10 years childless/free

Recently, someone posted a link to a New York Times article about "The Decline of the Online Message Board." That prompted a discussion on our Promp-ly writing group around the question of whether message boards were still relevant & who still frequents them.

It was, as I noted on the group (which, ironically, is really a message board itself) a timely discussion for me. Blogs weren't around when I was going through ttc, stillbirth and infertility treatment -- but listservs and message boards were, and they were (and remain) an enormous source of support for me.

Ten years ago today, on July 18, 2001, I made my very first post on an iVillage Childless Living message board, for women who were childless not by choice. I had been lurking on the board for several days & while I hadn't had much experience with message boards, I decided to take a leap of faith, put myself out there publicly and join in the conversation. Not only was this one of the first message boards I had ever posted on, period, but -- after a long struggle with stillbirth and infertility treatment -- I was, essentially, admitting to myself and to the cybersphere that our ttc journey truly had come to an end, that we were not going to have children after all.

I've written about the board and what it's meant to me before -- most notably here, two years ago, and here, three years ago, when the board finally (sadly) disappeared from the cyberspace. Some people have drifted away over the years, for whatever reasons, but I'm still in touch with half a dozen of those women, on another (private) message board we set up, and on Facebook, and I've met two of them "in real life."

Admittedly, we don't post as often as we once did and, as time has blunted the sharp edges of grief, we write less and less often about childless living specifically. But on the days when an "anniversary" has us feeling emotional, when someone lobs an unkind or unthinking comment about our childlessness that cuts one of us to the bone, when something happens to remind us about the life we thought we'd once have and the experiences we are missing out on, we come to the board to vent our hurt and frustrations, and to give each other the cyberhugs and support that we can only get from each other -- from other women who have been there, done that, and truly understand what it's like to walk a mile or 10 in our shoes.

I simply couldn't let this milestone day go by without paying tribute once again to the board that brought me together with these women, and to the huge role they have played in my life these last 10 years. I can't imagine how I would have gotten through it all without them.

Odds & ends

When we visited Katie at the cemetery recently, we noticed that someone had placed a single red rose in her niche vase.

There was one other niche that also had a similar rose in it, & we are thinking that perhaps it was someone from that family who did it. Perhaps they have visited before, and were touched to realize that the niche near their loved ones was for a baby.

Whoever that kind soul(s) is (are), dh & I thank them. Sometimes it's sad knowing we are the only ones who visit Katie in the cemetery. I know FIL did a few times shortly after our loss, but that was a long time ago now... and I know that some of our support group friends whose children are buried nearby have also visited in the past, but most of them don't visit their own children very often (let alone our daughter).

*** *** ***

What do you think of the term "circumstantially infertile"?? I've heard of (& think I much prefer) "childless by circumstance," but "circumstantially infertile??" It comes from this piece in The Huffington Post by Melanie Notkin, founder of the site Savvy Auntie and a self-coined "PANK (Professional Aunt No Kids") (can you tell she was in marketing??).

I don't discount Notkin's grief over not having children, for whatever reason. But it bothers me when people who may or may not be truly infertile try to co-opt the term. It reminded me of the woman on my pregnancy loss e-mail list who once wrote about how she had "struggled with infertility." I think she went something like five cycles post-loss before she got pregnant. (She had had several losses but went on to have two or three living children.) I know waiting for a subsequent pregnancy can seem like an eternity, but give me a break. :p

Beyond the marketing spin, though, I do appreciate the voice & profile she's given to all of us CNBC-ers (childless not by choice) through Savvy Auntie -- and, terminology aside, I really did like the article. I especially liked this part:

"...the assumption is that all women who don't have children don't want children. There is a place between motherhood and choosing not to be a mother. And tens of millions of American women are there."

*** *** ***

Dh & I were doing our usual Saturday stuff last weekend, & I was just getting into the shower after doing the housecleaning when the phone rang. When I emerged, dh came upstairs with a stunned expression on his face & told me his uncle -- the husband of his mother's youngest sister -- had died a few hours earlier of a massive heart attack. He was 70 -- not exactly young, but not really old either (same age as my mother) & in good health. He was a realtor, who helped us buy our house 21 years ago, as well as our home & auto insurance agent, & looked after us well. He had two daughters, three grandsons & a granddaughter (all between the ages of about 4 & 13).

