How to tell the one's you love that you're infertile...and about to undergo IVF

My immediate family has known for some time that I have been struggling with fertility.  Telling my family was easy.  I wasn't worried about letting them down, I wasn't worried about what they might think. 

Telling my husbands family is different.  When I first found out of my infertility problems, I wanted to keep it from anyone on J's side of the family.  I know why too...I felt responsible and ashamed.  Jamie nonchalantly mentioned to me six months ago that he told his Mom about our issues.  At the time, we were on our second Clomid cycle and I wasn't ovulating and my niece was born (a real low point in my journey with IVF).  When J first told me that he told his Mom, I won't lie, I was a little pissed and a little relieved.  Pissed that he knew I wished for him to keep this from his family and said something anyway but relieved because his Mom knew.  I never shared my anger with him because the relief outweighed the anger. 

With IVF in our near future, telling J's family has been on my mind a lot lately.  Jamie's parents are no ordinary in-laws to me, they are my family, right now they are the only family I have besides my brother as my parents and I are not speaking.  The reason J's parents are family is because when I was in high school I lived with Jamie's Mom and sister for a few months while I was kicked out of my parents house.  J's Mom and sister took me in.  Thank God for them, I don't know what I would have done, where I would have gone.  This was 15 years ago...I can't believe it's been that long.

After returning from our vacation to Hawaii, we had dinner with Jamie's Grandmother who was in town for the holidays.  I told Jamie I wanted to tell her while she was in town and was glad to hear that he felt the same way.  We have always been able to tell her anything.  We told her at dinner and she was so supportive and assuring.  I started tearing up while Jamie told Shirley....it's hard to tell your husbands Grandmother that you are the reason her Grandson doesn't have a child yet.  I know there was no blame, but you can't help but feel responsible for the need to have this talk and for the fear you have in your heart that there may never be a child.  The future is so uncertain.  If I could have one wish come true, it would be that we have a child soon enough to meet Shirley, J's Grandma.  Telling her that we were trying I suppose is the next best thing. 

Since our financial appointment at the RE's office I have been thinking about how we would tell J's Father.  While J and I were having lunch yesterday he asked me, "So.................................................................................How.....or when.......or............do we......tell people that we are going to go through IVF?"  I told him I had been thinking the same thing and that I thought that as soon as we put the money down for our first cycle, we could tell close friends and family.  He agreed.

Well, I expect we are putting money down on the March cycle early next week and we are having dinner with his Father and Step Mother tomorrow night so we briefly discussed mentioning this to them at dinner tomorrow night.  As far as I know, J's Dad knows nothing of our infertility.  I have suspected that telling J's Dad will be the most difficult.  He is as sensitive as his son and very protective...I love that about him.  He's not protective in a tough way but a loving way.  The day I married his son, he told me to take good care of him.  So sharing our information in regards to the upcoming IVF is hard, like I am not holding up my end of the deal.

As far as telling J's Mom.   She as I mentioned earlier knows of our struggle but I don't know if she knows that IVF is the route we will be taking.  It's probably more drastic than anything she had imagined and so soon.  Telling her is a little easier because she knows some information already but I still have the same fears of feeling responsible.  I know I shouldn't but it's hard. 

I think one of the things I have wanted more than anything since I started dating Jamie years and years ago was to make his parents proud.  Thoughts of giving them Grandchildren have come around many many times in the nine years we have been together.  They are tremendous Grandparents to Jamie's niece and nephew.  I never experienced that type of Grand parenting, I watch them do it with such ease and in total amazement.  I just pray to God that we end up with a child after all of this.  I want to experience being a Mother, I want to be the best Mom I can be.  I want to see Jamie be a Father-he will be amazing I am sure of it and I want to see his parents become Grandparents to our children.

Back in the Saddle Again

So, vacation was amazing.  Best week of my life, I can say that easily.  We did everything and more than we dreamed.  The food was expensive and delicious and I  have to share a triple berry pie recipe from the Lahaina Grill.  This pie, the Triple Berry Pie is $13 a slice and we ate dessert here three nights.  We only had dinner at Lahaina Grill one night, the other two nights we drove across town after eating elsewhere to have this pie for dessert! This pie is freaking amazing and served COLD-like you are eating it straight out of the fridge! 


