About me

This Blog is Not Yet But Will Be About Two Brave People Who Overcame Infertility

My partner, Fern, and I were in the trying to conceive (TTC) business from November 2007 to March 2011.  We finally got pregnant via IVF and are now enjoying the wobbly, joyful uncertainty of pregnancy.  I never imagined that we would struggle with infertility and that getting pregnant would become so central to my every thought for so many years.  Before we started trying I remember reading blogs of people who had tried for more than a year and thinking, nay, knowing that we would never end up in that boat. This is not the first time I have been humbled by my naive certainty.

I don’t believe that everything happens for a reason nor in fate or destiny.  I think the world is random and that randomness can be dizzying.  However, I know that one day the value of those babyless, tiring, soul-draining days will come into focus.  I don’t think there’s inherent value in all suffering, but I do know that I’ll be a different parent than I would have been were it not for these years.  Infertility isn’t a traffic jam that slowed us down for a while only to became a blur in the rear view mirror.  Infertility is part of me now and I think it will continue to shape me long after the glass has been cleared from the road.

TTC

We opened a fed-ex account and started with 12 at-home tries with a known donor (KD), our dear friend Sage, who lives 2,000 miles away.  Next we switched to a local friend, Basil for another 9 tries, the last 2 medicated with cl0mid and trigger shots.  We packed up our dream of using a KD and getting pregnant the “cheap” way without medical intervention in the summer of ’09 and switched to frozen sperm IUIs.  We’ve used three RE clinics, the most destructive was our HMO, Kaiser, the most wonderful was the incredibly expensive, world renowned, Mothership Clinic.  Unfortunately, we have zero fertility coverage and have used up all savings, all hopes of future savings and have racked up significant debt.  We are very lucky to have family willing and able to lend and give us money.

Fern was the direct recipient of all this sperm.  I hope to be pregnant too one day but I’m a few years younger and thus supposedly have more fertile years ahead.  There are obvious differences in our roles right now – I hike up my paper gown for far fewer people.  However, we are united and commited to making a baby together and sharing in parenting as equally as possible.  That starts now.  I carry as much of the weight as I can.

After 23 tries at home and 10 IUIs, (4 clomid, 1 fermara, 3 follistim cycles), we qualified for an IVF drug study and signed ourselves away to our powerful corporate overlord, the Merck Corporation.  We were only able to afford IVF through this study and it was Fern’s last chance to get pregnant.  It worked.  Two perfect embryos formed from a batch of 8 lackluster eggs (the post-retrieval advice was to keep our expectations low, Fern’s eggs didn’t look very healthy) and we transferred both.  The positive initially brought us more shock than joy – that’s just a sad truth of a couple that’s been battered by infertility.  We have become so much more cautious and pessimistic than we were in the beginning.  It would be going too far (and be way too bizarre) to say that we weren’t planning on this pregnancy, but we certainly weren’t acting like people who were about to get pregnant.  After 3 years, our walls were up and meticulously maintained.  I’m working on chipping away at the wall and finding the visceral joy – it’s definitely there, just well-guarded.

Me and This Blog

I write under the pseudonym Olive and try to stay as anonymous as possible.

The friendships I’ve made and support I’ve received through blogging have been nothing short of amazing.  Please check out my (probably outdated) blog roll to meet some extraordinary women.  I’m thankful everyday to know such amazing people.

If you forget what all my code names mean, see the cast list to the right.  Also, if you love the nitty gritty details, check out the TTC timeline page.

A Few Non-TTC Things About Me

• I am a little shy but not once you get to know me.
• I love to take pictures and have been into posting some on my blog lately.  I’m participating in the monthly color challenge (see link above).
• I’m politically left, left, left and an atheist.
• I knit and I can’t wait to start knitting sweaters for my own babies.
• I worry.
• Fern and I have been together since 1999.  We started dating when I was a junior in college and she was a couple years out.  We live in one of the non-coastal US states though we want to get back to the east coast, where we both grew up.  For now we’re waiting until Fern finishes her degree before we contemplate moving.

Anything else you’d like to know?  Leave me a comment or send me an email!