Wednesday, December 9, 2009

This post was inspired by this blog...and yes, I know I'm going to come off sounding bitter and jaded. But just indulge me. It's that time of year. And as I said to Mr. LC last night--I probably won't have too many readers anymore. After all, the train has already wrecked.

Holiday letters: I'll admit, we used to send one. You know, where you highlight all the high points (usually) of your year, brag about your kids (or dogs), and put in a picture (that's probably been Photoshopped). We stopped sending them after our second (or was it third?) IVF failed. Everyone knew that was what was going on, and writing about all the other superficial stuff and dancing around our own pain just felt, well, superficial. So here's the one we would send out this year, if we were being honest and keeping in the true holiday letter- overuse- of- exclamation- point-spirit!


Dear Friends and Family!

It's that time of year again--wow, we can hardly believe a whole year has passed by! I mean, we've been busy busy busy but essentially we're in exactly the same place as we were four years ago!

Let's see...on the heels of our spectacular crash and burn IVF cycle last November, we decided to scrape ourselves off the floor and pay another $20,000 to CC.R.M. to try again. Boy do we feel blessed for the privilege!

First off, I went to six months of acupuncture (secretly hoping it was the special cure and we wouldn't really need the big shot clinic again...but waaah waaah, every month my period showed up right on time, so clearly that wasn't enough either). I just loved laying there having little tiny needles poked into various parts of my body! I choked down herbs and more herbs--sometimes gagging on the teas. I then decided to give up all sugar, which really was just a delight. I also choked down gallons of protein shakes--yum yum! And lest you think Mr. LC was left out of the fun--every night he lined up his massive supplement doses just like a good little junkie and took them right down.


I started off by taking four shots every day. Mr. LC is really good at giving them to me right in my stomach. And the bruises were just lovely!

So we went out there in August and let me tell you it was spectacularly fun! Every morning I'd wake up early and go have an ultrasound wand shoved up my hoo ha to see how many follicles my ovaries could grow on massive doses of synthetic hormones. Then I'd get my blood drawn to see if my estrogen was going up high enough, or maybe too high to risk my life with a hyperstimulation syndrome. It was really a great vacation!

To get ready for picking up our little embryos I went and had my uterus punctured not once, but twice. Sure, I nearly passed out from the pain but hey--who am I to complain? I felt blessed to have the opportunity to improve my chances for getting what most people get from drinking a little too much wine.

We went back out in November to pick up those little embryos and boy were we full of hope and excitement! Another spectacular getaway! We came home with four potential babies on board. Crazy? Probably so. But don't judge until you've been there.

It turns out we did, in fact, get pregnant. We had that special knowledge for a whole 24 hours! Then it got yanked out from under us the next day. But boy am I grateful for those 24 hours...they were truly divine and certainly made everything we'd been through completely and totally worth it.

So here we are, at the close of 2009, a lot poorer and our hearts are basically a mangled mess. It's a good day if I don't break down and cry, so that's what we're grateful for. Most days we just get up, go to work, come home, eat dinner, look at each other in disbelief that we're here, discuss options, throw our hands up, and go to bed again.

Hope you and yours had a great year of birthdays, and special 'firsts' and trips to Disneyland, and baking cupcakes and cuddling and snuggling and sweet baby smells and little tiny kisses and footed pajamas and just absolute bliss.

See you at the end of 2010!

Much love--

Mr. and Mrs. LC and their three spectacular furchildren

15 comments:

  1. Ha! I love it! I'm going to show it to DH who is hard to work on our Spectacular 2009 letter as I write this. And glad I could be an inspiration.

    And to answer the question you asked in my blog, we are totally OOP when it comes to fertility treatments, although insurance is paying for most of the meds (except of course the most expensive ones). We paid for the two cycle program, which includes FETs. Not having insurance coverage is just rubbing salt into the wound. I mean insurance covers lung cancers for SMOKERS! ARGH!

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  2. You guys are inspiring me to write my own christmas card,
    I actually wonder if people would get the card, learn of our
    infertility, and feel bad about giving us all that shitty advice,
    but I doubt it! we would probably just end up with more!
    I hope that 2010 is better for ALL of us!

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  3. I just wanted to note that you're not getting rid of me as a reader or supporter! I continue to pray for you guys that you will find peace, answers, and a path of how to proceed.

    I just saw your comment and do not apologize for being absent. I totally understand if you don't want to read my blog all the time right now. Thanks for stopping by, though, and know that I am still hitting you up for cheering or walking company come February!! :)

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  4. You can totally send that to me in a Holiday card. I'll appreciate it. I always want to send out an anti-holiday newsletter about all the crappy stuff that happened in the year...

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  5. I think you should send this letter out. It would be a rude awakening to those people who just don't get it.. but then again, they probably still won't get it. What tishi said is probalby right.

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  6. Those letters! I hate those letters. I totally get the bitterness (you are allowed to have that!). I do recall my old landlady sending out those letters every year....she just turned 40 and lives in a very rural area and has severe PCOS...anyway, her letter last year detailed her hysterectomy and saying goodbye to the dream. I was surprised. I felt bad b/c I used to mock her letters since I knew her as a friend and knew very well her life wasn't perfect and she was struggling with things so those cheery letters always freaked me out. But, last year's...gave me new respect for her. So, some people do send these out, even with bad news in them.

    I really wish that this holiday season was a new start for you! I seriously can't believe the results of your transfer...and that ONE DAY. It is just so damn unfair.

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  7. Be jaded. Throw it out to the universe...you can't keep it to yourselves, that just wouldn't be fair.

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  8. I was thinking about the whole holiday letter thing myself recently. I just feel like I don't have anything I could really honestly say to my family, because I'm pretty mum on the whole IVF thing. Wouldn't it be nice if we could be honest about our lives?

    Reading blogs of women who have come to the end of treatment have helped me learn how I'm going to handle it myself. Seriously. I used to think, "what am I going to do if I don't have children?" I've learned that I'm going to live my life and enjoy it. Yes, I will be sad about not having children, but I can't stop living because of that.

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  9. I'm so heart broken for you that that would be your Christmas card. Many hugs my friend.

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  10. I was guilty of sending these letters back in the day when we were first married. I mostly poked fun at us and our furbabies and was always told our letter was a holiday favorite because it was funny. A few years ago things just didn't come out so funny and I quit sending cards altogether. I may have to write a similar letter to yours (not to mail) just because I think it would help to get it all out.

    I'm sorry this was your year. I've been saying it for a few years now that next year has to be better. Seriously, it really does this time, right?

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  11. I have a family member who sends those damn letters every year about her Dr husband and brilliant 2 kids and dog. We all read it in the kitchen and laugh our asses off and then chuck it in the trash. I hate those cards.
    I'm sorry for the pain you've been through and are still going through. I hope 2010 is a better year.

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  12. You would never lose me as a reader. You just have this way of astutely observing what has been going on and getting it all down in such a way that only you can do. I'm so sorry about the holiday letters and how your letter would read this year. I stopped sending stuff like that out after just 1 yr of IF treatment. I still find those letters hard to read and hey, if you can't be bothered to keep in touch with people and let them know about things as they actually happen during the year than you have to think long and hard about who you call your friends. 2010 - a year of change and answers?

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  13. Ahem - I meant to say that if people can't stay in touch with each other rather than "if you can't be bothered to keep in touch with people"...holy cow that sounded insensitive. Excuse the typo.

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  14. I loved it, just loved it. It reminds me of something someone wrote at the end of 2008 on IVFC (maybe it was you?) about a holiday card they wanted to send out- something like, "we had triplets! It's a dog, a cat, and a bird! We are sooo happy and thankful!" I don't know, it was great. I am NOT going to say I hope 2010 will be better, because I hate it when people say that to me, as the last 4 New Year's haven't been any better than the previous, so why would this years be?

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