The only thing keeping me from crying today makes me want to cry

I'm having a rough week. My students have been acting out for substitutes lately and (of course) I have a mandatory training off-campus all day tomorrow so there's going to be yet another sub coming in. Combine that with a grant application deadline that's looming, a lingering cold, and some very wakeful nights with Luke and I'm just miserable. It's a miracle I haven't fallen asleep or burst into tears in class, that's how tired and miserable I feel right now. All that's keeping me going right now is the knowledge that Juan doesn't have to work this weekend so he can take over parenting duties while I take some much needed naps, and that makes me feel even worse.

After all we went through to have Luke I feel guilty for whining about how tired or stressed I am even though I know these thoughts don't mean I'm not incredibly thankful to have him. I've seen some discussion about this guilt on parenting-after-infertility message boards, so I know I'm not the only one who feels this way. It's a "how dare I wish for a baby-free day when there are still so many couples out there who would kill for what I have" feeling that doesn't go away even though I know, intellectually, that being happy all the time just isn't realistic. I'm a new mom who hasn't had a decent night's sleep in over 6 months and has a full time job outside the home--it's not unreasonable for me to want a break from my life once in awhile. Try telling that to the little nagging voice in the back of my head, though.

America's Next Top Offensive Talk Show

This news is making the infertility blog rounds today but I wanted to say a few words myself over the unbelievably offensive upcoming episode of the Tyra Banks Show that is currently soliciting comments/participants. The pitch for the show (direct from their website) is as follows:

DO YOU KNOW A WOMAN OBSESSED WITH BECOMING PREGNANT?

Do you know a woman who is obsessed with becoming a mom? Have you seen and heard her struggle for years, felt her unvoiced jealously and seen her desperation first hand? Have you watched silently for too long as she gets her hopes up only to be disappointed and heartbroken when she can’t conceive? Has she tried extreme methods and spent a lot of money to get pregnant with no luck? Do you want to finally tell her she needs to stop the emotional and physical stress on her body and seriously consider adoption or a surrogate alternative? If you know a woman who is obsessed with becoming a mom and getting pregnant, then SUBMIT BELOW.

Please do not submit unless you are willing to appear on “The Tyra Banks Show".

The worst part of this show is that the following e-mail was sent out to RESOLVE members after the Tyra Show contacted RESOLVE for their help in finding women to be on the show.

The Tyra Banks Show is producing a segment about women who've been in pursuit of a pregnancy for a long time. The show which will tape/air this Thursday will focus on those of us who've tried, without success, almost everything Assisted Reproductive Medicine has to offer yet remain committed to the quest. Producer Anne Redecki is looking for articulate women who will speak candidly about their experiences, the emotional, physical and financial costs associated with ART, and their determination to stay the course.

If you're interested in sharing your story and being on the show, please contact:

Kimberly Saunders
Phone: 646 638-5641
Email: Kimberly.Saunders@tyratv.com

Now, unless I'm missing something HUGE, this seems to be a classic bait-and-switch situation. It's like they want to deliberately mislead infertile women who would like to "speak candidly about their experiences" so their unsympathetic friends and family members can tell them they need to stop trying to have a biological child. It boggles the mind to think of what kind of sadistic asshole A: thought up this show in the first place, and B: wrote that e-mail and sent it out in hopes of deceiving and luring in women going through such a difficult situation. The fact that they misrepresented the aim of the episode to RESOLVE and used their membership in this way is just beyond the pale. For that alone, heads need to roll.

Contact information for the producer in charge of this trainwreck is above, and I'd encourage all of you to contact her to voice your disgust over what she and the Tyra Show are proposing. RESOLVE has been notified and is apparently handling their end of the situation as I type.

One year ago today...

Exactly one year and one day ago I was convinced I wasn't pregnant. I came home after a long day of work to an empty house since Juan was on call, made some dinner, drank a beer, and started meticulously planning out my next cycle. It was going to be our 21st--twenty one months since we had started trying to get pregnant. I was considering taking a break for a cycle or two until our insurance processed the paperwork for my referral to a local RE but hadn't made up my mind one way or another yet.

