Thoughtful Thursday: Partner

As I mentioned in last week’s BBBB post, one of the biggest surprises since the Burrito and the Tamale were born has been the changes I’ve seen in their father.

Normally, DH is a highly emotional guy — mostly when it comes to unimportant things. When he watches sports on TV, his yelling has been known to send pets and neighbors running for cover. He shows uncommon enthusiasm in response to new flavors of ice cream and sunny days. Don’t even get me started on what happens when he sees a puppy.

In terms of negative emotion, he is usually very even-keeled. He gets worked up over abstract issues like government encroachment on civil liberties, but if something unpleasant happens to him personally, it’s like water off a duck’s back.

He is fiercely loyal and effusive when it comes to me and his friends, but less so with family.

His high levels of energy and emotion have made it all the more bizarre that over 7 years of infertility, he was almost always calm to the point of being blasé. He’d get riled up about the money or about minor inconveniences, but the big picture didn’t seem to bother him the way that it got to me. There were hints, but, like the physical toll of the treatments, most of the emotional toll seemed to fall on me.

During the pregnancy, he was phenomenal as far as helping me during the months of 1st trimester immobility and 3rd trimester home and hospital bedrest. But, when it came to the babies, I was disappointed at his lack of enthusiasm. The correct response to, “Do you want to feel the baby kick?” is “Yes!” Instead, he often answered, “I guess,” or even, “No thanks, not right now.” Instead of cooing at cute baby items, he questioned the cost. During every minute of each ultrasound my eyes were as wide as a kid’s on Christmas morning. Being in a dark room for an hour made DH sleepy.

I didn’t question what kind of father he’d be nor the kind of husband he’s been all along, but, during a supposedly happy time for which we’d worked so long and so hard, I found his reactions (or lack thereof) disheartening.

And then the babies were born, and all of the emotion burst out. Not the screaming-at-the-TV emotion, but the sweet, joyful, loving emotion that I fell in love with, a decade and a half ago. He marveled at the Tamale’s resemblance to me, chuckled at the Burrito’s antics, told them sweetly about the cat waiting for them at home, made up songs to sing to them in the NICU.

When I pointed out the contrast between his pre- and post-birth reactions to the babies, DH said, “We weren’t counting our chickens before they hatched. I didn’t want to get too attached. Now they are here, and I can love them.”

When I pointed out the contrast between his effusive reaction to the babies and his stoicism during infertility, he said, “Infertility was depressing! If I’d showed emotion then, it would only have been bad emotions.”

7.5 years of DH’s guarded emotions during IF and pregnancy in exchange for singing and dancing through the house for the next couple of decades? Not a bargain I expected to make, but I’ll take it.

How has your partner reacted to infertility/loss? Is this consistent with your partner’s typical style of emotional expression?

Barren Bitches Book Brigade: It Sucked, and Then I Cried

Welcome to the Barren Bitches Book Brigade, featuring It Sucked, and Then I Cried by Heather Armstrong of dooce.com.

(Note: pregnancy and children mentioned.)

If you are in a relationship right now, do you relate to how Heather talks about her husband, Jon, and what a great father and life partner he is? From what she described about Jon, what qualities do you have or want in your life partner?
I truly have the best husband ever, in a thousand ways that I don’t currently have the mental wherewithal to enumerate.

Here is an exchange we had today which illustrates why he is so fantastic. Before this conversation, I was very grumpy from spending the day with an unpleasant NICU nurse plus physical pain.

DH, cheerfully: The babies would have been 35 weeks today.
Me, zombie-like: Oh, I forgot it’s Tuesday. Tuesday used to be the special day. Now Saturday is the special day, because they were born on a Saturday.
DH, almost jumping up and down with enthusiasm: Now that we have babies, every day is the special day!

And then I burst out crying. And then he hugged me, while driving.

I have only watched him as a father for a week and a half, but already he has surprised me so much, all in good ways. I need to write a separate post about the changes I have seen in him — stay tuned.

Heather obviously has a very distinctive writing style that comes across in both her blog and her book. What do you think has made Heather such a famous blogger? Her writing style, honesty, or something else? Do you write with the same passion and honesty that Heather does?

Dooce is many things to many people. My husband mostly cares about the pictures of Chuck and Coco, her dogs. I often enjoy her Daily Style feature and her photography, but the big draws for me are her humor and her posts about parenting. Our personalities are clearly very different, but I think I write with as much passion and honesty as I have to give.

If you had postpartum depression to the degree Heather describes, would you have the courage to check yourself into a psychiatric ward? (It’s hard to say when it’s not actually happening in your own life, but I’d be curious to know if there are some people who are completely against it, some who would do it if they felt there was no other way, etc.)
I’d like to think so. I’d also like to think that I would nip it in the bud more, rather than letting the problem get that severe. In the past week and a half, when I’ve been more emotional than usual because of post-birth hormone changes, my husband has been quick to point out the contrast between that and my usual logical self. If I were to develop severe depression, the further I got from myself, the more I think he’d try to help me pull myself back in.

