The year in review

Dec 31, 2008: We arrived in Denver for IVF #5. CCRM was going to be the answer to our prayers! New Years Eve was spent taking my injection and getting settled into the hotel room which was going to be home for the next several days.

Jan 2009: The first half of the month was spent in CO. I went through my 5th ER – 31 eggs were retrieved! Yes, CCRM did seem to be the answer to our prayers! The rest of the month was spent in waiting for fert reports, growth reports, PGD reports (we did a freeze all cycle). We have 4 PGD normal embryos!

Feb 2009: I started prepping my lining for FET. My lining didn’t seem to be growing very well. Almost the entire month was a whirl of lupron, estrogen patches, delestrogen injections and ultrasounds.

March 2009: I was still on Lupron! It had been almost 7 weeks on Lupron and I was going insane. My lining was not growing, and nothing seemed to budge it. I tried acupuncture, “bone soup”, hot foods, delestrogen, estrogen patches, estrace suppositories and everything else I could think of. But no luck. I called off the cycle and decided to take a break.

April 2009: I was on a break, and we were in need of a salary coming into the house. I started looking for a job, found one and started working. My uncle (mom’s brother) in Nashua was very sick and I spent a week there with him and his family. It didn’t look good, and he didn’t look like he would make it much longer.

May 2009: When AF came, we decided to get back on to the FET bandwagon. I started Lupron and all of the same insanity again.

June 2009: My parents came from India – to be with my uncle and help him and his family out. Uncle was deteriorating. In the meantime, my lining was doing the same “no growth” pattern as before. I was now on heavy doses of delestrogen and patches and suppositories. My FET date kept getting pushed out because my lining wasn’t good enough. At the end of the month, my uncle passed away.

July 2009: Most of the month was still spent on Lupron and estrogen. By the time it came to FET at the end of the month, I had been on Lupron for about 8 weeks! Crazy? Yes, absolutely! My lining barely made it to the minimum required level, and we decided to proceed with transfer. We transferred two beautiful looking grade AA blastocysts.

August 2009: BFN. Not much to note for the rest of the month. How many people do you know who are childless even after 5 IVFs? Besides me, I can count maybe 2-3 others. Not a whole lot. It’s a sad, sparsely populated club to be in.

September 2009, October 2009, November 2009: Honestly, it’s all a blur. I can’t remember much of what happened in these three months. Somewhere along the line, we started talking seriously about domestic adoption. DH is the project leader for our adoption program. He did all the research and we finalized on the agency we want to go with. We also got a potential birth mom situation that made us so excited.

December 2009: Here we are, at the end of a year that I hoped would bring us the answers we needed. CCRM did not turn out to be the answer to our prayers. We are on the brink of 2010, and we are still looking for answers. We still have 2 frozen blastocysts but we are out of steam. I also am not sure my lining will cooperate any time soon. Most importantly, I am not ready to stick another needle into me – not for the foreseeable future. We have filled out our application forms for domestic adoption and have sent them in. We are waiting for our home study to get done. We are trying to be hopeful for 2010, but have been let down and disappointed too many times before to put much hope into our hearts. We are more realistic now, more cautious with the dreams in our minds. My motto is: Hope for the best, but expect the worst. Who knows, life may pan out somewhere in between.

It was good while it lasted

Nobody said the adoption process was going to be smooth sailing, but after 8 years on a stomach churning, vomit inducing roller coaster ride called infertility, I was secretly hoping we’d get a break and the universe would put us into the “preferential treatment” category. A girl can dream, can’t she?

It all started 2 months ago. When I wrote this post, we were close to finalizing which agency we would go with, and we were close to initiating the entire paperwork. We wrapped our minds around bringing home a baby of a different race, and started visualizing in our minds a baby in our arms, a baby that we would love unconditionally – our baby.

And then we got a call – from the same agency that we were finalizing to sign up with. Hold your breath – they told us they had been contacted by a social worker in Nevada, who had been contacted by an Indian family. There was a young girl in this family who was pregnant, and they were considering placing this baby up for adoption.

