I love the women I talk to that tell me that they have a “PLAN” for when they will have children. They tell me that they are planning to finish grad school, wait until this big project at work is through, or until little Johnny is two. Then they will go forward with this plan. As if a person has the ability to just decide- Now we are ready, so the baby will come. Wait, I guess most do have that ability!!
Only infertiles understand what it means to really have a PLAN! Like the other misguided infertiles our plan started like many others. We tried for a year once we were “ready”. Then our PLAN backfired. Now onto the infertile plan – get lots of fun, embarrassing tests done, only to find out that we have a minuscule chance of ever having our own child. Enter the IVF plan. Now this is what I call a PLAN! We get our very own calendar to make sure we follow our plan, take medications at the same time daily, go and get the o’ so fun vaginal ultrasound and bloodtests (sometimes daily), then we plan the day my eggs come out and the day that the embryos go back in.
Silly fertile girls, they only think they know what the word PLAN means!
you find yourself giving bad baby name advice because you’re scared all the good ones will be gone before you actually get to have one.
your best friend calls you with the news – she’s pregnant! you’re trying really really hard to be happy for her and not bitter like you usually are… after all, you are happy for her… somewhere deep down. you’re trying to make small talk about the baby-to-be and ask, “so have you thought of any names yet?”. of course, you can hear them pulling out the lists over the phone – they’ve got tons of ideas already, and ask you what you think.
meanwhile, you’ve firmly nailed down firm names for your first 3 boys and 5 girls that haven’t materialized yet – what if someone takes something off of your list? you should have rights to those names, you picked Isabella at least 5 years ago, before this Twilight stuff came around and before every third boy was named Hunter.
so you start giving really bad baby name advice – just picking the ones that are the furthest away from anything that you’d ever choose. “oh sure,” you say, “I looooooove the name Bertha. So soft, so delicate. And Ursula doesn’ remind me at all of that horrible witch that tried to kill the little mermaid. What was that last one? What? HOW do you spell that? Oh sure, that sounds FABULOUS! I really think you should go with that one… that you just said… that I can’t pronounce…”
How about when you get AF the same week that your baby would have been due (who you lost in a chemical pregnancy 8 months ago). Mother Nature can be pretty effin cruel when she wants to be.
I conceived a year and a half ago through IVF, we lost the baby at 12 weeks. I had a co-worker who was pregnant at the same time. It was AWFUL to go to work everyday and see her and then to top it off she went past her due date and had her baby on my due date! If I can make it through that I can make it through anything.
The “fun” part of finding out you are dealing with Male Factor Infertility: now your husband is miserable, too.
There will be no more hot-tubs for your hubby. Ever. No more bike riding, caffeine or alcohol. All briefs are replaced by boxers. Now you aren’t the only one subjected to embarrasing tests and procedures. You aren’t the only one gagging down the latest fertility supplements. He swallows 17 vitamins a day.
It’s only fair, right? After all, you’re the one who has to get your stupid, rotten period every stinking month.
Fertility issues are difficult to deal with. My baby sister has been battling PCOS since she was 22 years old. She went through IUIs and just had surgery to remove an ovary and a cyst. She doesn’t know if she will ever have a baby but she is staying positive. As for those who bash their friends/families for their “helpful” advice: we say those things because we don’t know what else to say. What should I say to my sister when she calls me daily crying because she wants a baby so bad? Tell me what is going to make her feel better because from what I can tell, no matter what I say, it will be insensitive or wrong.
I think I should throw an “I can’t have a baby shower” everyone can bring me alcohol and caffeine or go together on one of those lovely group gifts…………
I think I will register for a trip to Vegas!
Getting a second opinion feels like I’m cheating on my REI doc.
My doc has been there for me when I broke down crying after ANOTHER failed IUI attempt. He’s had an up close and personal relationship with my vajayjay. He’s even so caring that he remembers the first time I had multiple follicles – how sweet. But, he’s just not meeting my all my needs right now and I find myself fantasizing about (gasp!) a woman! I imagine laying on a table in the lovely paper gown and seeing her peer up from near my feet holding the transvaginal wand and saying, “guess what? You’re pregnant!” What a wonderful thing that would be. So, I did it today…I scheduled a second opinion with my “mistress”. How will I ever tell my doc that as much as I like him, I deserve more? Or maybe I should just go with the line “It’s not you, it’s me.”
The look of shock & dead silence in the room when you say to the DR & Nurse & scientist – are you sure those are MY embryos???? (While you legs are in the stirrups & there is a catheter in your cervix
Your period is 4 days late. Your boobs have felt like lead balloons for the past week. You are tempted to pee on yet another pregnancy stick, but after the last devastating BFN on the 4th day late you swore off even buying any more tests until the time when your period is at least a week late.
However, it’s New Year’s Eve Day and you’ve been planning on partying like a rock star because this past year has s.u.c.k.e.d. Besides sitting through numerous baby showers and reading several text messages that announced, “Baby is on its way!”, both you and your husband had your baby parts remodeled surgically and you are still baby-less. But the responsible side of you is thinking, maybe I should just make sure I am not pregnant before drinking myself into oblivion. And the superstitious side of you is thinking, well, at least if it’s another BFN the bad news will come on the last day of a really crappy year and not on the first day of hopefully a much better year!
