Tag: journey

A VERY un-merry unbirthday

Swuan GoddessLeave a comment

In May, a forthcoming fertility update was promised; here it is three months late. What follows has been written and rewritten many times over the past year to perfect each sentence. The events feel severely unfair and always trigger more tears than one human should be able to produce in a single setting. To stave off extra tears, embarrassment to others, and protect the anonymity of some, names will be changed and metaphors will be used in place of actual events.

July was … … … and we made it through, though just barely and not unscathed!!

This week did bring the promising news concerning J, our foster baby, with a goal status change in court on Monday, though it’s still a long road and a couple more court cases, our chance to keep her forever looks better than ever. However, they always tell you in foster situations, you never know until you know…a confusing way to say things only become finalized and official once the judge rules and the forms are all signed and finalized.

In the 1860s men both affiliated with Christ’s Church in Oxford became friends due to proximity. One July day in 1862 Charles Dodgson took the daughters (Lorina (13), Alice (10), Edith (8) of his friend Henry Liddell on a boat trip. During their picnic lunch at the insistence of the middle daughter Charles “invented tales of fantastical adventures” of a character he named after little Alice Liddell. At Alice’s further demanding Dodgson published these tales under the pen name Lewis Carroll three and a half years later. Now the first Saturday in July is known as “Alice’s Day,” after the infamous boat trip which brought the world Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

My obsession with all things tea-related began in high school, along with strong fixations on books and writing, specifically the works of Jane Austen and Alice in Wonderland.

The heartbreaking chronicles of today’s tales began over two years ago in July 2023. When we moved from IUIs to starting the process of IVF. Now I’m finally ready to share the details of our main baby journey. The following contains both the merry and un-merry moments of the past twenty-four months. As with all my emotional and personal posts this year, it takes my brain forever to type the perfect words to describe my sentiments toward our fertility circumstances. The whimsy and oddities in the tales of Wonderland will help lighten the tale of our past year.

Rules and real life Tea Parties

We have a rule in our home, set by me, which restricts fall decorating to no sooner than the day following my birthday. Partly to set a guideline for when fall festivities can begin in our home, and partly so that my birthday can remain separate from the beginning of the holiday extravaganzas (Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas). In 2024, however, decorating could not begin until September 6th, following a birthday tea party. Though even with permission granted, the fall decorations took many extra weeks to appear in 2024, with the appearance of an umpteenth 2024 illness battle. We were sick about 5 times from July to December of last year, following J entering our home.

The second of two tea parties of 2024 was planned around the movie Crazy Rich Asians. Asian Tea, Asian food, Singaporian desserts, and many friends from our neighborhood, followed by a viewing of the movie to celebrate the birthday’s of myself (Sept 2) and my friend Cali (Sept 7). 2025 included a barbie spa tea party, and I have yet to decide what to do for this year’s birthday tea party.

PICTURES: Tea table display, Decorations (with movie quotes), Food layout – Singaporian noodles, pork, spring rolls, GF dumplings, GF Pandan cupcakes, Singapore Sling Mocktail, Boba Tea, Ginger Tea, pomegranate tea, More decorations, dumpling prep station and leopard pictures, leaf wall behind the table!

So the next many paragraphs do not produce great confusion, here is a quick layout of our journey.

Following our meeting in July, we started the process, for the egg retrieval, embryo creation, testing, shots…so many shots sometimes 3 a day into my abdomen of some really expensive medications. Towards the end of August, we did the egg retrieval. They told us to expect that during each stage of the process, viable embryo numbers would likely be half of the previous number.

EGG RETRIEVAL STAGES AND NUMBERS

  • 20 eggs were retrieved
  • 13 large enough to possibly make it
  • 10 fertilized
  • 7 made it all the way to the blastocyst stage – (day 5 embryos – stage needed to be a possibility to be transferred)
  • Then following genetic testing even fewer were viable (euploid grade) for the embryo transfer process.

On July 18, 2023, we had our first official IVF appointment with our fertility doctor. A couple of days later, we were given a rundown of the substantial costs of IVF, which, before insurance, for the egg retrieval and embryo creation testing, etc, cost around $22,000. And each embryo transfer (placing of the embryo into my body) cost around $4700 for meds, tests and the actual procedure.

A Lazy Little Tea Party

I adore any reference to Lewis Carroll’s classic Wonderland story, specifically the lazy little tea party among some of wonderland’s favorite kooks the Mad Hatter, the March Hare, and the sleepy Dormouse. (Alice In Wonderland Chapter VII)

When Alice first comes upon the party the March Hare shouts “No room! No room!” even though the three characters only used a small corner of the large table. The March Hare then offers wine when there is only tea available to make the point that manners of civility were broken by both sides, his for offering an unavailable beverage, and Alice for joining their party uninvited. To which Alice remarks that the table is “laid for a great many more than three.”

Being childless while going to church with, spending time with and living in a place where large families reside in abundance, where family is a central part of everyone’s daily life, feels similar to Alice attending this party uninvited. All the while having “No room! No room!” silently shouted at you. Never of course spoken aloud, but it’s that sinking feeling you feel when you enter a room, where you feel just a tiny bit out of place in every setting. Though having J who is such a joy to our lives and excludes us from being in the entirely childless category, the uncertainty of our future with J causes the failure to have children in other ways to often feel like that emptiness that childlessness often brings.

This is madness

The Mad Hatter, believed to represent madness, chaos, and confusion, continues the conversation with Alice with answerless riddles and nonsense comments rather than answering any of Alice’s questions. Infertility often represents that same type of answerless riddle, which can drive individuals in the depths of a fertility journey to similar madness and confusion. Especially when every test comes back normal, or our fertility doctor says things such as “There is no reason that things shouldn’t have worked, everything looked great, the medication levels looked good”… The hatter perhaps started as sane and rational, but circumstances changed the status quo and drove him insane.

The original tea party illustration depicts the Hatter with his famous 10/6 hat and the March hare with straw on his head. The in the style of 10/6 means a similar hat would cost 10 shillings and a sixpence. The straw was meant to symbolize “straw head or empty headedness, and ultimately that the hare is also a symbol of madness in the story.

The chaos continues when Hatter mentions putting butter in the watch gears, which makes his watch two days off, even though the March Hare assures the Hatter, “It was the best butter.” A sentiment repeated again by the Hare after dipping the watch in his tea. Rather than considering the butter to be the problem, he then blames the possible crumbs transferred over from the bread-knife.

For years, many doctors told me I was probably the problem with us not being able to have children. Although male infertility contributes to nearly half of the infertility cases that couples face. A surgery to treat endometriosis in 2015, and countless other tests of my hormone levels, vitamin levels, and general health, each returned within normal ranges. The doctors were following that trail of bread crumbs without considering that the issue could, in fact, be something else preventing pregnancy. And yet regardless of the “best butter” normal tests, the best embryos (AA and AB Euploid), the perfect environment for the embryo to thrive, sometimes even IVF fails to work, because for whatever reason the crumbs (unknown embryo factors, and other unknowns outside of the control of everyone) and not the butter is at fault for the embryo transfer not resulting in pregnancy (ruining the “watch gears”).

It’s Always Tea TIME!

At this point in the tea party story Alice was rightfully frustrated with the direction of the conversation, so she mentioned that they were wasting TIME on silly riddles with no answer, and the Hatter’s retort was even madder than his previous repetitions and nonsense that time wasn’t an it, it was a HIM!! Then later suggested that if Alice were on good terms with time he would help move time to her desires.

To then confirm suspicions that the party goers were also on bad terms with time the Hare whispers “I only wish it was,” that time was on their side. As an explanation to Alice, Hatter recounted the reason for the feud between TIME and himself: a quarrel the previous March. Upon retelling the story remembered it was at a concert for the Queen of Hearts where he sang:

‘Twinkle, twinkle, little bat!
How I wonder what you’re at!’

‘Up above the world you fly,
Like a tea-tray in the sky.
                    Twinkle, twinkle—’”

The Queen started the fight between Hatter and Time by declaring ‘He’s murdering time! Off with his head!’ Creating the rift so ever since March “He [TIME] won’t do a thing I ask! It’s always six o’clock now.” As a result of it always being six o’clock also means “it’s always tea-time, and we’ve no time to wash the things between whiles.” So as things are used up, they travel round and round the table until they reach the beginning again and “change the subject” and begin again in a never-ending cycle of tea partying.

This now begs the question for our situation: what did Brent or I do to anger Time so that we have been unable to successfully progress forward in our journey towards having children for over a decade? Why do I often feel like our journey is frozen in time? Like the Hatter, we continue to age, and time moves forward around us, yet our fertility journey is stuck at 6pm, always tea time, and never the reward of what comes next after tea time, which in our case would be a successful pregnancy and a baby.

