My Comments on Your Comments

People have tried to be helpful throughout my struggle with infertility, but many times their attempts at support fail epically. Here are a few of the most frustrating.

Your Comment: All you need is to relax. As soon as you stop trying, you'll get pregnant. Just take a vacation.

My Comment on Your Comment: I've heard this a lot, and it always makes me think you're an idiot. By telling me that I'll get pregnant if I just relaxed, it tells me three things:

1. That you don't quite understand the basics of reproduction
2. That you think it's my fault I'm not pregnant.
3. And, because I'm not actually stressed, it makes me realize that you don't really know me, which then makes your advice all the less appropriate.

Your Comment: You're still young. My best friend's neighbor's dog's sister's owner got pregnant when she was 43.

My Comment on Your Comment: It may happen, and that would be great, but the facts are these:

• Women in their 20s have a 25% chance of getting pregnant each month
• By 35, the rate lowers to 10% each month. The miscarriage rate is 25%
• After 40, 90% of a woman's eggs are genetically abnormal

Could there be a good egg in there somewhere? Sure. Might I eventually get pregnant? It's possible, but I'm not going to bank on it.


Your Comment: I'm praying for you.

My Comment on Your Comment: I actually don't mind that you're turning to your mythological deity for my benefit and support, however I do ask that two things never happen:

1. You don't condescend -- and you even accept and validate -- my atheism, and
2. You don't wave your magic prayer book at me in the event that I do finally conceive

While I love, love, love that you're thinking of me during quiet moments of meditation and prayer, a surprise pregnancy doesn't qualify as a win for Team God.


Your Comment: You should see my fertility doctor, acupuncturist, yoga teacher, homeopath, psychic, astrologer, and Chinese herbalist. And also eat pineapple.

My Comment on Your Comment: See, this kind of thing'll make a girl crazy. I'm not doing all that. Also, it would be nice to feel that you trust me and my choices of providers and consultants.


Your Comment: Have you considered adoption?

My Comment on Your Comment: Simply put, Yes, I have considered adoption. Now if I may explain why this question is offensive...

The want of genetic children cannot be satisfied by adoption. The grief of infertility can only be quieted by two things: conception or time. And even when people do adopt, they're still left with the residual trauma from the ups-and-downs of medical treatments, miscarriages, and an asphyxiating level of hope. Those don't just disappear.

Think of the process of healing from grief as a continuum. On the one side of the continuum is the pain of never having kids that look like you, and on the other is peace and serenity about that reality. Wanting to adopt babies is a whole other continuum, and I'm not on that continuum; I'm on the grief one.

Adoption also isn't easy. The process costs upwards of $30,000 and takes a minimum of one to two years filled with teases of "Hey, here's a baby. Oops, just kidding." It's not any cheaper, it's not any easier, and it's not everyone's solution to not being able to conceive naturally.

Maybe one day I'll want to adopt, but right now, I just want to get pregnant.


Your Comment: Keep trying. Don't give up. It'll happen.

My Comment on Your Comment: This is a tricky one. On the one hand, because the process of seeking fertility treatments is exhausting, this kind of  cheerleading can feel very supportive. But on the other hand, people reach the end of their rope, and at some point they need to stop living in a constant state of hope. This isn't giving up as much as it is moving on, which is sometimes the best thing to do.


Your Comment: I've been so sick throughout this entire pregnancy! You're lucky it's not you. By the way, do you know of any good nurseries in town?

