Survey

You may have seen this on the L&F, but, if you've had a miscarriage in the last 6 months, are over 18 and have a partner, please take this survey for research purposes.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=VCaiTA9Wo6w60W8HA0QxSA_3d_3d

Research Opportunity

Everyone has a unique experience with miscarriage and many find help and support through websites like this one. Unfortunately, little is known about women's experiences of support and how this may affect responses to miscarriage, and so I invite you to participate in my dissertation research study examining women’s experiences following a miscarriage. Although there is no direct benefit to you, survey results may help healthcare providers better understand and meet the needs of women following miscarriage. This online survey takes approximately 15-20 minutes and is open to women who have miscarried a wanted pregnancy in the previous 6 months who are 18 years of age or older, living in the United States, and involved in a relationship with a significant other. Participants are eligible for a raffle for a $50 American Express gift certificate. For more information, please don't hesitate to contact me.

Lisa Rosenzweig
Teachers College
lsr2106@columbia.edu

So

So since things have been going so shittily lately, we're thinking of fostering and/or welcoming a greyhound into our family.

We're not sure how the cats will react.

But we are seriously thinking of it and are going to see some greyhounds this weekend.

Another one bites the dust

My pottery class was canceled.

Not our time

The expectant parents chose another couple.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little disappointed, but in all honesty it would have been much more of a shock to have been chosen. But poor T feels a little rejected.

Show and Tell

It's been in the 80s this weekend, which is much warmer than normal for the end of April. The garden is blooming.

Secret

I got an email from our agency today. An expectant couple's match fell through. They didn't have a lot of information, but the situation has potential. The couple want to place with a childless couple. The agency wanted to know if we could send an electronic version of our book to show to the couple.

I said yes and emailed something over.

The baby is due in a couple of weeks.

So, our book is being shown.

Three years

My first post is pretty much as true today as it was on the day I posted it three years ago. I will list the differences.

• I got pregnant one more time and had a third miscarriage.
• We did IVF with PGD 3 times. They all failed. (We only had 1 transfer.)
  
• We had 4 failed IUIs with our first sperm donor.
• We had 2 failed IUIs with our second sperm donor. One resulted in our fourth miscarriage.
• We had our homestudy for domestic infant adoption approved.
• We've been waiting for a match for 6 months.
• T and I have been married for a few years rather than a few months.
  

Otherwise, it's all the same:

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 has 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....

Lying

Should you ever lie? Even by omission?

I am afraid to tell my friends who have young children about the death of our friends' child. I don't want to make people unnecessarily afraid. His mom really doesn't want what happened to trigger fear in parents.

It's easy enough to do with people at work.

But when good, close friends ask how I am, I feel like I'm lying if I don't tell them. I am terrible at lying.

We attended one shiva call for a toddler and another memorial service for a man in his mid-forties this week. Understandably, I'm not in the greatest of spirits. How can I not tell?

I have to tell. But I don't want to keep people up at night feeling like they constantly have to check on their kids.

It's okay to tell, right?

Show and Tell

Because they are sitting shiva, they could not go to the baseball game. Their son loved the Red Sox, so they wanted to give the tickets to someone who they knew loved the game.

We went. The weather was lovely. It was certainly an exciting game. And we remembered the boy.

Fenway Park

Shiva

Shiva is sort of like a wake for Jewish people, except it lasts longer than one day. It's part of mourning. You can find out more about it by clicking on the link, if you're curious.

We went over to our friends' house tonight. They are sitting shiva for their son.

While trying to make sense of this, I found out about SUDC. We made a donation in his memory.

They are doing as well as can be expected, I guess. They are both coping in their own ways. It's hard. There was still baby stuff around the house -- a play pen, a high chair.

His mom said to me quietly that she knew we probably understand what they're going through more than anyone. They wrote a letter of reference for us to the adoption agency for our home study.

My biggest fear was that I would cry and she would comfort me. It happened a little. But I comforted her too.

It was good to see them living and dealing. I think I can be sad for them and yet still live my life. Because that is the best way to honor the short life of this little boy.

No title

This is my 450th post. My third year blogoversary is next week.

It has been more than three years since my first pregnancy.

All at once we are in the same place and not. We have been through so much since I started this blog and I have a completely different view on life (in some ways) than I did back then. Yet we are still not parents.

I feel in a weird place. I am still grieving for my friends' lost son. How do I move on when they cannot? We are going to see them tomorrow. My therapist tells me that I can mourn with them for a while, but I need to find a way to move on. I can have empathy, but I have my own burdens to bear.

We all need to move on and live life because what else can we do?

I know many of you have had to move on from your losses. I read your blogs and I see your ups and downs. I know that I try to do the same. Though we all have our own types of losses, we each figure out how to do it in different ways.

I'm not sure I've truly moved on from my loss, so perhaps that is why I'm feeling theirs so closely? Is there such a thing as feeling someone else's tragedy too much?

I just feel like I know what it's like to walk through life carrying a silence. I know my losses are different than this couple's loss, but I feel like I can truly feel it.

I say that spring is my favorite season because it's so nice for the weather to become bearable, but spring means blogoversary, my birthday and mother's day. I feel the passage of time so strongly. I suppose I should hate January because 3 of my 4 miscarriages were in January (I think), but for some reason I don't really think of miscarriage anniversaries that much.

I wish I could feel like it's okay to think about trivial things. I think about updating my facebook status, but how can I do something so trivial when my friends are enduring so much suffering?

How do I let go?

