then and now

I often hear people who have children talk about how becoming parents has given them a different glance on their childhood. It has helped them see their own parents in a new light and understand their decisions with a new, much more forgiving appreciation than they had before. As a budding psychologist, this one is interesting to me for obvious reasons: the dynamic nature of family relationships, the change that occurs from an internal shift in perception brought on by new experiences, idealizing youth versus middle aged realism.

Infertility has thrown an interesting twist in that particular narrative for me. Years of therapy and maturing into my thirties have helped me a great deal to be more forgiving towards those folks who raised me. Still, I mean, it did take a LOT of therapy to get here. In terms of raising a family, I was pretty much banking on doing it better than they did. Not that it's a competition. But in a way maybe it was a bit of point of pride for me. In their ignorance and self-preoccupation, those two had limited understanding of child development and parenthood. And it appears in my efforts to right the wrongs of the past, I wanted to raise children in a way that was healthy. I armed myself with quite a lot of knowledge in this pursuit. I'm almost a child psychologist, for crying out loud.

But it doesn't work like that (and yes, I AM admonishing myself here). Having my own children was not ever going to fix what happened then. Sadly, nothing can.

I am left however, with a sense of great emptiness with regards to this particular question. Of course failed infertility treatments leave one with a sense of great emptiness regardless, but with regards to moving beyond my own childhood, I always thought having my children would be a critical piece. I don't necessarily think I was planning on using my children to heal from childhood experiences, just that parenthood would be healing in and of itself.

But parenthood has not been ruled out, even if biological children have been.

And maybe the wrongs don't get righted, but a new understanding and deeper forgiveness for one's parents comes with parenthood. I don't know that yet, but I hope so.

adopting

I sit in my little study in our new place (we are renting this sweet little red brick house, did I mention?) with a cat on my lap. Yes, we adopted a cat. The truth is that this is the cat's house and she is letting us live here. She's been here since 3 owners ago and so the house is more hers than ours. She arrived yesterday, having been housed with someone else for the time of transition, and now she has returned.

Her name is Tibbs.

She seems a little discombobulated, a little out of sorts. She looks around, walks a step, stops, and meows. She looks at us as if to say "who are you and what are you doing here?" But we feed her and pet her, and she seems to like that. She also appears to seek the warmth of a human body, ergo her current position on my lap. Tibbs is a very fluffy cat, but when you get down to it, she's really bony.

I listened to a CBC piece on 'C'est la vie' about a couple that adopted in Haiti. They got their son in November, 2 months before the earthquake. It took 42 months for them to get him. They talked about their heartache and it made me cry. It made me think that I can't yet choose adoption because there are so many heartaches to be gotten through when embarking on the process. I'm not ready for more heartaches yet. Yet.

Little Darling

I had strayed from the blogosphere. Not exactly, because I was still reading blogs, I was just not writing. That's ok. I'm writing today.

And the very first thing I want to write is a BIG, JOYOUS, HAPPY CONGRATULATIONS to Alicia on becoming a mom! I am so thrilled for her and her partner that they get to adopt a little boy. And this little boy and I share the same name (my real one, not my pen name: Augusta would be a real punishing name for a boy, don't you think), which I think is cool. Please see her blog at

What's up Augusta?

Well, I just put up in my room this beautiful painting that Cathy Nichols made for me. Check it out http://cathynichols.blogspot.com/2010/01/very-special-commission.html
This is such a great story! I found Cathy's mommy and baby owl randomly on google and wrote her to ask permission to use it on my blog. She was very kind about it and said I could use it. Since the painting had already been purchased, she suggested I could commission her to make one for me. I thought that was a great idea. I received it last week and for those who know me personally, you know exactly what I did. Yup. I sat it there in the corner and did NOT open it. For days. I have a strange compulsion about delaying gratification and for this reason, I always delay opening my gifts (this silly little habit turned ugly when one summer, my friend brought me a wonderful piece of cheese from Montreal and not knowing what it was, I left the present on my coffee table for days. When I opened it, the blue cheese was green).

So the Little Darling is up on my wall. And after I write this entry, I will also put up the mommy and baby owl print that my dear, dear friend A sent me for Christmas. Two sets of mommy and baby owls. I think that will be sufficient for manifesting a child, don't you think?

