oh baby! I'm so sorry.

I feel like I need to apologize to all the babies whose births I am not as enthusiastic about as I feel I should be. That sounds a little strange. It's not like I am upset at a baby's birth, it's that I know how happy I used to be about hearing of a wee one being born, even from parents I knew distantly. There used to be this feeling of excitement in my heart when somebody would report a birth or when I would get wind of it electronically.

Of course, since October 1st, 2009 that enthusiasm in my heart has dampened.

I probably owe a bigger apology to all my pregnant friends whose pregnancies I have had difficulty getting excited about. I must admit, I have to limit my time with pregnant friends because it is too painful. It's a very strange thing to parcel out. I want to spend time with a friend, but the aversive nature of having to, in each moment I spend with her, be reminded of what is not likely to happen for me, well, it's difficult. And sometimes I can't really tolerate it for too long, before I want to physically leave or before I mentally vacate the premises.

But back to the babies. I held a 2-day old baby this morning. Little Nathan was born on Wednesday and I went to visit him and his mom briefly this morning. It was wonderful to hold him and I did let that sink into my hear to some extent. The perfection of a newborn is really awe-inspiring. I saw 11-week old Finn on the weekend and 5-week old Norah this afternoon as well. Such beautiful little ones. I can say that there was a discrepancy between hearing of these babies' births (through facebook or email) and the way I felt when I saw them. I think it was easier to dismiss the miracle when hearing of the births, and fold myself in on my own pain. But when you get to hold a baby, it's a different story. It's not really about my pain anymore, but about their arrival on earth and my wanting to welcome them.

So this is why I want to openly apologize for not showing much enthusiasm about the pregnancies and births going on all around me. I feel left out of this important life cycle and it's excruciatingly painful. And my retreat is simply a crude attempt at protecting myself. But I need to say that I welcome all babies, even if they did not come from me.

And maybe there will be a baby who is mine in the end.

phoned it in

I have had a few posts running in my head, but couldn't quite put them down. One of the posts I was writing in my head ended up in my journal, which is ok. I may still write about that in sort of a top 10 list of worse things to say to an infertile woman. I had 2 doozies in 1 day last week and I was a bit stunned by it.

Today, I would rather leave this a complaining free zone and instead, talk about the brave step I took. I phoned the infertility clinic to make an appointment with our RE. Sounds quite banal, doesn't it? Except that the reason we want an appointment is that we need to discuss egg donation. (pause). (deep breath). A donor has come forward.

In the US, egg donation can be arranged through anonymous donation or altruistic donation. In Canada, it is illegal to pay for gametes, hence sperm and egg donation are more complicated. Egg donation is mostly done through altruistic donors, with a few Canadian agencies appearing to have found loopholes around the legislation and providing eggs through I'm not sure what means (I think some work with US agencies). In any case, a trip to the US for egg donation would be upwards of 20k and folks, if I hadn't mentioned it before, I'm still a grad student (but hopefully not for long) and Mr. August is an organic farmer. So despite the lure of young American eggs, the price is outside of what we can reasonably afford.

So, altruistic donation has been the one option that wasn't completely shut close to us yet (yes, I guess anonymous donation in the US was also not completely closed, if you count winning at the lottery or begging our parents to part with a good segment of their life savings as viable options). This past year, two of my most beloved friends have offered to donate eggs when hearing about the failure of our fertility treatments. Their offers touched me so deeply and taught me about what generosity means. Both offers were most sincere, but in each case, circumstances made the potential to consider the egg donation difficult.

Yet in early June, another beloved friend (Have I ever mentioned that I am blessed with the best friends a girl could ever dream of?), upon hearing of our "last option", very seriously and wholeheartedly said that she wanted to donate eggs. Several discussions later between her and her husband, between me and my husband, and between she and I, we are ready to take the preliminary steps.

I have been very fearful of this next step. I could have called our clinic 3 weeks ago and didn't. Instead, we went canoeing and I put off the phone call.

The risk of hoping looms large in my heart.

Am I ready to get back on the roller coaster? Am I ready for the potential failure of yet another infertility intervention? I'm not sure. But much like Jess wrote today , there is an imperative to keep hoping.

I made the pone call, anyway. Mr. August and I are going on August 19. I like that date. 19 is a great number for me.