In any case, I ate, I watched some TV and I went to bed. It was an altogether unremarkable night, but it was also one I'll remember for the rest of my life.

Exactly one year ago today I woke up, brushed my teeth, turned on the shower, and (just for the heck of it) took a pregnancy test. I expected it would be negative--hell, I was testing when Juan wasn't even home, that's how much I was expecting a negative result. Except...it wasn't negative. It was positive. Positive.

I remember thinking that I should be crying. You're supposed to cry when you finally get the one thing you've wanted more than anything else for almost two years, right? I couldn't cry, though. All I could do was stare at that test. Positive.

Sitting here now, staring down at Luke, part of me still can't believe that it really happened or that I'm really, finally, a mother. It's been an amazing journey, and I feel like the luckiest person alive to have taken it.



I love you, little boy. You were unquestionably worth the wait.

Pregnancy and Infant Loss Rememberance Day

I am woefully late in updating with this today (it's been quite a day) but I wanted to link to the Pregnancy and Infant Loss Rememberance Day site as today is their Day of Light. Please take a moment, light a candle, and send good thoughts to those in your life who have experienced a loss.

The Other Side of the Fence

I've spent a lot of time recently thinking about friendship. The friends I lost while going through infertility, the friends I gained, and the friendships I already had that grew stronger through shared heartache all occupy a significant portion of my thoughts these days.

Friendship is something I've always struggled with (I spent most of my childhood agonizing over why I didn't have friends and now that I'm an adult I've had to move away from the wonderful friends I made in Salt Lake and DC) so thinking about lost friends always saddens me. The combination of infertility and distance cost me one of the closest friendships I've ever had, and I know that's something I'll always be angry about. It also helped me grow closer to two friends I'd had for years, and if nothing else I'm grateful I had the chance to support them and get their support while we were still trying to conceive.

Now that I'm on the other side of the infertility "fence" though, I'm struggling with completely different issues. Namely, how do I stay a good friend to those who are still going through infertility hell? How do I know when to back off and give my friends space if that's what they need? How do I make sure not to say or do something that hurts them? You would think (hell, I would think) that it would be easy to know what to do since I've been there myself, but what's right for one person isn't necessarily right for another.

I've been very open about my infertility from day one. My parents and sister know about it--they even read this blog daily. All of my friends know what we went through; my in-laws know; and because I was a patient at J's hospital while we were searching for a diagnosis, many of his coworkers are aware of our problems as well. In spite of the intensely private nature of infertility, I had no problem with "going public". Talking about what was going on, sharing our story, and trying my best to de-stigmatize it helped me cope. I know that's not the case with everyone, though, which is one of the reasons why I think I'm having such a hard time knowing how to "be there" for my infertile friends now. Most of them aren't as open about their struggles as I was (and am) so the things I wanted people to do when I was in their shoes such as e-mails asking how I was doing, phone calls to check up on me after another failed cycle, etc... likely aren't what they want from me now. There's also the issue of Luke--I know that seeing or hearing about a new baby while you're infertile can be incredibly difficult. I never want to cause my friends the pain I felt when someone insensitively sent me unsolicited baby photos or wouldn't stop talking about their children while we spent time together.

I want to be a good friend. I know those I care about who are still battling infertility need good friends. I just need to know how to be what they need me to be.

Thoughts on a complicated day

Six years ago I was a college student in Utah. My roommate woke me up after she turned on the news and, like everyone else, we spent the rest of the day watching television, crying, and trying to understand what had happened. I remember thinking that nothing good could ever happen on any future anniversary of that day that would even begin to erase the horror and pain I felt anytime I thought about the terrorist attacks.

Last year I had an exploratory laparoscopy to figure out why, after a year and a half, we couldn't get pregnant. That turned out to be the one thing we needed to finally conceive, and two months later I found out that I was pregnant with Luke. Looking back, September 11 2006 was one of the best days of my life. I have very few clear memories from that day thanks to the lovely, lovely drugs they gave me, but the one thing I do remember was my OB/GYN telling me as I was wheeled into the recovery room that he had removed "a ton" of scar tissue from around my ovaries and that I shouldn't have any more problems getting pregnant. If I could have cried tears of joy at that moment, I would have.

