Infertility Land

I have a dear friend, a spiritual daughter, who at age 17 was diagnosed with cancer. Today, at age 19, she is cancer free, thank God, but the pain and trauma have left her scarred in more ways than one. Yet, it has been a time of beautiful creation too, she has blossomed into a fierce young woman (and I use fierce with all the best connotations possible) who has written some poignant and inspiring words out of this experience. Her blog posts and songs aren't afraid to voice the pain and uncertainties, but the underlying theme is always hope. Unquenchable hope. One blog post in particular resonated with me deeply. She talked about cancer as though it was a land she was forced to travel through, and her analogies struck a chord with my own journey, through Infertility Land.  Here's a few 'snapshots' of my travels through Infertility Land.

Despite the fact my parents spent 5 years in Infertility Land before I was born, and that I have Aunts & Uncles who have resided there, I had no clue I was living so close to it's borders.  In fact, I still have no idea when I really crossed into it's territory, there were no signs telling me 'Infertility Land 100 km ahead', there were no border crossing stations, there was no welcome sign to 'Infertility Land, Population 2 million'.  Even the people there seemed the same, at first.

But as time went on we noticed subtle changes.  I began to notice cultural differences, like men were seen and not heard, and even then, barely seen, at first I wondered if there were any here at all. Then I noticed a slight difference in language, a predominant usage of some words in particular but more so a tendency towards acronyms, like a secret language that you would only understand if you belonged.  Although there were some regional dialects within Infertility Land that I never picked up, I picked up the native tongue of Infertility Land pretty quickly.  Yet I still hadn't quite figured out our whereabouts yet.

So, what do you do when you are lost? You look for directions.  We were directed to the resident expert, one of two, and he seemed to know less than we did.  He tried to show us where we were, in vague and simplistic terms, like we had just taken a wrong turn and ended up there. Then he gave us what you might call a map, with wrong directions that even we in our limited knowledge knew was incorrect.  Just in case we weren't here by accident, he examined our modes of transportation and found nothing wrong, yet he gave us a special gadget anyway, one that should trick our GPS into heading towards Fertility Land.  That seemed like a good idea, for a few days, but then we realized how could we trust it was truly taking us in the right direction. But at least we had a vague map, and the 'You Are Here' circle was indeed inside Infertility Land borders.

We of course were certain we were just visiting.  Several times we saw signs 'Fertility Land this way', but every time we drew nearer to it's borders, or just managed to make it over the border, our vehicle would crash. Sometimes it was just a small fender bender, sometimes it was bloody mess. Every time we ended back up in Infertility Land.

Four years of getting nowhere, of feeling lost, feeling like foreigners, feeling like we don't belong. We were determined not to get comfortable and settle there, yet tired of getting our hopes up just to end up in another crash and still stuck here.  We finally resigned ourselves to finding a home, a permanent address in Infertility Land. At first, it was a gut reaction to another crash, I was bitter, frustrated, hopeless, and so I threw my hands in the air and said, 'Fine! You want me here, I'll stay here. Forever!' I was done with futile efforts of trying to escape.  I tried to get friendly with the natives. I tried to create a new community. My husband, always a homebody, seemed comfortable in the passive role most husbands had here, shut-ins - like ostrich's hiding their heads in the sand, pretending they didn't live at an address that broadcast their failure. I assumed our choice to settle would eventually lead to getting comfortable, but it didn't.  Of the natives I got to know, a lot were hostile, they spewed hatred for those living outside our borders, and those that weren't were either recluses or jumping aboard adoption trains out of the the country as fast as possible.  None of those were options we were comfortable with.

So after two years of unsuccessful attempts to become permanent residents, we decided to consult a different expert. One we should have consulted from the very beginning. An expert in all lands, not just Infertility Land or Fertility Land.  He gave us back our immigration paperwork, for now our Visa's were denied, we were deemed temporary visitors. The expiry date of our visitor status was blurred out and He wasn't telling us when we would finally be able to leave, we would be aliens in a foreign land for the foreseeable future. There was nothing we could do, provide, or control, to expedite our journey out of Infertility Land.  And so we once again began to explore the country-side, looking for the one road that would finally lead us away from here forever. The latest leg of our journey hasn't been without it's crashes, but one thing it hasn't been without is hope.

