Saturday and Sunday; or, Reversals of Fortune

Sometimes there's so much to say, I can't find the heart to sit down and write about it. Last weekend was that kind of weekend. We had dinner with friends on Saturday night in the neighborhood and then met for lunch with my BIL and SIL and nieces on Sunday at their country club.

I was dreading the family visit all weekend. My mother-in-law had called the day before and told me that she had lunch with J (the BIL) that Saturday and that he had asked if "there were any babies yet" for Sloper and LG. My MIL responded by telling him he needs to speak with us to learn about how things are going, and he said, "They didn't have another miscarriage, did they?" in a worried one of voice. Again she told him to talk to us about what's going on, but that we're "struggling."

My MIL brought this story to me like it was some amazing evidence of how deeply my BIL and SIL care about us. "See?" she said. "He's thinking about you. I know they want you to have kids."

Yeah, I kind of figured that already. Obviously they want their kids to have cousins, and LG and I are the only way they're getting any. And they're not evil. I know they don't wish us ill.

But hearing that he made what basically amounted to small-talk chit-chat at lunch about our problems (over a year later!) isn't evidence of some extreme compassion and sympathy. I'm not angry that she told me this, but it also doesn't change that I think their reaction to our situation has royally sucked. It doesn't change the fact that I think they are incapable of having real, human connection with us on this point, or that they don't put their own events, needs, and desires over our incredibly deep sorrow. As I said to my MIL, "I don't know what I'm supposed to do with this information." Go out of my way to inform them and make them comfortable with this? Um, no.

So I was not feeling super charitable about this lunch visit and was wondering why we were making the effort to head out to Suburblandia and see them. And yet, it was fine. I held the 8-month-old niece, who is very sweet and smiley, and I saw that she has the blue eyes neither of her parents do (eyes like mine) and managed only a twinge of sadness. Our three-year-old niece was sweet and funny and very cuddly once she got over some initial shyness. LG and his brother disappeared to another part of the club for a while (a sports bar, it turned out, where they could watch some football) and I thought that maybe J was going to bring up the last year and ask how things were going. But he didn't. And LG thought that maybe S (my SIL) was asking me how things have been. But she wasn't.

Still, for all my dread of these situations, I'm very good at getting in and getting out with minimal fuss and distress. And if I wasn't my usual bright and sparkly self, if I was a little more quiet and subdued than usual, I don't think it was extreme enough for anyone but me to notice.

So Sunday was alright, despite my worries. But Saturday...

We had dinner with, among others, our Queens friends and their one-year-old son. These are the friends whose son was born the day we had our first bad ultrasound with the m&m. They are the friends who miscarried their first pregnancy almost exactly two years before we did, then tried to conceive for over a year before finally hitting the jackpot with an IUI. We are very close to them, and while we don't talk about IF and loss frequently, there's a current of understanding that flows through all our interactions and helps make things comfortable.

I noticed at dinner that Queens Wife wasn't drinking, and my radar went up. But Queens Husband was, so I thought that perhaps they designated a "Sober Sister" (as it were) to watch their little boy and drive home.

But as we peeled off from the rest of our party and walked them to their car a few blocks away, they confirmed my suspicions. They were twelve-weeks pregnant, unexpectedly but quite happily. They were due in June, just like her first pregnancy and mine.

I didn't feel that sharp spike of jealousy in the gut the way I usually do. We hugged them both and asked some questions and told them how happy we were. And in that moment, I truly was. Something raw and pointy lay underneath that happiness, but I pushed it far down. Lawyer Guy and I left them at their car and walked home to our apartment, and the night was very crisp and clear, and we both talked of other things and knew we were thinking the same thing, and it felt good to be together, whatever the circumstances.

I didn't let myself think much more about our friends' pregnancy the rest of the weekend. And then Monday morning, Queens Husband texted LG. They just had their NT scan. The results were not good--the baby's skull didn't form right. They had to terminate.

We both cried for them and ordered a basket of food to be delivered to their house and texted and e-mailed and offered to help them with anything they needed. She had the procedure yesterday and tomorrow they leave for Thanksgiving in New England.

