Ordinary miracles: book review and give away

Today is the day that we remember the losses of the children we should have known far deeper than the knowledge of them we had in our hearts. On this day we light candles in remembrance of the dreams and hopes lost along with our children who never got the chance to be in our arms. On this day, I would like to give some hope.

I have recently had the privilege of reading a book entitled ‘Ordinary Miracles’ to review and give away. I was supposed to do this review post and give away two weeks ago, but ended up reading through it three times and realizing I truly wanted to give a gift on this day. I can only hope that I do it any justice and that Krissi can forgive my tardiness. The description on the back reads:

When approximately 340 babies are born every minute worldwide (or nearly 490,000 births per day),1 conception seems to be quite an ordinary occurrence. Well, for the fertile world anyway. But for Krissi and her husband Rob, having a baby was almost impossible. No one dared to say they were infertile, not even their doctors. And suddenly the deep ultimate fear of never being completely fulfilled kept them awake night after night. But giving up was not an option.

Krissi and Rob were soon immersed into in-vitro fertilization, their only chance for success. It was a world of hormone injections, countless blood tests, anxiety, and exhaustion-all mixed with hope. IVF represented both an amazing, wonderful medical advancement and a demanding, frightening regimen with no guarantees, and often, heartache.

Whether or not you’ve struggled with infertility, Krissi’s journey will touch your heart with its honesty and devotion. From the bittersweet news that her twin sister conceived in her first month of trying, and her own mother’s death, to the joy of hearing her daughter’s heartbeat for the first time and the sweetness of a 2:00 a.m. feeding after her twins were born, this is a story of acceptance, perseverance, and love.

Within moments of beginning this book I found myself nodding along with what Krissi was saying. As a woman who has struggled with infertility and loss it was an intense read because it was written by someone who has fought through the trenches…and survived. The detail in which Krissi goes into about feelings and thoughts and procedures easily made me laugh and cringe remembering my own experiences while simultaneously reminding me of the one most important this I need to be reminded of: I am not alone. This subject may not be the easiest to read, it’s not the easiest to talk about. But it is one of the most important subjects that is just never talked about. I wish I could hand every person I know who has fought infertility or had trouble conceiving a copy of this book. The raw honesty reminds us that we are not alone, that we will survive, and most importantly, that miracles do happen.

With very much Gratitude to Mrs. McVicker I will be giving away one copy to a lucky winner. To enter:

-Subscribe to my blog

-Comment below on why you would like to read the book

-Share any links to your experiences you have (blog sites, youtube, etc)

The winner will be chosen on October 22.

Beyond frustrated

-I have been trying very hard not to get frustrated. About a few things. And I wish I’d kept writing through it all, but I’d wanted to wait to write until we knew when our intake interview was going to be. That being said, I waited. And waited. And waited for over a month and grew more and more anxious as the days went without hearing anything from the social worker. Now I fully understand that social workers are very overworked. I really do get it. I also get that after two solid consecutive years of trying (3 solid years all together…) and multiple rounds of treatment cycles we decided it was time to follow with our adoption plan while waiting to do ivf. Adoption was never a fix for infertility, nor was it ever meant to be. But after all the waiting and frustration and anxiety of infertility you’d think the early days of the adoption process would be a cake walk. Boy was I wrong!

-I absolutely knew that adoption itself would be tough and that having every aspect of ourselves and our lives could be difficult. I never knew that working with our social worker was going to be the hardest part of this piece l the process. I knew the social worker from a family that had adopted from the same agency. Our paperwork went through really quick and I was hoping the rest would be something she would help us easily through as well. After the orientation class we got sent an autobiographical questionnaire. We filled it out and sent it in two days after we got it. It was pushed through by the end of the week and all we had to do from then (a month and a half ago) till now was have an intake interview. I emailed twice to ask about it but she had said she wasn’t ready for us quite yet. Last Wednesday I got an email to schedule the interview. We scheduled for Friday.

**side note: I’d made it a point to tell them that October and November were going to be absolutely insane months for us. I usually have two kids full time but now I have 3 kids three days a week**

Thursday I got an email to reschedule to this Wednesday. I said ok. Then Friday I got an email saying she could no longer make Wednesday work and what other day could I do? I have the 3 kids Monday Tuesday and Thursdays. Wednesday and Friday are really the only good days, and even then I would be better off taking that time off so I don’t have kids with me, as if them giving me time to get off early to go to adoption classes isn’t enough, but is have figured it out. So this email on friday to reschedule again…She said she would get back to me if her boss would let her do the interview after the first class, which they aren’t supposed to do. She didn’t email me back until today. 

