Four.

We have four frozen embryos.

The leftovers.

The ones that weren't chosen. If the doctors had chosen differently, Rhys or Quin could be neatly preserved in a medical freezer in Boston right now, instead of playing happily on our living room floor.

At first I was thrilled with our four frozen embryos. I felt so lucky - to suddenly be pregnant with twins AND have four more embryos sitting quietly in wait should we need them.

And now the thought sickens me. Haunts me.

My four little embryos. Waiting. With uncertain futures.

I am a card holding member of the National Organization for Women. I will always stand up for, support, and believe in a woman's right to choose. I hate the way pro-lifers make the right to choose about something other than a most basic human right. They make it about "when life begins" and the "rights" of a fetus. Or an embryo.

It's not the pro-lifers who have gotten to me. I don't care what they think about infertility or infertility treatments or frozen embryos. But I have gotten to me. The mother that I have become has gotten to me.

When we chose to freeze them - or back this up even more - when we chose to create them or maybe have them created for us, I understood what we were doing. What I didn't understand was how it feels to be a mother, or the painful pull of the love I would feel for my children.

I feel that painful pull for our embryos.

I let my mind go all of the places that logic tells me not to go. I wonder about the children they might be. Would they coo like Quin? Give big open mouthed kisses like Rhys? Or have their own endearing traits to make me fall helplessly in love? Do they have souls yet? When does that happen, that an embryo, a fetus, a baby grows a soul? Why do I sound like I should be standing outside of an abortion clinic thumping my bible?

We don't know if we want any more children.

And if we do want more children, maybe we would want to see if it could happen without medical intervention this time.

But what about our embryos?

I consider donating them to "the right" couple. And believe almost immediately that I love them too much to chance that. To chance that they wouldn't be loved enough, or that I couldn't live knowing they were out there, mine but not mine.

I consider how selfish it would be to try and have a baby "naturally" when we have four we already started just sitting there waiting for us. I consider what that would say to Rhys and Quin about how they came into this world.

I watch Rhys and Quin play. I listen to them babble together. I look into their big blue eyes and am awed by their simple innocence. Behind the love is a layer of guilt.

Four embryos, waiting.

Fertile-Myrtle

I woke up nice and late a few Saturdays ago to a disappointing reality: I had broken a finger in my sleep. Sleepy and perplexed, I tried to rummage through the prior night's dreams to see what possibly could have led to such physical duress. Coming up blank, I glanced down to look at the injury, only to realize that the finger in question was not broken at all. It was suffocating.

Overnight, my once slender ring finger had turned into a grotesque purplish sausage. So I did what any normal hysterical pregnant woman would do and quickly scoured my house for every possible lubricating product on hand. I plopped myself down at the dining room table, applied enough lotion to cure an elephant with dermatitis, and after a few minutes of panicked claustrophobia, the finger was freed.

As my wedding band and engagement ring sat on the table in a slippery puddle, I massaged my throbbing finger and weighed my options. It took me seven years to get those rings on my finger, and I wasn't sure how I felt about parting with them so quickly. For goodness' sake, people might look at my big belly and then at my bare finger and start to make judgements. (You've done it. The belly-finger compare. Admit it.)

And then it occurred to me. This may be the perfect therapy for a former infertile. Because there's something about knowing that I got knocked up with a plastic catheter in an operating room that kind of weighs on me. I can (and will, as a matter of fact) argue that getting pregnant through assisted reproduction can be much more a labor of love and partnership than a regular old roll in the hay, but still. Sometimes I just want people to look at my pregnant belly and think, "oh. She must have had sex." If this seems odd, please consider how many times people have learned I'm having twins and commented, "oh. Did you take fertility drugs?" (Next time I'm asked this rudely probing question, I think I will respond: "yes, I did, because they're delicious and taste like Skittles).

So the idea of my newly ring-less finger FAILING The belly-finger compare is sort of totally appealing. People may think that I got pregnant ACCIDENTALLY! And that would mean I'm a fertile myrtle, here with my doubly pregnant belly and not even attached!

Let's just say I scooped those rings up, dried them off, and put them away in a nice, safe place.

How I Got Pregnant

Okay, perhaps the whole IVF thing is a bit obvious. I subjected myself to an experimental drug study and paid a lot of money to produce four of the cutest embryos I've ever seen. Then I had two of those embryos catapulted into my happily waiting uterus and the rest is history.

