Lawyer Mama

Little Tiny Positives & Other Great Tragedies

This post could also be titled "Here We Go Again."

To recap, at the end of February, I had miscarriage number 6.  That would be number 2 since we started working on Baby 3.0 almost two years ago.  So now we're working on Baby 3.2.

With that backdrop, you can understand why my husband reacted with the colorful phrase "Holy fuckballs," when I texted him this photo.  Because, you see, a little tiny positive at 12DPO is a grey area of immense proportions in my world.  It could be good, it could be bad.  It all depends on where we are at 14DPO when I finally get up the nerve to call my doctor for a blood test.

I know myself.  For the next few days I will take many pregnancy tests and minutely examine each of them.  They will be more studied than climate change or Charlie Sheen's psychotic break.  Are they getting darker?  Are they getting fainter?  Is that a grey evaporation line or a clearly pink line?

Julie has it right, sometimes you can be just a little bit pregnant.  And that totally sucks.  We're in a holding pattern and I'm kicking myself for even taking a pregnancy test this early.  Pregnancy test addiction or not, it feels monumentally stupid right now.

** DPO = Days Past Ovulation

Infertility Sucks, an Update

So, I've been pretty lazy about posting here lately because I've been working my tush off. I still wanted to catch you up to date on some of my posts for Attain Fertility.

Secondary infertility: It is a double edged sword. Those of us with secondary infertility are still suffering, with miscarriages and failed treatments, but some in the infertility community think we should thank our blessings for what we have and go away.

Lawyer Mama Goes to Washington: I headed to the White House for BSF a few weeks ago to talk about military families with the First Lady's staff and it was nice break from obsessing about infertility!

Infertility Testing: I got all of my test results back and the good news is, there's absolutely nothing wrong.  The bad news is, there's absolutely nothing wrong.

 

 

Miscarriages suck.

So I finally wrote about it. 

The miscarriage. Or should I say, the latest miscarriage.

Only, you'll have to go over here to read it.  So sorry, but I don't have the energy to write about it twice.

Pregnancy After Miscarriage

I'm 5 weeks pregnant. I'm just barely pregnant. I've known for 4 days.

In those 4 days I've gone through a whole host of emotions. First was fear. When I saw those two lines I was scared to death. A history of miscarriage will do that to you.

Next came elation. I was also thrilled.  We've been actively trying for more than a year.  We'd just started down the long, expensive road involving a reproductive endocrinologist, many vials of blood and an extremely awkward encounter between my husband and a plastic cup.

Then came the reservations.  I tried to check my feelings and remind myself that it's best not to get attached.  But the thing is, it's really, really hard not to start thinking of myself as expecting a baby when my life immediately had to undergo a number of significant changes for that baby.  First and foremost, my life now revolves around blood sugar levels, insulin and carb counting.  Because my doctor took me off of oral medication and is now slowly increasing my insulin to get my blood sugar levels back under control, I'm seeing some scary numbers I haven't seen in a long time.

And this evening I started spotting.

So now fear is back.  I'm scared to death that this is the beginning of the end.  Or that my high blood sugars are going to cause a miscarriage.  Or that I didn't have my sugars under tight enough control before I got pregnant. Or that my eggs are just old and a miscarriage is inevitable.  Or that there's no particular reason for it, but I'm going to miscarry anyway.

I'm equally afraid that this spotting is absolutely nothing and all is well.

You see, I spotted throughout the first trimester during my pregnancy with Hollis.  But my progesterone was also at a scary low level and my doctor was actually shocked that I didn't miscarry.  He never said this to me, but I can read faces and mannerisms pretty well.  Especially when they seem to be preparing me for disappointment.

So much of my pregnancy with Hollis was scary as hell.  And he made it.  He's now 6 years old and slumbering peacefully in his bunk bed with a stuffed U of Miami ibis, 2 blankies, a red bean bag chair and a blue feather boa. He's one of a kind. Right now, I'm dragging up all those scary pregnancy memories that I'd tried to forget in an attempt to reassure myself.

