Are we there yet?

I was so inspired by all of those that participated in the International Infertility Film Festival, that I decided to do so myself.

My video is over here.

A second one is here.

Actually there are three of them there. 

Together on one page here. 

The following is a fictional conversation.

Sally the Fertile:  “Hey Deana how have you been?”

Deana the Infertile:  Uggghhh, I hate being polite.  I can’t stand the fact I have to be in public right now, much less have to pretend that I feel like talking to anybody.  My ovaries feel like cannon balls, and my temper is about ready to fire them out of my body at any moving target.  I feel like crap!  That’s how I feel!  I’m a bundle of nerves, fear, and hope.  “Good and you?”

Sally:  “Do you remember my daughter Suzy?”

Dena:  Why are you asking me if I remember her?  Damn it, of course I do!  How could I not!  You talk about her every day in the lunch room.  Suzy this, Suzy that…gag gag gag.  Don’t you have anything else you can talk about?  “She’s adorable!”

Sally:  “It seems just like yesterday she was born!”

Deana: No!  It doesn’t feel just like yesterday!  It’s been nearly fifteen months since you walked into the office announcing your pregnancy only hours after taking a pregnancy test.  That’s fifteen months of tests, fears, and tears for me.  Each month feels like an eternity.  Each failed cycle ages me a few years.  If you only knew how long it really feels like it has been.  “I bet!”

Suzy:  “So, when are you going to have some babies?”

Deana:  Hasn’t she noticed I leave the room when they start talking about children?  Can’t she see we squirm?  Can’t she tell I’m uncomfortable?  How the hell do I know when I’m going to have a baby?  I hate this question, man oh man, why didn’t she ask me about work or anything else?  Breatheeeee, breathe, think of a polite answer…c’mon no tears here….in through the nose…out through the mouth….ready…set…go…  “We’ve been trying for some time now, but hopefully soon.”  I did it!  Ha!  Look at that!  I said it, and was honest!  Maybe she’ll leave it alone now!  Thank heaven!

Suzy:  “Oh, well, In God’s time it will all work itself out.  Just relax.  It worked for me, and now I have little Suzy!”

Deana:  Ha!  The nerve of that damn woman!  Is it God’s will for crack whores and child molesters to have children?  Why can they get pregnant and I can’t?  So if it is his will we are debating here…I say a giant bullshit.  That’s just crap.  It something people say, because they have no idea what else to say.  It doesn’t help folks!  Just relax, huh?  Hmmm, haven’t tried that one yet!  Ha!  Uggghhh, puuullllleeeease.  If that’s all it took, there wouldn’t be a need for fertility centers, meds, procedures or doctors.  Now, you really have no idea what the hell you are talking about, and I have no idea how I’m going to politely respond to this question.  Oh, I so badly want to tell you what I’m really thinking so you don’t hurt another infertile woman like you are hurting me now.  I just don’t have it in me to do it.  Oh, how I hate women who feel that just because they popped a child from their loins that they are the damn expert on everything about reproducing.  Hell, I probably know more about a woman’s body and how it works than she does!  “I’ll just have to keep that in mind” (forces a very curt smile.)

Suzy:  “Well, I’m certain it will happen for you!”

Deana:  Shit, if I had a dime for every time I’ve heard that one, I’d be a millionaire by now!  So, you just know it’s going to happen for me?  Do you have a crystal ball that can predict the future?  Sweet!  Can you ask it if I will also win the lottery to pay for all these damn medical bills?  Don’t tell me it will happen.  You don’t know that!  You have no idea how hard it is for me to find hope each and every month.  Don’t throw it out there like it is nothing.  Hope is a precious commodity!  You can’t tell me it will happen, you can’t guarantee that!  I get your trying to make me feel better, but the fact remains that I want to know when it will happen!  I’ve waited for too long already, and what I really need to hear is you asking me if I want to talk, if I need anything, and what you can do to help!  I don’t want assvice!  “Thanks.”

Suzy:  “Well, perhaps this time next year our little ones will be crawling around on the floor together!”  (She grins with that glow that can be detected by an infertile a mile away.)  “Yes, I’m pregnant again!  Hopefully we’ll get to do everything together!  Wouldn’t that be great!”

