All That Blood, and Nothing to Show for It

Today I got to go get some pre-IVF bloodwork done. Five vials, not bad--pre-IUI bloodwork was seven. This from a girl who's not wild about blood and needles (better get used to it, eh?).

But it does seem ridiculous that they need that much blood. Not to be too anal, I'll leave that to DH, but I timed it and it took more than one minute to get it all out. It felt sort of wasteful, like I should have just donated it instead. Only I can't donate blood, because I lived in England during that whole mad cow thing. Moooo. I hope I don't have crazy babies, if I ever do get pregnant. Cause I ate that beef.

Anyway, it's sort of sad when you recognize the hospital phlebotemist. I sure as hell hope he doesn't remember me. I'm not one of those people who likes to get really chummy with medical professionals (hence my aversion to the arm-rubbing dental hygenist), and I figure this kid does not care to know anything about me, either. I started to wonder today if maybe he'd think something was wrong with me, like I was really sick and he should feel sorry for me. But then I realized I should get over myself, because probably all this kid cares about is that I don't hyperventilate and pass out, and that when I pee in the cup I shoot straight and don't make a mess.

Speaking of which, that office has one of those nice little pass throughs where you can slide your sample in from the restroom and someone else takes it out the other side. I've always appreciated this very discreet way of not directly acknowledging that I did, in fact, just pee in a cup. Of course, I couldn't care less at the fertility clinic (maybe it's something about the whole "laying-there-with-your-legs-wide-open" thing), where they don't do that, but instead walk into the room with an OPK still dripping to tell me what my urine hath revealed.

But today, when I went to put my little cup in the pass through, there were like 10 different cups already in there. It was a challenge to fit my cup in too. (I also noticed that it looked like I overfilled, in comparison.) Which got me thinking about the poor stranger on the other side, who's going to spend all day handling other people's urine. I guess I'm not the one in the lab who should be bitching.

How to Get My BFP

I've seriously thought, in the last few days post-IUI, that the best thing to do would be to take a pregnancy test. Since I got a shot of HCG, which is the same hormone a pregnancy test measures, it will be positive. And I figure I deserve to see what a positive looks like!

Those Numbers Are a B*#!ch

Today was the big visit to the subprime mortgage broker--I mean, financial coordinator at the fertility clinic. Seriously, she was a very nice lady, but she definitely laid it out there for us in three neat little packages to browse and buy at our leisure (I felt like I was supposed to get a timeshare and a free answering machine at the end or something). She even created these nice little worksheets for us, showing the difference in the three "plans."


I decided these plans were the works of an evil mastermind. They basically give you three different options depending on how much risk to assume. The most expensive plan gives you a refund if it doesn't work (but who wants a refund? I want to get pregnant!). Then there's the BOGO deal. And finally, just the straight price of one round.

Anyway, afterward we had to go sit down and breathe a little. Then we started to try and decide which plan to go with. We soon went insane, because as soon as one sounds good, the next sounds better, and then the next, and then back to the first. Honestly, as I'm trying to sort this out in words, my geeky husband is in the other room creating a spreadsheet. He just eats that shit up.

I Hated Angelina Jolie

So has Angelina Jolie had her baby yet or what? I really hated her. I mean, I got over it. I am not one of those US Weekly loving freaks (though it is easy to get sucked into that thing!) who hates her for being beautiful, or rich, or talented, or with Brad Pitt. I've always thought her life is a weird, creepy juxtaposition, actually. A commitment to serious endeavors and changing the world, with some Harry Winston jewels and really vapid movies and strange relationships and vials of blood thrown into the mix.


No, my hate was (of course) fertility related: I hated her for getting pregnant again right when I was getting really sick of not getting pregnant again. With twins, no less! The nerve! It wasn't that I minded Maddox Jolie-Pitt with his cool mohawk and camo pants or Shiloh Jolie-Pitt with her good genes and unnaturally large baby lips. I had a horrible and shallow thought, which is that if Ms. Jolie, who already had a whole mess a kids, could get pregnant, I should be able to too.

The Best Thing About Infertility

Infertility hasn't been all bad. The best thing has been the friendship and support of women who have surprised me. I expected that when I started struggling with this, I'd share my pain with mostly new moms, who knew the joy of having a child. But it turns out those people are just really busy, so maybe not so much. Not that I ever lacked for support:

1. Moms who take the time. Some friends have disappointed me in their lack of support. But other friends have come through like amazing champs. Like my friend J, who got pregnant while I was trying, and still says to me, "When you get pregnant" with a confidence she knows I need. Or E, who went through it too, and let's me ask every obsessive question, call at any time.


2. The single gals. I'm of an age where most of my single friends have been horribly, offensively, ripped off. That is, if they want to be partnered, they should be, and if they aren't, it's really unfair. Several of these women have been truly amazing, even when I know they may want children and feel there's other barriers in the way. How giving is that?


3. Those who have walked the path before me. Thank god I had someone to call for no other reason than I started my period. Who else would understand?

It's Friday, and I Ain't Got Shit to Do

It's Friday. As far as my fertility goes, I ain't got shit to do for the next two weeks. Which is weird, after going into the clinic almost every day this week. It should feel like a vacation, but it doesn't. Besides, I've never been on a vacation where I can't have my wine.

Now That We've Got it Down...It's Over

We had our final IUI today, and we were like pros: we know the routine ,and it was amazingly smoothly, especially considering our host of problems. Catheter problems. Sperm problems. Asshole doctor problems.

So now I understand why people decide to do it more than the three times doctors recommend, even when you know statistically, that's when it will happen. And why doctors make you choose, at the beginning, how many times you'll do it. Cause you start thinking, "oh, just one more time. We've finally got the right conditions." I mean, we've got this down now. I think I ovulated this morning, and went in at 10:45 for the IUI. The catheter went in like butta. And the washed sperm count was 12 million which--gasp!--is actually normal. We've never gotten to normal; we've barely approached normal.

But we said when we started this that we were going to do it 3 times. And that was number 3. The doctors keep reminding me of this too (I saw three different ones this week, because it's a shared practice), wanting to know if we were ready to move to IVF. So it makes me feel like it's kinda hard to change my mind. Which I shouldn't anyway. Because this could go on forever.

Or, I could just get pregnant this month. That would be nice.

Wanted: RE to Read my OPK Results

So I thought I'd have had my IUI by now. Monday was Day 14, and I still hadn't had a positive on my OPK, so I went in for an ultrasound. Not ready. Tested yesterday. Still negative. But now it was only mostly negative. The test line was darker than it had been, almost as dark as the control line on the far left side, but not all the way across. Again this morning--almost, but maybe not quite?

I know these things are either negative or positive--if you've never used one, you're probably thinking, "what idiot can't figure this out?"--but it really doesn't work that way. If you don't understand how that could be, go to Peeonastick.com (which is a funny and informative site), which purports to answer the all important "when is an OPK really positive?" question.

But the pictures for my particular brand of OPK weren't really instructive--my sticks didn't look like the positives or the negatives--like I said, they looked in between. And then there was some confusing information about what to do if part, but not all, of your test line is as dark as the control line. With some OPKs, that means a positive, with others, the width of the dark part is what matters. How can they possibly except neurotic, ovulating women to figure this out on their own?!