Until about 2 hours ago, I'd let myself be pretty relaxed about this whole pregnancy thing. But with that first spot of blood, I'm right back where I was 6 1/2 years ago, googling "spotting 5 weeks" and now "miscarriage high blood sugar" and trying not to cry.

***Update: I did miscarry. The spotting was the beginning of the end. We're right back where we started and our next appointment with the RE rescheduled.***

Children, Perception and Infertility

I've written a bit about my infertility issues.  For the most part, however, I keep it on the Attain Fertility website and Facebook community.  While I do discuss the fact that T and I have been trying to have a baby for an eternity awhile with friends and family, we never, ever discuss it in front of the boys. Nonetheless, I swear they somehow know.

Perhaps this is just the age when they get curious about their friends' little brothers and sisters and where new babies come from, but both T and I have recently fielded quite a few questions lately.  Most of the questions are about how babies get out of their mommy's tummy, but T also got one uncomfortable question about how they get in there.  Because the question came from our 4 year old, T neatly dodged it by saying that you had to be married first.  Don't worry, we'll clear up that misconception at a more age appropriate date!

I have never once directly indicated to either of the children that we would like another baby. But, man, they are perceptive!

A few months ago I was looking through the teeny, tiny adorable little baby girl shoes at Target. Not because I even hoped to think I might eventually have one of those, but because I needed them for a photo shoot.  While I tried to decide between the mini red ballet slippers and the shiny black mary janes, Hollis, picked out his own favorite.  He brought over a tiny pair of pink mary janes with a white stitched flower on the toes and handed them to me saying, "When we have a baby sister, she can wear them."

My heart melted.

But I held back my tears and casually told Hollis that I didn't know if he would ever have a baby sister. I still purchased his little pink shoes. (See photo above.)

In the time since that day, I strongly suspect the boys have discussed the possibility of having a baby brother or sister.  While the boys were in the bath last night and I was at a parent association meeting, T overheard an interesting conversation.  Holden asked Hollis, "When is Mommy going to have another baby in her tummy?"  Hollis replied, "Mommy can't have a new baby. She has to get fat first!"

When T told me about this I nearly peed myself laughing, but then I had to pause to wonder where my very perceptive children have picked all of this baby stuff up.  Because, you see, there's this:

I just took a test yesterday afternoon. Only a few hours before Holden began quizzing his younger brother.

When the double line immediately started to appear, I called T upstairs and waited until he'd seen the test before I burst into tears.  After 16 months, several rounds of clomid and one cancelled appointment with a reproductive endocrinologist, I am finally pregnant.  And apparently my children are more reliable than EPT.

I'm also scared to death. Part of it is the usual, "holy crap, what have we done, I'm turning 38 29 in two weeks, we must be insane" stuff.  But the rest of it is about all the pregnancies that have come before this one.  So many times this beginning has ended badly. I'm almost afraid to let myself hope and yet, for some completely irrational reason, I actually feel good about this.

I'm trying not to wait for the other tiny, pink, flowered shoe to drop.

My Secret Addiction to Home Pregnancy Tests

Hi, my name is Stephanie and I like to pee on sticks.

It all started innocently enough.  The first time I got pregnant, it was an accident and I was about 2 weeks late.  (This seems shocking to me now considering how closely I monitor my monthly cycles!) I picked up a test and then another and then one more.  Just to be safe.

There was a certain satisfaction in ripping open the package, reading the instructions, carefully positioning the test, peeing on a stick and then setting it on the counter, watching the clock the whole time.  But I forgot all about that in the “OH MY GOSH, I’M PREGNANT!” reaction that was equal parts horror and elation, followed by the “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe I’m not pregnant anymore” sadness.

I rediscovered my secret love for pregnancy tests a few years later when the husband and I started trying to have a baby on purpose. I got to buy and pee on those pregnancy tests again!  After the miscarriage, I found yet another way to fulfill my illicit craving – the ovulation predictor kit.  Now I could pee on a stick 5 or even 8 or 9 times.  IN ONE MONTH! 

