Closing Up Shop

I think most people have figured this out, but this blog has gone down. At least I won't be posting here anymore...why would I? We're certainly not doing any LastChanceIVFs anymore.

Thank God for that.

IVF can be a soul-sucking money-sucking sanity-sucking procedure. It can also be a hope-laden miracle worker, but it wasn't for us. Some days I still can't believe I did five but oh well.

Yes, I wrote that: oh well.

It's fully in the past now. Someone recently wrote a sweet post about how our IVF video was inspiring to them, to which I had to wonder: how could anyone feel inspired by that? We failed. Over, and over, and over, and over, and one more time: over. But I guess it didn't kill us, right? We're certainly still here, alive and kicking and smiling.

So yeah, I'm so over IVF, snark. Which means I'm done posting here on the LastChanceIVF. But the posting itself--well, you guys know it saved me.

Thanks for reading, and supporting, and commenting, and holding me up over here. I really mean that. And I know international adoption isn't everyone's thing, but I hope you'll keep following the story and update your readers, etc. etc. at MyTwoLines. I'll be commenting as MyTwoLines, too, duh, as I continue to follow your stories.

So long, from the LCs.

Double Scoop

Ok I'm posting the full story on the new place.

It's up.

THANK YOU FOR THE LOVE here.

Start Spreading the News.....(edited/updated)

YUP. Hold on tight.

It's happening.

Follow along to learn how we finally got our unconventional two lines.... (edited to add: this is NOT a pregnancy announcement, but it is very much an announcement about my babies (plural) )!!

My Two Lines....

I promise to give you the full scoop soon over there, but for now, miles of smiles over here!

I've been quiet...

But I'm still around.

Suffice it to say that our trip was amazing. Perfect in every way. Our tenth trip to the city in ten years--the best one yet!

Christmas with my parents was better than anticipated. It's amazing how your perspective and expectations change...I was thrilled beyond words that my Dad managed to stay in the living room while we opened gifts, and even exchanged two or three sentences with us. He actually asked us to show us what we were opening up which was remarkable. And he chose to eat at the table with us, rather than eating in his bed. It was a Christmas miracle indeed. If you'd asked me if I ever would have been ecstatic to have my Dad just say three sentences during a family celebration I would never have predicted it, but alas, it was true.

Changes are coming to the blog..this much I know. I just haven't decided in which direction to turn. I turned off anonymous comments which feels ok, but still doesn't feel like enough. Maybe I'm getting to the place where I don't need to be out there so much...I cycle through this emotion every now and again but this time it seems to be sticking around.

I hope everyone reading had the best possible holiday they could. I know it's an awfully hard time to be dealing with infertility, to have empty arms, less stockings to hang than you want, to ache for the babies that should be with you, to see blissful families bustling around you who will never know the pain of yearning for what they have so easily.... There are myriad ways to feel pain at the holidays, but also myriad ways to feel joy.

I hope all my IF buds felt some joy this holiday season, because you deserve it all in abundance.

This was unexpected.

Why can't I feel like this all the time?



Instead, I'm in my office, door closed, trying to stem the flow of tears so I can see patients all afternoon without looking red and puffy. Because a coworker brought her tiny newborn in today at lunch and she's a precious little five pound peanut all 100% perfection and marvel and wonder and someone said "You do it so well you should just keep making more!" and I had to sit and smile and swallow hard, so hard, and I thought I could keep it together but behind my closed door I just couldn't keep it together. And the three other pregnant coworkers who are due within the next month came in to oooh and aaah and I was trapped in the corner and couldn't even squeeze past the pregnant bellies to get away, to breathe.

I am not a warrior right now.

On Being a Warrior and Running Races

A couple of weeks ago I ran the Warrior Dash. It's a silly short run that has 11 obstacles throughout, commencing with a crawl through a mud pit. I ran it with some good girlfriends (E and B) with whom I'm also lucky to work...I'd post a picture but they'd probably shoot me. Especially since one of them tackled me in the mud pit at the end and so we.were.covered. Also--the other literally backstroked her way through that same pit, hilarious.