Today I stood in the nursery holding my baby and singing to him, and all of a sudden I was bawling. I remembered the horrific images and events from six years ago and the wonderful weight that was finally lifted from my life last year and then looked at the beautiful baby boy in my arms. It was all just too much for me.

I have no idea how I'm going to explain September 11 to Luke when he's old enough to realize that it's not just another day. We'll be having lots of talks about what is and isn't age appropriate before that happens, but I know that I won't be able to tell him until he's much older how he's changed how I view it. Yes, it's still an unbelievably sad date, but it's also the anniversary of something that has changed our lives for the better in so many ways. I'm happier than words can say to be able to associate something so positive with a date that will always be connected to tragedy.

Seven Days

39 weeks down, one more to go. I'm alternating between feeling like this kid can't come quickly enough (J predicts his arrival daily) and telling him very sternly that August 2 is the absolute earliest date he's allowed to decide it's time to met Mom and Dad. For their parts, my extended family has started betting on due dates (I've got August 4) and every time I call my parents to chat or pass on some piece of information I hear a little note of disappointment in their voices when I have to say that no, nothing is happening on the baby front.

In short, everyone (except possibly me) thinks that it should be baby time!

On a related note, the nursery is done and I think it looks fantastic!



Here you can see the bookcase that J just finished making last weekend. Clearly, we are far from completing our picture book collection!



You can hardly see it, but on top of the bookcase is a wooden pull toy (a train of zoo animals) that holds a very special place in our hearts. J and I bought it at a craft fair back in Maryland during one of the darkest months of our infertility struggles. I saw it, fell in love, and proceeded to spend the next two hours agonizing over whether or not to buy it. J persuaded me that I'd regret it if I didn't, and that buying it wouldn't jinx anything, so I took a deep breath and pulled out my credit card. When we got home I put it (still in the bag) on the top shelf of our guest room closet. I didn't open the bag again until last weekend, when I put it on top of the bookcase. I can't even describe what that felt like--just the act of pulling it out, dusting it off, and throwing that old bag away was a victory.

One more vistory, and one more week to (officially) go until motherhood. Maybe I'm more ready for this than I think I am.

Seeing Red(book)

It's been awhile since I last talked at length about infertility or a fertility-related topic. The tone of my blog has changed dramatically since I got pregnant, and while not all of the changes have been intentional, I have periodically wondered if it's appropriate for me to continue blogging about infertility given my audience (almost exclusively family and friends) and my pregnancy. I confess to self-censoring to a degree because I didn't know myself what I wanted to be--a mommy-to-be blogger or a former infertile blogger. I can't say that I've completely answered that question, but I hope to start to address it in the next weeks/months.

That said, there have been certain...controversies lately in a rather prominent part of the IF blogging world that have really struck a chord with me. In brief, Redbook hired Julia, one of my favorite infertility bloggers to write about her experiences as part of a new "Trying to Get Pregnant: The Infertility Diaries" blog they launched on their website. Julia, already the mother of one son, got pregnant with twins shortly after starting the new blog, but due to many past miscarriages she is far being from "out of the woods". Also hired was a Redbook staffer named Lili who was absent from the blog for the first few months of its existence. Redbook offered no explanation for Lili's absence other than to say that she would be back "in a few weeks."

Then, last week Lili wrote her first post which, among other things, gave the reason why she had yet to contribute to the blog. After five years of fertility treatments, she was just returning from maternity leave after having twins. Immediately, comments flooded in from readers who took offense not only to the overall tone of her post (which, in my opinion, reflected her status as an inexperienced blogger who had not given enough thought to her intended audience not a genuine insensitivity to the feelings of infertile readers) but to the fact that both of Redbook's infertility bloggers were parents. A handful of nasty personal comments were made about Lili that were completely uncalled for, but most of the comments urged Redbook to re-think their panel of bloggers and, at a minimum, add a new blogger who is currently undergoing treatments for primary infertility.