This isn't the first time I've been through this. Last month, I went in too early after pulling my OPK from the trash can and examining with the help of my headlamp, up close. Again, it was in between, and I was worried I'd miss the "big drop," as DH And I call it, so I kept looking at it over and over. I wasn't ready, but it meant an extra ultrasound to check things out.

So this time, not wanting to be overanxious like I had been, I went into the doctor's office and told them I'd had a negative. They did a test in the office, and the doctor happily announced, "positive!" What the heck? He showed it to me and it looked just like the ones I'd had at home. I explained that and he told me it was "borderline." I didn't know you could be "borderline" and it would sure be nice if that was on the package, instead of "99.9% accurate." Apparently, to get that accurate result, you need an RE to read it for you.

Don't Hate Me Because I'm Fertile

I am constantly amazed at the women who do not think I see the difference between them having a baby and me having a baby, that think I hate them because of it. Yes, when you get pregnant, I wish I was pregnant too. No, when you get pregnant I do not want to kill you and implant your unborn child in my womb.


I have to admit that I get tired of smiling and assuring and being unusually cheerful at baby showers. As happy as I am for you, it does not change the fact that it sucks for me. (Not that you're pregnant--you must get over that--but that I'm not.) And unfortunately, events celebrating your pregnancy remind me of my lack thereof. Is it so weird that I might feel a little sad? If I don't bear any ill will toward you, what does it matter? I still buy a gift at Babies R' Us and put on my Sunday best and smile and laugh and mean it!


I have one friend who had a baby and seems to feel constantly guilty about it--right from the moment she got pregnant, as if she thought I'd accuse her of doing it on purpose just to hurt my feelings. I tried to be very supportive. I tried to show her that I cared about her and I was happy for her and I didn't take it personally. But it just got to be too much darn work.

I finally gave up. I got tired of calling and not getting called back, and then seeing her and recognizing that guilty look, "I'm pregnant and she's not and it makes her feel bad and it's not her fault, but she's probably upset with me and can't be close to me." Actually, I was upset with her and couldn't be close to her, but not for the reason she thought. I couldn't be close to her because she never called me back, so it was sort of a one-sided relationship. When I realized that this woman had conceived and had a baby and in that time period we'd had exactly one conversation about my own struggles (before she told me she was pregnant), I decided it wasn't worth it to keep trying to beat her with a "happy-for-you-that-you're pregnant" stick.

You Have a Beautiful Endometrial Lining

Who knew there was such a thing as a "beautiful endometrial lining"? It must be true, though, because the doctor told me that today, and a medical assistant told me almost the exact same thing last month, only with a little more pizazz ("Great lining, Sweetie").

What's more, who knew that hearing you have a great endometrial lining would make you feel good? As if you, yourself, did something to make it good, or knew what it meant, even.

But you temper the sense of accomplishment by hearing things aren't as good as you'd hoped, and believing that's your fault. Like today, I heard that even with 150 mg of Clomid, I only had one egg this month. Last month on the same dose I had two. What did I do wrong? I ask myself. But really, what can you do wrong when your only responsibility is to take a pill? Only so many ways you can mess that up.

These are the times that I must remind myself that I am a person greater than my infertility. Otherwise, these actually start to feel like accomplishments and failures.

Ain't No Such Thing as Karma

So it's Father's Day. The last two Father's Days and Mother's Days, I've hoped, secretly (or maybe not so secretly) to be able to tell my parents, "Hey, guess what? Pretty soon you'll be a grandparent." Not so this year, again.

I have to admit, it's kind of a downer not to be able to celebrate for yourself or your partner on days like this, even though you're still enjoying yourself and happy for the person you're celebrating. (I get tired of explaining this--to all you content parents out there, especially the ones who feel guilty when your friends aren't pregnant: happy for you and sad for me can happen at the same time. If I can tell the difference, and I'm the sad one, you should be able to too.) It sort of reminds me of a few months ago, when we gave a baby shower for our good friends, J and M. We were totally happy to do it--they're great friends (and they've since had a great baby; we love him!). But it turned out that the day of the shower was around the time I was supposed to ovulate, and I was going in for an IUI. Following Dr. F's instructions, I had to pee on my stick in the afternoon. At the baby shower. Which wasn't at my house. That was kind of crappy--celebrating a baby for someone else, while wondering if you're going to maybe get a shot at making one with the help of a doctor, after over a year of trying.

It also turned out that this was the month of the disastrous IUI attempt that involved an unfriendly cervix and a painful game of thread the needle (described here). That month convinced me I don't believe in karma. Because we threw a great shower and celebrated the new parents, I peed on my stick in the privacy and humiliation of their bathroom, and our reward was the pain and disappointment that only a resistant cervix can cause.

Today ,we'll have another Father's Day without being parents, and we'll grin and be genuinely happy. But inside, there's a little part that will hurt and wonder, "Hey, what did we do to deserve this?"

Time for a Big Ole Shot in the Butt

We'll have to go into the clinic either tomorrow or the next day, so they can do an ultrasound and look at the eggs that should be just about ready to go. And then I'll get the shot of HCG. Have you ever heard of HCG? It's supposed to make you ovulate (it's a "trigger shot") but get this--it's made out of urine. Of pregnant ladies. That's gross. But I had to get over that, cause I didn't have much choice.

The first time I got this shot, DH was very excited. He really wanted to see me get it in the butt (which I did). I think it's partly because it brings back memories for him. We were in the Peace Corps a few years ago and we had very rudimentary health care and I got sick and needed to have blood drawn. The nurse couldn't get it from my arms or my hands or a couple other places she tried. So eventually, she took it out of my butt. Sort of high on my butt, and it gave me a wicked cramp, and she smiled and said, "Duele, no ve?" (It hurts, right?) Every medical care professional I've talked to since thought this was crazy, but it happened, and DH was there to attest to it.

I think it's a mean reason to wish for another shot. I mean, I didn't wish salmonella on him again.

When You're Ready to Drop That Egg

It's really weird when you're waiting to do an IUI, because they tell you when you can have sex. And you have to decide whether to abide by their rules or not. According to the fertility clinic, we should stop at day 9, which was two days ago. But last time, DH's sperm count was higher for the second IUI--meaning he'd given a "specimen" just the day before. So we started to wonder if we should just skip the whole abstaining thing, and have sex right up to the IUI, and possibly see increased counts.

And just think--we used to have sex just for fun.

No, The Dentist Doesn't Have Anything to Do With Infertility

I had a teeth cleaning today, and I was really dreading it because of the infertility thing. You'd think, very logically, that dentistry and infertility should have nothing to do with each other. But my dentist's office has this very fancy electronic charting system, and that system wants to know everything about your medical history that there is to know. It's quite cool actually: the screen has a high tech picture of a dental chair, and the person inputting data can click around on different parts of the screen to put in different information (the little x-ray machine for x-rays, the tray of cleaning tools for cleaning). I sort of feel like it's my opportunity at Second Life without actually learning to play that game, like I should get to choose a cool Indie rockin' avatar with clean teeth and healthy gums and all that.