Heather Armstrong writes candidly and unapologetically about all aspects of her life – the good, the bad and the ugly. What, if anything, in your life that would you like to be as unapologetic about? What’s the first step you could take? What’s holding you back?
Infertility, of course. I’ve already taken the first step: since giving birth, I have straightforwardly explained the babies’ origins whenever anyone has asked whether twins run in the family (which is surprisingly often, given that I haven’t talked to anyone outside the hospital). Strangers are becoming easy, but telling the truth about infertility to friends and family is another hurdle entirely. I honestly don’t know if I’ll ever get over feeling like it’s just none of their business.

The author’s blog is well-known for her biting sense of humor, interspersed with expressions of deep emotion toward her children and husband. Although there was plenty of humor, I found the book to be much heavier on emotion than I expected based on reading her blog. On your own blog, how much emotion do you express? Is that more or less than you tend to express in real life?
This was one of the questions that I wrote. Heather Armstrong offers such an unusual combination of sarcasm and raw emotion. In real life, I am very guarded with emotional expression. On BabySmiling, I am considerably more expressive.

For years I have enjoyed Dooce’s monthly newsletters about her daughter. They combine snapshots of Leta’s growth, snarky humor, and pure love. I think that I will be comfortable expressing emotion directly to my children, but it feels strange to think of writing emotional public newsletters under my real name for friends and family (and strangers) to read. Do I save the emotion for BabySmiling, even though it goes against the mandate of the blog as an infertility blog? Do I write the letters privately? Do I remain guarded and let the emotions go undocumented? Probably not the latter, but I’m still figuring this one out.

Whatever I do, I certainly appreciate the precedent that Dooce has set, in terms of non-maudlin emotional expression as well as acknowledging the hard work of belonging to a family.

The author talks about how she imagined her future children before becoming pregnant:

When you’re childless and young and hopeful, you have this idea of what your children are going to be like, and you make mental notes when you see other kids in public. You say to yourself, “My kid will be cute like that,” or “My kid won’t ever throw a tantrum in public like that little demon.” I had always envisioned a sweet little princess who looked just like me sitting quietly in a high chair, her pressed velvet petticoat creased perfectly as she sat and waited to be handed things in a timely manner. And then you grow up and have kids and realize that YOU HAVE NO SAY…

Before starting to try to conceive, how did you imagine your future children? If you now have children, how did your expectations fit reality?
This was the other question that I contributed. When I wrote it I had not yet given birth, and now I have. I don’t know much about my babies yet, but I certainly know more than I knew a couple of weeks ago. I really had no idea how they would look; it turns out that one of them looks so much like my husband, and one of them rather looks like me. One has hair color and features that I didn’t think could happen on a child of mine. One seems to have their father’s temperament, and one mine. Between looks and temperament, each of them has some of him and some of me. As for the rest of it, I’ll have to get back to you in a few years.

In terms of imaginings, I’ve mostly envisioned my children having the kinds of traits that would enable me to engage in activities like museums and world travel with them at a young age: intelligence, patience, curiosity, gentle demeanors. DH likes to say that it will depend on whether they are “his” children or “my” children. If they take after me as a child, by age 7 they will be leading the way through the Louvre, floor plan and guidebook in hand. If they take after him as a child, they will never make it inside the Louvre and instead will gather a crowd of Parisian children into impromptu game of tackle football in the Jardin des Tuileries. Hey, either way, Paris is Paris, right?

Hop along to another stop on this blog tour by visiting the main list at Stirrup Queens. You can also sign up for the next book on this online book club: The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster.

The Birth Story — or, And I Thought Getting Pregnant Was The Hard Part

Note: Here is the birth story people have been requesting. It also involves a major infertility turning point. And, it is very long — you may want to grab a snack and get comfortable.

So it looks like the magnesium did its job.

Recap: A week ago Tuesday, rehospitalized at 33w0d due to further cervical dilation (5cm). Given another course of steroid shots for the babies’ lungs, and put on mag to hold off labor until the steroids could take effect. Tuesday night, had lots of very strong contractions (up to 7/10 pain level, which is almost unheard of for me) 4 minutes apart, but cervix didn’t change further.

Wednesday, contractions slowed then stopped. No notable contractions or cervical change through Friday morning when mag was discontinued.

Friday morning, mag is stopped. Friday morning and afternoon, no contractions. Lower back, which has been hurting steadily for quite a while, starts hurting more.

Friday early evening, contractions resume. Not wanting to be deprived of food and drink for no reason, as I had been on Tuesday night for half a day, I decide to eat my dinner first then report contractions. The model patient rebels a bit. Hungry + thirsty + contractions = crankier than I intend to be.