I want to write more about this but my brain is shutting down. I was up late last night dealing with my kitty who got sprayed by a skunk.

love in the time of cholera, or infertility

Mr. August and I are not having a good run of it. Not at all. This infertility business keeps driving a wedge between us and it just keeps getting deeper and deeper. Sometimes, it is more manageable, sometimes it is unbearable. This week, we're in the unbearable stage.

I feel really heartened to read the accounts of other women blogers who have talked about feeling very much in tune and supported by their partners. I know what the studies say about the stress of infertility and its impact on couples. I find it astounding that some of you have gone through hell and back, with years of IF procedures, and still feel very much a team with your partner. I know you are grateful for that. I can read it in each of your sentences, and in-between all your words.

Mr. August is VERY supportive, wonderful, loving and warm. It is actually mostly my fault that it is driving a wedge between us. We've struggled with the disparity in our feelings over the last year. When our fertility treatments failed in October, I was crushed beyond words. For Mr. August, he was sad to see my reaction, but not really sad about not having biological children. For him, he had always dreamed of adopting children.

How perfect is that! The man who dreams of adopting marries the woman with no eggs.

It sounds so simple when I write it like that. It sounds like it could work out so well. But it's not, at least for now. And maybe it's just a matter of me coming to a different place with my grief. But in the mean time, I'm having a hard time feeling like we are on the same team, even if I *know* we are.

If any of you also feel the dividing effects of infertility between you and your beloved, please comment. I'd love to hear from you.

death anxiety

I've been having these dreams...yes, about death. I used to teach the Death & Dying course at the University where I'm studying and part of the course involved discussing death anxiety. Most of the time, death anxiety is much below the surface for people. Since what maintains anxiety is avoidance, we all do a very good job of avoiding death in our lives. In fact, there is a whole death system set up so we don't come into contact with the reality of death on a day to day basis. Think about it: Have you ever seen a corpse in a hospital? Me neither. That's because they carefully hide the bodies once they are bodies and no longer living people. I also think about it when I see roadkill. Just the word: roadkill. It's kind of awful because what it is actually, is a little being that was alive very recently and now is dead. The little raccoon or squirrel or dear was walking around minding his or her business and got hit by a car and died. When do we actually think about that when we see it on the road? It's hit and miss for me.

Anyway, I've been finding that my death anxiety has really gone north (can I say that?) since the failure of the infertility treatments. My anxiety has gone up in general, but the death anxiety just kills me (sorry, I couldn't help it). And it's been in my dreams lately. I'm having dreams where my friends are getting cancer, or I'm getting cancer. Last week I had the most vivid and terrifying dream about my beloved friend Abigail who is traveling the world at the moment. In the dream, she fell from a great height and died. Her husband and I were left to figure out what to do with her body and I was so paralyzed by my grief that I couldn't do a thing. Just an awful dream (and I emailed her to implore her to be extra careful, since my dreams are sometimes premonitory).

Aside from the obvious connection between grief, an emotion that has been close to my heart lately, and death, I think there is also another piece to look at here. I think I've been struggling lately with the fact that my genes won't be passed on, that there won't be a little girl or little boy who looks like me, that when I die, I will not leave a (first degree) biological relative behind (unless I die before my parents). It's really sharp when it hits me. I'll be at a coffee shop and see this little girl with her mommy, and the little girl has beautiful red curls and the cutest nose and her mommy looks like an adult version of her. And I won't ever have that.

In a way, this is a death, except that there is an absence of an actual person to mourn. There was never a baby, never a miscarriage, never even an egg. Just my hopes and dreams; may they rest in peace.

I feel like one of the cancer dreams had something to offer. In the dream, a friend form school who did in reality have cancer as a teenager had found out that her cancer was back. It was devastating news. I couldn't bear it, I was so devastated for her. And in the dream, it somehow became more important to find the right word to say that the cancer was back. And the word that came up was Resurgence, which wouldn't be applied to a return of cancer after remission. I've looked up the definition of resurgence and here is what I found: "A continuing after interruption; a renewal." and "A restoration to use, acceptance, activity or vigor; a revival"

I've written down the definitions and pasted them on the wall in front of my computer. Maybe it's not death that awaits, but a resurgence instead.

made it through another weekend

My goddess! These weekends are killing me! But I made it through, semi-gracefully. The shower went pretty well. A friend who knows that this is all very difficult for me decided that she would make me cocktails as long as I would drink them (confession: I had 2 and was tipsy). I actually did help in the moment, except that I can't really tolerate alcohol too well, so it's not a long term solution to these gatherings.

