MerrieB’s Babymaking Adventures

To tell, or not to tell. That is the question on my mind today.

I see many posts on various boards in which people admit they haven’t told even their families about their infertility struggles.  That got me thinking.  I’m extremely open about our problems - obviously, by virtue of this blog.  But the fact is, it helps me to talk about it.  As in, helps keep me off meds to talk about it.  Our immediate family all know, our friends all know.  Hell, last week I talked about it to complete strangers I’d just met. (Hi Dakota!)

I don’t hide our struggle with infertility because it would take too much effort.  Particularly since we’ve been at it two years.   I hope the word gets passed along to those kind-hearted people who might see me at the grocery store and ask that dreaded question: “So when are you going to have kids?”  I’m sure my mother has fielded some questions, and that’s ok with me.  Having my family know and able to answer questions takes some of the pressure off me.

Let me be clear, even though I’m open about us suffering from infertility, there is a line I won’t cross.  I’m not telling people intimate details about our love life or anything like that.  And when we were ruling out male factor infertility, I was careful to be sensitive to my husband when sharing information.  But the fact that we have infertility, testing, and diagnosis, even our next steps or treatment, I’ll tell the world.   I don’t want to feel ashamed that I’m infertile.

Where do you stand?  Do you talk about it?  Or not and why?

Sometimes all that TTC entails can be a bit overwhelming and take over your life.  I’m trying to find other things to focus on.   I booked an Alaskan cruise yesterday so travel plans are figuring heavy into  my time!  We’re traveling in May with my parents (who paid for our airfare using miles).  I’ll have the trip to plan and a budget to create and stick to.

I’m so excited. This is a trip I’ve wanted to do for a long time, and we got a deal on our stateroom, so we splurged a little and got a balcony.  A Balcony.  My first cruise I didn’t even have a window because we were traveling cheap.

It’s amazing how much your outlook can change when you have something to look forward to!  The fact that I should be ovulating during our trip could be a good thing.  Maybe we need less stress and a change of scenery.

Today I just want to scream in frustration that everyone around me seems to be getting knocked up without any issues. What the hell is going on?! Two years now we’ve been at this with nothing to show for it but stress and a “we don’t know why you can’t get pregnant.”

I’ve recently come across a number of infertility/ttc people on Twitter.  If you use the service, here’s a list of people you may want to follow.  In addition, there’s a search function at search.twitter.com where you can search conversations for keywords.

FertilityAuthor

MyFertilityPlan

Clearblue_Easy

CNYFertility

Conceive

Please give me a shout if you find any more!

My husband’s ovulation tracker application is now available in a free Lite version!  Just search the iTunes store for FemCal Lite.  You can only view 2 months of data, but it’s a good way to try the software before you buy the full version.

I’m on new insurance again.  Today I called the company to find out if I have any infertility coverage.  I doubted it, but I wanted to be sure.  The answer is no, mostly.   Testing to get a diagnosis is covered and applied to my deductible, but any ART procedures aren’t.  One tiny bit of good news is that oral meds are covered, but injectable meds are not.

I knew when it took us over a year to get pregnant that this would end up an expensive venture.  Come March, we’ll have been ttc for 2 years.  I never expected this.  I think it’s time for J & I to sit down and talk about what we are going to do and how much we are going to spend.  Because as much as I want a baby, I don’t want us to bankrupt ourselves and make life more miserable.  It will be a fine line to walk.

My husband has created an application (for iPhone and iTouch) that’s a period tracker and ovulation calendar call FemCal.  I’ve had a lot of input into it, since I’m using it.  (Hello, beta testing.) It was at my request that he started the project.  It’s now in the iTunes store.

Here’s a link to his website which describes FemCal in more detail.

I’ve found it very useful, and as I said, I helped work out what to include and what changes to make.  It’s taken the place of desktop software that I was using.  We’re still tweaking some features, but please take a look!

