ControverSunday: The Culture of Pregnancy

This week's topic is "The Culture of Pregnancy", and there have been some great posts so far! I am a little late, clearly, as it is Monday night, but bear with me. I'm getting back on track.

There were many good options as far as I was concerned, regarding this topic, but I decided to start at the beginning, so to speak, and talk about my experience with infertility.

I would almost rather not, because it was a very dark time in my life, and I have regrets. Lots of regrets, about how I handled the whole situation. But, best to get it out there, and move on, right?

I was 23. I know, what a perfectly ridiculous age to be panicking over not being able to get pregnant. We decided around January that we were ready to start trying. By Easter, I was convinced I was infertile. I thought due to my age and general health that I would get pregnant right away. Even though I knew it could take a long time for normal, healthy couples to conceive, I was impatient and genuinely scared. See, I'm a very highly strung individual, and I've had anxiety issues since I was a kid. But, that's an (equally ridiculous) story for another time.

In the interest of brevity (not my strong suit, admittedly) I'll just draw up a laundry list of all the steps it took us to get here: I started charting my ovulation, realized this was impossible due to my irregular cycles, saw my OB, got put on Clomid, had a very painful procedure done called an HSG where they inflate a balloon of dye inside your cervix in order to provide contrast to view the fallopian tubes, began to see a fertility doctor, tried insemination (IUI) with Clomid, tried IUI with injections,tried ANOTHER IUI with injections, had another painful procedure known as a saline ultrasound were they fill the uterus with saline (again for contrast), underwent my first IVF cycle, was on moderate bed rest for four days, continued injections, got a positive pregnancy test, miscarried, and finally had a failed IVF cycle before we ran out of insurance money, patience, and sanity.

I guess that was a rather long list, but then again, it was a rather long two years. The shots became part of our daily lives; Chris always did them for me, but there were a few occasions where he just wasn't available. Once I tried to convince a friend to do it for me. She was game until I handed her the syringe She looked at it, looked at my exposed and sanitized patch of skin, and chickened out. So, I plunged the needle into my stomach myself, much to her horror. Those weren't so bad. It was the progesterone shots that had to be administered into my hip that hurt the most. I sported big purple and yellow bruises for months. Luckily, they were hidden by my clothing, but the stains from when the fluid would leak out of my skin and through my pants, were not.

Of course, all the physical pain and discomfort were nothing compared to what was going on in my head. Ugly, regretful feelings, every time I saw a pregnant woman or stroller-pushing mom. It was worse when they were teenagers, which is quite a common sight in my town. Being what I presumed to be "infertile" made me hyper-judgmental of other parents. No one was doing it right, in my book, and therefore no one deserved to be parents as much as Chris and I did. Baby showers filled me with panic and resentment. I could barely sit through one without crying or feeling ill. I hated having to pretend to be happy for my friends when they announced their pregnancies or those of their wives. I WANTED to be happy for them, but lurking at the back of my mind was the fear of never having my turn, and I couldn't shake it.

So, when I say that I have regrets, I mean that there is very little I DON'T regret about those two years. I wish I had been able to shut off the crazy and realize that I was young, and give my body a chance to figure it out before I resorted to such invasive measures. I wish I hadn't dragged my poor husband down with me. After his many failed attempts to reassure me that it would happen for us, he began to believe that perhaps I was right. I regret not being strong enough to revel in the reproductive triumphs of my friends. I regret not visiting my friend in the hospital after she gave birth to her twins because I was too devastated by my recent miscarriage. I regret the countless $30 copays, the gas we wasted on those trips to the clinic, the fees we encountered upon ordering box after box of injectable medication. I REALLY regret all the cocktails I passed up during each one of my cycles.


I suppose it's pointless to get bogged down in the past. And, what I do not regret is the incredible bond that Chris and I developed over going through something so painful together. Even though we looked perfectly ludicrous sitting in that fertility doctor's office amongst all the women in their forties, women who REALLY had it hard. Even though after two years of pumping me full of hormones and draining our bank account, all it took to get me pregnant was a couple of whiskey and Cokes and the backseat of my car. Even though I will always wonder about the baby we lost. I can never truly regret the road that led up to Charlotte, no matter how many syringes and tears were lining it.

Me at the Hollywood Forever cemetery, the night before I found out I was pregnant


But, what I can do is ask a question. And here is where I (finally) get to the controversy: Were the doctors who treated me doing the right thing? When test after invasive test showed that there was nothing really wrong with me, nothing that suggested I would be unable to get pregnant unassisted, were they justified in performing a procedure on me that ultimately cost my insurance company about twenty grand to pull off? Or are they allowed to poke, prod, and inseminate anyone so long as they get paid?

Don't get me wrong. I'm not misplacing the blame. It was my own psychotic willfulness that lobbied for these procedures. But, I am genuinely curious about the line between helping and extorting. I remember pondering this issue when Octomom gave birth to those babies. People were discussing the doctor that implanted those embryos, wondering if he was ethically obligated to refuse to implant so many, especially knowing how many children she had already. Is it his place to refuse, or should a person be given a carte blanche to make irresponsible decisions because it is their body?