Now back to Wonderland, with more craziness, ultimately ending with an offended Alice walking off, thus concluding the tea party portion of the story. Alice’s final thoughts on the party were “At any rate, I’ll never go there again!” as she picked her way through the woods. “It’s the stupidest tea-party I ever was at in all my life!”, before continuing on.

I wish, like Alice, I could step away from the tea party and continue on with the rest of my story.

Current journey and Unbirthdays

I always believed the unbirthday conversation occurred with the Mad Hatter during the tea party, as it was weaved into Disney’s 1951 tea party scene. When in fact the very Merry unbirthday conversation and scenario were written into Carroll’s second book Through the Looking Glass and was between Alice and Humpty Dumpty. Though no matter who has the conversation with Alice the message is still the same.

Some of the lyrics Disney’s team creating Alice in Wonderland wrote into the song match directly to the conversation Carrol wrote:

All: A very merry unbirthday to us, to us…
March Hare: If there are no objections, let it be unanimous…
March Hare: Let’s all congratulate us with another cup of tea!
A very merry unbirthday to you!

Mad Hatter: Now, statistics prove, prove that you’ve one birthday
March Hare: Imagine, just one birthday every year
Mad Hatter: Ah, but there are three hundred and sixty four unbirthdays!
March Hare: Precisely why we’re gathered here to cheer

Alice:Why, then today is my unbirthday too!
March Hare:It is?!
Mad Hatter:What a small world this is.
March Hare:In that case…
A very merry unbirthday,
Alice: To me?
Mad Hatter: To you!

The un-birthday I speak of is not merry, nor is it a birthday at all, rather distant, painful memories.

Following our expensive egg retrieval, the first transfer occurred on Halloween of 2023, following six weeks of more meds and several days of shots this time in my bottom and way more painful than the ones in my abdomen. We transferred one of our male embryos. July 15th, 2024, when I initially began this blog entry, would have been my due date had the first transfer been successful.

Luckily, financially, all except about $10,000 of the first retrieval and transfer was covered by insurance, with much of that going to medications. However, as of November 2023, we no longer have fancy insurance with extra fertility treatments, so any future transfers would be out of pocket. A portion of almost everything except those pesky, expensive medications was covered. The first transfer also fell under the umbrella of insurance covered some and the rest came from that $10,000 mentioned above.

Three emotional months later, trying to hold myself together, some diet changes, and I was ready to try again. So back on the meds, and then near the end of February, the painful bum stabbing started again, six days before transfer number two. This time, we transferred a female embryo, only for the second one not to work either. The due date (un-birthday as it was unsuccessful) for the second transfer would have been around November 11th, so the end of October 2024 lead to yet another emotional spiral. The second transfer cost about $3500 above the $10,000 spent previously.

With two failed IVF embryo transfers, we were tentative to try again with our rapidly dwindling number of viable embryos, and the looming possibility that we may need to do another egg retrieval hangs in the balance. From July 2024 until April 2025 I lost 35 lbs to hopefully help with the next embryo transfer. Additionally we ran further expensive tests ($800), resulting in taking two expensive hormone shots, which we purchased from the UK, “saving” us about $2200 and instead only costing us $822 total instead of over $3000. Then another small procedure costing $860, and then $4125 for our recent embryo transfer and medications needed for the transfer.

LEFT: JUNE 2024; RIGHT: APRIL 2025

So now, with a heavy heart, I come with news that our third and final viable embryo transfer was unsuccessful. The typical number of embryo transfers necessary for a successful transfer is between one and five transfers. And I’m just one of the unlucky ones for whom it didn’t take any of the three times, in spite of all the extra steps I did to hopefully sway the balance in our favor. We were told in a recent follow-up appointment that at the clinic we are doing our treatments that around 90% of the couples typically have a successful transfer within three transfers; so once again, we have been among the unlucky ones who did not fall into that 90%.

Many many months ago after the first failed embryo transfer, I held a bit of unfairly placed resentment towards my husband for us not having kids and for us not being able to conceive naturally. My mom often tells me: “You married a good one.” And he is great, but I am devastated that he cannot give me the one thing I want more than anything in the world right now. A lot of that resentment has since been resolved with the busy-ness of our lives the past six months and from the continued confirmation that we truly have a wonderful marriage.

Additionally, is it his fault we can’t conceive naturally? Technically yes. Though even the word fault is an unfair descriptor, as he had no control over the ability to have children. So then, technically speaking, it is my in-laws’ fault for passing down the CF gene, which causes the CBAVD anomaly in males. The dichotomy of my situation is that I hate that my life’s trajectory has forced me to endure the pain of childlessness without any capacity to fix the genetic mistake, and yet I love my in-laws. Where is the fairness in that? [See post Catching Something Invisible for the details on CBAVD].

I had a friend come to me recently to ask some very personal questions about the process, and why we were not doing things a certain way, and maybe the way we were doing things was the reason things were not successful. To them, I say they how dare they challenge my already teetering faith by saying that we must not be listening to promptings of the spirit, and need advice from their prompting about our situation, someone who fundamentally does not understand the process or everything we have put into IVF (money, blood, sweat, tears). And this friend has never struggled with infertility.

Our fertility doctor did everything in her power to help us grow our family, and this go around it just wasn’t in the cards. So back to square 0. Not quite zero, but close because we are out of embryos, do not have fancy fertility insurance coverage, lost the weight, and have done all of the extra tests and procedures. Honestly, I don’t really know where to go from here.

@swuangoddess

#infertility #infertilityjourney #IVF #cf #waiting #eggretrieval #embryotransfer #letitbe #CapCut

♬ Let It Be – 2021 Mix – The Beatles

The most prominent physical transformation is when Alice drinks from the bottle labeled “Drink me,” and after shrinking down, she must navigate a much larger and more intimidating world. Representing the challenges of new and unfamiliar situations and learning to navigate the complexities of world, which Alice must do in the strange world of Wonderland.

Likewise, the world of infertility is a large and intimidating world. It is confusing, scary, painful, heartbreaking, and difficult to navigate. You are required to “drink” the drink and shrink down, to navigate an unfamiliar situation, while not asking too many questions, or expecting too many answers. You meet people who have no intention of hurting or offending you during the process, but do so out of ignorance.

While the other characters in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland are believed to have all manner of mental disorders these do not directly relate to our fertility story, such as Alice having hallucinations and personality disorders, the White rabbit having General Anxiety disorder being always worried about being late, The caterpillar represents drug addiction, The Cheshire Cat represents schizophrenia with his at will disappearance and reappearances thus distorting reality and driving other characters to madness. And so on…

While Alice in Wonderland is not a perfect analogy of our fertility journey, the parallels bear enough of a connection to use to tell a portion of our story. Now, we must detour to focus on our foster/adoption journey with J and regroup to decide what to do next. If you, too, are in the fertility trenches and have gone down the rabbit hole of uncertainty and feel you are wandering aimlessly around confusing Wonderland, you are not alone. Hang in there.

Our holiday theme plans for the end of the year were derailed spectacularly with last week’s sad news, but we have a new plan in the works as of the day after we learned of the failed transfer. Hopefully, our next un-birthdays will be merry, and our birth dates will be reality, and not days to cry endlessly over. As always the only thing to do is press on and Start Where yoU Are Now, no matter how hard it may seem.

Bueller? Bueller?…Bueller?

Swuan GoddessLeave a comment

Though I resolved to update the interested few much more frequently about my life in late 2023, here we are seven months and sixteen days since my last post. To keep my apologies brief I will simply say 2024 was a lot of heavy emotional processing for my parenting and fertility journeys. Several friends, acquaintances, and nearly newlywed neighbors either announced or had a baby in 2024 or in the first few months of 2025. These women fall into the categories of those who have struggled (first and secondary fertility) and those who seemingly have not struggled to become and stay pregnant. I also apologize that today is not Wednesday, as Wednesdays are for fertility! (If you’ve read previous posts).

Like young Mr. Bueller, who took a day to go on his many adventures, I have been much the absentee blogger over the past many months. So, rather than go into all the details of our fertility journey this week, this will be an update post of where we’ve been the past seven months. Next week’s post will be where we’re headed next in our fertility journey.

Back in July of 2024, we welcomed our first long-term foster placement, which I discussed in my last post in September 2024. Many things have changed on that front over the past nearly eight months. When I last posted, we had only been initiated into the parenting club by J eight weeks before, but now she has been in our home for over nine months. To say we will be devastated if the end result is not J staying with us permanently doesn’t begin to cover the extreme emotional trauma headed our way should she end up elsewhere.

Last August, my best high school friend turned 35, approximately 2 weeks before my 35th birthday. Additionally, we celebrated 20 years of friendship. I sent her a belated box of goodies in mid-September, including an incredible shirt made by a friend in my neighborhood, and a necklace with our birth flowers and the flower representing 20th anniversaries.

September – My birthday and a birthday tea party.

October – Decorated the house in the theme of the year. Harry Potter, here our home exterior looks like book 2.