So the last time I was at the dentist, the hygienist filled out this crazy medical history. She asked me a bunch of questions, including whether I was taking any vitamins. I could have told her, as my husband logically did when he was asked, "nothing that should affect having my teeth cleaned." Because really, what do prenatal vitamins have to do with tartar and plaque?


But I wasn't thinking about that, so I told her I was taking prenatal vitamins. She seemed to think that was an invitation to ask me how long I'd been trying, what I'd been doing to overcome it--pretty much anything she wanted to ask in between picking at the tartar and suctioning out the saliva. I am chatty and somewhat nosy but I had nothing on this lady. She also told me everything about herself, including how easy it was for her to get pregnant. Then she rubbed her arm all over mine and said, "I want to rub some of it off on you so you'll get pregnant too." I hope she doesn't think it really works like that because she and her husband could be in for a real surprise.

At first, I sort of went along with it. But the longer it went on, the nosier she got. Also, the door was open, and it's a small office, so the office staff and Lord knows who else--all the little old ladies in there with periodontal disease--were hearing this conversation. And I didn't really have much to say, because after all, I was there to get my teeth cleaned. Besides the fact that I had a bib on and was drooling on myself, I'm pretty much used to talking about the weather and where I'm going on vacation and my dog's name. But she was perfectly content going on and on about her opinions about the experience of infertility (about which she knew nothing), and the experience of pregnancy (about which I knew nothing, and didn't want to hear from someone I didn't know).


Anyway, I really didn't want this hygienist again. It's been six months and I'm still not pregnant, and I was afraid maybe she'd go for lifting a leg and rubbing that on me this time. Luckily, it was someone else. But unfortunately, the appointment was supposed to start with x-rays, which they hadn't told me before. And I wasn't sure I should have x-rays, given the upcoming treatments this month. So I told the tech that, and then she thought it meant I wanted to talk about it. I guess she didn't understand that I only volunteered the infertility treatment thing because of the x-rays, not because I wanted us to be new BFFs.


At least my teeth are basically clean. And I don't have to go back for six months. But I swear, if I don't get pregnant before that, I'm changing dentists.

You Can Ask Me

Lots of friends send me emails or call and say things like, "I don't want to pry" or "I care how it's going, but I don't want to push you." Let me tell you: go ahead. Ask and risk offending me (which is hard to do). I've never once felt like someone asked me out of some spiteful or ulterior motive; they always want to show love and support, and I appreciate that. On the other hand, when people don't ask, I generally believe it's because they don't give a shit. So ask.

I know not everyone feels that way. I know that some people are private about it. But chances are, if they've told you, they want your support. And there are many ways to open the conversation. There are nicer things to say than, "Are you pregnant yet?" If you ask, "How's everything going?" most of us who are so obssessed with infertility naturally assume that's what you're talking about. We forget you don't know when we're ovulating, or aren't worrying about when our periods are going to start. All that to say that while I can't speak for others, I can say that it never hurts to show you care.

May 2008: I Learn the Sperm Lady's Name and Pee My Pants

May wasn't a successful month--two eggs and still no bebe!--but it was an interesting one. First, because I learned the sperm lady's name. We had time to chat a little because the doctor needed a minute with the catheter, so I thought, What the heck? Might as well learn the names of everyone in the room when my baby might be conceived. I also learned that day that I need a Jones catheter, which might come in handy some day. Not that I can see a life threatening reason I'd need a cervical catheter, but if there is one, I hope they know it can't just be any old catheter--Jones for me, please.


The other interesting thing that happened to me in May was that I peed my pants. Well, almost. As Dr. M told me, I needed progesterone suppositories to keep me from spotting. After the IUI and until my period started, I had to insert these two times a day. They were a little messy, but I mostly work at home, which means it's easier to keep things under control.


Notice I said mostly. Once or twice a week, I take a very early morning train to my office quite some distance away, and then walk the mile from the train station to work. The suppositories are refrigerated, and I'm supposed to let them warm up outside the fridge for 2o minutes before inserting, then wait another 20 minutes, laying down, to let them absorb. And I leave my house at 6:10 a.m. for the train. All this means that I woke up for the first time at 4:30 in the morning to get the suppository out, woke up again at 4:50 to insert it, and woke up again at 5:20 to drag myself out of bed. While stumbling around in a half sleep dealing with this whole thing, I forgot to put on a pad.


Everything was fine until my mile walk, when I realized my mistake. At first it just felt sort of uncomfortable, but it soon became clear to me that I had basically failed to put on a diaper. I didn't need one at home, because the facilities were close by, but not so on a mile walk. And I was in a residential neighborhood, so there was nowhere to stop and remedy things. I just had to keep moving, taking small, shuffling steps like my feet had been bound.


Thank goodness I have the best office mate. And that she'a good friend. Because I could call her up, explain that I'd had an "accident," and ask for her help. She came over right away with a skirt. Luckily no one in the office noticed it was hers, or that I'd changed clothes. I would have had a hard time explaining why my infertility caused incontinence.

April 2008: Introducing the Sperm Lady

April was supposed to be my first IUI at the clinic. I had to get a series of tests beforehand though--a long list, and I was so anxious that I kept double checking with the medical assistant to make sure I had every single one and could get started. She assured me that I did. On the day I started my period, I was supposed to call into the clinic and get instructions from a nurse to get the medications and get started. The nurse who called me back looked at my file and said, "You don't have all your tests. We have to skip this month."

But remember how I said I WOULD NOT WAIT? I started blubbering like a baby and begging this woman, like a true addict, to prescribe Clomid. Come on, man. Just let me have the Clomid now, we'll sort all that out later. Luckily, she was used to dealing with crazy ladies--she gave me a clearly practiced, "come-off-that-ledge" speech--and she helped me out.

The day for the IUI came uneventfully--I was used to the hot flashes now. But the IUI was different than I expected. When the doctor and medical assistant entered the room, someone else followed. It was a woman carrying a tray, and she looked at us and said, "I have this for Mr. and Mrs. XX" and we realized she was waiting for us to acknowledge yes, that was us.

Which took me a minute to do because I was just so fascinated that this is someone's job. As far as I can tell, sperm is that lady's business. It's what she does all day, and she stands there while the doctor's inserting it--I guess making sure it goes in the right person is part of her job too. Of course it didn't happen right away, because the catheter thing took a little while. As last time, it got really quiet the longer it took. You could hear a pin drop. I couldn't help but think to myself, I never would have thought there'd be 5 people in a dead silent room when my baby was conceived.

I didn't need to worry that month.

March 2008: My Yoda of Infertility

I made an appointment with Dr. M at the fertility clinic. I chose him because he got a friend pregnant on her first attempt at IUI (I mean, he got her pregnant using her husband's sperm, of course), and she said he was nice, so it seemed like a decent combo. Luckily for me he had a cancellation and could get me in that month; otherwise, it was quite a wait. And I was NOT GOING TO WAIT. Since the last two months' attempts had failed so miserably, I wasn't interested in sitting around. So DH and I made a big old long list of questions, and prepared to sit down with this guy and GET SOME ANSWERS. (I lacked patience about that too.)

