Fortune

I've been relatively silent for a while, because things have finally started moving around behind the scenes. After our first embryo transfer failed, I was absolutely devastated, as were my husband and son. It was exacerbated by all of us being apart for much of the summer: our son went to summer camp, and my husband went back to work in Colorado, waiting for the next update so we could book his return flight.

We did an ultrasound and the doctor said my period should start within a couple of days. And then a week went by with nothing. And then two more weeks. They had me come to the lab in San Francisco for some detailed bloodwork and another ultrasound, and figured out that despite the birth control ring, I had still ovulated, so our plans were delayed until my body could reset itself naturally.

Add in some particularly upsetting news about my job, and it made for a pretty lousy month of July. 

But early August, things started finally moving, and we had our second embryo transfer a little over a week ago. Everything went very well leading up to it and during the procedure, and the first round of bloodwork earlier this week went well also - although admittedly, that one is just testing to see that the medications are effective, and we had excellent results back in June also, before failing the 10 day post transfer lab test for hCG.

Last time, I had a feeling that it hadn't worked. I've had some minor symptoms but they had kind of faded the closer we got to the 10 day mark. It didn't help that I got in my own head also, taking home pregnancy tests to try and peek at the results. I can't decide if it made getting the definitive failed transfer update from the doctor easier or harder to hear - I was still devastated, but at least I was expecting to be.

This time, I haven't taken any tests. I've been tired on and off, and definitely a lot of soreness and tenderness the last few days. Maybe it's psychosomatic, my body giving me the symptoms because I'm so desperate for it to have worked this time. 

In any case, I'll get my results on Monday, and then we proceed from there. If it looks good, there's more testing to follow. If it failed again, I had a discussion with my husband about postponing the transfer of our final frozen embryo until November or December when I have more recovery time and more schedule flexibility. Even as it is, good news or bad, my semester starts Wednesday and I've got to lead a couple of classes with a smile on my face regardless of whatever updates I hear on Monday.

If this one failed, my goal is to spend this semester recommitting to my bariatric program. I've been on hold since April, trying to just maintain my weight to have a baseline of understanding during the IVF process. Between the medicines, the sadness, and the anxiety, I am up about 10 pounds from my lowest, not awful but just something to manage. I'd love to really buckle down and get under 200 before the next embryo transfer, give me a goal and something to work towards, something to think about other than shots and medications and periods and ultrasounds and everything else that's been consuming me for the last five months.

But of course, the best case scenario is that the tiredness and the soreness after real and this worked, it really worked, it finally worked, and we have something to celebrate instead of more embryos to grieve the loss of. I'm about 48 hours away from the test result phone call, and it's going to be the longest two days of my life.

After the embryo transfer, my husband and I stopped in Chinatown so I could show him a fortune cookie factory that our son and I had stumbled on when we were sightseeing last year. It was just a sweet little pitstop, I was a little bit sore and just wanted to take it easy for the drive home. But it was a nice place to walk for just a few minutes, get a treat, and have a souvenir of our day in the city, even if the embryo transfer didn't work out in the end.

Last night, my husband texted me. He'd opened one of the fortune cookies he brought back to Colorado with him, and found this message inside.

We've been obsessed with messages and signs and winks and nudges from the universe, anything that helps comfort us in such an exhausting and emotional time. And this felt like a tremendously nice whisper from heaven, especially since yesterday was his mother's birthday.

If it worked this time, I am exactly 4 weeks today. And I'm trying to hold onto that milestone and love it tremendously into real existence. All the signs and winks and nudges have been here we're ready now for the confirmation.

Napkins

One of my least favorite social media trends is people who are eating things in their cars. Usually it's folks in a front seat, showing off some new fast food offering or limited time special they are reviewing for their followers. I understand their goal from a professional standpoint: sample the product as soon as you get it so it is still the best temperature. I think there's also a purpose to being in the car instead of at home or somewhere else, because it seems maybe more genuine and spontaneous, whereas something recorded at home may have been rehearsed or altered and the reaction may not be as sincere.

I find these tremendously triggering, though. My associations of eating in the car are overwhelmingly negative. The times when I have been my most depressed or upset, I would frequently self-soothe with fast food or secret groceries that I would shovel into my mouth as quickly as possible before getting home and being discovered. It wasn't about hunger, satisfaction, or even enjoyment. It's about feeling something other than the numbness of depression, it's about feeling full of something other than sadness.

