The IVF Chronicles: WTF is IVF

There was a cute, fun conversation I had with my boss when we were just about to start hormone injections and the shit just got real business of IVF.  PAG and I had confided in our family members of our intentions on pursuing preggo-hood and we wanted to allow our employers the opportunity to know what emotional roller coaster we were embarking on so we didn't show up to work basket cases with no context as to why.  So I emailed my principal about two weeks before our beginning of school in-services to let him know what would be happening and how that may affect me at the beginning of the school year.

I remember going in and doing some basic small talk about summer and preparing for the school year before saying that I was there to tell him that we were doing IVF.  He gave me a curious look that told me the information didn't land quite right so the teacher in me went about delivering the message a different way.  I told him we were trying to get pregnant which has no shades of other possible meanings so the wait time on that understanding was much shorter.  He laughed and said he was worried that what I had said before was some kind of relationship counseling and that our marriage was in some kind of trouble.

How can there be marital discord; we have a SPAM selfie together.

IVF and infertility in general is not a subject of much conversation.  We just passed not too long ago National Infertility Awareness week where there were several articles and pieces out in the inter webs  explaining that some kind of barrier to having a child is experienced.  I will not pretend to be an expert in infertility stats or the various options and procedures available to couples and individuals trying to conceive (or TTC in the web lingo) as we were fast tracked to IVF because of some insurmountable odds PAG and I would experience without.

We were walked through the routines and the procedures formally twice, once with one doctor who ended up not working with us (I think she was focusing on some other area of doctoring or research, maybe) and then again with Dr. A, who oversaw our case until we were discharged as successfully preggo parents to be.  I remember there was a handout/booklet on the center of the table that outlined, with illustrations and diagrams, the egg retrieval.  The needle was magnified to encourage nervousness that a bubble tea straw would be needed to suck up our grape sized eggs.  This is not the case---please read those pursuing infertility treatments---I am not a doctor and will not describe things accurately at all or without hyperbole; your eggs will be normal sized and I don't even remember the ins and outs of the procedure.

We knew we were doing this so no matter how scary the pokey needles or big the bucket of money we would need, we were ready to sign on the dotted line.  And here's what we knew going into it what IVF was:  I would be on a variety of drugs and hormones throughout my monthly cycle first to chill out my ovaries from producing anything, than kicking them into overdrive to make as many eggs as possible without putting me into estrogen shock (again, not really, but there is OHSS which sounded super painful and highly likely).  Then when the eggs had reached peak ripeness (this thing with being ripe will come up again and again in this process and it is never, not gross) the doctor would retrieve them.  Meanwhile, my partner would supply his end of the reproductive ingredients in a manner not fun or convenient and also involving needles in places most people just don't want them.  The doctors of the laboratory would arrange fixed marriages of sorts via a process called ICSI (it's the one everyone shows with the needle putting the sperm into the egg) with as many eggs and sperms as possible.  Then they would be set to hang out while we fret and hope and begin using progesterone with the needles much bigger than the previous ones.  There would then be a transfer day where I had to have the most water in my bladder as possible and they took the best embryo and introduced it back into my uterus ready and welcoming for the embryo to look around and say "gee, this is a swell place; I'd like to make my home here for nine months." At that point we hope that the odds are ever in our favor and in about two weeks there would be a blood test to check for pregnancy.  Oh did I forget to mention the fifty million blood tests and the 1,000 ultrasounds I would go through for not just an IVF pregnancy, but an IVF twin pregnancy?!  I guess we can talk about all of those adventures another day.

While that is all easy to understand and fairly straight forward, I needed it explained to me in language I most understood, and by that I mean book language.  I absolutely lived with "Get A Life" : A His and Hers Survival Guide to IVF" by Richard Mackney and Rosie Bray.  The couple reference a UK experience of IVF which had some key differences especially when it came to insurance and the payment end of things, but each chapter was designed to give a thorough layperson's experience of both the pitfalls of failure and the joys of success.  Web articles are meh for information about reproductive services, and each individual clinic is going to be different slightly in their procedures and how they arrange things.  We loved RHS in Monroeville, seriously loved them.  Dr. A was the stern, serious straight talking woman I needed getting started and answering my initial questions.  Dr. S did my retrieval and my transfer and I am sure she is an angel sent to earth to help families conceive children.  Even the receptionists and the blood draw technicians made the whole experience as fun and calm and comforting it can be.  I didn't go through the hardships I am sure many families endure, not by anything I did but through sheer luck, but I can imagine they are the perfect staff to console and encourage others in their trials and IVF missteps.