@thedianasaurusrex

#Halloween #halloween2024 #harrypotter #harrypottertiktok #chamberofsecrets #opened #aragog #cornishpixie #fordanglea #muffler #mufflerthedog

♬ The Chamber of Secrets – John Williams

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince-themed Halloween costumes, specifically Aragog’s funeral. Brent as Slughorn, J as Hagrid, Me as dead Aragog, and Muffler as Harry Potter, not pictured in the first picture of our Instagram post.

October/November – Planned and then subsequently cancelled a trip to Austin. Celebrating all of the November birthdays, including J’s late November birthday.

December – Harry Potter birthday party (Held December 7th), and decorating the house for Harry Potter Christmas. All the Christmas things, including our first Christmas with J., and hosting our annual Hanukkah party.

January, February, March – Lots of Thanksgiving point adventures, some grad school work, lots of fighting naps, nearly daily walks with J and the guau-guau (Muffler), J finding her love of swings and only swings when we go to playgrounds, lots and lots of ms. Rachel, tons of vocabulary growth both in Spanish and English. Several foster events and trainings. For us (Brent and I), the first quarter of 2025 was a general continuing to settle into the day-to-day of parenthood.

^ My anniversary gifts

April – Tulip festival at Thanksgiving Point (Today, May 9th, is the last day of this year’s festival). Brent and I celebrated our twelfth wedding anniversary. Traditional and Modern gifts for year twelve include: Linen, Satin, Jade, and the color green. For my gift to Brent, I spent a lot of green to purchase tickets to a Weird Al Yankovic concert, which we will attend later in the summer around Brent’s birthday. Brent’s gift to me, as requested, was an adorable bee necklace, a jade bracelet, and a dress.

May – This past week, the three of us (Brent, J, and I) have spent a blissful seven days in the Pacific Northwest in the oh so beautiful Vancouver, Washington, to visit Brent’s brother and family. The week’s adventures started at the Vancouver Summers family’s homestead for a belated Easter egg hunt on Saturday morning. Everyone (neighbors, Brent’s brother’s family, and other extended family) experienced the cuteness overload of meeting J for the first time.

On Sunday, we travelled over two hours to watch the oldest niece (age 14) and the oldest nephew (age 17) march in a veterans’ parade with at least 30 other middle and high school bands. It was the longest J had been in the car for one stretch of time, and by the time we arrived at the parade, she was OVER IT! The parade was great, J loved it, especially the “BIG Caballos” (horses). Afterwards we drove a few minutes to the nearby beach for a picnic and play. J dug in the wet sand, ate mostly chips and Cheetos for lunch and kept talking about the “Mucho Agua” (aka. the ocean). No nap on the way there, and surprisingly no nap on the way home. We were all exhausted by the time we reached the homestead.

During the day Brent worked and the rest of the time we have played board games, J has taken no naps, taken our required trip into Portland to visit Powell a giant bookstore, obtained and devoured Voodoo doughnuts, a little antiquing at our favorite antique store nearby, took some family photos, walked a beautiful historic lilac garden, ate Costco PIZZA…PIZZA…PIZZA (J’s Pizza chant) for lunch, treated ourselves (just my sister-in-law and I) to some boba tea, enjoyed a campfire where we roasted hot dogs and marshmallows, and relaxed.

Let my toddler sleep…

In Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, he goes to his best friend’s house, and he is out of school, actually sick, unlike Mr. I’m skipping school today Bueller. Cameron is lying in bed singing “Let my Cameron go,” a spoof on the song “Go down Moses” by Louis Armstrong, with the original lyrics of “Now when Israel was in Egypt land, let my people go” which Cameron replaced Israel and people with his own name. I am now suggesting that the lyrics should be again changed to be “Now when J was in Washington, let my toddler sleep…”

We quickly learned our toddler has not been sleeping enough, as she has been in our room with us during the trip and waking up between 5 and 6:30 every morning since we arrived. We have been trying the normal after lunch nap, but it has been far to late, so she has not been sleeping during naps, just playing.

Yesterday she fought naps so much that her mischief toddler gene kicked in and she ruined a tube of mascara and painted her face, arms, legs, bed sheets, and blankets in E.L.F. big mood waterproof black. Luckily only my nearly time to throw away anyway mascara was ruined. I sadly am not allowed to post a picture of her in all her mascara art glory.

Today, around 10:15AM, after a couple of hours of a rather grumpy toddler, Brent decided to put her down for a nap, so we took all of the things to play with or ruin out of the room and she slept for a solid three hours, waking only about 10 minutes ago. We’re glad we learned this on the last day of our trip, but I guess we live and learn.

Tomorrow, we sadly must return home, but we have loved every day of our visit.

Well now it’s time to…

Shake it up, baby, now (shake it up baby)
Twist and shout (twist and shout)
Come on, come on, come, come on, baby, now (come on baby)
Come on and work it on out (work it on out) [Ferris Bueller’s fitting parade song]

For a final shake-up, I will tease the current stage of our fertility journey, with: I am feeling a little crummy this week (no, I’m not pregnant), just on some nasty meds at the moment.

This week, infertility feels like a bad word, several actually! Even still, I have no choice but to take several deep breaths and start where I am now.

The nuances of Otherhood

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Why is it that when you reach your 30s + and get one bad night of sleep, where you don’t close your eyes until nearly 2am and then have to get up around 8:30 the next morning, followed by not being able to take a nap and it takes approximately a month to recover? I’ve had a lot of late nights, followed by earlier than I would like mornings lately, though my sleep, or lack thereof, is not the point of today’s rantings.

At what point are fancy distractions not enough to satiate the loneliness that screams at women from an eternally empty womb, that they want to fill. Since our big trip to Europe, we’ve been planning our next one, if life had gone according to plan we would be getting on a plane in about four days, but as always expect the unexpected in life.

Back in April we celebrated our 11th Wedding Anniversary down in Las Vegas. During our lavish weekend, we saw three different shows, stayed in the Venetian a high-end hotel on the strip, visited the National Mob Museum, Gambled and lost the $11 in Brent’s wallet, ate some incredible food, and purchased an expensive painting by Michael Cheval for our living room. A weekend of fun and indulgence which catapulted me into a state of reflection of what comes next, do I hurl myself into school work for my master’s degree which contains possible future financial fulfillment, but is devoid of the full range of emotional fulfillment.

Earlier this year we finished the nursery, but we’ve been pretty hopeless about the idea that we will ever have a baby sleep in there. For the past three years, since designating the room as the Harry Potter room, we have been causally calling it the nursery. That is until my dad overheard us call it the nursery about eighteen months ago, he excitedly repeated the word to check he had heard correctly. Following this unfortunate word slip, Brent and I course corrected to exclusively call it the Harry Potter Room again. Hours of work, time, and creativity has gone into this room, but wondered if it would ever be used for its intended purpose.

This is most of the mural on one wall of the Harry Potter room, and 3 videos of other work we did in that room!!

Subscription Box wall!

Harry Potter Luggage Dresser

Board and Batten & Mural

We have since added a rocking chair and a crib!

For several posts now I have teased us having a side quest outside of our standard fertility treatments. So now finally the details of our side quest to parenthood: Foster care.

In 2022 Brent came home from therapy and said in quite a matter-of-fact tone “I think we should look into Foster care.” So we did, we started the classes, researched the process, printed and started the paper application, and then as it often does our calendar filled and we lost track of the foster trajectory.

Weeks later I had a tearful conversation with Brent about how we would never be parents, and kept asking why we gave up on becoming foster parents. His response though surprising was not entirely unexpected, essentially during one of the classes it had freaked him out that at a moment’s notice, we could be in charge of fully formed little people. Instead of having the opportunity to take a baby home from the hospital and start from zero in molding the little babe, we could have a talking, running, opinionated, trauma filled first grader show up on our doorstep, hours after accepting the fostering assignment.

Over a year and a couple moments of heartbreak on our regular fertility journey later and our foster journey began again. In December we took all eight of the required three-hour foster courses nearly 24 hours of classes, on subjects of trauma, relationships with primary family, how the children will react to various situations, setting schedules, and boundaries, managing food, sleep, regression especially after family visits, and other such topics.

After taking all the classes both Brent and I are convinced that every parent needs these lessons. After seeing what some of these children go through, it is insane that a woman has a baby and then if all goes well a couple days later they send them home with well wishes and an expensive hospital bill.

We then jumped through dozens of additional hoops, before we were put on a list of mostly couples certified to take in children placed in the system. Some families taking the courses like us had never had children in their home and saw this as a way to step into the role of parenthood, others had grown children who simply wanted to give some teens a safe place, others had upwards of eight children and yet wanted more. To me, those families with four to eight children presently living at home are being slightly selfish by putting their name in the hat to take in fosters when they had other children who need their attention at the moment. Also, priority should be given to those with 0-2 children, feeling nearly out of options to have a chance to be parents and have children grace our homes. That said people who work for the state know there are a good number of kids who come into state custody every month that need a safe space to call home even if only temporarily.

