Emotional Bookends Today

I'm at the end of day two of parent conferences. 16 down, 10 to go. I'm exhausted, but I have to share this.

In the span of one day, I had two experiences that I just can't stop thinking about.

My first conference of the day was for a kid I love. My teaching partner and I sat for a while going through the usual list of topics - social, work habits, math, reading, social studies...you know the deal. Near the end of the meeting the mom shared with us that they are going through the adoption process. In that second, every fiber of my infertile being started to explode with emotion. I was so happy to hear that this wonderful family was opening their home (to an older child!), and so warmed by the excitement on their faces when they discussed it. Then, it dawned on me that this might very well be a situation of secondary infertility. I would never ask that directly. Instead, I asked them whether they knew about RESOLVE's adoption seminars and support groups. Just as I said it, the mom and I had a moment of understanding. She said she hadn't heard about that and wrote down the information, but I swear, I realized right then that she very well might be one of us.

Then, during my last conference of the day, I had the polar opposite explosion of emotions. I sat across from a mother, trying to talk about her son's behavior in class, and all I could think about was the fact that she had a full term still birth two years ago. I remember hearing the announcement from my Head of School vividly. I knew her son casually then, and had only met her in passing. Still, the thought of carrying a baby all the way to delivery and then losing it is just too overwhelming. As we carried out the conference, I realized that I wasn't worried about that happening to me. Instead, I was more worried about how difficult it might be to sit across from me during the conference, with my big belly. I wondered if she was okay with it, or if it hurt her to be in my presence. I wondered how she was doing. I wondered if she would ever try to have another baby. Somehow I resisted the urge to ask her all of those questions, hug her, and tell her that I was so sorry for her loss.

What a day.

True Life fans?

I am completely overwhelmed with the beginning of the new school year, so I have been a bad, bad blogger. I'm behind reading, writing, and generally keeping up. I will be back soon, but for now I'm trying to keep my chin above water at work.

In the meantime, I wanted to spread the word about a media call that RESOLVE put out. I'm too much of a geezer to participate, but maybe some of you are spring chickens:

MEDIA ALERT: MTV is doing a “True Life” show on infertility. RESOLVE staff recently spoke to the producers, discussed their approach, and advised on how to address infertility. Now MTV is looking for people to share their stories. Have you always wanted to have a baby and are finding out that getting pregnant isn't as easy as it seems? Do you plan to seek help from a fertility clinic? Has trying to have a baby left you emotionally, physically, and financially drained? If you want to share your story, are age 18-29, are currently struggling with fertility issues, please email your name, story, location, PHONE NUMBER, and photograph if possible to MTVInfertile@mtv.com 

My To-Do Lists have To-Do Lists

I don't know where the summer went. One minute, I was wrapping up end-of-year meetings at school, and the next I'm preparing to return on Monday. Although every summer goes quickly for me, this one really seemed jam packed. Between taking a few small trips, searching for day care, doctor's appointments, projects, tutoring, a week in Maine, and working on some curriculum material, it just flew.

Monday, I'll be back at school. Once again, I'll turn into "Mrs. HRF." It's a little known fact that teachers get just as nervous about the new school year as students do. I always get some nerves during this last week of summer, but this year I'm even more anxious. The truth is, I'm really going to have to dig deep to give my normal 100% at school this fall. Not only am I preoccupied with The Nugget but there will also be two other brand spanking new curriculum initiatives in my classroom, which puts me pretty far out of my comfort zone. After eight years of teaching, I'm having to completely change the way I teach. It's a lot to handle, knowing I'll miss 12 weeks of it. 

The best way I know to handle anxiety is to talk about it and write things down. So, this week, I made a pretty comprehensive Baby To-Do list for KG and I to tackle. Holy crap. By the end, the list is at least 20 items long, including cleaning tasks, nursery prep, appointments, phone calls, and more. Then I realized some items on the list necessitated another list, and a post-it.

