Shehecheyanu

My goal for this week has been rest. I took out my birth control ring on Sunday in preparation for my baseline appointment and starting the stimulating injections on Wednesday, and went to the office on Monday and Tuesday to finish up my grading and meet with any students who had last minute things to turn in. At the appointment on Wednesday, my period still hadn't really started, so they did an ultrasound but advised me not to start the injections until after I had a flow.

So Thursday, I took advantage of no work and no appointments and napped for almost the entire day. It was glorious and perfect and beyond necessary - i've been so stressed about a million things, it was nice to take a day and just be a complete vegetable. I napped until my noon medication alarm went off, took the meds, and went right back to sleep until the alarm to pick up my son from school. And I felt so, so good after, and didn't even have any trouble falling asleep that night which tells you, I had been pretty much running on fumes. I needed that rest so desperately.

At the ultrasound on Wednesday, the nurse pointed out my uterus looked like it was ready for my period to begin within a day if not hours, and she was right - not even 12 hours after the appointment, I felt a cramp and voilà, there it was.

I messaged them in the morning and they told me to start the shots today, Friday. I was a little nervous, even with an explanation of how to mix the medicines and demonstration of how to combine them so I'd only have to do one shot. But I was brave and got it done, focusing on the outcome and keeping in mind what we want most in the end. It helped also that my son was right next to me and my husband was on a video call, and as I did the shot, they said a special Hebrew blessing for the first time of doing something - the Shehecheyanu.

My husband will be home on Wednesday, and on Thursday he has an appointment at the embryology lab in San Francisco so we will have a frozen sperm sample as back up for the day of the egg retrieval. I'm very ready to have him home, for some more rest and someone else to handle some of the stress. But also, because it means we're at such an exciting point in this process, and as scary and nerve-racking as it is, there's no one in the world who makes me feel safer and more comfortable and more cared for.

My firstborn

My son turned 12 on Tuesday, and it's hard not to get emotional around his birthday. I'm so tremendously proud of the little person that he is, even on the days when he is difficult or frustrating. He is so bold and tenacious, but with a deeply empathetic and sensitive side as well. I always say that his two favorite things in the world are everything and everyone, and it's very true. He is such a joyful person with tremendous passion for life and curiosity about absolutely everything.

Ever since he was old enough to realize he wasn't the only little person on the planet, he has wanted a sibling. There's been a tremendous amount of guilt about not being able to give him that, first that he didn't have it at all but now also even if we are successful, that there will be such a significant age gap. I know the love will be there and it will be significant and no matter what, he's going to be just the most phenomenal incredible big brother in the world. But it's hard not to feel guilty that he didn't have someone closer to his own age to play with and to be little kids together.

That said, I've done everything I can to make sure that he thrived, no matter what. For several years, I didn't have a partner and he didn't have siblings, but we had each other and it was everything and it was enough. We went camping and hiking and explored and adventured. Part of why he's so creative and independent is perhaps because of necessity, and how he's always been good at imaginary play and making up games and situations on his own because he was often playing by himself.

It reminds me of a conversation I had with my therapist a little while ago, where she said she was proud of me for being so resilient despite all the things that I've had to face. And I told her, alright but I'd rather not be resilient. I survived these things because I had to, there hadn't been a choice. I'm not tough because I want to be, I'm tough because situations forced me to become this way. And I appreciate it being seen as a positive by others, but it's not necessarily a trait that I feel particularly proud of.

I suppose part of what I'm working on in my therapy is learning to be proud of the person I have become, even if it is the result of things I would not necessarily have chosen for myself. And perhaps that is a way to see my son's situation as well. He's independent because he had to be, but it will make him a better person in the long run. Skills and abilities he was able to develop as a long-term only child are benefits that he may not have had with siblings closer in age. Plus, I think back to my own experience being oldest sibling with two years in between my second sister and I, and two more years before the third, and the conflicts and the issues and the personality clashes that came from sharing bedrooms and going to the same schools and other complications that come up with close age gaps.

There's no use wondering what might have been if things had worked out differently or earlier or anything else. All we have is what is, and we're going to do the best we can with the situation we have. In the same breath of frustration at an age gap, at this point I would be so grateful for even the opportunity to say "there's a large gap between my children" because that would mean that this worked and that we've got another person in our family to love.

