Just Joy

I can’t think of a better way to kick off National Infertility Awareness Week than jumping out of a plane. Skydiving has an exhilarating affect, one that saturates every cell in the body with 100% pure joy. For all the moments in the Assisted Reproduction experience where I felt the situation is unfair, or I was hurt by someone saying insensitive, stinging words, or gossiping about what we may or may not be up to, flying through the sky has a magical way of erasing all of that.

I had many memorable moments at 13,000, 11,000, 9,000 feet – a sentimental one when Steph and I toasted a Bud Light, one of awe of seeing the Atlantic Ocean and patterned farmland in the same field of sight, another where I felt the sky as a comfortable blanket rather than a distant, mysterious space that contains only clouds, birds and airplanes. The feeling that resonated the most, one that I take with me to my steps on the ground, is the feeling of personal power. Anyone who has experienced infertility, or utilized technology to procreate understands the many layers of hardship it entails. We hand over our bodies to modern science, and mother nature, at great cost. There are no fair choices or solid explanations and powerlessness prevails. But we really are very powerful, we just don’t know it until we jump out of a plane sometimes. 

Not having babies the way everyone else does has taught me not to wait around for life to happen, but to live each moment to the fullest. That is powerful. In the past few months I have soared deep and high and, regardless of the outcome, I know where my heart lies. High in the sky.

Adrenaline Injections

Infertility and Adoption are not fast rides---but this is.

In the past week or so I’ve had two huge rushes. The first came after my laproscopy when Danny and I decided adoption would be our best course of action. I never imagined that getting off the infertility highway and merging onto the adoption express would feel so thrilling, but it does.  I had this moment (drugged sure) after my surgery when Danny passed on the news from the doctor that the pregnancy outlook was not so good when my heart just clicked (corny but true). I thought, yes, we’ll adopt. It feels right and good. Since then I’ve read everything in print on adoption and now, our application is in. Our ball is rolling. And I’m soaring.

Speaking of soaring, Saturday, Alisa and I decided on a semi-whim to go skydiving to kick off National Infertility Awareness Week. Weeeeeeeee! It’s amazing, like flying, really, really fast (120 mph to be exact). I can’t imagine a bigger thrill (except of course meeting the baby that is supposedly waiting for me out there somewhere).

Probably my favorite part of the day was when the parachute opened and my skydive instrcutor, Art, handed me a beer to enjoy while soaring 10,000 feet above the St John’s River. I toasted Alisa as she sailed by in her own parachute–a surreal moment if there ever was one–and then held onto my Bud Lite for dear life lest I drop it and kill someone. (Seriously, I can’t believe he trusted me with that, the girl who tripped on her way to the prop plane.)

Until the next adventure, Cheers!

Purple Head

Yesterday, after our lovely day of browsing and lunching on a porch, I dyed my hair purple (not all of it). I thought, what a lovely thing to be conceived of a mother with purple hair (unless you plan on growing up to be conservative and work in a bank).

So, I am issuing an open casting call. All souls of the universe who would like to be born to a woman with purple hair, who rides roller coasters, plans protests, jumps out of planes, and writes funny stories about women who steal…come on down.

Sushi Sushi

So last week (was it that long ago) we stuffed ourselves with raw fish, then took a stroll around beautiful botanical gardens. Walking through rows of new growth, budding flowers and sneezing through tree sex, one can’t help but think of the process of life creation.

Peg and Fran, bless this Sushi we are about to put into our unpregnant bellies

The thing is, I don’t feel connected to it. I wholeheartedly wish that I did. I wish that I could see my body as yet another flower that will inevitably be pollanated, but I just don’t know. It’s so much more than the birds and the bees. It’s like, ok kids, let me tell you about the birds and the bees, but also about the bills and the fees and the doctor’s and the needles and the tubes….I understand that lots of people decide to have a baby and then get pregnant. And everything is beautiful. But I feel so far removed from that sort of thinking. I try so hard not be jealous. Really I do. But it’s difficult.

I’ve heard people say that if you get pregnant it all just washes away. Does it? Your last post gave me an idea. How wonderful to have that weekend as a conception weekend.  I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. I know that the V-list is about being able to (hopefully) tell our children they were born at a time of adventure and beauty. No matter what procedural option I choose, Danny and I are going to do something amazing, so we can tell our hypothetical kids, you were conceived the weekend we

a) entered ourselves into a Liberace look-a-like contest

b) scuba dived the great barrier reef

c) camped out underneath a meteor shower

Fran in the Big City

Some adVenturs must be done alone… like defrosting some snow babies for a second round of IVF. Fran missed Peggy and her sushi eating, skydiving ways, but had a nice short visit to Chicago. She went shopping on the Magnificent Mile, met a friend for dinner and had the most delicious calamari of her life, saw Second City for the second time, and watched five hours of Golden Girls. Could life get any better? Yes, yes it could. A positive pregnancy test would be the whipped cream and cherry of the weekend (as opposed to the bread and butter).