IVF is mysterious and intimidating to the medical novice.  Knowing that babies are made of female eggs and male sperm is just the tip of a big complicated iceberg.  It is seriously impressive that so many folks get preggo so often or with so little effort as the odds of the sequence happening just perfectly so is daunting.  I am glad we went against the odds with our IVF adventure.  We are nearly at a year, even though that conversation with my boss seems like just yesterday.  PAG and I are lucky, blessed, fortunate, and thankful that we now are experts with our own IVF adventure.

Reflection List #1: What Makes Me Happy Right Now

This year has been hard.  The most hard I could never have really prepared myself for.  I wouldn't change it for anything, but I know that when I went in to have my babies in the wee hours on June 6th, I had no idea how different my life would be in the subsequent weeks and months and how what I expected it to look like was nowhere close to the reality of what this year became.  We crossed into the final month of our babies' first year of life yesterday with a trip to the zoo for a reunion with our RHS doctors.  I almost didn't want to go because it has been a hard year and sometimes when I am feeling blue, I tend to want to squirrel myself away and be a hermit to regain some kind of control of what I am feeling is nonstop chaos.  I am glad we went as the experience reminds me I have so much to be thankful for and so many blessings to be counting.

A few months ago, I picked up this journaling book for this blog, determined to put myself at least on a weekly blog schedule to do some personal writing and reflection.  And then more life happened and I pushed my writing aside for babies, school, this meeting, and that event.  I seriously looked at my May calendar this past Friday and cried looking at all of the ink on the page and not knowing when I will catch a break between now and July.  The writing is supposed to be one of my ways of making breaks happen.  Does anyone else have a successful strategy for making the best of their me-time or generating more of it?  I'd love some advice on how to make loaves and fishes out of the spare seconds (read none-I might actually owe someone my time right now) for things like writing and not folding laundry.

So in the spirit of getting somewhat on track, but not being to harsh with myself if I slip into the blog void for a few weeks, here it goes!

Things that make me happy right now:
Snuggles-I am not a warm and fuzzy person.  I am generally not comfortable with small talk and I find it draining to socialize outside my immediate family unit for long stretches of time.  However, I love to hold my boys and give them nose kisses and tickle their tummies and hold them at 3am even though I haven't slept a full night of sleep since Obama was President.  Today the day care called to tell me that Wall-E had a fever and was extra sleepy and wanted held more than normal.  As they get more and more kid like, I realize that my baby holding days are decreasing and that I need to get while the getting is good.  So bring on the snuggles no matter what time.

My coteacher-Em and I have been working together for three years, but the way we understand each other, you might assume it were longer.  She is a great balance to me in knowledge and teaching approach, and we have a shared philosophy that meshes well for our students.  We have had a challenging year, however, I can show up every day knowing I can rely on her completely.  She is also a mum to a toddler and a newborn so we get to share mommy-battle stories of sleepless nights and the joys of new baby accomplishments.

My husband-PAG watched the boys tonight so I could be a figurehead at our town band rehearsal and practice as he has already out practiced me so far this year.  I can count on this man to share the workload and hear what is burdening me and be my shoulder to cry on. Every momma deserves that kind of man, and I am blessed to have it.

A healthy mom and healthy(ish) dad-it is my parents' birthday this week and as a new parent, I realize I owe them all of the things.  I can't imagine life without them and don't tell them enough how much I appreciate what they have done and sacrificed for me and my siblings.  We had the best life because of them and we are functioning human beings because they taught us how to be productive and caring people.

2002

There was a teacher strike my senior year of high school.  I was a senior, my brother, a year behind me however we commiserated in history and science classes together, and my sister in eighth grade doing things that middle schoolers do and that the rest of us trying to survive them.  I don’t really talk much about this experience, not because it fills me with rage or sadness that my year was ruined.  It wasn’t.  I’m not filled with bitter feelings towards my teachers because I didn’t graduate until June 22nd.  Those people are the reason I have any capabilities that I have today and I am wholeheartedly grateful for them.  Mostly I don’t talk about the strike of my senior year because I don’t honestly remember much about it which speaks volumes about the long term impact it had on me.

