BabyQuest

Training for The Half: The Race Recap

Here I am, writing The Race Recap.  Except there was no race.  (dun-dun-DUN!)  Just a recap.

We were to fly up to New York on Friday morning.  On Thursday night, we spoke with family and made all the arrangements for airport pick-up and borrowing cars and coordinating childcare, etc.  I was exhausted, and had been feeling ragged all week, but I figured I would make up for it with a good night of rest and plenty of adrenaline on Saturday.  We all went to bed early, bags packed and boarding passes printed.

Friday morning I woke up first.  I was achey, queasy, and sweating.  I convinced myself it was just warm in the room and that my stomach was threatening to heave because of nerves.  I went downstairs, drank some cold water and made myself some toast.  Then I heard Nico.  Cough, cough, cough.  Crying.  I went up stairs and got him out of bed.  Poor little guy was also warm and completely stuffed up, breathing through the mouth with yellow snot running out of his nose.  R* was up by then, so I brought Nico into the bedroom and gave him his bottle.  R* took one look at us and said we should stay home. 

It took a while for me to concede.  I kept thinking Nico might clear up, and I would just suck it up and go.  If it were just me, I would have probably pushed it.  But I was really afraid of flying with Nico as congested as he was.  So we called family and told them we weren't coming and canceled the airplane tickets.

Not only was I incredibly disappointed about not running, but we both felt overwhelming guilt at not being there to support Annette during her first marathon, and to help her husband with their kids, like we had promised the night before!!!  I have been avoiding posting about it because I feel so lame.

BUT I've decided to get over myself.  These things happen.  Annette ran a kick-butt marathon -- 26.2 FREAKIN' MILES -- and I'm so proud of her.

I'm also proud of myself.  Even though I didn't run the actual race, I've still accomplished things that I've never done before.  A 12.5 mile training run?  I did that!!!  The pride and accomplishment I feel are worth every moment of the training.  The very, very best part of training for this race was doing things that just a few months ago seemed impossible.  Training taught me to embrace the tough spots.  It taught me that I can almost always go farther than I think, and that my reserves are deeper than I knew.  It taught me that progress, even unimaginable progress, is possible if you just break things down and take them one at a time.  These are lessons I feel spreading into every other part of my life, and THAT -- that empowerment and excitement -- is why running is addicting.

The physical pay-off was awesome, too.  I am 15 pounds lighter now than I was at this time last year.  My total cholesterol is down 30 points -- that's the difference between heading into prescription-land and being considered healthy; plus, my good cholesterol is up, and my bad cholesterol is down.  I went from borderline overweight BMI to within the healthy range and I'm wearing a size I haven't worn since my mid-20s. I didn't injure myself during training and I can say that I'm 100 percent better off for having undertaken this crazy idea to run a 13-mile race. . .   Even if I haven't run the actual race yet.  :)

Count on me signing up for another race sometime soon..... 

On Adoption. And Love.

The quote above is from a beautifully written piece on international adoption that was published in The Washington Post on Friday, August 27, 2010.  Even though we did not end up adopting, the article expresses so many of the feelings I had during the years that I did not know how we would end up creating a family.  Nico is my biological child, and I am grateful for him every single day.  But if I could, if I had the means, I think I would still adopt.  I am past the age of "ripeness," even for a woman who didn't have the fertility struggles that I did.  But my heart doesn't know it.  In my heart, there is room for umpteen more children (or at least that's how it feels!)  Adoption would be the most certain, straightforward way to add another member (or members) to our family.

Well, I guess I'll have to keep playing the lottery.  In the meantime, please enjoy this beautiful meditation on a particular type of parental love:

International Adoption: From A Broken Bond To An Instant Bond
By Michael Gerson

Scott Simon -- the sonorous voice of NPR's "Weekend Edition" -- has written a short, tender book about the two most important people in the world. At least to him. "Baby, We Were Meant for Each Other" recounts the arrival of his two daughters, Elise and Lina, from China, while telling the stories of other families changed by adoption.