Dr. M handled it well. He was was an unnaturally calm person, the kind I tend to be unnaturally chatty around. It's almost like I'm trying to make up for the lack of energy with way too much, like electrocuting the conversation because the AA batteries died. What's weird is that Dr. M answered all my questions, but afterwards I could hardly even remember him even speaking. Hmmmm. Silent you are, oh wise one, but strong are your words.

Dr. M asked us our history and then dropped what felt like a bomb. "Do you want to try IUI again, or go right to IVF?"

IVF?! IVF?! So, so, so not ready!

So we said, no we wanted to actually have an IUI if we were going to cross it off the list. Dr. M. nodded and said nothing. And then I launched into my host of questions, all relating to the same thing. Why was I spotting? Why didn't the Prometrium stop it if it was no big deal? Would it ever go away? Did I have defective eggs?

Dr. M smiled serenely at me. Energetic you are, young one, but foolish is she who does not trust the infertility master. His answer was simple. "I don't think there's anything wrong with you. I think your eggs and uterus are fine. The pills don't get enough progesterone to your uterus. We'll give you suppositories and it will be fine."

And damn it--after a year of trying everything I could think of, of giving up red meat and making weird batches of nettle and raspberry leaf tea, of googling every combination of "spotting" and "luteal phase" and "infertility"--damn it if he wasn't right.

February 2007: Remember, I Told You: It’s an OUT Hole

After January’s disastrous attempt at IUI, I was ready to give it another go. This time, I took more Clomid, because I’d still spotted on the lower dose, and Dr. F wanted to see if an increased dose would help. In both January and February I was also taking Prometrium, which is an oral progesterone that Dr. J said would be just as effective as the other, less comfortable method I’d heard of—suppositories. It hadn’t worked, and I was starting to get very nervous about whether progesterone really was the root of the spotting problem. Maybe I really did have something more serious.

With the higher does of Clomid came the famed hot flashes I’d been warned about. They weren’t what I expected. From the way they’d been described to me, I expected to literally feel like I was on fire. I mean, how many times have you heard a menopausal woman stop a conversation with, “Oh my gosh, I’m having another hot flash!” like it was breaking news? Maybe I just know some really melodramatic women, but it’s happened more than once in my life.

The hot flashes were more confusing than anything else, because I kept forgetting there was a reason I felt hot all of a sudden. I just kept asking everyone in the room, “Are you hot? Is it hot in here?” And my feet, which are always cold, would suddenly be too toasty. I’d have to resist stripping down like someone in a drug-induced state might, and content myself with slipping my shoes off whenever it was socially appropriate to do so. (I wore tall boots to a concert one night—that was a bad idea.)

Lucky me, I again ovulated on a weekend, and had to page the on call doctor. This one, Dr. T, seemed a lot nicer and arranged to meet us the next day. And things looked straightforward enough—DH and I came in early with the “specimen,” Dr. T showed up a few minutes later and whizzed it around in the machine, and we all went into a room for the “quick and easy” insertion I’d been promised.

But the “out” hole thing…that was a problem, and I should have remembered it. Dr. T's attempts to insert the catheter were sort of like threading a needle. A lot of uncomfortable jabs trying to get it in the eye, with a speculum in, no less.

After 15 minutes, Dr. T said she was going to try another catheter. Another 10 minutes. Still with the speculum too, and I was starting to get really uncomfortable. I just kept looking at my watch, saying to myself, Okay, if she doesn’t finish in another 5 minutes, I’ll tell her to stop. But at the end of that 10 minutes, she had a new solution. “Let’s go across the hall to the ultrasound room. I’ll use the ultrasound as a ‘map’ to get me to your uterus.” Yes, that's right. She needed a map to my uterus (which makes me feel like there should have been some exciting treasure once we got there).

Here was one of those situations where, as I said in an earlier post, medical assistants are invaluable. Because sometimes, the doctor just literally needs a second set of hands, and this was one of those times. Since there was no one else around, that second set of hands was DH. He got stuck pressing the ultrasound wand to my belly, with Dr. T looking at the screen and simultaneously trying to shove the catheter in the right direction. So, trying to thread a needle by looking at a picture of the needle. And still, the speculum. It wasn’t cool.

So after about 10 minutes of that, Dr. T finally conceded defeat. She made plans for me to take Cytotec again and come back the next morning for another try. The next morning was the same thing, only 25 minutes long instead of 40. It hurt again. And it still didn’t work.

Infertility makes you feel like a huge failure. “Why can’t I get pregnant?” you wail to yourself, again and again. But this made me feel like a real dumbass. Not only could I not get pregnant, I couldn’t even try to get pregnant! I mean, the cheater way, with a doctor and a sperm wash and all the extras!

Dr. F had offered to send me to the infertility clinic the month before, but I’d resisted. It was another one of those, “If I do that, it’s like admitting I’m infertile” moments that I wasn’t ready for. But seeing the desperation on Dr. T’s face grow as she tried every possible method of getting that sperm up there, and seeing my poor husband giving me an ultrasound, ultimately made me decide it was probably a good idea. Even if it meant I really was infertile.

January 2008: I Meet Doctor Evil

With a normal HSG, Dr. J was ready to do an insemination. Her instructions to me were simple enough: three days after I started my period, I was supposed to start taking Clomid, which as Dr. J put it, would give me a “juicy” egg. Day 11, I was to start using the ovulation predictor kit. When I got a positive result, I'd call in.

“What if I get a positive result on a weekend?” I asked.

“The doctor on call will come in,” she replied.

Things started out okay—the Clomid didn’t give me hot flashes, as it sometimes can. I started testing on Day 11, but since I don’t usually ovulate until around Day 16, I was pretty sure I have some time. So I went down to visit my brother in L.A. on that same day.

Day 12, while at my brother's, I got a positive. Shit. I paged the on call doctor and started looking at changing my flight. When he called me back, I was excited and the adrenaline was pumping—I might actually get pregnant this month! I thought to myself, feeling triumphant for no other reason.

I’m sorry to say that Dr. S knocked me off that cloud and then some. I started the conversation by telling him I had a postive result on an OPK and needed to come in for an IUI. He interrupted irritably with, “What’s an OPK?” After a series of similar questions, I thought maybe I had paged the wrong person and was really talking to an opthamologist or something. So I asked him if he was a gynecologist. He didn't like that much.

Anyway, the long and short was that Dr. S would do whatever it took to avoid coming in on the weekend. He told me that I should wait until Monday, because I might not have ovulated by then anyway. And that I should have called on Friday, because the medical assistant is the one who lays out the instruments for a weekend IUI, and those instruments were locked in a cabinet. Medical assistants are important and all, I get that you need them, but hellllo—you’re the doctor—can't you open the cabinet? And why would I have called on Friday, if I didn’t know I needed to until Saturday? I don't normally call the doctor's office with a daily update. "Yep, nothing new today. Peed on my stick. Negative." We went around and around. I kept telling him this is what my doctor said to do, he kept telling me it was impossible or unnecessary because I could just come in on Monday and the cabinet was locked. Finally, he asked if we were bringing the "specimen" with us. I explained that we wanted my husband to give it there, so it would be fresh, and asked if that was okay.