So we abandoned our plans & drove up to the house. (Not that there was anything we could do, but we didn't want to be the only ones NOT to show up.) Dh's aunt was a mess, understandably. She kept repeating, "How could everything change so fast?" She talked and talked. She told and retold the story of what had happened. And everyone kept trying to get her to stop talking about it, to calm down.

Dh & I may not have lost a spouse (& the good Lord willing, we won't know what that's like for many years), but we do know a little something about grief and loss, and about how quickly life can change. Dh took his cousin aside & emphasized to her how important it was to let her mother talk about what happened, to let her tell the story over & over again if she wanted to, to listen.

I don't know if he made an impression. But it felt like something we could do, some way we could contribute and help in a meaningful way.

*** *** ***

I reviewed Ted Kennedy's memoir before I actually finished reading it. Toward the end of the book, writing about a period when he had lost several more loved ones, including his nephew, John F. Kennedy Jr., there is a lengthy excerpt of a speech he gave at a congressional prayer breakfast in which he spoke about his faith and how it had helped his family overcome one tragic loss after another. He also tells this story:

In 1958, my father wrote a letter to a friend whose son had died. Fourteen years earlier, my oldest brother Joe had been killed in World War II. Ten years earlier, my oldest sister Kathleen had been killed in an airplane crash in Europe. My father wrote to his grieving friend, "There are no words to dispel your feelings at this time, and there is no time that will ever dispel them. Nor is it any easier the second time than it was the first. And yet, I cannot share your grief, because no one could share mine. When one of your children goes out of your life, you think of what he might have done with a few more years, and you wonder what you are going to do with the rest of yours. Then one day, because there is a world to be lived in, you find yourself a part of it again, trying to accomplish something -- something that he did not have time enough to do. And, perhaps, that is the reason for all of it. I hope so."

I wish that life were simpler. I wish that loved ones didn't have to die too young. I wish that tragedy never haunted a single soul. But to wish all that is to ask for an end to our humanity. God, family and country sustain us all.

26

Even though 26 years isn't one of those special numbers that's divisible by 5, it's still a special day -- because 26 years ago today, I married my dh. : )

It hasn't all been a fairytale (whose marriage is?)(& when you think about it, fairy tales usually included a lot of dark stuff before they got to the "happily ever after" part) but there is no one else with whom I'd rather have spent the last 26 years -- or the next 26 and beyond, for that matter. : )

Happy anniversary to us! : )

My wedding

25 years

24 years

23 years

Amen!

LOVED this article in today's New York Times:

Time for Oratorical Contraception

Choice quote:

...politicians, including both the Democratic and Republican members of Congress who brought up their offspring during last week’s fiscal wrangling, are also sending the message that they can be trusted to whittle down the debt, shore up the country and otherwise safeguard the future precisely because they have a direct biological stake in it. If they breed, they lead, or so their self-promotion holds.

That’s ludicrous. Progeny aren’t proof of caring and farsightedness, qualities manifest in politicians who never procreated — George Washington, for example. This Founding Father fathered none. He nonetheless proved eminently capable of the long view.

How many children someone has says nothing about how well he or she will govern, and the tableaux of family bliss that candidates choreograph regularly prove to be
fictions.

The Treatment Diaries: 10 years later

So endeth The Treatment Diaries. When I first kicked off this project back in May, several of you wanted to know how going back in time like this made me feel, and how my perspective has changed over 10 years.

It wasn't easy to take this particular trip down memory lane. In some respects, my "1998 memories" series of posts (about my pregnancy with Katie & her stillbirth) was easier to relive. It was stressful writing about that stressful time in my life too -- but there is a part of me that loves to write/talk about my pregnancy & my daughter. She is still (& always will be) a part of my life and, on a certain level, it brings me a wistful pleasure to think about her, even if her story is ultimately a sad one. There's no real pleasure in reliving the details of my failed fertility treatments (except maybe the fact that I survived & am still here to tell the tale). Writing about the onset of anxiety, I could feel the tension in my body rising all over again, even though it all happened 10 years ago.