My Comment on Your Comment: No comment.

~~~

Tips on What to Say Instead

Nothing. Don't say anything. Really. You don't need to say a word. Just listen. I understand why you keep sticking your foot in your mouth with these idiocies: it's because you don't know how to handle my grief and sadness, and you're just trying to fill the darkness with vapid words. But I'm telling you now that nothing you say will help. It's not about words. Just nod, pass the tissues, and give me a hug.

But if you do need to talk, here are some places to start:

• This must be really hard for you.
• I can't imagine what you're going through.
• I'm so sorry that you're dealing with all this.
• I support you no matter what you decide to do.
• If I can do anything, please let me know.

That's it. Honestly. I know it's not much, but it's all I need.

Merlin

When I was 22, I got my own apartment, and I desperately wanted to mark this maturity with a meaningful acquisition.

I would get a kitten.

Like any dedicated Women's Studies major, I planned to get a girl kitten. She would have long, gray hair, and be gentle, and have soft paws that never showed their claws. I would call her Serena or Gaia or something similarly vaginally-inspired. And I would be her mother.

A week later, I got her, but because she kind of fell into my life, she had her imperfections: she was orange instead of gray, and she had short-hair instead of long. And two days after living together, her balls dropped.

And with that, Persephone became Merlin.



The gender adjustment was short, and I fell completely in love with him. I had never lived with a cat before, but I knew he was special. He made real eye contact with me. He listened when I talked. He slept with me every night, his nose against my cheek. We watched the movie Babe together from opening to end credits, four eyes glued to our 19-inch TV. It was all very romantic.

Merlin and I had been living together for 1 year when I bought him a mouse to kill. I had weighed the pros and cons heavily because I was a strict vegetarian, but I didn't think he'd ever caught anything on his own, so I figured giving him a mouse would boost his self-esteem. That, I felt, was my responsibility as his mother.

This turned out to be a very bad idea.

Merlin tortured that mouse mercilessly. The little rodent was tossed in the air and batted to the ground over and over, his poor soul punishingly wrung out of him bit by bit. After three hours of terror, the mouse finally died, at which point Merlin continued to play with his lifeless body for another two hours. And then he ate him.

Self-esteem was obviously not a problem.

This was the first of many animals that Merlin would torture, kill, and eat. Mice, squirrels, rats -- he loved them all, but his favorite was birds. I'm not sure if this was because of the challenge of catching them (I mean, seriously, how do you catch something that flies?), or because they were delicious (think of very small free-range chickens). To me, he was a sweet, loving boy, but there was no question, Merlin was a carnivorous beast.

Merlin and I had been living together for 5 years when I got married. Throughout our relationship ("our" meaning mine and Merlin's, of course) we had several others come in and out of our lives -- a boyfriend or two, other cats, a dog, a husband -- but no matter who the others were, it was clear to everyone that shared our roof which was the primary relationship of the household. I was his mother, and he was my boy, and that was that.

Merlin and I had been living together for 15 years when he was eaten by a coyote on my 38th birthday. At the end of a two-day search, I found his tail and tufts of his hair in the yard of a house across the street. Later the neighbor found more of him: a paw, his collar, some other parts. "He was licked pretty clean," my neighbor said. "I buried what was left, which wasn't much."

I didn't know that coyotes lived in the creek across the way, but I figure Merlin did. With all the critters he'd hunted, killed, and eaten, my boy was an integrated part of the local animal community. Merlin knew the risks, and he chose to roam among them, but I still really, truly, deeply hate those fucking coyotes.

~~~

Merlin's death was a blow. It came 3 months after my second failed IVF, and it threw me into a depth of darkness I could never have expected. I wept for hours and days and weeks on end, not just for him, but also for my fertility that I only then started to realize was as lost as he was.

It was apt, I suppose. My time with Merlin marked the chapter of my life that should have seen me become a parent but didn't. He was there for every swallowed birth control pill that kept me from ovulating. He was the water bottle on my belly during my periods that came every 28 days without embryonic interruption. And although I'll never know exactly when it was that my fertility ended (at 34? 32?), I do know that he was with me, sleeping with his nose against my cheek.

And I miss them both every day.



[Merlin ~ April 1995-April 2010]

Rule of Three

The Rule of Three is a writing principle that says things are funnier in threes. Three Stooges are better than two. Jokes are stronger when they include a rabbi, a priest, and an imam. And this third example, which isn't an example at all, but rather an empty sentence that serves to reinforce how good threes are.

The exception to this rule is in vitro fertilizations.

Most people who delve into the world of fertility treatments don't go in thinking that they'll have three IVFs. There's the multiple daily injections, the ultrasounds and blood draws, and an anesthesia-induced procedure that retrieves a dozen eggs from engorged ovaries -- all of which costs thousands of dollars and most often culminates in an "I'm sorry" phone call from a nurse.

No, three of those is a lot.

But for some reason, I was sure I'd have 3 IVFs, which is why it was strange that I was shocked when that first "I'm sorry" call came. In hindsight, I probably shouldn't have gone to a friend's baby shower that day, but conveniently there were mimosas.

The rest of that afternoon went as you might imagine: I downed 3 flutes of bubbly, left the shower, bought 4 bottles of wine, restrained myself from punching a pregnant lady at the register, and drank myself to sleep.

The second failed cycle ended about the same, except instead of a shower and champagne, it was vodka and a bath.

The third IVF test result, however, was positive. It was my first positive, and with that the first set of happy tears since the baby quest started three years earlier. I even told two friends. "I'm pregnant," I said for the first time in my life. It felt like a lie, but I figured that was because I was in shock. It didn't occur to me that it was because it wouldn't keep.

Two days later, I had my second pregnancy test. The numbers weren't doubling like they should have been. After the third test, the doctor confirmed a chemical pregnancy. I was advised to stop my injections and let the fetus miscarry.

~~~

If I were to philosophize about the rule of three, I would guess that what makes the principle true is that the first two examples make you anticipate a logically sequential third outcome, and it's the unexpected turn that makes the third thing funny.

The exception to this rule is a false sense of relief.

I shouldn't have let myself be happy. I shouldn't have placed my hand on my belly and thought about my baby. I should never have exhaled because at the end of that exhalation, I was punched in the gut, and then there was no air left to get to my brain to tell me that it would be OK.

And it would be OK, but not for a while.

Year of the Uterus

I stole my avatar from another WordPress.

In browsing images online (I can't remember what the exact query was), there it was: a Zen sand garden of a uterus.



It's not a uterus, though. The artist made it to honor the Year of the Ox, which closed out the Year of the Rat. The Rat was my year. Or at least I was born in a Rat year.

I'm not sure that means anything.