The other side

Our culture is full of subgroups and clubs. You're gay, left-handed, Asian, Muslim, from another country, into pony play, a Mac user, whatever. When you meet a like-minded person, you might find a connection that others lack.

That's how it works among infertiles, too. We bond -- especially online -- over the months of disappointment, the dashed hopes, the miscarriages, the insensitive comments of family members, the fights with insurance companies, the misery at others' baby showers. We use cryptic acronyms, mourn the arrival of Aunt Flo, and send sticky vibes to one another.

But then some of us -- too few, it seems -- graduate or evolve or escape or something -- from our in-group. It's not quite like Susie Bright turning semi-straight, or a Jew going for Jesus, but it sometimes feels in the same ballpark. We are, now, one more poke in the eye of a person trying and failing to get knocked up.

That's how I felt this weekend, when I ran into a friend who's been trying to get pregnant for probably as long as I did. There we were in the supermarket, me with my Baby in a Bjorn, her with her husband and a slim waistline, looking at each other with much left unsaid. We talked of having lunch. Perhaps we will and she'll ask me for tips, or maybe she'll find the whole prospect too difficult and won't call. Who could blame her?

I've realized that I'm now on the other side. I'm done with my infertility supplies -- my speculum, my copy of Taking Charge of Your Fertility (great book) and Fertility Wisdom (skip it), any ovulation predictor kits that may be lurking in the depths of the bathroom cabinet. That's because if I decide to have another kid -- and though I always wanted two, lately I look back at the two years of struggle and am tempted to quit while I'm ahead -- I'll go straight to IVF and skip all the tracking/IUI crap. I used to consider friends who'd had miscarriages and went on to have healthy children as a beacon of hope. Now somehow, improbably, I'm that person who struggled mightily to get and stay pregnant and went on to have, keninah horah, a healthy child.

So I'm in a new club -- the club of new moms. We get together and go for walks, talking about sleep training, vaccinations, breastfeeding. We complain about our weight and exchange tips on the best Mommy and Me yoga classes. We do not, however, discuss our antral follicle counts or FSH levels. In fact, we don't talk about getting pregnant at all. Maybe some of these women had trouble conceiving; statistically, that has to be true. Maybe they look at their babies with the same amount of awe and disbelief and wonder and humility that I have when I gaze at mine. Maybe, like me, they tell their babies how very wanted they were, sometimes with tears in their eyes. Either way, they seem to have quit the infertility club, and for now, I have, too.

Bitter, party of one? Bitter?

This is my 17th cycle trying to get pregnant. This time, I took Femara (a breast cancer drug also thought to help with infertility) and had an IUI. Everything on the pre-IUI ultrasound looked fine, and my timing was good. If this try doesn't work, I'm going to IVF.

I always thought I'd do everything "perfectly" on my last try; I'd avoid sugar, I'd get lots of acupuncture, I'd stay relaxed, I'd eat my sweet potatoes and papaya and seaweed. Instead I'm baking like a maniac and my anxiety level is high. On Friday, in a tense meeting, I wrote the date in my notebook and thought, 'a year ago today I found out I was pregnant.' Later that day I attended yet another baby shower for someone who both conceived and will give birth after my pregnancy failed. My office just announced that Take Your Children to Work Day will take place in late April -- on the anniversary of my miscarriage. A close friend who also had trouble conceiving is now in her second trimester. I'm thrilled for her, and we've talked about it a lot, but it isn't easy (see Akeeyu's smart post about this).

There is so much riding on this try. If I don't conceive this time, I won't have a baby in 2007. I always thought that by starting at age 35, I wouldn't be an older mom. So much for that. And of course I'll be moving to a procedure that's incredibly invasive, time-consuming, and costly (even if I'm not paying for it -- thank you, magical insurance). Now, as I wait to find out if this the 17th try is the charm, it's hard to not scrutinize how I'm feeling each day -- what is my temperature doing, are my breasts more or less sore than last time, is my fragile emotional state meaningful or just the universe's way of offering me a gentle fuck-you?

Reading list, part 1

I’m really enjoying Peggy Orenstein’s new book, Waiting for Daisy: A Tale of Two Continents, Three Religions, Five Infertility Doctors, an Oscar, an Atomic Bomb, a Romantic Night, and One Woman’s Quest to Become a Mother. I first came upon Orenstein’s writing in this New York Times piece (Times Select required) about how she mourned her miscarriage in Japan. The story had nothing to do with me when it was published in 2002, but it stayed with me – so much that when I learned I was going to miscarry last year, I sought out the article and found new meaning in it. (The Buddhist divinity she writes about is the same one I mentioned here.)

It’s hard to feel sorry for myself when I read Orenstein’s story – diagnosed with breast cancer at 35, three miscarriages (one of which, a partial molar pregnancy, meant she couldn’t try again for a year), and several failed IVF attempts, including one with donor eggs. On the other hand, I don’t have what amounts to a own private sperm bank, as Orenstein did. I started trying when I was 35; she didn't have a child until her 40s. There's lots that's familiar in the book, too -- she begins seeing an acupuncturist who prescribes herbs that smell "like feet;" the book mostly takes place in the Bay Area; one of my doctors even makes an appearance.

I haven’t finished Waiting for Daisy – it arrived yesterday, and though I’ve already read 200 pages, I like to pace myself. Reading it is like eating chocolate: it's a tonic, and I can't get enough. At the same time, I already know the ending (the title tells it all) and I have to ask: would you buy an infertility memoir whose book jacket didn’t describe the author as living with her husband and child? If Orenstein had chucked it all and decided to try to live happily with her saintly husband in placid Berkeley, perhaps with a SPCA-special mutt for company, would she have gotten a book deal?

Frankly, I don't care. Because I identified with this section:

"I needed a baby to restore my faith in my defective body, heal my wounded sexuality, assuage my grief, relieve my feelings of failure--to make me whole again. At one time I would have told a woman like me that childlessness was not her problem; it was her inability to recognize the value in all that she had, in all that she'd built for herself."

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go pace myself some more.