6.08.2012
blogger! what were you thinking!
Blogger is marking blogs as SPAM and deleting them. You have to write an appeal stating that your blog is not SPAM. So, if my blog goes AWOL for a while, that is probable what happened. UGH!
5.14.2012
Welcome to Holland
by
Emily Perl Kingsley
Emily Perl Kingsley
c1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley. All rights reserved
I
am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a
disability – to try to help people who have not shared that unique
experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like
this......When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.
After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."
"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."
But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.
The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.
So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.
It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.
But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."
And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.
But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.
The Hair Brush
This is an old post. But I find myself thinking about it all the time.
December 2010
Lately, I've been thinking of a hair brush. It's no ordinary hair brush. The hair brush belonged to my grandma, in the 1970s and at some point she passed it on to me. I can remember her brushing my long hair with it. It always seemed like a really fancy hair brush to me, but that is probably because it belonged to my Grandma, whom I loved very much and had a very special relationship with.
It's a Mason Pearson hair brush. I never had a clue that this hair brush was so expensive until I started looking into replacing it recently. They cost about $200-300. Who knew! I hadn't a clue that there were hair brushes that cost so much. They are made in London and have been for some time. When I found out how dear the hair brush was, I began to search for it last night. Since it belonged to my grandma, I figured it couldn't be far. My search became frantic. I HAD to find this hair brush.
After about an hour and sometime after midnight, I found my beloved hair brush. I was so relieved. I cried. I washed the hair brush and began brushing my hair. The sound was so familiar. It was as if my grandma was brushing my hair. I felt her near. I cried and brushed my hair.
What does this have to do with infertility you may be asking yourself. This hair brush is like a piece of my grandma, something I can touch and hold and it makes me feel close to a person who is gone.
What will become of the hair brush, I thought. I would like to pass it on to my daughter or granddaughter or daughter in law and tell her about my grandma. I would like to pass things, material and immaterial, on to my children and grandchildren and have them remember me, long after I am gone.
It was so nice to feel my grandma near. She has been gone for 12 years. I plan to use my hair brush regularly from now on.
Lately, I've been thinking of a hair brush. It's no ordinary hair brush. The hair brush belonged to my grandma, in the 1970s and at some point she passed it on to me. I can remember her brushing my long hair with it. It always seemed like a really fancy hair brush to me, but that is probably because it belonged to my Grandma, whom I loved very much and had a very special relationship with.
It's a Mason Pearson hair brush. I never had a clue that this hair brush was so expensive until I started looking into replacing it recently. They cost about $200-300. Who knew! I hadn't a clue that there were hair brushes that cost so much. They are made in London and have been for some time. When I found out how dear the hair brush was, I began to search for it last night. Since it belonged to my grandma, I figured it couldn't be far. My search became frantic. I HAD to find this hair brush.
After about an hour and sometime after midnight, I found my beloved hair brush. I was so relieved. I cried. I washed the hair brush and began brushing my hair. The sound was so familiar. It was as if my grandma was brushing my hair. I felt her near. I cried and brushed my hair.
What does this have to do with infertility you may be asking yourself. This hair brush is like a piece of my grandma, something I can touch and hold and it makes me feel close to a person who is gone.
What will become of the hair brush, I thought. I would like to pass it on to my daughter or granddaughter or daughter in law and tell her about my grandma. I would like to pass things, material and immaterial, on to my children and grandchildren and have them remember me, long after I am gone.
It was so nice to feel my grandma near. She has been gone for 12 years. I plan to use my hair brush regularly from now on.
5.11.2012
Triggers
Mother's Day is a trigger of mine. It's been downhill all week. Mother's Day stuff is everywhere you look. I can't keep it together. I keep telling myself "if I can just make it till Monday I'll be ok.
Mother's Day is just another milestone I'm passing that reminds me I will never be a mother. I will never hold my children. I will never hear them call me 'mom.' I will never go to the first day of school. I just cannot bare the thought.