I even picked up the “pee on a stick” lingo and wrote POAS as I talked with all of my fellow addicts on a certain very popular baby site that may start with Baby, contain the word Center and end in dot com.  Yes, there’s a whole raft of POAS addicts out there.  We swapped the best sites to buy them online; we debated the merits of our favorite brands; we pounced on any information found online or off about the purported sensitivity of each test and debated just how early was too early to POAS. 

I'll admit it; I was a bit of a pee stick whore.  I tried them all.  Pink lines and blue lines, plus signs and even words.  You can’t imagine the wonder I felt the first time a pregnancy stick actually used the words “not pregnant.”  I even had a bit of a flirtation with the “alternative” test lifestyle.  You know, I peed in a cup and then dipped a test in.

After all of that, I’m back to my one truly constant POAS relationship – the conservative yet reliable double pink lines.

Yes, I know it’s an odd relationship.  I could save so much money just waiting for my period to show up every month.  But I’ll keep peeing on a stick every month.  You see, it’s what I do and it makes me feel like I have the tiniest bit of control over my life and my infertility journey.  And maybe one of these days I’ll figure out how to POAS without peeing on my hand.

How to Make People Instantly Uncomfortable: Tell Them You're Infertile!

Last weekend, at the BogHer 2010 in conference in New York, I had the chance to attend a panel about blogging grief, loss and tragedy on the internet. One of the panelists was Cecily Kellogg, who blogs as Uppercase Woman and is a noted infertility blogger. Cecily was on the panel to share her experiences after she developed preeclampsia and was forced to terminate her twin pregnancy at 23.5 weeks to save her own life. The stories of all of the panelists, including Cecily’s, were heartbreaking, but they were hopeful as well.

Many people are uncomfortable hearing or even reading about someone’s grief. As people undergoing infertility treatments or with the infertility diagnosis, we are all acutely aware of this. We’ve all suffered through those uncomfortable moments where well meaning family and friends joke about how you’re not getting any younger and you’d better think about having kids before your ovaries shrivel up. If you explain that you’ve been trying for several years and start mentioning ovarian reserve testing and male factor infertility, people just don’t know how to react.

Despite the inability of onlookers to process open grief, everyone on the panel indicated that blogging and the online community they’d found, saved them in many ways. Listening to the women on the panel discuss their grief and loss openly was refreshing. You see, when my husband and I were struggling to have our first child, I wasn’t blogging yet. I kept a diary and it helped to write about it, but we weren’t really sharing our experiences with anyone we knew. The very first time I got pregnant, we told everyone. After I lost the baby, we decided we weren’t going to be in that position again, openly grieving in front of everyone.

Read the rest of this post on the Attain Fertility blog....

Just a reminder to everyone (and to make the FTC happy), I'm a paid outside consultant and Community Manager for Attain Fertility. But I did not attend BlogHer on their dime.

The Wish Tree: Please, Happiness

We’ve all tossed a penny into a fountain or blown out our birthday candles with a wish.  If you’re like me, you’ve done that and you’ve wished on a shooting star, kissed the blarney stone and blown eyelashes all over the place; every time hoping for a baby.

These days, I’ve stopped wishing for a baby because it seems too hard and too certain to disappoint me.  Instead, I wish for happiness and inner peace with my life as it is.  Happiness is a big goal, but somehow it seems smaller than a baby and, after so many disappointments, more attainable.

One way that I try to keep myself peaceful and happy is by writing about my life, my experiences and my feelings about infertility; but not just writing, blogging.  You see blogging gives me a community of people like me.  You may not look like me, act like me or think like me, but you get me.  We have one very important common experience – infertility.

This weekend I attended the BlogHer conference in New York. It’s the largest conference for blogging women in the world and a great source of inspiration for me.  This year was no exception.  During the conference, I attended an event at the Museum of Modern Art and saw Yoko Ono’s Wish Tree in the Sculpture Garden.

I was struck by the tree, not just because its poor branches were weighted almost to capacity with tags, but because of the large number of people who were waiting to add their wishes.  As I watched, hundreds of people waited, wrote and tied their deepest desires to the tree for everyone to see.