In February a friend and I held a Pride and Prejudice and Zombies Galentines tea party for several amazing women in the area. Some of them knew our fertility plight and a couple knew details of our side quest for children and were asking how the journey was going. I frustratedly unloaded about how long the process was taking to get certified. Below are a couple pictures taken at the end of the night because I always forget to take them before.

After we finished our required courses, the application, the background check request and fingerprinting, and CPR & First Aid training, we had been waiting for over a month for the background checks to come back. The state of Utah checks came back in about two weeks, but because we had lived out of state within the previous five years background checks and abandonment lists checks were needed for the state of California.

Finally, DCFS (Department of Child and Family Services) reached out about our home study, which they scheduled for noon on March 19th: 106 days from the day of our first class, this go around. Two Saturdays prior to the big day, some of my family had come to help mark off the last few things on the extensive requirement list of things like window well and outlet covers, baby gates (if the requested age range requires it). Besides this final work day we had cleaned and prepped and prepped and cleaned for weeks on end, only to finally be 100% done just hours before the foster care home visit. Only to need to basically do it all again a couple months later.

I saw a video recently of a lady who said you can absolutely have a clean house with a husband, children, and animals you just basically have to constantly be cleaning. There is quite a bit of truth to that, although some of the other organizing and decluttering work we did last year has helped greatly in keeping our house much cleaner on a weekly basis.

Finally, at the end of March, all steps were completed including the final interview done by our resource coordinator (The wonderful woman who confirms all the logistics of foster care are taken care of), and in April we received our foster licenses. Then it was time to wait.

The week we were licensed I was unbelievably sad. I kept receiving overwhelming feelings of uncertainty about whether I wanted to raise other people’s children, especially since in many cases we probably won’t be able to keep them. Even if perchance we were allowed to keep a child permanently, it is such a long road to get to that point. When the tears started coming, they seemed not to stop. They just fall and fall and fall, filling my oceans of grief. Perhaps on weeks like that one, I should consider buying a boat to sail off on my grief oceans.

In June our first experience as foster parents was a twelve-day respite (A short-term case where we keep foster children for their long-term foster family when they need to be out of town and cannot take their foster’s with them). It was nice to ease ourselves into fostering for such a short time, and also to help us decide if we wanted to continue fostering.

These children come with all kinds of behavior issues, and bad habits instilled in them by parents who made some terrible choices, whether by the example they set, neglecting them, or other even worse traumas these children must face, sometimes even at an extremely young age. Along with the notion that many of the parents with children in the foster system have lost their way, some of them probably shouldn’t have had children in the first place. How unfair is it that we who have made fairly good choices in life cannot have biological children and nonetheless those who didn’t take proper care of their children to the point of them needing to be taken away, may have had zero fertility issues, (especially those cases of families with three plus children in the system).

Our 12 days of respite in June. We took in two children, One a girl (A) turning three in July, and a boy (Z) turning 5 in December. A twelve-day whirlwind, and by the end we were exhausted. During part of the time my aunts and uncles were visiting, so we went to a couple of large family gatherings. The foster mom dropped them off with a bag of clothes, diapers for A. and necessities on a Monday night, and we put them right to bed. Which was a fun transition the first night, as they kept wanting us to be in the room with them to go to sleep, and read more stories.

At the first family gathering my aunt’s dog who approached no one and allowed no one to approach her except my aunt, uncle, and cousin, went right up to A and let her pet her and play with her. My baby sister who has attempted connecting with this adorable tiny brown dog with missing teeth and a tongue that constantly hangs out one side for nearly four years with no success. Upon seeing the interaction between A and the dog said “I’m so mad, and will never get over that she (the dog) just let A. play with her.” It was such a good moment, as our own dog, Muffler, struggles with little kids and did not like A or Z trying to play with him.

Also at that same family dinner we took a picture of my grandparents and all of their children and grandchildren in attendance, A and Z wanting to be included jumped into the picture, but due to foster regulations set to protect the children, we are not allowed to show their faces in any picture posted anywhere online. So instead of hurting their feelings placed them slightly behind a taller person, so you couldn’t see them in the picture.

Throughout the nearly two weeks:

  • we visited the Draper Aquarium (where we have passes, so we only needed a ticket for Z, with A being under 3.
  • We also went with my mom and various sisters and their child[ren] to Thanksgiving Point’s museum of Natural Curiosity, and Farm Country. They loved both, especially the pony rides at Farm Country, and the giant rope bridges at the Museum. However waiting for, well anything, but especially the train was very hard for them.
  • Two family dinners
  • The butterfly biosphere with my mom, but not with us because we went to the eye doctor that day. And then the carousel. We told the kids they could ride “Two times”, although they did not understand the concept of needing to get off, go through the exit gate, and walk all the way back around to the line to be able to ride the second time, which brought on some big tears from A., but we got through it!
  • Splash pad and lunch with some friends in the neighborhood. In fact I didn’t tell one friend I was coming until I was on my way, and she was so excited to hear we had a placement, even though it was only short-term.
  • Played with and covered themselves with chalk dust
  • Parks and splash pads
  • Playing at Grandmas (my mom’s)
  • Reading books – at night we finally had to limit books to two, which usually meant Apples up on Top where they had to count every apple on every characters head through out the book, and another book which varied from night to night.
  • Watching a small amount of bluey
  • And so many snack times – these poor kids had a lot of food insecurity, in that they constantly asked for food and were worried about

Some other moments good and bad from the time:

  • They often called us “Mom” and “Dad” because it was easier than distinguishing between their other foster parents and us.
  • Z asked “Dad” (Brent) to turn the car, while we were on the freeway because the sun was in his eyes
  • McDonald’s for some snacks after a visit to help them re-regulate after an overstimulating visit with their Mom
  • When we had to leave somewhere where they were obviously having a good time, they would say that they were “NEVER” having a good time. Or they would cry. Transitions are hard.
  • Nap time was hard, because no matter how much especially A needed one a couple of days she would just cry and cry and cry. On one particularly hard nap day, Brent rocked A. to sleep and he said “I do like the rocking babies to sleep part. Not the crying part, but the moment when you can feel them give up and start to fall asleep.”
  • The closer A and Z were to their departure the more I could feel myself pushing them away a little. It was easier to distance my emotions on the last couple days, than to get too attached and then feel the heartache of “losing them”, after only having them for a few days.
  • The last day we had them. A was in a mood and as toddler’s do, angry that I was having her help me clean up the toys, she looked me right in the eyes and said “I like daddy. He’s my favorite. I like daddy,” and then stormed off. And just as the verbal knife entered my heart, I took a couple deep breaths and was sad but okay with them returning to their other foster home.

Their long-term foster mom, must have done wonders the first month she had them because overall they were pretty well-behaved children, with no huge apparent traumas, besides the ever-present food insecurities. She did say they were super dirty and a little “feral” when she first got them. The experience luckily didn’t scare us off from continuing as foster parents.

A quick six weeks after our stint with A and Z, we received a text about another placement. We had taken an extra class that put us on a short(er) list for placements of 0-3 year olds. At 11:38 the text about a little girl (J) 18 months, hispanic. They were potentially looking for a placement that spoke Spanish and English, her two languages. Lucky for us, Brent is fluent in Spanish (2 years living in Mexico on a service mission for our church, and two degrees). We texted back within 5 minutes that we were interested. About 20 minutes after that I received a call from a casework to go over some details, and by 3PM I had an adorable, quiet, tiny hispanic person sitting in my lap. After signing some documents with us, the caseworker dropped off a bag of clothes, a small pack of diapers, a carseat and a baby, and then left.

We learned a few things very quickly. We knew nothing that she liked to eat. She understood approximately zero English. She was actually 20 months old and not 18 months. She is a ninja, and learned how to climb out of the pack ‘n’ play by the third day, so now she sleeps in sleep sacks so she can’t climb out of her crib. Cribs are meant to be built inside the bedroom. Breaking a child of co-sleeping with their bio parents their whole life is ‘muy dificil’. Creating a schedule for a 20-month-old who never had a schedule previously is more than slightly exhausting. Learning (Improving ones) Spanish at the same time as toddler is not ideal. She is excellent at crocodile tears.

Look at those crazy curls!! Left: J is trying to figure out how to hold both her water and ice cups and also simultaneously eat the ice. Right: Miss Sass is dancing around wearing an old pair of sunglasses. (I mentioned this earlier, but we are not allowed to show the faces of our fosters, which is why it is blocked on the right).

I often take her on little adventures, while Brent is working. We go to museums, the aquarium, parks, the Thanksgiving Point gardens, etc. We have not quite figured out food, as she is a toddler and hates everything she loved yesterday, and only ever truly wants chips or ritz crackers. She loves rides in her stroller. She loves books, but I don’t think she had ever held a book before coming to us. She knows about eight words, all of which are closer to Spanish than English, but most are not in either language. She is quite small for her age and often sports a size twelve-month onesie, and 9-12 month leggings.