So you scrounge through your bathroom cabinet to see if you have 1 test left, and you luckily find one buried in the back beneath a mound of tampons and pads. Your heart begins to race. You take a deep breath, unwrap the package, and pray that this is going to be the magical pee. You take another deep breath before looking at the result. You slowly turn the result window to face you and discover . . . holy crap! TWO lines!! OMG! I am pregnaaaaaaant! Yaaaaay! You do a happy dance on the toilet, quickly wipe (no tp analysis this time!), and pull up your panties. Before running to tell your hubby the good news you realize that you better check the Internet to just make sure that even though one line is fainter than the other that this still means you are positively pregnant.
You run to the computer, log into the Internet, and look up pregnancy tests. While searching for pregnancy test FAQ, you brainstorm how you are going to tell your hubby the good news. Do I wave the stick under his face? Entice him with celebratory sex? Wait, no, I don’t want my child to have hail storm scars. I’ll bake him a cake!
Wait a minute. You can’t find a picture of your pregnancy test on-line. Huh. All of the sticks that look like the miracle stick you peed on look like . . . oh, no. Ovulation sticks. Seriously? I just peed on an ovulation stick?
With just a shred of hope left, you hop in the car, race to the store, and peek inside the boxes in the family planning aisle. (By the way, why “planning”? Most of us could think of much more suitable names for that aisle. Family: Only in Your Dreams aisle. Family Savings Siphoner: A Surefire Place to Blow the College Savings for the Kids You Don’t Have aisle.) Your inkling of hope is crushed; you indeed peed on an ovulation stick. On the way home from the store, AF decides she’s gonna ring in the New Year with you.
What lesson have you learned from this experience?
Joining an infertility support forum of about 20 women only to discover that 1/2 of them were never really infertile to begin with, just impatient that they weren’t pg in less than a year.
The worst culprit was a woman who used Clomid, fell pg quickly and had a boy, used Clomid, fell quickly again and had another boy, used Clomid and had twins. All in less than 4 years.
Finding out your supposed BFF is 7wks pg before she tells you. You actually work it out via clues left of her FB wall, then you do some googling and discover that she has been posting in a pregnancy forum for 3 weeks and has told her family and closest friends.
Having miscarried 4 times and still battling, this was a knife in the guts.
Let’s see….It’s cold and snowy out. You have an early appointment with your RE at 6:45 (so you can actually get to work on time-thank God for early appointments). It’s your IUI day, after stimming on Gonal F for an inordinately long period of time.
So this is the way you start the day…with your husbands seamen in a plastic cup, nestled between your boobs, under your shirt…to make sure they stay warm for the car ride!!! You drive with that cup there for a good 20 minutes on slippery roads, hoping you don’t crash before the “deposit” and hoping if you do crash, no emergency workers will see you with your husbands “seed” securely placed between your bosoms…
Ok, maybe not dumpster dive…but you pick through your garbage to further analyze a BFN test-despite the fact you stared at it off and on for the whole night prior….
how about that AF and cyst symptoms mimic early signs of pregnancy so even after two negative pregnancy tests you still manage to convince yourself that there is hope because bbs are tender, or I have a headache, or I have a canker.
Thank you Alexandra’s mum, I laughed so hard I woke my husband up. We infertiles definitely have a different reality than others. I also have started my day just like that a few times.
the greatest was last year when i was pregnant and started bleeding on the same day my husband’s “perfect” sister went to the hospital and popped out the “most perfect baby girl ever.” literally those are the words used by his mother. needless to say when i didn’t show up to the hospital that day, or for five weeks afterward, i got an angry phone call asking, “do i just not want to be a part of that perfect baby’s life!?”
in my defense, it was my second loss in 5 months and it actually took those full five weeks to lose because it ended up being ectopic.
later, when i had a meltdown in front of my sister-in-law, she tells me, “i know how you feel because it took us a couple months to get pregnant.” o, the nerve!!!!!!
When your oldest sister says “It never took us more than 1 or 2 months to conceive.”
When your older brother and his new girlfriend (who has a child from a previous marriage which isn’t even officially over yet) talk about fertility treatments because they want to have 2 kids of their own before she turns 40 in 2 years. ONE month after she moves out of her ex-husband’s house into your brother’s house she is pregnant.
When your other sister yells at you for asking when she is going to have a baby because she’s been unsuccessfully trying for all of 6 months, and a mere 6 months later she is pregnant. “The first month we used an OPK, it worked!”
When your younger brother meets a girl with 2 kids from a previous marriage, they move in together, a month later get pregnant. Have the baby, 5 months later are pregnant again. “We’re not trying to have kids, but we’re not trying not to either.”
When you have a mother, a sister and two cousins who got pregnant on the pill (some of them more than once). When you have a grandmother who had 4 kids by the time she was 21 and another grandmother who got pregnant in high school.
