Katy Vs. Her Ovaries - Tick Tock

After the blood test in December resulted in the assumption that I did not ovulate, I spent a few days just kind of doing nothing. I considered not pursuing any sort of further information or treatment. I considered closing the baby door and throwing the key away until I was thirty (for some reason I expect thirty to bring a new understanding of this world). I spent a lot of my time making note of everything in my life that couldn't happen with a child. When I slept until ten on a Saturday, I celebrated the uninterrupted rest. When I hung out with friends past midnight, I celebrated the freedom. When I booked a vacation, I celebrated the extra money. When I came home from work to a quiet house, I celebrated the silence. Unfortunately, when my friend had her first child, I couldn't shake those little toes or the little noises he made. When I spent time with another friend's baby, I couldn't quit thinking about how much I liked holding her and smelling her and wanting to teach her things (namely for fear that the baby's mother will not provide adequate athletic wisdom). Nonetheless, over the few weeks that I focused on all of the things in my life made possible by not having a child I was also forced to focus on all of the thing in my life missing without one. 

I eventually realized that doing nothing was silly. I have watched my own mother face three separate cancer diagnoses without flinching. I could walk into a doctor's office and discuss my eggs...or lack thereof. 

After the next doctor's appointment, our plan of action involved taking a prescription drug called Clomid designed to increase a woman's likelihood of ovulation. The drug is taken on specific days during the cycle followed by a properly timed amorous few days in hopes of scheduling conception. The whole process is very funny when you stop and think about it. Certainly drugs and "properly timed intercourse" (their words, not mine) are not my idea of the best month of my life. However, in the big scheme of things if this was all that it took to get pregnant I realized it would seem barely a blip on the radar in the future. 

Along with Clomid, I was also scheduled for a day 13 ultrasound to actually look at my ovaries to determine whether or not I had follicles (medical term for eggs before they are technically eggs). I walked away from the appointment feeling good about the plan of action. I had a couple of weeks before I would actually be required to start taking the medicine. I honestly still wasn't sold on the idea.

Cody and I talked a little about not taking the Clomid at all. Again, we are both so very happy with our current existence. We revel in all of the time we get to spend together and how in love we are with just us. We do not spend our days trying to fill some sort of baby void. We do not feel like something is missing. I literally feel like every day with Cody as my husband is a little more rewarding than the one before. I think the satisfaction we both feel with our current situation makes us both a little worried that we don't want this child bad enough. The internet is full of people spending their life's fortune and years of their time and going to limitless ends to conceive a child they have wanted for so long. Cody and I are not those people. 

My decision to go ahead and start the Clomid came from a gnawing fear I have had since the beginning of this process that involves Cody and I turning into those people on the internet. The weird thing about infertility is all of the not knowing. There is often not a clear diagnosis. There is often not a finish line. There are just months that slip by faster and slower than you ever imagined. There are just days that get filled with all of these ways to make your body do the most fundamental of all processes. There are just months and days that can turn so quickly into years that never get filled with little toes and little noises of your own. I couldn't help but feel like every month I let slip by without conceiving a child is one less month that I get to play the baby lottery. It's as if my biological clock not only started ticking for the first time but also made its entrance with the volume indicative of someone much older than myself. 

Katy vs. Her Ovaries - Child-Bearing Hips

Every day that passes I accept my most recent reproductive issues a little more. I am still not sold on actually wanting children this very minute, but I am sold on wanting them eventually. The eventual desire that I assume will show up one of these days is what motivates me to move forward with some sort of medical intervention. The weirdest part about this whole situation is that I am supposed to (and have) felt an immense sense of loss or disappointment over not being able to have children sometime in the future. It's not like I had a child and lost it (unimaginable pain). It's not even like I got pregnant and miscarried a child (also really awful). Both would be much more tangible, real experiences. Yet, somehow the past few weeks have felt something like losing someone. I have experienced a hypothetical, maybe someday loss of a person I've never met. A confusing thing to process.

I have had enough time to sort of step back and analyze this whole situation. In some twisted way the concept of me being infertile is actually kind of funny ironic. I spent my entire life convinced that I possess the most fertile womb on the planet. The women in my life periodically passed down reproductive wisdom to me growing up. My grandma (who is also about 5'10" and shaped very much like me) used to tell me that I had "child-bearing hips." I hated this description. I hated my hips. I hated having a body useful to a woman, when I was very much a kid still. Today, my grandma is a no-frills ninety-year-old. She's lived through the Great Depression, had three boys, and was married to a WWII veteran who was absent for long stretches of his children's lives. My grandma probably got pregnant by magic. I doubt my grandfather even had to be in town for the event. She just looks like a mother. She's big and strong, yet feminine in every way. She can cook a meal unlike anyone else in our family and never misses a beat despite her age. I have always been under the impression that my grandma just knew things that the rest of the world didn't. I believed her when she told me I had child-bearing hips. I believed her when she told my long torso would make for easy pregnancies. I believed her when she told me I would have lots of kids. I believed her because I had no reason not to.