What he said next made me sure this guy was not coming within in 50 feet of me if I didn't have my pants on. I mean, there's a perfectly nice way to say, “There’s no facility designated for that purpose, but he’s welcome to use the restroom." Maybe like I just said it, for example. But what he said instead was, “Sure, he can ejaculate in the bathroom if that’s what he wants to do.” I mean, I get that doctors aren’t etiquette experts, but they don’t need to be inappropriate dickheads either, right?

So in the end, he didn’t do the IUI, and I went in Monday to find out that it was too late to have one, I’d already ovulated. The one good thing I got out of this is that Dr. J wasn’t available Monday morning, so I got Dr. F instead. Dr. F didn’t have sympathetic mime frowns. She was to the point, no nonsense. I liked this about her, and I didn’t feel like crying when I talked to her, even though I wasn’t going to get pregnant that month. And she apologized about Dr. S, and said he just didn’t want to come in because he was a lazy bastard (or something sort of like that, just more professional sounding) and he had a key to the cabinet, and I should write a letter. So I did, and I changed doctors. Dr. F from there on out.

I am a big letter writer. When I get bad service, and it doesn’t get sorted out over the phone, a scathing missive always feels good, even if it goes right into the circular file. I don’t know what happened with my letter, but I do know this—Dr. S got fired. Well, he left the medical practice suddenly, and I heard through the grapevine that he got fired. I am not naïve enough to think that my complaint had anything to do with it, but I will say that any guy who was that big a jerk to me is probably that big a jerk to everyone. Like my grandma always says, he didn’t know me from Adam. It wasn’t personal. He was just an asshole.

December 2007: I Tell Momma to Cut It Out

In December, we decided we were ready to do the HSG. So we went through everything again, the Cytotec, the hospital, the billing lady who told us there were going to be charges but wasn’t able to tell us exactly how much those charges were going to be. The test itself was funny to me. Here I was on this big x-ray machine, with all this high tech stuff. But the way they get the dye into your tubes is by making you sort of wriggle around on the table, lifting your hips to the left and the right. After all that, the dye and the machine and everything, it’s still good old gravity that proved my tubes worked just fine, thank you very much.

December was also the month of family togetherness, what with Christmas. My mother had been hinting, for years really, that she wanted grandchildren--not in an offensive way, but in a cute, happy "I can't wait to take them to the zoo" kind of way. So when we started having trouble, I'd told her almost immediately, so that she knew not to bug me about it.

Or I thought she'd know. Maybe it was too difficult for her to understand, given that she gotten pregnant and popped four children out without blinking. (When I asked her if labor hurt, she told me, "It really wasn't that bad." How is that possible?) Anyway, it was at Christmas Eve dinner that she chose to remind me that she had yet to be blessed with grandchildren.

I thought it was rather tactful of me to ignore her, so I didn't say anything. But then she asked me, louder, in front of 10 other people, "Did you hear me?"

I am not trying to suggest my mother is insensitive, because she's actually not at all. She's actually a wonderful, supportive person. But, like her daugher after her, she's also a woman who likes wine with dinner, and before dinner, and after dinner. She likes to say, "Oh, my lips feel numb." So I don't think she was particularly aware that, with family members and friends gazing on, this question was embarassing and humiliating for me.

Like I said before, I cry easily when someone's nice and kind and sympathetic, like Dr. J. Ironically, when someone is thoughtless, though, I tend to bite their head off. I don't think I overdid it or anything, but I just looked her in the eye and said, "I heard you. Stop it. You know where things stand, and when you remind me, you just make me feel worse."

That was the first time I realized that I didn't have to let the infertility shame me all the time. I knew that interaction wasn't my fault. It was a few glasses of red wine too many that made a loving person a careless one (my mom has since apologized and been very, very supportive throughout my ordeal). But I didn't have to buy into it. It was probably a good way to end 2007, not pregnant but not a weeping mess either.

November 2007: Spent Boozin'

We took November off. We went on vacation to England and Spain. We drank a lot of red wine, the only thing that was cheaper in Spain thanks to the damn flaccid little dollar. In London we even smoked a few cigarettes. I know they kill eggs but I wasn’t using any that month.

October 2007: I Am One Cheap Bitch

So I had the HSG scheduled. This is a test in which they insert a catheter into your cervix, shoot you up with dye, and then take X-rays to make sure that the dye pours into your fallopian tubes. If it does, it means your tubes are open. The “catheter in your cervix” part was kind of a warning sign, given what we'd learned the month before. So Dr. J had me take a drug called Cytotec. The packaging said it was for ulcers or abortion, and it made me feel sick, but I guess it also makes your cervix open, which is exactly what I needed.

I could feel my resolve not to "pollute" my body with Western medicines slowly ebb away, which is probably good because I needed to get real about infertility—I needed Western medicine and intervention. Of course, it still made me a little nervous. I almost called Dr. J, just to make sure she didn't get the perscriptions mixed up with someone who was actually having an abortion. I guess I could have asked the pharmacist, that's what they're there for, but who wants to stand at the Walgreen's counter with five people tapping their feet impatiently behind you and say, "Excuse me, this says its for abortions which I don't need, what I really need is something to open my cervix?" No thanks, I'll take my chances.

So DH and I went to the hospital the next day, checked in, and then got called in by a billing person. She explained that because this test was for infertility, it was only partially covered by insurance, and that we’d be responsible for the remainder. The test itself was about $500, and then we’d have to pay half the radiologist’s fee on top of that. She didn’t know how much that was, or what the total bill would be. This is something I still do not understand. Unlike every other medical treatment I've ever had, where I pay my $15 copay each visit, I never know how much I'm going to pay for this fertility stuff. Sometimes it costs $4, sometimes it costs $400. It seems like there's no rhyme or reason to it, and I can't believe no one in the hospital seems able to explain it. If there's a guy there who can remove a brain tumor, or a woman there who can restart a heart that's stopped beating, you'd think there'd be someone there who could tell me the price of an HSG.

In retrospect, I kind of laugh that DH and I balked at paying $500, which is about what we’re guessing it would be (no thanks to Miss Billing Department, of course). But at the time, we felt like it was just a stupid waste of money. I mean, we had no reason to believe my tubes weren’t open, but we had a couple of independent reasons we suspected were keeping us from getting pregnant. We didn’t know that infertility treatment is full of tests and payments that feel like a stupid waste of money, but that it’s part of checking things off the list, covering all the bases. In any case, I had received my abnormal progesterone test after Dr. J had told me to get the HSG. So I thought maybe I didn’t need the HSG anymore. It's not my tubes, it's my progesterone. And we were too cheap to spend the money. So we didn’t.