Rabbit, rabbit

The small city where we live is not tremendously built up with a significant suburban residential area, and the university campus is on the outskirts of town getting more rural. Our county is incredibly rural, with tons of agricultural businesses. So it's not uncommon to see animals on campus, particularly at various seasons. Right now, for example, there's a pair of great horned owls that return to nest every year on a window ledge of one of the academic buildings. This year there are three owlets, and there's a barrier set up to give them a safe bit of distance from the faculty, staff, and students. Lots of geese and various birds, and there used to be a tremendous number of small frogs but they have been less visible since the solar panels went over the parking lots. And occasionally, there are some small rabbits hopping around the various fields.

In New England, where I grew up, we have a bit of a peculiar superstition on the first day of the month. As soon as you wake up, before you step a single foot out of bed, you're supposed to say "rabbit, rabbit!" And that will bring you good luck. It's not exclusive to the area where I was born, but I've lived and worked in many other states around the country and everyone's always thought it was either hilarious or bizarre, and certainly unheard of.

I'm not tremendously superstitious most of the time. We've had a lot of conversations lately about superstitions, particularly Jewish ones surrounding pregnancy, and I am trying hard to do whatever I can to get all of the good vibes and well wishes of the universe on my side as we head into this complicated process. 

The morning of May 1, I was adamant about making sure I said the lucky words - it was so important that I even remembered to do it at 2 AM when my alarm went off to take one of my medications. Later that morning, when walking across campus to my first class of the day, two small rabbits hopped across the main walkway just a few feet in front of me. The first ones I've seen so far this season, and a providential sign, for sure.

Names, part two

And what about my middle name?

And interestingly enough, this one is just as complicated. Even more so in the last year or so, because of some significant changes in our family.

Your middle name, I told him, is just as strong as your first name, because that was a case where I stood up to Matt and told him that we were going to be following his culture's naming tradition for the first name, but in my family, middle names especially are in honor of an important family member, whether living or not. And at that time, the person I most wanted to honor with the middle name was my brother Daniel.

It's complicated now, because my brother Daniel is now my sister Valerie, and between that and changes in our relationship with each other, I'm starting to understand a little more about why Jewish tradition perhaps favors only naming after deceased relatives. But at the time, it was more than just the name that I wanted to give to my son.

My youngest sibling and I have a pretty large age gap - I was a freshman in high school when my mom gave birth, and that age dynamic guided a lot of our relationship. We would have sleepovers in my dorm room at college occasionally, and my sibling would marvel at the fact that I lived in a city that was not huge by any means, but was larger enough than the town that we grew up in that we could have a pizza delivered right to us. There were a lot of phone calls and letters, and sad teary goodbyes when I would have to go back to school after visiting home.

It wasn't always certain, though, that our relationship would be close. I'd had a lot of conflicts with my mom as a teenager and felt very angry and unsure when she told us that she was pregnant. Like the situation I later found myself in, it was unplanned and with a partner who left much to be desired, and as an adult I feel so heartbroken thinking about how alone my mom must have felt in her own experience at the time.

The second I laid eyes on the baby in the hospital, it was like every bit of anger melted away. This was a little person who could heal misunderstandings and who could repair broken hearts. This was someone who was not originally part of the family plan, but who made our family complete in a way we could never have expected.

And that, also, was a legacy I wanted for my Noah Daniel. Someone who was part of God's plan for me and for my family, who would make me grow in ways I had not imagined, and who would fill in a piece of my heart that I had not yet known was missing.

Names, part one

While we are preparing to create another baby, my husband and I are also working to prepare my firstborn for his bar mitzvah. As of this past Friday, we are exactly one year out, and it's already been quite a process. He started a few years ago with his Hebrew tutoring, starting with the alphabet, growing to vocabulary and grammar, and now working on specific prayers, blessings, and parts of the service he will be leading next May.

As part of his preparation, I got him a special journal made for the year leading up to the event. After working with Dad on his Hebrew on a video call last night, we opened up the journal and got started. The first activity asked him to write his full name in big bubble letters and then to fill in the letters with what his name means.

His face got a little bit sour, and he was grumbling that the reason his name is Noah is because his biological father is a jerk and forced me to choose a name in his cultural naming tradition. And I reminded him, I've told him this story before, and his name was not an accident or an afterthought. It was very intentionally chosen, with lots of research and reflection.