What I worry about most is how there is going to be enough of me to go around. Logically, I know KG will help me get through the list of practicalities. He will help me clean out our office, move it to another room, and create a nursery. We will rent a truck and pick up the furniture we are receiving from friends and family. We will scrub this place down before the shower. The carpet will get shampooed. Somehow, by the time this baby arrives, the tedious stuff will happen, even though it feels daunting.

I'm more worried about how to accomplish all that, AND be a good teacher, good wife, good friend, and a prepared mama. Then that snowballs into worrying about how I'm going to handle training a maternity leave sub and going back to work in April, after my leave. There almost isn't room right now to be concerned with things like actual parenting and infant care!

I know a lot of my anxiety is purely the anticipation. Once I start again, I'll have to figure out how to manage it all. KG also made a good point the other day. He said I might need to learn how to be okay with not being able to do everything I did before. I'll need to learn how to say no to certain duties, admit when I'm tired, and get my work ego in check. All true.

Thank goodness, just when I'm near meltdown, The Nugget reminds me of the real priority with a kick, nudge, or push.
_______________________________
PSA: RESOLVE is asking for video submissions for this campaign. I am considering making one, and you should too.

Attachment

No, not attachment parenting. I'm talking about blog attachment. Lately, I've had a difficult relationship with my blog.

I love this space. I am deeply attached to it. I have "met" (actually, I did meet Jen IRL for lunch yesterday! It was awesome!) incredible women through it, poured my heart out on it, ranted, raved, mused, and gained insight from comments. The blog is very important to me.

But.

I've been much less motivated to write lately. The other day, I wrote a post where I was extremely vulnerable. I had a really bad day. As I often do, when I'm struggling with an issue, I bring it here. For the first time ever, I got a nasty anonymous comment that kicked me while I was down. I know this comes with the territory when you write a blog, but it did sting. I have been living in a blogger bubble for the last year or so (never having had a troll before) so I don't have much experience shaking these things off. It made me pause for the first time about what I write here. I don't want that horrible person to have that kind of effect on me, or the blog. I know the more experienced bloggers might be rolling their eyes as they read this. I need to work at building a tougher skin.

Maybe my reluctance to write also has to do with how boring I've been lately. Because I am lucky enough to get to enjoy summer vacation, I've been spending my days running errands, finding day care for after my maternity leave (yup, 9 months early), lunching with friends, and reading. Exciting huh? By the way, the day care thing deserves an entirely separate post. What an education I gained over the last few weeks.

Really I think it comes down to the fact that the best benefit of being pregnant right now is the mental break I am getting from everything infertility related. I spent two and a half years stuck in a vicious cycle of mental anguish, followed by hope, ending with more mental anguish. It was exhausting but it fueled my writing. Now that I am feeling more confident that this baby might actually be born, it has given me an opportunity to actually be happy and spend some time quietly enjoying it. It's a foreign feeling. I even shipped off my leftover meds to a blogger who needed them, giving me a huge sense of relief. By mailing that box, I felt myself letting go of some of the pain that infertility laid on my shoulders.

Don't take any of this to mean that I am going to stop blogging. I am here. I am staying.

But it's taking me some time to accept that my blog is in transition. It's changing the way I am changing. I can't write about all the same things I did, because I'm preoccupied with new topics, as well as some of the old ones.

The truth is, I will always be an infertile. After this baby is born, I will still have PCOS. I will likely still never ovulate. I will need to unfreeze my embryos in order to have another child. None of that changes with the success of this IVF. But, the pregnancy has changed things. I am not strictly an infertile anymore. I'm something else. I'm also stronger, wiser, and have infinitely more gratitude.

This week, I volunteered in the RESOLVE New England offices for the first time. I met with the director and we talked about how one of the things RESOLVE is dealing with is how to keep women who have found success connected to the organization. This rang true for me (and the blog) as well. Volunteering for RESOLVE will continue to help me stay connected to our journey, and not just the result.

