Hope everyone who celebrates Christmas had a wonderful holiday. To be honest, I’m dreading getting in the car in a few minutes and hearing the normal easy-listening music on our Christmas station. It’s as if my best friend has split town in the middle of the night, barely even mentioning that she was leaving.

But a question for you from my notebook that Teamwinks actually addressed this week too:

Here’s karma coming back to bite me in the ass (karma in the misused western sense of the word and not in the actual, Hindu sense of the word): In an already iffy relationship, the straw that broke the camel’s back was the chance of infertility. A month or two after he told me, I broke up with the boy because he casually mentioned that his doctor once told him that he may have difficulty conceiving since he only had one testicle. I knew from a month or two into the relationship that he was never going to become my husband due to a complete lack of chemistry, but hearing that he might impact my ability to easily have a child hastened the break-up.

Well, you get what you deserve, perhaps.

Since I am the infertile one in my marriage.

And based on something I just read in a book about divorce rates and infertility, would you continue dating someone you intended to marry if you knew that they were infertile? At what point would you want to be told about the person’s infertility? Early on (or could that backfire if the person wasn’t yet committed and that clouded their judgment)? Later (or could that open hurt because the other person felt like it should have been on the table earlier, even if it wasn’t going to affect how the person felt)? Should it come up when you begin speaking about having children? And would it be somewhat easier emotionally to jump into treatments from point one (as Lance Armstrong’s exwife did–she knew she would be doing IVF before they ever tried to conceive) or is it a non-issue: even if you know beforehand, it’s still the same level of emotional pain expended during treatments?

All things to consider if Josh were ever to leave me…

Since it would be me doing the telling this time.

Western-karma really bites.

Discuss…

We had dinner at my parent’s house last night for the last night of Chanukkah. My mother told me that she was bothered by the use of the word “guilt” in the post this week on infertility diagnoses (yes, my mommy reads my blog, and she does call me every time I use a curse word. I was going to write a curse word in this space to be funny, but I know that she will not find that amusing).

(I find it amusing)

She felt the term “guilt” implied something within the person’s control. She believed a person experienced guilt over knowing the right thing to do, but choosing a different path. Most of the time, infertility isn’t about choices or right vs. wrong. It’s about a medical condition and elements that are outside your control.

I grabbed my dictionary.

Guilt (n) 1. the fact of being responsible for the commission of an offense. Culpability for a crime that carries a legal penalty. Remoreseful awareness of having done something wrong. Self-reproach, as for inadequacy (American Heritage Dictionary).

So what is the right term to describe what you feel as you lie awake at 3 a.m., worried about finances and feeling the weight that your reproductive organs are the reason you are spending your money on fertility drugs rather than a vacation?

Only three more days of Christmas music this year and then my Christmas radio station will switch back to playing Genesis and Air Supply. I drank in “O Holy Night” on my ride home tonight. It feels like an old friend is going back home after an extended visit.

Bye, Christmas. I’ll miss you. Please write.

And tonight marked the last night of Chanukkah. We lit the candles for the final time and sang a rousing off-key version of “Chanukkah, Oh Chanukkah.” I’ll leave out the chanukkiah for a few more days on the pretense that I’m just too lazy to pack it back in the cabinet.

Sigh. This is a rainy, cold weekend. A perfect time for reading blogs.

Frances at Unyielding has a gorgeous post about the baby’s room. About the various incarnations of the room–from empty to her stepson’s room to a gym. And now the room will hold the child that they will adopt. She has a beautiful passage about her mother coming for a visit and she states: “I’ve been so angry with her all my life but now I am hopeful as I sit in my baby’s room; wondering what my Mother will think of the mother that I am in my baby’s room.” That was such a gorgeous thought–wondering how her mother will view her as a mother. But you need to go to the post and read the thoughts from beginning to end.

For those who like to read and comment on the plethora of news articles that concern fertility, there is a new blog on the side bar on “in the news” called How to Make a Family. And it’s been interesting thus far. A good source for news stories (and I believe the blog is written by a journalist). Plus they have a link to an upcoming commercial for a pee stick.

The Cracked Pot had a post this week that included one of the most profound ideas I read all week. She states: “I was hit by this sensation of feeling that that will never happen to me. I look at other people’s babies, and feel like I’m never going to get there, that I’m just going to be waiting, and waiting, and waiting some more. And eventually I’ll be a shriveled up old lady, and no baby, just a pretty nursery, a closet full of clothes, and a freezer full of milk. I just can’t fully imagine getting to the travel stage (or hell, even the referral stage.) I keep waiting for someone to jump out from behind the curtain and yell “psych!” And really, after wanting this for so long (6.5 years) and actively trying for so long (18 months) – it’s almost like the wanting and the trying have become a way of life, and it will never, ever actually happen.” That final thought: that the wanting and trying have become a way of life. I thought about it all day.

