etc. The stakes are far higher and the disappointments more crashing. Yet for me, there was always the thought that if the IUI’s didn’t work, there was the all-powerful panacea, IVF. IVF is the big guns. Surely IVF will work. IVF, the big back up plan, the ultimate failsafe.

Then you fail your first IVF. Very sad, yet excusable, almost expected, in that every one knows your first IVF is a test case, to see how you respond to meds etc.

And then you fail your second IVF. You start to feel a little worried, but ok, most people conceive within 3 IVF cycles. There is still hope. Maybe you are just at the wrong end of the stats.

And then you fail your third IVF. And your next IVF. And maybe your next. And suddenly you are staring down the barrel of the gun. Most people conceive by their third IVF. Suddenly the end of the road looms threateningly before you. Because what is their beyond IVF? You can’t move on to the Next Big Thing. This is it. There is no Next Big Thing. If this doesn’t work then there is no more. And that is an absolutely enormous feeling. That sense of despair, of abject terror, is something that the lucky (who succeed without IVF, or on their first one or two IVF’s) don’t have to face. It is that feeling that this post is about.

The next step involves options that you might have never considered, things like adoption, surrogacy, donor eggs. All beautiful options that could lead to wonderful happy endings, but still, not options that you considered starting out. These are decisions that are made after plenty of soul searching, and usually more than a fair share of heart ache. No one ‘just’ adopts, or ‘just’ does DE, it’s normally done after staring down the barrel of their own particular gun.

And so yes, I do believe that while every one experiences pain, there are some of us who have had more than their fair share of shit to deal with.

I am not even talking about miscarriages, because to be honest, as I have said previously, I feel the endless cycles of negatives is sometimes harder to deal with.

But I do acknowledge that no matter how far down the road you are, no matter how many or which treatments you’ve done, once you face your own ‘end of the road’ the pain is probably equal.

You know, one of the hardest things for me to deal with was being the saddest story around. I hated being the object of every one’s pity, of feeling that people looked at me and thought “poor her, I know my problems are bad, but thank god I am not like her”. Cos it sucks being the saddest story around. And so I am not looking for people to say, “Tertia, you win, your story is the saddest, your pain is the most”. Not at all. I don’t want that. In fact I feel incredibly blessed and lucky right now. It is not about competition, it is not about who wins the pain Olympics. What I do want is just an acknowledgement that for some of us, the road has been (and still is for some) a bit harder than most. And to know that repeated IVF failure is unbelievably hard to deal with.

To put it in another way, Danae and I were chatting a few days ago about age and about she thinks she is So Old. I reminded her that she is only a mere two (2) years older than me. So she said “yes, but infertility years are like dogs years” (you know how there are 7 dogs years to one human year). Good point I thought. Then I said to her “ah, but I have being doing this longer than you so we are equal”. Then we both hated Jo because she is so revoltingly young. We hated Julie because, well, we just felt like it. So infertility years are like dog years. And I might just be the oldest bitch around *grin*.

And as for my Pain Points on the Pain Scale, I score a sad and mind blowing 13,850, because of losing Ben. Even taking out that huge weighting I am at 3,850, or something like that, give or take a MC or two. It blew my mind when I worked it out.

I don’t know. Not much point to this post. LAF’s post really affected me. I don’t even know how to conclude. Infertility sucks. Full stop.

Sleeping habits

Apparently not everyone is like my husband and I. (I discovered this while doing a quick whip round survey at my office)

My husband and I each have our own ‘half’ of the bed, and beware the person who puts any limb in the other person’s half. Unless of course the other person is after something a little more, wink wink. Of course there has been no wink wink for a while.

I have gotten up before to measure exactly where the half way mark is to settle a disagreement.

So last night the usual argument ensued:
*Note for those non-infertiles, DH is infertility speak for Dear Husband (or Dick Head depending on your mood.)

Me: Why are you so close, you are lying in my half

DH: I am not, you are lying in my half.

Me: Am not. Let’s measure it. Lets get up and put the light on.

DH: Ok you get up, I’ll mark the spot

Me: Yeah right, I know you too well, you’ll move your hand. Get up with me.

DH: No

Me: Well move up.

We really do love each other, lots, but I can’t bear any body parts touching while I am trying to sleep. My good friend and her husband sleep practically intertwined. Sounds positively horrible, plus it makes you hot. Sleep time is for sleeping. Not for cuddling.

