An UnMothers Day Story Starring Various Turkeys.

Anna Jarvis, the founder of Mother's Day

Based on the comments I received on yesterday's post, and the fact that somebody out there in internetland found it by googling "fuck mother's day infertility," it seems I'm not alone in feeling sad and inadequate on this day that celebrates the very thing that I want so desperately but am consistently denied.

Another UnMother's Day

Awesome t-shirt idea from the Five Camels blog.
Hope they don't mind that I stole it cause I kind of love it.

Mother's Day is the infertile woman's day of reckoning. It presents a unique kind of torture to those of us who have been trying (and trying and trying) and failing (and failing and failing) to become a mother. Tomorrow will be my fifth consecutive I-am-NOT-a-Mother's-Day.

Infertiles Hate You, Too

I'm Zero Weeks and Craving a Baby

Be warned.  There's a dangerous new "game" going around on Facebook. Just like the meme where you put the color of your bra in your status update, this is intended to somehow raise awareness about breast cancer among women and as an added bonus, drive men crazy wondering what the heck all the ladies are talking about.  Fun!

Except, not.

(500) Days of Infertility

Sunday was my dad's birthday. It didn't go as planned.

Have you seen the movie (500) Days of Summer?  It's one of my all-time favorites.  There's a scene near the end (spoiler alert) where the heartbroken hipster Tom Hansen (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) goes to a party at the apartment of his ex-girlfriend, the unattainable dreamgirl Summer Finn (Zooey Deschanel.) As Tom arrives at the party, the screen splits in two. 

On one side, captioned "expectations" we see what Tom hoped would happen: Summer spends the entire night at his side, the spark between them re-ignites and they live happily ever after. The other half of the screen is labeled "reality": he goes to the party, stands alone by the bar, and from across the room notices Summer showing off the sparkly engagement ring she just got from her new boyfriend.  It's a powerful and poignant sequence that breaks your heart without a single word of dialogue.

This isn't Me

If you're just getting to know me here, you might think I've always been like this: indignant and self-pitying, angry at the world.  Some of you might think, "she's never going to attract a baby into her life with an attitude like THAT."  Some might even think that I'm such a hateful person, I don't deserve a baby.

Well, I haven't always been like this.  I struggled, but through three and a half years of failed fertility treatments I remained largely hopeful for myself and generous towards others.  I tried to be the kind of person that deserved a baby.  I believed in positive thinking and karma and that whatever you put out into the universe returns to you.  I recited affirmations as I walked on the beach and visualized holding my baby in my arms.  I offered my experience, support and encouragement to other infertile women in an online forum.  I donated money to every charity that asked, especially anything having to do with children.  Gave double to the Children's Miracle Network because hey, it has both Children AND Miracle in the name, and that might bring double good luck.   You never know.

As the failures piled up, I faced each disappointment with my head held high and a fierce determination to try again.  I believed things happened for a reason.  I believed things would work out.  I looked for the bright side.  Because that's the kind of person I am.  Or was.

Eyes on the Prize

I'm angry.  If you've read any of my other postings I guess you know that already.  Even though it makes other people uncomfortable, I refuse to be ashamed of my anger or apologize for it.  Fuck that, I earned it.  I paid for that anger with my dreams and hopes and tears.  It's mine, I own it.  I embrace it.  I look it straight the eye and stare it down.  And each day, it gets a little bit smaller, a little bit weaker, because anger thrives on neglect and only grows when you ignore it.  If I continue to shine light on my anger it will eventually shrivel up and die. 

But I want to take a minute today and ease up on the anger just long enough to remember why I've put myself through all this in the first place.  Why I will endure more testing, get a second opinion, have this new fibroid removed--whatever it takes to improve my chances of success--and undergo another IVF cycle just as soon as I am able.

I want to be pregnant.  I want to start protecting and nurturing my baby when it's still nothing more than an amorphous blob.  I want to bond with my baby before it's born, and hear its heart beating inside of me.  I want to sing to it.   I want to see ultrasound pictures of my unborn baby and laugh about how much it looks like an alien.   I want to puke my guts out.  I want total strangers to come up to me in the grocery store and touch my belly.  I want to waddle.

I want a baby.  I want a sweet little lump that's completely dependent on me.  I want to feel my heart melt the first time the baby recognizes me.  I want to make funny faces until the baby smiles.  I want to see my husband gently holding our baby in his arms, and toting it around in a Baby Bjorn.  I want to be jolted awake in the middle of the night by the sound of a squawking baby monitor.  I want to sing our baby back to sleep knowing that he or she doesn't care that I'm tone deaf because they've known my voice since before they were born.  I want to change stinky poopy diapers and clean up projectile vomit.  I want to google "how to make a baby stop crying" out of sheer desperation.

I want a toddler.  I want to play peek-a-boo and sing "wheels on the bus."   I want a small person running around the house getting into everything, and I want to stick those little plastic plugs in all our outlets and put breakables out of reach.  I want there to be brightly colored plastic toys scattered through every room.   I want to teach my child the names of all the things that make up their world and I want him or her to think I know everything.  I want to read the same bedtime story over and over until I can read it with my eyes closed.  I want to be mortified when my toddler has a meltdown in the middle of Target, or bites another kid on the playground.  I want to read all those parenting books and figure out how best to discipline my otherwise perfect offspring.

I want a child.  I want to teach it to love the great outdoors and to know right from wrong.  I want to be Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and to leave tiny gold glitter footprints on my child's pillow the first time the tooth fairy comes. I want parent-teacher meetings and after-school activities and science fairs.  At the risk of further aging myself by referencing the movie Splash, I want to go see my kid play a tooth in the school play.  I want to be given birthday presents crafted from popsicle sticks and dried macaroni.  I want to encourage my child's interests and talents, and celebrate when they succeed.  I want to dry their tears and reassure them of my unwavering love when they fail.  I want to bandage boo-boos and chase the monsters out from under the bed.  I want to be asked "why?" over and over and over and over again, and I want to say, "because I'm the mommy, THAT'S why!"

