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Hope is something you pee on

~ …trying to survive infertility, IVF and egg donation.

Hope is something you pee on

Category Archives: IUI

The Infertility-Anxiety Connection

10 Monday Jul 2017

Posted by mybrokenoven in fear, Guest Post, IUI, IVF, prenatal depression

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

anxiety, avery neal, dealing with infertility anxiety, Infertility

Guest blog by Avery Neal, MA, LPC.

Ever noticed that those struggling with infertility also frequently tend to suffer from anxiety? Perhaps you’ve experienced this first hand or have a close family member or friend you’ve watched go through this. Though there is no question that the standard hormone regimen that women face while undergoing treatment for infertility exacerbates mood shifts and can cause anxiety, there are some commonly experienced feelings associated with infertility that can easily lead to the development of anxiety.

tumblr_na7v260vtV1r1gdbuo1_500From a psychological perspective, an ongoing sense of helplessness for a prolonged period of time causes us to experience anxious thoughts and feelings. Chronic helplessness results from the sense that no matter how hard we try; we may in fact be quite powerless in a situation that is beyond our control. This is particularly painful when the outcome is significant to us, as is the case when we desperately want a child.

In the case of infertility, there are many factors that are beyond our control, not the least of which is that our body may or may not be doing what we want it to do. No matter how much we will ourselves to get pregnant, the exact methodology that will result in a successful pregnancy and timing of it remains largely unknown on the front end of it.

So, what can we do to decrease anxious symptoms? Some points to consider:

  1. Have Fun. Enjoy the freedom that comes with having less responsibility. It doesn’t mean that you want a baby any less, but engaging in things that you enjoy will give you a break from the heaviness (and scheduling) that accompanies trying to get pregnant. It will also serve as a temporary distraction, making the time pass by infinitely faster. Make having fun a priority so that you don’t completely lose yourself in a process that can easily become all consuming.Be-Present
  2. Stay Present. Make a conscious effort to live in the present moment, rather than succumbing to the temptation of living in the future. It is so easy to make everything revolve around waiting, but this only makes each minute feel long and excruciating. Try shifting your awareness to what you do have, and focus less on what you don’t. Take some time to visualize what you desire each day in great detail, holding those positive images in your mind. You can go back to those positive images any time worry begins to take over.
  3. b33939c3dab256313c0b791adeb17bd1--missing-people-quotes-not-okay-quotesAcknowledge your Feelings. Some days are going to be easy, some days will not. It’s okay to feel disappointed, angry, sad, and hopeless at times, and everything in between. Often the road to a successful pregnancy is not a straight one, and of course, you are going to have some feelings with each turn that it takes. This is completely understandable, so be gentle with yourself. Give yourself full permission to feel how you feel, unapologetically.
  4. Try Not to Get Too Isolated.
    It’s easy to want to hibernate when we are sad. This is especially the case when we are facing a difficult time getting pregnant and it seems everyone else is posting an ultrasound photo or hosting a baby shower. If you need to protect yourself from this by getting off social media, for instance, listen to that need. It is important to protect yourself from things that make you feel worse. However, make sure that you are continuing to engage with your primary support system. Fight the temptation to become too isolated, which only feeds anxiety and depression.

The key to overcoming distress caused by an ongoing sense of powerlessness is to take charge of what we can. It may require a bit of thought, but thinking of various areas of our life where we can directly influence our experience, leaves us feeling much stronger and less helpless.

14064148_1851516475076460_974622851677695743_nAvery Neal, MA, LPC is a practicing psychotherapist and writer. She specializes in depression and anxiety at all stages in a woman’s life. She has also worked extensively with women suffering from prenatal anxiety and postpartum depression in addition to helping women recovering from divorce and healing from emotional abuse. Avery is passionate about empowering women to discover their own inner strength, leading to higher self-esteem, confidence and overall life satisfaction. In 2012 she opened Women’s Therapy Clinic, which has locations in both The Woodlands, Texas and in Denver, Colorado.  Her upcoming book is entitled “If He’s So Great, Why Do I Feel So Bad?”.  To read more of Avery’s writing visit http://www.womenstherapyclinic.com/blog.