There are a number of infertility support groups on Facebook, if you play with social media at all.  One thing to consider, particularly if you aren’t sharing your infertility with anyone, is that your groups are generally seen by everyone, depending on your privacy settings.  You can change those settings by clicking Settings at the top right of the page and selecting Privacy Settings.

I hate Infertility

Infertility Support Group

Christians and Infertility

Resolve: The National Infertility Association also has a Facebook page.

To find more, just search Facebook for Infertility and narrow it down by selecting Groups.

Well, my husband is still “self” employed, so we haven’t really been ttc lately.  But I’m tracking and getting involved with the boards again.  I just signed up at Inspire.  There’s some good discussions with lots of advice.

In other news, there’s not much happening with us.  I know it was what, 3 months ago I said I’d try to get back into blogging here.  It’s just difficult to blog when your ttc life is on hold.  We did have a discussion Saturday night about getting back on the bandwagon.  That’s more than we’ve done in months.  We’ll put off any IF treatments until the husband gets a job, since my insurance only paid up to the diagnosis.  Now we’re on our own.

I’ll also start updating the delicious list, and adding more sites about infertility and pregnancy I come across.  If you find something interesting, please email me so I can add it.

My job situation changed dramatically in December, so I’ve been pretty busy adjusting to that.  We demerged from the firm we joined in 2007 and I now have a different job title and much more responsibility there.  It’s keeping me pretty busy, which is good, but also leaves me less time for things like this blog.

I hope some of you are still out there.  One thing I’ve learned from all this is that it really does help to connect with other people who are ttc or have an infertility diagnosis.  Just knowing someone else really gets what you are going through is a relief.

I keep wondering what 2009 will hold for us.  2008 had major suckage on the baby front, so I hope 2009 can only get better. As you’ve noticed, I haven’t posted here in a long time. Part of that is because I lost my entire site.  Had to start over, and lost all my posts.  But, I think I’m back.

In September, I got my “unexplained” infertility diagnosis.  My RE basically said our options are to try IUI and IVF.  I’d done Clomid and it didn’t work, so no point in trying that again.  But, in August my husband quit his job.  With just my salary to support the two of us, infertility treatment wasn’t in the budget.  I gave my husband a February deadline.  That’s how long we could be ok without him making money.  So babymaking is still on hold.  I kind of track everything out of habit now.

My husband has been working on an iPhone application - a fertility calendar of sorts.  You can track periods, intercourse, meds, ovulation, tests, etc.  It’s very nearly done, and will soon be available in an iTunes store near you!

But while we’ve been working on this, it’s been really emotional.  Not trying to get pregnant, though the right decision for now, makes me feel like I’m losing time.  I definitely hear my biological clock ticking.  I had another birthday over the holidays.  Not to mention the sea of babies and pregnancy annoucements and family pictures I had to survive over the holidays.

Yesterday at work, I found out a co-worker is pregnant.  Part of me is happy for her.  I know they’ve been trying nearly as long as J & I have.  But another (unfortunately larger) part of me screams in despair.  I don’t doubt that I can get pregnant, but I know it will be a very costly venture.  IVF is $14,000 for a first harvest/freeze cycle, then $9000 for a frozen only cycle.  None of it covered by insurance.  Not the treatment, not the drugs.

Which brings me to another hard decision.  It’s going to cost a lot.  So at what point do we stop?  At what point do we say “Ok, we’ve spent enough, we tried, it’s time to give up the dream?”  I have no idea.  I will never stop wanting a baby.  At the same time, I don’t want to bankrupt our future either.

When we got engaged, I told my husband I wanted a baby.  I knew when we would start trying, I did everything they say to do to prepare.  I didn’t know we’d end up here - nearly 2 years later.  18 months of trying with no success.  Two doctors and multiple tests later, nothing.  Two cycles of Clomid before we realized it wasn’t working.  It never entered my mind back then that I might not get pregnant.  Now it is and it’s such a hurtful thought.