But I don't really think that's the whole story. I got the inspiration for this blog when reading
http://musingsofawannabemommy.blogspot.com/ yesterday, which made me painfully reminiscent of my infertility days from not so long ago. As I've probably contemplated to death over the past year on my blog, one of the things that was most difficult for me about infertility was not knowing what would happen, (would I ever become pregnant?) and not understanding why stupid sucky-face infertility was happening to me. I used to spend hours surfing the web, looking for a solution. Because good god! there were a lot of people on the Internet who had gone through infertility and gotten pregnant. Somebody had to know the secret. I actually remember finding teaser sites of couples who did "know the secret" and for the small fee of a few hundred dollars, would actually sell it to you. I hope those people catch a very bad case of diarrhea in public.

So now that I'm pregnant, do I know the secret? No. But having gone through it, and looking back on it, I do think I have a few insights to it that I couldn't see quite so clearly before. I don't think there is any one secret to overcoming infertility. I think that every one of us is different, and that infertility goes above and beyond the physical makeup of our bodies. I'll never be convinced that my experience with infertility was solely due to physical factors, especially since I still don't really understand what the physical problems were. Anyway, I do think there are a lot of things that helped me to get pregnant above and beyond that whole massive medical intervention thing. Maybe that's because I'm not a massive medical intervention kinda girl and it's just too hard for me to believe that after three painful years, the one and only answer was to let Western medicine take over. I think that the reality of it is that the right things came together at the right time. I found my secret recipe. And because we're all different, we probably all have different recipes.

So I don't have any massive revelation to make. Just that I think overcoming infertility is really about finding the right holistic recipe. And I'm not even sure I know the entire recipe. Because while I may over analyze every aspect of my life, I'm still on the outside looking out. But I thought it might be helpful to share my ingredients. Here they are:

• I joined an infertility support group. Nothing fancy...a small group of self-led, local women going through the same painful process. I had resisted this for a LONG time. Going to a group made infertility seem so real. I didn't want it to be real. But I finally gave in, got together with these women, and shared, and laughed, and cried.
• I got addicted to acupuncture. I went every day to a walk in acupuncture clinic which is much more affordable than the cushy one-on-one sessions that are lovely but for me, cost prohibitive.
• I cut out soy. I've always been quite the fan of tofu and soy products, until I started really looking at research on phyto-estrogens. I decided that my body didn't need any more synthetic hormones, and I cut out most soy products cold turkey a couple months before I got pregnant. I did continue to eat tempeh in good quantities, because it's fermented.
• I read. My two favorite books on the subject are "The Fertile Female" by Julia Indichova, and "The Infertility Cure" by Randine Lewis, Ph.D. "The Fertile Female" told me everything I needed to hear. It comforted me, and helped me to begin thinking of myself in terms of fertility, rather than INfertility. "The Infertility Cure" helped me to feel empowered. It made me feel knowledgeable about my body and offered many holistic solutions. I followed the instructions of this book pretty closely. Not everything made sense to me, so I took what I needed and left the rest.
• I purchased the guided imagery/meditation CD "help for infertility" by Belleruth Naperstek. I LOVE this CD series, and often miss how relaxed and comforted I felt when I listened to it. And I listened to it A LOT. Like, every day on my drive to and from work (almost two hours round trip) and many nights on headphones while I was falling asleep. I listened to this incessantly during every car trip to and from IVF appointments...especially before and after my embryo transfer.
• I followed (mostly) the dietary recommendations of my acupuncturist and "The Infertility Cure." For me, that meant cutting out sugar and cold foods.
• I DID NOT cut out alcohol. My wonderful OB/GYN gave me permission to do this...I'm so rigid sometimes that I actually needed permission to drink as I wanted. Most infertility advice tells you to cut out alcohol. If that works for you, great. But my doctor one day said to me, "Why are you doing this to yourself? Why are you living like a nun? Have fun. If you live like you're pregnant each month, then each month when you find out you're not, how much more painful is that going to be? Relax, and have a glass of wine if you want a glass of wine." And I did. I had quite a few, in fact. And it was great. It helped me to live in and enjoy the present moment.
• I drank a lot of pomegranate juice before my embryo transfer. You're supposed to load up on fluid ahead of time to help aid in the transfer process. I chose pomegranate juice because of its antioxidant qualities because I was worried that maybe inflammation was hurting my chances of getting pregnant.
• I cried. Whenever and where ever I wanted. I gave myself permission to live fully through the emotions of infertility and to stop trying to control the experience. To the horror of some friends and family members, I made crass jokes about infertility when I was in the mood. Blogging helped in this process. Once you put it out on the Internet, well. For me, that helped solidify my commitment to living fully and honestly through it.
• I allowed myself to feel hateful and jealous toward pregnant people. Non-infertiles might not find this to be a redeeming quality. It's probably not. But good god, it's survival.
• I did a lot of fertility yoga. I followed the DVD, "Fertility Yoga" by Monica Morrell, Ph.D.
• I ran my ass off.
• I had very supportive friends and family, and a wonderful, accepting, loving husband.