– Now here’s why I’m extra frustrated…first off, she puts us off over a month only to make it insanely tough for us to work out the week before its supposed to be done, then she needs to reschedule the times she picked out (twice!!), and I email her back within 20 minutes of her sending it to me only to go hours or days with no reply to an obviously very time sensitive subject AND she sends her emails from a smart phone so I know it’s not as if she was away from her email!

– I may sound like a Whiney spoiled brat right about now but I am absolutely pissed. So here we are, two days before classes start and she now wants to do this interview on Thursday during the kids nap time. Then I also leave early Thursday to go to adoption classes that are an hour away. Nice. And somehow I always feel the need to apologize to her for it being so difficult. Maybe se should have to stay late one night to work around our schedule. Ok, I’m pissed and this is just turning into a rant so ill start those adoption blogs soon, I can’t wait on her anymore. Obviously.

Light a Fire

~So. Our first cycle post iui treatment has ended. Af showed last Tuesday. I also got sick on Tuesday. I came home and slept instead of blogging. I then got sick with a particularly bad case of the flu on Friday, and am just today feeling normal. I lost 5 pounds, and I am unsure how much of that was flu and how much was eating a bit better and working out.

~I’m not as sad as I thought I would be to see AF show. I am obviously still sad, but there’s a plan for everything now and we are really down to two options; IVF and adoption. Seeing as we are on the way to both, I don’t really see how too much sad could factor into it. I would love for a miracle to come through, but I am not counting on it and I think that shift has lightened my emotions in terms of the red witch. It is September, so as promised I ill be starting the adoption option posts. I think I will try to do one a week or every other week, but post at least one blog a week.

~In other news, it’s time to start thinking decorations. We don’t have many home decorations so I am looking at any and all crafts to try to get ideas of things I can do and make on the cheap to decorate the house for Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. I like being festive, but in recent years I’ve let that fall to the side. I am also trying to tackle my list of projects one thing at a time. It’s going slow. Especially since I add things to the list so often.

~I haven’t written because I have felt like there isn’t much to say. Of course, I am sure there is but apparently my mind hasn’t been in it. *sigh* I know I need to be more active and interactive if I really want to up my support and exposure here. Hopefully I can light a fire under my ass to do so.

MM

Adoption Option: Starting the Conversation

~I am the baby of the family. I have an older sister and an older brother and seven cousins, of which there is only one younger than me. Starting up conversations, real conversations, with the people in my family has never been a strong suit because no one takes the baby seriously. This has followed me a bit into adult life. It is something I am working on. Bringing up this kind of conversation….this massive kind of a conversation was definitely not the easiest thing I have done. So here is my guide to how I did it. (You know…cause I am an expert….)

1- Bring it up early. The first time I spoke with hubby about adoption as a possibility was when we figure out we may have issues. That may have been a bit too early for most people, but I have always wanted to adopt, so I decided to break the idea in then.

2- Bring it up where you are most comfortable talking to your SO.  If you are in a place you don’t know or feel uncomfortable and defensive, a serious conversation that has many major stress and emotional factors is just not going to fly. You won’t get the answers you need and you run the risk of completely putting off your SO to these major possibilities simply because they’ll remember how uncomfortable they were during the first conversation but not necessarily why they were uncomfortable.

3- Bring it up one question at a time. Start with planting the seed. Once you figure out it may be an option for you, bring up ages. Do you want a baby or are you excited to bring in a school ager? A teen? Then start in on the tougher small questions. Race, abilities, issues, etc. Then talk about timing. When you have a general idea of all these things you will have a good basis to really open up the floor of discussion about what adoption may look like for your family and how you want to go about it.

4- Bring it up to normalize the idea. Talking about your impending adoption is a good thing. Adoption, even for the most interested, has been a taboo subject for far too long. Much like having a child with special needs or finding out a friend or loved one has a different sexual orientation than yourself, talking and learning about it will help you to normalize it in your own mind which will make you far more comfortable with it. The truth is that most people aren’t comfortable with it and you will inevitably have thousands of questions and comments that may be offensive and even hurtful, even from the most well-meaning of people. Having kind and intelligent things to say back to those hurtful comments is going to make your life so much sweeter in the long run, although a snarky quip now and again couldn’t hurt….