Because, now we have a different kind of hope.

An unquenchable hope.

My friend and I have mutually been inspirations of hope in our respective journeys, and another way she has inspired my hope is through her music, her first album was released yesterday and of course it is titled Unquenchable Hope. All of the songs are inspiring, but the one that touches my particular journey in Infertility Land is called For the Moment. I encourage you to find some hope through her musical journey, you can find the album here:

http://estherkoepnick.bandcamp.com/album/unquenchable-hope

Better Body Balance

It has been just over one year since I have ended the Clomid, and I know with certainty it was the right decision to end the treatment. While it technically worked, my eggs were more viable, and we learned more about what was going on in my body through it, God showed us after the 8 months it was just not the end of our path, it was only part of it.

I hadn't really shared much here about the Clomid part of my journey other than the initial treatment explanation, then the first month and last month. For those of you who don't know, Chlomid/Clomifene stimulates the release of a stronger egg, a more viable egg, so that if it was fertilized it had a better chance of surviving. This stronger egg that was stimulated would also be a second egg, you are ovulating 2 eggs per month, doubling chances of getting pregnant each month.

And also doubling all cycle symptoms.

And that was on the lowest dose, not only did I go up in dosage 2 times over 5 months, staying on the highest for 3 months, but the specific variation of this medication I was on builds up in the system so symptoms get stronger and stronger the longer you are on it. Not to mention, the last 2 months of treatment I also started taking a really high quality set of vitamins and they had a tremendous effect on my egg vitality (as demonstrated by the sustained viability I mentioned here), but also compounded the strength of every monthly cycle symptom.

So there I was, From February to April, feeling like I had rocks for ovaries for at least a week before ovulation and during ovulation. Then I had a sore abdomen (like I had done 100 crunches every day for the last week) up until PMS started. And PMS went from about 4 days to 7-8, and where I previously only had 1 or 2 symptoms that didn't bother me all that much most months, now I had 3-4 symptoms way more intense than before. And then, TMI, but my period went from a very light flow, with very minor cramping, for 3-4 days to a very heavy flow with 2 days of really uncomfortable cramping for 5-6 days.  All in all, I had maybe a total of 7 days each month that I wasn't in some sort of discomfort.

And of course, there was the estrogen fueled emotions. Granted I am a very emotional person every day of the month, but my PMS emotional sensitivity and quickness to cry is actually pretty tame compared to some women (no judgement, each person's hormones and emotions is there own, just clarifying my PMS emotions are not what some might think of when they think of stereotypical PMS). So, when I began to be much more easily frustrated, offended, sentimental and generally crying for no real reason, I knew the extra estrogen was messing with me. Unless you call Ellen giving a family a free new van a valid reason to weep uncontrollably. I don't, normally.

But that became my new normal. For the last year, this is the one symptom that refused to let go when the rest of the effects of Clomid did. It's not a lot of fun trying to stay composed when you are really fine but your hormones decide they want to have a complete melt down. And it's not just sniffles or dabbing your eye crying, it's often full on ugly cry and when I cry like that I get red and splotchy. I'm not into hiding my emotions but it's hard to convince others of that when you look like a wreck and are saying you are all good!

Interestingly enough I didn't even really realize this until the last few months. I've had a really hard year, some deep depression moments, some seriously frustrated and angry moments, some really sad moments of loss.  But when a pregnant friend kept apologizing for her heightened sensitivity and constant tears, blaming it on pregnancy hormones, it hit me! That's they key! My hormones are still out of wack from the Clomid! Yet, I didn't know what to do about it but wait it out.

Then, a friend who is very into natural treatments for everything thought to mention something to me about the medicinal benefits of essential oils, and through conversations and research I realized I might have an answer to my hormonal imbalance in something as simple as an essential oil. I started applying the oil 2 days before ovulation and already noticed a reduction in those symptoms and now I'm about to see how it fairs up against my PMS, but the biggest change is that my hyper-sensitive crying has reduced drastically! In the first few days I already noticed a huge difference! I can't wait to see what a body in better balance feels like!