I think there are more ingredients as well. But I'm ending the list here for now, because I just scrolled back and realized how long it is. I used to really hate it when pregnant or fertile people would tell me how to overcome infertility. "Just relax." "Stand on your head after sex." "I don't know what to tell you, all I have to do is look at a man and I get knocked up." This list isn't a list of recommendations, just a list of what was helpful for me. If it makes you feel better, then stand on your head all you want. I think that's actually what I'm really saying in all of this.

Living. Waiting.

It's Monday evening.

I successfully completed a fairly productive day of work.

Bed rest is over. :(

I remarked to someone at work today that I haven't started to dissect every little thing that's going on in my body to determine if it might be a pregnancy symptom. Ever since, I've been dissecting every little thing that's going on in my body to determine if it might be a pregnancy symptom, or worse, a PMS symptom.

I had a wicked sugar craving this afternoon, and it has occurred to me that this very well could be the first signs of PMS. I bought a jumbo sized box of skittles and sucked the sugary coating off of every single one while I drove home from work. Gained some guilt, lost the craving.

A week from now, I will know whether or not I am pregnant. This afternoon, I felt the first true twinges of sadness at the thought that this may not result in a baby. Maybe it's being out of my bed rest bubble and back into the real world that I am finally seeing the dust settle around my IVF whirlwind.

I have not lost hope. I have gained fear.

as pregnant as I've ever been...

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the awesome language of infertility, I'd like to introduce you to a very important concept:

The 2WW, otherwise known as the dreaded "two week wait" during which you anxiously ponder the results of your latest fertility treatment, waiting to take a pregnancy test. Or not waiting, and taking four tests a day, certain that the negative result is simply due to a faulty test.

So I am now in the midst of the biggest, and certainly the most expensive, 2WW of my infertility journey thus far. The IVF 2WW. Perhaps you've noticed the large blue countdown to the right.

The 2WW can be a difficult time. No matter what anyone says, it is absolutely impossible to spend less than 23 hours a day wondering if the pregnancy gods will finally shine the light of favor over this cycle. Yes, I think about it while I'm sleeping. Do I judge your dreams?

I can't pass by this topic without stopping to point out how many times I have been told to focus on something else. Maybe this makes me bitter, but I'm pretty sure that telling somebody to "forget" that they may or may not have a fetus growing inside them is like asking somebody to forget that they have a left arm.

Anyway.

The 2WW is hard. Infertility is basically comprised of waiting and a good deal of neuroses. The neuroses is not necessarily a precursor to infertility, but it is certainly a side effect. Try having your uterus scanned three times a week and see if you DON'T end up making Jerry Seinfeld seem sane.

Another aspect of the 2WW is dealing with people who point out to me (as if they're the first to discover the world is round) that if my pregnancy test is negative, GASP, all the people who know about our IVF will know! People will know that I am not pregnant! People will know I am sad and disappointed! Gosh, I guess I really should have thought about that BEFORE I started airing my dirty laundry so publicly. What will people think if I fail to get knocked up? Will I be forced to live in some sort of infertile exile?

There is another way to look at this. Many optimistic infertiles have familiarized me with the term PUPO, or, "pregnant until proven otherwise." I may not necessarily be pregnant, but by golly, I am PUPO. And I have never been quite this PUPO before.

I know for a fact that there are two deliciously adorable embryos taking up habitat in my uterus right this very moment. I've never been able to say that before.

I could spend the remainder of my 2WW anxiously wondering how things will turn out. In all honesty, I can promise you that I will spend many moments doing exactly that. But it's not the only thing I will do.