Another community gathering on Sunday evening that I was hosting at our house. A pregnant friend who was due last Thursday came late and lingered. And it's one thing to linger and another to linger and go on and on about the upcoming birth. I wanted to scream! And these friends are very sweet, loving, kind people. I really do love them, I just can't stand them at the moment, through no fault of theirs (or mine, I guess, but that's a harder one that my therapist is really trying to work on with me).

I'm gathering myself a bit of momentum for a big post on egg donation. I can't do it now, since I want to go to yoga this evening, but I need to write to sort out where I'm at with it. Stay tuned.

the wedding/baby shower

Like many women with IF, I have made it my personal rule NOT to attend baby showers. I'm sorry, but I just can't do that. Baby showers are like this: Open wound. Pour salt. Repeat. That's what they feel like. So, why do it. I sometimes get unpleasant reactions when I state that I won't be attending, but I can deal with that. I've pissed people off a number of time, and never has death ensued.

Today, a friend in my community is having a wedding shower. Three other women friends and I are throwing her a shower because she is getting married next week. Wedding showers are technically ok. Correct? Well, maybe not. This bride is pregnant with her first child and naturally very excited by these wonderful changes in her life. In addition, her sister and another woman are bringing their babies. And finally, another friend in our community was due yesterday but hasn't delivered yet so she may also come.

Yes, I know that I got myself into it. And I know that I can do it. I'm just realizing in this moment that it will be difficult and I am trying to buttress myself to stand tall in the face of this difficult task. I can't even be in the company of pregnant women at the moment without feeling a ton of pain. That's such a hardship because many of those pregnant women are my friends.

The woman whose shower is today called last night and wanted to check in with me about how I suddenly left a gathering last week without saying goodbye. I just told her I was having a hard time and needed to be alone, which was the truth. She then moved on to tell me they had their ultrasound and that they are expecting a girl. And then I needed to be happy with her. Later, when I found myself ruminating about it, I noticed I was mad at her; but then I stopped myself. "Be mad at infertility" I thought to myself, "not at her joy". This helped me get through the moment.

I'm signing off to go bake cupcakes for the shower. Beet/chocolate cupcakes, no less. I have more to write about, so I'll be signing in again.

the Robin

My honey and I moved into the house we are in on January 2. I desperately wanted to buy a house following the failure of our fertility treatments. I couldn't get my mind off it. I couldn't have a kid, well then, I at least wanted a house. I recognize it was with a sense of (desperate) grasping that I wanted a house. Then, it didn't seem possible, so I put it out of my mind, so-to-speak, until we had enough money to even consider it. A week later, we got wind that this couple we knew through friends were moving to Australia and wanted to rent their house. It took less than a week, and we had decided to come and live here.

It is nice to experience the house in Spring. There are lovely flowers that previous dwellers planted coming up all around the front and backyards. In the front of the house, there is also a porch with ceiling. On one of the ceiling posts, there is a robin that made a nest and she has been sitting on her eggs valiantly. On Friday, I felt truly angry at her, poor mama bird. What does there need to be a bird at my front door reminding me EVERY DAY of what my body cannot do and what I cannot have. Not enough that so many women around me are pregnant, that babies are being born to friends or colleagues weekly? Not enough that it's mother's day and that makes me sad? A mother bird had to come and sit on her eggs in my face!

Thankfully, that phase passed. I'm not angry anymore, as Ani would say. Today, I saw the baby robins for the first time. Two little heads with wide eyes, keeping watch for their mom. It's a miracle that they made it through the very cold and windy weather we had over the weekend. But there they are; healthy and happy. It's a miracle, and I can choose to see it or I can choose to be angry at it.

I guess that's a choice in a much larger sense. Do we let experiences close our hearts or do we allow our hearts to stay open despite the anguish of a broken heart. It feels like a hard waged battle in my case not to let my heart close up. I just know that if I do, I won't really be living anymore.