Being Infertile in January

I hope you're sitting down.  Because I'm about to announce a MAJOR newsflash:  I’m a pro-lifer! I know, I know. When you’ve finished gasping for breath I’ll go on.

I’m also secondarily infertile. Again…catch your breath.  Breathe...breathe....

OK…ready?? Moving on…

So…….this isn’t always an easy mix. Because of Roe vs. Wade’s anniversary, January is the busiest month of the year for pro-life activists. For an infertile pro-life activist it can also be the toughest.

My job, as the president of the board of my state pro-life organization, is to “educate citizens on life issues.” More specifically, we staff exhibit tables, speak to groups, hold prayer vigils, etc. Pretty much anything that educates. Ironic, right?  :)

And I'm sure it goes without saying why that makes my infertile situation so difficult.

Disclaimer: I don’t write this post because I feel sorry for myself (well, haha, sometimes quite frankly I do!), or because I want you to feel sorry for me, or to make myself sound like some sort of hero. I assure you I’m NOT.  I do this because I believe it's my vocation.  And clearly I don’t do my work in the most graceful, penitential manner. I believe the pro-life issue is the most important one the Catholic Church stands for, because without life, then none of the other issues even exist. I’m just using this forum to speak honestly about my trials. I know my infertility is my cross and I must bear it with humility. I just haven’t achieved that humility thing quite yet.

Anyway, let me give you a couple of examples:

1. I spoke to a Baptist church’s youth group awhile back. The youth pastor had asked us to speak because he was concerned about some of his members’ pro-“choice” views. During the presentation, we showed the group what a 10-week post-conception baby looked like. One of the girls, probably no older than 15, gasped slightly and admitted without remorse, “Wow, mine was 15 weeks. I had to go to New Jersey for my abortion.” Ugh. *SUCKER PUNCH*

2. Prayer vigils. Standing outside an abortion clinic and watching desperate women enter, feeling they have no other option besides abortion is probably the most painful of my duties. I want to stop every one of them and say – “You DO have another option!! And I’m standing right here!” Unfortunately very few women actually stop to talk to sidewalk counselors, because they’ve already made their decision. Standing there praying that women change their minds about killing their unborn children is almost too much to bear. But I do it. Because they need the prayers. And God knows I need the penance!

Let me be clear – it’s not like I expected anything different when I entered pro-life leadership! I was basically a pro-life activist in the womb, thanks to my parents, so I knew all of the excuses, justifications, and arguments already.  I knew what I was getting into.  But I wasn’t (or didn’t know I was) infertile when I started really getting into the movement at this stage of my life. So especially at first it was difficult to come to terms with.

We’re in a small, very liberal state where the pro-life community is subsequently rather small. My husband swears that we haven’t gotten pregnant because God needs my energy to be focused on this task, in this place, at this time. Which makes sense and I get that – no matter how hard we try, we seem to be stuck here! Not that I believe myself to be irreplaceable, but I just don’t think there’s anyone out there right now who has the time to put into what I do.  I have a hard enough time trying to fill open commitee positions on my board!  Although I hope that the next generation will provide a strong new leader in the next few years. But I’m trying to focus on the fact that this is where I’m needed right now.

So today officially starts my busy week. Tonight we’re screening the film Blood Money at the local indie theater, tomorrow I’m speaking to students in 7th & 8th grades to prepare them for their trip to D.C., Thursday I'm being interviewed on a local radio show by a less-than-sympathetic host, Friday is our local March for Life, and Monday I will head to D.C. for the national March for Life. The best (only?) way for me to get through it is to push my own problems to the back of my mind for a few days.  (And alcohol.  Oops...was that out loud??  :) )  And I will get through it. Probably not without some veiled tears, but I will.

My backyard and 2011 Patron Saint

This is my backyard.  And I LOVE it!  Jack's not at school today so we'll be going out sledding later!  I'm such a winter nerd!

I love Jen's suggestion of randomly generating a Patron Saint for 2011.  So I stole it!  :) 

My Patron Saint for 2011 is..............................St. Rose of Lima! 