The good news is, we live halfway across the country and since realizing we are infertile, I don’t get so homesick anymore
You’re on your first, second, or seventh cycle of IVF, and you’ve decided that though you could really use the support, NOBODY is going to know because you can’t take anymore ridiculous advice, questions, or comments regarding what comes so difficult to you. If by some miracle it works, they will want to know more about how you “paid” for your baby and how painful the process was, instead of what you’ve been waiting to share for years…”We’re pregnant.” Instead of thinking about all the fun ways you’re going to tell everyone (like you did the first 30 times you were sure you’d get a BFP), you’ve switched to thinking of ways you’ll hide what you’re going through. “Where can I say I have to be next time I have to be at the clinic?” “I know…I can say we’re taking a romantic 3day trip (where I’m scared to stand because they may fall out), or I have to meet with my tax guy (gotta figure out where the next payment is coming from) , maybe I have family in town (gotta see how many embryos we’ll have), or I’m volunteering with the food bank at the same time every night! (home…meds, dinner, then bed).”
i almost think i’m jinxing myself…i have to get a new car because mine is on the verge of dying. so what am i looking at? ONLY station wagons or something that will hold a car seat and a couple of dogs in the back seat, and, of COURSE cargo room for a pack and play and a stroller (and not a mini-van because who, without kids, drives a mini-van??) I won’t even consider a sedan…seriously….when we are starting our LAST IVF cycle (because we can’t afford to continue) and i’m planning a huge purchase around having a baby…glad i like the looks of station wagons regardless of whether there is a child in the backseat or not!!!
When I’m bawling, I try to remember the things Bill Rancic tells wife Giuliana when she’s upset after a BFN or miscarriage on their show. I don’t know if his words are real or scripted, but either way, he seems to know all the right things to say. It kind of makes me feel like I’m cheating on my hubby…
Btw, if she gets pregnant, I will be happy for them, but definitely will have to quit watching their show!
I flip off my self breast exam instruction sheet in the shower. Step 1 says “Check your breasts about one week after your period”. Thanks for the reminder that another period has come. Bitch.
@ 7 years and counting- haha, YES, she was holding the baby when she said this. so, no i didn’t smack her! but, needless to say i have only seen my in-laws one time since last spring when all this happened!
i am running out of friends and family!!! everyone that says something wrong, gets pregnant, or has a baby i avoid completely! i was dodging my own mom’s calls last night knowing my little brother and his wife were in the hospital having their little girl and i had to wake up early in the morning to drive an hour to the fertility clinic! i’m such a loner now, thank god i found this website!
Sarashay, while I like them (G & B)…on one hand she just seems WAYYYY too calm and collected about the TTC thing. Maybe it’s because she has plenty enough disposable income to do IVF however often she wants??
When she was walking with Bill and like “maybe we should think about trying to have a kid again?” Um…sOooOoo nonchalant about it. Yeah, that’s like…ALL i think about, lady…and if I had your money I would not be wasting any time.
I think she needs to take time off of work, so that she’s not so stressed. And I cannot IMAGINE how she composes herself while at her E! job, reporting on so many stars’ alleged baby bumps and births and crap!!! I would frickin LOSE IT!!!
how about when pregnant women around you complain about getting fat or worried if they will have thier figure back some day or about being tired or ready for their pregnancy to be over w/the birth of their little one. I think “wow your lucky just to be pregnant” (and it seems like more time then not, it is ones who did not experience inferility that I could tell) I think also, who cares about your figure? My DH and I just want a healthy baby in the end, the rest will work it self out.
Suggestion: how well of a medical speller have you become? Before inferility and IVF I had no idea what Lupron, Menopur, Follistim, etc were. Nor did I know how to spell them. I also had no idea how to spell catheter, antagonist, motility, etc. No I think wow when I have to research via interent..Ha Ha. Also expert at abbreviations HSG, FSH, ER, FET, etc. Funny how things change!
You’ve been trying for three years and after AF shows once more you friend who is now pregnant goes oh hunny I understand I felt like that last month (her first month TTC). Really you really felt like I go on month 36 your first month trying and not getting pregnant. REALLY?!
While on medication to get into labor, to give birth to your FET angelbaby at week 19, you have run the stairs. While doing that you get envious looks from all the pregnant ladies with pelvic-pain on crutches one floor down at the u/s ward. You wish you were in their place, and them not knowing why you run the stairs wish they were abel to do what you do.
I would take their pain any day if that meant a live baby inside.
You go to the fertility clinic and get annoyed with couples who are there with their kids they already have. How dare they have the nerve to want another one when I don’t even have one yet??? Of course they have every right to want more than one child (haven’t I dreamed of having a family of 4 kids, which has slowly dwindled down to just wanting ONE???) But seriously, as I was waiting to see get my US today, and a couple was in there with their 2 year old saying “Mommy…Daddy…” and looking all cute- I was SERIOUSLY ANNOYED! I vowed if I ever get pregnant and decide to have another- we WILL get a babysitter so i don’t have to make another infertile woman sad.
I have also sworn off FB altogether for awhile- just can’t take it.
Also, I think this is a good one- As soon as you hear someone is engaged, you are convinced they will have a kid before you do! They haven’t even walked down the aisle, but there are so many people who have been single while I’ve been married, and have ended up married and with a kid before we have been able to. At my bridal shower none of my friends had kids yet, and they all said I’d be the first. 6 years later, they all have kids, and I am still infertile. ( My nephew is seriously dating and will probably be engaged soon, and all I can think is that I will be a great aunt before I become a mom- LOL, but crying inside.
