Connections

Remember way back in January 2009, when I started going to the Over Forty IVF Support Group even though I was, and continue to be, younger than forty?

Well, would you believe this group is still going strong? We long ago shed the group leader and became more like a group of friends than a technical support group but we still meet a couple of times a month.

It is such a pleasure to meet with these women, to see how people's trajectories have developed over the past year and a half, to just continue to show up for and encourage each other.

It's funny too how our roads are turning out to be quite different. It seems that of the six of us, many of us are taking different paths to becoming parents. Sitting with four of the group this week, I was struck by how we could almost represent an HBO documentary at this point, something like "Extreme Infertility Stories: the heartbreak version." Because none of us has turned out to be the typical IVFer, who does treatment once or twice and has a happy ending. We're all veterans at this point.

There are two "successes" so far: One woman, after multiple IVFs, did donor egg at 43 and now has a son. And another got pregnant naturally and had a daughter, but this after three IVFs and four miscarriages (one at 19 weeks).

And then there are the rest of us:

One woman, after multiple IVFs and miscarriages, has been waiting 9 months so far for a referral for domestic adoption.

One, also after multiple IVFs and no pregnancies, has just been matched for an anonymous donor egg and is about to transfer in a couple of weeks.

One has major health issues and POF and so is using a gestational carrier in addition to anonymous donor egg. Her situation is complicated even more so by the fact that she is from a minority ethnicity, which has made finding the right donor egg situation super complicated.

And then there is me. The under 40 person. The one still trying with my own eggs in my own body. The one doing the frankenstein lab maneuvers to try to get some normal embryos ready to go.

What a group, huh? Kind of a motley crew in a certain way, but a roomful of women who have made it so much easier to go through all of this, because every other week or so, I can count on sitting down in one of their living rooms and just sharing how hard it is, knowing that they all get it, are going through their version of it, and are getting through it somehow. Some days better than others, but getting through it nonetheless.

You guys, too, are such a godsend. To find all of you out here on the Internet, some of you bloggers, some of you just commenters, some in situations similar to mine, some in very different circumstances. To find that we can reach across our experiences and connect. I wish we weren't here, not a single one of us. But since we are, what a wonderful thing to have found each other.

Mo

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The IVF twilight zone

The second meeting for the support group occurred last night. A truly nice group of women. They are all much more at the place of deciding on adoption/donor egg than I am. Three of them are already pursuing donor egg/adoption and the other one is more where I'm at, except really, really feeling that her treatments won't work.

As I sat there last night, I was thinking about how it has been great to meet this group of women and to have a place to talk and learn about all the paths available. At the same time, I was realizing that it must inevitably shape my perception of my chances and what lies ahead. Between starting this group and that mindblowing second opinion, I've had a lot to chew on mentally and emotionally for the past few weeks. Much of it not very hopeful. In fact, I have begun to grieve the loss of the idea that we will ever have a biological child.

I go in Thursday for the co-culture biopsy and will see my RE. And I expect him to be his chipper, optimistic self about all this. Funny thing is, I feel like I've traveled a great distance from where I was at when he and I and Will last met and he said he thought we had a great chance.

And yet nothing has truly changed.

My prognosis is the same as it was a few weeks ago - good or bad. My chances remain the same. It feels truly surreal to be going in to IVF #4 with the sense that it won't work and we will go to Colorado (More realistically, it feels like it might work, but overwhelmingly isn't likely to.)

So that's what I'm trying to wrap my head around today. How my perspective on all this has inexorably changed, and yet nothing has changed externally in our situation.

There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension
as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between
light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit
of (a wo)man's fears and the summit of (her) knowledge. This is the dimension of
imagination...

Science and superstition? The space between fear and knowledge?

Sounds like the elusive and yet all-too-real IVF Twilight Zone.

Mo

Thoughts from an infertility support group

Thanks for all of your comments about diet and exercise. I'll see what I can do. Will start stims at the end of the month so have this whole month almost to try to improve things before then. Want to try to give it my best shot without getting obsessional or nuts about it. Will let you know what I decide to implement.