As much as I may have felt jealous and a little sad when they told me their pregnancy news, I am devastated that this is the result. It seems so unfair--that they've had to undergo two very different but equally traumatizing losses, and even their beautiful, hard-won son doesn't make up for that. I find myself wondering why this kind of suffering has to be concentrated on the same people over and over again. Why can't it be one miscarriage per customer, no exceptions, and no more than one for everybody? Why can't it be lost pregnancy or IF, never both? I know the world doesn't work that way, and I'm sure people with ordinary, loss-free fertility would be horrified to think I'm "wishing miscarriages" and problems on them. But wouldn't life be easier to navigate if we could all share this burden?

Like losing a parent--it happens at different (more or less tragic) times for different people, but if you live long enough, your parents will die. I think we have tremendous sympathy for those whose parents die because of this sense that it will be us facing the same thing one day. But reproductive troubles aren't like that, so they're easier to dismiss or ignore. It's horrible to wish they were more universal, and yet I do. Hey, I'm surviving them, so Ms. Fertile Franny can too.

I'm rambling now because there's no real ending point to this. Lost pregnancies suck. Infertility sucks. Lack of sympathy sucks. Having to trudge on when you just want to scream sucks.

This all sucks.

Sad Goodbyes; or, People in Your Neighborhood

This morning, my downstairs neighbors' little dog was hit and killed by a car right outside our apartment building. She was a two-year-old Manchester Terrier they'd had for about a year. They'd rescued her from a shelter and worked with a trainer to help cure her of her excessive anxiety. They'd done an amazing job--she was so well-behaved, and getting better all the time. Somehow her leash broke or came undone and she ran into the road.

When Lawyer Guy returned from walking Bella this morning, he told me they had taken the dog to the animal ER . Later, when I arrived on campus to teach, I got a bbm from him telling me she had died. I started crying.

I don't know why this has affected me so much. I feel so very bad for these neighbors. I keep picturing myself in their position, thinking of my little Bella and how I would feel if all her toys and her food dishes lingered here as reminders that she was gone. It makes me sick inside. I imagine that moment when they were told she was gone, and it makes me cry again.

I saw their light on when I returned home this afternoon and knocked on their door to give them a hug and my condolences. They'd clearly been sobbing for hours. We all cried together and I said what I could to give them my sympathy, told them how much we would miss her.

I felt oddly tempted to tell them about the miscarriages, though of course I didn't. We live in a small building with only a few apartments and we have one of the two remaining dogs living here. I have to think that seeing us walking Bella and hearing us take her out every morning and evening (their apartment is closest to the front door) will sting so much and remind them of their lost little pup. Maybe I wanted to tell them so they'd know that I understand sadness and loss. But telling them would have been for my comfort, not theirs.

So I just hugged them and went back upstairs.

Silence of the Blogs; or An Evil Swamp Thing Rises From the Muck

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Cinema Verite; or, The Moment That Calls For Laughter or Tears

People say that we're each the lead character in the movie (or novel) of our life. Now I don't know who these people are, but I suspect they are right. And if this holds true, then naturally it's also true that we are but supporting roles, minor characters, and even walk-on parts and extras in other people's movies.

Nothing makes this clearer than facing fertility troubles in the middle of a baby boom. All around our Token Subfertile are fecund Mamas-To-Be enjoying their moment in the spotlight, their chance to take center stage in the Nativity Play: blue wimples on their heads, flour-sack babies in arms, Josephs standing by ready to beat back the Christmas crowds with a sturdy walking stick. Meanwhile, the Third Shepherd From the Back gets left off the program.

This past weekend, the distance between the Story of My Irritating Process of Trying to Conceive and the standard baby-making genres surrounding me (generally of the Oh Wow, I'm Knocked Up! variety) felt farther than ever. Allow me to present a dramatic moment:

(Scene: The kitchen of a suburban home. Brown cardboard boxes are everywhere along with newspaper-wrapped objects. A family is in the process of moving.)

Sloper (to audience): Hi! I'm Secret Sloper. I've been trying to have a baby for about a year and a half now. It's been very frustrating and I tend to whine a lot about it. This is even more difficult because it seems like everyone I know is pregnant or just had a baby. Friends, family, acquaintances, colleagues. They all get pregnant as soon as they even think about trying to have a baby. Did I tell you that I've heard 20 pregnancy announcements since March 2009? And that every single one of my or my husband's married cousins or siblings has had a child in the last year? Thank goodness there aren't any family members left to worry about!

