Category: Travelogue

Notes about the journey

E Is for Embryos

During the embryo transfer, the doctor uses a very small catheter guided by ultrasound to place the embryos inside the uterus. During our transfer, they printed a picture labeled with “B” for bladder, and “E” for embryos (actually the air bubble where the embryos are – they’re too tiny to see), and we got to keep it. I have never had a pregnancy ultrasound picture that I got to keep. All of our pictures before this one were the sorts of things doctors don’t let patients keep: empty sacs or an empty womb where a baby should be.
This picture is different; it’s actual proof that our embryos started out in the right place – proof that we have done absolutely everything in our power to have a baby that is genetically our own. This picture is worth thousands and thousands of words. Words of hope and possibility and life. This picture makes me feel like this could be the first positive step towards holding a baby of my own. It feels like a real pregnancy.
Monday is the pregnancy test, so we have less than two days left to wait. By Monday afternoon we’ll know if either (or maybe, just maybe, both) of the embryos implanted. Then in a few more weeks, maybe we’ll have another good ultrasound photo to add to the album.

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The Mary Perspective

For at least the last eight years, I have played the older Mary in our Easter productions at church.  Yes, I still have at least another 15-20 years before I am the same age as Mary at the time of the crucifixion, but I have makeup and stage lighting to complete the illusion.  I usually end up with this role by default since I can fake the age and I know how to direct on stage without being noticed.  The last several times I have played her, Mary has been a monologue speaking role.  No matter what the role has entailed, it has forced my view of the events surrounding the crucifixion to be colored by Mary’s view, even the Lord’s Supper that our church observed last week.

Perhaps the monologue has been the most pointed in requiring me to look at Jesus’s death as a mother and to feel the injustice that Mary must have felt.  She knew from the first announcement of the angel that this child would be destined for supernatural things, but she probably never imagined that he would be taken from her in such a cruel form of death.  Parents never want to consider that they could outlive their children; we think it violates the natural order of life.  How painful was it to watch her child be sentenced to death and then crucified?  We’ve probably all seen at least a photo of Michelangelo’s Pieta which depicts Mary holding the dead Jesus in her arms just after the crucifixion.  It’s a beautiful and moving sculpture.  To portray that moment on stage puts you inside the sculpture – inside the intense sadness and agony that Mary must have felt.

Of course she knew that he had predicted his own death, and she would know in a few days that her son had been resurrected from the dead to live forever.  But in that moment, it must have felt like the end of her own life and the beginning of something far more terrible than death: any parent who must live on after a child’s death knows that you wish you had died with them so that you wouldn’t have to face the daily pain of living without them.  This isn’t suicidal; it is a natural part of grief and a feeling you’ll face until you learn how to cope with the loss. I’m sure that once I move past this stage of loss in my life that I will see still more perspectives of the crucifixion.  Right now, I feel that Mary and I have a lot in common, and it colors every part of my Easter experience.  It doesn’t change the most important part of Easter: Jesus Christ came to earth as a human, lived a perfect and sinless life, was killed on a cross as a perfect and holy sacrifice for my sins, and then rose from the dead so that I could live in relationship with God forever.  That’s the Easter story no matter what perspective I bring to it.

And So It Begins…

We have officially commenced the two-week wait.  The clock started Monday after the egg retrieval when our eggs were fertilized.  If you’re a gory detail type, read on.  If you’re not, skip this post and try again tomorrow.  Monday, they retrieved 13 eggs, which is a good number – not too many, not too few…  A nice baker’s dozen.  The process wasn’t too bad, although it’s painful, and I’m still sore.  Of the 13 eggs, 8 were able to be fertilized and 7 developed to embryo stage.  Embryo transfer will be Thursday (tomorrow) morning.  The next big milestone after embryo transfer is the pregnancy test, which will be April 16 unless something in the schedule changes tomorrow.

In the meantime, I have enough to occupy my mind this week with Journey to the Cross.  (If you live in the Birmingham area, check out http://www.gvbc.org for more information.)  And next week, I’ll be trying to catch up with all the work I’ve missed this week.  The first two-week wait should be a breeze.  😉

The Air Down Here

These days, it’s a little hard to breathe, as if the air all around me is thick like soup.  I do live in Alabama, so there’s a pretty good chance it’s humid, which means the air is actually thicker and harder to breathe.  But there’s no difference in the air in Alabama this week from last week except that I am charging everything around me with tiny particles of nervous energy.

