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Chapter Two?
December 10, 2007 - Monday
Posted by Pamela
The other day I was watching Dr. Phil...I actually don’t particularly like Dr. Phil. There is something Sergeant like about his therapy...but he had couples on that were “desperate to conceive.” And one of the couples were fighting about whether or not they would have another child. And that reminded me of a time in my life when my husband and I were in conflict about whether or not to try Assisted Reproductive Technology again. I went through my older writings..and I found this...I would like to share it with you. It was written almost 17 years ago. I called it:
Chapter Two?
My miracle happened over two years ago with the conception of my son Tyler who is a G.I.F.T. baby. Tyler was conceived after a little more than two years of struggle. I moved quickly and aggressively through the work up, six Pergonal cycles and then onto high tech. We got “lucky” with GIFT. When we got the news we were pregnant, I felt like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. This struggle was finally over. We could now leave behind us the pain of infertility. We would be like other young couples thinking about baby names instead of what day I would begin my next treatment. The pain could end and we could now move forward. It was wonderful being able to fulfill all my longed for fantasies of motherhood. I remember the first time I walked into a children’s store to pick out clothing for Tyler. The saleslady must have been wondering why I was crying over a sleeper! At any rate, I moved through the world of mothers and babies and I got to talk about all those things that mothers talk about and I felt like I really belonged. I no longer felt different.
When Tyler turned two years old we began to think about having another child. While my husband and I were contemplating the ramifications of another GIFT cycle or trying the frozen embryos saved from Tyler’s cycle over three years ago, my entire “play group” became pregnant with their second child. Okay, you may say, you have Tyler. You are lucky. You should feel grateful. The reader may even think that they would not be upset at all, after all Tyler was a miracle!
The reader may even feel angry with me for being jealous, if you are now childless. I understand all this and I have given myself many a good talking to, but the bottom line is I felt angry, infertile, out of control and just plain sad.
I too, wanted to have another child, but I needed an audience of at least ten doctors and nurses to get pregnant. Conception was something that was out of my immediate control. I loved my friends, and I have to admit that it bothered me that there increasing talk about their pregnancies bothered me! After all, I had been pregnant. It was not a mystery to me. I had Tyler. I should not be bothered by this kind of talk. But I was. I felt left out. I felt different. Right or wrong this is how I felt and still feel.
I am writing this piece because I don’t think that I am alone. I am part of a new population of people that are being helped by the new technologies and have one child. We are faced with a mixed bag of emotions and options. I think that many of us feel guilty over any feelings of unhappiness, after all we now have a child. Didn’t we pray to God that we would do anything to have that child? Many of us felt that if we had that child, we would never think about infertility again. So what happened?
First, with the birth or adoption of a child you begin to mix in with other mothers. When you are childless, many of us do not expose ourselves to the myriad of the neighborhood playground. After the arrival of your infant, many of us join the merry throng of the stroller set.
We join the fertile world of mothers. In the beginning, you may be completely content to be surrounded by infants and toddlers when you yourself have one.
You may not be bothered anymore by pregnant women. After all, many of us are plenty busy with our own. But our own gets older too, and just like our friends we begin to think about another child. But we are infertile, our child was a miracle. We contemplate our next move while all our friends quite normally complete their families. If we did not have infertility problems, the how, when and should we have another child would not be the earth shattering issue that it can become for people with impaired fertility. I have felt guilty over my desire for another child.
Sometimes I felt that I was like the wife in the fairy tale, The Old Man and the Sea. In the story the wife kept asking for a bigger wish, never being satisfied with what she had.
Eventually she lost everything. Well, I have really tried to work through these emotions and I have decided that I am not a bad person for desiring another child. I do not think we are wrong to want another child. Why should we not want things that other people take for granted? If having children and siblings for children were not normal part of the life process, why do people constantly ask me when Tyler is going to get sister?
The fact is that when you must rely on high technology to have another child there are many issues that you have to contend with. For my husband and I, money is a concern. It costs a great deal of money to have a child the high tech way, and I have chosen to stay home since the birth of Tyler. We don’t have the cash flow that we used to. If you do not have the money you cannot play the game. I couldn’t believe that some of the IVF Centers are now taking MasterCard and VISA! The money spent on conceiving another child will take significant money away from the child that we now have. Then there is the question of pain and suffering.
