Why does IF have to be so damn hard? Why do I feel like I’m speaking to a sold out show and the microphone doesn’t work? Going through infertility is such a complex and multi-celled organism that it leaves us with empty hearts and wordless tongues.

I could simply say that I love my son to death, and his existence has brought so much joy that I cannot remember the pain and suffering of infertility. This is only a half truth. He is amazing, he is joyful, I am a mommy, and I cannot remember all of the pain and suffering of infertility. But, I do remember a lot. As you can imagine my inability to experience pregnancy or family planning without shelling out thousands of dollars still keeps me up at night. I cannot help but think of a sibling for Luv Bug. I cannot help but wish and hope and pray for another child.
It is always easier to focus on what we don’t not have as opposed to what we have. It is human nature. Infertility brought me to a point where I believed that I had nothing; my future and identity were on hold. My losses far outnumbered my wins; IF pointed out to me dreams I didn’t even know existed in my psyche. I held many whimsical dreams and visions deep down about family and motherhood. I always wanted 3-4 children. I had beautiful and unique names picked out for each of them. There were no specific expectations of their abilities, but I presumed they would be thoughtful and smart and family minded. I saw their curly hair and green or bright blue eyes. Most likely they would be slight in stature due to both genetic sides.
These are visions I had that didn’t rise to the surface because they were expected to happen. In one way or another our children would be born and carry the genetics and characteristics of mommy, daddy, or our grandparents. One way or another some of these traits would find their way into the being of our children.

When our third IVF failed, it was December 20th. Our Christmas was ruined and full of an exacerbated unholy grief. We had to be joyful around our beautiful niece when all we wanted to do was crawl in a hole and hide. There would be no presents for our awaiting little one. There would be no silent congratulations from our parents and brothers. There would only by sympathetic if not pitiful glances from family and friends who knew we had suffered yet another unbearable loss. I imagined our mothers sadly putting away a token gift in hopes of a positive pregnancy test. My heart was broken.

A family friend asked my mother (out of my vision) if I was pregnant, knowing that we had done IVF. I didn’t hear what my mother said, but I knew it was sad. Something to the effect of it, “It didn’t work. They have no hope of bearing children.” It was an extremely painful time in our lives. We had met the crossroads. To be or not to be- parents that is.

When my Nana, my tough as nails 87 year old Nana, found out from my mother that our test was negative, she looked me straight in the eye, her green eyes watering and said,” Something will work out for you.” I was moved by her pain for us but had no idea was the resolution would be. I so wanted her to see me be a mother and I know she felt the same way. It was so hurtful.
The pain was all around for us. We were walking zombies that Christmas. We were lost souls and inconsolable. We would remain this way for many months as we grappled with the reality that biological children were not our fate. ART was not in our future. Pregnancy was not in my future.
Adoption would be our alternative. When, Where, How were questions that had no answers. And, we were not in a huge hurry to find out. We were simply absorbing our loss, feeling the pain daily, and trying to make sense of our lives together and as individuals-
without the dreams we once had of parenthood.

Fortunately, after all of this, we have seen the light. We have seen that parenting is more than just about a pregnancy or genetics. This came from months if not years of evolving thoughts on the subject. And, things can be still be unbearably hard. I still ask myself the questions, why can’t I just have a baby? Why can’t I easily have more children? After all we have been through, it is still hard to comprehend that having a baby is not an option for us. We must do so much more to give Luv Bug a sibling. We must sacrifice so much more. We must make very hard decisions. We must face our reality over and over again. We are infertiles. Our family building is different and pays a heavy price both financially and emotionally. Thankfully adoption has showered us with happiness and we experienced its ability to bring together those that desperately need each other– children and adoptive parents. Oh, how I love my son and everything about him from his pudgy toes and wavy hair to his brilliant smile. Oh, how I dream of my future daughter or son.

I know most of you are not local, but you can contribute. If you visit our website, there is a spot on the homepage to make a donation via paypal. You can also purchase a bumper sticker to help us spread the word. And, coming up soon are some other items you can purchase to make a donation and get a nice gift in return.

White, cotton short sleeve tshirts.

Adult – $24.00
S,M,L,XL

Infant & Toddler- $20.00
2T
3T
18-24 months
9-12 months

You can pre-order if you like. Simply email me: mailto:%20info@parenthoodforme.org
The shirts will be available soon and online within 2 weeks.

We also have our Artwork for Building Families Project to be rolled out sometime in May.
Here is a sample of the artwork donated by Jess Klem. There are 4 other designs.