We also learned that because her bio father did most things for her (diaper changes, feeding, baths, putting to bed, etc) J. prefers men, so for the first two weeks Brent had to do many things for her. We have had her for nearly two months now, and she still prefers Brent, which has been pretty hard for me. Sometimes, if she is particularly grumpy she will only let “mama” (Brent), feed her, or put her to bed. On difficult, no or very short nap, days the favoritism is much worse, as J is too tired to sort the complex emotions of allowing either parent help her reach the same level of need fulfillment, leaving “Mama” (me) feels stuck in that unappreciated middle. SIDE NOTE: She calls all adult caregivers “mama”. We had to send her to respite for a couple days to attend a Viking themed Wedding a couple weeks ago and she called both the mom and dad of the couple that watched her mama.

Pictures from the Viking wedding we attended. Costumes required. Brent was one of the groomsmen for our friend Nate. It was such a beautiful ceremony and an incredible weekend.

Misery envelops me whenever she pulls out her sad, sad crocodile tears because dad needs to change, or work, or I even pick J up, but she wants ONLY “Mama” (Brent). A on-going behavior which persists quite frequently from week to week. I’m told this preferential treatment of one parent over the other is normal toddler behavior, but it still feels awful when you’re not chosen as favorite parent as scrutinized under the rigorous qualifications set in place by your almost two year old. Brent often says “It will get better.” And it has gotten better, she does sometimes let me perform parental tasks, and hang out with her at times when previously only Brent could. Yet, as I have said before it hurts to want something so much and not be left feeling a little let down by your own expectations and the expectations you place on life situations, which you believed would turn out differently.

J has also been sick for the past couple of weeks which has made nap times non-existent, and bedtimes hard, sometimes she will wake up screaming and then be awake for an hour or two at a time. Plus her sad little cough, which has thankfully mostly gone away. Though, she will also sometimes mock our never-ending coughs, with a fake cough of her own.

Sometimes she will wake up in the middle of the night and say things like “Guau-Guau No!!” (Pronounced Wow-wow) which is what she calls all dogs and dog-like creatures. She LOVES dogs! This is hilarious because we always tell her not to bother Muffler. Though another thankfully moment, Muffler has been extremely good around her, better than any other children we’ve ever had visit our home.

Lady and the Tramp – (Newish live action on Disney), and Bluey. She loves her dogs!

Needless to say, we are falling hard for this little girl and secretly hope we can keep her forever, but with foster, only time will tell. Foster is a little selfish in that it holds our mental, and emotional states hostage, while we hold our breaths for what happens next. Parenting children who don’t belong to you feels quite other some days, but we seem to be settling into a rhythm with Miss J.

On the other side of things, it must be terribly difficult for some of the bio parents to fall so far in life that they have to give up their children. Some parents absolutely do not deserve or make the necessary effort to have their children returned. However, those who truly change and put forth the effort to have their children permanently returned, despite the difficult journey, absolutely deserve their children. The statistic is supposedly between thirty and forty percent of the children in Utah never reunite with their bio parents permanently, meaning that four in ten children who enter foster care could be in and out of foster care for many years, they could be placed in with Kin, or they could get adopted by a foster family.

Why are some humans who make bad choices, and sometimes teens not even fully prepared to take care of themselves let alone a baby or one-night standers allowed to reproduce? If it were simply up to God, the deserving, the desiring, and the prepared would have accepting wombs and working parts. What unfair circumstances the childless and those struggling with secondary infertility find themselves in. Though right now without foster care, we wouldn’t have the current opportunity to be parents, even if it is temporary.

The number one goal with every case is reunification with the biological parent(s), and some days I am more on board with that notion than other days. However, the longer we have J the more I want to keep her forever, even on the difficult days. This journey of otherhood, like motherhood has flashes of joy, but not the full spectrum of what it is to raise children full time, from birth to graduation and beyond. Is this the children journey we wanted, no, but this is where we are currently. Right now I am taking everything one day at a time, and will take Motherhood in whatever form it comes in at the moment. We are enjoying this new pseudo parenthood journey, but boy we are exhausted! Our fertility journey isn’t over, just on a brief pause which I will divulge the details of in my next post.

The Pendulum Swings

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Wednesdays are for Fertility!! 

This is a long one so buckle up!! And thank you for reading!

Some types of emotional pain do not lessen with age or time. Infertility is one of those pains. Even those families who struggled through it and are on the other side with a beautiful child or children, always remember the months and months, and perhaps years of tears and heart-wrenching pain ripping at their incomplete souls. 

Thoughts on Fertility from a religious scope

Religions prescribe that if you follow the rules and have faith things will turn out alright. Life is not perfect, individuals will still go through trials and hard times, but well enough that you won’t feel like you are in an endless abyss of torment in the pits of…well you know. 

Romans 8:28 in the bible says: 

“And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” 

Then explain to me, a good Christian girl who tried to follow all the rules, served a volunteer mission, married a good Christian boy, reads my scriptures, prays, attends church, etc., etc; how wanting children is not advancing God’s purpose? What rules did I break, and what purpose-seeking did I fall short of? Why are baby things not working together for MY good?  Additionally, how does this scripture explain couples who struggle to have children for years and are never able to successfully reproduce? What rules did they break? Or for that matter what rules did my peacemaker of a husband break to deserve to be born without the ability to naturally conceive a baby? 

Sometimes I wish I wanted to be in the childless-by-choice camp, so the pain would dissipate. But I don’t. These wounds could heal, with either the acceptance of childlessness or the fulfillment of the dream of becoming a mother, but the scars will always remain. I understand that it would be easier to accept my fate and move on, travel the world, to go where I want, when I want. To not have to worry about calling a babysitter, or child care if I decided I wanted to work and have kids. But I don’t want to accept that fate. I’m not quite ready to give up. And can you blame me?

I was conditioned by my religion and upbringing to want children. On the one hand, my upbringing stunted me a little with the way Christianity so heavily focuses on motherhood for women. As I result, I always thought by now I would have at least a child or two and be spending most of my time raising them. If I had known ten or even five years ago that I wouldn’t have children yet, I may have pushed harder for a career in the field I’m currently getting a master’s degree in. I married young (age 23), fully expecting to be a stay-at-home mom with 3-5 kids, Muffler (my dog), and chickens. I’m mostly joking about the chickens. 

I fear the religion I was raised in has not set up a good, safe, non-judgmental environment for people in my childless predicament. The sad reality of my environment is that due to my motherhood status, I am unintentionally excluded from the club. 

Peach Blossom Stems from my yard.

I don’t want to buy myself flowers. 

At my church women, in leadership roles, reach out when someone in the area loses a loved one asking for monetary donations to buy the individual or family flowers. Which, is of course a nice gesture to someone grieving the loss of a family member. Why can’t someone (not my husband) bring me flowers with a note saying “Sorry for your loss. Sorry that you once again got your period and that’s devastating. Sorry that infertility is so, hard and unfair. Sorry that life is a little mundane and a little empty right now. Sorry that a religion that is supposed to be filled with love, and acceptance is making you feel a little sad, ostracized, and excluded at the moment.

Or something like that.    

Social Media Pitfalls

My neighborhood and church Facebook pages often have event posts about the children in my area and I just have to scroll past them because there isn’t an ‘ignore or does not apply” button for posts inside of groups. 

Another social media trigger came self-inflicted this week when I commented on a fertility post. Lately, my Instagram and Facebook have been force-feeding me every product and ad on the market about fertility, balancing hormones, and conceiving naturally. 

The post asked the question: “What would you do if IVF was no longer an option?” and then posted several slides about natural conception not being impossible. To which I responded:

“Natural conception is sadly impossible for us and IVF is literally our only option, but it’s great that you are trying to help other women conceive naturally.”

I expected some pushback of “but natural conception is possible for a good majority.” instead this make-a-dollar fertility “influencer” said, “My program works great alongside IVF as well!!” 

Still thinking this was a good-hearted soul wanting to help those on my same journey I clicked the link. The 4-week health detox, cleanse was $700. No, thank you! I could buy a similar detox book I found written by a doctor for $15.99. These courses are being marketed to women with unsuccessful IUIs, IVF, and years of trying. They are charging vulnerable women hundreds of dollars to do a detox that may or may not result in pregnancy. Women who have already had years of failed fertility treatments, and possibly thousands of dollars of sunk costs tied into those fertility treatments. These women probably struggle with feelings of inadequacy, have baby hunger on the level of starvation, and are willing to do nearly anything to become pregnant. What a disgusting trend. I quickly clicked off the page and fumed about it for a while. 

Announcements, Announcements, Announcements!! 

Announcements, announcements, announcements!
What a terrible way to die,
A terrible way to die,
A terrible way to be talked to death
A terrible way to die!

Remember the announcements song from years at church girls’ camp. 