As you can imagine, our world did an instant flip flop! The agency said they remembered us from our conversation with them, and since it was rare for them to come across an Indian baby up for adoption, they thought of asking us if we would be interested.

IF we would be interested??? Of course we would be interested!!

Mind you, we weren’t even signed up with the agency yet, so they really had no obligation to bring us this potential match! So in our naïve minds, we started believing this was meant to be! This was the universe’s way of cutting us a break, and making something easy for us. We couldn’t stop smiling!

The agency gave us less than 2 days to prepare our “Dear Birthmother” letter and our profile booklet. We worked like insane people on a mission! Writing, selecting pictures, creating the profile, printing, binding, rushing to the agency etc.

And then the wait started. I literally had my phone attached to me like an additional appendage all the time. How cool was this! Unlike other couples who usually don’t get the chance to “customize” their profiles and letters to the birthmom’s situation, we had been so lucky to have some information about the birthmom. We knew she was Punjabi (ie, from around the part of India my family is from), so our pictures depicted our Indian roots more than we would have initially imagined. Our letter was written in English, and I also wrote out a copy in Indian! Our profile literally was screaming: “Pick Me! Pick Me!”

We were so sure this was going to work! I mean, how couldn’t it? There had to be karma involved in this, right?

One week went past. No phone call. Two weeks went past. No phone call. We followed up with the agency. They had not heard either, and they promised to follow up with the social worker. They came back saying the social worker had not heard anything either.

One month went past. No phone call. Now it’s almost 2 months. I’m not carrying my phone like it’s my lifeline anymore. The agency never heard anything back. They feel no news means it didn’t work out. And I’ve stopped hoping too. Yes, there is that tiny little sliver of chance that MAYBE, just maybe, it will still happen, and that the birth mom and her family (her dad was the one driving the entire conversation with the agency in the beginning) may still call us. But then there is the very real and probably more likely possibility that we will never hear from them.

We don’t know if they didn’t pick us, and picked someone else from another agency, or if someone within their family / friend circle offered to take care of the baby or if they decided not to put the baby up for adoption after all. Who knows what their reality and situation is at this point.

But it was good while it lasted. The shine and sparkle in our eyes was worth it! We allowed ourselves to hope so much about this working out that we actually had conversations revolving around me taking time off from work, and us having to figure out day-care etc.! Pre-mature yes, but it was a huge first for us.

We had never before come within touching and feeling distance of a baby like this! This birth mother is due on Jan 27! If this match had worked out, we really would have had to have all those conversations and decisions in place by now!

But I guess it’s not so simple in my life. The universe and karma and fate and whoever else is not cutting me any slack. The adoption ride may turn out to be as crazy a roller coaster as our IF treatment ride. Hop on and hang tight!

Angelversary

It’s been 2 years since that fateful appointment with my RE. I can remember every minute of that appointment like it happened just yesterday. Him smiling when he came into the room, telling us that was our last appointment with him, asking us if we had made an appointment with a perinatologist for subsequent visits.

And then the ultrasound when our world came tumbling down.

The RE’s shaking hands as he tried desperately to find that heartbeat, to dismiss his suspicions. His voice, higher pitched than usual, saying “There is no heartbeat”.

Numbed silence from DH and me. No tears, no words, no nothing. What could we say? Then the whole whirl of things – someone saying “Let’s schedule the D&C”, someone coming and hugging me, saying “I’m so sorry”. DH and me looking at each other, holding hands, still numbed and silenced by the events.

Two years to the day.

They say time is the best healer. I think time just dulls the pain. The actual pain remains forever. The loss remains forever. All time does is make memories dull and faint. I can feel the choking lump in my throat as I type this right now. The pain is still there, right at the surface.

If anything is fading, it’s my memories of how it felt to be pregnant. That was the only pregnancy I felt anything. Not being able to sleep on my tummy as I usually do, because my breasts hurt so much. Not be able to stay awake past 8 PM because I was just SO exhausted. Wanting to eat meat that was cooked with a lot of spice. I am not a beef eater – I didn’t even know how it tastes, but I swear, watching those steakhouse commercials on TV at that time would make me want to go eat steak right then!

But those memories are fading away. Every week, every month, every year, I am further away from the time I was pregnant.