Simon describes himself as skeptical of transcendence but as taking part in a miracle. "My wife and I," he says, "knew that Elise and Lina were our babies from the moment we received their postage-stamp portraits. Logically, I know that's not possible. But I also know that's how my heart, mind and body . . . reacted to their pictures. . . . I would take the photo out of my wallet in the weeks before we left to get each of our girls and hold it against my lips to whisper, 'We're coming, baby.' "

It is an unexpected form of human affection -- meeting an unrelated stranger and, within moments, being willing to care for her, even to die for her. The relationship results from a broken bond but creates ties as strong as genetics, stronger than race or tribe. It is a particularly generous kind of parental love that embraces a life one did not give.

International adoption has its critics, who allege a kind of imperialism that robs children of their identity. Simon responds, "We have adopted real, modern little girls, not mere vessels of a culture." Ethnicity is an abstraction -- often an admirable abstraction, but not comparable to the needs of a child living in an orphanage or begging in roving bands. Adopted Chinese girls are refugees from a terrible oppression -- a one-child policy that Simon calls "one of the great crimes of history." Every culture or race is outweighed when the life of a child is placed on the other side of the balance.

It is one of the noblest things about America that we care for children of other lands who have been cast aside. Simon recalls his encounter with an immigration officer in Chicago when bringing Elise to America: " 'When you cross that line,' he said, 'your little girl is a citizen of the United States.' Then he put one of his huge hands gently under our daughter's chin and smiled. 'Welcome home, sweetheart,' he told her." This welcome to the world is one of the great achievements of history. After millennia of racial and ethnic conflict across the world, resulting in rivers of blood, America declared that bloodlines don't matter, that dignity is found beneath every human disguise. There is no greater embrace of this principle than an American family that looks like the world.

Instead of undermining any culture, international adoption instructs our own. Unlike the thin, quarrelsome multiculturalism of the campus, multiethnic families demonstrate the power of affection over difference. They tend to produce people who may look different from the norm of their community but see themselves as just normal, just human.

Every adoption involves a strange providence, in which events and choices are random yet decisive. "Those of us who have been adopted," says Simon, "or have adopted or want to adopt children, must believe in a world in which the tumblers of the universe can click in unfathomable ways that deliver strangers into our lives."

When a columnist has a conflict of interest, he should disclose it. My wife, born in South Korea, was adopted by an American family at the age of 6 and welcomed into a Midwestern community. I first saw her when we were both 10, and I have never recovered. Years ago, we visited the orphanage where she lived in Inchon -- orderly, cheerful, but still with dirt floors. The director said she remembered my wife. We were skeptical. But the woman went into a storage room and produced a slip of paper -- the police record relating how On Soon had been found as a newborn abandoned in the market, a note with her name pinned to her blanket.

Life is a procession of miracles, but this one stands out to me. A 6-year-old girl walks off a plane in America, speaking no English, loved by a family she had never met, destined to marry, of all people, me. A series of events that began in a Korean market created my family, my sons, my life. And now my Italian, Jewish, English, Korean boys view themselves as normal, unexceptional Americans. Which they are.

"A Roadmap for Life Without Children," by Shelagh Little

This is one of the best articles I've read on the experience of infertility and living child-free. 

Posted in The New York Times, September 10, 2009, 2:21 pm
Introduction by Lisa Belkin

There is a quiet moment in the film Julie & Julia when Julia Child gets the news that her sister is pregnant. With a quiet sob, Meryl Streep makes us understand how deeply Julia wanted a child, and how painful it was to accept that she would never have one.

Today she could have seen specialists, gone through invasive treatments and tests, spent tens of thousands of dollars, and become consumed by what moment it was on the calendar. She might well have had her child. Or she might have been one of those for whom nothing works, and for whom all the new possibilities serve merely to add weight to the feeling of failure.

Once upon a time being childless was simply the mysterious hand dealt by nature. Now it is a decision to stop, because there is always one more something to try. Shelagh Little knows that decision well. In a guest post today she writes a primer -- not about how to get pregnant, but about how to move on when you don't.

A Roadmap for Life Without Children, by Shelagh Little

Almost two years ago, I resolved to accept that I would never have children. I was 37 and had just learned my IVF procedure had failed. Our eight-year struggle with infertility included six rounds of artificial insemination, clomid pills, hormone injections, a surgery, and countless (and sometimes painful) diagnostic procedures. Every new test and treatment carried with it the hope that this time, it would work. What I had to show for it all: a picture of three sad little clumps of cells - the embryos that didn't implant -- and no real explanation of why I couldn't get pregnant.