I still follow and root for all of the bloggers still struggling. Even if I don't always comment, I am reading and thinking of all of you. I am also thrilled for many of you who have been in the recent wave of BFPs. There sure are a lot right now! But, as expected, I lost a few followers over the last few weeks. I don't know if it is specifically because I am pregnant, or maybe I touched on controversial topics regarding medication and pregnancy (or even working outside the home?). I don't take it personally, but it did make me sad. It seems unavoidable to lose connection with some people once our situations change.

However, I'm hoping many of you will continue to stick with me while I get more comfortable with how I, and the blog, evolve.

Don't Ignore The Woman Underneath the Label/NIAW

RESOLVE and RESOLVE New England are sponsoring National Infertility Awareness Week between April 22-28th. This week has been on my mind for some time. Infertility has become such an ingrained part of who I am, and there is such misunderstanding, ignorance, and silence around the topic. I really feel like the only way to give infertility the understanding and attention it deserves is for the women affected by it to own it - to publicly say, "This is a disease that affects millions of women - probably your friends, family members, and co-workers included. It affects women like me."

RESOLVE challenged bloggers to write on the topic, "Don't ignore..." as it relates to their infertility journey, for NIAW. For me, this was the first thing that came to mind.

Don't ignore the woman underneath the label of "infertile."

Although I was diagnosed infertile in January of 2011, after a year of trying and a miscarriage, it took me a long time before that word really sank in. As it became more real for me, I became overwhelmed by the word itself. For a while, I obsessively researched my own issue (PCOS) and tried every possible "cure" to escape the weight of the label. It began to define me. It occupied my every thought, feeling, and activity. It took a while before I was able to get through an hour, evening, or day without being consumed by everything related to infertility. How could there be room for anything but charts, thermometers, and ovulation tests? Where was there room for me - my real self that existed before trying to have a baby?

If I could go back in time and tell myself (or any other women going through this experience) one thing, it would be this: don't lose sight of the person you are beyond the label. Underneath the diagnosis, you are a warm, breathing, person with so much at stake. Don't ignore the part of yourself that needs nurturing while in a crisis. Don't isolate, torture, or neglect yourself. Fight against the crushing anxiety, sadness, and feelings of failure that are so common among us. Fight against all of those who believe infertility treatment to be an easy choice. This is a marathon, not a sprint. You must conserve your strength for the obstacles to come.

Instead, seek support. Talk to people. Pursue your hobbies. Spend quality time with your spouse. Seek out a promotion at work. Spark your interest in something new. Read good books. See funny movies.  Do whatever keeps you present in your own life.

It is the hardest thing in the world to do these things, but consider this: 

If you don't care for the woman peeking out from under the label, what will be left when your TTC journey is over?

For more information:
http://www.resolve.org/infertility101
http://www.resolve.org/national-infertility-awareness-week/about.html 

In no particular order...

I am a big jumble of thoughts today. Perhaps it is the hormones. Perhaps it is the effect of 26 ten year olds for 8 hours a day. Who knows? Do you mind if this is a little stream of consciousness?

___________________________________________
I'm injecting away over here. I had my first monitoring appointment on Monday after 3 days on stims, but nothing exciting was happening yet. I get monitored again Wednesday morning. Here's hoping my follicles are waking up a bit in there.

In case you were wondering, Menopur still sucks. Whoever made that medication was a complete masochist.
___________________________________________
I had an amazing conversation with the executive director at Resolve New England this week. We discussed opportunities to volunteer and get involved with advocacy efforts this summer, when I have more time to devote to the cause. This is really exciting for me, and I'm looking forward to it.
___________________________________________
I have been thinking about how easy it is to be hard on ourselves. My first instinct is always to look in the mirror and criticize, insult, and pick myself apart. I would never say the things I say to myself to another person. They are just too mean. What is even worse is how easy it is to fall into patterns like these, then it becomes an ongoing habit. So negative. So harsh.