5- Let it drop. If the conversation is getting hard or uncomfortable or frustrating, change the subject and talk more about it later. The option isn’t going to leave and the more positivity you have about it the better. It isn’t worth a blow-out fight just to talk about a question or two answered. Change the subject and have sex. Always works to put me in a better mood.

~The main things that have helped us is to simply talk about it, make the conversations as informational but non stressful as possible and to cover hypothetical situations so you are far more prepared. Answer every hard question you have and then some. It will help you begin to scratch the surface of being ready to get prepared for the adoption you are going to achieve.  Reading books and being realistic will only help in the end as well. If you expect the road to your forever family to be filled with sunshine and unicorns handing out red-velvet cupcakes….well I’d like to know what infertility train YOU have been on and where the nearest dealer is so I can get some…

Making Mommy

Adoption Option: The Beginning

~For a long time we have talked about that “what if”. You all know the one I am talking about. The “what if” it doesn’t work. The “what if” we can’t get pregnant even through our best efforts and our doctors effort to help. I told Hubs early on that I had always wanted to adopt or foster. I want a big-ish family. (I would love four kids. He wants three. We will see who eventually wins out that battle.**) He had said that was cool with him but lets have our bio kids first. Which was understandable and ok with me. Then our time started getting on in terms of ttc and we moved on to treatment. Then our time with treatment started getting on. We decided we would do two iuis and then move on to IVF because we didn’t want to waste time doing things that weren’t working and because all of our IF treatment is out of pocket and our savings really has to be made to count. Since our first iui really took us so long to figure out how to make my body respond, we decided that it would be worth giving IUI three chances if it didn’t work the first two.

~After our first IUI failed I broached the subject of adoption again. (this was probably the third real conversation about adoption) I will talk a lot more in depth about what was said, how I brought it up, etc in a series of blogs I will begin in September at latest called “adoption option: xxxxxxxx” that will cover every detail of our adoption journey. And yes, I will share financial info since I have done so with IF treatments (I know I need to update that. BADLY!) We decided that if three IUIs failed, we would save money for IVF while beginning to pursue adoption as well. Well, our third IUI came and failed. On cycle day two or three I asked CC if he was ready to begin the adoption option and he said lets start the research. (You don’t get a bloggy person that doesn’t google far too much!) I already knew some of the general things that would work for us, so I got a couple books, called around to some agencies and attorneys and we spoke more in depth about some things we wanted from adoption. Besides just a larger family.

~After quite a lot of research late into the nights during that first week after failed IUI3, we got ourselves signed up for our first adoption orientation class with an agency. We are fairly sure we will be using this agency, but won’t be 100% on it until at least after the orientation. If we do decide to use them, our adoption classes start in October, and we will spend the rest of August and September starting our home study paperwork and anything we would need to get ready for the homestudy and our child to be brought home. I will speak more later about IVF and adoption, but we are still saving. That’s all for tonight. I have SO many blogs to catch up and comment on. My dog electrocuted himeself on my laptop power chord a few days after I am unable to do anything real on my damn smart phone. Long story short…I was unable to see anyones blog for more than a week.

MM

**BTW I do think it would be absolutely hilarious if after adopting all of our children biology decided to give us a hand out and suddenly we had one or two more than either of us was really prepared for. That’s right. I just challenged mother nature.

Commitment VS Interest

~This week I went to my Weight Watchers meeting a bit begrudgingly. I just knew I hadn’t lost weight and since last week my weigh in was SO horrendous I was depressed about even going. I seriously considered stopping my membership. What was the point if I wasn’t going to stick to it and lose weight? Well I lost 2.6 pounds from last week to this. I still sat there a little upset because I am up from my low weight with weight watchers and my low weight before WW. But then the meeting started and we were talking about what we could change if we could wave a wand and have whatever we wanted to aid in our weight loss. I actually just read an article about this in regard to infertility. Now we will start with weight loss revelations because that is just how this blog was started, so hold onto your prenatal because I will get to the infertility bit.

~Anyway we got to talking about commitment vs interest. Let me give you the definitions, just in case…

interest: the state of wanting to know or learn about something or someone.

commitment: dedication, application.

