Is this thing on? Ok ladies (and men oddly interested in the topic of single motherhood), this is my very first blog so I hope you'll be gentle with me.
I decided to start a blog since I discovered I've been obsessively writing in my journal ever since this "journey" began (btw, I kind of hate the term "journey" used in this way, even though I do use it occasionally) and figured what the heck, why not share my neurosis with the internet?
So what I'm going to do is start posting old journal entries from the beginning of this "process" (kind of hate this term, too, but still use it) so you can see what I went through on a day to day basis, how I came to this idea, etc. Hopefully it will be interesting to someone other than me.
As a brief overview, here's my current situation: I am almost 39, never married, no significant relationships. Always thought I'd like to be a parent in that sort of vague, "only if I meet the right guy some day" way that women in their 20s and early 30s have the luxury of having. Then a number of things happened all at once last fall - a very brief relationship that I often referred to as "my last chance to have a kid" dissolved, immediately followed by my beloved and only aunt dying. A week after I was driving along the 2 and thinking how my family's gene pool just shrank and how sad that was, when it hit me like a bolt of lightning: "you know, you may still be able to have your own biological children." I immediately started Googling sperm banks, artificial insemination, single mothers, etc, bought every book on the subject, signed up for discussion boards, told my sister, and pretty much decided two days later I was definitely trying this, whatever the outcome. I had to delay a few months to allow myself to get off birth control, to do some charting, and allow for a huge international trip that I just returned from a week ago. I missed my chance for March but will be trying my first IUI in April. Lots more about this to come. But here is my journal entry for today. Note: the issues I'm talking about are the discovery that I have low progesterone and a thin lining. Had an ultrasound Monday.
3/16/11
Spent a whole day obsessing and worrying yesterday as you know. And then spent much of the day beating myself up that I was worried and obsessing, telling myself I need to just relax, do my breathing, have fun with this time, and my personal favorite, “boy, if you can’t handle this level of anxiety when nothing is even happening, then you sure aren’t ready to be a parent.” Sound like someone familiar…? (ed: my mother)
Still, saw V last night and she made me feel about 1000% better. It’s fun to see the excitement in my friends (she asked before I even brought it up); it’s contagious, and reminds me that this is supposed to be FUN, not dark and heavy like I’ve let it become lately. Of course she can’t give me advice on my “issues” (nobody can, not even doctors, since all of this stuff is still a mystery even to professionals) but she can at least inject a little fun and excitement into the mix, which helps enormously. It’s funny, she mentioned having helped with a friend’s sick kid recently and that kicked her out of the potential “I want to be a mommy” club – but I told her that reminds me of how I was at her age (two years ago); I would think about it, and then I’d see a toddler at the supermarket having a meltdown and think, “oh, forget it, kids are awful.” And the answer to that is yes, they can be, but that’s not all parenting is about – nursing sick children and tolerating their tantrums. Believe me, if it were, we’d all be dead now because no woman alive would sign up for it! I remind myself that nobody ever said parenting (or getting, or staying pregnant) is easy; it’s not about taking this task on because it’s easy or fun all the time. Is anything in life easy or fun all the time??? I’ve been doing (my event) for fourteen years and even now it is not easy nor fun, even though there are things about it that have gotten easier and there are moments of fun in it.
I keep seeing posts on Facebook about how kids are “a horrible investment”, how expensive they are (I don’t know where they get these insane figures – they must involve a lifetime of expensive private schools, a Mercedes on the kid’s 16th birthday, and a down payment for the kid’s first house), how they offer “no return on investment” and all this crap. Are you kidding me? Let me guess, the MAN who wrote this article must have been treated this way by his parents – that he was a pain in the ass, that he wasn’t living up to expectations, that he wasn’t worth the expense and trouble. Good times. One thing I’m learning about this whole experience is that your attitude towards parenting, and the experience of parenting, can vary dramatically based on your age, your circumstances, and how your parent(s) presented parenting to you. Like V, you can feel one way at one time in your life when you have a difficult night with a sick kid (“Ugh, I don’t ever want to do this”), or you can be me, at the end of my fertility and with the recent death of a beloved relative thinking, “this isn’t pleasant, but this is part of the deal.” I accept all that. I accept the vomit, the poop, the melt downs, the embarrassment, the confrontations when I protect my kid from harm, the illnesses, the worry. You have to be on board when you make a decision like this. Luckily for me it is a decision and not something I had to back into unawares. But you know what? Most of the women who get pregnant on accident actually manage to do a pretty decent job. So that shows you people can rise to the occasion when they need to.
So came home last night with a renewed sense of fun and lightness. However, woke up today and compulsively Googled various topics: low progesterone, low progesterone as indicator of poor egg quality, weak ovulation, early menopause. You can see the train of my thought here. The jury appears to be out as far as the whole is low progesterone a cause or effect of bad egg quality? One thing I’ve discovered from reading boards is every RE is different – and some appear to be downright incompetent. It scares me when I see women who have had multiple miscarriages and only then their RE starts to look into maybe low progesterone, and then bingo, healthy baby. I mean, I’m all about not medicating when you don’t need to, but Jesus. Now I’m worried I need to get more information before wasting time and money. What about Estriadol and FSH numbers? I may talk about this on Monday, since these (at least the FSH) can be checked during my period, which would be before anything happens next month. Should I do it? They will probably say, “well, you can if you want,” which does not help me. Also I know from the boards that FSH doesn’t really mean anything; that the numbers fluctuate all the time and even “bad” numbers don’t mean no healthy baby. Everything is different for every woman, all the time. Maddening, isn’t it?
I hope I get a chance to really sit down and have a discussion at the clinic. I want to ask, “Should I be worried? In your experience, does it look like I’m going to have problems? Should I be taking other tests? Do you have stories of women with my issues who went on to have healthy babies? Could all of this be still recovering from birth control?” Who the hell knows! I know that I have a) a normal luteal phase (looks to be 12-13 days), b) I am ovulating on my own, every month, c) cycles are irregular but in a regular way, as in, one long, one short, and always within a normal range, d) no history of any weirdness – no endometriosis, no cysts, all parts there & normal and working, no missed periods, no super long or short periods, nothing unusual. This all has to mean something, doesn’t it? And I’m not that old, I have no health problems or history of surgeries, etc. Nothing. Still, I know all of this means absolutely nothing. I saw a lady in the waiting room for an ultrasound when I was there who was hugely overweight and had a head of grey hair. Can she get pregnant and I can’t? Who knows!
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