I ate dinner, then reported the contractions. Monitor showed contractions 4 minutes apart. They weren’t as painful as those on Tuesday (more like 5/10 pain), but I definitely felt them. Cervix still at 5cm.

Throughout the past month+, DH had slept in my hospital room only the first night of each hospitalization, then visited during the day every 2 or 3 days. Most recently, he’d slept over on Tuesday night, left on Wednesday, then hadn’t returned until Friday night. He thought that the discontinuation of mag was as good a time to stay over as any, because I was at higher risk of delivering. This would be the first time he’d voluntarily slept in the hospital with me. He worked late on Friday and arrived well after dinner and the start of contractions. Because my cervix was unchanged, “contractions! come here right now” became “finish your work, see you later.”

He arrived, we hung out for a few hours, and we decided to go to bed around midnight. We wanted to watch a bit of TV before going to sleep. Halfway through the show, I had to pee.

I peed.

Then something else started coming out. Something pink. Something that was not urine.

The nurse and resident quickly concluded that it was amniotic fluid. Baby A’s water had broken. Fluid continued to trickle then flow then pause then trickle then flow over several hours — such a bizarre feeling. How much fluid could there possibly be in one amniotic sac?

Previously, the perinatologist had told me that further cervical dilation would buy me a quick c-section, but that breaking my water at 5cm dilation would buy me an even quicker c-section. Once my water had broken, urgent could become emergency very quickly. (Remember this part.)

DH packed up my room and we were whisked away to Labor and Delivery.

They said that the resident and attending were occupied with another birth, but that we’d deliver soon.

We waited.

My contractions got stronger and closer together.

We waited.

Stronger and closer together.

We waited. What the hell?

A second vaginal birth jumped the queue. Hmm, remember how my water breaking was supposed to constitute a near-emergency?

We waited. Both very sleepy, but it was no time to sleep.

Finally, with my contractions 2 minutes apart and extremely painful (no pain meds on board, some combination of my being a trooper and it being “any minute now”), the nurse announced that both births were finished. I didn’t get to the pushing part, but no one can ever say that my c-section didn’t involve full-blown labor. When contractions are 2 minutes apart, that means that it’s 2 minutes between the peak of each contraction. The respite between the end of one contraction and the start of the next was less than a minute. The limits of my iron pain tolerance were being tested and pushed to the limit.

Finally, it was time. I headed to the OR first for anesthesia while DH was asked to wait. The anesthesiology resident attempted to place the spinal in the midst of my almost constant contractions. Just sitting up in the right position was reeeeally difficult. I got seriously pissed when I heard the anesthesiology attending tell the resident, “You blew the space.” I remembered reading that nowadays, the dreaded spinal headaches are rare and usually only happen if they keep blowing the space and have to do multiple sticks. Luckily, the second try worked. If he had blown it a second time, I was prepared to tell the resident he was incompetent and should step aside. I was also prepared to tell him that I liked the other two anesthesia residents I’d met before much better, and that he was ugly.

With the spinal in place, they started to prep me, and I lost track of the dozen people in the room. I’d never met the OB attending before, but I knew the OB/MFM resident well.

Eventually DH joined us in his gown, shower cap, and mask. He is not the type to peek behind the curtain, but he could still see plenty.

More than 3 hours after my water broke, the babies emerged quite quickly. A, the boy, Burrito, came first. He had the most fabulous loud cry. They showed him to us, and he looked big and perfect. A real baby. A real baby! The neonatologists went to work on him, but not much was needed. From the first moment he was breathing room air and was just perfect.

B, the girl, Tamale, came two minutes later. Her cry was weaker. They bagged her, but she seemed to be doing okay. Also a real baby. We had two babies! All of my Dead Baby Thoughts had been unfounded, and all of the fears of severe prematurity at 26w and 28w had not come to fruition. They were alive, and apparently healthy, and so beautiful.

From my vantage point, I could see Burrito’s station very well, but couldn’t see Tamale. DH was able to see Tamale quite well, as well as some of what the doctors were doing to me. As the doctors started to work on putting me back together, I was so grateful to be distracted with views of Burrito and DH’s reports about Tamale. When I met with the neonatologist at 29w, he’d said that they might immediately whisk the babies away. The fact that the babies were still in the room seemed like a very good sign. It exquisitely seemed like forever, but was about 10 minutes, that I just watched the hustle and bustle and caught glimpses of my baby. DH, despite declaring years ahead of time that he wouldn’t feel comfortable, cut both of their cords. I was proud of him.

According to the time stamp on the photos, 13 minutes after Burrito’s birth, they brought him over to me to look at and touch for a few moments — longer than I was expecting. Was this really my baby? I knew they hadn’t smuggled any babies into the OR, and there were witnesses who saw these babies come out of me, so they must be mine. After I touched and kissed Burrito, DH held him for a minute. They said that Tamale wasn’t ready to be held, but that we could see her soon in the NICU.