I definitely do not have the answer to this one. I guess I feel like a doctor shouldn't be forced to perform a procedure he or she can't reconcile, just like we should not be forced or denied to do something to our bodies we wouldn't choose to do. In my situation, I sincerely wonder if the doctors were only doing what they thought I wanted, trying to appease a customer. Or, were they taking us for a ride, squeezing out every last penny? I know that if they had refused to treat me, I would have been livid. And if they had kept recommending hormone therapy, and never suggested moving on to the next level, we would have stopped going to them. So, maybe they just did what they had to do to keep us coming back for more. But, I am having a hard time coming to terms with it, especially since they suggested the in-vitro. In my mind, that was way too far. Too unnecessary for a 25-year old who had only been trying for less than two years.

So, what do we think? Where do we draw the line between treating a patient and taking advantage of their paranoia and insecurity?

Also, here are the links to the other ControverSunday posts. All done by wonderful bloggers who I am loving getting a chance to read and interact with. Please check them out!

Our Lady of Perpetual Breadcrumbs (Special shout-out to the host!)

Accidents will happen (Special shout-out for the awesome badge!)

amoment2think

I Know Why You're Single (This post offers a pretty good counterpoint to the one I am tiptoeing around. If I elect to have a procedure done, I have to suck it and own the consequences. But does that mean docs should exploit our fears and perform unnecessary procedures just to shut us up and make some money?)

Allison @ Partial Disclosures

Pondering Prunes and Other Matters

So, a funny thing happened to me yesterday. See, we started Charlotte on solid foods this month. We’ve been doing the rice cereal for a few weeks now, and yesterday we added a fruit. We hemmed and hawed for a while about what to choose for the big premiere, and after a cautionary blessing from my friend, Alexis, (whose advice I sought on the matter) we chose prunes. Cautionary, in case you were wondering, because of the effect it might have on the princess’s bowel movements. So, of course, Charlotte had a delightful smear of prune-mush painted across her grinning face, requisite photos were snapped, and clothing was soiled. Chris and I enjoyed the moment as much as any team of parents would.

But, that’s not the event to which I am referring. It’s what happened after the moment had passed that struck me. Chris had taken the baby to her room for a wardrobe change, and I retired to the laundry room to spray some OxiClean on her bib and pajamas. And while I was doing this, I became irrationally and passionately HAPPY. I’m not exaggerating. I stopped for a moment to take in what I was doing, and I just felt so grateful and overjoyed that I had a bib to spot-treat, that I cried a little. Just a little.

Most of you will know where I’m going with this. As a former infertility patient who waited three years to have a child before finally giving birth to my daughter, I often find myself appreciating the smallest tokens of motherhood, tokens that maybe some people might never notice, and possibly not appreciate, either.

Of course, three years is a drop in the bucket to couples who have spent closer to a decade trying to conceive, to anyone who has attempted to raise the inconceivable amount of money needed for adoption or fertility treatments, to those who endure the scrutiny of their lives and homes at the hands of case workers and adoption agents, and especially to those same-sex couples who do all this AND contend with unfair discrimination, to boot. We were lucky that our insurance paid for all our treatments. We were even luckier that when they didn’t work, we were able to conceive naturally. But, those three years were the hardest of my life. Of our lives. I will never forget the pain of watching the parade of strollers pass by me in the mall, the effort it took to plaster on a smile at countless baby showers, the strength I had to muster to offer a simple congratulations to a friend, and the guilt I felt at not meaning it.

It was a painful chapter in my life, but it is a story for another time. This is a happier story. This is the story of how much I appreciate every moment of the amazing gift I was given. This is not to say that I think I, or anyone else in my position, loves or appreciates their child any more than someone who took one look at those cheerful, pink lines and thought, “Oh, SHIT!” I have seen parenthood shape and transform people. I know that it is, in some cases, the greatest thing that you never knew you wanted. And once you have it, you appreciate the hell out of it. I just think when you have to wait a while for it you gain a little perspective. And then you cry while doing laundry, apparently. I know. I’m very wise.

Of course, this doesn’t mean I don’t have truly awful days. Today was a truly awful day. Hell, last week was a truly awful week. I’ve been sick, and I can’t deny that I miss the days when I could call everything off, drown myself in Nyquil, and sleep until I felt better. Would I trade places with someone who can? Hell no! But, sure, it can be hard when all you want to do is sleep, recuperate, and wallow, and you have to wake up SEVERAL times throughout the night to rock, burp, or nurse your baby, beautiful blessing that she is. It can really suck when she won’t nap all day, refuse to nurse, then throw a tantrum because she’s sleepy and hungry. It totally blows when you can’t get the rest you need, but you have to get out of bed and suck it up. I feel sorry for myself sometimes. I cry out of frustration and even anger.

But then I look around my house. I look at the boppy, the burp cloths, the binkys she won’t take no matter how hard I try, the playpen full of toys. I go to her room and notice the half-read book I had to set down because she started screaming while I tried to read it to her. I see the indentation she left in her crib during her five-minute nap, and I think, “Hell YES! I am a Mommy! Finally!” I take it all in, the good and the bad, and I marvel that, at long last, I have everything I wanted.

Maybe this is something that every parent goes through, no matter how easily they became pregnant. We can never really know how we would feel if things had been different for us. All I know is that I may complain. I might have those days where I daydream about running away and drinking myself unconscious on a Mexican beach. I may even need to take a night off once in a while (like that’s even possible). But, I’ll bounce back. And then you might find me weeping for joy over prune stains, skipping a bag of diapers to the dumpster, or maybe dancing a little jig all covered in spit-up. Because I will never take for granted how grateful I am to be Charlotte’s mommy.

FINALLY.