My chin almost hit the floor when her name popped up on my screen because my husband and I always said if we have a girl we will name her ROSE!  Is it a sign???  I don't want to get TOO optimistic, so for now we'll just say it's a crazy coincidence!!

My Infertile Holidays

I REALLY wish I had been IF blogging during the holiday season.  I could have used the support of other infertile, encouraging, prayerful, bitter, optimistic, jealous, confused, supportive ladies.

Let me give you a little preface of what I was getting myself into.  I've been dealing with IF for 4 years.  In that time I've had two relatives get pregnant out of wedlock.  I admit, I have handled both situations in less than a Christ-like manner.  I have responded with bitterness, jealousy, and abandonment.  I've gone through the spectrum of emotions: "It's not 'fair,'" "Why bother doing things the 'right' way?  It doesn't matter anyway," I'm sure you all get the point.  I stopped praying.  It seemed futile.  I'm still not in the best place spiritually.  But somehow I'm still completely faithful to my Church and its teachings and know that its way is the right way.  I know in my heart that things are happening according to God's plan.  I do.  It's just hard to remember sometimes.

In one situation (baby #1), the couple was living together and likely to get married in the future.  The woman (who is married into the family) is someone I love like a sister and get along with really well.  We don't have a lot of deep, important issues in common, but our personalities click and I'm so happy to have her in the family (they have since gotten married by the Justice of the Peace).  The couple is not Catholic (he was raised but is not practicing...she was not raised Catholic) and they were actually trying to get pregnant.  It wasn't condoned by the parents, which made for a tough situation.  Usually when unmarried couples get pregnant it's an "Oops!" moment.  So how do you react when the unmarried pregnant family members expect you to be excited for them?

Obviously, as a Catholic, their situation was one that I don't believe is morally acceptable, but it doesn't make me love them any less.  But...you'd never know that by the way I reacted to the situation.  It "wasn't fair."  I retreated, pouted, and literally did not talk to her the entire time she was pregnant.  It was JUST. TOO. HARD.

In the other situation (baby #2), the relative was in an emotionally abusive relationship, unmarried, and likely not to get married.  She's relatively irresponsible, has fallen away from the Church (though I'm not sure she would say she was ever a faithful Catholic), and is practicing Buddhism.  She flippantly wavered back and forth about whether or not to have the baby.  She finally chose to have the child, commenting, "It's not like a baby has to ruin my career."  How selfless.  I tried my best to be supportive while she was on the fence, afraid that any wrong move might convince her to abort (I even offered to adopt the baby). 

I later learned that this baby was not her first pregnancy.  Just a couple of months before she found out she was pregnant, she had had an abortion.  Needless to say, this was just too much for me to take.  When I found out, I felt like I had been stabbed in the gut.  Talk about not fair!  (I know, I know.  I'm fully aware that my version of "fair" is not the same as God's.  But just because I know it, doesn't mean it's easy to submit to.)

How's that for a wordy backstory?  So these past holidays, Thanksgiving and Christmas, I was going to see both of them, respectively.  I was dreading it.  Not necessarily because I didn't want to see them, I just didn't know if I could handle it.  I didn't know if I could act like a normal human being.  But I had no choice.  I had to handle it.  So I bucked up and put on my game face. 

We got up on Thanksgiving morning and got ready to see baby #1 for the first time.  Did I mention I was dreading it?  But I was trying to keep my mind on other things.  I made a lot of food, bought some gifts, and tried to focus on the real meaning of the holiday.  We're getting ready to leave, packing up the car, and then, the mother of all insults - I START MY PERIOD.  Yes.  Thanksgiving morning.  Happy Thanksgiving to me.  I felt like God was metaphorically throwing salt in my wound.  It was horrible.  And it made the anticipation that much worse.  But I got through it.  The fact that baby #1's mom is completely understanding of my religious beliefs and knows my situation made it bearable.  Thankfully, since baby #1's birth,  I've been able to open up to her and tell her how I feel and why this is so hard for me.  Oh...and why I've been acting like such a child.  And she's sympathetic, God bless her.  I know some women would be mad that I just couldn't be happy for them, and write me off as a selfish jerk.  So in that respect, I'm blessed to have such an understanding relative.  All in all, the weekend ended up being relatively bearable.  Once I got over myself and put my mind on other things, I was able to get through it. 