I’ve been working very hard at accepting the cards that have been dealt out to me. I got tired of being angry at the universe. But then it’s days like today when the floodgates open, and everything comes pouring back in. Why us? What did we do wrong? Our baby would have been almost a year and a half old today. We should have had a home full of toys, and baby clothes and diapers and formula, and baby food. Instead, it’s just us, 2 more years older, no closer to having a family now than we were then!

On this day last year, as I wrote a blog entry, I was getting ready for my CCRM IVF. I still had hope. If my uterus was the problem, we had "fixed" it. If DH's translocation was the problem, we were doing genetic testing anyway. The cycle at CCRM HAD to work. Well, it didn't. We all know how that IVF cycle turned out.

Today, I feel miserable. Simply miserable. We did all we could, because we had the ability to hope, and we had the stamina to keep trying. We lost.

Somewhere in the universe…..

November is Adoption Awareness Month, and so far, the month has been just that for us. More and more awareness about adoption.

We started the month by kicking off some of the steps for home study. We got our fingerprinting done first, because fingerprinting results take up to 3-4 weeks to come back. (Of course my finger printing wasn’t without drama! We discovered that my little pinky fingers don’t “print” very well. I have faint lines on my palms anyway, and the little pinkies are practically “smooth”. The fingerprint technician was making jokes with me, saying “If you ever turn to a life of crime, use your pinky fingers, so you don’t leave fingerprints! She then started referring to me as the “Pinky Finger Bank Robber”! Ha! Can you imagine that? I on the other hand couldn’t help but wonder if my fingerprints are getting eroded and my fingertips are now smooth because of all the “drumming my fingers” I have done in the last 8 years! So much of infertility and treatments involved waiting, doesn’t it? Hence the finger drumming…. get it? Get it?)

Then we got our medicals done. And as always, not without drama. No sir, in my life, nothing is without drama! DH went to his doctor, got a physical exam, got some blood work done, and was on his way. For me, drama.

As part of my physical, my Dr. ordered some blood work and X-ray. I went to get my X-Ray done, and after I was changed into the paper gown, the lab tech asks me “So I think I asked you this already, and you told me you are not pregnant, right?” No, lady, you did not ask me, and yes, while I am not pregnant, it shouldn’t be SO obvious, should it? I should at least be asked!!

Then I went to get the rest of my blood work done. I filled out my name and DOB on the check in form, and I get called up immediately.

Nurse: “Is this for your son?”
Me: …………………………… “No” (Couldn’t for the life of me figure out why she would assume that, till she pointed out that I had put 2009 in the “year” on the DOB part of the form!! D’oh! Why me?)

I finally get called in, and the phlebotomist puts on her glove and looks for my vein. She finds the vein, looks up at me, and says: “Looks like you’ve been poked a lot”. I said yes, and asked her how she could tell. She said she could feel all the scarring in my veins from the blood draws I have had earlier.

I could have let myself get sucked into the unfairness of it all, all the reminders, all the drama, and question the universe about the injustice that has been doled out towards me, and I did, for a tiny bit. I did have a “Woe is me” pity party for a little bit. But I am not going to allow myself to get sucked into that whirlpool again. I’m focusing on the end goal this time, and I have my sights set on bringing baby home.

The agency that we have selected as our adoption agency had an “Adoption Day Party” this weekend. DH and I went, to make use of the opportunity to meet other people in our shoes. It was an awesome experience. We met some birthmoms, and some adoptive families. There were little babies crawling / running around, and it was pure joy watching them.

Meeting the birthmoms was the best part. Talking to them brought images to my mind that this could work. We could, at the end of this, bring a child into our family in this way! We can actually do it! I hugged some of the birth moms after they shared their stories with us, and felt that all too familiar choke in my throat, and the sting of tears in my eyes. These birth moms are mere girls! 18 years old, 20 years old! They look like little kids! If we had had children at their age, some of them could actually BE our children! (I mean age wise)

I don’t know how our path ahead will be. I don’t know how rocky or smooth our adoption journey will be, but I do believe that somewhere in the universe, the wheels are turning. And our baby is making its way towards us. Only, none of us know how, and when it will all come together. But it will. It has to.