Meanwhile DH could see the activity level around my abdomen growing.

Here comes the part relevant to infertility.

The babies were still in the room and I was still wonderfully distracted when the OB attending interrupted. In a very calm but clear voice (thereby telling me that the situation was serious but that he was trying not to freak me out), he said:

BabySmiling, we need to talk about what’s going on. We’re trying to finish up, but it’s not going as planned. B’s placenta was what’s called accreta. Her placenta is attached very deeply to your uterus, and it is so deep that it even goes beyond the uterus. This is very rare, but it is more common with multiples. We have been trying to remove the placenta and control the bleeding, but it’s not working. We may need to do a hysterectomy. This would mean that you couldn’t have any more children. We will try everything we can, but right now it’s looking like we will need to remove your uterus. You will still have your ovaries, so you won’t go into menopause, but you won’t be able to have more children. You have also lost a lot of blood, so we will need to transfuse you.

Here is the golden moment when 7 years of infertility came to a head.

DH and I looked at each other. In one split second it felt like three things occurred as we made eye contact: taking in what the doctor said, asking the other’s opinion, and simultaneous agreement. It felt like we both shrugged with our eyes. Here is what went through my head.

• Oh. Wow.
• Hey, it’s like Abby on ER. She lost her uterus during childbirth too.
• I guess this settles the conversation about having more babies.
• It’s fine, I can live with that. At least we don’t have to use contraception, and I never have to wonder or take a pregnancy test or cry over a BFN.
• This will make a really good blog post.
• Huh, I bet most people would be really upset right now. Abby on ER was really upset, even though she didn’t want that baby in the first place. I’m fine with it.
• DH looks fine with it.
• Those pesky placentas! First A’s was previa, and now B’s is accreta.
• Technically I could have more children via surrogacy, but I know what the doctor means.
• No surrogacy, these two are enough.
• Thank G-d the babies are okay. They both seem to be doing so well!
• Little does he know, even if I have a uterus I probably can’t have more children.
• I’m so glad the babies are still in the room for me to have something to watch while this goes on.
• The doctor probably wants an answer.

The way it looked to everyone else: Doctor finishes speaking, DH and I look at each other, and we both say something to the effect of, “Whatever you need to do.”

The doctor said, “Thank you.” In my mind, the unspoken full sentence was, “Thank you for not freaking out like most people do, thank you for not making my job harder while I’m trying to do this, and thank you for not requiring me to convince you that this is the only way to save your life.”

My little distractions weren’t in the room long, and they soon went upstairs to the NICU.

The doctors kept working, and the anesthesiologists started getting really busy.

DH made a joke/offer about the transfusion being convenient because he is a universal donor, and rolled up his sleeve.

I asked him to tell me everything he remembered about the babies to keep me busy, and to show me the photos he’d taken.

DH, normally rather squeamish, was quite fascinated as the surgeons worked and told them as much. “This is so cool!” “From a medical standpoint, this is so interesting.” Usually I would be the one filled with intellectual curiosity for my own surgery. We weren’t entirely ourselves that day, in lots of ways.

DH didn’t tell me at the time because he didn’t want to alarm me, but there was a lot of blood. He later said that it seemed like an awful lot of blood, between the huge tub of suctioned blood and the giant puddle of blood on the floor that everyone kept having to step around. No one ever mentioned the word hemorrhage.

Later, DH asked how much blood I’d lost, because he thought he’d heard an amount mentioned but it couldn’t possibly be that much. They confirmed that he’d heard correctly. I had lost more than 6 units. My loss was 2/3 of the normal human blood volume, though because blood volume increases during pregnancy and even moreso during twin pregnancy my percentage was lower, closer to half of my total blood. That is still really a lot.

With a spinal, you don’t feel pain but you do feel “pressure.” The pressure got stronger. The way they were throwing my body parts around felt a lot like Thai massage.

Eventually the doctor said, “The bleeding is slowing down. We tried [a drug whose name I don't remember] and it worked. We aren’t going to transfuse you right now, and it looks like we won’t need to do a hysterectomy.”

DH asked, “Is that drug commonly used for placenta accreta, or did you just try that drug on a whim?”

Everyone laughed.

As the doctors continued to work, they started talking to us more. Several times, DH or I made them laugh quite a bit. I don’t think either of us was trying to be funny.

The OB attending said that it was lucky that B had been breech and required a c-section. If I’d had a vaginal delivery, the bleeding would have been harder to control, they might not have had time to open me up, and I might have died.

After a while, they were done. With all the genuineness I could convey, as they were wheeling me to recovery, I told the doctor, “Thank you so much.” Thank you for saving an organ that I probably have no use for but would have missed, thank you for doing such an incredible job, thank you for saving my life.

As they wheeled me out of the OR, I started feeling pins and needles in my legs. This meant that the spinal was wearing off and they had finished surgery just in time. If it had taken longer or if they had needed to do the hysterectomy, they would have switched to general anesthesia.