Her beautiful black and whites will be made into blank stationary cards. Again, the net proceeds will go to the foundation. Thanks for thinking of us for a donation.

Every donation gets us one step closer to building families.

The winner will receive a Parenthood for Me t-shirt and the cutest ever hair clips

from Ellebows and More donated by Lisa.

I have come across a conflict with our mission statement:
Providing financial and emotional support, along with educational tools to those starting families through adoption or medical intervention.

The conflict is not a complete surprise as my DH and I talked about the fact that we wanted to help both those pursuing ART and those pursuing adoption. We have gone through both experiences and feel that each facet should have support, resources and grant money. The conflict comes with the fact that some people don’t want to hear about adoption because they either aren’t ready or are not interested. And, there are people who don’t want to hear about IF and ART. Through my experience I think that most couples/individuals are sympathetic to both family building alternatives ,and hopefully, think it is helpful to have an organization devoted to both causes.

I knew we were taking on a lot by not limiting our mission to one or the other. But, our heart wouldn’t be in this if we couldn’t talk about our entire experience. We want to use our knowledge and experience with both ART/IF and adoption to help others. I worry that potential donors won’t give their money because they don’t want to support ART (because they don’t believe in it or understand it) or some won’t donate because they don’t want to help couples adopt internationally for example. There is a lot of misinformation out there about both topics. After awhile I thought about this further and came up with the conclusion that if a potential donor is that uneducated, then they probably wouldn’t be a good donor anyway. We need people who are passionate and supportive of our cause. That being said, donors can ask to have their donation allocated to a specific cause. That is commonplace in charitable foundations.

Our first fundraiser is coming up April 26. I wanted to have a keynote speaker to help spread our mission of educating the public about the life crisis of IF and/or the difficulties that go along with adoption (finances, choosing a program, choosing the age of the child). I will be speaking but I wanted someone else to say something; I have been rambling about these topcis for years now. I asked a woman to speak who has experience with both IF and adoption. She is also founder of Adoption Resource Network here in Rochester. She would have been able to give a wonderful perspective on her family building experience. Unfortunately she was unavailable.

We were lucky enough to get a wonderful RE in Rochester to come and speak. However, I didn’t want potential guests to think we were not focusing on adoption as well as ART and IF. A friend pointed out to me that having an RE be the speaker may turn certain people off from attending because they don’t want to hear about IF and its treatments if they know all about it. But, then again, many infertiles are not in a place to hear about the wonderment of adoption either.

I have asked the RE to focus on the psychological impact of infertility on couples and individuals. She will not be giving a medical synopsis of diagnosis’ and procedures. She will be talking about her experience with her patients. She will talk about the struggles she sees them go through and the how they get through it. Some of them conceive, some live child free, some adopt. Regardless of what her patients do, she is privy to the raw emotion of infertility and I know she feels the pain of her patients on a daily basis.

The point of this post is to reveal that we are not advocating for any one path of family building. We support all the different options. There are many things that I am still learning about when it comes to family building. I will continue to educate myself so that I can help others.
The mission statement should probably be changing from “starting families…” to “building families.” If you read our FAQ, you will notice that grants will most likely be awarded to those who have no children first. But, I want to stress that when applicants write their personal statements, we will be reviewing each application on a case by case basis.

We never intended to limit our applicants to couples either. Again, the application will be reviewed on a case by case basis. A lovely woman wrote me about the fact that she is a cancer survivor but the disease left her with infertility problems. She has not met “Mr. Right” so she decided to pursue ART on her own. She asked me if she would be considered for a grant. Of coarse. I felt bad that she felt that we limited the criteria to couples.

So you see we are learning. We want our non profit to be a place of support for all different kinds of people in all different stages of family building.
Hopefully we can iron out these bumps, and find the correct way to communicate what we are all about.

2 1/2 years into my infertility journey I had a laparascopy after switching to a new RE. There my doctor found severe endometriosis. This was probably the reason for my ectopic pregnancy during our 2nd IVF. It was a shock to find not 1 but 2 new diagnosis’ after so many attempts with ART (6 iui’s, 2 IVF) at our first clinic. It was one more hurtle for us in our plan to conceive. Endometriosis may be the diagnosis that ultimately ended our medical intervention. It definitely made the odds shrink.

Endometriosis is a chronic condition that affects more than 5.5 million women in the United States and Canada. About 40% of patients with endometriosis will experience some degree of infertility. (Resolve)

Endometriosis is a disorder of the female reproductive system in which endometrial tissue (the normal lining of the uterus) is found outside the uterine cavity. An estimated three to five million American women of reproductive age suffer from endometriosis. This disease is prevalent in women 30-40 years of age, though it can begin in the late teens and early twenties.