None of this stuff is fun. We are not talking about playing footsie in the backseat of a Chevy.
I have to be unconscious, which is probably the only thing that will get rid of the Pergonal headache I will most likely have at that point! And let’s not forget that I will being doing this cycle that I used to grump and sleep through with a not so understanding toddler.
There is also that unrelenting fear of how we would deal with a possible failure of the procedure that we may have unrealistic confidence in. There is always the feeling that we should quit while we are ahead. All of the high tech procedures have less than a fifty-fifty chance of producing a child. Tyler was a bolt of lightning. Does lightning strike twice? Should we count our blessings and give up? Is it human nature to always want more? I don’t know the answers to these questions. I just know that if I had the choice, Tyler would not be an only child. I would like him to have a sibling to play monopoly with. My husband and I have room in our hearts if not our apartment, for another child.
We have made the decision to try again. A recent try with our frozen embryos did not work. I have decided to go back to work next year raise the capitol needed for another try. I don’t know how many attempts we will be emotionally and financially able to swing, but we will try.
We will not be devastated if another pregnancy does not occur. I will not allow the desire for another child to rule my life. It is true, we do have Tyler and the pain is different this time around even if it is still there. I may feel left out of the current neighborhood baby boom, but I am still Tyler’s mother and we get to do all the great mother-kid stuff that I always dreamed about. The emotions are much more manageable when you have a kid to pick up and love. It’s just that I have two arms. So, will Tyler have a little sister or brother? I’m hopeful, but we’ll just have to wait and see.
Authors Note: Tyler became a big brother a little more than two years later with the arrival of Spencer, who was a I.V.F. conception.
Categories
Adoption •
Infertility •
IVF •
Pregnancy •
Reproductive Technologies
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The Fertility Diet
December 6, 2007 - Thursday
Posted by Pamela
If you are one of the fertility obsessed...you have probably already picked up this week’s copy of Newsweek...with the headline… “Fertility and Diet” How What You Eat Affects Your Odds of Getting Pregnant. If you have not picked it up...I suggest that you do. You also may have seen a bit of The Fertility Diet in this month’s Connections...or simply Google it! But please give it a read...I think the information contained in this study is worth noting.
First of all, this is complicated stuff...and I am not going to be able to cover all the different aspects in this blog - so I do recommend that if you are interested in learning details...buy the book...or pick up the magazine!
Dr. Jorge E. Chavarro, MD., Walter C. Willett, MD., and Patrick J. Skerrett looked at 18,000 women who were taking part in the Nurses Health Study..which is a long term research project looking at the effects of diet and other factors on the development of chronic health conditions such as cancer and heart disease. These same women also said that they were all trying to have a baby..and most of them did...except about one in six. The same number that we cite when asked the national number for the amount of couples experiencing infertility....about one in six.
Many of these women experienced ovulation difficulties. And to sum it all up in a nutshell - in the case of ovulatory infertility...diet, weight and exercise played a part. Now...if you have tubal disease or scarred tubes...will this diet help you? Well, it couldn’t hurt along with medical intervention such as IVF...but this diet was really only helpful for women who only had ovulation difficulties. As eating a certain way - had a direct impact on the quality of these women’s ovulation.
So...we are talking COMPLEX Carbs like brown rice...pasta...whole fruits and vegetables...whole grain breads...plant based proteins like beans...full fat dairy products...those foods are fertility friendly. Carbs that have a low glycemic load are the fertility friendly foods...and plant proteins over meat proteins.
Trans-fat continue to be bad news...not just for your heart...but for you fertility...there was a link found between high consumption of Trans-fat and ovulatory dysfunction!
And body weight...too much or too little....will also throw off ovulation.
I love the term “The Fertility Zone” when it comes to exercise...again...not too much or too little! Ah...That word moderation! Sensible! So the researchers recommended thirty minutes of cardio exercise every day. Now...where have I heard that before?
Really what the researchers found is that a healthy lifestyle not only supported our heart...warded off chronic disease...but it also created fertile women when there was an absence of other factors such as infection from STD’s...age....tubal disease and male factor.
So...take a look at the diet...much of it is not new news...actually most of it what we already know about healthy living.
