beginnings

Why was I told to create a blog? There are several reasons. First is, I generally have a lot to say. I'm usually talking and spewing opinions, so I suppose folks thought that a good outlet was to write them down instead. Secondly, I sometimes have have a bit of free time during the day, and it was thought that writing in here would be a productive way to spend that time.

Those reasons, however, did not compel me to start this blog.

I was married a few months ago. I never thought I would get married because I never met a man that I liked much who liked me back. But then I met my husband, T, and we are very happy together.

We are ready to start a family and started trying right away. Happily, we got pregnant immediately. At about 5 weeks, the pregnancy ended. I had miscarried. I have friends who miscarried, and I knew it was common, so we weren't discouraged and knew we would try again soon. We were encouraged by the fact that we got pregnant so easily.

The next month, we were pregnant again. We didn't even intend to get pregnant that month. It just sort of happened. We were delighted. The 5 week mark passed and I was definitely feeling the effects of pregnancy. At about 7 weeks, the pregnancy ended. Again, we had friends who had several miscarriages, so we weren't completely hopeless, though it was much more difficult to deal with this time. I had felt good and we were excited, so it was disappointing to have lost that pregnancy. We felt ready for a baby and we thought we had got through the difficulties. With some tears and encouragement from our doctor, we were told there was no reason we couldn't get pregnant again soon. As a precaution, we had blood taken for tests that would rule us out for any serious complications that caused multiple miscarriages.

It turns out, that T had a chromosomal abnormality. It's called a balanced translocation. That means that one part of one chromosome switched places with one part of another chromosome. Because all of his chromosomal information is there, there was no way to know that anything was not right with his chromosomes. In his daily life, it has no consequence.

Unfortunately, what that does mean is that the odds of having a normal pregnancy is low.

So now we are battling infertility. We have the possibility of conceiving through IVF with PGD, which I may explain in more detail later. But we have an appointment with an IVF clinic in one month and are now grieving our ability to have a child without assistance, and perhaps have a child at all. It is unclear at this time what our chances are.

So I decided it might be cathartic to use this blog as a journal of sorts. I can talk about our journey, and perhaps learn how to deal with this emotional toll.

I know there are tons of people out there battling with infertility. There are also resources on the web. But I haven't found too many places where people just talk about all the complex feelings that go along with finding out you are infertile. It's a huge blow. Now, I know that we have a chance to have our own baby using our own genetic information, but I don't know what those chances are at this time. Some people will never be able to do that and have happy families via sperm or egg donation or adoption. I know that all of this is possible and can have a happy ending. It is just very difficult to not know exactly what is going on and to adjust to the reality of how our family will be created.

While the wonders of science make all of these things possible, and that is great, there is no denying the complexity of all of these choices and how much more difficult it is to organize and go through them than it is to do it the "old fashioned way."

It's a roller coaster ride. Sometimes we're okay and sometimes we're not.

So here we go....