A few months after my bariatric surgery, my son sneezed in the car and reached into the storage console for something to blow his nose. He was surprised to discover an unexpected consequence of my surgery: we no longer had an emergency stash of napkins in there, accrued from all the secret drive-thru trips. It was funny in a sense, not necessarily a non-scale victory but definitely an interesting effect I hadn't anticipated.

All of this is to say, right now my console has a lot of napkins in it. It's not entirely depression-driven - there has been a lot more eating on the go, all the trips to the fertility clinic and the lab, plus the summer camp drop off and then the pick up. It's been a couple thousand miles on the car just in the last few months, hours and hours at a time. Sometimes I'll pack bariatric-friendly snacks - every trip, I can definitely be counted on to pack a caramel protein shake to mix with a coffee. But there's usually at least one meal that I have on the road.

I still can't eat a lot at once, the surgery works the way it's supposed to. So even when I go out somewhere, my choices still have to be reasonable. It's more about my emotions and the things driving me to go out instead of packing something consistent with my goals, or just waiting until I get home.

Part of my emotional eating issues involves food hoarding. My family struggled financially when I was a kid and now as an adult, my default panic reaction is to surround myself with food. Even if I'm not eating it immediately, I gather it - stock the fridge and pantry in case of issues. My brain feels calmer with a freezer packed to capacity. My anxiety about scarcity is quelled and this itch in my soul is scratched.

I've been really struggling with mental health this last month, with worries about my job and our future here in California, concerns about my health and the IVF process, missing my son while he was at camp, and feeling really really frustrated with my weight - feeling out of control, in a way I haven't felt since before my surgery.

So I'm not really surprised about the state of the napkins in that center console. I'm just at a loss of mental energy to figure out what to do about it.

Uncertainty

I woke up on July 1 as hopeful as ever, dutifully saying rabbit rabbit the way I have since I was a kid, and with particular intention the last few months as we've been navigating this new experience of trying to get pregnant with IVF. I kissed my son's forehead and took my morning medications and vitamins before going on the computer to make the monthly budget and pay the rent, utilities, and other bills.

It's been tough the last few weeks, with the expense of IVF and extra traveling to make sure my husband is here for all the procedures. Lots of unanticipated expenses also, like three or four bridge toll bills for driving into San Francisco multiple times, and all these tanks of gas. But a few weeks earlier, I got an email from my department chair that said I passed my three-year review and I'd be getting a pretty decent raise - and a few days later, another email from the University president saying that because of excellent progress with the school's growth and improved status, there would be another small raise given as well.

I was so excited and told my husband, this would be a huge relief - I'd be able to make real progress on paying off the bills that have been growing with the cost of IVF injectables, summer camp tuition payments, flight and hotel bills ... I made a separate budgeting chart for how to maximize the payments and be debt-free within a year.

And of course, if you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans.

A few hours later, still on the first of the month, after all the bills were paid and I was gathering laundry to help my son pack for summer camp an email came through from the office of the Dean. And then another. And then another still. Three emails in quick succession: first, that one of my classes had low enrollment and was being canceled - second, that my contract was being revised accordingly and I would be taking a huge pay cut - and third, information about benefits urging me to check and see if I still qualified for the healthcare plan.

In 30 seconds, my world got completely flipped upside down. It was like whiplash in a car accident that wouldn't stop - it was hours before my head stopped spinning and my stomach settled down at all. The sobbing was quick and fierce, and my eyes were burning all day with no chance of recovery, because even if I would stop momentarily, the tears were back within minutes.

I emailed the Dean and the department chair, and nearly a week later I still haven't heard from either of them, the fucking cowards. The course had low enrollment, but first-year student orientation has not yet happened, and it's a course that is typically almost entirely made up of freshmen. In seven years years, I've never had low enrollment in the course on the first day of classes, despite what it looks like in early summer. Most semesters, I even end up with a waiting list in the first few days of classes.

A couple of days ago, I got a message from the language coordinator saying that despite the overall situation at the university, our school and specifically our department are in a "budgetary crisis" and we lost one whole lecturer position in addition to my French course and a Spanish course. Half a sentence was dedicated to a generic apology, and the whole thing just made me even more devastated.