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A hierarchy to suffering?

02 Sunday Oct 2016

Posted by mybrokenoven in Diminished Ovarian Reserve (DOR), Donor Eggs, IUI, IVF, Miscarriage, Pregnancy, pregnant after infertility, Uncategorized

≈ 14 Comments

Tags

infertility guilt, IVF, pain of infertility, pregnancy loss, suffering, supporting women

My best friend got divorced this past Monday and I was her witness. I spent the night at her house so that I could distract and support her and so that we could arrive at court together. Another friend of hers joined us on Sunday night – a woman from her neighborhood who was set to undergo a double mastectomy on Tues. We were a jolly bunch!

During the course of the night this friend expressed something interesting. She told us that when she was with other woman who were breast cancer survivors or with women in the process of treating breast cancer she felt dismissed – her cancer wasn’t “bad” enough, she hasn’t had chemo or radiation, she hasn’t had a recurrence. She spoke of feeling terribly alone in her process because people without cancer didn’t understand, but people with cancer – presumably the folks who would know what she was feeling and experiencing and help her along the way – were not very supportive.

I can’t speak to the experience of having breast cancer or being a cancer survivor, but the description resonated with me because of its similarity to the infertility “hierarchy of suffering”. Here is a breakdown of many of the possible iterations of fertility issues –

  • You had trouble getting pregnant but got pregnant eventually.
  • You had a child (or children) but then experienced secondary infertility.
  • You had trouble getting pregnant but got pregnant with limited medical intervention (IUI, Clomid, etc.).
  • You got pregnant using IVF and it worked the first time.
  • You got pregnant using IVF after 2-3 tries.
  • You got pregnant and lost the baby but got pregnant again and had a successful pregnancy.
  • You got pregnant using IVF but it required many rounds of treatment.
  • You experienced recurrent pregnancy loss followed by a successful pregnancy.
  • You got pregnant using donor eggs.
  • You have never successfully gotten or stayed pregnant.

If you’ve been around the infertility world for any length of time you could put these into an order, a hierarchy of suffering. And that order would be based on many things, including your own experience. I can shamefacedly admit that I’m guilty of being (inwardly) dismissive of some of these experiences, as if they have less importance or value than my personal experience. I think it’s natural to feel that people who have endured “less” than you can’t possibly understand the pain and anguish you’ve felt. How can a women who has never experienced the loss of pregnancy understand recurrent pregnancy loss? If IVF worked for you the first time how can you possibly understand what it’s like to endure round after round of unsuccessful treatment? While I think that these are natural reactions I also believe that we need to fight against this instinct. All of these scenarios are difficult. Women in all of these situations need and deserve our support. There should be no hierarchy to suffering – everyone has their own process, and everyone handles these challenges differently. My friend with DOR did 3 rounds of  IVF without a successful pregnancy and happily moved on to adoption without regret and without giving it another thought. I did 3 rounds of IVF with 1 loss, successfully got pregnant using donor eggs and I am still suffering from grief, loss and shame.

As someone who has run the gamut of infertility and had to resort to something outside of the common experience even in this community (donor eggs) I fall high on the “suffering scale”. I am guilty of feeling that people who have had early success can’t possibly understand my process. I want to change that. I don’t want anyone facing infertility (or pregnancy loss) to feel like they don’t have allies in the community or to feel like they’re outsiders simply because they haven’t suffered enough. That’s ridiculous. So please, if you’re feeling isolated, if you’re feeling alone, if you’re scared and uncertain – get in touch with me. Leave a comment. I will stand by you and hold your hand. We should all be in this together.

I’ve got your back.

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The road to donor eggs

23 Monday Sep 2013

Posted by mybrokenoven in Diminished Ovarian Reserve (DOR), Donor Eggs, IUI, IVF, Miscarriage, Musings

≈ 24 Comments

Tags

difficult decision, donor eggs, fertility, infertility emotional pain, IVF, judgment

No one expects that they’ll need to use someone else’s eggs to conceive a child. Well, maybe a few do, but for most of us this is not the way we planned it. It’s a last resort, rather than a first choice. And it is a long and painful road to get to the point where you make that decision.