Deana:  Bitch.  Didn’t she hear a word of what I didn’t say!  Uggghhh.  Great, here we go with round two of hell.  Together, huh?  There’s no together with us!  There is no us!  You aren’t there to support me.  The only crawling around on the floor there will be, is when my husband holds me as I cry for yet another loss.  Have you no idea what you are doing to me right now?  Are you truly that clueless that you think it’s a great idea to stand there and announce your pregnancy and then be presumptuous enough to tell me our children will be playing together soon?  Times like this make me hate the universe.  How cruel.  Must get home now…this is not good for me.  Now I have to stand here and lie that I’m actually happy for her.  Sure, I’m glad she’s having another child.  However, I’m jealous as all hell, pissed I’m not there yet, and way too emotional right now to have this conversation.  “That’s great news.  You must be very happy.”

Suzy:  “It was a complete surprise!  We were a bit emotional.  We weren’t so sure we wanted our children so close together in age.”

Deana:  Let’s talk about emotional shall we?!  Emotional is admitting you are having a problem procreating!  Emotional is admitting it to a doctor.  Emotional is finding out that there is something wrong.  Emotional is walking down a long and cold hallway at the hospital to lay on a metal bed with no stirrups, while a doctor painfully probes your hooohaa with a catheter and takes x-rays while silent tears run down your cheeks.  Emotional is realizing it doesn’t bother you that three women are looking at your insides on a plasma tv while a vibrator like camera is inside of you.  Emotional is having puppy house training pads under your butt while you are injected with another something to help them see your insides.  Emotional is going in for CT scans and MRIs to figure out what your reproductive organs look like.  Emotional is swallowing and injecting yourself with chemicals to make your body do what it should do all on its own.  Emotional is the physical and psychological ways infertility affects you.  Emotional is all the waiting and hoping you do that this will be the month that you beat the odds.  Emotional is feeling like the loneliest person on the planet.  Emotional is feeling like nobody truly understands what it’s like to fail month after month.  Emotional is putting on a brave face each and every day.  Emotional is having repeated miscarriages.  Emotional is false positives.  Emotional is crying…in bed, on the floor, in the shower, in the car, and anywhere that you find yourself at the end of your rope.  Emotional is being patient when people say the wrong things when they don’t mean to.  Emotional is feeling like giving up, but knowing you need and want to move forward.  Emotional is not knowing that even with the best doctors in the world you may never have a child.  That’s it, I need to go now.  “Oh, wow, look at the time.  I hate to run, but I have to go.  It was nice seeing you.  Take care!”

And there you have it.  Just one moment in the mind of an infertile.  I’m off to just relax now.

I was recently over at Max’s Mommy’s site, and she had purchased one of those f.ertility m.onitors.  (To answer a few why do you put the periods in there questions, it prevents it from being googled.) 

I have one that has been collecting dust for well over a year now.  Anybody need it? I have no instructions or a box.  I’m certain a fellow Stirrup Queen has instructions. 

This one is floating around the blogosphere, and I have found interesting songs posted by many bloggers.  I was over at Serenity’s site, and decided to give this a go too.  Some songs have the video, and all have the lyrics.  Just have fun and click around. 

1. The song that existed before you ever thought about infertility?

Deana Carter – Strawberry Wine

“He was working through college on my grandpa’s farm.
I was thirsting for knowledge and he had a car.
I was caught somewhere between a woman and a child.
When one restless summer we found love growing wild.
On the banks of the river on a well beaten path.
It’s funny how those memories they last.
Like strawberry wine and seventeen.
The hot July moon saw everything.
My first taste of love oh bittersweet.
Green on the vine.
Like strawberry wine.

I still remember when thirty was old.
And my biggest fear was September when he had to go.
A few cards and letters and one long distance call.
We drifted away like the leaves in the fall.
But year after year I come back to this place.
Just to remember the taste.
Of strawberry wine and seventeen.
The hot July moon saw everything.
My first taste of love oh bittersweet.
Green on the vine.
Like strawberry wine.”

1. Would you ever really want to go back and be that person again?

Gary Allan – Life Ain’t Always Beautiful

“Life ain’t always beautiful
Sometimes it’s just plain hard
Life can knock you down, it can break your heart

Life ain’t always beautiful
You think you’re on your way
And it’s just a dead end road at the end of the day

But the struggle makes you stronger
And the changes make you wise
And happiness has it’s own way of takin’ it sweet time

[chorus]
No,life aint always beautiful
Tears will fall sometimes
Life aint always beautiful
But it’s a beautiful ride”

1. The song for when you first started fertility treatments?

Jo Dee Messina – Bring on the Rain

“Its almost like the hard times circle round
A couple drops and they all start coming down
Yeah, I might feel defeated,
I might hang my head
I might be barely breathing - but I’m not dead

Tomorrows another day
And I’m thirsty anyway
So bring on the rain”

1. What did infertility do to your sex life?

Everett Jace – Bad Things

“I don’t know what you’ve done to me,
But I know this much is true:
I wanna do bad things with you.
I wanna do real bad things with you.”