Then came Christmas.  We traveled on Christmas Eve.  I was 3 days late (fyi I'm not currently charting so I have no idea how many P+'s I was).  I was *hoping*, *praying* for a Christmas miracle!  I tried SO hard to take my mind off of that thought to avoid disappointment, but every day that passes is like a tiny miracle in itself (my cycles are very regular in number of days).  I went over in my head how being pregnant right now would be the perfect timing for so many reasons.  Jack would be starting school full-day, 2011 is not an election year so I wouldn't be as busy, I just got rejected from a fellowship I applied for (of course Divinely, because I was pregnant!), etc. etc. 

Christmas Day was my 4th day late.  I just knew I should have started by now.  We got up with Jack to open presents.  I stopped to use the restroom before going upstairs, still praying for no indication of a period.  But...there she was.  AF.  ARE.  YOU.  KIDDING.  ME.  Christmas Day!!! 

I'm telling you I was a heartbeat away from throwing it all away and giving up.  I was angry.  I was angry with God.  And I told him.  I told him it wasn't fair.  I mean, it's one thing to know I'm not pregnant on Day 28, like clockwork.  But to make me 4 days late only to start on Christmas DAY, after having started my last period on Thanksgiving Day?!?!???  What are you doing to me?!?!??  I knew I was being punished.  Punished for how I reacted to baby #1 and baby #2.  Punished for not being ecstatically excited when I found out I was pregnant with Jack.  It was a rough day and difficult to enjoy, which made me then feel guilty that I couldn't just enjoy the wonderfully perfect child I already don't deserve, and make this day fun and special for him.  Which made me then think "no wonder I'm not pregnant, I'm a horrible mother!!"  It's a vicious cycle.

The next day was spent with baby #2.  I survived, thanks in no small part to the fact that brunch was served with screwdrivers and mimosas.  But it was unbelieveably difficult.

The past couple of weeks have consisted of a lot of healing and discernment.  Though probably not enough.  I'm still in a place of confusion and a little resentment and anger, but it's getting better.  (She probably doesn't know it, but much of any healing I've done is thanks to Leila, which will require a full-length post in the future!)  I'm getting over my pride and asking the Lord for help.  I'm saying my Rosary.  And I finally have hope, ironically, thanks to "Dr. Secular." 

I'll update with more thoughts and progress in the coming weeks.  As always, prayers are appreciated!

Shifting My Focus

So I haven't done a lot of blogging on here about my personal experience with secondary infertility.  Mostly because I haven't been sure if I want to share that very personal & private experience with the internet world.  But due to some recent Divine inspiration, I think it's time I start putting myself out there.  I'm not sure why yet, or if it will do any good.  All I know is that I haven't been able to find a good in-person support group on this topic.  Sure, there are infertility support groups.  But infertility is much different than secondary infertility.  And secondary infertility is much different than Catholic secondary infertility.  It's pretty specific.  And there is already a blogosphere of wonderful, devoutly Catholic women out there with the same struggle.  So maybe I'll join them, if they'll have me!   :)

A little background: I was married in May of 2005.  We had just moved halfway across the country, my husband took the bar exam that summer, and we were content just being a young married couple for at least a few months.  Well, more than three at least!  But God had other plans and I was pregnant by August.  It was a total shock, as we weren't prepared at all.  But looking back it all makes sense now and obviously it was a total blessing.  We had our son, Jack, on April 29th, just a month before our 1st anniversary (in fact, he was baptized on the date of our first anniversary, May 28th, 2006!). 

Because I hadn't been prepared to have a child (let me be clear - I was always "prepared" in the sense that we were never on artificial BC, I just wasn't mentally prepared), we wanted to wait about a year before we started trying for #2.  I was so new to this mommy thing! 

***Sidenote:  A lot of people (who don't understand) say things like, "Just enjoy the child you have," or "Can't you just focus on Jack?"  As much as those comments hurt, let me be very clear: Jack is a gift from God that I don't believe I'm even worthy of.  He's the most wonderful child any parent could ever ask for and I truly don't know what I did to deserve him.  It's not that Jack isn't "enough" for me.  It's that I love him SO much and he's growing up SO fast, that I want more of it!!!  (I also never wanted to raise an only child.)