The ultrasound Wednesday looked good, so I have another one Friday morning to determine the exact timing of our egg retrieval.  That will happen either Sunday or Monday, and we’ll know for sure Friday after the ultrasound.  It’s a relief to think that I have two days or less left of three shots a day, even though we go right back to another daily injection after retrieval.  That one may hurt a little more, but it will be easier for me since my husband will have to administer it.  It’s a relief to know that in less than a week, we’ll be done with the “hard part” of IVF, and we’ll just be waiting to know if we have a positive pregnancy test or not.

It’s terrifying to know that we’ll spend two weeks to a month in limbo, first waiting for pregnancy test results, and then likely waiting to see if we miscarry early or not.  The entire month of April will be waiting; the whole month will be thick with the nervous energy of anticipation and worry and hope.

I occasionally troll message boards to compare situations and reactions with larger groups of women in different circumstances and from varying backgrounds and belief systems.  Most of them talk about the tension of the two-week wait (TWW for those who aren’t savvy with IVF message board shorthand).  The TWW is discussed as the most agonizing period of IVF because you can’t do anything but wait to see if it worked.  Our TWW will be a long two weeks, I’m sure, but it’s nothing compared to the TWW that comes after.  Our TWW agony will not be waiting for a positive test result (I’d be surprised if we didn’t get pregnant); it will be waiting another two weeks to see if the hcg levels double like they should – to see if we will actually have a baby with a heartbeat that will stick around longer than two weeks.

I am mentally in a good head space, and spiritually I am standing firm on my rock and trusting the outcome of both TWWs to God.  I am as sane as anyone in this situation can be, but I still have moments when it’s hard to breathe such thick air.

Fearful Symmetry

There is a lot of fearful symmetry happening with this run at pregnancy.  April 1 is our penciled in date for egg retrieval; April 1 was our first baby’s due date.  May 13 is my birthday; May 13 is also Mother’s Day this year, and by that date we’ll hopefully be almost 8 weeks pregnant.  Should we succeed at IVF, our probable due date will be right around Christmas, which tends to be hard enough to survive without thinking about what should have been delivered should it not work out.  I know, that’s a lot of shoulds for one sentence, especially in a post referencing Blake.

I am trying to avoid recalling those fearful bits of symmetry, and I am mostly succeeding.  Although, it’s funny to hear people’s reactions to finding out those bits because they all want to say something like, “Oh, that’s a good sign” or “Oooh – It’s meant to be this time.”  As opposed to every other time you’ve said that?!?  So, it’s a little hilarious in a dark and twisted way to wind that one up and watch it go.  I think people forget that they’ve already tried to be harbingers of good news, so they just keep saying ridiculous things like, “I know this timeGod is going to give you a baby” instead of, “God is in control all the time, even when we don’t understand it.”  I know a lot of really terrible prophets. 😉

Sidebar (and Nerd-Alert): If you’ve never read William Blake’s “The Tyger,” Google it and read it.  If you’re a fan of Blake but you’ve never read more about his life and philosophy than is presented in Norton’s Anthology, dig a little deeper, and Blake will be even more fun to read.

Praying Big

I have for some time been at a loss when it comes to praying about having a child.  Our pastor has challenged us more than once about our prayer lives to “pray big.”  The point being that we ask too little of God, and he’s just waiting for someone to go all out.  The challenge being that we ought to pray for things that will make much of God; we most often pray for God to handle small things in our lives without venturing beyond the Sunday School requests.  We far less often ask for God to do something huge, like bring 50 new visitors to our church service this week (or even 5 for that matter).

Of course, this challenge hit more than a few sore spots.  My prayer life is probably the least consistent and least disciplined part of my spiritual life.  Ouch.  I find it easy to believe that God still performs miracles, but I find it difficult to imagine that he would do so just because I asked.  More ouch.  The greatest subject of prayer in my life for the last four years has been miscarriage/baby related – usually along the lines of, “Lord, I can’t handle any more of this,” which hardly makes much of God.  But, more than that, I have no idea what I should pray in this situation that will glorify God.  So much ouch that I will punch you if you touch it again.

Before I finish this train of thought, please note that I am not at all saying that we shouldn’t pray about the small things.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  The Bible instructs us to pray without ceasing.  God can be glorified in the tiniest details of our lives when we give him credit for working out those details and rely on him to do so.  I am, however, echoing the challenge to pray big.  Why don’t we?  Why are we offended by the suggestion?