The difference in weight loss is the person that slips up and then continues to let themselves do so because they already messed up is interested, but the person who is committed slips up and then gets right back on board. No beating themselves up over the screw up, just get right back on track and keep moving forward towards the goal. This REALLY hit me this week. It’s not the motivation most people lack. It’s not the motivation I lack. It is the dedication. The commitment. I have been waiting for myself to fail because I have never finished my goal before. I have always been interested. I have never been fully committed to it my weight loss. Until now. I keep slipping up, but I keep getting back on with it. And now I have absolutely no excuses left. No treatments, I’m not really considering a possible pregnancy (of course there’s always HOPE of that pregnancy happening, but I am in no way assuming), I have got an August challenge to do, and I have 37 ish pounds left to lose.

~Then I got to thinking. (There’s been a TON going on since Sunday which I will write about in another post) I have always been committed to growing our family. Now I just need to be committed in other ways since treatment thus far has not worked. There are those ho take an interest to growing their family. But I think once you cross into Infertility you become truly committed. (obviously beforehand to an extent as well, but I digress..) No matter how many bfn I just keep going on. I try something new and keep on going until we get then end goal. But now I need to be committed on the next steps. And I am excited. And nervous. If I can be so committed to all of this, I can be committed to anything I want. I just needed to realize it.

MM

Someone get me a bag

I feel like I can’t breathe. My head hurts and I want to cry and my chest feels like a giant has stepped on it and wont move. I’ve always felt like ivf was in our future. Now I know it is. And I feel like I’m falling apart. It feels like my whole person has exploded and this bag of skin is just keeping all the pieces in one place…we have my grandmother staying with us and I am unsure if I can hold it together. And yet I’m numb. How is that even possible?
Obviously my test was 100% undeniably negative. I took three various kinds-just to be sure. I knew it. Now I’m going to go pretend to be asleep for a while

Halfway

**written monday**
-It’s a Monday. If you ask me, you can tell its Monday by the headache that’s obviously present by the creases in my forehead and the look of “you’re-crazy-what-do-you-mean-what-day-is-it?!?” The kids are tired. I’m tired. We drove to the beach to chase some rainbows made by residual water droplets of the surf hitting the rocks. When we got there (a 30 mile drive…) the fog was socked in and not due to burn off until between noon and two. That was an hour and a half away and just a short time before we planned on leaving. So we drove the 30 miles back and went to a kids theme park instead.
-It’s Monday. If you ask me I’d tell you I’m 9 dpo/dpiui, but I mean 8. Nothing like rushing the days to get through a tww, huh? The trigger is finally testing out of my system and I’m trying to keep anxiety at bay. This is our last iui cycle. No matter what this is it for this type of trying. I’ve done fairly well at keeping anxiety at bay but I’d be lying completely if I said I wasn’t anxious and nervous about the results. Though this cycle we both really feel like we gave it the best shot we could have. So hopefully out best shot was the one we needed. Until Sunday I’m pupo. Until Sunday I’m hoping. Until Sunday I’m in limbo.
Mm