There were so many little details that I had forgotten, or hadn't thought about in years. When I look back now at all the little daily ups & downs, the 4 a.m. wakeup calls (5 a.m. on weekends!) to get to the clinic in time to join the lineup for ultrasounds, all the running around from train staion to ultrasound clinic to RE's office, and then the mad dash to MY office to put in a full day of work (sneaking in the side door & hoping my tardiness wouldn't be noticed)... I get exhausted just reading about it. How did we do it? And we only did it for a handful of IUI cycles over 1-1.5 years. How do other people do it for so many more cycles, of IVF, even, over many years??

I also found myself getting annoyed with Dr. RE all over again -- how he'd be hot about our prospects at one visit, cold the next. I realize the doctors aren't gods and they just call it like they see it from one visit to the next (and don't always read their own files or remember what they've told you at previous visits) -- but a little more consistency would have been appreciated.

As I read through the ups & downs (many, many downs) of each cycle, I found myself thinking that, really, the writing really was on the wall, almost from the very beginning, if we'd cared to see it. But we didn't. We (at least I -- dh was always a little more skeptical) didn't WANT to see it, at least not until I was forced to -- blinded by hope (& desperation) as I was. I'm really highly doubtful that IVF, in addition to the treatments we did, or instead of them, would have ultimately led to a different outcome. It confirms my belief that we did the right thing in getting off the merry-go-round when we did.

I'm not sorry we tried, even though the odds were stacked against us -- we gave it a good shot. And I'm not sorry that I've written about now at this level of detail, or revisited this time in my life at the 10-years-later mark. If you don't look back now & then, you sometimes forget just how far you've come.

But I'm glad it's all over and I don't have to do it all again. Once is definitely enough.

The Treatment Diaries: Aftermath & anxiety, June-July 2001

Monday, June 4, 2001: Negative, of course. :( What's more, my ultrasound showed a few large echogenic follicles. "He wants you to come back in a few weeks (Monday, June 18th) to monitor those large follicles and make sure they're going down," office manager K. said in a phone call to me later in the day. By late that afternoon, I was bleeding heavily -- the heaviest cycle I'd had in a few years. In 8 hours, I soaked through five maxipads, and was leaving large clots in the toilet.

I paged Dr. RE: "Is this normal??"

"I wouldn't say it's completely normal, but it's not unexpected," Dr. RE said when he called me back awhile later. "Your estrogen levels were very high, and your lining was quite thick." He told me I could take ibuprofen. He started talking about things we could do "the next time," but I told him we would probably be taking a break for awhile. (Maybe permanently.)

Tuesday, June 5th happened to be my annual physical with my family dr. I was 10 lbs heavier than I had been the previous year. :p

Later that night, I called my mother. She chose that evening, of all nights, to tell me about someone she knew who had adopted two children through the same agency two of my girlfriends had used. And now they had just gotten a third child, after a wait of just three weeks! "I just thought I'd mention it," she said brightly. "Your sister told me to leave you alone, but we DID sort of talk about adoption once, didn't we?"

My replies were monosyllabic. When I finally got off the phone, I burst into sobs & cried for more than an hour. My sister was right -- I knew my mother meant well -- she wanted grandchildren, and she had no idea the lengths we were going to, trying to get her at least one. But geez Mom, what rotten timing!! Dh was furious -- with my mother, for bringing it up, and with me, for not telling her what was going on. That didn't help matters.

The next morning, Wednesday, June 6th, I wrote in my diary:

I look like a mess -- woke up this morning, eyes sunken with huge bags underneath. I feel lousy, like I was hit by a truck. Eyes feel sunken (could hardly put in contacts), hard to even walk (a little short of breath?). I am so out of shape it's not funny (although I suspect some of this is psychological -- also compounded by general end of cycle/period fatigue).

My life is a mess. Dh is right -- we need a break from all this.

I didn't take my temps this morning.