Neither Redbook nor Lili responded for several days, leaving the impression that they either had no idea how to handle a reader revolt or that they simply didn't care about the pain they had caused to many of their readers. Either way, it's not exactly the kind of impression they probably wanted to leave. Finally, a Redbook editor addressed the comments in a post today that essentially dismissed what readers were saying and declared the subject closed permanently.

For what it's worth, I do not believe that blame for this situation should be laid solely at Lili's feet. She has simply been the scapegoat for Redbook's egregious lack of foresight and empathy. In fact, I feel quite a bit of sympathy for her since I'm also no longer considered a member of the IF club by many of the women I grew to know and care about during the roughly two years it took us to get pregnant. Those of us who have "turned the corner" as it were still deal with many of the emotional ramifications of infertility even though we have gotten pregnant, and it's not easy to suddenly feel excluded from IF's tight-knit support network when that happens.

The thing is, a positive pregnancy test (or even an almost full-term pregnancy) doesn't heal the wounds infertility causes. It doesn't erase the days and nights I spent hurting, doesn't repair the friendships I lost during those years, and it doesn't negate the experiences I had in getting to this point. The truth is, I still feel uncomfortable talking about my pregnancy with those who don't know our story. I don't like having to smile and nod when hearing stories about other women's "oops" pregnancies. It makes me angry to see Nicole Richie (who is, in my opinion, the last woman on earth who should probably be a parent) on the cover of US Weekly declaring "I'm Pregnant!". I am thankful for this pregnancy every day, and I know that my experiences in getting here will make me a more thoughtful and grateful parent than I probably would have been if we had been able to conceive easily. I'm still hurting, though. That pain might go away someday, but I won't be surprised if it doesn't. It's part of who I am now. I alluded to this in my post about my baby shower last month, but didn't write extensively on the topic since I was still trying to figure out my reaction for myself.

I suppose that in the end, nothing about infertility is fair or easy. What angers me most about the Redbook situation is that instead of directing anger at the editors who did not bother to consider the feelings of their readers or their bloggers, we have once again directed it at one of our own who is doubtless still dealing with the emotional toll infertility takes.

Something even better than job news

Please go over to Julie's to read about legislation currently being revised in the House of Representatives that could provide infertility coverage as part of standard health insurance. I'm writing a letter to my Representative this weekend. If you're not sure who yours is, go to this site and enter your ZIP code.

Oh, and on the job front--the wait for an actual answer has officially been extended to next week. I signed the contract since the district won't be willing to work with me at all if I don't have one, but it's still very possible that I won't be going back next year. As if you hadn't already guessed, my feelings on the matter are decidedly mixed.

Reflections

I've spent a lot of time this week complaining. I'm not sleeping well, I have a major paper due next week that I'm struggling with, and I've spent the whole week administering state-assessment exams to freshmen and sophomores. I miss my students!

And yet. Life seems to have a way of reminding us that most of the things that we complain about really doesn't matter. Yes, these things are annoying and bothersome, but they're not true problems. They're certainly nothing like the problems I was having last year.

Two years ago this week Juan and I decided to start our family. One year ago this week I was standing on the brink of serious infertility testing and treatment. This week? My biggest problem is that I'm going to have to spend the weekend holed up with my laptop doing research. Sort of puts things in perspective. Of course, even my infertility struggles are insignificant compared to the recent tragedy at Virginia Tech.

Perspective is an interesting thing. I'm thankful to be able to have it.

Breaking News

Lisa Eaves, who runs the mind/body fertility workshop in Washington, DC that I took this time last year, is featured in the latest issue of U.S. News and World Report. If you live in the DC area and are struggling with infertility, I cannot recommend her classes enough. Bravo, Lisa for getting this wonderful exposure!

The International Infertility Film Festival

The amazing Bea has put together an online film festival highlighting (what else?) infertility. The entries are hilarious, heartbreaking, and insightful. Please, go watch!

The times they are a changin'

One of the best books I've ever read was Toni Weschler's Taking Charge of Your Fertility. I remember wondering "Why didn't I learn this before now?" as I read about how my body works. It's a sentiment I've heard echoed hundreds of times on internet message boards and among friends, especially since we all had some type of sex ed in high school.