I will also love the tiny little lives in my belly that my husband and I created. In the very least, we made some good progress...we got to cell division! And I'm not stopping there. I'm going to enjoy this time of hopefulness and wonder at all that it could become. Perhaps one day soon I will be shopping for some adorable organic onesies. Infertility can beat the dreamer out of the most imaginative of people. What once felt like harmless hopes and dreams become the sharpest knives in the artillery until hoping and dreaming feels so forbidden that you forget how to let your imagination go. For the next 7 days, I'm taking my imagination back. I'm going to dream until I'm drunk.

And I'm going to enjoy everything wonderful that I do have. Like this moment, sitting and writing on my deck with my husband lying next to me. Our sweet puppy is lounging in the shade and panting in the yummy June heat. Our grass is green and freshly mowed. My gardens are overgrown and lush with weeds and flowers alike. My ears are filled with birds and wind and always, good music. I smell grass and summer and sweat. And in this moment, I'm as pregnant as I've ever been.

Where's my cool breeze?

The embryos and I are resting comfortably.

They, like their mommy, enjoy turkey burgers and a good nap around lunchtime. It's a leisurely life we three live. And I could get used to this whole bed rest deal.

In all of this luxurious relaxing, I haven't forgotten that I had promised the details of my rather embarrassing moment of realizing I was still wearing my underpants as I sat on the operating table. And in deciding how to describe this in greater detail, it occurred to me that nobody wants to go back and read the details once I've spilled the punchline. Yet here I go, sharing details. Because I love details.

So. My loving husband and I are shuffled into the operating room for the big embryo transfer. He got to look all sexy and Gray's Anatomy-ish in some blue scrubs and face mask. I got to look all nursing home-ish in brown slipper socks, a johnny, and a robe. And let's not forget the powder blue shower cap. The nurse instructs me to sit on the table and pull the johnny out from under my bum. This is getting old hat for me. So I do as she says. And she's chatting away, attaching the big yellow stirrups to the table (these are no normal stirrups, ladies), when I realize that something feels, well, wrong. And I'm all nervous because here's my scrub-sporting husband and we're getting ready for the biggest, most glorified pap smear of my life, and I'm having a hard time figuring out what feels so, so wrong.

And then I realize. It's my cool breeze. It's missing. So in disbelief, I reached down under that johnny just to be sure. And where I expected to hit skin, I hit cotton. And by now, the operating table is all set up. The nurse has the big yellow stirrups waiting. The embryologist is smiling expectantly and I'm pretty sure making eyes at my husband. The doctor is at the back of the room, washing his hands. And I say, sheepishly, "um, I think I'm still wearing my underwear." Either that or my vagina is especially cottony-soft today. And she doesn't blink an eye. Doesn't miss a beat. She says, "oh honey, happens all the time!" (NO, it doesn't. Ask any infertile, and she will tell you that the first thing she does at any appointment is meticulously hide her underwear safely from view. Well doc, joke's on you, cause this time, I decided to hide my woo woo instead.)

So, what else could I do? I looked around the room. At the nurse, the nurse in training, the slutty embryologist, and the hygienic doctor. And I slipped those undies off in two seconds flat, bunched them up into the smallest little wad I could manage, and handed them to my husband with a smile. Who says IVF isn't sexy?

Wednesday

I've become totally unproductive at work. I feel a slight pride in this fact. If you're going to be unproductive, you might as well do it full out.

I am now the proud home to six good sized eggies, and quite a few mini-eggies. These eggies are high maintenance eggies. They require my full attention at all times, thus my new lackluster work ethic. With the slightest prompting from a good humored family member, I've now named the eggies. There's Steve, Marty, River, Isaiah, Whitey, and Claudette. Claudette's a fiesty one.

Yesterday I took the day off to bond with my eggies. We slept until 11am, woke up, and went to bed again at 2pm. We practiced Qi Gong breathing, some fertility yoga, a little accupressure, and indulged in a little Ben and Jerry's for good measure.

Today I took my eggies to work. We didn't get much accomplished. On my way home, I took to talking to my eggies. I made sure to stop each time I passed a pedestrian, lest they should think I've gone crazy.

So, here I am. Talking to my ovaries and shooting up hormones like it's my damn job. There is no normalcy when you're trying to grow a baby in a petri dish.