I went to the over-40-even though-I'm-under-40 support group for the first time last night. The others were nice. One is pursuing adoption, one is probably going to do donor egg, two are still doing treatments but starting to think about what is next (adoption or donor egg). Very nice women. All have been through the fertility wringer in various ways that I won't detail. It was great to be in a circle of women who understand each in their own way the difficulty of this infertility journey.

A couple of things were said that resonated and shifted my perspective a bit:

1. You can't move on to adoption or donor egg until you've grieved the loss of your own genetic child enough to be somewhat excited about these possibilities. I already knew I wasn't ready to throw in the towel yet on my own genetic child, but this helped me think more clearly about how to know when I am getting there. We went to an adoption meeting last month (will blog about it soon), and I was not excited about it at all. Which I knew meant I'm not ready for that step. But how to know when I am, if IVF keeps tanking? I now will look for a bit of a shift, not just feeling so keenly what is lost (what I so far can't have), but an openess toward new possibilities.

2. I've always seen donor egg as not so different than adoption in my mind, except that I would get to be pregnant and give birth and have the child from day 1 (which are big things, I'll grant you). Last night I also realized that with donor egg, you may not be genetically related to the child but you do nourish them with your blood, hormones, and neurotransmitters and in that way their development is imprinted with you in a very real, if not genetic, way. Someone last night said that if the donor had the same embryo transferred into them and had that baby it would not be the baby you would have - for all the reasons detailed, and this finally clicked. This seems kind of obvious now that I'm typing it, but it made donor egg a bit more appealing should we find ourselves there in the future.

The whole group wasn't about adoption and donor egg but was definitely skewed in that direction. The two women who are still cycling are both kind of down to their last IVFs and IUIs before moving on. In that way they were in a different place than I am but Will and I are starting to consider every option toward building a family so actually it was helpful to hear their thoughts and perspectives on where they are in the journey (it actually felt closer to where I am than if they were 35 and doing IVF #1).

How to know when to move on, or what path to take if we do move on, from IVF has always been a mystery to me. It's always felt like if IVF doesn't work that I will just be swallowed in grief. Last night it felt like there would be life after IVF, no matter what happens. A life I might even want. A life with children one way or another. The group shed a bit of light on the process of grieving and moving on should things not go as I wish. For which I was grateful.

Mo

Under 40, but you should see my ovaries!

After much thought, I'm joining an IVF support group. I've been feeling funked out lately and I can't seem to shake it. Last night I went to bed at 7. Not good. Not good at all.

It's not even a support group per se that I'm after. But I'm starting to feel isolated. The longer this infertility madness goes on the harder it is for me to socialize with my old friends, who are all either procreating or not trying yet and either way just do not understand the depths of our longing/obsession/sadness. Family too is difficult and are prone to try to tell us how they understand (when they clearly don't) or to offer well-intentioned but misplaced advice.

What I would love to find is more of a social group that would fit the situation we find ourselves in: an infertile softball league or an infertiles dinner group. It would be lovely to have a group of women in real life who get it. Not that we'd even have to talk about infertility all that much but just that we'd know that the others knew and understood...

Since I cannot find such a thing, I decided to join a support group. Surprisingly, it was tough to find a general IVF infertility group in NYC. I found adoption groups and donor egg groups, but not general ones addressing the suckiness of IVF and nothing for women who've been through recurrent pregnancy loss.

The closest I could find was a general IVF group for women over 40. When I called the social worker, she said she makes no exceptions - and "given you just turned 37, I don't think this group would meet your needs."

I asked her to let me describe my situation in a couple of sentences and she could decide if it might be a good fit. She ended up saying "Oh, my!" and asked me to come in for a consultation.

At the end of the meeting she said, "I think you would be perfect for this group!" What I wanted to hear, I guess, but hmmm....a bit of a therapeutic backhanded compliment, no?

Mo