Well, you can imagine how happy I was to hear that there's now a teen version out to help young women understand their cycles. The focus of this book is obviously different from TCOYF in that there's no section on how to get pregnant, and information on how to chart to avoid pregnancy is also omitted (since Weschler decided that teens weren't likely to follow all of the rules safely) but the important parts about how to figure out what your body is doing when, and why it's doing it have been preserved.

I've frequently thought that if we ever have a daughter I want to teach her this information. Sex ed in the schools is unlikely to ever give the exact information I'd like my kids to have, and books like this can help clear up a lot of the misconceptions girls have about their bodies. Better yet, it can help them make smart choices when/if they decide to have sex. Thumbs up from me, all around.

Naturally, some are saying that the book provides girls with too much information. I think it gives them the facts they should have been getting all along. One mother (from Idaho, no less!) told the Washington Post that she's a fan of the book. "By giving them knowledge, you are treating them in a more adult way, and I think that helps them make more adult decisions," she said. I couldn't agree more. Denying that teens are having sex doesn't work. Statistics and my own personal experience (I have a number of students who are pregnant or parents already) prove it. What's wrong with giving up the scare tactics that have proven so ineffective in the past, and giving girls accurate, fact-based information about their cycles?

Kicking around my head

I think I'm recovering.

In the past two weeks, I've been able to have conversations about potential (and actual) accidental pregnancies with several friends who needed support. For the first time in almost two years, I didn't feel like crying when thinking about someone else getting pregnant without even trying. I was able to be there for my friends, to talk them through their feelings, and to keep in mind that the conversation was about them, not about me.

This is huge. I know I couldn't have done it before getting pregnant myself, and I honestly don't think that I could have even done it during my first trimester. Every day that goes by I feel more like a normal, healthy pregnant woman, and not like someone who is broken inside. I don't feel like a leper anymore. I don't feel out of place in the "normal" crowd. It's something that continues to both puzzle and delight me, but it also has less positive implications for other parts of my life.

Mel has a great post at Stirrup Queens right now about belonging in the infertility community. Her (admirable) opinion is that once a member, always a member. Pregnancy doesn't mean that your membership is revoked, and no matter how you get pregnant, your feelings while going through infertility were real and valid and should always be respected as such. I read her post last night and almost cried because I don't feel like I belong anymore. I don't know if it's the fact that I'm pregnant or the fact that I was ultimately able to get pregnant without ART, but I no longer feel like I'm a "real" member of the community.

On a purely clinical level, my issue has to do with the fact that I was unquestionably infertile before the lap but have no idea whether the surgery fixed everything permanantly or not. Am I considered subfertile? Fertile for awhile? Fertile for good? No one knows, and honestly we probably won't know until Juan and I start trying for #2. That won't be happening for quite awhile, and until then I'm just not sure where I fall. Without a definitive diagnosis (and goodness knows I'm not going to spend much time thinking about the fact that I'm back in the pre-diagnosis phase) I feel like I'm in limbo. I'm caught between the infertile and fertile worlds and not completely sure I belong in either. "Recovering" seems to be the best term for how I think of myself at the moment, but as grateful as I am for everything that's happened to me since Thanksgiving, I'm also grieving for what I've lost. I miss feeling like I belong to a group, and as much as I my head agrees with Mel that once someone has gone through the pain of infertility they should belong to that group forever, my heart isn't so sure.

Being infertile was a huge part of my identity for a long time, and I guess my ultimate question is who am I now? What emotional identity comes between infertilty and motherhood?

Happy (belated) Blog-iversary

So, the actual 1 year anniversary of this blog was a week ago, but seeing as how I've been drowning in work (and living in a lot of denial about how much I still have left to do every night for the next couple of months) I didn't notice. Oops! So, happy blogiversary to me!