I think it's time to make a more active effort to be kinder, softer, and more supportive of myself. I started today, by taking myself to the gym, and trying to be proud of myself for putting in a couple of miles on the treadmill. It may not have been a spin class as it might have been a year ago, but it was something.
___________________________________________

If you haven't yet, go over to Searching For Our Silver Lining and give Cristy a big, huge cyber hug. She experienced her second loss this week and could use some love. She is an AMAZING person, who buys the best fertility socks a girl could ask for.

_____________________________________________

Mel wrote an excellent post on validation. At the end of her post, she thanked her readers for making her feel as though her words matter. For making her feel as if she matters. She said it more eloquently than I can, but the feeling is the same.

Thank you to everyone who reads this blog, takes a moment to comment, and sends me so much support during all this madness.

Hiding in Plain Sight Revisited - NIAW

National Infertility Awareness Week is coming up and it has been on my mind a lot. NIAW is an opportunity to do exactly what I want most: to help educate those who don't understand the experience of infertility, and to support other women who know that experience all too well. I am feeling more and more of a call to get involved with IF advocacy and I have made some small steps in that direction lately. (More on this in coming weeks.)

Then there is the but...

But, this would require me to be more public with my infertility. Between reading Keiko's posts on the subject, some soul searching, and several conversations with KG, I am feeling some urgency to finally be 100% "out" with my infertile status. A while back, I wrote a BlogHer post on this topic, and it is once again in the forefront of my mind. However, this time it isn't my blog that I am thinking of publicizing. I am considering coming out on BookFace.

I have been right on the precipice of doing this for quite some time. I would say I am 90/10 out.

Even though I still blog anonymously, almost all of my friends (at least the close ones) and my immediate family know I am in IF treatment and many read this blog. I also told my boss and a few select co-workers (most of whom are IFers as well.) Little by little, I have been honest with more and more people. I even came out to a few friends of friends, because they were also IFers and I wanted to reach out. It's almost like I am trying to swim in the ocean. I started by dipping my toes in. Then I waded to my knees, then my thighs, then my waist. But I can't quite seem to dive into a wave.

This is the deal: I have not gotten to the point where I am comfortable having all my co-workers finding out. The biggest factor holding me back is that I am a teacher. One thing you should know about teachers is that they are chatty and love to gossip. I hope I'm not throwing my fellow teachers under the bus here, but if you have ever been in a teacher's lounge, you know how it goes. They also tend to let things slip to parents on occasion. I am not friends with any parents on FB, but you know the way the internet is: you have to be ready for everything to become public, even without your consent. You just have to own it. Am I really ready for the families or students at my school finding out? Not so much.

But maybe taking the risk is worth it. Maybe this would mean people at school would finally stop asking me that dreaded question: "So when are you going to have kids?"

Additionally, I have mixed feelings about personal information being put out there on social media. On one hand, I feel like people overshare. I don't need to know every single thought that every single person I knew from elementary school has. (Although I am probably a complete hypocrite because I also share inane musings pretty often.) However, no one can deny that social media is a powerful tool. It reaches a lot of people in an instant and can spark amazing social change. Think of the recent movements related to Trayvon Martin, Personhood legislation, and Rush Limbaugh's disgusting rant. The more people that show support for NIAW and RESOLVE on FB, Twitter, Pinterest, and Google+ the more it will become seen as a legitimate and respected cause.

So, the question is: is supporting NIAW publicly on my FB page, and acknowledging my place in the IF community in that forum, worth it? Does it do enough good to outweigh the risk? Should I do it but set the privacy on the post to exclude my coworkers? Is that wussing out?

