The end and a beginning

Reading through my last post, it was pretty clear that we had a very bad match. Whether she was ripping me off and had no intent of placing her baby wasn’t even the point. I didn’t respect her. I wanted the relationship solely for the baby and cringed at the baggage from her DNA. Yep, I am a snob living a completely different life and happy for it. I hoped nurture would be enough. And a precious newborn in my arms to make up for the roller coaster his birth mother put us through.

Thankfully a higher power stepped in. On Sunday the 16^th, the eve of Rosh Hashanah, I texted her asking how things were going. This came after her dropping calls with the doctor when the caseworker was on the line to finally get the due date. We were five days away from flying to Arizona. And finally, she replied. A brief text message that I accidently deleted after one reading. The only part I remember was “Thanks for everything bye”. She was keeping him. Relief washed over me but yet again, my arms were empty. Once again, we got bad news.

I finally understood the appeal of donor eggs. The thought of another adoption, another birth mother, thousands more dollars only to be in this place again was too much. Donor. I could be pregnant again. The baby could share DS and DH’s DNA. No one would ever have to know. Before I talked to Mark on Monday, I scheduled an appointment with Dr. Rosen for Friday.

And then things started to get weird. On Tuesday, I got a call from Meredith at Adopt Help. A white baby boy was about to be born in Roseville – just 90 minutes away. Were we interested? Three frantic hours, poring through the birth mothers file, talking to OBs, pediatricians and each other. We canceled the Rosh Hoshanah dinner scheduled at our house, finished a bottle of wine, packed our bags, pulled the car seat down from the attic and waited for traffic to clear.

Two days later, we brought home our new son and my son’s little brother. An 8 lb, blond hair, blue eyed bruiser who we had yet to name and took away our sleep-filled nights. It was as so many people have said was meant to be. Everything from the birthmother to the location to him – our perfect boy – felt right, just as some higher power had planned it.

The following Tuesday, a week after we first learned of the baby, my parents arrived along with one of my four brothers for our son’s bris. DH said it best when we described his name, “We are just so happy to be able to talk about names, to choose a name.” Indeed.

Not an easy road

I knew adoption wouldn’t be easy but I didn’t expect this. These past two weeks have pushed us in ways I feared most and at this point whether this beautiful baby will be ours is a big question. From the get-go I had my concerns. Naturally when you offer financial support to someone for a number of months with the goal of them giving you the baby they are carrying, there is risk. 

Our birthmother is 22, doesn’t have a job and already has two children. Her dad and brother are in jail, she is estranged for her mother and her best friend is support. The birthfather has been deported, her two year old daughter has some medical issues and she has been arrested a couple times for shoplifting. In comes an adoption agency offering her 5 months of rent and expenses for giving up that precious baby in her belly. And should she change her mind, no big deal. The expenses were a gift as were the cost of her lawyer, caseworker and social worker.

I don’t know how I envisioned this relationship. Our one meeting that she put off for a few weeks, went very well. We had lunch at Olive Garden. She brought her best friend and we talked girl talk for two hours. Pregnancy, boyfriends, childbirth, and all that good stuff.  She shared that she hoped to go to school to be a nurse and have more kids when she is older. Later she said, her friend deemed me a good person. I felt a connection and thought about how I could help her get to school. I wanted our son – her biological child – to meet her when he was old enough to understand. I truly got how hard this was going to be for her and knew I couldn’t blame her if she changed her mind.

Then there were the red flags. She reported that her insurance was canceled because she missed an appointment. She was being evicted from her apartment that thanks to our generosity, she had just moved into. She never called me back but frequently called at 3 am. Her due date moved to October 6 from September 28^th and then back to October 3^rd even though medical records clearly stated a planned csection for September 21^st. Oh and it turned out she had been going to the doctor all along.

Mark at Adopt Help assures us that we are right to be anxious. Not all adoptions go like this. This is a tough, challenging case and her intentions are a complete unknown. The social worker she met with thought her intentions to place were there but her actions are very concerning. He gives it a D+ and tells us to wait it out. If we bail now, we are out all of the money and then go back in the pool, waiting for another birthmother to choose us and then another agonizing 3 months. If she decides not to place, we get on hospital wait list reserved for those that have endured a failed match. We might be called anytime that a baby is born and have to go immediately. So just for that option, we suck it up. My stomach stays in knots, I drink every night, and kick myself for falling in love with this child that is not mine and allowing myself to buy his clothes and furnish his nursery.

Some bad news, some very good news

I havent posted in awhile. Its not because nothing is happening. There have been so many ups and downs that I will try to capture for my own sake if no one elses. Last post, we had just decided to go back to CCRM.