Friday, June 8th:

I have been winded all week. Today, I noticed my ankles are swollen. Weight is up slightly, but it's evening, & I usually weigh myself in the morning. Health encyclopedia says symptoms of pulmonary edema/congestive heart failure. OHSS?? OH. GOD.

You can see I was beginning to work myself into quite a state. I called Dr. RE (again). He pointed out that OHSS symptoms usually show up within a week to 10 days after an IUI, and it had been almost three weeks now. "I would be very surprised if it showed up this late, unrelated to other symptoms." He pointed out that the weather had changed, that the body tended to retain fluids in hot weather. Also, I had just had a very heavy period, and my body might be trying to compensate by retaining fluids.

Then he added, "I guess we could have pushed you a little too hard with the drugs, so your kidneys & heart aren't working very well." Exactly the WRONG thing to say to a hypochondriac who had kidney & bladder problems as a child (and one kidney slightly smaller than the other) and a diagnosed heart murmur (albeit a very minor one).

I mentioned I had been to my family dr for a checkup. The blood results weren't back yet, but my EKG had been normal. "If there was anything abnormal, I'm sure he would have picked it up," Dr. RE said, but then reiterated, "You may have underlying problems that have been exacerbated by the drugs... you should get that assessed. You might be unique." Oh, I'm friggin' unique, all right... :p

He wound up by saying, "Don't be frightened... but don't dismiss things either. If you're really concerned, get to the nearest hospital. And call me, so the drs there get the full picture."

My next few journal entries obsess over the daily state of my ankles. :p They looked better, but I still wasn't sleeping very well.

Sunday, June 10th was our pg loss support group's annual picnic and butterfly release. It was a highly emotional day.

Monday, June 11th, I got up at 4 a.m. & got ready to take the early train into the city. Then I remembered -- I wasn't due back at the clinic until NEXT Monday, June 18th. I decided to take the early train anyway & head straight for the office.

I had a lunch date at a restaurant downstairs in my office tower with my college roommate -- she'd had a birthday recently & it was my treat. All morning long, I'd felt a certain tightness & discomfort in my chest. My bra felt tight, & before I went to meet her, I went into the washroom, took it off & stuffed it into my purse.

In my journal, I wrote (and I have no idea why I was writing in present tense...!):

As I settle into my seat, I think, "This is a mistake." But I chat, I laugh, I eat -- lightly -- tomato basil soup, salad, roll and Perrier. I do have a good time -- for awhile.

About the time the tea comes (1 p.m.-ish), I start feeling really funny. I nod and laugh, but I'm no longer listening. My chest is feeling tighter, my shoulders feel sore, I start to feel warm from the chest up, but my hands feel cold & clammy & weak. I reach for the leather folder to slip in my money, but I have to try three times before it opens. I try to take a sip of water, but I can't lift the glass.

"I'm not feeling very well," I tell my friend. I try to take a deep breath, but it's hard. She asks if I feel sick, asks me questions. Tears fill my eyes. "It's scary," I whisper.

She asks if I'd like to call my dr. on her cellphone. She tries to dial, but the phone doesn't work inside the restaurant. Somehow, I find the strength to rise slowly and leave. We go sit on a bench in the concourse outside. I call Dr. RE & the receptionist answers. I tell her I'm not feeling very well. She gets K. on the line and I tearfully tell her how I'm feeling. She asks me questions. Nausea? (No.) Bleeding? (No.) Cramps? (No.) She asks me to call back in five minutes.

When I do, I'm still not feeling great. Maybe I'm having a panic attack? I suggest. "Could be," she says. It's too far past the profasi shot for it to be OHSS, she says, "but you should get checked out at your family dr's or the emergency room." Gee, thanks. :p

I call dh & tell him what's going on & where I am. Decide not to call Family Dr., just go there. I call my boss & leave a message, saying I'm not feeling well and am going to my dr's. We slowly make our way to the escalator. Outside, there's a cab waiting -- thank God! I hug my roomie and thank her. She offers me her cellphone but I decline...