When I found out I was pregnant, I was not married. In fact, I hadn't been with my boyfriend for all that long - we had dated casually, then broke up, then I had moved out of state for work and we reconnected a few months after the move. I returned back to Chicago and it was immediately evident that I'd made a tremendous mistake, and I was actively trying to find a way to escape the situation when I started noticing odd feelings in my body. I had been tremendously healthy back then also, having lost a significant amount of weight and maintaining it for about a year, so I was very in tune with how my body felt and worked and something was definitely not right. A positive pregnancy test, and then the conversations began about what to do next.

My son doesn't know the full details of my pregnancy or my marriage, although he does know that there are a lot of things that happened that he is not yet old enough to understand or process maturely. It was incredibly hurtful, especially the first few months of my pregnancy, But honestly, continuing up into the delivery room and beyond - it was a terrible relationship and I am still finding myself affected by his actions, his inactions, and his words. Even more so lately, as I am mentally preparing for a pregnancy again, and my only basis of comparison is an experience where I was profoundly emotionally abused. in therapy a few weeks ago, I told my therapist some of the things he said to me during the pregnancy, and it even broke her to the point of tears. No partner should say that to their partner - no person should say that to another person. I'm so, so sorry that you were hurt in that way.

One of the big anxieties of my first pregnancy was my partner's Jewish faith. Judaism is complicated, because it is both a culture and a religion, and my partner had been raised fairly religiously but now identified more as culturally Jewish. Yet, upon finding out I was pregnant, it became much more of a constant presence - this invisible pressure that I had not even anticipated in the list of things I was already anxious and nervous about in the relationship.

In Judaism, there's a lot of superstition about pregnancy and birth, and I'll dive more into that in the future because my husband is also Jewish and it's been informing some of the IVF process as well. One thing in particular that was heavily controlled in my first pregnancy was the baby's name. In Jewish tradition, you are not only not supposed to name after any living relatives, but you're supposed to name after a deceased relative who had some meaningful connection to you. For my partner, he only had lost one grandparent at that time, his grandfather William. I also have an uncle William, who's not necessarily someone I would name a child, so it wasn't really something I felt called to.

That said, some Jewish people also have a Hebrew name that is different from there legal name, and in the case of William, his Hebrew name was Nachum. It's a meaningful name, full of kindness and compassion, but it didn't particularly speak to me as feeling appropriate for the life I was growing. It didn't reflect the experience I was having with Judaism in particular, which was critical and controlling.

There's some flexibility, though. Beyond the name itself, it is also an honor to choose a name that starts with the same letter - which left me with W and N. I went to the city library and checked out at least a half dozen baby naming books, and pored over them with tremendous attention. I wanted a name that was meaningful, that honored the constraints I was being forced to follow but with my own interpretation and care.

With each name, I looked not only at its origin and meaning, but I turned to the religious texts to see who this person was, and try to find meaning in their stories. And that's what brought me to Noah. Noah was more than just an ark builder, the whole story is far more complex. God told Noah to build this tremendous vessel, to gather the animals, and to trust Him. As he began the process, it wasn't apparent to most folks what Noah was doing or why. It seemed silly or foolish to be committing to this tremendous project, but Noah didn't listen to anyone but God. He didn't know how everything would unfold or how the story would end, he just knew to trust that God had a plan for him and that everything would be understood when the time was right.

The story spoke to me profoundly and I knew right away, this boy would be my Noah.

SIS Day

Today was a big day in our fertility journey: the saline infusion sonogram. Essentially, they fill your uterus with a saline solution while scanning to see if there are any abnormalities, fibroids, or polyps that may prevent a successful transfer and pregnancy. I've never had any issues or concerns, for the most part, but I was still tremendously nervous before the appointment.

My mom had significant issues her whole life, leading up to a hysterectomy shortly after she turned 50. As part of her recovery from that, one of the medicines had a "rare but serious" list of side effects, one of which is stroke - and a few weeks later, it happened while she was at work. Add that in with my dad's lifetime of health issues that had him pass away at 63, and I'm just very apprehensive about things in general.

Shortly before my dad died, I had the only serious health scare of my life. It was relatively early in our attempts to conceive, only maybe 12 or 14 months in, and we were starting to realize we needed to reach out for additional medical assistance. My period started, then continued for several months without end. I reached out to my doctor, who dismissed it immediately on account of my weight.

At that point, I had lived in this body for 35 years and had my period for over 20 of them, and I'd never experienced something like that before. So I made an appointment with a different doctor, and showed her a photo of a menstrual clot that was so large, I was worried it was a piece of an organ. (I don't typically have clotting at all, let alone something that size.) She did an exam, and then told me that she wanted to do a biopsy to make sure that cancer could be ruled out as a cause.