Not many people can say they had such a fun-filled weekend when they conceived. The most exciting story I ever heard is a friend who conceived after an Eagles victory. If one of the two embryos implant they will have a story, alright. One like no other and yet like thousands of others…

Hookah Happy

We got to scratch two things off the V-List in one sitting: #12 smoke something and #29 drink alcohol. We are such bad Vasses. We spent yesterday afternoon in the downtown Hookah Lounge. In a large sun room filled with hanging plants and wicker furniture we smoked plum flavored tobacco through a penis shaped pipe. According to the waitress plum is the underdog of all tobaccos on the menu, the forgotten gem. We identified with the plum. 

I never would have done this if it weren’t for the V-List. Trying something new makes me feel like I experienced the world a little more. Connecting with someone who is going through similar struggles makes me feel like I can handle what the world throws at me. I feel a bit more solid in each tobacco-infused, wine-happy, baby step.

Help Me Obi Wan, You’re My Only Hope

Thank you for the secret note you left me at the inferility clinic! It was a bright spot to my otherwise grim visit to Magnolia Park. Dr. W said, “Well, your ultrasound was…um…quite dramatic.” The cysts on my ovaries are apparently tennis ball sized and have cousins that are happily hanging onto my fallopian tubes like nasty little monkeys. The entire family of them are filled with gooey poison which seeps into my gut. And the good news? He thinks taking the cysts out could actually COMPROMISE the fertility of my eggs. Seriously, can I not have ONE element that works correctly?

I left a quick note to you (under many watchful eyes). And at the checkout I saw a flyer for a new mom party. Braggarts! I can’t wait to put our V-list party flyer right next to it and assure women that at OUR party there will be no stinky diapers or swapping of ultrasound images. (unless they are ultrasounds of cysts or follicles.)

I keep trying to take a deep breath and see this all as a lesson in patience. I should know by now that in this world the game changes daily, so the Bad News Bears have to roll with the punches. One of these days I will learn how to do that. I’m pretty sure the key lies in riding a mechanical bull, drinking gin from a flask or eating one of the cupcakes you made. I’ll start with that one…

Life Lesson number 3,467

I do not control the universe (as previously thought in my teenage years). After our day of riding roller coasters I can’t stop thinking about what a perfect metephor roller coasters are for our predicament. And not only in the obvious way that doing assisted reproduction is definately a ride, but also, you just have to strap yourself in, bear down and hope for the best. The only thing you really have control of is whether you scream or hold your breath, open or close your eyes. You can’t force the end result, you just have to lean into the turns when they come and try not to fall out. Okay, I think my metaphor may have fallen apart (like my reproductive organs! HA!). When we first started trying to get pregnant two years ago? three? (I’ve lost count now). I thought that if I just read about the right time to get it on I’d be able to make everything go according to my plan. But that’s not how things turned out and why I’m now seeking adventure in the form of giant metal thrill rides.

I like how Alisa put it in her last post. We are not freaks. (Pictures of us dressed up in costumes at the library notwithstanding) We’re just a couple of women who want to have a baby or two. Is that so much to ask? Can I PLEASE see an article in the paper that just says, Hi I’m Jane Doe and without modern science I would not have been able to have a baby? Instead I read articles, like the one in USA Today, shaking their fingers at the women and doctors who transfer bushels of embryos. Making it seem like the women and docs are so greedy. The article seemed to be saying the responsible thing is to just implant one. I almost choked on my chocolate chip cookie! If that reporter had to pay upwards of 12K on each cycle I bet my bad fallopian tubes she’d change her mind.

P.S. Seriously, how funny was it that we were climbing onto roller coasters talking about cycles and hormones? And, I’m willing to bet that man had never heard someone say the word infertile, let alone say it in a theme park.

Putting the Fun in Infertility

 

Steph and I often talk about how reproductive challenges are like riding a roller coaster… so what better way to embrace our situation than riding a bunch of thrilling, terrifying roller coasters?!

Dressed in v-neck t-shirts with large, silver, sparkly, spray painted V’s and visors with puffy silver and pink V’s painted on them, we spend a Monday afternoon jumping from roller coaster to roller coaster in Universal Studio’s Islands of Adventures. Surprisingly, yet unsurprisingly, we only received one comment on our attire from a 70-ish year old man who said, “I’ve heard of the A-list and the B-list but the V-list is way on the bottom. Why do you want to be there?”

We don’t actually. We would much rather have kids without the emotional, financial and physical strain Assisted Reproduction entails. However, these are the only ovaries, uterus, and sperm we have at the moment. While the media paints negative pictures of the reproductively challenged as selfish because we don’t adopt, haphazard because we are putting our bodies through ‘experimental’ procedures, and freaks who want octuplets, the V-List is here to shed some light on the biased, fear mongering way of thinking. V is a perfectly respectable letter, even if it isn’t at the top. We are here to invert the reproductive alphabet. We are here to put the fun in infertility.

V is for Vagina

Am I about to talk about my vagina on a blog? Yes, yes I am. I think we should talk more about vaginas, because mine is starting to feel a bit like public property. As in, “Mind if I take a look in your vagina?” “Sure! Everyone else has!”

When I went to get my “ping” test the guy made my vagina feel like a bit of a freak. But today my (female) doctor said my vagina is a perfectly normal vagina, maybe with a few idiosyncracies, but still, perfectly normal all the same and more than capable of having a catheter and balloon shoved into it.

I’ve already grown tired of various and sundry doctors peering into my love hole. But when they do stare into it, I’d at least like them to remember that there is a person attached to it. That’s all.