1. What about superstitions and fertility rituals?

Faith Hill – This is Me

“Yeah,I have my addictions
And keep my share of secrets
And things you’ll never see
I get selfish and defensive
And pay too much attention
To my insecurities
Oh I,I’m just like everybody else
I try to love Jesus and myself

I don’t know what you believe
Or what you think of what you see
But this is a part of me
What I do and who I am
All of my impurities
Are right here on my sleeve
This is me
This is me”

1. How about “alternative” treatments (such as acupuncture, yoga, …)?

Martina McBride – Anyway

“You can spend your whole life building,
Something from nothing
One storm can come and blow it all away,
Build it anyway
You can chase a dream
That seems so out of reach
And you know it might not ever come your way
Dream it anyway

Chorus
God is great, but sometimes life ain’t good
And when I pray
It doesn’t always turn out like I think it should
But I do it anyway,
I do it anyway

This world’s gone crazy
And it’s hard to believe
That tomorrow will be better than today
Believe it anyway”

1. How did you feel about coming out of the IF closet?

Dixie Chicks – So Hard

“And sometimes I don’t have the energy
To prove everybody wrong
And I try my best to be strong
But you know it’s so hard
It’s so hard

It’s so hard when it doesn’t come easy
It’s so hard when it doesn’t come fast
It’s so hard when it doesn’t come easy
It’s so hard

It felt like a given
Something a woman’s born to do
A natural ambition
To see a reflection of me and you

And I’d feel so guilty
If that was a gift I couldn’t give
And could you be happy
If life wasn’t how we pictured it

And sometimes I just want to wait it out
To prove everybody wrong
And I need your help to move on
Cause you know it’s so hard
It’s so hard”

1. Your song for other people’s baby shower?

Ok, I’m approaching this as to how I feel about attending them.

Rodney Atkins - If You’re Going Through Hell

“Well you know those times
When you feel like there’s a sign there on your back
Says I don’t mind if ya kick me
Seems like everybody has
Things go from bad to worse
You’d think they can’t get worse than that
And then they do

You step off the straight and narrow
And you don’t know where you are
Use the needle of your compass
To sew up your broken heart
Ask directions from a genie
In a bottle of Jim Beam
And she lies to you
That’s when you learn the truth

If you’re going through hell
Keep on going, don’t slow down
If you’re scared, don’t show it
You might get out
Before the devil even knows you’re there”

1. What about our scary friend hope?

Garth Brooks – Standing Outside the Fire

“We call them cool
Those hearts that have no scars to show
The ones that never do let go
And risk the tables being turned

We call them fools
Who have to dance within the flame
Who chance the sorrow and the shame
That always comes with getting burned

But you’ve got to be tough when consumed by desire
‘Cause it’s not enough just to stand outside the fire”

1. And lastly, the theme song for your journey?

Mountains by Lonestar

“There are times in life when you gotta crawl
Lose your grip, trip and fall
When you can’t lean on no-one else
That’s when you find yourself
I’ve been around and I’ve noticed that
Walking’s easier when the road is flat
Them danged ole hiils’ll get you every time
Yeah, the good Lord gave us mountains
So we could learn how to climb.”

  Every day life throws something new at us.  Sometimes it is somebody cutting us off in traffic.  Other days we realize we forgot to buy coffee at the grocery store, and  are running late for work.  Then, there are the major breakdowns, the car breaks down, every appliance in the house goes on the fritz, and your reproductive plumbing decides to bust.  However, perhaps the worst breakdown of them all is communication. 

As husband and wife, it is essential to communicate your dreams, needs, wants, desires, insert item you wish here.  However, there is a special something about infertility that can complicate this simple action.  It changes the balance in your relationship.  All a sudden you are facing a huge mountain you need to climb, and you can only make it to the top if you work together at a team.  My team wasn’t working well together last night.  The last person on the face of the planet you ever expect to say something completely insensitive about your infertility is your teammate, your partner in crime, your husband.    I know life isn’t always a bed of roses, but damn it I want my rose garden.  (Go ahead start singing now.) 