Not sure which is scarier, the way I'm feeling or the way the cabbie is driving. I feel like I'm going to pass out. I struggle to remain calm and take deep breaths. Dh squeezes my hand reassuringly and smile. I am so proud of him.

We pull up in front of the dr's office. Dh pays the cabbie and we go in. There's a delivery guy with the receptionist and the nurse (who is also the dr's wife), but no one in the waiting room.

"I'm sorry I didn't call," I sob, "but I'm not feeling very well." Within seconds, I'm led into an empty room and told to lie down. Dh uses my cardigan to make me a pillow. The nurse slaps a blood pressure cuff on me and pumps it up. She shakes her head -- it's high. She asks me how I feel -- chest pain? (Tightness, no pain.) Nausea? (No.) Headache? (No.) etc. etc.

I tell her about the fertility treatments, about Friday. I had actually called there just before lunch about my bloodwork. My thyroid was high (6.64, normal is 0.5-5.5), & hemoglobin a tad low (116 -- should be 120-160) but everything else, including my ECG, was fine.

The nurse takes my blood pressure again (and again). Still high, but falling each time, until it reaches a high normal range of 130/90.

The dr finally comes in. Same conversation as with the nurse. He listens to my chest & lungs and pronounces them fine. To ease my mind, he does another ECG. It's fine.... He also takes some blood to test for cardiac enzymes (it comes back the next day negative). He tells me it looks like a panic attack to him.

He leaves briefly and comes back with a little bottle. He shakes out a tiny white pill and offers it to me. "What is it?" I ask. He tells me it's anti-anxiety medication & will help calm me down. (He later tells me it's the receptionist's!) He writes me a prescription for the same thing, "just in case," only a lower dose.

I'm finally calming down. They send us on our way feeling better (the drugs are working!).

We go to a nearby drugstore to fill the prescription. Stop at a payphone to call people. Dh calls his partner at work, I call my best friend at work and then my boss, then my roomie (voice mail), then Dr RE's office (talk to K.). We take the subway to the train station & take the next train home (by now, it's almost our usual time to leave anyway). I lay on the couch most of the evening & go to bed at 8:30. I sleep soundly for the first time in ages. Dh stays awake until 2 a.m., listening to me breathe!!

Over the next few days & weeks, I experience what I think of as "aftershocks." The next day I was attending a training workshop out of the office. All was going well until about 3:30 p.m., when I got what I described in my journal as "a funny cold feeling... a little tingle/numb feeling going up the right side of my face that started to turn warm. Great, now I'm having a stroke??" I struggled through the rest of the session, wound up taking another pill and going to bed early again.

Wednesday, June 13th, I called the infertility counsellor we had visited prior to embarking on injectables & IUIs. She remembered me instantly, and we set up an appointment to meet Monday after work. The next day, I returned to Family Dr's for a followup blood test for my thyroid. "Well, you're looking MUCH better!" they all told me. He checked my blood pressure and listened to my heart while I was there, and all was well.

Eight years earlier, Family Dr had thought he detected a mild heart murmur. He sent me to consult a cardiologist, who ordered an echocardiogram. At that time, he said he saw absolutely nothing that concerned him -- on a scale of 1 to 6, my murmur ranked at about 0.5 -- but he added I might want to repeat the test in another 10 years just to check things out. Family Dr asked if a repeat echocardiogram would make me feel better, and I said yes, so he booked one for me. "I don't want to dismiss your concerns," he said, "but this sort of thing is almost always emotionally based and you've been under a lot of stress lately."

Monday, June 18th, I was back at Dr. RE's for ultrasound & bloodwork. The echogenic follicles were still there, but they weren't as big.

Later that evening, we met with the infertility counsellor again & told her everything that had happened since we last saw her. We acknowledged that we had said "three cycles" -- and we'd done three cycles. Were we ready to stop treatment? To stop ttc altogether?

Dh said he was ready -- he felt we had done all we could, and he was worried about my health, the stress on both of us, the possibility of multiples. He said we could continue to try on our own for awhile, but acknowledged he wasn't getting any younger.