Every ones journey is different.
We all deal with our journey differently. I will never get over not having children. I do hope to learn to live with it someday. But not this week.
I want my children. I want to be a mom. I want to hold my children. And no car, no home in a good location is going to make me feel better.
Mother's Day is just another milestone I'm passing that reminds me I will never be a mother. I will never hold my children. I will never hear them call me 'mom.' I will never go to the first day of school. I just cannot bare the thought.
Every ones journey is different.
We all deal with our journey differently. I will never get over not having children. I do hope to learn to live with it someday. But not this week.
I want my children. I want to be a mom. I want to hold my children. And no car, no home in a good location is going to make me feel better.
Meltdown
Ed Stone's bittersweet drama "Griffin and Phoenix" concerns Griffin (Dermot Mulroney), a divorcee suffering from cancerous lesions in his chest that give him a life expectancy of less than two years. He falls in love with academic adviser Phoenix (Amanda Peet), and the pair decide to 'live life to the fullest' by fulfilling all of Griffin's childhood fantasies, from painting water towers to sneaking into movies to hopping freight trains. But a secret of Phoenix's threatens to damper the joy of their time together.
—Nathan Southern, Rovi
This is a clip from the film. I have seen this film more than once. This clip really resonates with me, as an infertile. I have seen parents treating their children like this too often, but I have never gone off like Phoenix.
Can you relate?
5.10.2012
About Me
Hi, my name is Julie and I'm infertile.
My husband and I spent 12 of our 15 years (so far) of marriage trying to have children.
I was 34 when we began our journey, believing we had plenty of time.
It took about five years to get diagnosed. I diagnosed myself early on, but could not get a "specialist" to confirm I have PCOS because as they all said I "do not have male pattern facial hair." DUH! It's a SYNDROME, I have a lot of the other symptoms.
Once I was diagnosed, I began seeing an RE who specializes in PCOS. Yippie! I was immediately put on Metformin ER 2000mg, ramped up slowly.
We tried months and months and MONTHS of Clomid. Years maybe.
We saw several "specialists."
I had an HSG.
We took out a second mortgage on our house.
We never take vacations.
We missed out on visiting our niece and nephew in England, and seeing them grow up.
We planned for three IUIs but in the middle of the second one we were notified that we owed 1,000s of additional dollars for the ultrasounds, also not covered by insurance. So we had to stop at two IUIs. Both unsuccessful.
Follistim.
I had 2 miscarriages and a cornual pregnancy along the way.
A cornual pregnancy means I ovulated out of one side and the embryo traveled across the top of my uterus and implanted at the opening of the other tube. Gravity isn't even on my side! They were afraid the embryo would continue to grow down the tube which could be life-threatening so we had to decide if we wanted to abort the pregnancy. A decision we NEVER thought we'd have to make. Fortunately mother nature decided for us and the pregnancy ended in a miscarriage. Though I still had to have a shot of methotrexate to be sure no growth continued. Our RE said I'd made medical history, a cornual pregnancy is extremely rare, he took photos. He is a teacher at a university.
Leave it to me to make history.
Low ovarian reserve.
We realized we could no longer hope for a viable pregnancy and set our sights on adoption. We grieved the loss of having children who would look like us. We realized we may not have the honor of naming our children. I mourned the loss of ever carrying a child or giving birth. We realized we may never witness our child's first words or first steps, as we may adopt an older child.
We got home study approved and began what would be a three-year search. We started out, like most people, wanting a newborn baby. By the end our our adoption journey, we'd changed our request to 0-3 children ages 0-6, and we were willing to accept many physical, medical and mental impairments.
I met many birth mothers. I met other people who were hoping to adopt. A few friends who remained on the fringe revealed to me that they were adopted. Hearing their stories opened our hearts to open adoption.