Every woman facing infertility has to decide when she's had enough, when she has reached her ethical, emotional, and/or financial edge. My sense of self-efficacy dictated that if I researched all the options, sought support from the right professionals and followed their instructions, I'get what I wanted. I did all of these things to the point of obsession, but our options were running out. Another round of IVF? Egg donor? A surrogate? We really couldn't afford any more treatments and we were starting to feel queasy about the risks associated with all the drugs and technology. But my main reason for calling it quits was that I was tired of feeling frustrated and desperate. I needed to stop trying so I could get back to living.

Since then, I've been reflective about my infertility journey and its aftermath. Infertility is defined as the inability to conceive after a year or more of unprotected intercourse. It isn't a disability, because you don't technically need to have children to live a healthy life. For me, infertility is more like a low-level, lifelong bio-psychosocial syndrome. My physical inability to produce children has emotional and social consequences that I struggle with, at least to some extent, every day. Here are some of its manifestations.

Family-lessness. I had thought a child would transform us from a happy couple into a proud family with a house full of love. This was important to me, because I unfortunately do not come from a loving, intact family. And the fact is that family remains the single biggest organizing principle of mainstream life. Just a walk through my neighborhood tells the story. After work, young couples chat on lawns while their children ride bikes and draw on the sidewalk with colored chalk. My husband and I are sidelined, left to feel aberrant. Infertility is a unique kind of loneliness.

Gender dysphoria. Motherhood is still central to womanhood, the magical thing that women's bodies do. Motherhood is also socially rewarded and is a sort of proxy for femininity. In candid moments, mothers tell you that they liked being pregnant because of all the attention they got. As an infertile, I feel oddly unsexed, especially when I look at pregnant women. I cannot do that (be pregnant), so am I still really a woman? (That's a hypothetical.)

Friend funk. It is challenging being friends with people who have children. Understandably, people who are devoting their lives to raising children want to talk about their children  -- the search for a good preschool, where to take a family vacation, how to install a car seat. I don't relate, and I have nothing to add. At times, being subjected to exhaustive conversations about other people's kids leaves me so alienated I feel the urge to get up and walk out of the room.

Meaning quest. I thought a child would imbue my life with a new sense of focus and purpose. Infertility has created a meaning vacuum. It has ignited in me a renewed sense of obligation to unearth my passions and work towards goals. Mothers often describe the experience of giving birth as the most incredible thing they ever experienced, holding their infant for the first time as transcendent, and raising children as "the toughest job you'll ever love."  I feel the need to create comparable peak experiences and ongoing projects. There is a pressure to craft a life well lived, even though I will never raise children.

"Why don't you just adopt?"  is something I have often heard when I confide my infertility in others. What's most interesting about that to me is that those same people usually have biological children and have never thought for one minute about adopting. After not being able to have children for so long, I am ambivalent about adoption and parenthood in general. I admire people who have adopted children, but it is not for me.

I have searched in vain for that room full of fierce, feminist ex-infertiles talking about the wonderful things they had accomplished with all the money, creativity and energy they would have expended on a child. Sadly I discovered there is no roadmap for creating a full life without children. It's a make-it-up-as-you-go situation.

It is tempting at times to define myself in opposition to parenthood. I think about leaving our family-oriented neighborhood to live with hip urbanites downtown. I also sometimes must resist the urge to flaunt my free time and fanciful self-indulgences to my sleep-deprived, harried parent friends. I still have not quite figured out how to incorporate other people's children in my life (something I'm told is good to do).

Writing this, I am for the first time acknowledging my own strength and courage in living with infertility and finally making the decision to be childfree. Emboldened, I ask of those blessed with their own children to consider the following: Your family is your good fortune. Not everyone else is as lucky. Please be self-aware about when, to whom, how and especially how much you talk about your children. Just as it is not flattering to be openly bitter about infertility, nor is it becoming to be boastful about one's parental pride.