There were many signs that this cycle was not a good decision. And really it could have gone either way. Last minute, no stress equals just what I needed or last minute means rushed and not thought out. And unfortunately, it was more rushed and not thought out. First my FSH had gone up to 11 from 7.3 a  year ago. So much for giving up gluten, dairy and taking all of my vitamins. Dr. Surrey increased my Gonal to 300 from a max of 225 last cycle. Second was the issue of my nurse, Sonja, who try as she might couldnt get anything right. Tells me she is sending the lupron prescription to Apothecary pharmacy and she sends it to Freedom which she had just told me that CCRM does not allow. Then at my first baseline, the tech found a 20 mm cyst. Three days and three castor packs later, the cyst was gone. My first ultrasound showed 11 follicles and we were off to Colorado where things progressed SLOWLY even with all of the extra meds.

My luck with nurses and techs continued save for a few moments. I had around 14 follicles but many were small and all were slow growing. One lovely nurse told me on day 10 that I would be lucky to get 4-5 mature - this is after getting 11 just 9 months ago from 10 days of stims. When I complained about how long I'd been on stims and that I desparately wanted to go home - poor DS begged daily to go home - she coldly replied that I didnt have a real reason to get home. I was so upset that I signed the wrong name on the blood vial and because of CCRM protocol, had to have yet another blood test. I did finally trigger on day 12 and they were able to get 14 follicles, 11 which were mature and 9 fertilized. All good, right?

I'd told Dr. Surrey very clearly that I wanted a transfer no matter what. If the embryos did not look good on day 3, I wanted them frozen with no testing. Day 3 all looked good but I was still hesitant and I should have been. John called on Day 7 with the bad news that nothing made it to blast. Nothing, nada - ok except for a slow growing morula that they couldnt transfer but they would be happy to charge me $1000 to test for knowledge. Dr. Surrey summed it all up that it was my egg quality, not that I'd been on the wrong protocol or too much gonal. It didnt matter. We were done. I finally saw CCRM stats for what they are - great as long as you can make blasts but in my case, my failure didnt even count because I never transferred. At least at UCSF they would give me a chance to transfer untested embryos. Dr. Surrey chalked it up to egg quality not that it was the wrong protocol or I was on too many meds.

But besides all of this bad news, we got some very good news. Three days before getting the blast report, we found out a birth mother had chosen us!!! On a positive side, not having to think ahead to CCS results, we were able to focus on talking to her and moving forward in a direction we are still getting used to. The baby boy is due at the end of September. I wont share too much about her to protect her privacy but it is a good fit all around. We are so excited that in just six weeks if all goes well, we will have our rainbow. This is not the path I would have chosen and frankly, I still have ALOT of bitterness but I am trying to focus on the world it will open up for us. This is the child we were meant to have. And an added benefit, no stretch marks, giving up wine or coffee.

An Insensitive Chat about infertility

Have to share this video about infertility. Pretty much covers all of the BS stuff fertile friends tell you.  My favorite is that maybe you are too bitter to have children. I have often thought that it might be my bitterness that blocks conception. Then I think of all of the bitter, awful people I've known through the years and from Facebook, I know conception has not been an issue. Enjoy!

Going back

The one thing I have learned in the IF world is never say never. Even if you are really, really certain at one point that you know your limits, it might change. And that is where I find myself. I swore I would never go back to CCRM. I just couldn’t handle the stress of it all again.

Fast forward six months. I am tired again. We try and fail month after month. My body continues to f**k with me giving me signals that I might be pregnant. I take my temperature, drink my herbs, avoid gluten, dairy, cold and raw foods and see the acupuncturist once a week. Instead of getting stronger, my pulse is weaker. I am told I need to relax more, breathe into my belly, open up my belly, give self massage. And every cup of coffee, second beer or glass of wine DH drinks is an affront to our efforts. I no longer hate pregnant people or avoid newborns. I still want one and badly. Oh and I turned 41.

It was all so simple. If we were going to do this again, it would be CCRM, not UCSF. The SART scores for my age group are clear cut. 46% success rate at CCRM vs 24% at UCSF. I scheduled a regroup with Dr. Surrey. It just so happened to be on CD2.  He suggested we give it another try. He is optimistic. The only change will be the beta integrin test to see if I am missing a protein that affects implantation. I can get started right away, like the very next day, with a retrieval in early June. There is nothing to rearrange. DS will be out of school. We can make a vacation out of it.