Thank goodness I found a husband who is a non-cuddler.

Self-control = Zero

I am an instant gratification kind of girl. I want it, and I want it now. I have never ever been able to save half my chocolate bar for later (unlike my younger sister who would save hers, then eat her other half in front of me later, cow).

Of course infertility is the biggest cosmic joke ever to an instant gratification girl like me. You say you want kids now? Ha ha haahaahahaa. Wait sucker.

I thought about waiting for my next scan, being strong etc. Instead I caved, I had to have a LBC, now, I couldn’t wait another week stressing myself out. I sent this email to my ex (favorite in the whole world) Dr yesterday:

I am seeing Dr New next Thurs but not sure I can wait that long, I need a sanity saving scan just to check both babies still alive.

Please can I come see you one more time, as soon as I can, I'll be very quick, hop on table, check heartbeats and hop off.

Txx

Lordy, I am a pain in the ass. Oh well. Can’t be perfect I suppose.

Luckily he said yes, he fitted me in between two laps and a twin c section. I am pathetic. I can’t even wait two weeks.

Both babies still alive. YAY! He also said I am most likely out of the danger period for loss caused by the amnio, which to be honest, has been worrying me a little.

It was just a quickie, but very satisfying.

Seven more sleeps before next LBC. Then I really will try and wait for two weeks between scans, promise. I will be zen-like in my calmness. Yeah right.

The never ending Two Week Wait.

As any infertile person will tell you, one of the most difficult times in a ‘trying to get knocked up’ cycle is the 14 days (give or take a day or two) between ovulation / IUI / IVF etc and the dreaded pregnancy test. This period is (un)affectionately known as the Two Week Wait, or 2ww. The fact that the acronym also refers to a period of war and suffering in our history is not totally incongruent.

Never again will time go so slowly. Days seem like weeks, minutes like hours. And while time slows down to a crawl, your mind speeds up to warp speed. Am I Aren’t I? What does that twinge mean? Does it mean my periods are coming, or does it mean I am pregnant? It goes on and on and on, you drive yourself crazy. You scour the internet for early ‘signs’ that you could be pregnant (a fruitless exercise as you will either make up the signs, or else you will have your own signs, or lack thereof). It’s like being a manic-depressive. One moment happy and filled with hope, the next minute suicidally depressed and convinced it’s all over.

And then for some lucky souls, they get a positive beta (pregnancy test) and that’s it. End of horrible worrying period, beginning of oblivious happiness and decorating of the nursery.

And then you get other people. Usually people who have been around the infertility block one too many times. For them the waiting, the worrying and the schizophrenic mood swings don’t stop there.

Because the next big wait is the wait between your first beta and your second beta to determine whether the pregnancy is moving in the right direction. The number must double. Time slows down even more. Actually before that you worry endlessly about your first beta. What does the number mean? Is it a good number? Is it too low? Could it mean ectopic? Could it mean twins?

Then depending on the level of your paranoia you will have another beta a few days later. Repeat previous hysteria while waiting for the results. If you are like Julia you will have 475 betas and 567 progesterone tests.

And then. The wait until the first u/s, which is usually about two weeks after that. You spend those two weeks furiously squashing your breasts against your chest to check if they are sore or sensitive (apparently a well known pg symptom yet one that not every one has, not that this stops you from being convinced a lack of sore breasts means BAD THINGS). You do this so often your breasts become sore from all the squashing. You also check your underpants at every available opportunity to check that you haven’t started bleeding. If you like my friend Julie you will not even bother about pulling your pants down to check.

And then the u/s. If this is your first pg, you will be scared but excited. If you’ve had previous losses you will be scared shitless. Then, hopefully, you get to see something that looks like a mixture between a bean and a blob. With a blinking bit in the middle that is its heartbeat. That’s a pretty special moment. The euphoria should last for a while. For some, the euphoria remains, for others, about a day or two.

For the lucky souls who haven’t lost a pg before, this is mostly where they get off the 2ww train. They start relaxing and believing.

For the rest of us nut cases, it becomes a never-ending 2ww between scans (Lord alone knows how some girls manage to wait FOUR weeks between live LBC's*). And heaven forbid you have invasive genetic testing like CVS or amnio. The time between test and results is a particular kind of hell. No one should experience that.