Recovery did not go so well. It was supposed to be “an hour or two” but ended up being more than 3 hours — among other things, we had to wait for a shift change in the NICU then in the mother-baby unit. In my altered state, I had it in my mind that I shouldn’t go to sleep because I needed to be alert when they wheeled me to the NICU to glance at the babies. I really should have gone to sleep. I dozed off here and there, but mostly I lay there being agitated.

The nurse appeared periodically to tell me it wouldn’t be long (sound familiar?) then would disappear for far too long. During that time, they had a post-op conference to discuss my case. A Morbidity and Mortality meeting, without the morbidity or mortality. A “here is what went right with this crazy case” meeting.

I was also terribly thirsty even though I was hooked to an IV for hydration.

And I was itchy, so itchy, from the anesthesia.

Unprecedented sleepiness + agitation + impatience to see my babies + thirst + watching DH eat and drink + itchiness + not knowing how much longer + severe nausea + almost dying = a bad combination.

I remember so much about the birth, but the NICU trip is pretty hazy. I thought I’d just get wheeled by each isolette momentarily, the way that a tour bus pauses to look at a monument, but we stayed in each room longer than I’d expected. They told us that the babies were doing wonderfully. Tamale had disagreed with their recommendation for breathing assistance and had pulled out her tubes, so she was breathing room air like her brother by the time we saw them.

The next days were a weird combination of highs and lows. I’ve already talked about the contrast at Show and Tell earlier this week.

To preempt an inevitable question: They didn’t transfuse me because the preference in that hospital on that service is to avoid transfusion below a certain very high limit. I was actually kind of glad that they didn’t, because even screened blood carries a certain amount of risk, but dealing with that level of blood loss has made the recovery much more difficult.

My next post will have pictures of both babies, as well as some processing of the events I’ve just told you about. This post is long enough.

Birth details (in metric or disguised to reduce Google-ability):
Born one week ago exactly (on Sat.) around 3:30 a.m. at 33w4d
Burrito weighed 2.15 kg, Tamale weighed 2.25 kg
Burrito was 47 cm long, Tamale was 44 cm
APGARs 8 and 9 for both
Off the charts in terms of being loved

Thoughtful Thursday: Improved

Following up on this week’s Barren Bitches Book Brigade discussion of Moose, as well as an article I read a few weeks ago…

How has infertility improved your life?

A year ago, I made a list of gifts that infertility has given me.

• Interactions with amazing people, both those dealing with their own infertility and those who have sought to help me with mine.
• No more anxiety when getting injections, even from myself. A doctor once told me that he has never in his career seen a patient so calm when he stuck a needle in their eyelid.
• Greater understanding of my body.
• Awareness of an underlying sub-clinical thyroid condition which is not problematic now but may become an issue in the future.
• Much more empathy than I had before for everyone who experiences infertility, pregnancy loss, loss of a child, etc.
• The end to my delusion that I have control over what happens in my life. The Yiddish proverb, “We plan; G-d laughs” makes so much more sense now.

To that list, I would now add:

• Perspective. When people say how horrible bedrest must be, I know they are wrong — because I know what the alternatives are. Bedrest is downright fun compared to being in the middle of IVF #3 (or more likely, #4 by now). As for the other direction, I have taken the mantra, “Every day on bedrest is a day not spent in the NICU” (or worse) to heart. I whine more often than my husband would like (“But I neeeeeed cake”) but in the grand scheme, I am the opposite of a whiner. I know how good I have it.
• These particular babies. I have heard many parents after  infertility say it, but I didn’t quite get it before. If I had conceived easily, sure, I would have a kid (about to enter first or second grade!),  but I wouldn’t have these kids. I haven’t even met them yet, and already I love them so much.
• Seeing the world. During the period of my infertility I have travelled to 20 new countries, some more than once (and seen more of the three that I’d already visited prior). If I’d had a child, I would never have travelled nearly so much — or maybe at all.
• Encouraging my children to see the world. Because of the prior point, we now have all sorts of plans to show our children the world that we never would’ve had before. And, since we (as long as these babies come into this world okay, knock on wood) won’t have to spend our money on infertility treatments anymore, we may actually be able to afford to take them somewhere.
• The chance to know, really know, my relationship with my husband, and to keep improving it. We had been married more than four years before we started trying to conceive, and together several years before that, but even so, we have grown together so much since then. I honestly feel sorry for many people I know who have a child early in their relationship/marriage, especially when that relationship later dissolves and I can see ways in which the child stressed a situation that didn’t have a chance to develop a strong foundation. Although infertility has put plenty of stress on us and on our relationship, we and we are ultimately stronger for it. You certainly can never say that we didn’t have a chance to develop a strong foundation — we have had more chances than anyone could possibly need.