Mother of Sloper (taking a break from packing): Did I tell you that Older Unmarried Cousin is going to be a father? Yeah, he had a one-night-stand at a wedding in October and now the girl is due on July 4th. He's so embarrassed that he didn't use a condom. At 35 he should really know better!

(Sloper collapses to the floor in what appears to be a convulsive fit. After a few moments, her laughter is audible over the grinding of her teeth and beating of the floor with her fists. A mumbled, "You win, universe," is barely discernible between her hysterical shrieks).

End Scene.

Of course, in contrast to this darkly comic horror tale about a young woman whose evil, empty uterus eats her mind and turns her into a raving zombie, we've got an ABC Family special about a wedding-night gone wrong and the two crazy kids forced to raise a baby (and a little hell) while realizing how perfect they are for each other! Minus the perfect for each other part and plus the Older Unmarried Cousin's New Girlfriend throwing him a baby shower. But that's clearly the third act complication immediately preceding the inevitable romantic finish, right?

Here in brain-eating-uterus land, however, the baby-makers' happy ending is beside the point. This little anecdote is just further evidence of the universe's desire to completely fuck with Secret Sloper's shit. You think it's hard to see people getting pregnant around you as soon as they want to try? The universe asks. BAM! An unplanned pregnancy. Double BAM! Due one week after your dead baby. Triple BAM! From someone you never suspected in a million years! Ha ha ha ha!

Universe, you're totally funny, okay? I get the joke, I swear. You can stop telling it.

* * * *

Having survived the frying pan of Pregnancy Announcement #21 with no tears, I jumped immediately into the volcano pit of Father's Day Dinner with the In-Laws. Just Lawyer Guy and me, his father and step-mother, my brother-in-law and sister-in-law, their kids, and sister-in-law's parents. You know, exactly the kind of event thoughtful family members invite their barren relatives to the week before they had expected to have a child.

It was mostly fine. I was nervous and uncomfortable at the beginning, but that was nothing a large vodka gimlet couldn't fix. My older niece wanted me to read her a story and to follow me to the buffet, which was cute. And I'm used to the rampant fawning over the children on the part of all the aforementioned adults.

But then immediately after dessert came the moment I was dreading: the opening and exchange of Father's Day gifts right there at the table in the middle of the country club. Yet another reminder that Lawyer Guy and I are spearholders in the back row of the chorus, not even given sheet music to learn everyone else's parts.

But if being completely left out sucks, being tossed a pity line or two sucks even harder. Father-in-law and his wife handed LG a gift as the other men dug into theirs. You see, he's the daddy to a puppy.

I spent the next ten minutes crying alone in the bathroom. So much for walk-on parts.

Bitch Stole My Bagel...Again!; or, Welcome to My Black Hole

Does my empty uterus emit high-pitched signals audible only to pregnant women when I'm PMSing? Is that why they like to announce their happy expectations to me right before I start my pre-period spotting? CAN I PLEASE HAVE ONE FUCKING MONTH WITHOUT HAVING TO ACT EXCITED ABOUT SOMEONE ELSE'S UTE FRUIT???

The faint brown spotting started today, 13 dpo. AF will start tomorrow. At least this is predictable. At least I didn't feed my stupid, pointless hopes by taking a pregnancy test.

Not so predictable was the email I got yesterday from the incoming co-chair of my Junior League committee entitled "News!" Oh, I definitely waited about an hour before opening it.

Sigh. Of course she's pregnant. Of course she's due on November 18th: the fucking anniversary of my d&c. Of course she's going to be giving birth and going on maternity leave right when I'm planning to take my oral exam and was counting on her to pick up the slack for me. Of course I'm going to have to carry the committee on my back all year, when I'm trying to become ABD (All But Dissertation, the last stage of the PhD process) AND when I'll most likely be undergoing fertility treatments.

And sure, she's a few years older than me, so maybe in one sense it's "her turn." But she WASN'T EVEN MARRIED YET when we started trying. In the sixteen months that we've managed to conceive one non-viable pregnancy, she was engaged, got married, went on a honeymoon, spent some time as a couple with her husband, got knocked up, and gestated to the point where she can announce it.