Apparently, a couple of psychological scientists at the University of Waterloo have decided “that the belief in parental happiness is a psychological defense — a fiction we imagine to make all the hard stuff acceptable.” So those of us without children are “happier” than parents. Isn’t that nice that we’ve got that going for us. I guess they didn’t talk to those of us who didn’t make the choice to be childless because I don’t know about you, but I certainly don’t feel happier.
How about this…when you get a baby registry for yet another one of your friends who is having a baby, you critique it. While shopping for your friend, you note the silly things that she is registering for and look for travel systems that are way better than the one she signed up for. Basically, you already know EXACTLY what you want before you’re even pregnant and may have even begun stocking up on things on sale.
You get the dreaded call from the RE that your once present HCG levels are now “increase challenged”…actually used that phrasing…and he suspects will be back to 0 by the time you come in for another round-o-blood-work. The fact that even a specialist in the field can make it sound like something so nonchalant is a reason to laugh right? Next laughable moment… flash forward 3 hours to trying to stop the tears with some relaxing oldies, only to have the song “Baby Love” come on. That’s funny for three reasons… ONE, never realized that the song wasn’t about a woman in love with a man…it’s about a woman who can’t understand why after everything she has done, that damn baby won’t stick around (listen to the lyrics with fresh ears…it’s a whole new experience). TWO- I’m officially insane because through the sobs, I continue to sing along (not change the stinkin’ channel) LOUDLY even though I’m sure I’m being stared at from other cars! THREE- had to get on here and see if anyone else might think these things were funny too…infertiles need the help of other infertiles to maintain that their crazy is just normal crazy:)
Back before you started trying, you bought a couple of cute little baby items while shopping for other people’s showers. Now that you know your status, you’ve put all the items in a box way in the back of your closet and cry every time you think of actually having to give them away to someone else that pops up pregnant.
Infertility brings you back to when you first started dating. You look at the calendar then you look at the clock and think to yourself, “So much to do and so little time to do it!”
What do I wear, separates or a dress? I mean if it’s a quick thing do I just want to lift my skirt up and let it be that way or take the time to undress and then put my clothes back on if I know that it will take longer to put them on then the time that they will hang in the chair?
Do I wear the practical full butts or a thong?
OMG! Are my legs shaved? Do I have time to shave them? Do you think he will notice if I didn’t? And what about my bikini area? Do you think he’ll notice if I don’t “landscape”?
Do my feet stink? Do I have time to wash those real quick?
Where am I going you ask, a hot date? No, I’ve got an appointment with my RE!
Once upon a time, you searched online for great deals on shoes, clothes and makeup. Now you look online for discount coupons for OPKs, deals on pregnancy tests and you will even look at that shady website that promises to sell you fertility drugs at half the price.
Then you wait anxiously for that ridiculously cheap box of pregnancy tests to arrive, so that you can start peeing on them and then sob because they only show one line.
My recent hobby: trying to analyze degrees of negative results.
I have yet to see a positive result on any test… OPK or pregnancy, so I’m left trying to imagine interpretations of the different hues/shades of lines that are still (clearly, sadly) negative results.
“Hmm, maybe my body thought harder about ovulating this month than it did last month…”
“Can I be slightly pregnant??”
Maybe I should get the digital readout ones simply so I can’t plague myself with analyzing the different ways the test can tell me no.
Let’s ride the infertility emotional roller coaster…. late period, up…. period arrives, down…… finally get in to see fertility doctor, up…… unexplained infertility, down…. tender breasts, up…… cramping, down….. IVF, loopdy loop…. negative pg test, down.
It’s a wild ride and it will only cost you your sanity. ENJOY!
There is an app for us infertiles to experience pregnancy. A pregnancy tracker that will record you as pregnant during the two week wait (or in my case the 10 day delay). Is it bad that I love this app?
how about the fact you quit drinking coffee, tea, alcohol and quit eating fattening food and eating healthier 15 times for your 15th IVF try…your first IVF cycle you swore off anything unhealthy immediately in hopes it would help your chances in getting pregnant, only to learn it was not succesful so you continued on to IVF#2 where you do the same thing then about IVF cycle #4 you have an IV of coffee attached to you the day of ER or ET b/c you are convienced doing the healthy route was not the way (or fun way) to go, therefore you dont care no more….or you do quit all unheathy things and on your 15th attempt you do get your BFP and have success! See there is always hope.
If I’d known about the hours I’d spend in IVF clinics “mens’ areas”, then when my mum caught me masturbating when I was 14 I could have said “I’m practising for when my future wife and I decide to try for a baby”
When you aren’t even doing IVF, but you dream about implanting 2 grade AA embabies.
I love the women I talk to that tell me that they have a “PLAN” for when they will have children. They tell me that they are planning to finish grad school, wait until this big project at work is through, or until little Johnny is two. Then they will go forward with this plan. As if a person has the ability to just decide- Now we are ready, so the baby will come. Wait, I guess most do have that ability!!
Only infertiles understand what it means to really have a PLAN! Like the other misguided infertiles our plan started like many others. We tried for a year once we were “ready”. Then our PLAN backfired. Now onto the infertile plan – get lots of fun, embarrassing tests done, only to find out that we have a minuscule chance of ever having our own child. Enter the IVF plan. Now this is what I call a PLAN! We get our very own calendar to make sure we follow our plan, take medications at the same time daily, go and get the o’ so fun vaginal ultrasound and bloodtests (sometimes daily), then we plan the day my eggs come out and the day that the embryos go back in.
Silly fertile girls, they only think they know what the word PLAN means!
you find yourself giving bad baby name advice because you’re scared all the good ones will be gone before you actually get to have one.
your best friend calls you with the news – she’s pregnant! you’re trying really really hard to be happy for her and not bitter like you usually are… after all, you are happy for her… somewhere deep down. you’re trying to make small talk about the baby-to-be and ask, “so have you thought of any names yet?”. of course, you can hear them pulling out the lists over the phone – they’ve got tons of ideas already, and ask you what you think.
meanwhile, you’ve firmly nailed down firm names for your first 3 boys and 5 girls that haven’t materialized yet – what if someone takes something off of your list? you should have rights to those names, you picked Isabella at least 5 years ago, before this Twilight stuff came around and before every third boy was named Hunter.
so you start giving really bad baby name advice – just picking the ones that are the furthest away from anything that you’d ever choose. “oh sure,” you say, “I looooooove the name Bertha. So soft, so delicate. And Ursula doesn’ remind me at all of that horrible witch that tried to kill the little mermaid. What was that last one? What? HOW do you spell that? Oh sure, that sounds FABULOUS! I really think you should go with that one… that you just said… that I can’t pronounce…”
How about when you get AF the same week that your baby would have been due (who you lost in a chemical pregnancy 8 months ago). Mother Nature can be pretty effin cruel when she wants to be.
I conceived a year and a half ago through IVF, we lost the baby at 12 weeks. I had a co-worker who was pregnant at the same time. It was AWFUL to go to work everyday and see her and then to top it off she went past her due date and had her baby on my due date! If I can make it through that I can make it through anything.
The “fun” part of finding out you are dealing with Male Factor Infertility: now your husband is miserable, too.
There will be no more hot-tubs for your hubby. Ever. No more bike riding, caffeine or alcohol. All briefs are replaced by boxers. Now you aren’t the only one subjected to embarrasing tests and procedures. You aren’t the only one gagging down the latest fertility supplements. He swallows 17 vitamins a day.
It’s only fair, right? After all, you’re the one who has to get your stupid, rotten period every stinking month.
Four months in row, you have to go to the hospital to see one of your friends and their newborn babies…..while you have your period. How “fun”.
Fertility issues are difficult to deal with. My baby sister has been battling PCOS since she was 22 years old. She went through IUIs and just had surgery to remove an ovary and a cyst. She doesn’t know if she will ever have a baby but she is staying positive. As for those who bash their friends/families for their “helpful” advice: we say those things because we don’t know what else to say. What should I say to my sister when she calls me daily crying because she wants a baby so bad? Tell me what is going to make her feel better because from what I can tell, no matter what I say, it will be insensitive or wrong.
I think I should throw an “I can’t have a baby shower” everyone can bring me alcohol and caffeine or go together on one of those lovely group gifts…………
I think I will register for a trip to Vegas!
Getting a second opinion feels like I’m cheating on my REI doc.
My doc has been there for me when I broke down crying after ANOTHER failed IUI attempt. He’s had an up close and personal relationship with my vajayjay. He’s even so caring that he remembers the first time I had multiple follicles – how sweet. But, he’s just not meeting my all my needs right now and I find myself fantasizing about (gasp!) a woman! I imagine laying on a table in the lovely paper gown and seeing her peer up from near my feet holding the transvaginal wand and saying, “guess what? You’re pregnant!” What a wonderful thing that would be. So, I did it today…I scheduled a second opinion with my “mistress”. How will I ever tell my doc that as much as I like him, I deserve more? Or maybe I should just go with the line “It’s not you, it’s me.”
The look of shock & dead silence in the room when you say to the DR & Nurse & scientist – are you sure those are MY embryos???? (While you legs are in the stirrups & there is a catheter in your cervix
See my version of ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas
http://www.whitneyanderick.com/?p=2214
Whitney that was AWESOME!
A Stick-y Mistake
Your period is 4 days late. Your boobs have felt like lead balloons for the past week. You are tempted to pee on yet another pregnancy stick, but after the last devastating BFN on the 4th day late you swore off even buying any more tests until the time when your period is at least a week late.
However, it’s New Year’s Eve Day and you’ve been planning on partying like a rock star because this past year has s.u.c.k.e.d. Besides sitting through numerous baby showers and reading several text messages that announced, “Baby is on its way!”, both you and your husband had your baby parts remodeled surgically and you are still baby-less. But the responsible side of you is thinking, maybe I should just make sure I am not pregnant before drinking myself into oblivion. And the superstitious side of you is thinking, well, at least if it’s another BFN the bad news will come on the last day of a really crappy year and not on the first day of hopefully a much better year!
So you scrounge through your bathroom cabinet to see if you have 1 test left, and you luckily find one buried in the back beneath a mound of tampons and pads. Your heart begins to race. You take a deep breath, unwrap the package, and pray that this is going to be the magical pee. You take another deep breath before looking at the result. You slowly turn the result window to face you and discover . . . holy crap! TWO lines!! OMG! I am pregnaaaaaaant! Yaaaaay! You do a happy dance on the toilet, quickly wipe (no tp analysis this time!), and pull up your panties. Before running to tell your hubby the good news you realize that you better check the Internet to just make sure that even though one line is fainter than the other that this still means you are positively pregnant.
You run to the computer, log into the Internet, and look up pregnancy tests. While searching for pregnancy test FAQ, you brainstorm how you are going to tell your hubby the good news. Do I wave the stick under his face? Entice him with celebratory sex? Wait, no, I don’t want my child to have hail storm scars. I’ll bake him a cake!
Wait a minute. You can’t find a picture of your pregnancy test on-line. Huh. All of the sticks that look like the miracle stick you peed on look like . . . oh, no. Ovulation sticks. Seriously? I just peed on an ovulation stick?
With just a shred of hope left, you hop in the car, race to the store, and peek inside the boxes in the family planning aisle. (By the way, why “planning”? Most of us could think of much more suitable names for that aisle. Family: Only in Your Dreams aisle. Family Savings Siphoner: A Surefire Place to Blow the College Savings for the Kids You Don’t Have aisle.) Your inkling of hope is crushed; you indeed peed on an ovulation stick. On the way home from the store, AF decides she’s gonna ring in the New Year with you.
What lesson have you learned from this experience?
Always label everything.
My suggestion:
Joining an infertility support forum of about 20 women only to discover that 1/2 of them were never really infertile to begin with, just impatient that they weren’t pg in less than a year.
The worst culprit was a woman who used Clomid, fell pg quickly and had a boy, used Clomid, fell quickly again and had another boy, used Clomid and had twins. All in less than 4 years.
Another suggestion:
Finding out your supposed BFF is 7wks pg before she tells you. You actually work it out via clues left of her FB wall, then you do some googling and discover that she has been posting in a pregnancy forum for 3 weeks and has told her family and closest friends.
Having miscarried 4 times and still battling, this was a knife in the guts.
Let’s see….It’s cold and snowy out. You have an early appointment with your RE at 6:45 (so you can actually get to work on time-thank God for early appointments). It’s your IUI day, after stimming on Gonal F for an inordinately long period of time.
So this is the way you start the day…with your husbands seamen in a plastic cup, nestled between your boobs, under your shirt…to make sure they stay warm for the car ride!!! You drive with that cup there for a good 20 minutes on slippery roads, hoping you don’t crash before the “deposit” and hoping if you do crash, no emergency workers will see you with your husbands “seed” securely placed between your bosoms…
Yes…I’ve started my day this way multiple times.
You dumpster dive for used pregnancy tests!
Ok, maybe not dumpster dive…but you pick through your garbage to further analyze a BFN test-despite the fact you stared at it off and on for the whole night prior….
I can’t be the only one who has done this????
You are qualified to give seminars on how to tell an infertile you are pregnant. Infertile 101.
how about that AF and cyst symptoms mimic early signs of pregnancy so even after two negative pregnancy tests you still manage to convince yourself that there is hope because bbs are tender, or I have a headache, or I have a canker.
Thank you Alexandra’s mum, I laughed so hard I woke my husband up. We infertiles definitely have a different reality than others. I also have started my day just like that a few times.
I found this blog post and just had to share. It is hilarious!
http://sarahhamm.wordpress.com/2011/01/15/to-remember-for-always/
the greatest was last year when i was pregnant and started bleeding on the same day my husband’s “perfect” sister went to the hospital and popped out the “most perfect baby girl ever.” literally those are the words used by his mother. needless to say when i didn’t show up to the hospital that day, or for five weeks afterward, i got an angry phone call asking, “do i just not want to be a part of that perfect baby’s life!?”
in my defense, it was my second loss in 5 months and it actually took those full five weeks to lose because it ended up being ectopic.
later, when i had a meltdown in front of my sister-in-law, she tells me, “i know how you feel because it took us a couple months to get pregnant.” o, the nerve!!!!!!
bette, was your sister-in-law holding the baby when she said this???? if not, I think I might have smacked her.
When your oldest sister says “It never took us more than 1 or 2 months to conceive.”
When your older brother and his new girlfriend (who has a child from a previous marriage which isn’t even officially over yet) talk about fertility treatments because they want to have 2 kids of their own before she turns 40 in 2 years. ONE month after she moves out of her ex-husband’s house into your brother’s house she is pregnant.
When your other sister yells at you for asking when she is going to have a baby because she’s been unsuccessfully trying for all of 6 months, and a mere 6 months later she is pregnant. “The first month we used an OPK, it worked!”
When your younger brother meets a girl with 2 kids from a previous marriage, they move in together, a month later get pregnant. Have the baby, 5 months later are pregnant again. “We’re not trying to have kids, but we’re not trying not to either.”
When you have a mother, a sister and two cousins who got pregnant on the pill (some of them more than once). When you have a grandmother who had 4 kids by the time she was 21 and another grandmother who got pregnant in high school.