I thought I'd take a look back everything that's happened to me over the last year. Note, this was originally supposed to come with links, but I'm too damn tired and overwhelmed with work to add them. Sorry, but you can navigate by months on my sidebar if you'd like to read posts I mention here

January:
-Began this blog
-Started the spiral into a depression over not being pregnant
-Put our condo on the market

February
-Took a fantastic trip to Boston and Maine
-Had the best Valentine's Day on record
-Got in a car accident
-Finally called my doctor to start the fertility testing process
-Took the infamous photo of a knife I almost stabbed Juan in the foot with

March
-Hit a peak in my depression over not being able to get pregnant
-Had the crappiest 25th birthday on record
-Visited my family in Utah and posted about all the things I dislike about my home state
-Was picked up as an evil liberal blogger on a conservative Utah blog for the aforementioned post
-Still didn't sell our condo

April
-Had my first RE appointment with the most evil Nurse Practitioner known to man
-Took a trip to California with a mysterious "Item X"
-Had my HSG and was officially diagnosed as infertile
-Took a trip to our new town and placed an offer on a house

May
-Lost our contract on the house because our condo still hadn't sold
-Wrote my all-time favorite post on being an infertile 20-something
-Quit my job
-Got an offer on our condo
-Lost our buyer after just a week
-Found out that our dream house in Texas was back on the market and placed a new offer
-Got another offeron the condo from a new buyer
-My dad was hit by a car while riding his bike in North Carolina
-J graduated from medical school
-Left DC for Texas

June
-Took a trip to Vegas
-Entered a new chapter in infertility-related depression
-Closed on our Texas house and moved in
-Did not find a job

July
-Started seeing a new doctor about infertility
-Adopted Jasper
-Got admitted to grad school to become a teacher

August
-Survived our massive flooding
-Still didn't have a job
-Joined Operation Common Thread
-Celebrated my parents' 25th wedding anniversary
-Started school

September
-Had a laparoscopy and FINALLY got a diagnosis for our infertility--scar tissue
-Wrote an angry letter to NBC over a stupid, prejudicial story they did on young, infertile women
-Encountered the centipedes from hell
-Interviewed for a job as a high school English teacher
-Took a road trip to Utah

October
-Didn't hear from the school after my interview, assumed I didn't get the job
-Got another negative pregnancy test
-GOT THE TEACHING POSITION!
-Decided to hold off on calling the RE to start IUIs
-Started my 20th cycle of TTC

November
-Was busy at work
-GOT PREGNANT!!!
-Our cat Codi went into heart failure and spent a week in critical condition

December
-Codi came home!
-Finished my first semester of teaching
-Annouced my pregnancy to my family and the internet at large

Dealing with assholes never gets easier

J and I spent the weekend up at a ski lodge in New Mexico for a department retreat. Mostly, it was a blast. All of our friends were there, we went to a couple of workshops, and then spent a LOT of time relaxing. With the exception of the Mexican food they served for dinner last night, I couldn't have asked for a better weekend. Well, maybe except for one other thing.

See, at breakfast this morning we ended up sitting next to one of THOSE people. You know, the type who feels it's perfectly appropriate to ask you probing, personal questions 5 minutes after you've been introduced. First we chatted (well, he did most of the talking, I just smiled and nodded) about skiing, then he asked about our families, and then he asked the one question every woman who has experienced infertility dreads more than anything else: "So, when are YOU planning to have children?"

I confess, I told him that we were currently 10 weeks pregnant in hopes that it would shut him up on the subject. Did it? Oh no. Instead, he started talking about how he and his wife had two "oops" babies, and assumed that ours was the same. I was halfway tempted to tell him that it had taken the collective wisdom and skill of a half dozen doctors, surgery, and nearly two years to get to this point, but in the end I decided against sharing our story with him because I really didn't want to talk about infertility with an oblivious asshole over my hash browns. At that point, he turned his attention to a friend of mine and asked her if she and her husband were going to give their 2 year old daughter a brother or sister anytime soon. That was when I decided that cutting and running was probably the best possible strategy, so I made up some excuse about needing to get something from my room and dragged my friend out of the room.

For the record (just in case any of you were wondering) it is NEVER okay to ask someone about their family building plans. NEVER. You can ask if they have children (though after going through infertility I've started saying "Tell me about your family" instead, since being reminded of the fact that I was childless every time I met someone new wasn't a pleasant experience) but not if or when they plan to have any. My reproductive organs have nothing to do with you. Period. End of story.

