How to Survive a Miscarriage

Miscarriage of justice by Lina Scarfi

First off, who do I think I am, attempting to write a miscarriage survival guide?  The jury is still out on whether or not I sufficiently survived my own, how can I counsel anybody else on hers?

Well, maybe I can't. But I'll try, because if my words bring solace, a smile, or at least a moment's distraction to someone else who's going through it, then maybe I'll feel slightly less broken and empty.

The Birds' Tale

Hi friends.  I've added a new page to this blog - see the link up there that says "our story?"  I wrote it for anyone who's wondered about the early days of our infertility journey, before I started writing about it.  And I wrote it for myself, to let all the words out so they can stop rattling around in my head.  If you're interested in the tale of Jenny and Mr Wren, you can click the link up top or this one here.

I'm Just Not That Into My Doctor

My doctor is not a unicorn, and this is not a fairy tale.  If it were, I would be the fair lady banished to the Barren Wasteland and my doctor would be, not the magical unicorn on which she rides safely to the Fertile Valley, but the scheming goblin who promises to remove the curse in exchange for all her gold and future riches and demands a series of impossible tasks. But after she meets all his conditions and masters his challenges through her outstanding determination strength and will, after she has given everything she has, he twists and grins and finds a loophole to slither through.  "Sorry, sweetheart, but you danced by the light of the full moon, not the new moon, so our contract is null and void. But if you want to try again I have another quest in mind.....bwahahahahah"

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.

What Fresh Hell is This?

Oh hi, I'm back.

I stopped writing because for a long time I had no news to report.  Then, when I did have news to report, quite good news in fact, the very best news that an infertile bird can hope to get....well, I was afraid to write about it because I didn't want to jinx it and I didn't want to tell the internet that I was pregnant until I was sure it was going to stick, because I didn't want to liveblog my miscarriage, if that's what was going to happen.

It seems my instincts were sound.

This Post Is Brought To You By The Letter "F"

F as in Failure.  F as in Freak.  F as in Faulty, Fatigued, and Forlorn.  F as in Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck, I failed my mock cycle.

Infertiles Hate You, Too

On the Road

I just took a week off.  I declared a vacation from work and worry and went on the road with Mr Wren.  He had business in Chicago and I had never been there, so I asked for the time off work and packed my bags.

We were heading to the Windy City, so of course I packed a jacket. But in another (metaphorical) suitcase I also packed away all thoughts of babies, lack of babies, lost babies, potential babies, and the terrifying possibility of life without babies. This latter suitcase, and as much excess emotional baggage as I could shed, I happily left on the curb as we set off on our road trip.

Wishful Thinking

The old saying goes: if wishes were horses, beggars would ride.  Well, if wishes were horses, I'd have several hundred stables full and would be trying to figure out how to trade them all for a baby.

The Best Friends I Never Met

Infertility killed my social life.

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.

Come on Irene

Some things are bigger than infertility.  Not much, I grant you.  As we all know, infertility (and the quest to overcome it) takes over your life and changes the way you see everything.  But some things are bigger.

Like hurricanes.  I live on the coast. And this bitch Irene may be headed our way.  There's nothing like the threat of natural disaster to put things in perspective.

In-Between Days

Photo by David Speiser.
See more of his bird photos here

Years of infertility has left me with a split personality.  There's "Jenny on the Nest" and "Jenny In-Between."

What Not to Say

I love that show What Not to Wear.  You know, the one where snarky New Yorkers descend on small-town frumps, mock their outdated sweaters and ill-fitting trousers, fly them to NYC for a $5,000 shopping spree and teach them how to dress appropriately.

I have an idea for a new show:  What Not to Say.  It would secretly film cocktail parties and coffee shops and wherever friends and acquaintances gather. Whenever someone made an egregious conversational misstep, the sassy hosts would barge in on the social bumblers, mock their cliched comments and tacky remarks, and teach them how to communicate appropriately.

There could be an entire episode on the subject of infertility.  Here's my Top 5 for What Not to Say: Infertility Edition.

Ask Me About My Dogs

Seriously, ask.

I ran into a casual acquaintance the other day, a woman I was friendly with in grad school but see infrequently now.

We had the exact same superficial conversation that we've had every time we've bumped into each other in the past seven years:  "Not much, what's new with you?  Yes, work is keeping me busy, especially this time of year;  no, I don't live at the beach anymore, I moved into town with Mr Wren when we got married seven years ago;  yes it's been seven years; no I don't know where the time goes..." You get the idea.

And then, out of nowhere, she threw a conversational grenade right in the middle of our boring but harmless little chat.

So Long at the Fair

It's such a cliche it hurts to type it, but that doesn't make it any less true:  these past few months of IVF, pregnancy and miscarriage have been one hell of a roller coaster ride. There were dizzying ascents and devastating drops. I was thrown for a loop and spun around until I wasn't sure which end was up.

I'm only just beginning to get my equilibrium back.

Six weeks after the miscarriage, my hormones have leveled out and I'm feeling much more steady. It hit me today:  I feel like myself again. I'll always grieve the loss of our little boy (did I mention that last week I found out, entirely by accident and in a manner as casual as this parenthetical digression, that the baby was a boy?) but now that the hormones have stopped turning all my emotions up to eleven, I can deal with it much more gracefully.

Cupcakes at Midnight

Photo by Gary Cruz.
Click here to see more of his work.

I've been wanting to write about this essay by Holly Finn since I read it last week. Much of it describes my own experiences and emotions so accurately that reading it was like looking in the mirror.

The author and I are the same age, both started fertility treatments in the fall of 2008, have suffered through the same number of hormone injections, spent roughly the same amount of time on our backs with strangers poking around in our lady parts, and even have similar hairstyles.

Caught In the Undertow



Life's a beach.


Yesterday was a bad day.   I left work early, on the verge of a nervous breakdown.  I had one of those moments where not only did I feel the pain of losing a pregnancy, I felt like I was drowning beneath the weight of all these years of wanting and trying and praying and wishing and failing and failing and failing.  The phone call from Memphis was just one frustration too many and I was completely overwhelmed.

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.