Colbert’s Word segment last night was a ridiculous take on the first uterine transplant.

About eight minutes after posting my write up about my luteal phase defect for Operation Heads Up, I get my period (otherwise known as my TC). On the 21st day of my cycle. Which marks another lovely 7 day luteal phase (since I ovulated around day 14). I mean…come on. 7 days? That’s all I get, corpus luteum? You suck.

The only silver lining (not for having such a messed up cycle but for getting my period today rather than later in the week) is that it’s my five-year anniversary this weekend. Which is…as you all know…the wood anniversary. So I’m looking forward to a little wood. Like…a mahagony desk or a…wooden crate. Or other things associated with wood. Achemmmmm.

(clears throat. Looks down at the ground. Hopes her mother isn’t reading this entry).

My friend, Mary-Katherine, has one of those stories that add to the completely annoying adoption myth. You know the one–if you “just” adopt, you’ll get pregnant in the drop of a hat. I love it when people reduce adoption to a means toward fertility.

She did get pregnant while she was in the process of adopting. But that is because she was still having sex without birth control. Because who in their right mind wastes money on birth control when you have already determined that you can’t get pregnant after multiple attempts at IVF? And the reality is that every once in a while, even women who produce eggs of poor-quality, let a perfect egg rip from their ovaries. And if you’re literally having sex around ovulation every single month, your body will take advantage of this single perfect egg and you’ll catch the brass ring. It’s as simple as statistics. It’s as simple as a blind pig finding an acorn, or however that saying goes. It can sometimes happen if you give yourself enough tries. You may be waiting 10 years, but it can happen.

The pregnancy was bittersweet because in gaining this new child, she was losing the child she was meant to adopt (the adoption was postponed and they will adopt in the future). It reminded me of a student I had whose mother gave birth to twins, losing one the day before what should have been a double bris. The girl wrote an essay about burying one baby and then coming back to the house for shiva and the bris of the other twin. It was the happiest and saddest day for that family.

This child came after a long road of infertility, one that Mary-Kath rode as if she were stuck on a Disney ride rather than taking a stroll with her own two legs. You know that Disney ride that I’m talking about–the one that you know rationally you could get off of if you had a panic attack (think Haunted Mansion rather than Space Mountain), but feel at the same time as if you’re committed to seeing the ride to its end. Even though you know you can get off, you’re not exactly sure how one goes about stopping the ride and walking off without feeling a plethora of emotions. So you just keep sitting in that black buggy, watching the ghosts shake the doors.

Mary-Kath calls it infertility with blinders–that mindset you can enter where you are just making decisions because it’s easier to keep going than to take the reins and slow down the ride. Like me, she never took a break. Cycle after cycle, she would get to the end and start over with the only thought being, “maybe this time it will work.” Every time the RE dangled a new possibility in front of her, she grabbed it. Because why not try everything–even if it doesn’t point towards a solution to your problem? If you throw enough things at infertility, something is bound to work.

She was accepted into the shared-risk program for IVF because she seemed like a sure thing. She was only in her twenties and she looked fine, hormone-wise. But attempt after attempt ended in failure without explanation. She tried PGD (even though they hadn’t had documented proof that PGD would help them with their problem)–and they called a PGD specialist who came out from the west coast twice a year to work with their “hard to impregnate” cases. Even though she was in the shared risk program, she spent a fortune.

It wasn’t until they were looking at the literature and considering donor egg that she looked at her husband and said, “what are we doing?” While she wanted the experience of pregnancy, she wasn’t tied to the idea that the child be biological. And since she had already determined that treatments were an uphill battle rather than a sure thing (it wasn’t a problem, per se, with her eggs–it was an unidentified problem), it made more sense financially to go with adoption that had a real child at its end rather than donor egg, which may or may not work.

And of course, as the myth goes, she was deep in the adoption process and looking forward to her future child. And she discovered she was pregnant.

It’s not that she regrets the fact that she tried treatments–she just wasn’t happy with the way she did them. She made her decisions with blinders on–never seeing the bigger picture (would she be happier on a different path to parenthood? Would she rather try another straightforward IVF cycle rather than paying for PGD?). She contrasted that with her friend who paused between every cycle. Her friend would sit with the results and contemplate them. And she would go to her priest (she was Catholic) and discuss her feelings and discuss the decisions she had to make. Between every failed cycle, there was a pause. She used the time to reflect and gather her thoughts and move forward. She didn’t come to parenthood any easier than Mary-Kath. But she came to it less stressed-out, frazzled, emotionally spent.