With whatever optimism I can muster, I'm trying to find positives. My contract has a time reduction but my salary is still based on the raise, so even though I'll be making less than I was hoping, at least there's a little bit more of a buffer than if I had not gotten a raise recently. There's still a five-figure difference between what I will be making this fall and what I've been budgeting for the last few years, and I'm overwhelmed both with trying to figure out how to recover the loss with a second job or a side hustle, and the implication that this is the first of more cuts to come, and I've got to start looking seriously for opportunities that are not only going to serve me/my family/our needs but be more reliable in the long-term.

Maybe it's a universal message. Right before I got pregnant with my son, I had a couple of teaching jobs lined up that got canceled because of low enrollment. A few days after losing the jobs, I got the positive pregnancy test, and one of my biggest worries was about managing financially. Discussing my options with a couple of my close cousins, one of whom found herself in the same situation a few years before I did, I told them how worried I was about not having a teaching job and about being able to afford not only a baby but a child for all of its life. And my cousin said, money is important but it's not the only reason why you should make whatever decision you make. There are resources available and you've got family and support in so, so many ways. Make the decision that is right for you, but don't make it entirely about the costs.

She was right, of course. I used low income resources the year that I was pregnant, benefitting from services and a system I had been paying into since my first job the day I turned 16. I worked a part-time grocery store job until the last month of my pregnancy, and applied for teaching jobs whenever they came up. I interviewed for a school a few weeks after my son was born, and we moved to South Carolina for the job two months later. It wasn't the perfect job long-term, but it was what we needed when we needed it. 

And that's how things have really been for so much of my life. I don't always have everything I want when I want it, but it has always worked out that I have everything I need when I need it. And that is the absolute very best that I can ask for. Stability for my family is my top priority. Even when I was getting divorced and times were extremely tight, I never once missed a single payment on any bills, my son had diapers and clean clothes and delicious healthy meals.

So maybe this is a secret blessing. Like they say, history doesn't repeat itself but it does rhyme. The job stress and anxiety isn't exactly the same as before my first pregnancy, but it's enough to ground me a bit and humble me right now. My schedule was reduced for the fall, but hopefully I'll be pregnant soon and maybe that's a blessing because I'll be able to take care of myself and not be overwhelmed with balancing work and everything else.

On the way home from driving my son to his summer camp, I got a call from the fertility clinic. They had expected to hear from me several days earlier reporting a period after removing the birth control ring, but the period never came - so they asked me to come in for another ultrasound just to see how things were progressing. I headed in the next afternoon, and told them I wasn't surprised about the lateness, with how busy the previous week had been and all the general life stress contributing to what I'm sure is a chaotic mix of hormones.

Everything looked mostly okay on the ultrasound. As it turned out, despite having the birth control ring in, I still ovulated. So now we are waiting on a natural period and they will bring me in for another ultrasound once it starts, with a plan for the frozen embryo transfer a few days after that. It's a delay of another week or so from the original intended calendar, but it's healthy and fairly normal - more of a speed bump than a mountain.

Like everything, this too shall pass. There's still a lot of nerves and anxiety about absolutely everything, but the tears have stopped and I am starting to feel calm enough to make some plans. Like with all of the IVF stuff, it's the best we can hope for right now.

Stages of grief

I was reading about the stages of grief, and how some folks consider there to be seven instead of the traditionally recognized five. One added to the very beginning is shock/disbelief, and then later in the end there is an element of guilt. The stages are commonly experienced in a particular order, but of course there are lots of possible variations. The grief process is not linear, and it will be different for every person - and every situation. 

It's been really interesting to observe my grief over the first failed round of IVF, and comparing it to previous losses and failures in my life. When the doctor called to confirm that the embryo transfer had failed, there was certainly shock but I don't know that there was ever a point of denial - even before the phone call, I was trying to read clues from my body, and I think my body and my heart confidently knew the results even before they were read to us. 

The next transition was clearly into guilt and depression, where I felt responsible for not only the failure but for the sadness and the grief that it brought to my husband and my son. The embryo was growing and thriving until it was put inside me, and then it disappeared. There's no information or detail about why the transfer failed, nothing immediately obvious to why it didn't stick. But still, seeing the tremendous sadness in my family… it is hard not to blame myself for that.