And now I have to work with her all summer while her fucking belly grows and arrange things to accommodate her pregnancy and I'm just pissed off about the whole situation.

COCKSUCKINGMOTHERFUCKINGSONOFABITCHGODDAMNPIECEOFSHITASSMUNCHINGCUNTWIPINGFUCKBALLS!!

Sorry about that.

The worst of it was the sound of the silence on the other end of the phone this morning when I told Lawyer Guy I started spotting. Just pure devastation. I thought it was hard back when I was the only one worried, the only one stressing, but this is 1000% worse. If Mr. I'm Not Going To Worry Until There's a Reason to Worry thinks we're doomed, we're really screwed. And I just feel so guilty. Especially because I know he's worried that this is his fault. Oh, this sucks from top to bottom.

It's not all bad, and I do know that. We booked the trip to Scandinavia last night-- seven days in Copenhagen and Stockholm in August. A last blast before we meet with the RE. And yesterday afternoon, FedEx delivered a package from my best friend, Doctor Lady--a beautiful bouquet of flowers to let me know that she's thinking of me as what would have been the m&m's due date approaches. I started to cry when I opened them, shocked that she remembered the month when I haven't spoken of it once since the miscarriage. I felt so alone, thinking I was the only person who remembered I could have had a baby in a few weeks, the only person on earth who still thought about my baby and grieved the life that he or she never got to live. I know how blessed I am to have a friend like this.

And I promise that I'll be okay tomorrow. I'll pick my spirits back up and start drinking my tea again and peeing on sticks and hoping that this will be the month. And I'll schedule some RE appointments and mark them in my calendar and hope that we'll get pregnant in the next two cycles and tell myself it's okay if we don't.

And I'll study and write papers and go to Father's Day dinner with my inlaws and help my parents move out of my childhood home and go to a Mets game with my husband and tell him every day how much I love him and walk my dog.

But right now, I need to revisit my friend, the sobbing bridesmaid:

This Has To Be The Bottom; or, How To Destroy Secret Sloper, In Three Easy Steps

Step #1 (Friday): Have Recently Trying Friend make a phone call. Have Secret Sloper answer said phone call-- during the break between the keynote speech and reception at the conference where she is assisting her advisor. Have RTF reveal that she is 4.5 months pregnant and due in September. Have Secret Sloper do some quick mental math and realize that RTF got knocked up her first month trying. And is the third of Sloper's former bridesmaids to do so.

Have RTF mention that: she waited this long because she really wanted to tell Sloper about this in person; they must get together to chat all about this so soon; she's having her 20 week u/s next week; being pregnant is "really hard sometimes."

Cue falsely and desperately cheerful conversation from Sloper, abrupt conclusion to phone call, and sobbing, sunglasses-shielded trip around the block, followed by a dinner with some of the most prominent academics in Sloper's field. (But hey, at least the taxi driver handed her a napkin as she wept in the back seat of his cab on the way home).

Step #2 (Saturday): Bring the original First-Time-Lucky bridesmaid back to NYC for a quick visit with her family before she moves out West for the foreseeable future. Force Sloper to pay a visit to her and her adorable six-month-old son, who was born the day after the m&m ended his or her short life. Hope that retching, choking and other extreme digestive reactions do not ensue.

Step #3 (Sunday): Now would be the absolute ideal time for a nationwide celebration of mothers.

At A Yet-To-Be Determined Moment: Toss in a visit from America's favorite bloody hag.

This is it, right? The blackest before the dawn? Things are gonna start looking up? The sun'll come out tomorrow?

Cause it can't get any worse, can it? Can it?

Oh, and universe, these are rhetorical questions. Not challenges. Just so we're clear.

Can't See the Parade For the Storm Clouds; or, This Sucks

Three days of High fertility on the CBEFM and no (Zero. Nada.) EWCM?

Walk to a pharmacy over a mile away only to learn they're all sold out of Preseed?

Return home to open a health insurance statement informing me that I may owe $20,000 for the privilege of having my dead baby scraped out of my uterus five months ago?

I think my options are this:


This:

Or this: