Barren Bitches and Bare Beauties (If you ask me)

First things first. Ladies in the 28 day challenge? Ladies trying to work out and need a boost? Fashion yourselves a ticker a la Blogger like this one to the right. I got home from a pretty dreadful doctor's appointment today (more in a bit) and had absolutely no desire to take my pooch for a short walk, let alone a run. But then I remembered. If I run, I can add more to the total! And people will see it! So off we went. It sucked. Even the dog didn't enjoy it. But it's done and I feel better and now I'm drinking wine and it's delish.

OK, quickly onto my appointment today. I've only been with this RE since February and while I would never go so far as saying I love him, I did always appreciate his candor and straight-shooting MO. So knowing this shouldn't I have prepared myself better for my first post-failed IVF follow up? Shouldn't I have known to bring W?

And shouldn't I have looked around his office before this to notice the creepy collection of egg-art that he's got hanging up there? Seriously, probably 12-15 different works of art all focused around eggs. Different artists, different mediums, same round subject. WTF?????

So basically he told me that my eggs are crappy (kind of like his art) and that while he'll try another IVF cycle, my best real chance of getting pregnant is with donor eggs. For this next cycle, he'll give me a new protocol and then he said, "If you get six good embryos I'll put 'em all back." SORRY? There is no fucking way that I am having six embryos transferred into my body. I had a hard enough time this last cycle with three. And why are you telling me what YOU'RE going to put into MY body. He backed off ever so slightly trying to say that we need to be aggressive. But there's a fine line somewhere between aggressive and completely and totally irresponsible and six embryos is WAY past that line.

He then went on to tell me our July vacation is a great idea and then launched into a completely unsolicited tale from his recent Mexican vacation. Apparently he was in Mexico City and had hired a driver to take him and his family to a museum. (Of course he didn't even thank me for his ability to afford such luxury) They got there to find a huge protest in the street. And I quote: "There were hundreds and hundreds of women standing in the street, all butt-naked. Now, these women were like forty to sixty (years old) so they were not beauties." I'm sorry? 40 years old and you're instantly a hag who should never take her clothes off? He went on and on about what was "hanging" on the women and it was so fucking weird and horrible. I kind of hate the idea of going back to him, but since we did the Buy-1-Get-1-Free option, I don't see that I have much choice. Ugh - fucker!

Bottom line - starting after we go away in July, Microdose Flare protocol w/ BCP's and my own eggs, and then if it doesn't work, I've got some serious thinking to do.

Ok, onto the Barren Bitches Book Tour. Hop along to another stop on this blog tour by visiting the main list here. This book club is open to everyone in the community so you can also sign up for the next book on this online book club: The Kid by Dan Savage.

#1 Peggy Orenstein says, 'The descent into the world of infertility is incremental. Those early steps seem innocuous, even quaint; IUI was hardly more complex than a turkey baster. You're not aware of how subtly alienated you become from your body, how inured to its medicalization. You don't notice your motivation distorting, how conception rather than parenthood becomes the goal, how invested you become in its 'achievement'." Does this accurately describe your experience? Would you say you have become alienated from your body while struggling with infertility?

Rather than an incremental descent, I’ve found that the world of infertility has been a very steep and slippery slope. I resisted treatment for the first year or so telling myself that I didn’t want to take drugs to become pregnant. Ha! As if that’s all it will take. So finally at my cousin’s urging I went to a local fertility clinic and was prescribed Clomid. It seemed harmless enough and when it didn’t work the first time I was all too eager to double to dosage for the next round. After a few more Clomid cycles it was time to go for the “turkey baster.” My doctor explained that it was just like kicking your golf ball out of the rough. You still make that great shot, just with a little help. Count me in!

Well, that IUI didn’t work either and then after we moved home to SF and signed on with the new RE, a second Clomid IUI also failed. By now I’d finally been diagnosed with decreased ovarian reserve and because of my RE’s suggestion to skip IUI with injectibles, all of a sudden we were on the fast train to IVF.