When Jack was about a year and a half, we started thinking we were ready to stop "not trying."  So we just took it easy and didn't pay attention to charting.  Because we conceived Jack so quickly and without even trying, I started to get concerned after just about 4 months (sounds crazy, I know...I just wanted to talk to my doctor to see if I should be worried).  Well she basically told me, "Yes, you are crazy.  We don't consider infertility until it's been a year with no success." 

But that wasn't good enough for me.  So I pestered her, she gave me some advice, and finally, after a year, she conceded that yes, we do need to consider infertility at this point.  So I had some bloodwork done, with nothing conclusive.  The next step was to get a semen sample.  That was the red flag for me.  I knew that the traditional way of gathering semen was incompatible with my Catholic views, so I did some research and found Creighton/NaPro. 

The closest practitioners were about an hour away, near Philadelphia.  I didn't mind the drive.  But, long story short, I was extremely frustrated with the process.  My frustration was exacerbated by the fact that it seemed like everyone else who did CrMS/NaPro had wonderful experiences and success with it! 

First of all, my cycle, though regular in number of days, is very inconsistent within that 28-30 day timeframe.  It took MONTHS to find my peak day.  To this day, I'm still not even convinced we found it properly.  And the NaPro doctor wouldn't see me or start any meds or procedures until we found that stupid day!!!  Furthermore, I was really frustrated that she wouldn't just do some sort of ultrasound or procedure to just see what was going on inside of me.  I felt like if she just would have looked, maybe she could have seen something like endometriosis, poly-cystic, or something wrong with my tubes, and we could get it resolved and move forward.  Instead it was blood test after blood test, Clomid, progesterone, injections, etc etc.  I understand that there's a process, but it just seemed like a lot of it could have been avoided.

Anyway, it all came to a halt, ironically, when it DID come time to do the procedures.  I hadn't realized that my doctor wouldn't do them herself.  She referred me to a doctor in NJ, three hours away from me, to do the daily ultrasounds.  And to Gianna Health Center in Manhattan for the laparoscopy.  I've spoken with Dr. Mielnik in the past and she's wonderful!  But here's the kicker: none of this was covered by my insurance.  I even tried to get someone in my area to do the ultrasounds and have them read by the doctors in Camp Hill, PA.  But no dice.  And since my husband took a pay-cut earlier in the year, and we have a rental property, paying out of pocket just was not an option.  So I just let it go for awhile.  I decided to pray on it and see if I could discern anything from it.

I don't know. I know a lot of people LOVE the method and have had tremendous success with it.  I truly wish it would have been successful for me, as I do believe it is a wonderful alternative to secular infertility treatments.  I just wish there were currently more practicing doctors and pray that more will enter this vocation. 

So that brings me to today.  Because of my frustration with CrMS/NaPro, I finally scheduled an appointment with my old GYN.  I felt more comfortable now that I knew a little more about what is/isn't acceptable within the Catholic faith.  We got the semen analysis part taken care of thanks to Creighton!  So I felt I was comfortable enough to move forward with my old doctor, at least until anything controversial came up.

I had my appointment this morning and left feeling hopeful.  We're going to get the semen analysis (which she says most likely isn't the problem, but might as well cover all the bases - agreed!!!), and then when my next period starts, she's going to schedule me for an HSG, or hysterosalpingogram.  Yeah...try to pronounce that one.  On or around day 7-10 of my next cycle, I will go in for this procedure.  They'll basically shoot dye up into my tubes and just make sure they're open.  This is exactly what I've been wanting done for THREE YEARS!!!  It sounds odd, but I do hope they find a problem on that day and that it's just a matter of opening up my tubes.  So I'm saying my prayers.

It's unfortunate that NaPro didn't work out for me, but this is the FIRST TIME in three years that I have left a doctor's office feeling *hopeful*.  Mainly it's because I've been too afraid to be hopeful.  But I'm just praying this is the answer.  If not, at least I feel like we're finally moving forward.