Loss

You go through infertility and you think you understand loss, and then something else happens.

A very lovely couple we know lost their toddler. During his short life he was deeply loved and appreciated. Now, without explanation, he is gone.

I know loss. All of us know loss. And yet.

My heart is broken for them.

Passover

I read Mel's article about being infertile at Passover. It definitely rings true. But there is another aspect that she did not mention that strikes me as someone waiting to be an adoptive parent.

The story of Moses is an adoption story. Jochebed, Moses's first mother, could not parent Moses due to unacceptable surroundings. She did the only thing she could to save her son that she loved so much - she gave him up. He was brought up in the home of the Pharaoh and was loved and never wanted for anything. She also found a way to help raise him, in that she was able to become his nurse and teach him the ways of his blood. He truly identified with the Hebrews/Israelites -- the people of his genetic origin. He becomes their leader.

One of my favorite authors, Orson Scott Card, who also happens to be Mormon and to write about the bible a lot, has these fictionalized versions of old testament stories. I enjoy learning about the history of religion and enjoyed reading these historical novels, but when it came to the one about Moses -- Stone Tables -- I couldn't get through the beginning. I couldn't get past the adoption aspect, the birth mother, the mix between two peoples. Moses is truly of two peoples -- the Egyptian royal family that raised him and the Hebrew family that gave birth to him and saved him by giving him away.

This isn't talked about much at the seder, but along with all of the infertile women of Jerusalem and all the themes of spring and re-birth and birth that are everywhere in the seder, I am thinking of Moses and what it was like for him to live in two different worlds.

This is the predicament of all adopted people. They have one foot in two different worlds. One foot is with their genetic origins and one foot is with the family that raised them. I can't really imagine what it's like. I know that it's different for each individual that lives with it. Unfortunately there never seems to be a really good answer about how to deal with such situations. I just know that they come up and that people try to make the best of the situation as they can. Sometimes that works, and sometimes it doesn't.

I know nothing in this world is certain, but one thing that is always certain seems to be blood. That just never goes away no matter what. And it's just so difficult to sort out in my head how to come to terms with the fact that our family will never have that connection.

And yes I believe that connections can be made other ways -- I do not think adoptive families are less, only that they are different. I know my niece was adopted, but I certainly do not believe she is less my niece than her sister or cousin who is related by birth. But I do know that as much a part of the family she feels, she also feels apart in some ways. And that is what it means.

But I did appreciate Heather's statement that being an adoptive family is punk rock. It is. And I like being punk rock. So I'm trying to embrace that.

Wish I had something to say

Both T and I are feeling down, still. I have PMS which makes things worse. We're both sick of everything and aren't really sure how to get out of our funk.

We're both glad baseball has started back up, and we enjoy watching Idol on the TV, though neither of us vote.

T's been buying some toys lately, which I have mixed feelings about. We bought me a W.ii F.it in order to try and exercise a bit more. I've done it for a few days, but gained a pound. I'm going to stop weighing myself daily. I think that's a bad habit.

We're looking into carpeting the stairs in our house. It's something that's overdue, but not cheap and not easy. We think we've made a decision about doing it, though.

I haven't done anything about looking into those other agencies, though I need to. I need to just pick one and fill out the paperwork. I wish I could figure out why I can't make myself do it. I mean, I know part of the reason is because I feel like we already did all of this -- which we did. But we'll end up waiting like 3 more years if we don't do something else and I'm not sure I'm prepared for that so we have to do it again.

Blah.

Show and Tell

This is where I went to say goodbye to my boss that never was. I got hired by him, but before I started my new job he was promoted, so I never actually got to work with him. Apparently this is one of his favorite places.


Love the gold vinyl. Around the rest of the room were not more delightful black, shiny pictures but actual oil paintings of famous Italian people like Frank Sinatra and John Travolta. It was quite the lunch. Everybody thought the food was delicious. (It was okay.) I was delighted to discover that they have function rooms!

Join the fun with:

Not much

I tried to think about talking to my boss about her inappropriate comment, but the meeting I had turned into something bad, so I didn't. Because I misunderstood a procedure, I felt like I was being accused of trying to get out of completing my work or working hard enough or something. Anyway, I just couldn't bring it up, so that's that. Between her comment, some other comments she has made, and this encounter of feeling accused of not working hard, I'm not currently feeling so great about my boss. But it is what it is.

I'm trying to take this as something good so that when we get placed with a baby I won't mind quitting work and staying home. Isn't that funny?

Not too much is going on. We're feeling sad today. A colleague of T's has been ill and passed away at a too young age. T doesn't deal with loss particularly well. It's all very, very sad.

Saturday we are doing the MS Walk if anybody wants to donate.

I'm having second thoughts about our facilitator again. I think I want to work with an agency. We have to make a decision and fill out an application and commit before my pottery class starts. We're currently just wasting time and spinning our wheels. Why can't I move forward with this?

I heard this piece about grief on the radio today. This woman had lost her husband. I just couldn't help but think about myself in this situation, only the person (people) that I lost never actually existed. They were just concepts -- perhaps multiple cells. But the thing that has died is the person that would have been created had my DNA been able to successfully combine with T's DNA, and any of the thousands or millions of possible outcomes of that combination simply never will be. I really think they should have spoken with people who have failed all fertility treatments for that study.

My parents are going to be back from Florida today and I will see them this weekend. And despite all of this shit, I'm happy that baseball season is starting even though my fantasy team kind of sucks.

I'm glad tomorrow's Friday.