Instead, we went to see Dr. J to see what to do next. I told the medical assistant I hadn’t had the HSG because I wasn’t sure I needed it. I heard her relay this to Dr. J just outside the door of the exam room. She said, “She wasn’t sure if she still needed the HSG.” Dr. J said, “Yes!” like she was honestly surprised there was someone dumb enough to think otherwise. (I may be clueless, lady, but I'm not deaf, hello! I can hear you out there...) She came into the room and said this: I needed to have the HSG. Then I should think about having surgery, to see if I had any cysts. Or we could go right to insemination if we wanted to.

DH and I hadn’t really talked about this and so I’m impressed that we were able to sort out a plan then and there, in front of the doctor. You don't really realize how hard it is to decide which course to pursue. I remember other people telling me that they spent years in treatment before moving to the next thing, and until I was doing it, I didn't understand it. Time gets eaten up, little by little. And you're not always ready to move on, even when your body says it's time.


So this time, for the first time, the answer was “no.” I’d been so anxious to have every test done, to keep things moving, to get pregnant tomorrow. But surgery seemed too radical. And I wanted to give acupuncture a few more months. And the truth was, I just wasn’t ready to be infertile. So we said, “No, thanks. We’ll wait.”

And then I went home, and cried a lot.

September 2007: It Turns Out I Have an "Out" Hole

Next, more tests for me, to try and figure out the spotting. Dr. J said that a polyp was a possibility. I was skeptical—everything I’d read said that bleeding caused by polyps was sporadic, and mine was like clockwork—but her proposed solution for crossing it off the list seemed simple enough, an ultrasound that involved putting a catheter up my cervix, blowing up a balloon at the end of the catheter to keep it locked in there, and then probing around to feel and look for any growth. After what I'd just seen DH go through, seemed totally doable.

If only it were that easy. My cervix decided to make it very clear, in this process, that it is an “out” hole. It does not want to be an “in” hole. After some painful pushing and probing, Dr. J eventually sort of got the catheter partially into my cervix, but not really, and she couldn’t do what she needed to. “Oh well,” she said. “You should have an HSG next anyway, and we should be able to tell from that whether you’ve got any growths in your uterus.”

A few days later, I got a call from her office. I’d finally had my progesterone tested. The medical assistant told me, “Your level is 9.1. Dr. J says we usually like to see 10.” So did that mean I was abnormal? I couldn’t really tell. A little low, I thought, since 10 was normal, but that was like getting a A-, right? But then someone online said her level was 42. So was 10 just barely normal, and was the difference between 9 and 10 a lot? Would 9.1 cause the spotting? Or was the spotting because I actually had some other problem, or was a hemophiliac? She didn’t know.

But I felt proud of myself too, because at least I’d self-diagnosed accurately--I really did have low(ish) progesterone. Unfortunately, it wasn’t doing any good. In attempting to overcome the spotting, I’d tried Vitamin B6, progesterone cream (available in health food stores, and normally used by menopausal women), acupuncture, diet changes, this weird hippie extraction called Vitex, fish oil, a tea made out of raspberry leaves, nettles, and some other yucky tasting thing boiled together (DH called that my nas-tea), Maca root (which actually tasted worse), and a variety of herbs prescribed by my acupuncturist. I’m not saying none of these things can work, but none did for me. So even though I felt good that I’d diagnosed one problem accurately, I felt pissed that the stuff that worked for other women wasn’t working for me, and scared that maybe it was because my diagnosis was incomplete.

August 2007: Another Man Feels My Husbands Testicles

The urologist’s office was part of a larger fertility practice about a 40 minute drive from where we live. We didn’t yet know that we’d be spending a lot of time there, and that if we have any children, they’ll probably be conceived there. Luckily, it’s a really nice office -- not as nice as the acupuncturist’s, but still nice. And there’s no babies or obviously pregnant women, which sounds bitchy, but is kind of a nice change from the regular ob/gyn, where you feel constantly reminded that what everyone else is there for is the one thing you lack.

The urologist, Dr. G, was a cool guy. He recommended right away that DH get another analysis done, because he wasn’t convinced about the testing conditions of the first one and in any case, sometimes you could just have a wacky sample. That made us feel a little better, like maybe things were just off on that one try. Then he said it was time for a physical exam.

Now as I mentioned previously, DH went with me to every doctor’s appointment. He’s seen it all at this point, and I can’t imagine that’s been fun. And this is the part where I can relate a little. I asked him if he wanted me to go into the exam room with him and he said, “Sure.” I think this is a typical marital communication problem. When you say “sure,” do you mean “yes” or do you mean, “I’m not sure, but if you make the wrong choice, I’ll blame you for it later”? Anyway, I figured it meant he more likely than not wanted me to go, and I thought I might look bitchy and controlling if I asked him, in front of Dr. G, “Does that mean yes or no?” so I followed them into the exam room.

A physical exam by a urologist consists of: (1) you dropping your pants, (2) the doctor grabbing your balls, and (3) some probing and moving around. I’m grateful, when I am laying on that table with my feet in stirrups and my knees at my ears, that I can’t see what’s going on at the other end. That’s not how it is when a man has his genetials examined. He's standing up, so he can look straight down and see the grabbing and probing and the brow wrinkling in thought.

It’s even worse if you’re observing it because exam rooms aren’t big, so you’re sitting in a chair that’s eye level with what the doctor’s doing. You either watch this or look away, only there aren’t a lot of places to look, so you look up into your partner’s eyes, and try not to notice the look of desperate discomfort he’s feeling as you smile uncertainly and contemplate whether you should be making small talk, to take his mind off it.

When that was over, we breathed a sigh of relief and moved on to the second analysis. I won’t leave you in suspense—the second and third analyses, done over the next couple months, weren’t much better than the first. The physical exam was normal, the hormone levels came out fine. It was just a matter of d.f.l., which is basically what Dr. G told us. Nothing to be done.

July 2007: For the Sake of Reproductive Analysis

I’d really wanted this whole pregnancy thing to happen naturally, but I’d pretty much surrendered that by July. So next I decided to try acupuncture. Not exactly intervention-free, but it seemed a lot less invasive than Western fertility meds, or the surgery Dr. J was suggesting I might need. (My initial blood work came back normal.) And from the beginning, I really liked my acupuncturist, who is a doctor of oriental medicine but lets you call her by her first name. Finally! A health care professional who asked me about my cervical mucus! Cared about my temperature! And her office was very relaxing, very zen. Totally what you think an acupuncturist’s office should be like, with shoji screens and Asian-looking murals on the wall and relaxing music and Good Earth tea.

The best thing about her was that the first time we met and she evaluated me, she said, “I think you’ll get pregnant naturally.” Man, I don’t know if she uses that line all the time, but it’s a best seller. It sealed my deal. She said it, I believe it, that settles it.

But news later in the month suggested my acupuncturist was wrong, that I probably wasn’t going to get pregnant naturally. Dr. J recommended my husband get a sperm analysis, with a sympathetic mime frown for my husband this time. Apparently she felt badly for him, because he was going to have to have an orgasm for the sake of reproductive analysis. As you can imagine, I was feeling a little less sorry about that.