People ask me when I will start relaxing and believing. I think I will do that when I hold my babies in my arms. Or maybe, just maybe after 32w. Ok, maybe 34w. In the mean time I am living in an ongoing 2ww that is broken up by scans and brief moments of euphoria, but most characterized by fear and a deep longing to find that damn fast forward button.

In the mean time I am in the middle of yet another 2ww between my last scan and my next scan, and I honestly don’t know whether I will last. I feel myself weakening. I might have to have an emergency (mental sanity) LBC*.

8 more sleeps (ha ha, what's that) till my next scheduled LBC*

*LBC = Live Baby Check

Working from home

I am working from home today. And contrary to popular belief (i.e. Julie’s) this does not mean lounging around in my old holey sweatpants and watching Olympics all day. I actually work.

The pros of working from home are:

o no traffic to contend with which means I get to sleep an hour later.
o no interruptions, so I get much more done
o I can work in my sweatpants and slippers.
o Don’t have to put make up on
o Don’t have to order takeouts for lunch

The bad thing about working from home:

o I can’t stay online all day (dial up costs a fortune in SA because our internet connectivity is powered by ibexes and windmills.)
o This is bad because I can’t check up on my fave blogs and bb’s.

Tips for working from home: (based on personal experience, five minutes ago)

o Be careful when you eat your cheese and tomato sandwich with one hand while working with the other. If you are not careful, your tomato will slide off your sandwich and land on your documents from which you are working. Don’t stress. Pick up the offending piece of tomato and put it back on your sandwich. Carry on eating. You will be left with pieces of tomato on your document with nothing to wipe it up. As no one can see you, just lick the pieces of tomato off your document. Voila! Then be thankful you are working from home and no one saw you lick your documents. Or that you are wearing sheepskin slippers, old sweatpants with the crotch hanging down by your knees and your husband’s T-shirt. Oh and a brown thermal scarf because your neck is cold.

Blogs, blogs every where...

In case I wasn't more out the closet than I already am, here is another bit of (pretty useless) info about me. I work in IT. I am not a techi nerd (I am way too cool to be a nerd). I work as a product manager for an IT company. Which means I do research and read plenty of articles and analyst reports.

Anyway, I came across this article that I thought was quite funny. It would appear that it is not only us infertiles who blog. People are blogging about every thing now days.

In the Age of the Blog, Who Needs Analysts?

August 18, 2004 —

In recent weeks, two analyst reports have fallen into the Lotus blogging community like a muddy pig in a hotel swimming pool. A few years ago, these reports would have caused a small public ripple and a small news story. A few Lotus loyalists might have fumed in a discussion forum, the pig would have left for the farm, and it all would have been quickly forgotten.

These days, though, the blog reigns supreme -- a pedestal where passion, personality, and expertise all come together to say interesting things in exciting ways. While blogs sometimes gleefully spew their own form of meandering musings, they can be excellent pig detectors.

Such is the case this summer.

I love that analogy - like a muddy pig in a hotel swimming pool, ha ha ha haaaaa.

But isn't that a good description of a blog - "a pedestal where passion, personality, and (personal) expertise all come together to say interesting things in exciting ways."

On Blogging and Responsibility

An interesting debate has come up recently in the blogging world that has got me thinking. Karen probably said this much more eloquently that I could.

The central debate is around freedom of expression, and specifically the freedom and right to post what ever you want on your own blog, vs. sensitivity and a sense of loyalty and responsibility to the community from which you come.

For example, I come from the infertility community. A community that has supported me ferociously and ardently through many tragedies and tribulations. Every one who is part of that community knows the rules and is fiercely protective of their own. You all know what hurts. It’s a community of deep and real friendships, with people who will most likely never meet. And yes there are different individuals who make up that community, some have walked the path for a long time, and suffered much pain and loss. Others are extremely lucky and get pregnant on their first IVF, or never suffer a loss. Their pain cannot be compared, by any stretch of the imagination, but they are all part of the community. First timers and life timers.

And then some of us get pregnant. This places you in a very precarious position. Although every infertile woman will tell you that they don’t want that person’s baby, they want their own, being around pg people still hurts, even infertile pg people. It’s a constant reminder of what you don’t have. Might never have.

The infertile community kindly allows its pg infertiles to continue to be part of the community, even though they represent a lot of what hurts. This places a huge responsibility on those who choose to continue to be associated with the community.