I said I was 85-90% of the way there. "I know we could do more -- more IUIs, IVF -- but emotionally, physically, mentally, I'm not sure I can do it anymore. I said I still wanted to keep the door open crack. And I said I needed a holiday!!

The counsellor recommended that we take a break -- put away the thermometer. think about the surgery. "If you're going to do one more cycle, set a time limit, say, your 41st birthday in January." She recommended that, once we decided we were ready to stop, we should consider birth control (!!). "I know it sounds nutty," she acknowledged, "but then you won't be constantly hoping in the back of your mind." She also recommended performing some kind of ritual to acknowledge & mourn the end of this phase of our lives.

She also asked us, "What would it mean to give up on that dream?"

In my journal, I summarized my response: "I know in my heart we can have a good life with just the two of us. But I will always feel like I missed out on something special."

She asked us what we did for fun, to relax. I said, "You know what? I had fun tonight! We stayed downtown, had dinner, wandered around a bit until it was time for our appointment. Usually we just head for the train, go home and flop on the couch in front of the TV set."

"You had a DATE!" the counsellor grinned. "I'm going to prescribe a regular date night for you two. You should take turns planning it. Something different, not the same thing all the time."

[I loved date night. Dh was less enthusiastic. He confessed he was usually too tired at the end of the day & wanted to just go home & flop on that couch. So it didn't last long, but it was fun while it did, and it helped get us over that initial post-treatment hump.]

Besides a date night, she recommended yoga for stress relief. I did eventually start taking a weekly yoga class, which I loved. I also started getting regular mini-massages at a walk-in storefront massage clinic near work, on my lunch hour. "You're very tight," one of the girls there remarked as she worked on me.

Monday, June 23rd, day 23, I was back at the clinic. K. called me later in the day. "Looks like you're starting to surge," she said, advising timed intercourse -- every two days for the next week.

I returned Tuesday, July 3rd (day 31) I was back for bloodwork. K. called me later to say my beta was negative, and my results suggested I was having an anovulatory cycle.

I returned a week later on July 10th (day 38), My homone levels were still fluctuating wildly, & I was offered Provera to induce my period. I was almost ready to go on vacation. What would happen if I didn't take the Provera? K said there was no medical risk; it was just a way to end a "really long" cycle & wipe the slate clean. 38 days was not that unusually long for me, so I said I'd prefer to wait things out.

"Call us when you get back," K. said. "And have a good vacation."

I never returned.

The Treatment Diaries: IUI #3, May-June 2001

We embarked on our third IUI cycle -- my 27th cycle since losing Katie,and the final IUI cycle we had agreed to do -- on Friday, May 4, 2001. On Sunday (day 3), we were back downtown for the usual ultrasound & bloodwork.

Ultrasounds were now being done again at the clinic where we had first gone when we started treatment. However, since Dr. RE had moved his office in the meantime, this meant that clinic days now went something like this: (1) arrive at the train station & take the subway three stops, walk the short distance to the building where the ultrasound clinic was & get my u/s done. (2) Hop back on the subway & travel another three subway stops to Dr. RE's office for bloodwork, drugs, etc. (3) Hop back on the subway & ride 7 stops to the office. More subway tokens, more running around, more time. :p On weekends, we would generally go to Dr. RE's office first, then for the ultrasound.

Because it was Sunday, we decided to drive downtown instead of taking the train & subway. Perhaps not the wisest choice, since many of the downtown streets were blocked, either for a charity run/walk, or with construction (which made dh REALLY happy...!). Dr's office came first: then off to the u/s clinic. When we got there, the usual entrance was closed. We walked around to the other side of the building & had to be escorted in by the security guard. The clinic was already open and there were six people ahead of me in line.

Later that afternoon, Dr. RE called, said my baseline results looked good, & I could either (a) start taking Clomid & return to the clinic on day 7 for monitoring, or (b) skip the Clomid & go straight to the Gonal-F. I told him I didn't HAVE any Gonal-F; the girls at his office had only provided me with Clomid. So, Clomid it was (my 6th cycle using Clomid). He said I really should start straight with the injectables, though, that the Clomid really wasn't boosting my results that much and he acknowledged the side effects were nasty. He also said he wanted to do an ultrasound himself to determine whether my uterus was a true bicornuate uterus, or just a septum. He said he would have one of the girls at the office call to set this up.