Oh, and to revise my answer to the question I asked a year ago:

Would I trade the past six and a half seven years of infertility heartache for a kindergarten-age child first-grader?

I said yes a year ago, but now, no. I don’t think I would anymore. I guess that qualifies as growth.

How has infertility improved your life? There must be something.

If your situation is loss instead of infertility, you may not be able to come up with an answer. If that’s the case, please say so. If you do have an answer, then you must be a truly Thoughtful person.

Shopping Trip

This post has nothing to do with infertility, pregnancy, bedrest, any of it.

Last weekend, before bedrest, DH and I went to dinner. Afterwards I suggested that we stop at a kitchen store. Our can opener disappeared a couple of weeks ago (really, just vanished! bizarre!) and we’ve been living a canless existence.

For several minutes I carefully perused the floor-to-ceiling display of different can openers. I debated the pros and cons of different models with myself, since my husband does not tend to have opinions about such things. Finally, I made my selection (the kind that opens cans on the side, at the seal, leaving no sharp edges). Then…

Me: I just want to look over here at one thing. It won’t take long.
DH: I just realized that I voluntarily accompanied you to a kitchen store. We could be here all day.
Me: No, I’m not getting anything else. I’m not supposed to be doing anything in the kitchen anyway, too much standing.
DH: Can we go then?
Me: Let’s just walk the long way around to the cash register.
DH: (silent compliance)
Me: I don’t think I ever told you that sometimes when I’m upset, I come here and walk around to make myself feel better. Not often, but sometimes.
DH: That’s amazing. That is the opposite of how I react to kitchen stores. The exact opposite.

Thoughtful Thursday: Publicity

On the heels of my previous post about revealing my infertility to a crowd of people, let’s think about revealing on a bigger scale — because it’s come up in my own life.

Remember the Thoughtful Thursday a few weeks ago when, to illustrate my husband’s penchant for civility, I described his professional behavior. I happened to use a metaphor that my husband was actually Kirk Cameron circa 1986. Continuing the metaphor, let’s pretend that Kirk has proposed a Very Special Episode of Growing Pains all about infertility, closing with Kirk talking directly to the camera: “Infertility affects millions of people, including me. My wife and I have spent the past 7 years dealing with fertility treatments, miscarriage, and heartache. To learn more about infertility, visit your local library.”

My husband is not actually Kirk Cameron, but he does have a job in the public eye. He would like to use his platform to discuss infertility publicly, using our experiences as an illustration. Part of his motivation is that so many people are so secretive, especially us, and he wants to bring this too-common experience into the spotlight. He also thinks it would be nice to make some money off of something that has eaten all of our disposable income and most of our savings. My husband is particularly enthusiastic about this project, and it seems to mean a lot to him.

So far, I have said that he can look into the feasibility of a project and see if it’s something that might actually happen, but I have reserved my actual approval until a later date.

To be honest, the idea makes me quite uncomfortable.

Part of the problem is my blog. I’ve minimized identifying information, but I’ve given all sorts of specific details about infertility because no one in real life knows these details. If the details (such as conceiving on Perfunctory IUI #7) are highlighted on the Very Special Episode of Growing Pains, it might become too easy for people IRL to find my blog. Will I have to redact information from past blog posts? Or perhaps password protect a bunch of posts? I wouldn’t take down this blog completely; it’s too important to me, and there’s got to be a way around things. But, I think that my blog would have to change in some way after the Very Special Episode.

We realize that the project would “out” us to all of our families and friends, and we’re both okay with that but know that it will cause some conflicts.

Probably the biggest problem? The assholes. Articles like the New York Times piece on Pamela Jeanne tend to get all sorts of negative reactions in addition to the neutral and positive reactions. Announcements such as celebrities expecting via surrogate lead to accusations that they just didn’t want to mess up their bodies. I just can’t see myself finding the energy to deal with ignorance and vitriol — from anonymous strangers and loved ones alike.

Many people in the blogosphere use real names, and some have gone even more public than that, appearing as the subject of newspaper articles or television programs, or even writing their own books. Others don’t use real names, usually for a reason. Whatever your current status, what would you do if someone wanted to make you famous for being infertile? What if the person trying to publicize your story was the person you love most in the world?

Help!

17w1d: Infinite Possibilities

Yesterday was my Level II ultrasound. Babies and cervix were as they should be. Wonderfully reassuring, and at times miraculous. It’s amazing that fetuses have all of the body parts that they do, and it’s amazing to be able to see them. After all, most of us haven’t even seen our own cerebellum or watched our own hearts beating.

Leading up to the scan, I experienced a flurry of emotions. As with the nuchal scan, sleeplessness thanks to a combination of Dead Baby Thoughts and excitement. Eagerness to see the babies again and hopefully learn the sexes. And… a bit of sadness at the prospect of finally knowing the sexes.

Huh?