This one's for the girls

This is a story about real life friends. A story about how a group of ladies that met as part of a support group grew to becoming a group of ladies that were supporting each other through some of the toughest times in each others’ lives.

A little over a year ago, Shelby commented on my blog for the first time, and she said she also lived in the San Francisco Bay Area, so I said: “Let’s meet.” We met one afternoon, and hit it off. It was so easy to talk to Shelby. She is wonderfully witty, compassionate and very warm.

Shelby had been going to a local support group in San Francisco, and she had met some other ladies there that were also going through IF struggles. She asked if I would be willing to come and have dinner with the group some time. At first I hesitated. I had never been to support groups before. I had never talked to “strangers” about my situation in life (I mean, I do talk through my blog, but I have the cover of anonymity here). Shelby asked me if I would be more comfortable if the group included spouses. That way I could ask DH to accompany me. I did, and that’s how I first met “the ladies”.

Our group met quite regularly after that. Sometimes for brunch, sometimes for a drink, sometimes at someone’s house. Everyone was at various stages of their journeys. LW was in the decision making space in between her IUIs and IVF. M was doing IUIs. J was coping with immune issues, and doing IVF coupled with very severe transfusion procedures. OC was going through IVF, and it worked! ME was going through DE and it worked! KW had just had a miscarriage after IVF, and then got pregnant naturally! Shelby’s IVF worked! I was going for my uterus surgery and getting ready for my last hurrah IVF at CCRM.

One by one, it seemed like the group was achieving success. It became a little difficult to be the one(s) left behind. I had by now been lapped several times through the years, so in a way, I was expecting it. But it still made it hard for me to meet the group, especially when the majority of the group was pregnant. We met a couple of new ladies, also from the support group that Sarang met Shelby at. The group sort of started growing in a different direction.

Sarang (her blog is private, so I can’t link it here) was phenomenal through the changes. She reached out to all the pregnant girls one on one, met with them, checked in on them regularly, all while she was going through a failed IVF and failed FETs.

I, on the other hand, let myself withdraw. I felt I needed to. I called it “my coping mechanism” or “self preservation”. I went through my cancelled FET, and subsequently my failed FET, and fell into a dark deep place in my life. I am doing much better now, and now, as I look back, I realize how much of a hand each and every one of these ladies had in gently pulling me out of my trenches. I got emails, voice mails, phone calls, text messages, flowers, and hand written cards in the mail! Each time someone reached out, it put a smile on my face.

See, I had spent 8 years struggling alone with IF. I had never explored support groups. I had grown used to dealing with my failures and losses in my own way – which mostly meant closing down from the rest of the world till I regained the energy and the strength to face life again. Receiving these notes and flowers and messages felt different. And I am so very thankful to everyone for being there.

So Sarang, MV, Shelby, ME, OC, KW, JC, L – if you are reading this, thank you from the bottom of my heart! You rock! You don’t know how much you have helped me by just being there, and by reaching out to me when you knew I needed you, though some of those times, I didn’t know it myself!

OC and ME recently had their babies, Shelby is due soon, and so is KW. MV, Sarang and JC’s journey still continues. My journey continues too. The routes may have changed for some of us, but the destination remains the same – parenthood.

The group continues to meet – sometimes in big groups, sometimes one on one. We now have more members. Recently, Meg found my blog and reached out. She and I met for dinner a couple of months ago. Meg is beautiful, and warm and funny! I introduced her to the original group (or at least the ones still on the TTC bandwagon from that group). Meg introduced us to Melissa, who is a sweetheart! Sarang brought in a few more ladies, and the "new group" met just recently.

So now we have new faces in the group, but the bonding remains the same. The stories are different, but the struggle is the same. And it is so easy to connect with these ladies because everyone gets it. Everyone is in different stages of her journey, but the emotions are the same.