Personally, I am afraid to commit to a particular line of prayer when I can just pray for God’s direction and for him to do his will.  Of course he’s going to do his will!  But am I willing to stick my neck out and ask for what I want?  Not so much.  I am technically being faithful in prayer by asking him to do his will, but it is not the type of prayer that will change the mind of God, a la Moses.  Exodus 32:14 tells us that the Lord changed his mind about destroying the disobedient Israelites after Moses pleaded for them.  I don’t know that I’ve pleaded with God in such a manner that I could change his mind.  I’m not sure how I would handle it if the answer to my pleading was “no,” so I have refrained from pleading all out.

I work with 5th and 6th grade kids on Wednesday nights at church, and several weeks ago one of them taught me a giant lesson through the tiniest request.  Someone had left a package of M & M’s sitting out on a table for several weeks and one of the boys asked a teacher if he could take them.  One of the other boys saw this happen and realized that the children’s ministry director probably had more M & M’s, and he might get his own pack if he asked Miss Rhonda.  As Miss Rhonda consented and went to get him a pack, this boy looked at me with an expression that said, “Can you believe what just happened?  All I had to do was ask!”  (Where are the spiritual band-aids, as the ouch is now a grievous wound…)

Since that Wednesday night, I have sheepishly, in the manner of a child asking for some outrageous Christmas present that his parents will never in a million years consent to buy, been asking God if I can have a baby.  I keep asking God if I can carry my own child and hold it in my arms, even if his answer is no – even if it breaks my heart again.

The Final Countdown

For my fellow hair band aficionados, please cue the Europe soundtrack or begin humming the synthesized keyboard riff. For the more adventurous, you may want to indulge in a little air guitar. Now that you’re humming along, I’ll explain the title. Saturday I begin taking the first round of injections to begin IVF. In less than a week, we start a process that will end in just over a month with either a positive or negative pregnancy test. My doctor and his staff are incredibly good at what they do, so my money’s on a positive result. Meaning that in about two months, we will either be miscarrying again or potentially seeing a heartbeat on ultrasound.

It is somehow less scary to not know every month whether you’ll be pregnant or not. To have dates for everything (begin injection A, discontinue pill B, add injection C, ultrasound, egg retrieval, pregnancy test…) is slightly terrifying. It’s one thing to be able to wonder, “Am I or am I not?” and guess about whether your timing was right. It’s radically different to know that you have gone through a very detailed process that may or may not break your heart. If we somehow don’t get pregnant, I’ll be devastated. If we do get pregnant, I’ll be facing the same two to three weeks of total chaos while we wait to see what happens with hormone levels and ultrasounds. We’ve scheduled the terror. Willingly.

Of course there is an element of excitement: we could be pregnant in a month; we could have twins; we could actually have a baby by Christmas. And there’s a giant fear of the unknown: what if the hormone part of the IVF process makes me crazy (perhaps crazier than normal is more accurate…)? What if it hurts? What if I’m too big a weenie to handle shooting myself every day or being shot every day for the next month? (I have been a bigger weenie for lesser things, after all.) What if it doesn’t work? What if it does work? Am I really strong enough to deal with this?

The short answer is no. No, I am not strong enough to handle the potential fallout if it doesn’t stick or if it doesn’t stick for the whole nine months. I am a total nutball right now. I am crying when the dog steps on my toe; I can’t watch anything on Animal Planet (that still involves actual animals, anyway) for fear of losing it; misplacing my stapler at work could actually result in the building burning down… I can physically feel my stress level rise and fall, and I can measure it by how badly I want to scream at any given moment.

The long answer is I’m fine, and I’ll deal with whatever happens because I have a big God to lean on and rest in. I have a great support system of family and friends, and I am not afraid to use them. I am exercising like a madwoman to keep the physical feelings of stress at bay. In the meantime, I am adding IVF to the list of things I never thought I’d blog about. I am drinking half-caf coffee and religiously taking prenatal vitamins. I am not wearing mascara for the next month, and I will not have fingernails to file until sometime in 2013. I am a walking oxymoron. I believe that God can do anything he wants to in this situation, but my stress implies that I am all too human and have a hard time trusting him without worrying about it.

For those of you praying along at home, here’s the basic rundown: this weekend marks the beginning of the hormone treatments, April 1 is our approximate date for egg retrieval, making somewhere around the 15th or 16th of April our pregnancy test date. As an added bonus/potential land mine, my birthday is actually on Mother’s Day this year, and, based on our previous pregnancies, we’ll either have a miscarriage or a heartbeat by that point.Of course, what I want is to have a baby, but I want more than that to know that whatever happens, we will honor God and glorify him regardless of the circumstance. So, I’m not sure what to tell you to pray, but pray anyway.