The closest we came to adoption was being chosen as one of three families to adopt a sibling group of three. A 6-year-old boy, and 4-year-old boy/girl twins. Their foster mom bit the girl and drew blood so they'd been immediately removed from her care. But she fought it and they were returned to her after going to court.
In February of 2010, we were giving the greatest, most unexpected blessing ever. Someone I'd met on an infertility forum several years before offered us embryos,. They had completed building their family. It was with open hearts we gladly accepted the embryos into our lives.
I cashed in my IRA to pay for our future FETs.
Lupron.
Since I was 45, I got checked out by my RE before we received the embryos. We got the ok!
The legal paper work took about 4-5 month to complete. We were surprised by this.
In August 2010 I lost twins.
In November 2010 I lost triplets and ended up with an awful pair of cysts.
We again turned to adoption, but were told by our social worker that we no longer qualified due to our massive amounts of infertility debt and the fact that we no longer had any savings, in the form of IRAs or otherwise.
We've sacrificed everything, EVERYTHING. Yet, we are still childless and brokenhearted.
I have always been a child magnet, and a dog magnet. We never imagined in a million years that we'd end up childless. It has been very difficult to face. In fact I am seeing two therapists at the moment. This is a very difficult situation to cope with on your own. In addition I have recently been diagnosed with PTSD which they estimate I have been suffering from for 24 years, nearly half my life. It has been made worse by the stress of infertility. I do hope to recover from PTSD some day.
I have felt the isolation of infertility. I have felt it's shame. I have asked "why me" hundreds of times.
I want to do what I can to help others not end up in my shoes. Learn from me.
Infertility treatment needs to be covered by insurance.
Adoption and foster care reform are greatly needed.
I will continue to do what I can to support and help others. It's a lonely road. Nearly all of our friends have abandoned us during our 12-year journey, but because of infertility I have also made some amazing new friends.
Infertility does define me, it is partly responsible for the person I am today.
I am broken hearted by the amount of people who have found me and my Infertility Awareness page, but I'm so glad you are not going through this alone. And I am SO happy to see that so many of you have children and wish to continue to help raise infertility awareness. I have seen infertility amnesia over and over again.
I hope this page brings you comfort and support when no one else understands you. I hope to touch at least one person a day with a carefully chosen quote or news or a blog post. I hope to be a constant reminder that you are not alone.
With all my heart,
love,
Julie
My husband and I spent 12 of our 15 years (so far) of marriage trying to have children.
I was 34 when we began our journey, believing we had plenty of time.
It took about five years to get diagnosed. I diagnosed myself early on, but could not get a "specialist" to confirm I have PCOS because as they all said I "do not have male pattern facial hair." DUH! It's a SYNDROME, I have a lot of the other symptoms.
Once I was diagnosed, I began seeing an RE who specializes in PCOS. Yippie! I was immediately put on Metformin ER 2000mg, ramped up slowly.
We tried months and months and MONTHS of Clomid. Years maybe.
We saw several "specialists."
I had an HSG.
We took out a second mortgage on our house.
We never take vacations.
We missed out on visiting our niece and nephew in England, and seeing them grow up.
We planned for three IUIs but in the middle of the second one we were notified that we owed 1,000s of additional dollars for the ultrasounds, also not covered by insurance. So we had to stop at two IUIs. Both unsuccessful.
Follistim.
I had 2 miscarriages and a cornual pregnancy along the way.
A cornual pregnancy means I ovulated out of one side and the embryo traveled across the top of my uterus and implanted at the opening of the other tube. Gravity isn't even on my side! They were afraid the embryo would continue to grow down the tube which could be life-threatening so we had to decide if we wanted to abort the pregnancy. A decision we NEVER thought we'd have to make. Fortunately mother nature decided for us and the pregnancy ended in a miscarriage. Though I still had to have a shot of methotrexate to be sure no growth continued. Our RE said I'd made medical history, a cornual pregnancy is extremely rare, he took photos. He is a teacher at a university.
Leave it to me to make history.