Treatments are hard. It’s emotionally hard and it’s physically hard. And it’s financially as hard as hell. And when I say “emotionally hard” I mean that it’s hard on so many different levels: the loss of your vision of conception, the failed cycles, the waiting, the talking yourself into injections. And it makes sense to take those pauses and recharge and discuss and make decisions with your head rather than your heart.

I just don’t know how to do it.

I definitely felt the tick of time–even if I was in my twenties when I began. If I wasn’t getting pregnant in my twenties, why should I believe that my fertility would get better in my thirties? I rationalized that my chances would be even lower the more I aged. Plus there was the fact that we wanted more than one child. So I started doing the math. If I had my first at 30, then we’d need to start treatments immediately so I could have my second around 32. And then we’d have to begin immediately again so I could have my third by 35. And I wasn’t prepared to breathe or slow down until all three babies had popped out of my womb.

I never sat out a cycle unless my RE made me sit out a cycle or I was anovulatory for a month. And when we were sitting on the sidelines, I wasn’t discussing decisions or regrouping. I was taking time for myself or recharging. I was half-standing, half-sitting, posed to race into the game at the first signal.

I’m not very good with sitting still in general.

It’s such an interesting idea–the benefit of the pause. I’m not sure if this is a Catholic thing or just Mary-Kath’s friend’s thing. Is there anyone else out there who self-enforces a pause? And how do you use the time? How do you make yourself recharge and regroup? Or–if you don’t pause like Mary-Kath and myself, what do you think of this idea and do you think you could ever put it into effect?

When Mary-Kath was telling me this story, the only thing I could think of was the beginning of that Simon and Garfunkel song, “Hazy Shade of Winter”: Time, time, time / see what’s become of me / while I looked around / for my possibilities. And later: Hang on to your hopes, my friend / That’s an easy thing to say / but if your hopes should pass away / Simply pretend / That you can build them again.

It’s a song cautioning about waiting. About not seizing the day, or the cycle. But what about when seizing the cycle leads you to make decisions wildly rather than sensibly? Especially when those decisions concern your health and your wallet? We have such a now, now, now mentality. It’s drilled into us at an early age. Don’t stand on the sidelines; get into the game. But is this the best way to approach treatments? I really don’t know.

On the topic of awareness months, November is also Prematurity Awareness Month and tomorrow, November 14th, is Prematurity Awareness Day. Prematurity is on-topic for an infertility blog because there is a higher rate of premature babies born to infertile parents due to a number of reasons–multiple births from fertility treatments, clotting factors that lead to IUGR or preeclampsia, or weakened cervixes (I truly, truly, truly hate the term “incompetent cervix”). The same problems that can keep you from becoming pregnant can also keep you from carrying to term.

Over half a million babies will be born prematurely in America this year and the same organization–the March of Dimes–that funded the cure for Polio has now taken on preventing prematurity since preterm birth is now the number one killer of newborns. They have set up a page on their website to help you participate in taking action for Prematurity Awareness Month.
They have letters you can send to editors of local papers and an email that can be forwarded to friends and family to promote awareness. They have set up coin centers around America and you can find a coin center in your town and donate your change. All around America, people will be dressed in pink and blue (including my twins–I’ve already placed the outfits on the top of their dresser) tomorrow in order to show visible support for the March of Dimes.

Why this cause is so close to my heart: my twins were born prematurely at almost 34 weeks (33 weeks and 6 days, but I feel like rounding up). At 32 weeks, my OB became concerned because the twins were suddenly measuring smaller on the sonogram. He decided to repeat the sonogram a few weeks later to check whether or not the sonographer was off in her measurements or there was cause for concern.

The day before the sonogram, Josh was in a car accident (which is why we both no longer use our cell phones in the car). The car was totalled, but Josh thankfully walked away with mostly cuts and brusises and what they thought was a detached retina. I was on partial bed rest, so after a quick trip to the emergency room to check on him, I was sent home and my parents spent the day with him at the hospital. Can you imagine the day my brother had trying to babysit me? Many curse words and crying were his thanks for keeping me company.

The next morning, I went to the sonographer with my mother while Josh attended more doctor appointments with his parents. The sonographer was very quiet and finally said, “has your doctor ever spoken to you about IUGR?” He had never used that term before, though I had seen it on a write up between the sonographer and the OB from the prior appointment. He sent me off to the OB where I was promptly told not to get undressed or even give my urine sample. I was to go straight to the hospital because the babies needed to come out. Today.