Let’s step back first. Remember when you were a kid, and you imagined what your life partner might look like, act like, be? Tall, average, short? Brown hair, blond hair, black hair, red hair? (Bald probably wasn’t on the list for most of us.) Maybe he would be royalty, and you’d become a princess. Maybe he would be the funniest person ever, and you would laugh all day every day. Maybe he’d be a musician, serenading you by day and singing you to sleep by night. Maybe you would climb mountains together, or debate philosophy, or attend glamorous A-list parties. The possibilities were infinite, and most of us only imagined wonderful possibilities.

Then, when you finally met someone who you thought might be your life partner, you were so swept away by the reality of the person that the fact that the possibilities had just narrowed probably didn’t enter your mind.

With babies, it’s much the same thing — except that it’s quite different. Babies are also infinite possibility — within the realm of genetic reality. Two short parents are unlikely to produce a tall genetic child, for example. Still, the almost-infinite possibilities abound. My children could have any hair colors: brown most likely, possibly blond or black hair (my husband was a blond child, whereas my hair was as close to black as brown hair can get), not impossible but probably not red (though there are gingers in my family). Eye colors are up in the air, though my dominant brown eye genes will probably overtake their father’s blue eye genes. Small butt like me, or bodacious butt like their father? Skinny like their father, or not-skinny like me? Angel babies like I was, or colicky handfuls like their father? Math nerds like me, or math geeks like their father? Sticklers for precision in language like me, or sticklers… apparently some possibilities are not so infinite after all. My children could choose almost any profession in the world — except that they’ll be too tall to be jockeys, too unathletic to be most other types of professional athlete, too cynical to run for public office — though that last one is more nurture than nature, it’s just as inevitable.

The less-than-wonderful possibilities exist too. Will they inherit ADHD, depression, substance dependence from my side? Life-threatening allergies, anxiety disorders, diabetes from his side? Will my daughter be mortified to hit puberty before most of her friends? Will my son be humiliated to learn that he was not conceived the old-fashioned way and that he is not a “natural” twin? Will my children grow up to be infertile?

Every person who has not yet met their child has a broad set of possibilities they imagine for that child. One thing that happens with infertility is that the time for imagining is longer than it is for most — many of my fertile friends had less than a year from pulling the goalie to holding a baby in their arms, and my knocked-up cousins didn’t even get the lead time to think about pulling the goalie. I had two and a half decades to fantasize about my potential someday children, then seven years to imagine my “when they hell are they going to get here?” children. During those seven years, my imagination covered every possibility — good and bad. Mostly good long-term possibilities, but plenty of bad pregnancy and infant possibilities thanks to the shattering of my rose-colored glasses by infertility.

And so, as much as I have wanted to know the sexes of these babies, as the time approached I also realized that the information would constrain my world of possibilities forever. Two boys would mean that I might never get to experience parenting a daughter. Two girls would mean that the first and middle names we selected years ago in honor of my husband’s grandfathers could forever go unused. One boy and one girl would mean that my twins might not enjoy the same closeness that I’ve witnessed in many same-sex twins — and that this would probably be my last (and only successful) pregnancy (knock on wood), because with one of each we would probably never try to conceive again.

Yes, I know, cry me a river. I realize that these are not actual problems. But possibility is sometimes the only thing an infertile can cling to, and contrary to what I imagined would happen for all of those years, setting aside possibility to embrace reality can be a difficult leap to make.

Those were my thoughts leading up to the scan, anyway. And once I learned the reality? Ecstatic. Unequivocally beaming. Anticipation is a mindfuck, but the reality was as exciting as I’d imagined. Unlike my husband, who adamantly has no gender preference, once I learned one sex I was totally rooting that the next baby would be the opposite sex. I know that rooting doesn’t change the DNA that was put into motion over 100 days ago, but in my head I was rooting. Rooting like a cheerleader. A nauseous cheerleader with her belly hanging out and covered with goo.

Oh, you want to know the sexes? See the photos? Okay, since you’ve come this far.

Baby A, my…

…son! The ultrasound technician and MFM doctor both had full confidence. The circle on his chest is Baby B’s head, but they’re not actually crammed together, yet.

Baby B, my…

…probably daughter! 90% sure. She was a little modest and wouldn’t spread-eagle like her brother, but after staring at her crotch extensively and patiently waiting for her to shift, everyone thinks she is very likely a girl. It’s sure enough that I can start decorating the nursery, but uncertain enough that we have ammunition to try to persuade my mother-in-law to put off scouring the garage sales for any more baby items that I didn’t want in the first place. Unfortunately I think we’ve already lost that battle. We can look forward to her bursting into tears many more times over our rejection of the junktreasure she has unearthed, but between learning the babies’ sexes and starting pottery, today I am in too good a mood to care.