About 40% of patients with endometriosis will experience some degree of infertility.

The relationship between endometriosis and infertility is not completely understood. The primary cause of infertility resulting from endometriosis appears to be a blockage caused by scarring and adhesions in the tubes. These adhesions can prevent the egg and sperm from meeting or prevent the fertilized egg from moving down the tube normally (resulting in an ectopic pregnancy).

Another theory is that infertility associated with mild endometriosis is caused by an autoimmune reaction. It is speculated that tissue from the uterus that implants outside the uterus is viewed as a foreign cell by the woman’s body, which then responds with an immune defense reaction.
Another theory is based on the fact that women with endometriosis have more peritoneal fluid and higher prostaglandin levels. The increased prostaglandin production may influence normal tubal function and prevent normal transport of the egg and sperm through the fallopian tube to the uterus.

Other researchers feel that endometriosis can cause a luteal phase defect, which results from low levels of the hormone progesterone or a poor build-up of the uterine lining after ovulation. A luteal phase defect makes it difficult for the fertilized egg to implant.
Some studies report as high as a 36% spontaneous abortion rate in women with endometriosis versus 15% in the normal population.
Other areas being studied are the effect of endometriosis on normal ovarian function and the role of prolactin in endometriosis.

Symptoms:
Women with endometriosis often, but not always, have one or more of the following symptoms:

• Dysmenorrhea (painful cramps during menstruation)
• Dyspareunia (painful intercourse)
• Dysfunctional uterine bleeding, including heavy periods or unusual spotting.
• In about 30% of women, there are no symptoms but infertility- I had no symptoms.

I have fallen down on the job of aiming to be “iron commenter.” I hurt my shoulder last week Tuesday. I thought I pulled a muscle, nothing too bad. But, the pain kept getting worse and worse and worse. Yesterday I picked up Luv Bug and almost fell down from the pain. I have never hurt a joint or broken anything so this was a pain I had never experienced. And, the mystery of what happened was getting to me. I went to the doctor who then sent me for x-rays. I have rotator cuff tendinitis. Apparently my shoulder was almost “frozen” which is extremely painful and recovery time is 6-8 months. If I hadn’t gone in yesterday, that would have been my prognosis. I got a shot of cortizone and instructions on icing and heat and exercises to do for 3 weeks until I go back for a check-up.

It was a little depressing being asked more than once before the x-rays,” Are you pregnant? Any chance of being pregnant?” Little did they know what a difficult question that was for me. I sighed and said, “No, not a chance.” A mental blow to an already exhausting day.

My husband said I got my injury from blogging to much! He is beginning to hate my computer. Even though he is sitting watching sports while I am on the laptop. I didn’t do anything fun or exciting to get this injury so I’m telling people I received it from training for a triathlon. A much better explanation.

I bought my first house when I was 24. My father is a REALTOR and encouraged me to buy an affordable house instead of renting (we have very affordable, beautiful homes here in Western NY. (Yes, that is a plug. We’re one of the best kept secrets in the country). I was in a serious relationship with my now husband, and we had decided to move in together. We knew we would get married, but I bought the house and put it in my name. We both agreed that was the best thing to do. It was an exciting venture- house hunting. We looked for about a month, and one day on a whim decided to go to an open house. We hadn’t planned on looking in that neighborhood and the house needed a little sprucing up on the outside, but we said, what the heck and went in. Upon walking in the front door, each of us looked right and then left and then at each other; we knew we had found our first home.

We were very excited. I have always been into decorating and design, and this was my first opportunity to really get creative. I had an entire house! It took us three months to close so I had a lot of time to plan and shop. I was living with my parents and saving money. The house was great but it had been a bachelor pad for 20+ years. The walls were all white and I could not wait to paint and decorate. It was a 2 bedroom cape that had the best floor plan. We had a lot of wonderful parties and get-togethers there. We got engaged in the foyer and after our wedding we held a brunch in the back yard. When we decided to try having kids, I got the itch to find a new house. I mentioned it to AJ but wasn’t actively looking. I happened to show my clients a house about a mile away and thought it was worth bringing AJ through. It had 4 bedrooms and a big yard and it was a nice center entrance colonial. It needed ALOT of work, but it was affordable for us. We decided to put in an offer; it went through, and we sold our little cape. We were moving on to a new part of our lives together. We were planning to have a family, and it was a great house for that. All of the bedrooms were a good size. It had a really nice rec room. And the yard was big and private.