Dosmamas had a post this week that completely stopped me in my tracks–and that is why I love blogs. Being exposed to someone else’s intimate thoughts makes you see the world in an entirely different light. They already have a son that was conceived by Charlotte using the sperm of her wife’s (S) brother. They are now trying to have another child, but S is having trouble conceiving. This week, they discussed the idea of Charlotte carrying the child again. They are obviously awaiting the outcome of this recent insemination, but they’ve also started discussing the future. Without sharing all the reasons for why this decision is difficult, Charlotte does admit: “I don’t know if S or I can give up the possibility of her ever being pregnant or giving birth. It makes me very sad.” It is not unique in the sense that it is an emotional process many infertile women go through as they try to resolve their infertility. Especially if their infertility leads to paths that do not include getting to experience a pregnancy. But what made this situation so unique and what made me sit with it all day in my heart, turning it over, is that S and Charlotte are both women–both supposed to be able to carry a child. And the heartache that must bring to not being able to escape the infertility for moments at a time when you shut the door to the house because your wife is pregnant. It wasn’t a question–I was the only person in the house who could carry a child and all the pregnant women of the world were on the other side of that front door. And my heart went out to the two mamas as they navigate this new development. I hope this insemination works and they both get to experience pregnancy. And barring that, I hope that they come to a perfect peace as they conceive (or choose a different path to) their next child. Sending good thoughts their way on New Years this year.

Lastly, you’ll probably pee in your pants a little if you go over to read (and sing) the Infertile 12 Days of Christmas that was composed at BigP and Me. But it’s worth the underwear change.

Karaoke Diva sent me an interesting clip that was commentary on Angelina Jolie’s recent appearance on Larry King Live:

KING: Some other aspects of our extremely talented guests — you have two adopted children, right? What’s that like?

JOLIE: It’s the same as my biological child. They’re — I have three, and Maddox — he’s five and he’s from Cambodia, and Zahara is two, almost, and she’s Ethiopian, and Shiloh is six months. And they are all just like everybody. I love my kids — they’re funny, and they’re magnificent, and —

KING: The late Bob Considine (ph) — the Chicago writer — wrote, “I have four children; two are adopted — I forget which two.”

JOLIE: That’s right. You really do. And I honestly thought, when I was pregnant, I thought, god, I hope it doesn’t feel different. Because I was worried. And it didn’t feel different — it doesn’t at all.

KING: What do you make of the fuss over Madonna adopting a young African boy?

JOLIE: I don’t know all the details and we’re not close friends, so I wasn’t able to speak with her. I only understand that we all have to be very — everybody who adopts — it’s a difficult thing, to adopt, probably more difficult in many ways than it should be. But it’s great that it is out there. And you have to go through many levels in order to do that.

KING: It should be hard.

JOLIE: It should — it should be hard to be a parent, period. It should be — you know, you shouldn’t…

KING: They ought to have a test for it.

JOLIE: I mean, yes, you’re saying — and I go through many, many things in order to adopt. I’m fingerprinted, I’m checked, I go through home studies. I go through everything to prove I’m a decent citizen, I’m a good human being.That doesn’t — that didn’t happen to me when I gave birth. You know? So it’s interesting that there’s no background check on you when you bring a child into your home in that way. But — but I think, you know, that there’s — it was a country that does not have foreign adoptions usually. And so I think she’s–I’m sure–smart enough to know that that was going to be unusual.

Jolie’s comments during the interview reminded me of the line Keanu Reeves delivers in the movie, Parenthood: “You know, Mrs. Buckman, you need a license to buy a dog, to drive a car – hell, you even need a license to catch a fish. But they’ll let any butt-reaming asshole be a father.”

I disagree with Contactmusic.com’s take on the interview: “Angelina Jolie insists adoptive parents are more fit to raise a child than biological parents, because their background and personality is thoroughly scrutinised to see if they’re suitable for the challenge.” She didn’t say anything close to that. Instead, she was pointing out the hoops adoptive parents jump through that are absent from the world of biological parents.

It is interesting that there aren’t background checks. There’s no one turning to you in the hospital and saying that you’re too fat or too old or too damaged to parent. Yet countries set up stringent rules on who they deem worthy to adopt children.

China recently changed their rules to exclude many people–not only single parents, but also “those who are obese, disfigured or on antidepressant medication. Applicants who are divorced or had their marriage annulled must wait five years after remarriage, and first-time couples must have been married for two years before becoming eligible, the rules stipulate. Homosexuals are excluded from adoption. Both prospective parents must have body mass indexes under 40 — in other words, they cannot be morbidly obese.”