Perfect Moment Monday: Back in the Saddle

It has literally been almost a year since I’ve properly worked in the pottery studio, partly because work obligations have precluded attending my usual class and partly because the Great Pottery Catastrophe of 2008 took the wind out of my sails. I did take one class in a very different technique, but I haven’t sat down at the wheel in far too long. I’d been toying with the idea of building a studio in my home, but once I learned that I was finally pregnant, I decided that it should wait (high startup costs + toxic chemicals + 2000 degree heat = not great with curious little ones running around). My pottery pursuit was put on indefinite hiatus.

Last week I got an email about a summer pottery class with a new teacher (one who was not implicated in the Great Catastrophe). I wanted very much to take the class, but I decided that I shouldn’t because it’s not a good idea to do pottery while I’m pregnant. It’s a great hobby for infertiles, but not as good for pregnant women, between the chemicals used in the glaze and the physical strain of certain tasks. Plenty of women are able to continue pottery throughout pregnancy, but since twin pregnancy is higher-risk than most, I thought that it would be prudent for me to opt out. This sensible decision made me sad, because I miss pottery a lot, but I’ll do anything to keep these babies safe.

I mentioned this to my husband. He said, “You should take the class! You can stay away from the chemicals and modify things to take it easy. It will be a long time before you can do it again. For once, we won’t be traveling much so you’ll actually be in town for most of the classes. Pottery makes you happy.”

His optimistic clarity was one perfect moment; I foresee many more perfect moments to come — starting with my first class tomorrow!

Lori from Weebles Wobblog is in charge of Perfect Moment Mondays. And she’s up for a blog award for being so inspiring — vote early and often!

Omega Woman (or, I Am Legend)

I did not encounter a single person today. I emailed and blogged and talked on the phone, but I did not come within 50 feet of another human being, nor talk to anyone face to face. I did make physical contact with my cat and talk to her, but I don’t think that counts.

There have been a few days in my life where I didn’t make any contact because DH was away and I didn’t leave the house, but this is the first time I can ever remember that I left the house for several hours yet did not bump into another human being.

DH out of town + snowstorm causing snow day for literally millions of people = the last woman on earth.

Don’t worry, I wasn’t lonely. Mostly, I missed DH’s snow shoveling abilities, and perhaps some of his interpersonal charms — but mostly the shoveling. Everyone else I could take or leave.

After spending an hour shoveling myself out of the driveway, I finally made it to Old Job, where I discovered that I was the only person who had come in. As of noon when I arrived, mine were the first footprints in the snow approaching any of the building’s entrances. You know, I never actually got an email saying that everything was closed — I am pretty sure an email should go out in situations like this. Apparently everyone else used common sense.

Show and Tell: Quixotic

Remember a couple of weeks ago when I showed you a photo I bought from Wall Blank and I gave away a Wall Blank print of her choosing to Anita from Hope.Faith.Patience?

The past week has been particularly good at Wall Blank. Anita has chosen her prize: an artistic rendering of the Japanese symbol for water, mizu. If you happen to like it yourself, it’s still available for a few more days — and the profits go to the Australian Red Cross to help victims of the bushfires in Victoria.

Hope you enjoy it, Anita!

I myself was smitten with one of this week’s offerings, Don Quixote and Rocinante in pen and ink. Also available for a few more days if you want to copy me. If you do, just be prepared, if I ever walk into your house, for me to point and exclaim, “Copycat!” But, I always show up at people’s houses bearing gifts, so it’s not all finger-pointing and name-calling.

I like it aesthetically, but it’s the subject that particularly calls to me. First, I’m headed to Quixote’s homeland next month. Second, I quite enjoyed the book, though it’s been almost 20 years since I read it. Third, I’ve been feeling a bit quixotic lately as I embark on Perfunctory IUI #7 (BTW I started stims yesterday) in preparation for non-Perfunctory IVF #3. I hope it’s not an impossible dream, but it sure feels that way sometimes.

To bear with unbearable sorrow
…
To try when your arms are too weary [from all of the blood draws]
…
One [wo]man, scorned and covered with scars,
Still strove, with [her] last ounce of courage,
To reach the unreachable star.

Interestingly, both of DH’s parents have prints of Picasso’s Quixote in their respective homes. As I considered buying this new Quixote, I wondered if the appreciation for the character had trickled down to DH.

Me: What do you think of Don Quixote?
DH: He’s stupid.
Me: Huh?
DH: Tilting at windmills is stupid.
Me: You know he doesn’t think they’re windmills, right?
DH: Yeah. He’s delusional.
Me: Have you actually read the book?
DH: No, I don’t think so.
Me: I think you’d remember — it’s one of the greatest works of literature of all time. Have you seen Man of La Mancha?
DH: I know that one song.

And so, in a rare turn of events I am ignoring DH’s otherwise-infallible opinion. I have employed my own judgment in coming to the decision to make another Wall Blank purchase. I’m building quite the collection of infertility-themed art.

I will leave you with my favorite version of “that one song.”

More metaphoric, symbolic, and literal beauty at Show and Tell.