First, there is the decision to go to the fertility clinic, usually after months or years of dedicated effort to procreate and continual, repeated disappointment. At the fertility clinic there are the tests, the waiting, the fear. Then the shock of “The Diagnosis” – that condition that suddenly defines your reproductive potential and, by proxy, redefines how you see yourself. Then “The Treatment”. Whether it’s corrective surgery, medicated cycles, IUI’s, IVF, etc, it is invasive, expensive, time-consuming, soul crushing, relationship damaging and anxiety ridden. Add in generous measures of shame, guilt, fear, failure and anxiety and you can come close to understanding how absolutely devastating infertility can be. But, we all think that treatment will work for us, we all think we’re the lucky one. Maybe you are, but maybe you aren’t. If you are, congrats! But if you aren’t (and statistically most of us aren’t) – you search your soul and you muster your courage, because either you will move forward and try another treatment, or you will reevaluate and choose a different path. Both roads take immense courage and sacrifice. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat until your strength, patience, or bank account run out.

At some point during this process you will have a crisis of confidence, a crisis of self, a breakdown, a total loss of joy. There will be moments where you can’t go on, where you can’t get out of bed, where you can’t face your husband/wife/mother/father/friends/doctor/expectations/life. Days of extreme anger and frustration and “why me?”. There will be bargaining and pleading and praying. And there will be pain, both physical and emotional. Lots and lots of pain.

At some point during this process someone may say some version of “This isn’t going to work. I’m sorry. Despite all of the advances of medical science we can’t help you. You will never have children.” And at that point you will begin to consider things that you never imagined you would consider. For me, that was egg donation.

Early on, my RE asked me if we would consider using an egg donor. I gave her an absolute, unequivocal NO. No way, never, not ever would I ever even consider that.  NO.  NEVER.  EVER. But, that was before 2 failed IUI’s, 3 failed IVF’s, 1 miscarriage, countless nights spent crying, untold numbers of heartfelt talks with my husband, and hundreds of hours of considering my dwindling options for motherhood. That was before I spoke to many, many people who decide to use egg donation to help create their families. And then, once I began to consider it, I was completely overwhelmed by my feelings about what that would mean for me, for my husband, any DE conceived children, our families…. Would I be the mother? Would I feel like an impostor? Would I love the child the same as if it was my own? Would my husband/family/society view me or my child differently? And how on earth do I choose a woman to replace me? Because that’s what it feels like initially – that you’re choosing a replacement.  I didn’t think I could live with the decision to use an egg donor, but I also didn’t think I live with not having a child. (The adoption conversation we will need to save for another time). One of the wonderful ladies who follows my blog wrote to me and told me that at some point you magically turn a corner – it may be finding the right donor, or coming to terms with the situation, or completing the grieving process – and it suddenly feels ok. Not perfect, not ideal – but doable. And she was right. One day I woke up and it didn’t hurt to look at the profiles. I start to feel excited. I stopped looking for myself on the donor sites and started looking for traits I would like to pass on to my children. Somehow, lord only knows how, I was not only ok with donor eggs, but embracing the idea and excited to begin.

I chose to share our decision to use an egg donor with some close friends (we don’t plan on keeping our conception journey a secret from our children so we may as well start getting used to talking about it now) and unfortunately we were met with mixed reactions. I don’t know why I was surprised given that I was conflicted initially as well. But, it still hurt to have my friends tell me that our choice is “unnatural”, “deviant”, “desperate and selfish” and “horrifying”. Of course, those same people had to get off the phone with me to go put their children to bed. So, easy for them to make pronouncements from on high. But, I can understand their knee-jerk reaction. Truly, I can. But the thing that I wasn’t able to communicate to them and the point that I’m trying to make here is that no one arrives at this decision quickly. No one takes it lightly. We have all, every last one of us, been through hell before we arrived at this particular cross roads. I would wager that everyone who has ever chosen to use donor eggs gave it an incredible amount of thought and did an unbelievable amount of soul-searching. And something that I have learned from this is that my choices are for me, my husband and my family. These are the right things for US. They may not be the choices you would make, they may not be the right thing for your family. But I believe they are the right choices for me and my family. I hope that we get support, but if we don’t – oh well. I can live with that.