Our strike happened near the end of September in 2002.  I believe it would have happened earlier in the year, but appearances would not have looked good striking over the one year anniversary of September 11th.  As I said, I don’t remember many details of what led up to the walk out, but even if I had heard the specifics of the ongoing talks or the breakdown of talks, I would not have understood what was going on (yes, even at 18).  I may have been what one would call a self-absorbed teenager.  I’ll admit that while I walked and talked as a newly minted adult, I was certainly too wrapped up in my world to really be bothered with such silly things as other people’s struggles.  No, unfortunately, I was mostly concerned with how what was happening around me affected me.  I’m not exactly proud of that, but I do not really think that is much different than the life trajectory of most kids, adolescents, or young adults.

I did not really ‘get it’ because I wasn’t trying to ‘get it’.  I was busy having a self-centered life with my new drivers license, a job, my friends, and planning on what I wanted to do next.  I don’t think I would have understood what was going on and I don’t think my parents could have helped me at the time because while they are the smartest people I know, they are not teachers.  I don’t think they really began seeing this profession more clearly until I went into it and I was the first teacher on both sides of my family.  Even if teachers had explained it to me, I would have filtered it through my own filter that would have altered the message.  Now I know that the only folks who know what is really going on are the adults on either side of the bargaining table.

I did feel mad and frustrated at the time.  I wish I had been more mature to understand and be understanding of what my teachers were trying to say with their actions.  But the truth is I thought they were being selfish because I was being selfish.  I wanted a “normal” year.  I wanted to have a “normal” summer before college.  I told myself that I deserved those things.  Now I know I deserve a great education, and I got that even if the last year did not look as I had pictured it.  Now I know that every teacher is putting in more than they are getting, and I’m mad at myself for not thanking them enough when I had the chance.  Now I know that I had everything I could have wanted and needed that year including a band trip to Washington D.C. thanks to the tireless work of Mr. J, a once in a lifetime musical tour to Hawaii with G., dances, proms, senior sports nights and awards ceremonies with my classmates and friends.

Yes, I may have had school on Christmas Eve, but it was one day.  Yes, I may have had no break from January 1 until June 22, but honestly I am a better, more disciplined worker and human thanks to that experience.  I had the chance during the strike in October to work with students who needed a place to go during their parents’ workdays at the YMCA, and I learned that year that being with kids, teaching them, having fun and silly times with them was what I wanted to spend my life doing.

There are things that happen during our lives that we maybe don’t understand when they are happening.  Maybe we don’t ‘get it’ after they have happened until we’ve done our homework and really contemplated what happened.  Maybe we never really get it at all.  I am now a teacher, but I still don’t have a full picture of what happened in 2002, but I know now what life is like as a teacher.  I can tell you about the teacher I know that knitted hats and gloves for over a hundred kindergarten students every year.  I can tell you about the teacher that visits parents houses just to ask them if everything is okay and if there is anything she can do to help.  I can tell you about the hours and hours that my coworkers spend arduously designing and delivering great lessons and inspiring future leaders and great humans.  I can say that the last thing they want to do is leave their post and their charges in the hopes to get other adults to show up at the negotiating table.

Unfortunately, you won’t really get it unless/until you are in the shoes of a teacher.  And that may not change your feelings of what happens if a strike occurs in your school, for your child, your friend, your neighbor.  Your feelings are valid and appropriate, and it’s okay to talk about them.  It’s okay to talk with your parents, your friends, your neighbors about what is going on.  It’s important to ask questions and understand the many sides to the events that are happening.  Knowing more is always better than knowing less.  It’s okay to feel hurt, sad, mad, or confused.  Be open, however to what someone else is feeling.   We can a shoulder for someone who may be having a harder journey.  At some point, however, this will be a memory, the feelings will fade away and hopefully some new understanding will come out of the chaos.  I graduated on June 22nd, 2003 because of a strike between teachers who deserved better than they were being offered.  Teachers who were told they didn’t deserve what the district could provide.  I am glad they stood up for themselves then, it makes me feel strong enough to do so for myself and my colleagues today.