At the moment, we're not too focused on becoming parents simply because we are focusing on our nuptials. We are getting married in March. When we started the fertility treatments, I enjoyed the thought that we may do things backwards: having a child before getting married. Or even better, that I'd be pregnant at our wedding (take that, my catholic upbringing). But that's not exactly what happened.

Little owls for now, little babies later. Hopefully.

Adieu 2009

There are only 3 hours left of this 2009. It's been a great year for me in some respects, especially from January to October. After that it went south, but I think averaging it would make the numbers come out in the positives.

A New Year's Eve party invitation I did receive. In fact, I received three. But against popular opinion (read: my honey's wishes), I decided to stay home and be quiet. It sounds so simple and maybe dull or even depressing. But it isn't to me. Staying home and being quiet are both active stances. And for the introvert, they offer many opportunities for renewal. I've got my eye out for some renewal at the moment, so I feel thankful to be offered this opportunity.

It was in January 2009 that my partner and I initiated fertility treatments. Shortly after the new year had been rung in, I made an appointment with my family doctor in order to get referred to the fertility clinic. Shannon, my family doctor, is a woman I respect and like. She is so lovely! I was one of her first patient when she started her practice and when she reviewed my file on the first visit she smiled and said we were the same age and born the same month. She was so excited about making the referral to the fertility clinic and told me she would follow my pregnancy, were I to become pregnant.

We had our first appointment in March, but it wasn't until May that we started with treatments in earnest. There were many tests to get through before attempting to conceive. I already knew what was wrong with our fertility: moi. The diagnosis was conveyed nonetheless: hypothalamic amenorrhea. The treatment team said it was warranted to be cautiously optimistic and so we went forth, cautiously hoping.

The first cycle in June was a flop. The injections did not work as we hoped. I remember the first day I had to give myself an injection. It was June 13. On that day, we attended a lovely wedding in our community. The bride was pregnant and I thought it was a good omen for us. We went over to my friend's house (she's a nurse practitioner) and she helped me get everything set for the first injection. I was shaking with nerves. How the heck was I going to put that needle in my own belly? But I did it, and did it again and it became easier. I used to play this one song by Kathleen Edwards when it was injection time. 'I make the dough, you get the glory'. It's a happy tune that makes me laugh, so it helped me relax.

The treatments then took a different course, in order to help my system become primed for the injections. And then in September, a new treatment cycle started. Despite the priming efforts over 3 months, still my ovaries were unresponsive. This meant there was nothing more they could do for us, aside from assisting us if we found an egg donor.

During one of the treatment cycles, my honey sat outside the ultrasound room and chatted with the husband of a woman also waiting for her turn on the ultrasound table. The husband said that he and his wife had been coming to the fertility clinic for six years. 6 YEARS!! When my honey told me this afterward, we both expressed our incredulity. How could anyone do this for six years! Not that we didn't believe them, it was just that it seemed that someone would get off the roller coaster of fertility treatments way, way before the 6-year mark. But not them. They were still trying. I couldn't imagine us going through this for another six years. I would be 41 by then, and the thought of still being childless at 41 distressed me.

Six years was not the amount of time we spent on the roller coaster of fertility treatments. No. We spent 9 months. And while that's the time it takes to grow a baby, it was instead the time it took us to find out we could not conceive. It may seem like a small grace, but as I reflect on the year, it emerges as one of the blessings of the past year. This process could have gone on for years without conception. Instead, we have the information we need to make choices about how we want to create a family, given that the obvious option is not possible. I feel very grateful for this.

Holiday Haze

We're about to leave for family visits to where I come from, in a different province. Excited? Not quite. The holidays are not my favourite time of year. I can remember when they were, up to the age of 11 maybe, but it was all down hill from there. This is likely not an uncommon experience for people. I'm a little grateful this year that even if we are spending time with my family and that this is difficult, at least there won't be pregnancy announcements there. My family has postmenopausal women, a gay couple, and a cousin who is not partnered. However, there will be questions about when my partner and I are going to start making babies, especially because we are getting married in the spring. I will want to yell very loudly that I would really like to make babies but my body won't do that. STOP ASKING. But I won't yell, and I won't even talk about my nonexistent fertility.

This blog is starting to sound like a litany. Goodness. I'm getting on my nerves here.