I know it won't be easy.  But I want it so badly I ache.  I want to face all the challenges of parenting:  the good stuff and the bad.  I want there to be something in my life that is more important than me.  I want us to be a family.  And it breaks my heart to think that it may never happen.  But the hope that maybe, one day, it will....well, that's what keeps me going, even through the darkest days.  That's the prize on which I keep my eyes.

The Relentless Self Absorption of the Chronically Infertile

it's what's for dinner

It's all about me.  It's not just the miscarriage.  The waves of anger, loss and despair that currently consume me do leave me even more inclined to turn my gaze inwards, but I've been like this for a while. The past 3+ years of fertility treatments has left me with a bizarre sort of tunnel vision.  In other words, I have my head so far up my uterus I can't see straight.

The quest to conceive has taken over my life.   My infertility has become a filter through which I view the entire world.

My take on current events:   What's wrong with a world where Casey Anthony can have children and I can't?   The fact that she's talking about wanting to get pregnant again, and most likely could get knocked up in a skinny minute if she wanted to, makes me ill.   Why are messed-up women always so fertile?

Future plans:  Sorry, can't commit to anything beyond 2 months from now, because something might be happening that involves my reproductive system, requires frequent trips to offices where people sample my bodily fluids and peer at my lady parts, and causes me to have a refrigerator full of hypodermic drugs.

How was my day?  I saw six women with big pregnant bellies, five with newborns, two sets of toddler twins, and one 4-year-old girl in a rumpled flowered dress running on her tippy-toes in purple shoes and my heart ached every single time.

What's new at work?  I'm so burned out on my job.  But I can't quit because I have all this leave time saved up and I'll need that if ever I get pregnant.  And they're good about letting me have time off when I need it for a doctor's appointment, emergency d&c, or just because I'm crying too hard to get my puffy-faced self into work.  I fantasize about using up all my vacation and sick time after the baby's born and then quitting to be a stay-at-home mom.  Then I realize just how far removed from reality that vision is, get depressed and spend an hour mindlessly surfing the web instead of focusing on work and as a result I'm falling behind on all my projects and kind of stressed out about it but still too paralyzed with grief to comprehend tackling any of said projects, thanks for asking.

Sure is hot, isn't it?  And yet my feet are cold.  I think my lousy circulation means there's not enough blood flow to the uterus.  Maybe that's contributing to my infertility....

How are your friends?  One of them just had a baby.  I'm jealous and bitter.

What are we having for dinner?  Grass-fed beef, organic kale and lentils if I'm gearing up for or in the middle of an IVF cycle, pineapple for dessert if I'm in the two-week-wait post transfer, no peanuts if I'm pregnant, bacon cheeseburger if I'm wallowing in misery and disappointment after a failed cycle.

Someone please bring me a cheeseburger.  And yes I'd like fries with that.

Oh Baby: It's Not You, It's Me

It's all my fault. 

We found out today that there was nothing wrong with our baby.  It was chromosomally normal.  (It is, however, still an "it," since the doctor didn't reveal the gender and we decided we didn't want to ask, because what's the point?)

It's like being in a neverending heavyweight boxing match.  Every time I start to get to my feet, I get knocked on my ass again.  I've been physically and emotionally pummeled beyond recognition.  The doctor had anticipated that the results would show a genetically abnormal embryo, and I was holding on to that hope.  It would mean that the miscarriage was not my fault, that I was capable of getting pregnant, and if we just could just get a healthy embryo then we could have a healthy pregnancy.

But no.  Something is wrong with me and we don't know what and that something killed my baby. 

I'm so frustrated I could scream.   My self-loathing knows no bounds.   My other-loathing is fairly boundless, too.  I'm angry at God, every pregnant woman on the planet, and especially my doctor.  Today he ordered a series of blood tests that I've been requesting for over a year.  Every other time I asked about them he said it was a waste of time and money.  Now, however, he thinks they are indicated.  If one of them turns out to be positive, and I have a clotting or other immunology issue that could have been addressed before now, possibly preventing this miscarriage from occurring....well, wouldn't that be just my luck?

I've filled in my infertility bingo card.  I've gotten one or more items in every column:  failed IUIs, failed IVFs, fibroids, chemical pregnancy, and now miscarriage/loss and likely immunological issues.  Bingo!  Did I win a baby yet?   No?   Fuck.  I'm so tempted to quit the game, just walk away from it all.  But by now I've invested so much (time, energy, money, emotions) that I really have to see it through to the bitter end.

Although, if I become any more bitter, I'm going to turn into a horseradish. 

I Hate Your Baby

and I hate this baby too

I hate your baby.   I hate your precious little birth announcements and the hospital room photos of you nuzzling your newborn.  I hate his squishy little cheeks and her sweetly pursed lips and that downy fuzz of hair.  I hate all his adorable monkey pajamas and all her darling pink blankies.  Keep that thing away from me because I hate the way the top of its tiny little head smells.

I hate you for conceiving your baby the old-fashioned way, the fun way, and that the only shots you took were possibly tequila.  I hate that your pregnancy was unplanned.  I hate that you were confident enough in your ability to carry to term that you put your 8-week ultrasound pictures on Facebook.  I hate that you posted status updates from the delivery room.

I hate the way you brought that baby into work and paraded it around like you just won the Stanley Cup.

I hate that you're taking your new baby home from the hospital at exactly the moment I'm leaving after my D&C.  I hate that your husband is bursting with pride and mine is sagging with grief.  I hate that your arms are full and my womb is empty.