The Struggle with Infertility

So, we have been trying since March to get pregnant again. I have become Clomid resistant, so this past cycle we used a drug called Letrozole. It worked, and I had one good follicle. We did IUI in June, and today I got the results. It was an unsuccessful cycle. Not pregnant. Still. This time around it feels all the more painful to hear the news. When we were trying to get pregnant with Sawyer we had two failed cycles, and while they were not happy moments, I had a much more positive outlook on the whole situation. With Sawyer we got pregnant on our first IUI cycle, and I was responding really well to Clomid.

This failed cycle just deflated me. We are going back to Williamsburg this weekend, and I hope that will help me move past this failed cycle and be more optimistic about trying again. I think it is just getting me down because I see all of these stories of people who hurt their children, or teenagers having babies, and I just don't fucking get it. I did everything right, and all I got was heartache. There are all of these people in my life who have no fucking problem getting pregnant and popping out babies, and here I am: getting blood drawn up to five times in a week, taking medicine that is meant for breast cancer, having a wand up my vagina almost every time I go to the office, and using these awful progesterone suppositories all in the hopes of getting pregnant again. Then, if it does work, I'll have a whole new set of hurdles. Make it through the first trimester, get a cerclage, be monitored frequently to make sure my cervix is not funneling, maybe bed rest...

This just sucks. Every time I see someone with a baby (like my neighbor), my heart hurts. Every time I go through this process again, my heart takes a roller coaster ride.

Treading Water

This has not been the greatest May. Mother's Day was especially hurtful, and I did my best to keep off of social media, and to stay away from people. I did not want to see or be around other people's happiness, and at the same time, I did not want my sadness to cloud their day. On top of it all, fertility treatments have not been going well. It appears that Clomid, which worked so well when we got pregnant with Sawyer, is no longer working with my body. Part of it is my lack of success in losing weight. Part of it is that women with PCOS sometimes become Clomid resistant.

This sucks. I was hoping to be pregnant again by now, but it appears that it will be an even longer road to having another baby. People at work keep asking me about my friend's baby. While I am happy for her on her third happy, healthy child, I don't really care to talk about it. It is still a raw wound, and hearing people rave about how cute her baby is, or ask me have I met him, feels like all of the salt of the Pacific Ocean is being dumped into that wound. If I keep "unfollowing" people on Facebook, there will only be three people left for me to see.

Lately the thought that keeps running through my head is that I don't really feel purposeful anymore. Nor do I feel any real joy. Well, enough depression for today. Back to work, and back to fertility treatments, and back to wondering if I will ever really feel good again.

6 months

It has been six months since Sawyer died. Six months since my world was turned upside down. Sawyer has been dead longer than I was pregnant with him. It is a heart-wrenching thought. I think of what life should be like right now. I should have a chubby two month old, not a son who has been dead for six months. Instead, I keep trucking on, thinking at some point things have to get a little better. I am still angry and bitter with the universe and its cruelty. I am jealous of my two friends getting ready to welcome their little boys into the world. Nothing really feels better, I think I am just getting better at faking it.

the world is still spinning

I made a mistake today. I had blocked any of my pregnant friends/family members from my Facebook feed almost immediately after Sawyer died. My curiosity got the better of me today and I looked at a friend's page. She only has a month to go, and my heart feels like it is ripping out of my chest again. I am happy for her, but I felt that surge of bitterness and anger rise up like bile again. Why did this happen to us? Why do other people get to have blissfully ignorant and innocent pregnancies? Why is my son in a box on a shelf when people like my 14 year old student get to bring a baby into this world that they are ill-equiped to take care of? As the song in our musical this year says "Life is random and unfair, life is pandemonium!"

Some days I feel like I have found my footing. I am a baby loss mom, and that is my new reality and the new me. I spend my days with other people's children, and I make the best of what I have. I like to think that I am imparting on them what I would have imparted on Sawyer. Be kind to people, accept them for who they are, and remember that life is short, enjoy the moments you have. I have a loving husband, and fantastic siblings and cousins who support me. I have some truly amazing friends, and some who have decided that they can't handle this new sad me. I feel strong most days, but other times I feel like I am just stumbling around in the dark. Whenever a coworker discusses their children I have to pretend it is not a knife in my heart. I cannot help but stare at the bellies of pregnant women I see, but I also can't help but divert my eyes from baby carriers and infants.

I still have to lose some weight before returning to the fertility doctor, my goals have been washed away by my stress eating. The amount of stress I am feeling right now is so overwhelming that is feels easier to just pretend the outside world doesn't exist on a day like today. Hiding in my house with a sleeve of Girl Scout cookies is much better. I find it harder to have the will power I did before I got pregnant with Sawyer. I want so bad to get pregnant again, but sometimes chocolate is truly the only thing that makes me feel better. I wish I was the type of person who used exercise to feel better, but in reality I have always viewed it as a punishment (I am going to blame my 6th grade gym teacher and the Presidential fitness test for that.) I am going back to the gym this Monday. I am hoping that Dr. K will agree that if I shed the necessary pounds (about 9) by the time my cycle starts in March that we can give a Clomid cycle and IUI a try.

I have tried to take my mind off of the fertility game again by focusing on remodeling our house. We can't really afford a loan, so we are doing it piece by piece, but every little thing we change makes me feel better somehow. I think maybe it is that I have a finished product to look forward to that I am not anxious about losing. No matter how long it takes, there will be a new product when we are finished. The prospect of getting pregnant again feels much more daunting. If it happens, will we tell people? Will the cerclage work? What type of cerclage will I get? Will I be able to keep my anxiety in check? I guess I should stop thinking too far ahead and just focus on losing the weight and getting back to trying. Fingers crossed that March is our month to start trying again.

**I am also going to make an effort to write here more often, sometimes I forget how cathartic writing what I am feeling can be.