Anyway, we did many great things, we drove the 54 mile drive to Hana, which is cliff side along the coastline, stopping to admire waterfalls and lava beaches, we snorkeled at an uninhabited crater island and even woke up at 2am one morning to drive three hours to the top of a volcano to watch the sunrise at 10,000 feet above elevation!  We saw the sunrise from above the clouds.  REALLY AMAZING!  Many great drinks too.  Did I mention I snorkeled in front of our hotel and a sea turtle swam two feet from my left shoulder????  Just came towards J and I and it was so beautiful and peaceful. 

We flew home Sunday night but before I left I went and floated along the shore at our hotel.  I felt very at peace drifting in the waves.  I laid in the water and had a talk with God.  I am not overly religious, in fact I haven't been to Church in many many years but I talk to him now and again.  I laid in the water and tried to come up with something to say, I tried to have a conversation but all I could say over and over was "Please God, let me have a baby."  I looked at the sky and just kept repeating it.   

So, we are moving forward.  Got the new insurance cards in the mail while we were away so I called Blue Cross this morning to ask how much of my Laproscopy they would cover, they said 90%.  It looks like we just have to schedule the blood work and lap procedure for January along with Jamie's tests and we should get some results back and know what to do from there.  It sounds so easy right?  I think that starting all of this in January will let us enjoy the holidays a little more although it will definitely be on our minds. 

Dear Aunt Flo...you suck.

It's been 46 days, care to visit?  You seem to forget our quality time together each month. 


Most girls would think they were pregnant if their Aunt Flo didn't show her face by now.  Not me.  Sure would like a provera prescription right about now to convince my dear Aunty Flo to visit...in between insurance though.  My luck, she will show her face in another 30 days while I am in Hawaii.

Content

I was just sitting at work thinking about my husband and how I miss him.  I was recalling a conversation I had with him about a fellow infertile blogger's recent post.  I told him about how she gave into a couple of glasses of wine one night and started talking with her husband about how maybe all of this having a baby stuff is for the birds and what they should really be doing is saving for an early retirement, moving into a smaller house fit for just the two of them and planning on traveling the world after their early retirement.  As I told J about this post he kind of nodded his head like, well, they have a good point, nodding as if maybe we should consider the same, like it was sound advice.  The end of the blog story went on to say about how she sobered up the next day and voila she was right back to trying for a baby. 

I've thought about this post a few times since reading it last week and it occured to me a few minutes ago while thinking of my husband...I am content.  Don't get me wrong, I would love to have children.  But, if the future held early retirement for me and traveling the world with J, I would be okay with that. 

I am in a happy place in life right now.  Sure I have my sad moments/days (like my last post) but other than infertility I am fortunate.  I have a great job, I am loving being an Interior Designer.  I love my projects.  It's little paperwork and mostly designing.  I had doubts of whether or not I would like being an Interior Designer after college, but it's growing on me.  I love our new house, I love having countless projects ahead of us that will create our idea of a perfect home.  I love my husband and I realize now that he is out of town going on four days with two more weeks left to travel...that I will be okay as long as I have him.  Since he has left town it's not a baby I am missing but J, my world.  I can safely say that after 8 years I still race home after work to be with him.  Look foward to my weekends to spend time with him and long to be with him when he is gone. 

After I found out I would most likely have fertility problems back in January of this year Jamie had a card waiting for me on the counter at home...It had a cat on the front of the card with it's arm in a gauze sling and a gauze bandage on it's head and it read "If this situation has you thinking four-letter words...here are some you may want to add to the list-HOPE and HUGS."  His message read on the inside:  "A, Keep your chin up.  Whatever the future holds, we will face it together, always remember that I love you.  Love J"  There are many things I hope to achieve in life but marrying J was my biggest achievment yet...whatever the outcome is for us, whatever life holds, I know I will be okay.

Is this really happening?

There are days when I say to myself "I can't believe that infertility is actually my reality"

Over the last few weeks I keep going over a conversation I had with my hair dresser back in April. Jamie and I were just about to start clomid and embark on a southern Caribbean cruise, I was very excited. Kena and I got to talking about how infertility really sucks and I told her that I had feared for many many years that I would have problems getting pregnant. Oddly enough this is something I thought of on and off while in my twenties. It is really crazy that my worries have become reality.