We meet at restaurants and bond over food. And as any veteran IFer, none of us are ashamed of talking about our body parts, or medical procedures, or TTC terminology. I am sure many a fellow restaurant client on the surrounding tables has had trouble ingesting their food if they have ever overheard our conversations! We giggle over stories of cervical mucus, sperm counts, fertilization rates, number of eggs retrieved etc, while proceeding to eat pizza, or chinese food, or whatever else it is that we are eating. No queazy stomachs at our table! On the tables surrounding us? Who knows? And frankly, who cares? Would they rather have queazy stomachs from overhearing IF conversation, or would they rather be us, having that IF conversation?

So this one's for the girls!!

This one's for the girls
Who've ever had a broken heart
Who've wished upon a shooting star
You're beautiful the way you are
This one's for the girls
Who love without holding back
Who dream with everything they have
All around the world
This one's for the girls

I recently noticed on my blog traffic monitor, that someone came to my blog by googling for "real life IF meetings in San Francisco". Whoever that was, if you are reading this, and if you are one of us that needs support, I am sure our group will be more than happy to welcome you. Leave me a comment, and we will include you in our next get together.

Of Race and Ethnicity

Our research into adoption agencies and the adoption process is continuing. Some things are becoming very clear as we dig into the research. And some options are getting eliminated just by who we are and where we are.

We are not US citizens. We are permanent residents, and because of that, international adoption is almost ruled out for us. It’s ironical and sad that this route is so difficult for us, because as far as adopting a baby in India would go, we would be close to the top of the list of preferred adoptive parents for the orphanages and the adoption system in India. We are Indian citizens, living overseas. Most orphanages in India love that combination. However, the immigration rules for the US will not allow us to bring into the country a baby adopted internationally unless we “co-reside with the baby in the country of adoption for 2 years”.

That almost clearly eliminates the international adoption route for us. That is, unless we decide to uproot ourselves from here and go back to India, and we don’t think we can do that. Everything in life is at such a crossroad right now anyway. We want to keep as much constant as we can. So we are trying to keep our home and place of residence constant and work around available options.

As we began “interviewing” agencies and facilitators for adoption, and started asking questions, another piece of information started becoming more and more obvious. It will be almost impossible for us to be matched with a baby of Indian origin. Simply because there aren’t many Indian babies that become available for adoption.

We understand why. It’s cultural. We could get VERY lucky and get matched with an Indian baby, but chances of this actually happening are very slim. As part of our routine questions to the adoption agencies we are talking to, we always ask if they have placed any babies of Indian origin. Most have not had any Indian baby placements. One has, but the frequency has been 2 in the last 8 years. So that’s another option that we see as almost non-existent.

So not only am I having to process the loss of the biological connection, I am also having to process the loss of the ethnic / race connection. We thought it would help us if we spoke with other families that were built through transracial adoptions. Agencies are willing to refer us to families, but they are all families where the adoptive parents are Caucasian / American, and the adopted babies are ethnic. We have so far not been able to find a combination of ethnic (Indian) parents with Caucasian / American children. I had mentioned this to the hyno-therapist when I had my session with her last month. She told me to think of DH and me as pioneers in this field. She said: “If you can’t find the role models you are looking for, you become that role model”

Interesting thought, but still it has been a lot to process. DH has a very wise head on his shoulders. He processes situations like this very practically, and once he is done processing, he is ready to proceed. I, on the other hand, have had many apprehensions. I am trying to deal with each apprehension, and I believe that I am making progress. And with that, I think I am coming to the place where I am accepting that our family is going to be created in a unique way. I am trying to stay focused that the goal is to become a parent, as opposed to the goal being to become pregnant.

We have started talking to our families about their thoughts on transracial adoption. I have spoken with my brother and sister, and during both conversations, got the complete support that I wanted. While I was talking to my sister, I had a very powerful vision of DH and me visiting India with our adopted baby – and in my vision it was a little girl with curly hair and a beautiful laughing face – a very “white” baby, with chubby cheeks. In my vision my entire family was fawning over the baby, and everyone was just so happy! It made my heart skip a beat, and then I realized this was the first time I had actually envisioned an adopted baby in our lives, and more over, this was the first time I had envisioned my family with my baby (biological or otherwise).

I think we are finally ready to move ahead with starting to fill out paperwork and commit to a home study to start with. I am not freaking out about this any more, and I feel we can do it.