And so I come to the issue of blogging. I am acutely aware of who reads my blog. After all I belong to the infertile community, it is where I am from. I haven’t forgotten what it is like to be on the wrong side of a beta test. When you are infertile, and especially when you are busy cycling, or even worse, dealing with a failed cycle, you do NOT want to hear people bitching about being pg, about being fat, about being sick (as if you ever want to hear that). You want to shake them and say YOU SHOULD BE FUCKING GRATEFUL YOU ARE PREGNANT, I WOULD SWAP WITH YOU IN A HEARTBEAT. I remember that. How dare any one complain that about being pg, when I would do any thing, sell my soul, to be pg.

And yet. What if you, as a pg person, want to complain? What if you want to moan about being sick, about being fat or whatever? It’s your blog after all, aren’t you allowed to say whatever you want to say? Even though in the infertile world hearing things like that is like a knife in the heart. And do you, as an infertile, or ex-infertile person, lose the right to complain about pregnancy things? Aren’t you as entitled as any other ‘normal’ pg person to have a moan about puking your guts out? Isn’t that what normal pg people do? Sit around and have a bitch about how fat they are or how crappy they feel? Haven’t we all prayed just to be ‘normal’ and experience pg like any normal person would?

I’ve been struggling with this. And this is the view I have come up with. Of course it’s just my view.

I think that being part of a community means you do have an obligation to the rest of the people who are not where you are. I think that you shouldn’t forget how hard it is to hear people moan about being pg. I think you need to respect the norms and values of the community from which you come, to which you still want to belong, to be part of.

And yes, this means that perhaps I can’t moan about having terrible morning sickness on my blog. Even though it’s my blog. I can’t moan about how hard it is being pg. Because I know that there are thousands of woman out there who would kill to be in my position. Yes, I can speak about these things, but it’s the way you say it. And to be honest, I don’t want to moan about it because I am just so damn grateful to be pg that I will take whatever I can get, whatever version. Yes it would be nice not to be sick, but it’s far far worse never being pg at all.

Does this mean you can never moan about how crap you feel? No. To me, it’s not about not being able to say what you want. It’s about remembering from where you have come, and remembering who you are speaking to. Because at the end of the day, even though it is your own blog, your own space, by making it public I believe you have some obligation to those who read your blog. You know who your audience are. You were also there once.

Lastly, by opening up your blog for comments it means you are allowing the opportunity for debate, and thus dissent. If I post something that upsets some one who reads my blog, then I would like to know, in a sensitive way of course..

So yes, your freedom of expression does exist, but you also have a responsibility for the words that come out of your mouth. We do not live in an isolated world, our actions affect others.

And to be honest, one infertile person who is hurt, is one too many. There is enough shit to deal with every day in the infertile world.

Normal!!!!!!!!!!!

Normal normal normal. Both babies are normal. (FISH results, karotyping to follow)

I am over whelmed and over the moon.

And so very very grateful.

Still a long way to go, and as my husband so romantically put it "now we just have to keep them in there".

But today is a beautiful day.

I am so grateful and so thankful.

Thank you every one for your good wishes and prayers, something definitely worked :-)

thank you thank you thank you!!!!

oh, and its a boy and a girl.

I am a lucky lucky girl.

I'm better go now, or I will starting gushing (even more). I am just so happy.

Mixed news

I knew it’s been too uneventful up until now.

I had my big u/s today to check all is ok with the babies.

Baby A (appears to be male) every thing was fine, head, heart, kidneys, fingers, toes, jawbone etc.

Baby B (appears to be female) has what appears to be a small hole in her heart. By itself this is not of great concern. Many of these defects repair themselves in utero, or once the baby is born. If not, then an operation is possible to repair it. The rest of her is perfect.

However. A heart defect, even one as small as this is an indicator for Downs. Downs babies often have heart defects. And that does worry me.

So we decided to do amnio there and then. Which is horrible and scary. And a little sore.

I will get the first set of results on Friday. That should tell me whether the baby is chromosomally normal or not.

If the baby is chromosomally normal, then they will just watch the heart with regular level II u/s’s. If the baby is not chromosomally normal, well I don’t even want to think of that.

Please please let both babies be fine. Friday seems a very long time away.

Those of you who pray, please put an extra one in for my babies.