It was amazing.  And it reminded me so much of what infertility bloggers do every day.

Infertility has taken me to some dark places.  I was depressed, scared and felt alone, despite the friends and family surrounding me. And while my quest for my first child happened before I began blogging on Lawyer Mama in 2006, the legacy of my depression still lingers.

Read the rest of this post on the Attain Fertility blog....

Just a little reminder to everyone that I am a paid consultant and Community Manager for Attain Fertility.

Infertility: Putting it all Out on the Table

I've made a few veiled references to the fact that T and I are trying to have another baby.  The reasons I don't talk about it on here much are actually pretty silly.  Conventional wisdom says that you should never share such information in case there are problems.  But we were already well into "problem" territory when we tried to have a baby the first time around.

If you're a regular reader here, you know something of my infertility history.  If you're new to my little psychodrama, you can find the major pieces here:

Part I: The Opposite of Fertility is Infertility

Part II: Baby Chase Part II

Part III: 'Tis the Season to be Depressed

Part IV: A Black & White Clock

Part V: A Sidetrip to Iceland

Part VI: Blunt and Blue

I've said in the past that I've never really sought to become an infertility blogger. I started this blog in 2006, after my second son, Little H, was born.  That's not to say that I've ever forgotten, or even really recovered, from the many disappointments we had along the way.  But the past was the past and I realized how lucky we are.

Now, we're trying again and we know it won't be easy because we've been trying for a year now.  I'll be documenting our journey from here on out, because I'm now an outside consultant and Community Manager for Attain Fertility.  I'll be managing the Attain Fertility Blog and Facebook and Twitter Communities online. 

To be absolutely clear for those lovely people from the FTC, I am being paid to be Attain Fertility's Community Manager and to post on their blog.  They are not, however, paying me to write about them on my personal blog, Facebook or Twitter accounts.  So rest assured, I'm only doing so because I think Attain Fertility is wonderful.  They offer some wonderful ways to finance infertility treatments for those of us without unlimited funds and health insurance that only cover infertility testing, rather than treatment. If there was a clinic in my area, I'd go. However, the closest Attain Fertility clinics are in North Carolina or the DC area. That's actually turned out to be a good thing. You can rest assured that I'll be speaking honestly and openly about my treatment experiences because it won't affect my bread and butter in any way.

You can find my inaugural post, Yes, I'm an Infertile Klutz, on the Attain Fertility blog and a bit from my second post below:

The Box of Paddington Bears

Paddington Bear makes me think of childhood.  My mother adored the orphan bear.  I knew the story of Paddington from an early age and my mother’s fascination with that adorable British bear passed on to me.  Adopted by a family when he arrived at Paddington Station with a mysterious, “Please look after this bear” tag on his blue coat, Paddington was cute, fuzzy, and he loved marmalade.  I didn’t know what marmalade was, but I had to try it just for him.  When I pictured myself as an adult with children, I always seemed to be reading them bed time stories featuring my beloved Paddington.

Of course, life doesn’t always turn out the way we hope.

I had my first miscarriage when I was a 27 year old law student.  My husband and I weren’t trying to have a baby and I was equal parts terrified and thrilled to discover I was pregnant at about 10 weeks.  Only a few days later, it was over.  My doctor said there was no reason to suspect there was anything wrong, it was just “one of those things that happen.”  I still thought about the baby that might have been, but I didn’t worry.  I went on with my life.

Fast forward a few years.  I hit 30 and we decided it was time to start trying to have a baby.  Because I’m a Type A person, we had to do everything the “right” way.  We had a preconception appointment; I started taking prenatal vitamins and stopped taking birth control pills.  I ate right, I exercised, and we got pregnant on our very first try.  Morning sickness hit me like a ton of bricks.  I started collecting Paddington Bears for our baby’s bedroom.

Then there was no heartbeat.

Read the rest of this post on the Attain Fertility Blog....

This, I Know

I've been keeping a rather large, life changing secret from everyone.