In any case, we're home now, my first appointment is in three days, and now that I've gotten all this out I feel much better.

So long, 2006--don't let the door hit you on the way out

Can I say how happy I am that 2006 is over? The year started with confronting infertility and starting the testing process, then my dad was hit by a car 2,500 miles from home, then there was family drama, then we moved cross-country, then I was unemployed, then we figured out why we hadn't gotten pregnant yet, then I got my dream job, then our cat almost died, and then I got pregnant. For a year that ended on such an amazing note, though, most of 2006 really sucked. While my family was visiting for Christmas we agreed that our collective New Year's resolution was that no one (save for me in August) end up in the hospital. We'd better all keep that resolution.

I have so many hopes for 2007. Mostly I hope for a healthy pregnancy, but I also hope that J's internship and residency continues to go well. I hope that my sister gets into the nursing program she's been working so hard to qualify for since last year. I hope that my parents and in-laws stay healthy and that we see lots of them. I hope that we have zero pet health emergencies. I hope my friends (who had even rougher years in 2006 than I did) get the news they've been praying for. I hope this war starts to come to a conclusion. I hope the Democrats don't screw up leadership of the House and the Senate. I hope our leaders start listening to reason. I hope for so many things, and have hope that at least most of my hopes will come true.

The big news

Well, I'm sure that some of you have guessed what I'm about to announce, but hopefully it's a surprise for a few. I'm pregnant! I'm 8 weeks today and would have told you all much, MUCH sooner (I haven't been posting much for the last few weeks because I knew that if I did it would be too hard to keep the news a secret) but we wanted to surprise our families with the news for Christmas and many of them read my blog. So, SURPRISE!

Symptom-wise I'm feeling good about feeling crappy. I'm constantly queasy or nauseous, having the worst acid reflux of my life, and experiencing major food aversions. Sushi and Mexican food are dead to me right now.

J is thrilled, and so were our parents when we finally spilled the beans. This is already one very loved baby! We're all anxious about my first appointment on January 17, but I'm seeing the awesome Dr. M who figured out our scar tissue problem, so at least I know that I'll be in good hands.

It's a strange feeling, blogging from this side of the infertility fence, but I don't plan to forget about everything we went through to get to this point. Infertility is still a very important part of my story.

Well, it's about freaking time

Remember this? Well, I finally got a call from my OB/GYN this afternoon. FINALLY! I told him that we'd done a lot of soul-searching and that we decided that we wanted to at least get the appointment scheduled in case we're not pregnant by the time it comes around. Since it should take at least 2-3 months to actually get seen, and we'll be almost 6 months post-lap by then, he agreed that making the appointment now was a good idea.

I still have to wait for our insurance to process the request (which probably won't happen for 2-3 weeks) but after then I can make the appointment. I wish things were moving faster at this point, but for now I'm satisfied that the referral is in the pipeline and that we should be in a position to have an RE appointment by my birthday. More than anything else, I hope we end up not having to meet with the RE, but it's going to be nice to have this appointment to fall back on in case it becomes necessary.

Speaking Up

Hypothetical question: Say you're infertile. Say that you share this information with a (formerly) close friend, share your blog address, and in doing so share all your deep, innermost secret thoughts about how it's killing you not to be able to get pregnant. Say this friend essentially cuts off all contact with you for six months, then shows up again out of the blue. Say that after exchanging a few e-mails she tells you that she's pregnant and then disappears again. What do you do?

If you're me, you let it eat at you for months before deciding to write a blog post about it.

Here's the thing--I don't want to be treated like a pariah. I don't want people to feel like they have to cut off all contact with me if they get pregnant before I do. That's not friendship. If you don't know what to say, ask me. If you feel uncomfortable, tell me. If you're just not sure how to act around me, start a conversation. Don't just abandon me. Don't just pretend we were never close.

I don't even know if the person I'm writing about even still reads this blog. Part of me hopes that she doesn't because of how much sensitive information I post here. I don't want someone who doesn't value our friendship to know some of these things. Then again, part of me hopes that she does occasionally check in because I need her to know how I feel. I need her to know that her actions had repercussions, and that she's hurt me. Deeply.