The train did not take me where I wanted to go and since my appointment this afternoon I’ve been forced to think about donor eggs. Where does it stop? Reading other blogs I see all the experiences that other IF’ers have gone through. I would never ever say that I’m jealous of them, but I feel like my journey is more of a freefall where I move so quickly from stage to stage and never have a chance to feel comfortable at any level. Of course, where is the comfort in any of this.

If any good has come of the process, I think I’ve become more in touch with my body, rather than alienated from it, during this process. I was not that great at noticing what went on from month to month and have learned so much about myself. On the other hand, during the freefall I have become completely inured to just tossing back the pill or shot du jour. DHEA might, maybe, possibly, sort of help make more eggs? Sign me up! Wheatgrass will potentially, perhaps, somewhat improve egg quality? Seven pills per dose? No problem? I’m like a depository for supplements at this point and although I do wonder what it’s all doing to me, I have only the end goal in mind.


#2 You can tell from the title of the book that the author eventually becomes a mom. How did this knowledge affect you as you read? Were you hoping for a certain outcome -- unassisted pregnancy, medical miracle, child through foster or adoption...or possibly even dreading a happy ending? To what degree does your own experience filter into the unfolding of Orenstein's experience?


I think what I was hoping for was completely affected by my situation while I read the book. I was going through my first IVF, and was absolutely hoping for her to have a medical miracle. I needed to know IVF works. I’ve read the statistics, so I get that it has been successful for people, but time and again I read these books and the author almost always ends up pregnant from a non-medicated cycle. I really thought this would be the one. She would obsess over the 2ww like so many of us do, and wait by the phone anxiously for the beta. No more “I felt kind of funny over the past couple weeks…must have been the stomach flu.” BS. Oh well.

But I know that if I were to pick the book up for the first time today, while I’m on the precipice of at least two DIY cycles, I know for sure I’d be looking for the unassisted pregnancy. It’s so incredible to have the opportunity to read about someone going through similar struggles and to be able to manipulate their stories to try to mirror our own.

On a funny note about the title, W would constantly look over my shoulder as I read, constantly asking, “Did Daisy get there yet? Did she?” He couldn’t believe how long it took. I had to explain that it was called Waiting for Daisy, not Hanging out with Daisy.

#3 Peggy Orenstein writes that her first reaction to donor eggs was, "Using donor eggs was so Handmaid's Tale. Once again I thought, I'd never be that desperate for a child?" What was your initial reaction to the idea of donor eggs? Did your opinion change over time? If you were successful, would you tell your children that they were conceived using donor eggs? Why or why not?

What a scary-timely question. I don’t know that I ever thought of donor eggs as “so Handmaid’s Tale,” but I do know that just like Clomid, IUI’s, injectible drugs and IVF, I definitely never thought that donor eggs would be something I would have to consider. At each step of this journey I have been sure that I wouldn’t have to move on. I know now that what I tried to pass off as an aversion to using hormone therapy or invasive procedures was based on a complete faith (stupidity?) that I would never have to use them.

After my RE appointment today, I realize that donor eggs are something that I have to at least consider. Already in just a few hours my opinion has started to shift. At first I thought (oh so selfishly) that if we got to this point I would want to adopt. My oh-so-sound reasoning? “If it can’t be my genetic child, then it can’t be W’s either.” Believe me, I know how pathetic that sounds, but it was my first reaction. But then I realized that with donor eggs, I could still carry my baby. Give birth to my baby. And meet my baby on its first minute of life. Do these outweigh my selfish first reaction? I don’t know yet. But I hope so.

Although I find it hard to articulate exactly why, I think it would only be fair to tell my children that they were conceived with donor eggs. I hope I’d have the courage to do so, but it’s such a complex concept, it would be critical to figure out the timing. How do you know when they’re ready to hear about something like that, without waiting too long? And really how necessary is it? I don’t know the answer yet. All I have is this horrible vision of having a fight with my teenage daughter and having her throw back in my face that she’s really just “Daddy’s daughter” and that I can’t boss her around. How fucked that I’m having imaginary arguments with my imaginary child, but it’s exactly where my mind goes whenever I think about donor eggs and I don’t know how to change that. I guess I could try having a son instead…