We're trying to have a baby.

This announcement is probably a surprise to many.  While I've never made wanting a third child a secret, conceiving and carrying a child is not easy for me.  It will be even harder now, 7 years after we first started our "baby chase."  I'm 37 years old.  I'm diabetic.  I'm a "habitual aborter." (And who the hell came up with that incredibly insensitive medical term?)

This will not be easy.

So why am I, in effect, telling the world what T and I haven't even told our families?

I've written about what we went through to have Hollis on this blog before.  Our struggle was unexpected, emotionally draining, scary as hell and changed both T and I forever.  I have never completely gotten over my multiple miscarriages and I know beyond a doubt that I never will.  Of course, we were lucky.  Our painful journey ended with Hollis.

Because of my miscarriages, I will never be able to enjoy a pregnancy.  Most people trying to conceive are excited and hopeful when they see those two lines on the pregnancy test.  I wait for the other shoe to drop.  Because of all the problems that developed while I was pregnant with Hollis, I can't relax until pregnancy is over.  I shudder to think what might have happened if my last biophysical profile had been even one day later than it was.

Hollis was unexpectedly followed by Holden after only 15 months.  Yes, we know how it happened.  We just didn't think that it could happen after our earlier problems.  My endocrinologist laughingly informed me that my pregnancy with Hollis primed the pump.  And the Metformin I started taking for my diabetes probably helped.  Voila.  Instant baby.  After having unprotected sex once.  (TMI, I know. But let this be a warning to every 16 year old girl.  It can happen!)

When Holden was born, I knew I probably wanted another.  At least one more.  T thought I was insane, but I never really had the chance to enjoy Holden's infancy.  We were too busy also chasing a (very fast) toddler all over hell and gone.  But I knew I wanted to once again watch my baby air suck while sleeping.  I wanted to watch my child roll, milk drunk, off of my breast and smile sweetly at me again.

I could not imagine never seeing any of those wonderful first moments again.  I still can't.

T and I have had a lot of problems over the last year.  Although I blogged about it while it was happening, I've taken most of it down from my blog.  I don't regret sharing the problems we were having.  Writing is not just a form of catharsis for me.  Writing is one of the most honest things that I have.  I simply couldn't pretend to have a perfect life and family when we were really falling apart.  Although a few people told me privately that I needed to keep my mouth shut because I was making family members "uncomfortable," many, many more wrote to thank me for my candor. 

Marriage is hard.  It's messy.  Married people sometimes hurt each other.  Badly.  Although I have refrained from sharing everything, T and I hurt each other badly.  We have been working hard to change  our communication, our priorities and our marriage.  Pretending the bad stuff doesn't happen is dishonest.  That sort of dishonesty does no one a service, except perhaps those squeamish people who felt "uncomfortable" reading about raw emotion, hurt and betrayal on my blog.

One thing that got me through this year was the support I had, not just from my friends and family, but from this online community.  Although I have greatly stepped back from the blogosphere in the last 18 months, it helps to know that you're all still there.  And that all I need to do is ask for help.  When I did, you answered.

This very long explanation is my way of explaining why I'm now sharing that T and I are trying to conceive, despite the possibility that this may not have a happy ending.  We've been trying for awhile now, with limited success.  I can't even really talk about the last 6 months without dragging up a whole bucket load of unfulfilled hopes and expectations.  I'm sure I'll get to that eventually.  But for now, just know that I have to share what I'm going through now to be an honest writer.

I've never sought to become an "infertility blogger."  There are many out there, a whole community of women full of knowledge and painful stories of their own.  I've lurked on many of their blogs.  But I've never felt that I had the right to speak up.  I mean, I started blogging in 2006 after Holden was born.  I already had my "heir and a spare." What right did I have to comment on their struggles?

But this, I know: blogging and the blogging community have gotten me through some of the hardest times in my life.  I know that if our baby chase is unsuccessful or becomes even messier and painful than it already is, I need my blog and I need my bloggy friends.  I need you to be there, listening.  Ready to offer support when I ask for help.