To Tell or Not to Tell

Some of you may think we’re crazy to tell people as soon as we know we’re pregnant, and maybe you’re right.  Most couples wait until they have solid news to report: a heartbeat, the completion of a successful first trimester, and ultrasound picture…  We don’t wait because we never know if we’ll have anything other than a positive pregnancy test to report, and we don’t want to wait for you to start praying.  Less than 1% of the population experiences recurrent miscarriages (three or more), and we are the 1%. (Insert Occupy joke of your choice here…)

The average couple doesn’t have to face the thought that they probably won’t have a successful outcome, even if they’ve experienced a miscarriage.  We do – every time.  Given that we want the troops out in force praying for us, we always talk about it but come to the same conclusion to tell immediately.  Plus, we’re very bad at keeping secrets about ourselves, so if someone asked about my switch to half-caf or decaf, I wouldn’t think before responding that pregnant people shouldn’t have too much caffeine.  I probably risk sharing too much most of the time, but I’d rather over-share than find myself in the miserable place of a few years ago where I was too afraid to talk to anyone.

Besides the prayer support, I would rather people know that we have loved and lost than wonder why I’m being such a crank.  Not telling people about the pregnancy and possibly the subsequent miscarriage would feel a lot like losing a close family member and never telling anyone that they even existed.  I prefer having the emotional support and understanding when I feel like I’m losing my mind during the grieving process than leaving a wake of emotional outbursts behind for people to wonder about.  At least now if I burst out crying at a Lego commercial (it’s happened) you can chalk it up to grief rather than mental defect (I have plenty of those, too…).

The down side of telling everyone immediately is dealing with the aftermath if things don’t work out.  News travels pretty fast, but in our situation there are people who will find out about the pregnancy a month after we’ve already lost it.  It’s awkward to tell someone who’s congratulating you that there’s nothing left to congratulate.  I also tend to feel ridiculous for telling everyone we’re expecting only to tell them a week later that it’s over.  There’s no reason for me to be embarrassed about it, but that’s always my first reaction.  I always think that people will think we’re silly for sharing so soon.  That feeling evaporates almost as quickly as it appears because of the wonderful support and encouragement we get from our family and friends.

For us, telling before we have solid proof of a viable pregnancy is the best option, but it may not be for everyone.  If you find yourself in a similar situation, you’ll have to decide what you’ll be comfortable with.  I find it easier to share now than I did a few years ago, and the openness has helped me tremendously.  But there are plenty of folks who just aren’t comfortable with sharing personal details, and that’s perfectly fine.  Just make sure that you have a small network of friends you can trust and who will support you.  Do not attempt to deal with the grief alone; even superheroes need help on occasion – you are no exception.

Stupid Human Tricks

You are probably far more sane than I.  I have so many quirks as to be considered certifiable rather than merely lovably quirky – just ask my husband.  I have a perfectionist streak that’s at least a mile wide, and it tends to exhibit itself in slightly O.C.D. behaviors.  While some behaviors tend to have roots in childhood trauma – like my fear of an unorganized Tupperware cabinet causing further head injury – I have a few unexplainable, borderline psychotic habits.  I take great care to load my grocery cart in such a manner that you can’t help but unload it so that all my groceries are grouped together, thus making it virtually impossible to bag it out of order.  Yes, there is a correct order to bagging groceries: like things go together, cold things go together, eggs and bread never go with canned goods…  I could go on for a while.  I pretend that the logical reason for this is that I usually have to unload the groceries at home by myself, so it’s important to be able to prioritize what goes in first, especially since I have to climb a flight of stairs for every load.

The reality is I have no idea why I’m so obnoxious about my groceries.  I don’t even let the baggers help me to my car; I like to put the bags in a particular order, and I like to do it myself.  Perhaps I like the sense of control.  I really have no idea, and I’m okay with never plumbing the depths of that particular psychosis.  Not too long ago I was purchasing a large amount of toothpaste and toothbrushes to complete some shoeboxes a friend let us help put together for Operation Christmas Child.  I had other grocery items as well, so I had taken great care to load my buggy perfectly.  Even if a bagger helped me unload it, there was no way to mess it up.  I thought.