While writing this my brain accidentally connected baby announcements to death. But for the sake of analogy, I guess I do die a little emotional death with every new baby announcement. 

Look, I don’t expect family and friends to withhold information about having a baby from me, I can handle it. If everyone tiptoes around the topic for fear of how painful baby news is for me to hear, I will either accidentally find out, which hurts more. Or there would be a bunch of toddlers running around that I wouldn’t know existed. This would certainly be an odd way to attempt to keep friendships strong. Babies are a natural flow of life. Besides, if no one ever had them, humans would eventually become extinct. Just be sure, no matter how you decide to tell us, who can’t figure out this fertility thing, be gentle. Our hearts have been through the ringer of disappointments where babies are concerned. 

I remember when my seven years my junior sister announced to my husband and I that she was pregnant. She planned to tell our immediate family together one evening when my brother and his family were visiting, but we had to leave early that day, and some of the family hadn’t arrived back at my parent’s house yet. So my sister and brother-in-law awkwardly waited for us in the garage while we said our ‘see you laters’ to my parents. 

Then we got in our car and my brother-in-law asked if they could ride in the car around the block for a minute. As soon as our vehicle was in reverse I looked at my sister sitting in the back seat and she started crying and I started crying. My confused husband kept asking “‘what was happening” and I said “She’s pregnant.” And he suddenly understood. My sister knew this announcement though happy would bring me some pain. She made sure of a few things:

  1. That I heard it from her and not from someone else. 
  2. That I was not the last to hear the news.
  3. That I was in a safe space to cry when she told me. 

Though, when they shared their news with the extended family (Aunt’s, Uncles, Grandparents) a couple of months later, an off-handed comment about “finally” was made during their slide show presentation, which triggered me into spending the next half hour crying in the front yard of my aunt and uncle’s house away from inquisitive eyes. Yes, “finally,” after two whole years. I admit that I am overly sensitive about the topic, but I feel my tears are justified by the level of hard extended infertility brings. 

I carry zero resentment for my sister, and I absolutely adore her now one-year-old little boy. 

More recently one of my best friends just announced the pregnancy of her third child. Thankfully she allowed me to be disappointed with grace, by telling me three weeks before she told her parents and then subsequently the rest of the world. Who knows how my sarcastic shoulder demon would have clapped back at the devastating betrayal if she had waited for me to find out with the rest of Facebook. Again, thankfully she saved our nearly two-decades-long friendship by telling me before so I could process the announcement, grieve my own circumstances, and muster up all the happiness she deserves, by the time the sonogram pictures hit my feed. I am further grateful I didn’t have to simultaneously click the like button and have a cry about it, as the crying was already done weeks ago. 

Avoidance is sometimes less painful.

I also just found out that my cousin’s wife is also pregnant. And fairly far along as she is starting to plan her baby shower. I don’t think it was a secret, but nothing was posted on their socials, and nothing was mentioned while my husband or I were within earshot. I learned off chance when my aunt mentioned being nearly a grandma on one of her recent Instagram stories. 

I woke Sunday morning fully prepared to attend an extended family luncheon (with that side of the family), but thankfully I woke up with a terrible sore throat, a headache, and a cough. When are you thankful to wake up sick, one might ask? When a baby shower for said pregnant cousin’s wife is discussed, especially when you have known about the pregnancy for what feels like only 10 minutes. Therefore,  you’re extremely unprepared to be excited, and would probably burst into tears instead. 

And because I was sick this past weekend, my grumpy sass wanted to text back “No thank you!” when my mom sent the save the date for the cousin’s baby shower this summer (in a text group with my mom and sisters – no cousins). However, I also learned that this cousin and his wife, who are almost a decade our juniors, want to have a happy little tea party baby shower, and because I am the resident expert on tea parties I couldn’t exactly “nope out.” The date in question for the shower happens to be the morning of my husband’s birthday. I cannot criticize them too harshly for picking that day as it is also my cousin’s birthday, and it makes sense that the couple would want to celebrate two things that day. Luckily I have a few months to put my emotions in order before the party. 

Now, as grateful as I was on Sunday I have been far less appreciative of that cough the past three days and simply want it to disappear.

“March comes in like a lion, What else…” 

Photo by Luke Tanis on Unsplash

While the song refers to the weather, much like a lion referring to harsh weather conditions, early March was an emotional blizzard. 

We had an immensely heartbreaking setback in March, on top of a few things on our baby side quest taking longer than expected. [More on Side quest news later]

So, late one night, a few weeks ago, Brent came out to the living room to quite a scene. I was in full-on break-down mode. Sobbing so hard I was shaking. I had tried to cry quietly, but at this sleep-deprived midnight snack moment, I couldn’t hold in my emotions any longer. We sat in tear-filled silence, while Brent held me for a while before I finally wiped my eyes on my pajamas and we headed to bed. 

The longer you’re in the trenches the harder each failed attempt hits. And the harder it is to pick back up and try again. Sometimes in this journey, I pendulum between spontaneous outbursts of tears, when my brain quiets for a moment between focusing on other tasks, and just feeling numb. 

Finding a balance between what I can control and what I cannot control, but would like to, seems a daunting and unmanageable thing. So,  for now, I’m trying to find peace in the middle zones, when we are in the waiting period,  between treatments or events. 

Infertility is a disease that affects too many people. While infertility is probably not a “this century” problem, it is a first-world problem exacerbated by processed foods, harmful environmental toxins, and genetic conditions. 

My therapist recently took another opportunity. So now instead of talking through my traumas, I bottle them up inside until I find the right word to write here. Hopefully, they are clear and not word vomit.

While we wait for the pendulum to swing in our favor, my next step is a four-day liquids detox I assembled after extensive Pinterest, Google, and Youtube research. I’ll let you know how it goes. 

Here are two pictures of my dog as a final parting gift for those who at least scrolled to the bottom.

His fancy new haircut that is supposedly called a dragon haircut because it is like scales down his back
Him sleeping with his sad-wrapped paw. He’s fine. He just had a growth removed, and it needs to be wrapped for the next two weeks. He won’t leave it alone, which is why the bandage is chewed on.

Catching Something Invisible

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As you’ve seen twice now. Wednesdays are for fertility!

This post has been ruminating around my brain for a few weeks, hence the holiday weeks of radio silence, on how best to describe my current state of emotions. So here goes nothing. I hope everyones Christmas and New Year were filled with joy and family. And, that the before and after christmas sales didn’t hit anyones bank account too hard. Also that the undesired but perennially present holiday sickness passed over your house instead of through it.

I have a friend, a well…good acquaintance who became a mother through, the often believed last resort, of IVF. At the time of her first pregnancy our journeys seemed worlds apart, but now seem to be next door neighbors. I watched her path of reaching for that invisible tether to fertility, and ultimately a baby. [She has an extremely well written blog by the same name as my blog post, I hope she doesn’t mind me borrowing the name for one post]. She now has two beautiful children, each through two separate successful IVF transfers.

Growing up with and continuing to have a Christian belief in God has lead many uncomfortable conversations about children. Over the years we have received many questions like: Do you have children? When will you have children? Why don’t you have children? See according to the Christian Bible and even the Jewish Torah, it is God’s plan for all of his children to “Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth” and yet some of us can’t seem to naturally do that. (Gen 1:28) What an unfair disadvantage compared to the ever fertile 15, 16, 17 and 18 year olds who are too often forced into the dread of something some of us desire so desperately: motherhood.

When a baby first starts to grow it is an invisible force no one can see, miraculously manifesting inside a woman’s body. I am working so hard to catch that force. Most don’t need to put in so much effort beyond timing the woman’s cycle and having a romantic evening to be blessed with a child or even three, but we unfortunately do. For a couple more details on our fertility journey back in 2017, we learned that Brent has something called CBAVD and a mild case of cystic fibrosis.

“Congenital bilateral absence of the vas deferens (CBAVD) is a rare obstructive anomaly that contributes to male factor infertility. The prevalence of CBAVD in the general population is approximately 1 in 1000, which accounts for most infertile males with cystic fibrosis and 1–2% of all infertile males.”

The vas deferens for those who don’t know is the sperm transportation tube and without it no babies. No vitamin regimen or special diet will correct Brent’s infertility issues, therefore our only options for possible biological babies consist of various fertility treatments. So far we have attempted two Intrauterine Inseminations (IUI) one in June of 2021 and the second in June of 2023. Sadly neither IUI was successful. So our next step is IVF.

This holiday season has been a rough one on the baby front. Several moments have set my emotions on edge with tears exploding out of me without my permission. Something at every turn ready to trigger emotions. And boy have I been easily triggered. A few days or perhaps a week before Christmas (I don’t remember), I naively opened facebook to post about something else. Only to instead be confronted by yet another baby announcement, causing a memory lapse of why I opened facebook in the first place. This particular announcement was not for the couples first child, they already had multiple children. The unfairness of our personal baby situation in comparison to the announcement immediately provoking a downward spiral, followed by an unsuccessful attempt to choke back tears.