I asked him about the Gonal-F dosage this time around. The possibility of OHSS the last cycle had scared the crap out of me, & dh too. He said we'd wait & see the day 7 results -- he didn't think he'd lower the dosage, but didn't think it would be necessary to increase it either. He did actually increase it, to 4 amps or 300 IUs nightly.

Thursday, May 10th (day 7): I'd been having all-day, dull headaches and eye strain the past several days, no doubt a side effect of the Clomid. I went to the office in the morning for bloodwork, left work slightly early that afternoon & returned to the office, where Dr. RE performed an ultrasound. While he wasn't able to see anything on my left side, he was flabbergasted to find that I already had 12 -- 12!! -- follicles on the right side. They were small, but they were there. "I didn't expect to see that," he said.

As for my uterus, he said there were definitely two horns there -- but the tissue in between looked fibrous & could probably be removed. He estimated that I had a 70% chance of pregnancy loss because of my uterus, and said this likely contributed to Katie's stilbirth. While there were no guarantees, of course, he felt that surgery could help improve those odds. "Your odds are already low -- your age, and you don't ovulate well," he pointed out (gee, thanks...). He explained what the surgery would involve, and said we would have to postpone ttc for several months while my uterus healed. When you're over 40, of course, every month counts, & the thought of having surgery and then losing more precious months in recovery time was not a happy prospect for me.

I left with my head swimming around 5:45, & raced to the train station to meet dh. He was in a bad mood already after a long day at work, and as I told him about what Dr. RE had said about the surgery, he snapped, "What's the point?" I was a little ticked myself that Dr. RE had waited this long to figure this out & dangle the carrot of surgery in front us. Shouldn't he have checked it out & recommended it right up front before we'd started treatment?? I felt we should get a second (Dr. Ob-gyn?) & possibly third opinion before going ahead with surgery. And of course, first, we needed to get this cycle over with.

I noted in my journal that I was feeling LOUSY -- stressed, flushed on my face & neck (even Dr. RE had noticed) and a constant headache. I was exhausted. But that night, before going to bed, I injected myself with the first three amps of Gonal-F. I woke up the next morning feeling much better.

Sunday, May 13th was Mother's Day. :(

Monday, May 14th (day 11) was a clinic day. K. called me that afternoon & told me to come back Friday; however, I only had enough Gonal-F to last me until Thursday, so I spent my lunch hour making a hasty round trip to & from Dr. RE's office to get more drugs. By Wednesday, I was beginning to feel uncomfortably bloated. My Friday visit showed some follicles developing, but not as many or as big as might have been expected.

I went back in for more u/s & bloodwork on Saturday. I was told that now Dr. RE wanted to see the film of my HSG from November 1999. I had to request a copy and spend another lunch hour that week trekking up to the hospital to retrieve the CD, take it up to Dr. RE's office & return to work.

"I just don't get it," Dr. RE said later Saturday afternoon when I spoke to him on the phone. "Your E2 levels are astounding -- 8700 -- I've never seen them so high. Yet there's only one or two follicles that I would call mature. There's a disconnect there. I don't understand where all the E2 is coming from. It's not very encouraging that your response is so unpredictable... You are a bit of a challenge and a mystery." Oh, just lovely.

I asked him whether such high E2 levels posed any risks. He mentioned OHSS again & then threw out another thing to worry about -- blood clots. But he, added, "your levels are high, and high for you, but not exceedingly so."

Monday, May 21st (day 18) was our Victoria Day holiday -- but it was no holiday for us. :p We were up at 5:30, at Dr. RE's for bloodwork by 7:30 and the ultrasound clinic at 8, where (once again) the tech had difficulty seeing my left ovary. Nevertheless, I now had at least three good-sized follicles (although Dr. RE said my E2 levels suggested I should have 13 or 14?!). "We could push you for another day & do IVF, although I don't know how good the quality of the eggs would be," he said. (Nevermind that we didn't want to do IVF -- unless he was willing to do it for the cost of an IUI cycle!)