One of my favorite baggers came over to help, and he began pulling things out willy-nilly.  Toothpaste commingled with soup cans and cleaning supplies and produce.  I was losing my mind.  Not only had my items been hopelessly mixed, but my large volume of toothpaste was attracting a crowd.  My cashier, the bagger and at least two other store employees were helping to load the items into my re-usable bags, each one remarking on the astounding amount of toothpaste I was purchasing.  I glanced over to watch the bagging process, vaguely hoping that the girls would sort it as they bagged, and noted that the bagging was happening in an even more haphazard manner than the buggy unloading.

And then I realized that I was being utterly ridiculous.  Sure, the mixed up grocery bags would take me more time to sort at home, but I was wasting an opportunity to explain WHY I was buying all that toothpaste.  I laughed off my frustration and explained what Operation Christmas Child does and that the toothpaste they were helping me with was going to a child in another country along with information about Jesus and ways to learn more about being a Christian.  As it happens, all of the people helping me claimed to attend churches that were also participating, but what if I had missed a chance to share my faith with someone who needed hope, only because I was cranky about my grocery compulsion?  How many times do we all get wrapped up in details that really won’t matter past the next hour or day and miss the opportunities we have to share our lives with others?  Did it REALLY matter that I spent an extra fifteen minutes re-sorting my toiletry items?  Not if meant that I was rude to someone else or otherwise returned frustration for well-meaning help.

Maybe one day I’ll throw caution to the wind and not care if my produce gets bagged with canned goods and dog food.  Or maybe I’ll just have to keep reminding myself that it’s more important to inhabit each moment and reflect God’s love to others in every circumstance.

Poop or Get off the Pot

While the title may be a little crass, it’s very much the theme of my life’s contemplations for the last few years.  When I was struggling to decide if I could believe in a God who had allowed me to lose three pregnancies for no apparent reason, let alone eight, I had to get back to basics.  Once I determined that I could not deny God’s existence and convert to atheism, I knew that I had to either believe it all or believe nothing.  But belief without any action is only theory and semantics.  “Love your neighbor” sounds nice, but it’s meaningless if I don’t do it.

Several months ago, our Sunday School teacher was discussing grief and loss and how we handle those as Christians.  He looked at me and asked if I had any wisdom I’d gleaned over the last few years – how had I handled repeated grief and loss?  My response: I have no great words of wisdom – you keep breathing and putting one foot in front of the other until you realize that one day it hurts a little less; and you have to poop or get of the pot.  Decide what you believe and live it, or decide that you believe something else entirely based on your actions.  There seem to be two great and conflicting theories on when it’s easiest to live your faith.  One theory is that it’s easy to serve God when your life is in order and you’re not facing loss or pain.  The other theory is very commonly stated: “There are no atheists in foxholes.”  Times of trial and loss make us want to cling to God, while in times of joy and plenty we tend to forget about him.

In my experience, I may pray more fervently when facing grief, but it’s much harder to act on what I believe when I’m trying to answer the eternal “Why me?” conundrum.  I want my faith to be a meritocracy: I do good things, so good things should happen to me, and I want to pick the good things that happen.  God has given me great blessings materially and in the family and friends he has surrounded me with.  I have more good things in my life than I can count, and I’m acting like a two-year-old over what I don’t get.  Don’t get me wrong, having a child is a huge thing, but when it’s the only thing I care about, my focus gets skewed and I get cranky and jealous.  Trust me, it’s not a pretty look for me (or anyone else, really).

The only way I have been able to get one foot in front of the other is to realize that my primary motivation has to be to exemplify Christ in my life.  I have miles and miles to go, but each day I want to look more like Christ than the day before.  The only way to do that is to live with the blessings and the trials I’ve been given and to do the best work that I can do in every aspect of my life.  Some days that means going to work when I’d much rather pull the covers over my head and avoid my life altogether.  Some days that means painting a smile on my face and reporting to duty at a commitment that it would be easier for me to skip.  Almost every time, what I was hoping to avoid turns out to be less horrible than I thought it would be; in fact, most of the time I find that I enjoy the dreaded activity and realize that I would have missed out on great joy.  Funny how that works.  If I had simply said I believe that God will take care of me and heal my heart but continued to hide under the covers, I would still be hiding under the covers with a broken heart.  When I actually participate in my life and act on that belief, then God uses those actions to keep me in close contact with friends who comfort me, and it keeps me active and distracted from the pain until I wake up one day and don’t want to hide under the covers anymore.

James 2:14-17 is how the Bible sums up my “poop or get of the pot” theory:

14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? 15 Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. 16 If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? 17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.