The good news is, we live halfway across the country and since realizing we are infertile, I don’t get so homesick anymore
You’re on your first, second, or seventh cycle of IVF, and you’ve decided that though you could really use the support, NOBODY is going to know because you can’t take anymore ridiculous advice, questions, or comments regarding what comes so difficult to you. If by some miracle it works, they will want to know more about how you “paid” for your baby and how painful the process was, instead of what you’ve been waiting to share for years…”We’re pregnant.” Instead of thinking about all the fun ways you’re going to tell everyone (like you did the first 30 times you were sure you’d get a BFP), you’ve switched to thinking of ways you’ll hide what you’re going through. “Where can I say I have to be next time I have to be at the clinic?” “I know…I can say we’re taking a romantic 3day trip (where I’m scared to stand because they may fall out), or I have to meet with my tax guy (gotta figure out where the next payment is coming from) , maybe I have family in town (gotta see how many embryos we’ll have), or I’m volunteering with the food bank at the same time every night! (home…meds, dinner, then bed).”
i almost think i’m jinxing myself…i have to get a new car because mine is on the verge of dying. so what am i looking at? ONLY station wagons or something that will hold a car seat and a couple of dogs in the back seat, and, of COURSE cargo room for a pack and play and a stroller (and not a mini-van because who, without kids, drives a mini-van??) I won’t even consider a sedan…seriously….when we are starting our LAST IVF cycle (because we can’t afford to continue) and i’m planning a huge purchase around having a baby…glad i like the looks of station wagons regardless of whether there is a child in the backseat or not!!!
When I’m bawling, I try to remember the things Bill Rancic tells wife Giuliana when she’s upset after a BFN or miscarriage on their show. I don’t know if his words are real or scripted, but either way, he seems to know all the right things to say. It kind of makes me feel like I’m cheating on my hubby…
Btw, if she gets pregnant, I will be happy for them, but definitely will have to quit watching their show!
I flip off my self breast exam instruction sheet in the shower. Step 1 says “Check your breasts about one week after your period”. Thanks for the reminder that another period has come. Bitch.
@ 7 years and counting- haha, YES, she was holding the baby when she said this. so, no i didn’t smack her! but, needless to say i have only seen my in-laws one time since last spring when all this happened!
i am running out of friends and family!!! everyone that says something wrong, gets pregnant, or has a baby i avoid completely! i was dodging my own mom’s calls last night knowing my little brother and his wife were in the hospital having their little girl and i had to wake up early in the morning to drive an hour to the fertility clinic! i’m such a loner now, thank god i found this website!
Sarashay, while I like them (G & B)…on one hand she just seems WAYYYY too calm and collected about the TTC thing. Maybe it’s because she has plenty enough disposable income to do IVF however often she wants??
When she was walking with Bill and like “maybe we should think about trying to have a kid again?” Um…sOooOoo nonchalant about it. Yeah, that’s like…ALL i think about, lady…and if I had your money I would not be wasting any time.
I think she needs to take time off of work, so that she’s not so stressed. And I cannot IMAGINE how she composes herself while at her E! job, reporting on so many stars’ alleged baby bumps and births and crap!!! I would frickin LOSE IT!!!
Saline Sonograms are fun. Especially when the saline leaks out, run down your butt crack, and onto the floor in the middle of the procedure!
how about when pregnant women around you complain about getting fat or worried if they will have thier figure back some day or about being tired or ready for their pregnancy to be over w/the birth of their little one. I think “wow your lucky just to be pregnant” (and it seems like more time then not, it is ones who did not experience inferility that I could tell) I think also, who cares about your figure? My DH and I just want a healthy baby in the end, the rest will work it self out.
Suggestion: how well of a medical speller have you become? Before inferility and IVF I had no idea what Lupron, Menopur, Follistim, etc were. Nor did I know how to spell them. I also had no idea how to spell catheter, antagonist, motility, etc. No I think wow when I have to research via interent..Ha Ha. Also expert at abbreviations HSG, FSH, ER, FET, etc. Funny how things change!
You’ve been trying for three years and after AF shows once more you friend who is now pregnant goes oh hunny I understand I felt like that last month (her first month TTC). Really you really felt like I go on month 36 your first month trying and not getting pregnant. REALLY?!
While on medication to get into labor, to give birth to your FET angelbaby at week 19, you have run the stairs. While doing that you get envious looks from all the pregnant ladies with pelvic-pain on crutches one floor down at the u/s ward. You wish you were in their place, and them not knowing why you run the stairs wish they were abel to do what you do.
I would take their pain any day if that meant a live baby inside.
You go to the fertility clinic and get annoyed with couples who are there with their kids they already have. How dare they have the nerve to want another one when I don’t even have one yet??? Of course they have every right to want more than one child (haven’t I dreamed of having a family of 4 kids, which has slowly dwindled down to just wanting ONE???) But seriously, as I was waiting to see get my US today, and a couple was in there with their 2 year old saying “Mommy…Daddy…” and looking all cute- I was SERIOUSLY ANNOYED! I vowed if I ever get pregnant and decide to have another- we WILL get a babysitter so i don’t have to make another infertile woman sad.
I have also sworn off FB altogether for awhile- just can’t take it.