For the last few days especially, I've been in a deep cycle of anger. I'm sure a lot of it has to do with trying to get paperwork organized in preparation for the second round that we are about to begin, and trying to get the financial aspects coordinated. I'm angry. I'm so angry. I'm so mad that the insurance is as complicated as it is, that it is already an emotional and complicated process even without the added frustration of navigating paperwork. It's overwhelming to the point of exhaustion, trying to make sense of everything and dealing also with another layer of guilt at the overwhelming out-of-pocket costs. 

It feels a lot like drowning. Like clawing desperately to try and stay above surface, because you can swear there's something in the distance and if you can just hold on, it will pay off and it will work out and everything will have been worth the exhaustion and the frustration and every complicated aspect of the experience.

And on top of it: I'm alone. My son was off at his first summer camp, now off with my ex-husband for this week, and next week he goes off to another summer camp for all of July. I can't go to Colorado to be with my husband because of doctor appointments this week, and I'm struggling to figure out if I can go for a few days after my son leaves for summer camp because of the cost of flights. Can we afford flights for me just to not be alone, when we're going to need a flight for my husband a few weeks later for the embryo transfer? And then, more guilt. We're wasting money because I can't handle all these feelings and all this paperwork. We're not the first family to go through this, hundreds or thousands of families have been able to navigate this. So why can't I?

I'm just exhausted, mentally, and I have no idea what it's going to take to get me to the acceptance stage, and whatever sense of hope comes with it.

Ding, Round One

Not the Father's Day we were hoping for.

For almost 5 years now, we've been trying to grow our family, and this past month we got the closest we've been so far. Handfuls of pills, dozens of injections, and half dozen round trips to San Francisco and back, but a few days ago, we got the devastating news that our transfer didn't succeed.

it doesn't mean never, just not this time around. But I'd be lying if we weren't double crushed to have the tough news coincide with Father's Day. The cycle started on Mother's Day, and we hoped that was a good sign from the universe - start on Mother's Day, get our positive result on Father's Day.

I don't know who of the three of us has been more heartbroken this week, because the sadness is tremendous and immeasurable. I'm proud of Noah, whose first response was to hug me and cry, and whose second response was to see if his therapist had any same-day appointments so he could talk to someone right away, because the feelings were bigger than we could handle on our own. And I'm so incredibly in love with my husband Daniel, who is already an amazing father to Noah, and who was here for all the procedures and most of the doctor visits, but he's back in Colorado for work right now and processing this update alone, except for phone calls and video chats.

It sucks and it hurts and it's awful and about ten million other feelings across a wide spectrum of reactions.

At the embryo transfer, Noah watched on the projected screen, and started crying, saying with such relief and excitement, "I'm a brother! I'm finally a brother!" After hearing that the transfer failed, he lit a yahrzeit candle.

There's a tremendous guilt I am carrying for the sadness this has brought to our whole family, and I'm trying my best not to collapse under the burden of responsibility.

The Bubble

This past week was the last day of school here in town, and since one of my son's friends finished eighth grade, we were invited to a barbecue party at the lake this afternoon. It was a nice distraction, to be honest, because my mind has been all over the place the last few days.

I was on the fence about doing pregnancy tests at home before my scheduled beta hCG test at the clinic on Wednesday. Most of me didn't want to know - I know it's silly, but I just wanted to be in my blissful bubble of optimism for as long as possible. Especially since my husband is back in Colorado and whether the news this week is good or bad, I'll be opening that email alone.

But curiosity got the best of me, especially since I've been feeling so many symptoms that I remember from being pregnant with my son - the tiredness especially, a little bit of soreness, and some light back pain. It's hard to cheer for something you can't see or feel any proof of, something that you just have to trust is unfolding as it should. 

So I took one, and it was negative. 

Then another brand a day later, and it was negative.

Then a third brand the next day, one that is supposed to be the most sensitive on the market, and that was negative as well. 

And I just spiraled.

It was like floating in a bubble this last week, from the incredible overwhelming joy of the embryo transfer to the very positive result of the first round of blood tests - and then suddenly, it was like that bubble burst.

It's been long time since I've taken any pregnancy tests. We had bought them by the case when we were trying to conceive naturally, and testing multiple times a month until my period would inevitably show up and we would grieve the failure. I forgot what an absolute gut punch it is to feel so tremendously hopeful and then have that positivity and joy disappear so quickly, like all the air being sucked out of a room. And again, and again, and again.