Here's the thing: I've been running a lot lately. I'm enjoying long runs and so 3.2 miles was easy peasy. When we started E and I were keeping pace but B was falling behind. She wanted to walk. She told us to just go on, no reason to wait for her.

So we did.


After we ran the first mile and slogged through about 3 feet of muddy water on a different obstacle midway, we looked at each other and said: why are we not waiting for B? Hello? We're a team. (note: we weren't an official team, it's all individual but we agreed to race together).

So we waited. And waited. And waited.
When we saw B's tie-dyed shirt coming we screamed and screamed for her and her face just lit up to see we had waited. So we climbed over hay bales together, traversed cargo nets together, slid down muddy slopes together, at one point I offered to piggy back her for a while but she wouldn't let me.

I have this awesome picture of the three of us jumping through the fire obstacle and then crossing the finish line, together.

Our time was crap but it didn't matter.

Boy do I wish the 'race' to have children was the same. How I wish I had any control at all. How I wish that those of you who have sprinted past me (fertile and infertile) could just wait for me and maybe even piggyback me across the finish line.

But you can't. It doesn't work that way.

I know this intellectually but my heart can't seem to learn this, to accept this great disparity that exists between not only me and fertiles, but me and many infertiles as well.

A wise friend told me once that everyone runs their own race. These words comforted me through graduate school. They comforted me early on when I watched most of my girlfriends get pregnant easily--rinse, lather, repeat!--and they provided me some comfort when I started to realize easy fertility treatments and surgeries weren't going to fix me.

But those words don't comfort me as much anymore. Because while it's true that we all run our own race, the simple truth is not everyone crosses the finish line. I get it loud and clear that fertility treatments don't work for everyone, though they have for many of the people I know who have pursued them multiple times. But I'm starting to get how adoption doesn't work for everyone either. And that sometimes you just can't find another way to cross that finish line.

People on the outside easily think there are so many options that of course everyone can--but if they were really honest and knew the facts they'd have to see that it just isn't the case. It would be like me telling my Dad he could have run the Warrior Dash with me if he just wanted it enough. That somehow he could manuever his wheelchair over a cargo net.

The holidays are coming. A mixture of pure pleasure and pain.

The sixth one where we've been actively trying to create a family.

The sixth one where we'll hang two stockings.

We have three pets and two grownups and a lot of love and desire, but nothing tangible yet....

So I've been baking. And running. And shopping. And planning our trip. And running some more. All sanity savers because I need every shred of sanity I can hold onto most days.

For your pleasure (sugar cookie 'tree' and cake ball presents...)

PS I really want to respond to some individual comments (hellooooo??? former IF now ET adopter...hellllooooooooo, we must talk....) but I have just felt so overwhelmed (note the lack of posting lately). But I'm not ignoring anyone, I promise....

Happy Tears

Oh guys.

This past week or so has been so rough. I found myself in that dark dark place I have fought so hard against.

I have about six blog posts in draft, and none of them have made it here to the finished page. I re-read them and they're too...

Angry
Bitter
Upset
Sad
Depressed
Bereft
Hopeless

The list goes on and on.

I woke up this morning and thought: today is the day I will end the blog. I don't even know what to say here some days, it seems like I'm just on repeat, I am so tired of the journey, so exhausted from the pain of the pursuit of parenthood, so tired of feeling like it will not happen, so tired of picturing two stockings yet a-freakin-gain this holiday, just so tired. Why write about it anymore?

And then.

I got an email from the lovely Sarang. And she told me to check out her blog, a blog I have followed for a while now after receiving an invitation to view it, long after she had been a super supporter here for me.

What commenced when I read her post was happy tears, happy tears--buckets of em!--ugly crying but in a happy way--you guys know the kind, right?

Her post was a virtual surprise party for me, complete with delicious MEGA desserts and loving messages of support and just...

I don't even know what to say. (and that says a lot! :) )

Thank you seems inadequate but it's all I have.

Thank you from down deep, in the darkest part of my heart that only you guys understand, but also the part that feels hopeful and renewed just knowing you are out there, that I really don't know where I would be without you all and just...

thank you.

(off to cry some more happy tears--it is so nice to have some happy ones every now and again eh?)