At the same time, my dad was in and out of the hospital more and more frequently, and it was becoming evident that his dialysis treatments were not as effective as they needed to be. He was hurting significantly and called me one day to let me know he made the decision to stop his dialysis treatments, and that he would be doing this towards the end of December so that we could travel to the East Coast and say our goodbyes.

It was about a week between the end of his dialysis and when my dad eventually passed. He was fairly lucid the first few days, then sort of drifted in and out for a few days before the very end when he would smile now and then, little chuckles even, but was not verbally responsive.

It was one of those middle days of going between calm conversation and incoherent chattering that I got my own call.

I went out to my rental car to be alone with whatever the doctor was about to tell me, partly because I didn't want to put my own results on my family's already overloaded plate, but also to create a separation for myself of the two situations. What is happening inside exists there, and whatever I'm about to find out in this vehicle is going to stay here until I have the capacity to deal with it.

The biopsy was negative, it was likely just a hormonal imbalance for an unknown reason, and a few months on birth control should regulate things. The condition never came up again, and I have only gotten healthier and more regular since my bariatric surgery.

All of this was in the back of my mind as I headed into the office today. What if there's some thing I don't know about? What if all of that had actually been more serious and has just been dormant?

I told the nurse running the ultrasound, I'm tremendously nervous about all of this even though I already have a child, because last time I just didn't have this much information. This time I am finding myself hyperfixating on all this data and all these suggestions on how to optimize this or that, or every fraction of a milligram of anything on a lab result.

What she said calmed me down a surprising amount. You don't have to worry about the science and all the numbers and get obsessed with everything - that's my job, that's why you've hired this team of experts - doctors and scientists who are able to take all of this information and make sense of it - it's OK to exhale a little bit - you are taking excellent care of yourself, and you don't need to obsess over all these details. Everything looks fantastic, and the work you have put in has paid off tremendously. Everything looks so, so ideal.

I've had almost no appetite the last few days, partly because of some of the medications I'm on but also the anticipatory nerves. I'm still not back to even my bariatric normal in terms of appetite, but I was able to eat a little bit more today than at least the last few days - three meals with protein at each one, which is the best I can hope for right now.

With the results of the scan, the doctor cleared us to officially begin the cycle. My injectable medications will arrive in a week and I'll start them a few days after, at the local clinic where they will show me how to do the injections, and then they'll take blood for measuring the baseline level of everything that they are measuring. Then I'll go back every other day until the levels are optimal, and then the trigger shot, the retrieval, and anything that follows is based on the results of those few steps. I told my husband, we have a calendar but it's also really tentative and we're going to have to be as flexible as we can. He's flying in a few days after I start the shots, and I'm hoping that the timing is ideal and that everything unfolds as it needs to. 

Belonging

I'm struggling a lot with a sense of belonging. 

During my first pregnancy, I didn't feel like I belonged in the group of folks celebrating their pregnancies because of the circumstances surrounding mine - a few people I knew who were pregnant at the same time were all married and in at least seemingly positive relationships, and I felt unworthy of celebrating for much of the experience. It was tremendously lonely, but I was strong because I needed to be.

Now, all of my friends are folks I know through either work or my son's activities, so their children are all closer in age to my 12-year-old - alone, again.

And even in the online circles of infertility support and resources, I feel like I don't belong, because I already have a child. One of the pages I follow on social media posted something recently that was full of positive affirmations, like "I am stronger than my struggles and I am meant to be a mother." And it just made me feel guilty, because I am already a mother. Alone, because the resources don't speak to me and guilty because I never, ever want my son to think he's not enough. The guilt is enough for its own post another day - there's been so, so much of it already.

I've been seeking out more resources tailored specifically to folks experiencing secondary infertility, to try and find the community where I belong. My husband is still working out of state so there's going to be a lot of time apart during the pregnancy, so I'm trying to create a safe group for myself as best as I can. My therapist asked how I felt about the distance, and I told her honestly, my first pregnancy, I was alone even with my partner in the room. My husband loves me incredibly and is already immensely in love with our potential children, and he'll be as present as possible given the current situation.

With my first pregnancy, the struggles were significantly more emotional than physical. I was healthy, my son was healthy, and on paper everything looked phenomenal every step of the way. Since that's my only point of reference, it's what I'm hoping for for the second time around, But with my resources ready ahead of time to help find a healthy balance of all the feelings and emotions.