Low ovarian reserve.
We realized we could no longer hope for a viable pregnancy and set our sights on adoption. We grieved the loss of having children who would look like us. We realized we may not have the honor of naming our children. I mourned the loss of ever carrying a child or giving birth. We realized we may never witness our child's first words or first steps, as we may adopt an older child.
We got home study approved and began what would be a three-year search. We started out, like most people, wanting a newborn baby. By the end our our adoption journey, we'd changed our request to 0-3 children ages 0-6, and we were willing to accept many physical, medical and mental impairments.
I met many birth mothers. I met other people who were hoping to adopt. A few friends who remained on the fringe revealed to me that they were adopted. Hearing their stories opened our hearts to open adoption.
The closest we came to adoption was being chosen as one of three families to adopt a sibling group of three. A 6-year-old boy, and 4-year-old boy/girl twins. Their foster mom bit the girl and drew blood so they'd been immediately removed from her care. But she fought it and they were returned to her after going to court.
In February of 2010, we were giving the greatest, most unexpected blessing ever. Someone I'd met on an infertility forum several years before offered us embryos,. They had completed building their family. It was with open hearts we gladly accepted the embryos into our lives.
I cashed in my IRA to pay for our future FETs.
Lupron.
Since I was 45, I got checked out by my RE before we received the embryos. We got the ok!
The legal paper work took about 4-5 month to complete. We were surprised by this.
In August 2010 I lost twins.
In November 2010 I lost triplets and ended up with an awful pair of cysts.
We again turned to adoption, but were told by our social worker that we no longer qualified due to our massive amounts of infertility debt and the fact that we no longer had any savings, in the form of IRAs or otherwise.
We've sacrificed everything, EVERYTHING. Yet, we are still childless and brokenhearted.
I have always been a child magnet, and a dog magnet. We never imagined in a million years that we'd end up childless. It has been very difficult to face. In fact I am seeing two therapists at the moment. This is a very difficult situation to cope with on your own. In addition I have recently been diagnosed with PTSD which they estimate I have been suffering from for 24 years, nearly half my life. It has been made worse by the stress of infertility. I do hope to recover from PTSD some day.
I have felt the isolation of infertility. I have felt it's shame. I have asked "why me" hundreds of times.
I want to do what I can to help others not end up in my shoes. Learn from me.
Infertility treatment needs to be covered by insurance.
Adoption and foster care reform are greatly needed.
I will continue to do what I can to support and help others. It's a lonely road. Nearly all of our friends have abandoned us during our 12-year journey, but because of infertility I have also made some amazing new friends.
Infertility does define me, it is partly responsible for the person I am today.
I am broken hearted by the amount of people who have found me and my Infertility Awareness page, but I'm so glad you are not going through this alone. And I am SO happy to see that so many of you have children and wish to continue to help raise infertility awareness. I have seen infertility amnesia over and over again.
I hope this page brings you comfort and support when no one else understands you. I hope to touch at least one person a day with a carefully chosen quote or news or a blog post. I hope to be a constant reminder that you are not alone.
With all my heart,
love,
Julie
She's Baaaaack!
Ok, I'm going to try this again. Some of you have asked me to blog. In the past my post-infertility journey blogs have been very dark and depressing so I gave it up.
But I'm willing to give it a try again. Of course I pick the worse possible time to start this. It's crazy busy at work, but that's what they say, it's the busiest person who gets the most stuff done.
If you didn't get here from my Facebook page by the same name, I will try to give you a little history about myself in my next post.
As always, welcome! So glad you found us, so sorry you or someone you love suffers from infertility.
But I'm willing to give it a try again. Of course I pick the worse possible time to start this. It's crazy busy at work, but that's what they say, it's the busiest person who gets the most stuff done.
If you didn't get here from my Facebook page by the same name, I will try to give you a little history about myself in my next post.
As always, welcome! So glad you found us, so sorry you or someone you love suffers from infertility.
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