While stuffing our faces with sushi last night (that's right - infertility has some perks) KG reminded me that being honest about our fertility issues is a powerful thing. Specifically, in the last several months, I have been chatting with one of those friends of friends that I mentioned above. Although we don't know each other very well, she confided in me about her own battle with IF. She chose not to tell anyone close to her about her journey, even her mother. But, because I was open with her about my experience, she decided to share. During one of our many conversations, she told me how much of a difference having my support makes for her. She said she feels so much better, because she feels less isolated. Less alone.

Sound familiar? Isn't this exactly what we all say about the blogging community? Isn't that why we are all here? What if we could all have that in a bigger arena, the way cancer survivors do?

Helping other IFers by sharing my experience makes me feel like I have purpose. I can only imagine that feeling with increase tenfold if I supported them in a more public way. I really want to do this, but as always, I am standing in my own way.

What would you do?

A morning full of interesting infertility moments

This morning has been full of surprises. I was pretty pissed off when I woke up before 7am. But man, has the day improved!

First, I was perusing the RESOLVE New England website (ok, I was looking to see if my Poker Face blog got any comments) and I went to their advocacy page. I have been considering getting involved with advocacy efforts, and I wanted to see if there were any opportunities to get involved.

Then, when I scrolled down, there was a video of an advocate and board member speaking at the RESOLVE conference in November. I read her name, and then re-read it.

I know her.

I don't want to say too much, but I know her professionally. She is a lovely person. In retrospect, I remember her mentioning how she had difficulty conceiving, but that was years ago, before we were trying to have a baby.

Although I am not out at work, I think I am going to contact her. I am dying to talk to her about her work with RESOLVE. I'm feeling pretty excited!

Second, I got a call from a friend of a friend today. She just had her IVF consult and was feeling overwhelmed. She reached out to me, and we spent a long time on the phone discussing her fears and questions. Basically, I let her know that her cycle would be stressful, but not nearly as hard as she thinks it will be. I hesitated to tell her our outcome, but she asked. So, I tried to stress how rare our failed fertilization was and that most women have a lot of success with IVF, even if it takes more than one cycle.

We ended the call with her telling me how much better she felt. Apparently, hearing my perspective really eased some of her anxiety. I almost cried. What she doesn't know is that in sharing my experience, it helped me as much as it helped her. I am so glad I could help her. It sort of feels like my shitty IVF cycle DID have a purpose after all.

Now if I could get the motivation to get out of my bathrobe and over to Target, the day would be a true success.

3 words

Proud.  Excited. Accomplished. Those are the three words that describe me most today. They don't describe me every day. Some days, the words might be drastically different. But today, those fit.

Why do you ask?

Proud: It's just a little thing, but RESOLVE New England featured my Poker Face post on their newly revamped website. A big high five to their new, awesome Director of Communications and Social Media - Keiko Zoll for giving me the opportunity to reach a wider audience. Nothing makes me happier than writing (and blogging specifically) and seeing myself "published" gives my noggin a nice swell.

I am a member of RESOLVE and am working up the courage to start attending their peer groups. Do any of you go? Do your spouses go? I have a good support system and a private therapist. But, still. It might be good to talk IRL with other IFers. Give me the lowdown, ladies.

Excited: Today was my first session of electroacupuncture in a while. It feels like a solid step toward helping my ovaries to heal and shrink any nasty cysts left over from the IVF of doom. I also got all of my insurance clearance for IVF#2 and ICSI in the mail. That means I should get the call from my RE's office soon, with my Lupron start date. I am SO ready to start over. Let's get this show on the road!

Accomplished: I've had some really good teaching moments the last couple of weeks. As a teacher, I don't always have those days. Sometimes Many times, it is a struggle to get through to kids in a way that really sticks. Other times, you nail it. Lately, whether it is that point in the year when ten year olds start to turn into real students, or that I just happened to design a few good lessons, I see the tide turning with a few of them. That's what makes the stress, frustration, low pay, and long hours of teaching worth it.

So, what 3 words describe you today?