But I did feel bad for him afterward, and for me. Because the results weren’t good. I guess we should have known when the doctor kept calling and leaving messages, kept insisting she speak with DH before dropping the results in the mail. Usually they just send you that stuff, and it’s up to you to figure out whether you're completely normal or deathly ill.

There are three important factors in sperm analysis—count, motility, and morphology—and every single one of our factors was way below average. The poor doctor who had to tell DH this was a 20-something resident, probably not used to talking to strange men about sperm quality. She was nice about it, but she admitted pretty freely that she didn’t really know anything. She recommended we set up an appointment with a urologist, which we did for the next month.

Thank goodness for acupuncture, though. It never did what I was hoping it would—I still spot—but it’s very relaxing. Snort yourself awake from a dead sleep kind of relaxing. And as time passed and we were becoming one of those couples who had (always whispered) “trouble,” I was having a hard time relaxing.

June 2007: I Begin to Pee on Many a Stick

June brought me early-pregnancy-tests.com. If you are one of those people who likes to pee on sticks, this site is for you. It made financially feasible my obsession with seven pregnancy tests each cycle, because you can buy these little strip tests, instead of the plastic monsters you get for $12 each at the grocery store. They’re really cheap, but they’re even cheaper if you buy them in bulk, so I got like 50. (Which are all gone now.) The one inconvenient thing is that unlike the plastic monsters, which you can just hold under your stream as you pee, with these you actually have to pee in a cup and then stick the strip in the cup. I didn’t have sterile containers, like you're supposed to use, so I settled for Dixie cups. I can't tell you whether this is an acceptable substitute, because I've never had a positive result. Damn those Dixie cups. It's all their fault.

The other thing I found on early-pregnancy-tests.com is Pre-seed, which I’d heard of from my ventures into fertility forums. Pre-seed is a “sperm-friendly lubricant,” which is a fancy way of saying a tube of goo you have to open and insert, right before intercourse, to give the sperm a good place to swim. The female body produces cervical mucus when you’re fertile, so your body does this naturally—usually. But sometimes this goes awry. I’d never had a cervical mucus problem, as far as I could tell, but it felt like extra insurance, even if it made me feel like I was having sex in a puddle.

June also brought me Fertility, Cycles, and Nutrition, a very informative book that can turn Type As likes me into quinoa-eating freaks. The basic principle is that many fertility problems are directly related to diet. I’m already a pretty healthy eater, but I decided to clean up my act. I signed up for a local CSA, cut back on meat and dairy consumption, and even used a handy checklist from the book (I actually photocopied it!) to make sure I got adequate daily servings of all foods fertile.

Oh, and I started taking Vitamin B6, which is supposed to help you stop spotting. But I didn’t take enough to make my legs numb, which happens if you OD on it. Because that s*%t can fuck you up.

May 2007: I Don't Like Crying in Stirrups

Until recently, I had very unrealistic expectations about what a good gynecologist knows about infertility. Now I see that it makes sense that they don't know that they're not that well informed. After all, they're used to seeing the 90% of normal people who have sex at leisure and come into the office because they're pregnant, not the 10% who are tracking it like clockwork and still aren't.

I was armed and ready when I went to see my gyn, Dr. J, for the very first time, which means I’d been doing my research and self-diagnosing up a storm. I’d come to the conclusion that I didn’t have a serious problem, like endometriosis, but a “weak luteal phase.” The luteal phase is the period of time after you ovulate up until your period starts, and it needs to be at least 11 days, spot free, to get pregnant. If it’s any shorter, meaning you start bleeding, it can mean your uterine lining is starting to shed too soon, and you won’t be able to implant a fertilized egg. This often occurs because your body isn’t producing enough of the hormone progesterone, or responding well to the progesterone it does produce, after you ovulate. This isn’t too uncommon—for reasons I’ll explain in a future post when I lecture you about eating meat raised on hormones and drinking from plastic bottles—but it can prevent you from getting pregnant.

About a year later I’d learn I was probably right, but not from Dr. J. Dr. J let me blab on and on about my theories, and then she brought me back to reality. She made me start at the beginning, at the same place every other woman who can't bear children starts, with a rote series of tests. She didn't say my self-diagnosis was wrong, but she didn't say she thought it was right, either.


I liked Dr. J, but I ended up having to change doctors, months later. Not because I didn’t think she did a perfectly fine job, but because she always made me cry. Granted, it’s fairly easy to do – I’m sort of a crybaby. But at each visit, beginning with the first one, she’d explain that if they couldn’t find what was wrong, after all the tests and maybe some surgery, I could always try IVF and that would probably work. She’d accompany this with an exaggerated sad face, kind of like a clown or a mime. I’d start crying. And crying in stirrups is the worst.

April 2007: Oh, That's What Your Period Is Supposed to Look Like

I thought I was good to go in April. Ten days after I ovulated (I was pretty proud of myself, to know that without peeing on a stick that literally, when you do the math, costs like $3), I started spotting. I’d skimmed enough of TCOYF to know that sometimes, when a fertilized egg implants into the uterine lining, a woman can experience “implantation spotting.” Sweeeet. A few months, not bad.

Only, the bleeding looked an awful lot like my normal period. Oh shit, it was. I had two days of light stuff, as usual, and then the heavy flow that always comes later for me. Followed up by a couple days of icky brown bleeding, for a grand total of nine days.

But I knew I wasn't supposed to be bleeding yet, so I started reading, on the message boards I'll discuss below. And that’s when I learned that a nine day period wasn’t normal. That this light bleeding at the beginning wasn’t actually my period, but “premenstrual spotting,” and the brown bleeding after my period wasn’t my period either, but “postmenstrual spotting.”

It seems so obvious now, but really, who knows that kind of stuff? It’s not like you talk to other women about what the blood looks like. “Oh, I get a couple days of brownish spots on my underwear when I start bleeding, how about you?” It seriously never would have occurred to me to have this conversation, but it turned out I wasn’t normal, never had been.

This is when the world of webMD and fertility message boards was first opened to me, as I sought to self diagnose. I learned my way around and got the lingo down, but to this day, I have stayed a “newbie” on the site I frequent most often. It’s a nice way of saying voyeur. I’d read everyone else’s posts and work myself into a panic—it’s not hard to do—convincing myself that I was going to spend the next four years in infertility treatments, only to discover I was beyond all hope. I think it was the emoticons that freaked me out the most: a little witch face for your period, or a big smiley face with wings for a miscarriage. It looked too harmless in comparison to how it felt. It was too eerie, like Chucky from Child's Play or something.

Or maybe it was the quotes some experienced users would put in their signatures, implying that the plague of infertility is actually a gift from god, to teach us to be better people. That at least made me think. After watching some of the nicest, most deserving people struggle to get pregnant and watching others who truly had no business procreating doing it without thinking, I became quite convinced that fertility or infertility is not a gift from god, but pretty much a matter of d.f.l. Dumb. Fucking. Luck.

March 2007: Searching for Egg Whites

In March, I discovered the powerhouse that is Taking Charge of Your Fertility (aka TCOYF). For those of you have never been exposed to this book, it’s an easy-to-read tome that explains more detail that you probably want about how the reproductive process works, giving lots of information about the natural clues our bodies give us about their readiness to procreate. I am not mocking – this book is something else and taught me a lot more than Dr. J., my gynecologist at the time, ever did. Who knew (or in my case cared) that our bodies tell us something about our own baby-making capabilities, in a way that actually makes sense? I was a die hard fan.