If you ask me if I have children and I tell you I can't, a simple "I'm sorry" will do -- there is no need for follow up questions or pat advice or jokes. Please also don't blanch or act like I said something inappropriately confessional. With the amount of explicit and extremely intimate information shared freely these days, there is no need for infertility stigma.

To others who are actively experiencing the anguish of infertility, the good news is it does get better. Since the day I made my decision to stop trying, I have never looked back. My husband and I have survived what is probably one of the biggest challenges we will ever face as a couple and have created a bond and an intimacy that frankly would probably not be possible if we had a child to raise. And if I bring the right attitude, every day presents new opportunities to have a happy, fulfilling life as a woman who is not a mother.

Going Offline For Now

During the years that we were trying to get pregnant, I found that reading other women's blogs was sometimes as helpful as writing my own.  (In fact, I read many many infertility and adoption blogs before even thinking of starting my own!)  Knowing that there was a community of women out there going through the same things I was made me feel not so alone.  It helped me to gain some perspective, so that the elusiveness of pregnancy didn't seem so much like a personal failure.  And I learned so much from these women that I would never have known if it had been just me and my doctor all along.

But one of the things that did not make me feel so good was to go searching for infertility blogs and find what were essentially pregnancy-after-infertility blogs.  Don't get me wrong -- its not that I begrudged other women their happy endings.  But when it seems like everyone else in the world is getting pregnant (but you), it sort of makes it even worse when everyone else in the world doing IVF seems to be getting pregnant (but you).

This started out as an infertility blog, and its going to stay that way.   I may write from time to time about legislation or medical developments relating to infertility (since it will continue to be a part of my life for the rest of my life.)  But I'm not going to post my updates on the pregnancy here (go to MoreCheese for that).  I am mindful that I may need this blog again:  there is still a long road ahead of us, and, being a 37-year old, I face more risks in pregnancy than I would have if we'd gotten pregnant even two or three years ago.  I'm trying to push those risks to the back of my mind and enjoy this pregnancy, but I know they're there.

I want to give a message to anyone who might find this blog while waging her own battle with infertility:  be strong and be kind to yourself.  Believe in yourself.  You are a fighter.  Infertility is a medical condition, not a personal failure.  But it does lay many blows to your psyche, and your feelings about your identity as a woman.  You will need help in your struggle, so build a community of support, whether its online (www.inspire.com), in person (www.resolve.org), through your church, with a therapist, or a trusted friend.  Be open to the fact that your children may end up coming to you in ways you never, ever anticipated.  But at the same time, if a family is what you want, pursue it with all you've got. 

I hope that all of your dreams come true, and I wish you the very best in your own baby quests.

"Very Pregnant"

That's what the voicemail said.   

I had gone in for my blood test at 7:45 am.  I went to work.  I worried.  I had cramps that were killing me,  I was bloated out to there, and I was certain that IVF #3 had failed.  My cell phone rang at 2:45 pm, caller i.d. showing my nurse's name.  I let it go to voicemail, emailed my boss that I was going home early, shut down my computer, and headed out in a hurry.

I had decided a long time ago that I would wait to find out the results until I was home with the Rockstar.  I texted him from the train platform, a grim, "I'm on my way."  Forty-five minutes later, I was home, and we were both preparing for the inevitable bad news.

I put the phone on speaker mode, dialed my voicemail, and we heard the message I will remember for the rest of my life:

 "I wish I were speaking with you in person, because I have good news.  You are pregnant, my dear -- very, very pregnant!"

And that's how it went down, folks!  I'll spare you the details of me screaming and hopping up and down like a madwoman, and the crying and the sappiness, but I will just say that I let every sentimental cell in my body go absolutely berserk.

Forgive me for being silent for so long....  as I'll explain in another post, we had a bit of a scare with the second blood test (its all good), and given that, plus a healthy dose of superstition, I just couldn't bring myself to post the news on this blog.

Until now!  Tomorrow I will officially be 8 weeks pregnant, and I'm just over the moon and so excited and happy and nauseous and hungry all the time and so very, very, very grateful.

Waiting.

I am learning that nothing is as simple as it seems, and that patience truly is a virtue.  One I have to work on. 