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Brutal honesty

24 Thursday Jan 2013

Posted by mybrokenoven in Diminished Ovarian Reserve (DOR), IUI, Musings, Uncategorized

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

donor eggs, DOR, Infertility

One of the brave ladies whose blogs I follow had some bad news today. Only 1/3 of the eggs they retrieved during this cycle were mature. She is understandably crushed and feels that she has reached the end of the road. Despite thousands of dollars of drugs and treatments, months of healthy living, and the highest level of medical intervention available she feels like pregnancy isn’t going to happen for her. I feel her pain. My feet are also on that road, and it is a sad, lonely, painful path to walk.

We spend so much time scouring blogs, boards and articles looking for hope – trying to find that one success story, trying to convince ourselves (and often succeeding) that we are the lucky ones, that it will happen for us. People answer your questions and are very supportive – “Keep trying!”, “Don’t give up!”, they say. That support is invaluable, but it’s also misleading.

A few months ago I posted a question on an infertility board and got lots of warm, friendly, supportive, positive replies. I felt good, better, even hopeful.  And then a woman sent me a personal message. She told me that she had the same diagnoses as me and was a bit younger. She had basically the same response to meds. And she was going to use donor eggs. She urged me to open myself up to other options, because, as she said “it was very, very unlikely that I’d ever carry a pregnancy to term with my own eggs.” I was angry, hurt and confused. She’d burst my bubble. Where was the support? All those words that I wanted to hear? I didn’t want to hear that it wouldn’t work, I didn’t want to acknowledge that as a possibility.

Months have gone by since she wrote to me. Since then my AMH has dropped. I had a miscarriage and another unsuccessful Clomid cycle to add to my list of failures. My odds, which were never good, are in the toilet. So I wrote her back. I asked her questions. And I now trust her as someone who will tell me the truth. Not in a mean, hurtful or dismissive way (like my RE) but like someone who has been there. Like someone who walked this horrible road before me and understands the pain, frustration, and utter powerlessness that you feel. She found a way out of this terrible place. She recently gave birth to twins –  a boy and girl – as a result of her DE cycle. She beat infertility. Not in the straightforward way we all wish for, but in a subterfuge – an undercover coup. She found the courage to accept a work-around, and she has 2 beautiful children and couldn’t care less where they came from. 2 souls now exist that didn’t before. Her arms and heart are full. She won.

Let me be very clear here – donor eggs, surrogacy, adoption – these options are not for everyone. It is an extremely personal choice. The point is that there is a choice. One of the most awful things about infertility is that your choice, the control of your own destiny, the control over your own body is taken away and no amount faith, karma, begging, wishing or believing can change that. But there are options. There are choices.

So, when my blog friend wrote how defeated she was feeling my first instinct was to comfort, reassure and sooth her. But I erased that response and tried to be honest, hoping that eventually she would find some comfort in that honesty and that it would help to make the road she’s on a little less frightening. I wanted her to know that even if her very worst fears come true (which is very possible) life won’t come crashing down. There is hope, but it may look entirely different than you thought it would.

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Go swimmers go!

10 Sunday Jun 2012

Posted by mybrokenoven in IUI

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

2WW, catheter, IUI

Had the IUI this morning.  Didn’t hurt a bit!  It’s rather like going to the gyno, only they warmed up the duck lips first.  The nurse inserted a catheter into my cervix and threaded it into my uterus where she released the proverbial hounds.  A tiny bit of weird twingy-ness as she filled my uterus and fallopian tubes but that may just have been the weirdness of actually being able to feel my uterus for the first time.  Then they left S and I in the darkened room with soft music playing and a pillow under my hips.  After our 20 minutes, we bounced.  No biggie!!

Now begins the 2WW (two week wait).  I take a pregnancy test on June 23, which coincidentally was the day I married my first husband.  It’s also 2 days before we leave on our honeymoon.  I feel like that is going to put Murphy (of Murphy’s Law fame) in a quandary.  Which is worse?  Being pregnant on your tropical island honeymoon, or not getting pregnant at all?  I know what I think…

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