Shortly after purchasing the second home we found out I had PCOS. The entire time we lived in the colonial we were going through infertility. Often times that house felt like a prison, and I longed for my little cape cod where life was simpler. We felt cheated because if we had known that we wouldn’t conceive or have a family when we wanted, we would never have moved. It turned out that the house, for all its perks, did not suit many of our needs and so we often talked (and argued) of moving again. Two years of owning the home and going through IF, we found a house for sale in a great neighborhood that was an Estate Sale. It was huge and had a pool and was near my family. We made a purchase offer subject to the sale of our colonial. Well, that was a fiasco. Our colonial didn’t sell after 3 months and we pulled out of the deal. It was just another disappointment in our lives. It was another thing that made us feel like failures. It was another thing we wanted to do but were unable to accomplish.

Another two years go by and we were in the midst of waiting for our son to come home. Finally one of the bedrooms was a baby’s room The irony is that while we were waiting for our son to come home we heard of a house that would be coming up for sale that had potential to be exactly what we were looking for. We wanted a 1920’s colonial (which are prevalent in our suburb) on a nice sized lot for a certain amount of money. This house fit the bill. It was amazing. It was a little smaller than we had anticipated, but it had natural gumwood trim and 10 foot ceilings and a phenomenal 1.3 acre lot, which is hard to come by in our town under a certain price range. It was the perfect house for us. It turns out that the sellers of the house had a 3 year old they adopted from China. It was a strange coincidence and encouraging for us to see their family as we waited for the call from our adoption agency.

Our house sold and the deal went through; all of this happened before Luv Bug came home. His arrival was 2 months later than expected. It was tough waiting ,but it worked out because I got to pack up most of the house before he came so I could focus on him when he arrived. Luv Bug only lived in that house 6 weeks, and when we moved, we painted is room exactly the same. We felt good about the move because our son would grow up in this new (and final) house; it was where we would become a family. It was a busy summer, but after the new house was cleaned and almost unpacked, I could easily say it felt more like a home than the second house ever did. It was thrilling.

It became clear that things had fallen into place for us. Dreams and goals had been realized. We were in a little bit of shock after all that we had been through. The funny thing is that from our house we can see that big house with the pool that we tried to purchase 2 years earlier. We can see it from our front living room window. We are so glad that house didn’t work out, and we found a house in the same neighborhood for ALOT less money!

The second house holds a lot of tough memories for me. It felt like cleansing my soul to be out of there and starting over. We had a great new house, our dream yard, and a beautiful son to fill the rooms. Finally things had come together. I truly learned to stop questioning things and know that everything happens for a reason.

I often have trouble falling asleep and last night a couple of images came into my mind. The images pertained to the effects of infertility on my life, how it has changed me, and how it doesn’t define me but is a big part of my life, my persona.

Scar tissue. Infertility is like scar tissue. The wound may eventually heal, but the skin surrounding the wound looks different, it feels different. The scar could be big or large- its size doesn’t matter. The fact that it exists is what matters. It becomes a part of your body just like the freckle above your eye or the dimples on your cheeks. As with many infertiles my wound kept opening and closing, opening and closing. It never really healed in between failed pregnancy attempts , but it would become well enough that I could take the band-aid off giving me strength to continue on with another procedure, another round of needles. Each failed attempt at conceiving whether it was in the beginning or towards the end of our ART chapter, I slowly began to change. In many ways for the better. Admittedly I cannot be sorry for any of the changes that happened to me because of where I have ended up and who I have become. I am a wife and mother. I am living the dream. I have a new dream to live.

Watermark. I also imagined a watermark. When we were going through the really rough times, I wore my heart on my sleeve. I was covered in an opaque watermark. Depending on which light you saw me in, my pain was evident- almost too evident. I was hard to be around because there was a big gaping hole in my heart and no one knew how to fill it. That watermark covered my entire being, and it didn’t make me feel pretty. It made me feel a million shades of different. I was sad, angry, and unabashadly lost. I was at the bottom; I could no longer continue in the same direction.

Lately I have noticed that my scar tissue is fading more and more; the watermark is nearly gone. I smile more and feel like I have come into my own. Open ends have closed; they’re packaged up, taped up, sealed away somewhere for me to revisit from time to time. There are new open ends like, what will my son be like next week, next month, next year?
When can we adopt again and bring Min man home a sibling? When will be able to start really helping people with our non profit venture?

All these open ends came to me because of infertility. I know that struggle is a part of life and no one can escape it. Well, hopefully you can escape it eventually by finding a new way to be happy and finding a new way to fulfill your dreams. Infertility and loss are just one part of the road for me; I can move on.

I have moved on.