More later.

Reading the Tea Leaves

In the IVF world, there's something we all talk about called "implantation cramping."  In the two-week wait after embryo transfer, many women experience cramping and then have positive pregnancy tests.  The cramps are believed to be the result of the embryos attaching to the uterus.  There are many different descriptions of them, but many women say they feel as if their monthly period is about to start.

For the past week since my transfer, I've been having mild, low-grade cramps.  And, secretly, I have been soooo happy about them, because I interpreted them to be implantation cramping.  Also, they were very different from the cramping I experienced after the first two IVFs, which were strong, stabby, painful cramps. (I theorized it was my body rejecting those embryos.)  This time, the cramps were much more like a low-grade ache.  I interpreted that as a good sign - a sign of a gentle integration underway.

But now, the cramps are gone.  I haven't felt them in over 24 hours.  And I'm getting scared.

My first two IVFs resulted in chemical pregnancies, meaning, I had a positive pregnancy test, but instead of the beta numbers getting higher, they went down, and eventually went to zero.  The embryos stopped growing.  Both times, I had various strange symptoms the first week after transfer that disappeared the second week.

I am afraid that I'm starting to follow the pattern of the past.  I feel myself crumbling inside, anticipating another disappointment.  Its going to be tough to hold it together this week.

Of course, everyone will tell you that you can't really interpret these signs, that various symptoms are caused by the drugs you're taking, etc.  I keep trying to reinforce that with myself.  I just wish I had some kind of sign to hold on to.

I guess that's how I've got to view the cramps:  they were a security blanket for me to hold on to.  I've got to maintain hope and faith now, even if that blanket is taken away from me.  Even if the only purpose of that is to get me through the next week until I get my official beta number.

I'll just keep repeating this simple prayer:  God.  Please let this work.

Transfer Complete!

We transferred our embryos, Ichi, Ni and San (1, 2 and 3 in Japanese), this morning!  All went well and I'm resting comfortably at home.  Ichi and Ni were A+ embryos, and San was not far behind (maybe an A-?)  Now we begin the wait until the pregnancy test, which will be a few weeks from now.  

I feel good.  I feel happy.  I think Ichi, Ni and San are strong.  I feel hopeful.  I still have my doubts about this whole thing, but I know my hands are completely off the wheel, and I'm trying to just enjoy the ride and trust that we'll all end up in the right place.

Thank you all so much for reading this blog and commenting, showing your care and support.  It means so much to me!  I'm sending thank-you hugs to all of you!!!

Cautiously Exuberant

I'm just coming up with all kinds of new ways to describe my feelings, aren't I?

Yesterday was the retrieval.  It went as smoothly as one could ask for (with the minor issue of the IV not going in the left hand.  But it went in the right, and that's all that matters!)  They extracted 18 eggs.  A smaller number than last time, but a good number.  I'm concentrating on quality, not quantity.

Today they called and reported that all 18 were mature -- and SIXTEEN of them fertilized overnight, meaning we have 16 embryos to watch!!!  So there's my breathless exuberance. 

BUT -- here's the cautious part:  our problem in the past has always occurred later in the game.  Last time we started with 20 eggs, 14 fertilized, and we were left with only 3 embryos in the end.  Its the dwindle rate (as I call it) that's going to be more informative here.

So, please continue with all the positive energy and good vibes and prayers and fertility dances.  I am forever in your debt for them!!!

P.S.  I suddenly feel anxious about jinxing things.  That's silly, right?  There's no such thing as a jinx, right?

Meditation Resources

In response to Traci's request, I want to share with you my favorite books on meditation.  These books have helped me immensely.  After reading them, I realized that you don't have to be seated in lotus position with a lit candle in order to meditate.   You can do it while walking, while commuting, while washing the dishes, or while sitting at your desk at work.  For me, its about practicing mindfulness: noticing the coolness of the air or the warmth of the sun, or the quality of the light around me, which somehow stills the mind and allows me to pause, relax and breathe.

I highly recommend:

An Open Heart: Practicing Compassion In Everyday Life,  by the Dalai Lama

Peace Is Every Step:  The Path of Mindfulness In Everyday Life, by Thich Nhat Hanh