I figured it out

I read through my blog the other day. Short, with infrequent posts, I know. But I figured out what I have lost, and why I haven't been posting. I have lost my hope and my sense of humor.

I promise you, nobody goes through infertility treatment - the procedures, the pills and injections, the emptying of the bank accounts - unless they have hope that all of this will result in a baby. I find the lack of success with IUI frustrating because our diagnosis made it seem like if we could just get the sperm past the first big hurdle, the TVOD, they would have smooth sailing (er, swimming?), be able to party with the egg, et voila', babyville! And since today is cycle day 1, meaning that IUI cycle 3 was a bust, clearly IUI has not been the solution we thought it would be. But it is comparatively inexpensive next to IVF, and our RE wants to do 4 cycles of IUI before moving on, so we will do another, even if hope is in extremely short supply around here regarding that particular "treatment."

So many of my previous posts have shown a sense of humor, even if it is odd. And that is such a critical ingredient to not losing one's mind when going through infertility. With my sense of hope, so has gone my humor. I have been lucky, lately, to have found some borrowed humor. There is a lady in South Africa, Tertia Albertyn, who began her blog, So Close, on the eve of her 9th IVF cycle in 2004 (yes, 9th! IVF is cheaper in SA than in the US). What an amazing woman. That she still had a sense of humor, albeit slightly black, after all that she had been through was amazing to me. Much of what she said over the course of the first year of her blog was so profound, so cathartic for me. I refer to her a lot lately, and I am feeling much more like myself.

And to comment on hope again, Tertia and some of the other infertility bloggers have something very important in common: all of these women have succeeded. And they all succeeded with IVF. So maybe that is what will work for us. Maybe not. But I will take a page out of Tertia's book. She was so stubborn, unwilling to give up, unwilling to let "fate" or "chance" or whatever control whether or not she would be a mother. "Fuck you, infertility. I will beat you. Just watch me." This is what she said, and it has become Dear Hubby's new mantra.

However parenthood comes to us, we will not give up either. We will be parents.