Then the questions start. Do I really need to do this again? Isnt three tries enough? I am not even getting into the costs. If it didn’t succeed before, why would it this time? There has to be a line in the sand. A time to jump off the madness. There will always be another test, another tweak to the protocol, something that might help me get my baby. And at what cost?  I am happy again, other than that little nagging sadness when I see siblings together. On the other side, this is my last shot. IVF gets harder with age. I don’t have much of a window. I’ve been doing all the eastern stuff for six months to no avail.  Perhaps it is just not for me. I am in a good place mentally. I can do this one more time and if it doesn’t work truly close the door. Throw out the fertility monitor, the preseed, thermometer and herbs, drink my coffee, enjoy the wine and train for a marathon if I wish. And wait for the adoption process.

So I take the first pill and then the second. Its always so funny to me that we take birth control pills for IVF. I remember starting them when I was 21 and in my first serious relationship. I loved the freedom. Twenty years later, it will be the last time I take them. There are no right or wrong decisions in this whole process. Just trying to do what works at the time. I am hopeful but realistic.

The two week wait - again

Again, I find myself in the two week wait. Two weeks ago, I exuded optimism, not that the IUI would work, but that one day I would get pregnant. I felt that tiny soul that was my angel – baby Chase – and knew he would find his way back to me in a healthy body.  It would not take more fertility drugs, another RE consult or another Mayan massage, I was confident that my body could do it.

In the devastation that was my last period, I put a question out on all of my networks - Golden Gate Mothers Group, Berkeley Parents Network and Lamorinda Moms Club – asking what the secret was of women who had babies after 40. I really wanted to know what was bullshit and what worked. Is IVF the only answer? And of course not a surprise but the answers were all over the board from donor egg to sitting still and taking all the supplements to saying fuck it all, running, drinking and enjoying coffee and finding yourself pregnant. Most of all, it was inspiring. One woman just had her first at 44 thanks to a great acupuncturist. The doctors had told her it wasn’t possible for her.  So I called the acupuncturist – Maria Yung – who coincidentally was just about to go on maternity leave for her third child. Did I mention she is 45?

She made time for a consult before she left. And wow, what a difference. I have been to six acupuncturists (in the Bay Area) – all very good – and no one has spent that much time going over my medical history and actually feeling my body, noting where I was tight. She is the first person to even say that at 40, my window is still very open to conceive. And like I believe, the drugs don’t seem to work for me so no more IVF. Her goal is to loosen up my tight muscles, get me to relax and ease my digestion. I am not to eat anything cold (no more coconut milk ice cream, raw vegetables and salad) and while she doesn’t think I have a gluten issue, its better to continue to still avoid it and dairy. And a drink here or there is just fine. And by the way, she wants me to track my basal body temperature.

So with all that optimism, I did my one and only medicated IUI. Coming off of IVF, it as a cake walk. Two ultrasounds then a trigger. Only four bigger follicles so not much bloating. A quick insemination with no down time. Pretty easy. DH’s efforts to improve his viscosity – no coffee, less alcohol – seem to have worked. His specimen was deemed “excellent” and my mucous “substantial”.

I am now at day 24. My boobs have been hurting for a few days. A sign of impending pregnancy or PMS. My BBT dipped 8 days past ovulation – another sign of potential implantation or just how my body works. No spotting yet but I am also on progesterone. As for my emotional state, I am a wreck. I am tired, like I am every month and I am not sure how to not be in this place month after month. It’s not healthy for me, DH or DS.

The time it worked

Way back when I used to take writing classes where we had weekly partners we'd share our daily writes with. The teacher sent out prompts for each day and you had to write for no more than 10 minutes and no editing. It was all online and a great way to get immediate feedback. Today, I stumbled through some oldies and found the one I wrote after my first IUI which became my dear son. I am holding onto this in preparation for the IUI next week. What luck we had!

Lying on my back after the doctor and the nurse leave the darken room, I imagine what he or she might smell like. I bring soft Johnson and Johnson gooey baby smell to mind and smile. I picture myself holding her or maybe him and ingesting the scent deep into my being, holding onto it, knowing it wont last forever. I let myself allow this potential person to be anything he or she wants. I promise to nurture them, laugh with them, let them cry and read them books before bedtime. I want to feel something between my legs besides the tinge where the catheter went into my cervix. I want to feel the explosion of beginning.

They told me to lie here for just five to ten minutes then its back to work like I had just run an errand
not been inseminated with my future child. I hold onto the images of a girl who looks like I did. Blond hair, blue eyed with big freckles and two missing frontteeth. I hope for a dark Italian looking boy like Dave and the joy in watching him have something look like him. I hold onto that.

I let myself accept it might not work this time. Maybe not the next time either. Or ever. I want to think I can accept this. That I can stop it after this and not continue down an emotional rollercoaster.  I stick
with the hope and the smell. I smile feeling the softness of his/her future hair and promise that if I
just get this chance, I wont ever take it for granted.