Moving On With Infertility Treatments

Hello Lovelies,

So, I am right near the end of my break from our infertility treatments so far. Actual end date will depend on when my period shows up. I am just waiting… in the two week wait. Even though I wasn’t trying this month. And wasn’t charting. I am still crossing everything and trying very hard not to breathe, or move, lest I “trigger” my period. So silly, right? I know that all of the steps our team has in place for out next round of treatment will be amazing. Like:

-Clomid to fatten up my eggs. Since it was working like a charm before I believe that it’ll get the job done.

-IUI to give hubby’s sperm the very best chance of reaching my egg. No mucus or long journeys standing in their way!

-And progesterone to help keep the evil spotting at bay. Hopefully allowing implantation to occur.

Yippee. I should be excited! Right? I mean, this is a step forward…. right?! But instead there is this sort of overwhelming sadness that I am feeling now that I am nearing my period. If I get my period this month… then we move on to “real” infertility treatments. Up to this point I feel like we have been doing treatment “lite”. And even that was hard enough to handle! I had to wrap my head around Clomid the first time that I took it. It felt like such a big step. We needed MEDICATION! To have a baby! Ugh. That was the first time that I felt sort of “broken” in the whole two years of trying.

But this is different. The impending IUI feels so much bigger. These infertility treatments seem so much more sterile and removed from my original concept of baby making. For example, this will be the first month that I will have to actively NOT have sex with my husband around ovulation. We have to abstain in order to do the IUI transfer. So, if we conceive on that cycle, which I certainly hope we do, it will be through the insertion of a tiny tube into my cervix. Not through some glorious round of love-making that magically reinvigorated my tired old eggs and gave us a baby. Nope. A tube… How romantic. *Swoon*

If I get my period this month I will have to wrap my head around the fact that having a family won’t be that simple for me. I can’t just have enough sex, or the right sex, or at the right time sex. I need to have washed sperm inserted into my uterus and have my body pumped full of drugs to accomplish pregnancy. Well, to HOPEFULLY accomplish pregnancy. Fuck. So, even though I thought I had wrapped my head around this before, when I started taking Clomid, it turns out I will have to wrap my head around it… again!

It seems that no matter how many times I “come to terms” with this I haven’t fully accepted everything when it comes to infertility and infertility treatments. With every transition I need more time to accept the new things that we are adding to the regimen. The changes that we have to take on each cycle because we STILL aren’t getting pregnant. I guess I like to forget, or ignore, all of this. Each month I look ahead only as far as the two week wait because if we have too many more failures we have to bump up in treatment yet AGAIN. And I just hate to think about that! Each new treatment means we have failed at a whole other level. So if I only look as far as this month’s two week wait, then I don’t have to think about failures, or what comes next, or what that means. I live blissfully in the bubble of “what if”. Cocooned in the idea that this month I won’t bleed, that we will finally be pregnant.

Apparently, even on months that we aren’t trying. Like this month, our last month in between infertility treatments. I must have been hoping for a miracle anyway. That is the only way to explain how, all of a sudden, I was terrified and sad. Even though we aren’t trying this month. Even though I’m not really sure how many days ago I ovulated.

I know I should be getting my period within the week. That means, because of my history of spotting, I could start to bleed any day now. And so sadness and fear engulf me. Every time I need to pee I try to suck in, hoping that action will stop any blood trickling down from actually making it onto the toilet paper. Anytime I sneeze, which is a lot because of allergies, I cringe and swear and pray that it didn’t cause any bleeding. I am cautious when working out, and try to go as little as possible. Thinking over and over again “please no blood, please no blood, please no blood…”

Because if we aren’t pregnant this month and need to move on to more intensive infertility treatments then I will have to admit that our problems are real.

If I get my period this month I have to sign up for my first round of IUI. And I will need to really accept the term “infertile” as it relates to me.

This should already be something I am comfortable with, after all, I write a blog about infertility! And if you mean consciously… do I know that this is already my diagnosis, after two and a bit years of trying? Of course! I have infertility! My eggs are older than me and tiny! Speak out about it! Support others! Hurrah! But on the inside there is still this little piece of me. A very small, scared, me with a mouse-type voice… squeaks out “Maybe they are wrong?”

Maybe my application to parenthood was misplaced so far? Maybe it’s just taking a while for the people in charge of new babies to notice that I’ve been waiting a long time? Any minute now the stork will burst in through my door and say that they are so sorry for the delay and here’s my baby. And because I was so patient I get extra credits on my account! My baby can be healthy, and brilliant, and gorgeous, and kind, and … whatever!! Tack the positive attributes on, you’ve earned it! What if I’m not infertile… my paperwork is just misplaced!?

But if I get my period…

Sigh,
Unpregnant Chicken

P.S: I did get my period that month and we are now onto the aforementioned IUI round. I needed a little space from this post before I was ready to upload it for all of you to view. Sometimes things are hard to share… you understand! 🙂