I want to be outwardly happy for them. I want to send congratulatory remarks, instead I clicked the like button and moved on with my scrolling, before remembering why I was had opened the app in the first place. Tears involuntarily welled up in my eyes. What an unfair way to start my day. What a cruel way to derail my productivity; especially, when I had so very much to do before the fast approaching holiday festivities. Please don’t miss understand, I am inwardly happy to witness good news and blessings in others lives, it sometimes just takes a few minutes of well deserved self pity for the rest of me to catch up.

No updates or new news on the baby front at the current moment leads to a pretty crippling lack of motivation to get other things done. This journey is akin to wearing adult ‘days of the week’ underwear but wearing Tuesday on Friday, and being completely unable to find Wednesday’s pair: utter chaos, where most days it’s hard to even remember up from down.

I just try to remember the adage from Disney’s 2015 Cinderella, “Have courage and try not to cry.” Oh wait. That’s not it. In all seriousness do “be kind,” of course to everyone, but most especially to those trying to catch this something invisible. The only place to go from here is forward from where I am right now.

We are still at the beginning stages of our IVF journey, and not quite ready to share the intricate details of everything. Though even that specific pathway to children is also on hold at the moment, for reasons I am not ready to disclose here today. We are, however, keeping busy with house projects, and will show you our updated Harry Potter room soon. (Yes we have a whole HP room, 2.5 rooms in fact).

Happy Year of the Dragon friends!

According to Washington.edu, “in the Chinese culture, the dragon represents good luck, strength, health and also the male element Yang. The dragon is unique because it is the only mythical creature of all the animals in the Chinese zodiac and babies are born in the year of the dragon more than any other animal.” I hope the baby statistic is indeed true and that we can figure out how to be among the parents of dragons this year.

Zero is the saddest number!

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It’s Wednesday! And Wednesday’s are for fertility!

Two years ago back in May of 2021, I took a spontaneous trip to North Carolina to visit two of my favorite humans whose names both happen to start with K. While there we had numerous emotional heart to heart conversations about the trials of life. The trip was to surprise one friend who was having a particularly hard time, and to visit the other who fortuitously lived about forty minutes away from the first.

Blurry airport photo of me on my way to visit my besties in North Carolina in 2021.

With one fabulous best friend we discussed some pretty tough and deeply personal things causing her to spiral downward. She mentioned how scary it is sometimes to raise children in a less than mentally stable world, where things could threaten the lives of her children. We also talked about managing large age gaps among children and how to teach and entertain both a toddler and a pre-teen. The final conversation that stuck with me during that week is her ‘mom’ guilt of having one child with some serious issues and the other that was perfectly healthy with nearly zero health issues. As her children grow, she wonders how she will explain why the healthy child can do activities that the other cannot. It’s completely unfair.

Both times she easily sustained the pregnancies. Both pregnancies were seemingly without complications. Except during the first pregnancy this amazing woman listened to a substantial prompting to move near family instead of staying a few states away. Heeding this message not only saved her first kid’s life, but also gave the young couple a better support system of family and friends close by when health procedures frequently abounded over the next few years. My point is even once the fertility issues are resolved it doesn’t mean the raising of said children or the living factors are resolved.

My other wonderful friend and her husband had a devastating time n regards to children, followed by hopeful good news all within her first twelve months of marriage. Less than seven months into marriage they announced the terrible heartbreak that their premature twins stayed on earth for only fleeting moments, before like a thief in the night were snatched by death. At about 24 weeks into a pregnancy where these parents were doing everything right were suddenly bombarded with this great tragedy because this dear friend went into labor prematurely. I remember right when I learned of this terrible time in their lives, a couple months later they were pregnant again with their now eight year old. And by the time I visited in May of 2021, also had an adorable two year old who just happens to have my first name as her middle name (which I feel truly honored by).

Our conversations leaned more to the side of everyone’s fertility journey is different and no one can truly understand another’s experience unless they lived the specifics of it personally. We all knew people who had miscarried fairly far along, lost an infant or a young child, in this friends case had lost her tiny twins at birth, stillborn babies, those like me who were unable to even get pregnant several years into marriage, people who easily get pregnant, but then their child struggle with disabilities or health problems from birth. No one’s baby journey is easy, and no one’s journey is the same.

Now for those pesky fertility stats

  • If 1 in 8 couples struggle to get pregnant in the first place. And In 2022 the United States had approximately 252.22 million adults, 61.44 million married couples (not to mention the couples in committed relationships who are also trying for kids). Around 45 million of those adults are women between the ages of 20-39 which is usually their most fertile years. Using ratios and math I figure about 22 million of those 45 million females are married. Now back to using the 1 in 8 rule means there are around 2.75 million couples who are or have struggled to get pregnant. While that is not an insignificant number, Brent and I still don’t love being in that group.
  • Miscarriages – I used to only hear the 1 in 4 pregnancies end in a miscarriage, but thankfully as of February of 2023 the new stat is 10-20%, with 80% of those occurring before 12 weeks.
  • Natural Fertility according to fertilityanswers.com and my fertility OBGYN is only about 20%. Meaning 1 in 5 attempts at conceiving in a given cycle for a healthy fertile person, under optimal conditions (intimacy during ovulation) results in pregnancy
  • IUIs increase that 20% to 21-25% each cycle as a fertility clinic can eliminate some of the unknowns (motility, hormone levels, etc).
  • IVF increases the odds of conception and on-going pregnancy from 20% to around 60-65% success.
  • Fertility medications like letrozole or clomid can add around 10-19% to a woman’s chances of conceiving.
  • Getting pregnant with twins while on fertility meds is about 1 in 20 pregnancies or between 5-12% of the time.
  • Who is to blame for infertility – all parties!! (30% female attributed infertility, 30% male, 30% combination, and 10% unexplained infertility.)
  • 35% of women’s infertility is damaged fallopian tubes
  • 25% is due to ovulation issues – ovulating late, irregular cycles, not ovulating at all.
  • Weight-loss can greatly improve ovulation and success of fertility treatments, and decrease the chance of miscarriage
  • Sperm count below 10 million is poor, 10-40 million is average, and above 40 million is good.
  • Less than 3% of infertility patients need, IVF [which is still around 82.5 thousand] (see notes below)
  • One cycle of IVF in the United States costs between $8,000-$20,000 for the egg retrival portion and $3,000-$8000 for fertility medications and $3500 – $6,000 per embryo testing. It is believed many couples spend close-to $50,000 by the end of it all.
  • Various conditions contribute to infertility in both men and women – cancer, PCOS, hormone imbalances, motility, irregular cycles, diabetes, CF, autoimmune conditions, obesity, endometriosis, and more.

IVF NOTES: Though only 3% of those who struggle with fertility need IVF, after 10 years of figuring fertility things out, we may indeed fall in that 3%. Wish us luck! I would absolutely love for a vitamin or magic medication to fix things like it has for some of our friends, however that definitely won’t be the case for us, because of male infertility.

On another completely different comment on announcements!

I am convinced there are two timelines for announcing pregnancy. The moment the stick turns pink at 3-5 weeks pregnant & from the delivery room. Of course there are some in-between, but lately I feel that my facebook feed is filled with either new babies who were being announced for the first time with their welcome to the world pictures, or just a pregnancy test. I worry sometimes about those people who announce publicly before twelve weeks. It’s another one of those hold your breath moments until early announcers hit their second trimester.

As far as my fertility currently stands. All my tests have come back normal over the past several months – hormones, lady parts, bloodwork, etc. My OB has high hopes for our future. Those who relate to any aspect of the above stories, mentioned statistics, or this rollercoaster of emotions called fertility my heart goes out to you. Hang in there, especially if you are in the messy middle of this hellish journey. Remember no matter how rough today was concerning growing your family you will be okay. Start again tomorrow and hopefully find better baby news the next day! Additionally, if you ever need to vent about fertility to someone who gets it feel free to reach out. I’m optimistic 2024 will mean the Summer’s home will have more than zero babies, or at least one on the way!!

FERTILITY JOURNEY AND STORY

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Wednesday’s are for Fertility!!

You can certainly take a deep dive into our fertility journey by looking at my four blog posts from yesteryears or read going forward as I will lay it all out in future posts.

FIRST A RANT!

A year or so ago I read a blog article heavily circulating my facebook feed. This post was written by a councilor with the initials A.B., (Not for lack of knowing the attribution but more for disdain for the article I am not going to link the post, but you can search for it with the quote I use from it if you really want to read it.)

Essentially she talks about an early twenties girl who feels silly and embarrassed about her deepest desire of wanting to be married and have children above everything else. This councilor assures her that her desires are valid, and then the rest of the article I angrily read her views that having children is “last resort, a final hurrah” and further that “career trumps, independence is king, and personal happiness” is the ultimate priority. Perhaps for some people, but as someone who has been on a nine year fertility journey, I can emphatically say this is not true for me.