I question some of the hoops that parents go through who take the adoption route. Why is it permissible to have that level of judgment within adoption, but we wouldn’t dream of making some of the same rules for biological parents? Would the world be up in arms if government officials were entering the hospital and removing newborn children from parents who are “obese, disfigured or on antidepressant medication”?

And how many Americans would currently be parents if all of the rules governing the China adoption program (which is not the only program in the world with these limits) were suddenly in place in America?

I can’t really put my finger on the “why” since it isn’t determined by genetics, but there is a tinge of something akin to eugenics in this new ruling. Instead of weeding out the “undesirable” in order to create a race of blond-haired blue-eyed children, the Chinese government is weeding out the “undesirable” in order to create a community of slim, heterosexual, married adoptive parents. The government has the right to limit their program, and certainly no person has the “right” to be able to adopt (adoption is a reality of the world at large coming together to help raise a child–it isn’t a system to create parents but rather one that allows people who can help to step forward to aid that child). Yet the new regulations smack a little too much of Nazi Germany to make me feel comfortable.

I am all for determining the fitness of parents–but that fitness is directly tied to having sound parenting techniques and responsibility in regards to the child. It’s not determined by weight or having four limbs or being free of mental illness. Nor is it determined by arbitrary characteristics such as IQ, hair colour, or height. And I guess that’s what worried me since, as Keanu Reeve’s character pointed out, any asshole can be a parent–that is, as long as they don’t engage in adoption.

What if, amid all the wrapped and ribboned gifts there was a little jewelry box straight from the great Infertile Santa and his barren reindeer himself (he’s the gift giver at my IF Christmas) given to all with unexplained infertility–the gift of a diagnosis? You’d grab it, right? It would be the first gift you’d open because you’d finally have an answer.

Unless what you want is not an answer but a solution. The key to unlocking your uterus and getting a baby to stay in there for nine months.

I know the grass is usually greener on the other side, but regardless of which side of fence you’re currently standing, the methods for getting one pregnant are usually the same regardless of diagnosis. You would still be taking the same medications and doing the same procedures, only now with understanding the reason behind the actions and what these drugs and procedures are supposed to be correcting or circumventing. A diagnosis may save you some time and catapult you past certain steps (no reason for an IUI if your tubes are blocked). There are some diagnoses that come with specific solutions that may or may not be the key that turns the lock–certainly clearing up endo or removing a septum is going to help increase your chances if your diagnosis is endometriosis or a uterine anomaly.

And there are some diagnoses that make the decision for you so that you can stop trying in peace. Though medical science has a funny way of still bringing up the what ifs even in the face of poor statistics. But, regardless, there are times when a diagnosis is helpful to have in the sense that it gives you limits. It can help you move onto a different path.

But beyond these basic advantages to having a diagnosis, at the end of the day, it’s the same procedures and medications used on both sides of the fence.

The other side of the diagnosis is the guilt and the loss of hope. What is wrong is not always fixable, which is why sometimes answers just suck. I don’t want an answer; I want a solution. Even if your reason for infertility is treatable, the treatments don’t always work.

It’s just me writing from the other side with a diagnosis in hand, looking at the unexplained side and thinking, “maybe it would be easier for both parties if no one knew why.” Because while you don’t want it to be the other person’s problem, you also don’t want it to be you. I didn’t want my husband do have to undergo any painful procedures or be saddled with guilt AND I didn’t want that for myself. In the end, his SA came back fine and my tests came back every time with another answer. Low progesterone. High FSH. Poor responder. Clotting disorder (hey, that almost rhymed!).

Even though my husband has never made me feel guilty and has been only supportive. And even though I don’t feel guilty that my body overproduces cholesterol putting me at risk for a heart attack or feel guilt over any other medical issue that indirectly affects my husband, I feel so guilty that I’m the reason we can’t conceive. I’m the reason we spend all this money and I’m the reason that for a long time, we had no children. And if I don’t go through all of this, I’m the reason we won’t have children. Sometimes, I feel like I have to put my body through treatments simply because it is my fault. That if my husband wanted to choose adoption, I could go that route. But since this is all my fault, I should be willing to do anything to conceive if my husband wants a child biologically related to him.

Which I know isn’t rational and believe me, my head knows something much different from my heart. But my heart sometimes has the louder voice. It’s almost as if my head speaks to me in my calm, Maryland accent and my heart yells at me in the voice of my Hungarian great-grandmother. And guess who wins out in a shouting contest?

But, again, this is just the grass always being greener on the other side. Which is why I want to hear the other side too. Plus, Kris, who is seriously tuned into the same wavelength as me (and we both jotted down this idea to one another back at the beginning of November), said that she was kicking around this idea too. Start writing, Kris!