We agreed: Profasi shot tonight, sample around 8:30 & IUI around 10:30 on Wednesday morning.

Wednesday, May 23rd (day 20) was my third (& final) IUI. We arrived at Dr. RE's office at 7:30 a.m., where dh produced his sample -- went to work (!) -- & then returned for the IUI at 9:30. I was feeling rather crampy, before & after, but barely felt a thing during the IUI itself. Dh's count this time was lower than the two previous IUIs, just under 8.2 million. "It's been a strange cycle -- I really can't give you the odds," Dr. RE said.

En route out, we received our bill:

10 Clomid pills = $62.40
44 amps of Gonal F = just under $3,000
1 Profasi shot = $65
Sperm wash = $350

Total for this cycle: just under $3,500

Later that afternoon, I was feeling extremely bloated & uncomfortable, & called the office. "You could be ovulating," K., the office manager said. She told me I could take a couple of Tylenol, but added I should weigh myself daily for the next few days and watch for anything unusual. A friend at work, who was also going through infertility treatments, said her RE had told her to drink Gatorade or Powerade, so I found a bottle at the newsstand downstairs & sipped on that. I found it very difficult to get comfortable in bed that night, and had an extremely restless sleep.

The next morning, I felt much less bloated, but I felt sore all over -- under my ribs and shoulder blades, through my back & shoulders -- "like I was hit by a truck," I wrote. I decided to call in sick, using the excuse that I'd had an upset stomach all night long. By Friday, I was feeling slightly better.

Saturday, May 26th, I was back at the office at 8 a.m. for bloodwork. Sunday (day 24), I felt crampy all day. Around 8:30 p.m., I noticed I was spotting. I immediately paged Dr. RE & he called me back within 20 minutes. He agreed with me that it was awfully early for my period, but added, "It may not be a bad thing -- it could be implantation spotting... It's unlikely to be anythign serious, so long as you're not bleeding or cramping heavily." To be on the safe side, he suggested I come into the office the next morning to have my bloodwork checked. In my journal, in capital letters, I wrote, "I AM TERRIFIED!"

Monday's bloodwork showed nothing amiss and although I was still feeling crampy, I was not spotting. I was told to come back the following Tuesday for my beta.

Friday, June 1st (cd #29, 9 days past IUI) I woke up at 4 a.m. to go to the bathroom. I felt woozy and nauseous, and staggered back to bed. I woke up an hour later & took my temperature. It had dropped almost four degrees.

Every time I opened my eyes, the room started to spin around me. Eventually, I threw up. Twice. I did start feeling a little less nauseous after that. Even though my temps had dropped, I felt deliriously happy (emphasis on the delirious, I think...!). I must be pregnant!! Why else I would I feel so crappy?? (In recent years, thinking about my symptoms, I have wondered: did I have some kind of a mini-stroke?? Was it some weird hormonal thing going on? Or was it a manifestation of the stress and anxiety I was feeling?) Dh fed me crackers & water and even made a trip to the nearby 24 hour supermarket to get me some apple juice.

I had already missed a lot of work recently. I didn't want to call in sick, so I called my boss & left a message saying we'd had a late start & would be in later. (I told you I was delirious...) I decided not to call Dr. RE, because I knew he would tell me to come into the office later that morning or the next, and I just didn't think I could haul myself in to work AND up to his office feeling the way I did.

Somehow, by shortly after 7, I managed to drag myself out of bed and into the shower. Thankfully, it was casual Friday at work. I put on a pair of drawstring capris and one of dh's polo shirts but didn't put in my contacts or apply any makeup. We made the 9 a.m. train into the city, and I arrived at the office around 10 a.m. By the end of the day, I was exhausted, albeit tired & with a dull headache.

Saturday morning, I felt much better.

Later that night, though, I started spotting again. It continued the next morning, and by the afternoon, it was in full flow.

I called the office and was told to come in the next morning for bloodwork & ultrasound.

I crawled into bed that night, turned out the lights, & proceeded to bawl my eyes out.