Let's talk about something hopeful then. I read on Yaya Stuff (a great blog) that there will be changes to the legistlation in India which will make it easier for babies to be adopted internationally. That made my day. I've pictured for a long time that we could adopt a little one from India, a country that fascinates me. That made me hopeful today.

Eggs

Eggs are the missing link between our desire to become parents and having a biological child. No eggs. Or should I say, sleepy eggs. They are apparently in there, but cannot be stimulated to develop into follicles and be released into the fallopian tubes. No gonadotropins, which means no LH, no FSH, and no eggs being released. Treatment cycles valiantly attempted, gonadotropins injected into my belly, but nothing to wake them up. No dosage worked. Just failure.

I think about how my body is ready in every way to be carry a baby. I'm a healthy, wide-hipped, strong, rosy-cheeked, woman with a fine uterus. Just no eggs.

We could migrate south, briefly, and purchase donor eggs. It's illegal in Canada to purchase donor eggs and as such, donors are usually altruistic donors.

I contemplate this option, setting aside the fact that we have just enough money to live on right now, and lots of debt, and wonder if my heart can take it. Do I have any courage left? I must have, I must still have some courage left in me.

Will I put all those eggs in one basket? The financial risk, the emotional risk and the investment of time and energy required to go ahead with egg donation are terrific. I know that we need to decide fairly soon what next steps we will take, but I have not been able to focus on very much since October 1. I've knit most of a hat. I've read some books. I've gone to work.

Is it eggs that we need to seek or is it a child to adopt? No answer has surfaced yet, but I will share in my process to arrive at one.

wishing things were different than they are

I think the owl post was my apex of hope and joy. This post is going back to doom and gloom. My apologies for the hope-filled out there.

This was another weekend of confronting my infertility. It seems to be the case with many of my weekends and I don't believe the Universe is after me and wants me to suffer more or anything like that. God does not hate me. Infertility and loss is simply what's relevant inside me at the moment and so it gets reflected in what I see on the outside. Neutral stimuli become loaded, get ascribed a specific meaning because of my loss. I live in my loss these days. And kinds of wishing I wasn't will not get me out of this uncomfortable place.

My honey and I were having supper on Saturday night, rushing to get to a choral concert for which he had gotten us tickets. That's when it dawned on me. This was the Pleasantville* Youth singers giving the concert. Pleasantville YOUTH singers. Children. Parents. LOTS of parents. And us, a childless couple. At dinner, I thought about how this woman in our community had chastised us for showing up at the Waldorf School Winter Fair a few years ago. She said in an almost snide voice "What are you doing here?". I joked with my honey that she would be at the choral concert and ask us again what we were doing there. He didn't find it funny, but instead noted that I was holding a grudge. Yes, I most certainly am holding a grudge against this woman, and again, no amount of wishing I wasn't seems to help that.

So we went to the concert, with the lovely children, the multitude of proud parents, and our awkward selves tucked away in a back pew. What are we doing here, I wondered?

Today, I went out Christmas shopping with friends, one of which I had not seen in a long time. She put it out that it had been a rough year because of fertility problems. My stomach turned. Not her too, I thought. Why does she have to go through that pain? It was difficult to gauge what I should share or not. In a way I wanted to connect with her, since infertility is so dreadfully isolating. But then I thought about how she is still going through treatments and the last thing she would want to hear is that another woman's treatments have failed. Unequivocally failed. Who wants to hear that? Certainly not someone in her shoes.

And sharing it with her would have meant to say it. Out loud. Once more. To reify it, yet again.

I did tell her and I regret it, even though I wish I didn't.

My honey and I were lying in bed silently after returning home from lovely and excruciating experience at the children's choral concert. There wasn't much to say on my end, I was just hoping sleep would come fast. But he is wiser than me sometimes and wanted us to talk. He said he is not grieving from the failure of our infertility treatments, that he had never felt he needed to have his biological children but instead always thought he would adopt. I mustered a few words on the many levels at which this affects me. I will never look at a child and say he or she looks like me or like my dad or my mom. I will never be pregnant. Infertility isolates me from other women.

He said he was about to tell me that those things did not mean I was broken. But he thought better. Instead, he said he loved me with my brokenness. And I don't believe I wished that part to be different.


*The name has been changed to protect the anonymity of the people mentioned in my blog, including me