Then rather than validating those who can’t have children and are on this terrible, wouldn’t wish on my enemies, journey of infertility she instead says “This is not to say that those who can’t have children, don’t have children or who aren’t married are inherently wrong.”

Though, I do understand she is trying to protect those who want simply to be stay-at -home moms. Her view is extremely close-minded. She reprimands those many people who talk ‘condescendingly’ about those whose main focus is their home, marriage and family, in other words the stereotypical – mom, dad, children, one income family. This disregards divorce couples with children, blended families, dual income families where both parents either choose to or are required to work outside the home, families with two moms or two dads and more.

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, inherently literally means ” ‘stuck in’, an essential character of something”, natural, habitual, built in. So if something is ‘inherently wrong’ there is an extrinsic (antonym) or a fundamental and fatal flaw in something. The phrase ‘aren’t inherently wrong’ now defined adds further insult, as it reads as this group of people are not ‘technically’ wrong about not following something that should be something so part of nature and built into the normal flow of human existence, that there’s no way they wouldn’t want children. Her tone-deaf declaration of lumping those who can’t have and don’t want children into the same category is insulting to those individuals and couples who desperately ache for a child. What about couples who’ve lost a child where they ‘inherently wrong,’ if they were no longer currently parents. Okay rant over!

Someone recently asked if I was a little prickly. Well wouldn’t you be after 10 years of not being able to obtain something you so much want?

A quick recap of our history:

My husband and I both grew up in conservative christian families. Future children are mentioned up just moments after marriage is official. These comments and questions are brought up by family members, members of our church, the well meaning man at the home depot and even on occasion distant acquaintances of our parents or siblings. Not being able to “multiply and replenish” causes even the best of us to feel shame, defeat and all in all this journey certainly takes a toll on a person’s mental health.

In April my husband Brent and I celebrated 10 years of marriage, but still no babes. Bullet Points of our 10 years together

  • 10 moves [Texas – Lubbock; Utah – Provo (3 different apartments), Springville; California – Marina, Santa Clara, Foster City, San Mateo; Back to Utah]
  • 9 – Years of trying for a baby!
  • 8 – Companies worked for by Brent
  • 7 Pets: 1 Puppy – Muffler who is now 8.5 and still our good boy, 3 – different fish tanks (loads of different fish, currently have one with about 20 fish), 1 Cat: Socks (only had for a few weeks, but he went to an amazing guy who had just lost his 15 year old cat) 2 turtles (we sold them to an 8 year-old boy to transition back to fish)
  • 6 – brands of cars owned (Chevy, Toyota, Mazda, Nissan, Hyuandi, Ford)
  • 5 – Companies worked for by Me
  • 4 – Countries over 3 different big trips – Peru, Hawaii, United Kingdom, and Italy
  • 3 – College degrees – Bachelor’s Degrees – 1 each & 1 Master’s Degree – Brent
  • 2 -Unsuccessful Intrauterine insemination (IUI)s to try to get pregnant
  • 1 – House Bought a house 2020
  • DOZENS OF FERTILITY TESTS!! 

We began trying for a baby, or at least not actively preventing a baby somewhere between 14 and 18 months into marriage. (June- October 2014). Then in 2015 I had a laparoscopy surgery for endometriosis (uterine tissue that grows outside the uterus and creates burn like scar tissue). We believed the endometriosis was a possible cause for not getting pregnant. 

Then in 2017 we learned that the root of our fertility issues was in fact something entirely different. Though my fertility was not 100% figured out, we learned through a supplement study that my husband was actually a large part of our fertility issues.  When we lived in California from 2017 to 2020 we restarted our fertility tests with a new clinic, but as we were busy with work and grad school we didn’t make as much headway towards having a baby as we would have liked. Finally at the end of 2020 we purchased a home back in Utah and moved back for a new job for Brent. In both 2021 and earlier this year we attempted to get pregnant via IUI, but to no avail. The devastation of the two week torturous wait which both times ended in the start of my period is indescribable to anyone who has never had fertility issues.  

Well more on our new and old fertility journey later! For today, “start where you are now,” and move forward today no matter your past struggles.

Moving forward as A Swuan Goddess

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I have always been fascinated by mythology, as well as the etymology of my own name. A few years ago I had a professor ask where my name came from, as his Roman Catholic grandmother had the same name. I timidly told him I wasn’t sure that my parents just liked the name. In the 80s and 90s my name fell between #70 and #105 for girl name popularity. This name which has Greek origins and means “Diviana” (Divine) is and has been held by celebrities, as well as the late humanitarian and Princess of wales and the Roman Goddess of the moon and the hunt.

Hi I’m Diana! I am a maximalist, shopaholic, stuff enthusiast, a millennial on a more than eight year fertility journey with my husband. I love organizing, dressing up, all things book related (reading, collecting, writing, fantasizing about) and participating in dozens of craft hobbies

Like the Roman Goddess of the hunt, I too am on a journey to ‘hunt’ for the best life. I frequently ‘future think’ to a paralyzing detriment of my productivity. I visualize what my life would or could look like ‘IF’, or ‘When.’ My other fatal flaw is marathoning many tasks. I could easily blame these two flaws on my occasionally debilitating ADHD, or anxiety. Although, much more helpful to correcting my processes than blaming my mental instability and neurodivergence, is to explore my motivation for doing or not doing things.

It’s time, today November 7, 2023 to start over, start fresh. Obviously not completely. I have been happily married for over a decade and we are on our way to our eleventh anniversary. I love him, he is wonderful, and I will be keeping him. Additionally I will keep my house with its less than 3% interest rate, my support system (made up of family and a few great friends) and my, most of the time adorable, but sometimes extra needy, dog Muffler.

It is easy to get bogged down by past failures and to focus on the negative. I unwittingly adopted what Prince Henry in EverAfter accidently prescribed as his own motto before he found his purpose. He says “I used to think that if I cared about anything, I would have to care about everything and I’d go stark raving mad.” I too often felt I must [DO] or care about everything in order to accomplish great things daily. Rather, if I would focus on just a few important things, break down big tasks and gradually accomplish the big things I would ironically reach my goals much faster. I also felt that if I was a few hours into the day and had failed to accomplish anything. Or by lunchtime I have net zero productivity then it was a waste of a day and I would be better off doing nothing the rest of the day and starting fresh tomorrow. What an inflexible and uncompromising way to live. Time to be better.

Now to my new motto or mantra: “Be a SWUAN GODDESS.” Or ‘Start Where yoU Are Now!’ Not that actions of the past are completely null and void, but that moving forward I can choose differently. I can choose better. Why a swan (swuan)? Greek Goddesses often connected to the graceful swan are Aphrodite and Artemis. Because Diana the Roman Goddess of the hunt is the Roman equivalent to the Greek Goddess Artemis, it felt kismet to use the Swan to represent my blog and future journey. Besides the connection, the acronym I came up with for my motto worked perfectly. 

Things I will be starting over on, and will discuss in great detail on my blog, future youtube channel (in the works), and other social media platforms:

  • Fertility, Infertility and my family’s journey to starting a family.
  • Decluttering
  • Capsule Wardrobes
  • Minimalism for a Maximalist
  • Hobbies
  • Gradschool
  • Future Career
  • Finances, Budgeting
  • Daily Habits
  • Future Travel
  • And more…

Always remember slow and steady wins the race

MORE Facts about Diana Roman Goddess of the Hunt!

Though her life is not truly pertinent to this post, I enjoy a good research article filled with facts and details. So if you don’t care about Diana like I do, Thank you for reading thus far and have a blessed day!

These particular facts came straight from Britannica!

In Latin the name Diana comes from the words dium (“sky”) and dius (“daylight”). She is the goddess of wild and domestic animals, the hunt, and fertility (as an “aid to conception and delivery”). Sometimes she is also connected to the moon, like Artemis, her Greek counterpart.

The “first priest of Diana’s cult (religion) at Aricia” is said to be Virbius (Hippolytus in Greek mythology) Future priests were believed according to tradition to be a runaway slave who killed their predecessor to obtain the position

Diana is usually presented in art with either a hound or a deer, and a bow and or quiver.

Places of worship:

  • Most famous is “the grove of Diana Nemorensis (‘Diana of the Wood’) on the shores of Lake Nemi at Aricia (modern Ariccia), near Rome.”
  • Rome: Temple of Diana on the Aventine which is said “to date back to King Servius Tillius (6th century BCE)
  • “The Ides (13th) of August, her festival at Rome and Aricia, was a holiday for slaves,” where Diana is considered “protector of the lower classes, especially slaves.”
  • The Temple of Artemis (or Diana) stands as one of the Seven Wonders of the World at Ephesus.

This particular beauty can be found at The Met Art Gallery in New York City and is attributed to a 17th century Iranian artist ‘Ali Quli Jabbadar.