And how is my diet going? Well next week it will be my birthday...and if I am really lucky..and work really hard at “eating clean” sticking to my program which happens to be Atkins...I might make the 20 pound weight loss marker!!!
Hey..are you still there??? Oh..you have gone to pick up Newsweek haven’t you? You won’t miss it...it’s the one with the naked pregnant woman on the cover!
Have a great weekend!
Pamela
Categories
Adoption •
Fertility •
Infertility •
Pregnancy •
Reproductive Health
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Sometimes…I Can Still Feel The Sadness….
November 6, 2007 - Tuesday
Posted by Pamela
The flood of emotions still take me by surprise. I can be doing anything. Cooking, reading, cleaning the house, when seemingly innocuous media hits me in the face and I feel this tiny well of tears come up from the pit of my stomach and nestle around my throat for a minute. The sadness flees and I am left with a sense of wonderment about how television and print ads about pregnancy testing can still jar me.
You must know the ones, “These people are not actors, they are real people about to find out the results of their pregnancy test”. The advertisement goes on to give you a sample of why they do or do not want to be pregnant. And then the disappointment. Or the joy. It gets me every time. Then used to be this one for Clearblue Easy (I used to hate the name, nothing about pregnancy or even pregnancy testing was ever easy for me!), “Is a new life in your tomorrow?”
I wonder about this pregnancy thing sometimes. What is it that hooks us in so totally? I have spoken to fertile women about their feelings concerning pregnancy and other women’s pregnancies. What surprised me is that they are like us, they also experience envy when they hear about another woman’s pregnancies; just like we do. This must be an innate emotion. Something deeply built into us, through evolution, to keep the species alive. What we want, is something so basic to our beings, that to be denied that natural desire to reproduce can have a profound impact on our emotional lives.
When most of us are confronted with a pregnant woman (whether we are infertile or not) we react. Pregnancy is a highly visible and social event. Everyone has something to say to a pregnant woman. Whether it is advice or questions, the state of pregnancy evokes some kind of emotion in most people. For us, pregnancy is the visible reminder of what we desire. I am so attune to the state of pregnancy, that I can usually tell a woman is pregnant before she announces it. During my infertility, pregnant woman represented all things that are literally round and right with the world. Ripeness and growth. All things fresh and full of potential. Sweet magical secrets. This was something that I longed for, to be a part of the fertile life cycle of the earth.
This became something separate than a parenting issue for me. This was a issue of biology.
Woman who are fertile, have told many of us who are not, that they understand our pain (of course, we don’t believe them), After all, it took them three months to conceive and they were so depressed and worried the entire time! We can trivialize their emotional reaction to waiting for their conceptions, but these fertile woman really felt the way they felt; even if it was for a very limited amount of time. Is it no wonder that couples become “obsessed” with pregnancy when it is denied month after month?
My favorite story is as follows: My friend who was pregnant after infertility looking into a shop window. She sees a pregnant women and is instantly jealous. She gripes to herself, “I wonder what she did, bet it was nothing”. Then she realizes that she is seeing her own reflection in the window! She relates to me “ I was jealous of myself!”
But maybe it helps to know that our feelings of longing and envy are common and very normal (even if we are a bit more intense!) Even Roseanne had her moment. Do you remember the episode? I know...Roseanne went off the air a long time ago...but maybe you have seen this in re runs...Can you remember back?
Roseanne thought that she might be pregnant again. Everybody is in an uproar over it. Nobody wants the baby. Dan is out of work. Roseanne is convinced that she is pregnant, after all, she is never late. Everyone waits for the pregnancy test to be ready with the results. The test is negative. Dan asks everyone to leave. The kids are stunned. Roseanne looks like she might cry; Dan is quiet. He asks “What would you have named the baby?” Roseanne answers, “Priscilla if it was a girl, Jack for a boy”
We know Roseanne; it hurts. You know when it would have been born, what you would have named it. We know Roseanne. I sat on the couch and cried for you. I felt like a fool. It was 3:00 in the afternoon. I was crying over a rerun! I called a friend, and started to tell her about it. She said, “Oh, the one when Roseanne says Priscilla for a girl and Jack for a boy? I cried at that one too.” Oh, well. Maybe it’s just part of being a woman.
Until Tomorrow,
Pamela Madsen
Categories
Fertility Drugs •
Infertility •
Pregnancy
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