Josh and his parents met us at the hospital and they ran one last sonogram to determine whether the babies had stopped growing. This sonographer estimated them each to be a healthy 5 pounds. The high-risk OB on duty at the hospital bit her lip for a while, trying to decide what to do about these two conflicting sonograms and the information from my OB. She finally decided to do an internal exam to check on the status of things and exclaimed, “Melissa! Didn’t you know that you’re in active labour?”

Well, no. I didn’t. Because apparently my body does nothing by the book. Morning sickness and vomiting continued until the day I delivered. I never had breast changes. And, apparently, my contractions were never regular. Though I had been having contractions–sometimes 8 or 10 an hour–for two days, I didn’t think it was labour because they weren’t evenly spaced. I could go an hour or two with only one contraction and then have several hours where they came every few minutes.

And my doctor told me to call him when they were regular.

And I think my mind was in other places the day before, right?

Every labour is an emotional labour. But I couldn’t stop crying because I wasn’t ready to not have them with me anymore. I’m going to be honest–I’m a selfish person. And for all those months, the babies were entirely mine. I felt them and I had them with me wherever I went. And once they were out of my body, they were not only going to be shared with many people, but they were going to start walking down a road that contained things like independence. And self-determination.

But as much as I wanted to keep them right beneath my heart forever, they had to come out. I delivered my twins nine minutes apart. My daughter came out first and they held her up for a moment before they let Josh cut the cord. She was raced out of the room and I called out her name for the first time ever for all the doctors and nurses to hear.

My son was born nine minutes later and I didn’t even get a chance to peek at him beyond a quick sighting of his screaming, wriggling body being given to one of the NICU nurses. They took him away without letting Josh cut the cord.

And then we were alone.

I still get emotional when I see those early pictures. They were tiny. My son was 2 pounds 15 ounces. Unlike most babies, he only dropped a few ounces during his NICU stay. There was no weight to lose! My daughter was 4 pounds 2 ounces, but she dropped down 3 pounds and a few ounces over the course of the first week. At first they were fed by IV, but they graduated to an ng tube and finally learned how to suck on a bottle. Feeds in the beginning took around 45 minutes to give them one ounce.

Their brains were immature, so they sometimes “forgot” to breathe. Their apnea episodes led to bradycardia where their hearts would slow down. They both came home on heart monitors that were a blessing and a curse. On one hand, we had a machine that would alert us if they ever stopped breathing or their heart stopped beating. On the other hand, we had sweaty, drool-encrusted children who set off false alarms on the monitor every time the leads became damp. The monitors were also the weight of a newborn child so when I had to pick up both babies and sling the monitors over my shoulders, it was like carrying four children at once. My arms got such a work out. I was riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiipped.

The twins are now two-years-old and doing much better. I am eternally grateful to the NICU and the excellent care they received during their stay. But I’m also grateful to the March of Dimes who fund the research that create the advances that save the children who are born too soon. So when you go to your grocery store this week and you drop your change in that March of Dimes box, know that you’re helping people like my children. Who are their sassaholic and delicious selves due to the good work of the March of Dimes and those NICU neonatologists and nurses.

We’re in the middle of November and I feel remiss that I have yet to mention that it’s National Adoption Awareness Month. It’s interesting–it feels like all awareness concerning infertility, paths to parenthood, and prematurity are crammed into the fall. I’m trying to figure out if there is a reason behind this: did they place all these awareness days, weeks, and months together so organizations could cross-promote each other’s programs? Is fall an undesirable or a desirable time to have an awareness day?

Regardless, we are currently in the middle of National Adoption Awareness Month and even if it is not the path to parenthood that you have chosen, you can still jump in there and celebrate. Not everyone who adopts has experienced infertility, but it is one of the paths out of infertility.

So what can you do to promote awareness about adoption during National Adoption Awareness Month?

Educate yourself

• choose a few blogs off the blogroll and begin reading first-hand accounts of domestic or international adoption.
• Start collecting materials or attend a lecture in order to decide whether adoption is the right path for your family.
• Write one of the peer counselors of the Peer Infertility Counselor list and ask a few questions.
• Read NACAC’s Education Guide along with their larger publication to raise awareness during National Adoption Awareness Month.

Educate others

• take the words “just adopt” out of someone’s mouth and replace it with factual information about domestic or international adoption.
• Suggest a book for your book club dealing with the theme of adoption in order to bring up a larger discussion in a more relaxed setting.
• If you have children, introduce the concept of adoption by choosing picture books that broach the topic.

Weigh in with other ideas of how people can get involved with National Adoption Awareness Month.