I’m not going to repeat what he said, because that gives it voice again.  Words are powerful, they don’t dissipate into thin air.  Rather, those words dove deep into skin that was once much thicker.  They left yet another invisible scar inflicted by the pain of infertility.  He has apologized, but I have yet to accept.  It’s like being stuck behind a school bus, and I just can’t seem to get around it.  It won’t take long though before the bus makes a turn, and I will get to move past it.  However at this moment, I’m just a bit shocked and hurt.   

The one place you don’t expect to see a pregnant woman…in your brand new workout video.  Sure enough, super energetic skinny girl turns sideways, and holy baby bump!  Today I just watched the video, and thank heavens.  This way I will be prepared for it tomorrow.

Today was a rather ho hum kind of day.  I headed over to Mom and Dad’s house early, and worked out with my mom and her neighbor E (Remember the lady who went to our panel night?  Same woman.)  So, I showered there, ate some lunch, went to E’s for some girl talk, and then went shopping for a while.  Nothing crazy happened.

Can I just report that I have lost FIVE inches around my butt?  Happy dancing over here!

Still waiting for our evidence of insurance to arrive in the mail so I can schedule my lap.  I’ve only requested it three times, totaling over a month.  I’ve waited seven days now for a return phone call from the social worker.  Not much fun there.  I’m being held back by incompetance on both ends.

I told you there wasn’t anything exciting going on!

Excuse me, will you please pass me the bottle of coconut rum?  Oh, yes, I would love to have a slice of that chocolate butterfinger cake!  Ahhh…this breeze is simply fabulous!  Hey, can I have my turn in the hammock now?  Puuuulllleeeease?!   (giggle!)  Ahhhh, summer is  so close I can taste it!  (hiccup)  Ladies and gents, this is what I call a diet day off.  Back to our regularly scheduled programming tomorrow!  Adios!

Note to Self:  Next time you decide to push mowing the sizable back yard with a lawn mower that isn’t self propelled despite having the riding lawn mower in the garage in 85 degree weather, make sure to at least wear sunscreen. 

I always wear sunscreen, but for some reason I forgot to yesterday.  Silly me is now paying the price.  Despite all of that, I think all of that hard work has paid off.  I have hit the 20 pound weight loss point! Whoooohooo!  Good Morning America has reminded me this morning ever so pleasantly that we only have eight more weeks until we get into our bathing suits.  Think I can loose another twenty by then?  Game on!  Who’s with me?  Anybody?  Anybody?

I’ve always wondered whether people really want to know the truth.  Do you really want to know if I like the color of your hair?  Do I really want to know if you like the color of my hair?  History would say, not really.  You think you do, but then when you hear that the new shade of brownish red you put on your head makes you look more like a clown than a vibrant temptress, you find yourself wishing you hadn’t asked.

I remember laughing, not a big ‘ol belly laugh, but more of a snicker and sigh kind of action, when the movie Liar Liar came out.  Yes, your butt is big.  No, those lawn ornaments are actually quite tacky.  The list is simply endless.  Do those around you really want to know what you think?  Do they really want you to tell the truth?  Do you want to know the truth?  Do we only reserve the truth for those who we either think can handle it, those we are closest to, or do we go for the gusto and tell it to everybody?

This relates quite simply to my uterus.  I swear my fallopian tubes are literally connected to everything in my world.  Did I really want to know why I am infertile?  Yes…wait…no…hmmm…yes…hold on a sec….no…oh hell…yes.  Yes, I did want to know.  Perhaps I am one of the majority.  I feel that people often want the truth when it meshes with what they want it to be.  Yes, I wanted to know why I wasn’t reproducing like a rabbit, but only if it was a simple fix.  In my mind, I was convicned that simple fix actually existed. 

Looking back, and moving forward, I’m learning to have a finer appreciation for the truth.  Thank you for telling me me my pants don’t flatter me, for telling me straight that I might need another application of deodorant, and above all thank you for giving it to me straight about my reproductive status.

Honesty and truth are traits often praised in individuals.  However, when we are handed a healthy serving of truth or honesty, how do we react?  Do we immediately get defensive?  Do we deny it?  Do we embrace it?  Is our reaction shaped by the type of information it is?  For example, are we more offended to learn that we have a bit of body odor or is it worse to be told that you hurt somebody’s feelings?  I’m sure there are more comparisons than there are baby bump rumors in Hollywood.

Ahhh…truth.  It’s sister reality has been residing in our house the past few days.  Damn unwelcomed house guest.  I guess you can say I’m working on embracing the truth, and may even consider allowing its uncle acceptance to come for a visit.