Cleaning the slate

I promised my readers that I would write a post about my hypnotherapy session in detail, so here goes.

I had first heard about “hypnosis as a therapy” from a couple of "now ex-smokers" who claimed they did one session of hypnosis and had completely quit smoking after that. One of the people had been smoking for over 20 years, and had never been able to quit, but one session of hypnosis did wonders for him, and he has not had the urge for even a single puff after that.

I always wondered how that worked. I mean, what can one session of any kind of therapy do? And what is hypnotherapy anyway? One would imagine that the therapist would hypnotize you. And then what? Do they “make you” do goofy things? So I was always very wary of any such therapy. I mean, I’m wary of regular therapy too! Perhaps that explains why I have never been to a therapist so far.

But then Jill mentioned that she was considering hypno-therapy geared towards fertility. And she wrote a couple of posts about her experiences with the sessions she took. I found myself more than curious. As I read and researched, I realized that this was different. They don’t “hypnotize” you. In fact, your session could be done on the phone! From the comfort of your own home. Thank you Jill for sharing your experience!

I knew I needed help – there was no doubt about that. I needed help to sort out my thoughts, and I needed help to be able to decide on my path forward. I decided to try one session of hypnotherapy, because I felt like that would help me on the sub conscious level, and that’s where I needed help. So I set up an appointment.

The therapist and I spoke for about an hour. I went over my IF background, and told her that I was having trouble staying positive any more. And that I was letting my negativity take over many aspects of my life. And at the crossroads where we were (ie, “Where do we go from here?”), I wanted to somehow get that positivism back into my thinking. I knew we had some very big decisions in front of us, and I did not want my bad energy affecting my decisions. I wanted us to be able to plan our future with a balanced mind. In short, I wanted a clean slate.

The therapist asked questions about our backgrounds, and our families, our religion, our culture etc. She commented that I seemed to be quite “left brained” – and that she got from the fact that I tried to have my life totally planned out and in control. I got my education, got married, got a job, bought a house etc – all left brain activities. She said that trying to have a child is part left brain, part right brain activity. The right brain or the creative side of your brain plays a very important role in TTC, because one has to be able to visualize the child that one is creating. And one should not forget that the child is creating you too – ie, the child is making you a mother. It is a very important transition. She said it seemed like over the years of TTC and IF treatment, I had let the left brain take control – to take TTC as a project and get the treatment done, one after the other, one step after the other. She was going to try and “wake up” my right brain, so that there could be balance on both sides.

She said it was natural for someone going through repeated treatment cycles to let go of the harmony of the body, mind and spirit. And it is very important to have the body, mind and spirit work in harmony. 

She also said that I needed to thank my uterus / ovaries for all the stuff I had put them through – all the IVFs, the D&Cs, the surgeries etc. And it struck me that I had spent the entire last year “not trusting” my uterus. Quite contrary to what she was saying. She asked me what I thought my uterus would say to me if I were to “meet my uterus for coffee”. My first reaction was “I think my uterus would take out a gun and shoot me in the face for putting it through everything I have”.

I told her I was at the junction where we have to decide what to do next, and no option seems easy. She said that she obviously could not make my decisions for me, but she would try and help me clean my slate enough so I could make my decisions myself, sensibly.

I asked her if I appeared like too much of a gone case, or if there was any hope for me. She said I was exactly where I was supposed to be, given everything I had gone through. She then sent me an audio file that I have been listening to. She said that I should not feel pressure to have a particular kind of reaction to the audio file. If I “fell asleep”, it was ok. If my brain felt alert, it was ok. Basically, whatever reaction I have, is the reaction I am supposed to have. No rights and wrongs. I would gain from the recording any which way.

And I do believe it is working. More than anything, I am determined to make it work, because I know I need it to work. I need a clean slate to be able to move on. My slate is not sparkly clean yet, but I believe it’s getting its first erasing.

If anyone is interested, you can check out the hypnotherapist’s website here.

I have done one session so far, and I'm not sure if I will do another one, or more. I'm enjoying the calm place I'm in, and I hope it lasts.