In a way, I was a little bit relieved when I had my weight loss surgery. It meant at least a year or more of avoiding pregnancy tests, for better or worse, but also - I got to focus on myself for a while, to focus on feeling comfortable in a body that I had come to feel so betrayed by, and so angry with. How is it possible that I got pregnant so easily with my abusive cretin of an ex-husband, but now struggle so significantly with the love of my life? I was so mad. There was a lot of anger and depression and frustration that I tried to bury with food, and in the end I was still angry and still depressed and still frustrated and now almost 400 pounds. Weight loss surgery gave me a chance to work on the physical side effect of my mental and emotional struggles, and therapy has helped me make progress on making peace with the causes.

But now, here I am. Weight is bouncing around the 220s, which is a little bit higher than my lowest weight, but it's where I've been trying to maintain as we have been navigating the IVF process. But even worse than the weight anxiety, is the creeping back of the difficult thoughts that had me struggling with my weight to begin with. And absolutely, so much of that is tied to this whole fertility experience.

At the barbecue today, I was talking with a friend of the family that invited us, and she asked if my son was my only child. Oh yes, I replied, he's enough! It's become my standard answer the last few years, because not only is the truth complicated and painful, but it's not what people are looking for. No one wants to actually hear that you're struggling. No one wants the details of your loss. It's polite conversation at best, between strangers searching for anything to discuss.

She continued though, and asked if we might have more kids in the future. And it caught me off guard, but the answer was still oh I don't know, he's enough! Because how do I say, I might be pregnant right now? I was pregnant last Sunday - impregnated, at least - but now the tests have me scared out of my mind that I've lost this little wisp of hope that I already loved with every molecule of my being. 

So I deflect, and I fight back the tears, and I cry when we get home, laying in bed and watching the clock tick by to 8 PM and my medication alarm so I can do more of the stressful injections that have my butt muscles sore and covered in little injection site spots. As soon as the injection is done, I can go to sleep and enjoy unconsciousness for a little while, a few peaceful moments without anxiety - and then, wake up a few hours closer to Wednesday morning, and the definitive update on where we stand.

Screamers

I woke up this morning feeling tremendously hungry. I came downstairs and had a low-carb protein bagel with cream cheese and my morning meds, then took my son to the last day of elementary school. I hung around for a couple of hours because there was an awards assembly, and then headed out, still feeling bottomless gnawing in my stomach.

I've come to recognize this feeling as part of not only my bariatric lifestyle changes but also my eating disorder recovery. So much of my life, I interpreted it as hunger and so I treated it as hunger - eating unhealthily and in excess to numb the feeling and make it disappear. The reality is, though, that it's a panic and anxiety response more than anything else. It's not my stomach that is wanting right now, it's my soul, my brain, my heart ... something is hurting or feeling empty, and needs soothing.

Something I have found to be a little therapeutic but also helping me recognize my body's cues is to give myself full, unrestricted permission - something I never would've imagined allowing myself to do in my dieting days, let alone seeing it actually work. Whether I am at home or in a grocery store, I tell myself: you can have whatever you want. Look at every item, consider every choice, and if that really speaks to you as what you feel you need, then go ahead and enjoy it.

The remarkable thing is, I almost never end up eating anything at all. Because I look at this food or that, and recognize that it's not truly what I want in that moment. Even though I have given myself full, guilt-free permission to make whatever food choice I want, the reality is that food isn't what I want at all, and allowing myself to recognize it is a big step.

It kind of reminds me of my old days of weight loss, when I was really into Geneen Roth books. She talked about giving into cravings to take their power away, because even if you have cookie dough for dinner, you're not going to have it every single day for the rest of your life, eventually you will get sick of it and it will lose its magic and its hold over you. If I really wanted pizza, I could have pizza - this is me realizing that it's not actually the pizza I want, but the feelings I associate with pizza: reliability, comfort, memories of good times.

There's so much on my mind right now. I've got another six days before my pregnancy test at the fertility clinic, and I am full of nerves about what it's going to say, and whether or not I should test at home ahead of time to mentally prepare myself. Today is four days post-transfer, and my test first thing this morning was negative. It was crushing, but I'm trying to stay hopeful: yesterday's bloodwork was very good, and in terms of numbers, I am only technically three weeks pregnant today, so it's really quite early still. With my son, I had tested around this time also and it came up negative but then I tested again at about five weeks and it was a clear positive. So ... once day at a time, and I'll try to continue to nourish my heart and my brains and my soul in the meantime so they're not feeling so starved.