My doubts about conceiving stemmed from bladder problems I had as a child. I was a bed wetter for many years, it runs in my family. I was on medication for years and went to see specialists repeatedly and had a procedure at some point during my childhood. The bladder problems, I am sure, probably have nothing to do with my infertility but it put the doubt in my head. Then as a teenager my menstrual cycles were always between 30 - 60 days apart. At the time I didn't realize this was a problem. Every Doctor I talked to said it wasn't a big deal, but now I know that was a symptom of my PCOS. Anyway, I knew that the length of my cycles were not normal and that created more doubts.

About two years ago, my friends and co-workers started having children. What's funny is that the more friends and co-workers that had babies, the more I felt my odds of having infertility problems were more likely. I mean if everyone around me could have a baby then I was sure to be the statistic, right? I guess I never really said it out loud but it was a fear I had. I remember telling Jamie before my first Dr's appointment that I thought I would have problems having children and voila, here I am. ..here we are. I feel like eight months is remarkable time to have come to IVF, it saddens me that it may take such a drastic measure on one hand but on the other I am glad I have been persistent enough with Dr.'s visits to be where we are.

Anyway, I haven't shared this until now. This seems like an appropriate place to get it out in the open. But this "feeling" I have carried for years is what has kept me motivated over the last few months. My instincts have said all along, something is wrong. So now, I can only be proactive in treating my infertility.

Finding out I had PCOS and deciding who to tell & not to tell...

I found out I had PCOS in Jan. 2009. Jamie and I wanted to get started trying have a family right after we were married so I scheduled a pre-conception check up only a couple weeks after our honeymoon. Dr. Z asked me if I had ever heard of PCOS. My response was no. She let me know that I needed to find an OB GYN that was familiar with PCOS and that I needed to google PCOS when I had a moment. She wrote me a prescription for Metformin and off I went. Of course, I left the Doctor's office and immediately called Jamie with the news that I had PCOS (although I couldn't offer more information), I went to work and googled it. I was overwhelmed with what I read. Message board after message board, blog after blog, website after website of women having difficulty getting pregnant, women who had tried for 2, 5, 9 YEARS to get pregnant. I became discouraged with in an hour.

I immediately wanted to talk to someone who had gone through what I feared I may go through. Infertility. Cindy, a lady I work with, had told me a few months ago that she was unable to have children when she tried many years ago due to endomitriosis. She was sitting upstairs in the library at a table, I could see her from my desk. I walked up to her, sat down and she asked where I had been that morning. I told her I was at the Doctor, she said "Your pregnant!?!" Tears welled up in my eyes and I said, "I just found out I may have trouble getting pregnant". I dropped my head and sobbed, covering my face and Cindy put her arm around me and said "There is so much that can be done". Her arm hugged me so tightly I could feel that she knew exactly what I was going through. C has been a person I can go to when I find out I have to have a new procedure or start a new medicine because she has been there. She's able to tell me, "ehh, it's not that bad-here's what to expect...". It feels so good to talk to someone who has been through it, even if her struggles were different than my own. So, Cindy was the first person I told outside of Jamie or my mom. Slowly, over a few months, I mentioned it to a few more female co-workers who I knew I could confide in. I told my brother. I told Lisa, our friend, who had been asking when we would get started having kids-I couldn't put the question off anymore so in the middle of a concert I just laid it out there.

Anyway... who to tell that you have fertility issues and who not to...
I struggle with this daily. Though I am a private person, I am an open book to those I trust. I will tell all and I have no problems with it. But to those I don't know well or don't know if I can trust, I say nothing. Some people I don't tell out of embarrassment, some I don't tell for fear that they may find joy in my sadness (only a one or two people), some I don't tell because they are happy and pregnant with their own child. Why ruin their joy with news of my struggle? It's exhausting to try and remember who knows what, who doesn't know at all, who has been updated on the latest and who hasn't.

Recently I have come to the conclusion that I don't care who knows-it's just time to follow our dreams and do what we have to do to make a family. In fact, part of me wants to put it out on facebook and let everyone of my friends, former classmates, co-workers and family members know so I can get it over with(okay, I won't go that far but you get the idea). I'm ready to move on from being embarrassed or feeling like less of a person because I have to undergo treatment.

I hope this blog will help, I hope to direct people here to my corner of the Internet and write about my struggles and achievements.