Also, I think this is a good one- As soon as you hear someone is engaged, you are convinced they will have a kid before you do! They haven’t even walked down the aisle, but there are so many people who have been single while I’ve been married, and have ended up married and with a kid before we have been able to. At my bridal shower none of my friends had kids yet, and they all said I’d be the first. 6 years later, they all have kids, and I am still infertile.
( My nephew is seriously dating and will probably be engaged soon, and all I can think is that I will be a great aunt before I become a mom- LOL, but crying inside.
We don’t have to spend a ridiculous amount of money on condoms and birth control crap!!!
Apparently, a couple of psychological scientists at the University of Waterloo have decided “that the belief in parental happiness is a psychological defense — a fiction we imagine to make all the hard stuff acceptable.” So those of us without children are “happier” than parents. Isn’t that nice that we’ve got that going for us. I guess they didn’t talk to those of us who didn’t make the choice to be childless because I don’t know about you, but I certainly don’t feel happier.
How about this…when you get a baby registry for yet another one of your friends who is having a baby, you critique it. While shopping for your friend, you note the silly things that she is registering for and look for travel systems that are way better than the one she signed up for. Basically, you already know EXACTLY what you want before you’re even pregnant and may have even begun stocking up on things on sale.
You get the dreaded call from the RE that your once present HCG levels are now “increase challenged”…actually used that phrasing…and he suspects will be back to 0 by the time you come in for another round-o-blood-work. The fact that even a specialist in the field can make it sound like something so nonchalant is a reason to laugh right? Next laughable moment… flash forward 3 hours to trying to stop the tears with some relaxing oldies, only to have the song “Baby Love” come on. That’s funny for three reasons… ONE, never realized that the song wasn’t about a woman in love with a man…it’s about a woman who can’t understand why after everything she has done, that damn baby won’t stick around (listen to the lyrics with fresh ears…it’s a whole new experience). TWO- I’m officially insane because through the sobs, I continue to sing along (not change the stinkin’ channel) LOUDLY even though I’m sure I’m being stared at from other cars! THREE- had to get on here and see if anyone else might think these things were funny too…infertiles need the help of other infertiles to maintain that their crazy is just normal crazy:)
Back before you started trying, you bought a couple of cute little baby items while shopping for other people’s showers. Now that you know your status, you’ve put all the items in a box way in the back of your closet and cry every time you think of actually having to give them away to someone else that pops up pregnant.
Infertility brings you back to when you first started dating. You look at the calendar then you look at the clock and think to yourself, “So much to do and so little time to do it!”
What do I wear, separates or a dress? I mean if it’s a quick thing do I just want to lift my skirt up and let it be that way or take the time to undress and then put my clothes back on if I know that it will take longer to put them on then the time that they will hang in the chair?
Do I wear the practical full butts or a thong?
OMG! Are my legs shaved? Do I have time to shave them? Do you think he will notice if I didn’t? And what about my bikini area? Do you think he’ll notice if I don’t “landscape”?
Do my feet stink? Do I have time to wash those real quick?
Where am I going you ask, a hot date? No, I’ve got an appointment with my RE!
Once upon a time, you searched online for great deals on shoes, clothes and makeup. Now you look online for discount coupons for OPKs, deals on pregnancy tests and you will even look at that shady website that promises to sell you fertility drugs at half the price.
Then you wait anxiously for that ridiculously cheap box of pregnancy tests to arrive, so that you can start peeing on them and then sob because they only show one line.
My recent hobby: trying to analyze degrees of negative results.
I have yet to see a positive result on any test… OPK or pregnancy, so I’m left trying to imagine interpretations of the different hues/shades of lines that are still (clearly, sadly) negative results.
“Hmm, maybe my body thought harder about ovulating this month than it did last month…”
“Can I be slightly pregnant??”
Maybe I should get the digital readout ones simply so I can’t plague myself with analyzing the different ways the test can tell me no.
great artiles. I like to read them and thanks for your help. I found a infertile dating site http://infertilepersonals.com. hope it might be helpful.
Let’s ride the infertility emotional roller coaster…. late period, up…. period arrives, down…… finally get in to see fertility doctor, up…… unexplained infertility, down…. tender breasts, up…… cramping, down….. IVF, loopdy loop…. negative pg test, down.
It’s a wild ride and it will only cost you your sanity. ENJOY!
There is an app for us infertiles to experience pregnancy. A pregnancy tracker that will record you as pregnant during the two week wait (or in my case the 10 day delay). Is it bad that I love this app?
how about the fact you quit drinking coffee, tea, alcohol and quit eating fattening food and eating healthier 15 times for your 15th IVF try…your first IVF cycle you swore off anything unhealthy immediately in hopes it would help your chances in getting pregnant, only to learn it was not succesful so you continued on to IVF#2 where you do the same thing then about IVF cycle #4 you have an IV of coffee attached to you the day of ER or ET b/c you are convienced doing the healthy route was not the way (or fun way) to go, therefore you dont care no more….or you do quit all unheathy things and on your 15th attempt you do get your BFP and have success! See there is always hope.
If I’d known about the hours I’d spend in IVF clinics “mens’ areas”, then when my mum caught me masturbating when I was 14 I could have said “I’m practising for when my future wife and I decide to try for a baby”