I decided to start tracking my basal body temperature right away. This is your waking temperature, the same time each day. When you ovulate, it shoots up, and in combination with your cervical mucus, which gets all watery around ovulation, tells you it’s time to get going. But it's not always quite as easy as it looks. For one, “shoots up” is kind of an exaggeration, because your temperature only changes like half a degree. You’d be surprised how excited you can get by that half a degree—and it’s not just from personal experience that I say that, just spend five minutes looking at the posted charts on tcoyf.com. Besides, it looks like a big deal if you print out a chart and look at in on paper, like a graph you did in math class in high school.

Anyway, it all worked fine as long as my temperature remained somewhat steady, but one weird one and I'd think, "Did I already ovulate? Did I miss it?" I'd start looking at my cervical mucus very carefully, something I never ever, in a million years, imagined doing. "Is that more like egg whites or snot?" I'd think to myself, knowing that egg whites are a good sign. Egg whites mean fertility. Only I didn't know, because I'd never had egg whites on my underwear before. Finally I'd give up, and force my husband to have sex that morning, before he went to work, just in case.

I must say, as an aside, that DH was a dream husband from the very beginning. Even when he rightfully could have said, “You are a crazy, crazy woman,” he did not. He’s been at every appointment and has done every supportive thing requested of him, more or less. So if I make fun of him sometimes for being a leeeetle clueless, keep that in mind. You too, as you’re reading this, DH.

In those early temping days, he was very cute. He’d be half awake when he’d hear the double beep of the thermometer (beware, those things aren’t as easy as they look; mine took 3 minutes, even though on the package it said 1, so sometimes I’d fall asleep and it would fall out and I’d have to start over) and he’d mumble, “What’s your basal body?” He actually cared. He wasn’t obsessive, which is good, because we probably only needed one temping Nazi in the house. I’d wake up at 4 a.m., needing to pee, and lay in bed wondering if I should take my temperature now or at 5:30 a.m., when I usually get up. (I’m kind of a morning person.) Because you’re supposed to have at least 4 hours of continuous rest to get an accurate reading, but I have a small bladder, and there’s no way I could lay there another hour and a half. And the more I thought about it, the more I’d be awake, which is bad because you’re supposed to take it right after you wake up for it to be accurate, and I also risked not being able to fall back asleep which meant it would be less accurate later too. So I’d just end up taking it both times, and then I’d choose the temperature that made my chart look prettiest, or most like it did in TCOYF.

February 2007: When I Was Still Smug

So it probably makes sense to explain how I got here. In November 2006, DH and I decided we’d take a fabulous 3 ½ week vacation, traipsing through Southeast Asia with backpacks like we were 10 years younger than the reality (me – 31, DH – 37) and come back and make babies just like everyone else we knew was doing.

I tried not to be smug, because someone very close to me had been struggling with infertility, and so I did not want to take my own babymaking capabilities for granted. But I also had the influence of friends, a la the “smug marrieds” in Bridget Jones’ Diary, who I’ll call the CFs – “the careless fertiles.” They talked about pregnancy like it happened almost reluctantly, like their bodies were just made to make babies and they couldn't stop nature if they tried. And yeah, they seemed proud of it, like it was due to some inherent superiority, not the luck of the draw.

Here’s the problem—I wanted to show these people that you could conceive right away without being so self-satisfied about it. I wanted to wear the badge of fabulous fertility with humility, to prove you could be such a better person while still getting pregnant just by bumping into your husband.

That was probably my first mistake, and the reason I was obsessed. I used an ovulation predictor kit from month 1, made my husband have sex (I’m sorry, but I can’t use the fertility board lingo for that word, because “baby dance” makes me think of Teletubbies and a Maypole, and that’s just creepy) every day for a week. Not that he complained.

Infertility Isn't Funny

The first thing I need to make clear is that there is nothing funny about infertility. So if you plan to write a lengthy comment explaining this, please don’t. I didn’t say I’m laughing at fertility. That would be mean. I’m laughing through it. Since I’m experiencing it myself, I’d like to do it with as much cheer as possible for someone as naturally realistic (read – pessimistic) as I am.

This is how pessimistic I am – I haven’t even finished IUI (intrauterine insemination, aka the turkey baster method) yet, but I’m reasonably confident enough to start this blog (no small feat for someone as technically challenged as I am!) and know that I’ll have something to write about the next few months. That won’t be pregnancy related, like I already promised. I’m that confident I’ll have stuff to talk about, that IUI isn't going to work.

This is in direct contradiction to the unreasonably cheerful optimism of my partner (to use the message forum lingo I learned upon entering the world of infertility – “DH,” for “Dear Husband”) who, until I recently burst the bubble, insisted we focus on IUI which “could work.” We each heard “20% chance” and “poor sperm quality,” but as with most couples, drew completely different conclusions from these facts. I started saving money for IVF, and he got excited because there are Sports Illustrated magazines in the RE’s office (that’s reproductive endocrinologist, or doctor of yee barren women). But I get ahead of myself.

Why This Blog Is Anonymous

I really, really wish I could tell you who I am. Seriously, I do. I guess there’s the whole crazy cyberstalker thing, but even with that, I’d still tell you, because one of the worst things about infertility is the shame you associate with it, as if you did it to yourself. Like you’d crack your own eggs and scramble them on purpose.

I hate that feeling, hate that other women have that feeling. And if you ask anyone who’s talked to me for 30 seconds (cumulatively) in the last year and a half, you know I’m not shy about screaming “I’m infertile! No babies!” to make it clear I don’t think it’s my fault, that I shouldn’t be made to think it’s my fault. I know that announcing this to the world isn’t for everyone, but I feel right about the decision. As you can probably guess, I’m not very private, either.

As far as telling everyone who I am though, the problem is that, while I must emphasize that my job is in no way glamorous, it is somewhat public. Like if you googled my name (a fairly unique one), you’d get stuff. And I figure someone looking for my work-related stuff would rather not hear my fertility escapades. The feeling is mutual.

And infertility is the story here. Not getting pregnant. Not being pregnant, or having a baby, or being a mom. No one needs another blog about how funny it is get stretch marks and swollen feet, not see your toes, constantly feel like you’re about to pee your pants. We all get that pregnancy can be funny. Infertility, not so much.

When I first started going through it, I couldn’t have written the stuff I’m ready to laugh about now. At the beginning it just felt horrible and lonely and painful. But I’ve been struggling with it for a year and a half. Eventually, you get sick of crying when your period starts. You stop thinking, “When am I going to get pregnant?” and start thinking “How am I going to learn to live with this without going crazy?”

And pretty soon, I’ll be at the end of it. There’s something to be grateful for right there. IVF is on the horizon in the next few months. At the end, I may get pregnant, I may not. But I’ll have taken the road as far as I can. Hopefully, I’ll be laughing the whole way.