Whirlwind Cycle

-Twoish weeks ago I went to update my blog. I decided to wait for my cd3scan that was going to happen on cd2. Then I decided to wait until my cd7 e2 check do I could update about how I was responding. Then shit got REALLY crazy and now I’m coming to you from the tww. So let me update you on the whole cycle from cd1 till now…….
-Af started on July 5 (bitch..)((side note: keep in mind my actual dr is on sabbatical for a month)) and lasted three days. I ended up having my cd3 scan done on cd2 in the afternoon because cd3 was a Saturday and my pharmacy is not open weekends. My scan showed everything normal except one follicle on my right that may have been a cyst. I got the green light to start meds. I rushed over to the pharmacy handed some new guy more than $600. (a huge discount, yes I just thought about needing to update my cost of infertility page…….)
-Saturday the 7 I began 125 iu follistim in the mornings. Up until this cycle I’ve taken every fertility drug at night except one round of clomid. Let me tell ya- injectables are same side effects no matter when you take them, oral meds taken before sleeping you sleep through the brunt of it. Anyway, I think this helpe with my follicular growth. I went in Wednesday for an estradiol check and it was at 186. Indicating I was getting close to peak point in my cycle. This cd in my last injectables cycle my e2 was 72 so I assume I’d have more eggs.
-The dr wanted to see me Thursday morning to ensure I would not ovulate before our iui. I went in and the scan showed two small follies on the right that would drop out, one 17.5 and one 14.3 on the left. Out of my four monitored cycles, all four I’ve ovulated from my left. Huh. She said to inject for Thursday, trigger Friday and iui Sunday.
-Knowing what I know about my body and my previous cycles I emailed MY dr. She gave her personal email to two of her patients because we are weird. I asked her if I should give myself the extra dose I had of the fol since I’d injected in the mornings and she said go ahead and give an extra injection Friday morning in hopes of bringing that smaller follie on the left up. Then we talked about my trigger. She said inject 17-20 hours before iui since I’ve ovulated 17&18 hours before iui both cycles. So I injected at 5 Saturday evening.
-There was a LOT of panic before trigger on Saturday because my temp rose a bit and was freaked id ovulated already. There wasn’t much they were able/willing to do so told us it was up to us for iui or not. We decided if my temp went down and it was a fluke we would go ahead with iui. My temp went back down and we did our last iui. Before doing the iui the dr did an under the table scan and saw two amazing follicles on my left close to releasing. She was do mad i hadn’t followed her instructions. I don’t really care. I believe I ovulated approximately 3 hours post iui. We also bathe day before, night of and today. What can I say? We like our lovin time.
-That’s where we are at. I start Crinone 2x daily tonight, If I can get a hold of anyone to get the script.. And it’s expensive as hell so I’m trying to get it through the specialty pharmacy. Endometrin is so much cheaper! 😦

SFS Thursday

This will be published a day late. I apologize. Everything is a day behind for me this week…blame the seagull crap that I spent the majority of Wednesday not being able to get out of my hair. (it really threw off my good juju this week) ANYWAY…
-Welcome to shit ferrules say Thursdays. A blog post that doesn’t happen every Thursday but is something of a random pop of fun for all us infertiles who are sick of the myrtles out there saying stupid shit about our infertility. This week let’s talk about one that hits on so many different levels I stupidity…
Situation one: years ago after a miscarriage coming from a person who’s no longer a friend. I was on the phone with L telling her I had gone to planned parenthood and what was going on. I was now in process of realizing I’d lost the baby. Instead of being truly supportive she went silent for an infinitesimal amount of time and then perked up and said “hey! Well if you can’t have babies, I’ll have them FOR you!”
-First of all, nice timing…Secondly, women lose babies, it sucks but it happens. It doesn’t mean she automatically can’t carry any to term…

situation two: my sister after a few drinks.
-She leaned in and with a gorgeous aroma of rum and vodka and said “you know…you and CC should have kids. I can have them for you. I have trouble not getting pregnant! Don’t worry I won’t even sleep with him we can do it in the dr office and everything! Hahaha”

not happening
-there are so many things to respond to in this instance. I was so dumbfounded at the time that I just threw a pillow at her face and told her to go the fuck to sleep. Forget the fact that you joked about sleeping with my husband (at the time fiancé but whatever), you don’t know that we can’t have kids! Judging solely on the fact that I didn’t get pregnant before getting married (which I did but she obviously didn’t need to know!), you’ve decided I am incapable of reproducing and then without being even hinted at you tell me youll have my kids for me in a drunken stupor? You are a PRIZE winning surrogate…
-This stupid comment that is generally not prompted and hardly ever truly considered by the one offering it comes to infertiles and gays alike. It seems this is one none of us can escape, especially after someone actually knows you’re an infertile. (or gay..I’ve known quite a few gays who’ve received this comment as soon as they mention kids or are in a committed relationship or finally tied the knot. Generally from a woman who hasn’t fully thought through what exactly it is she’s offering.) The truly unfortunate thing is that there is NO good response. Though it doesn’t hurt to try.. Let’s see.
-oh I didn’t know a good alternative to birth control was being a surrogate! (specifically for my sister.)
-Thanks but I think I’ll have my own.
-do you realize you’ve committed yourself to a minimum of eleven months, medications, procedures, labor, morning sickness, etc. all because you assumed offering your uterus was the nice thing to do?
-A swift kick to the shin?
-I find it ridiculous that so many would offer up something so huge without very seriously considering what they are getting into, whether the other person wants it, needs it or wants to hear it. It generally comes at a horrible time and in such lighthearted fashion that you can easily assume they don’t truly mean it or really care in the first place. There are times when this is a different offer, but most of the time I think a drink in the face would be a fair response.
MM