After years of "child-bearing hips" references, I think I adopted the same belief about myself. In college I was convinced on a few different occasions that I was pregnant. The catch was that I hadn't had sex with anyone to actually get pregnant. Immaculate conception I suppose. I've spent my life convinced of my inevitable future motherhood. I've never once doubted that getting pregnant is anything other than simple. I believed that I could control pregnancy to the point that I could choose a birth date. I never imagined to be in this situation. Why would someone be cursed with child-bearing hips and not be able to bear children?

I have slowly started to rewrite my story over the past couple of months. I have let go of preconceived notions about who I am and started to accept that whatever story unfolds in the coming years will be the real story. It's easy to rely on the words of those who have come before you to narrate your own experiences. It's easy to buy into the wisdom of people you love, people you trust. It's easy to predict your fate based on your reflection in the faces of those before you. Nonetheless, every person is responsible for finding their own story and their own reality...no matter how big your hips are.

Katy Vs. Her Ovaries - The Backstory

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know that I have spent the past few months writing about having babies. The main reason for all of this philosophizing about reproduction has stemmed from my own entertainment of the idea of having a kid. Now, I feel like it's important for you to know that my willingness to have a child started out as some sort of half-hearted experiment in fate. Let me explain... About a year ago we stopped taking precautions to not get pregnant. Being the obsessive planner/control freak that I am, I decided with the input of my dear husband that we should try to get pregnant in May, June, or July of 2012. Why those three months you ask? Because I teach school and the ultimate goal of any female educator is to have a child in March. March allows teachers to take the 12 weeks of maternity leave available and not ever have to come back to school before summer break. It is the Holy Grail of life as a female educator. Because I wanted to be reasonable and accepting of the unpredictability of getting pregnant, I allowed for a couple extra months just for good measure. Needless to say, I did not get pregnant. We closed up shop and continued to make fun of all of our parent friends and their exhausting existence as parents of young people. I tried really hard to not worry with those three months of no pregnancy. It was THREE MONTHS. I heard all these mothers recount trying to get pregnant for 6 months or 8 months or over a year even. They all had kids, so why in the world would I be any different? But for some reason I couldn't shake the feeling that something wasn't right. I started learning more about pregnancy and ovulation and cycles and cervical mucous and ovaries. I read articles about basal body temperature readings and biphasic months. I completely over-saturated myself with pregnancy information. I felt like I needed to equip myself with all of the knowledge available to be prepared for the next time we decided to try. Over the next few months I did notice that my cycles (periods? Why are both of those words so icky?) were not regular. Some were 31 days and some were 33. I even had a 53 day cycle somewhere along the way. It seemed a little weird to me and naturally only fed my feeling that something wasn't right. Thankfully, the school year started. I was so busy with volleyball and teaching that I didn't even think about having a child. Cody and I were never really sold on the idea in the first place to be honest. In fact there were a lot of days when I was thankful that those three months hadn't resulted in me being pregnant. I convinced myself that there is so much time to have kids. We are so young. Cody felt the same way. I never did get back on birth control. I used my new-found reproductive knowledge to avoid getting pregnant. After volleyball ended, i did flirt with getting pregnant. I kept telling myself that if I was healthy and viable then maybe I would just get pregnant. I always felt like it would be so much easier to just turn up pregnant. No planning. No thinking ahead. No scheduling a birthdate in March. Just get pregnant. People do it all the time. i mean people get pregnant ON ACCIDENT. In December of 2012 I went to see Dr. Bell for a regular check-up. Everything went fine during the appointment. He told me I seemed completely healthy. I did ask him about my irregular periods. He was literally walking out of the door when I explained what was going on. His response was a simple one: "that probably means you're not ovulating." I sort of felt like someone had punched me in the stomach. My reproduction 101 lessons flooded my brain. Panic set in as I wondered how in the world people get pregnant without ovulating? I never imagined that would be the answer. I was looking for a "oh, there's nothing to worry about," or " almost everyone has irregular periods." I did not expect the answer he gave me. I walked out of his office that day with an appointment for blood work that would definitively say whether I had released an egg. I also walked out of his office with a premonition that hinted that this was only the beginning of a completely unexpected journey. The blood test revealed that I had not ovulated. It took the doctor's office forever to call with the results. I was cooking dinner when the phone rang. The nurse told me so nonchalantly about the results. I asked what exactly the results meant. She beat around the bush about there being a lot of different options, and she listed a few different treatment plans. She ended the conversation by telling me that the ball was in my court as to how aggressively I wanted to treat my infertility. I remember being shocked at how calm and cold the nurse sounded. I remember wondering how one month of not ovulating suddenly classified a person as infertile. I was hurt. Upset. Stunned. Confused. Frustrated. Scared. I felt like what started as an innocent question to ask only because I wouldn't talk to Dr. Bell for another year had unexpectedly opened the flood gates of infertility...I was suddenly involved in a fight to have a baby that I wasn't sure I even wanted.

Katy vs. Her Ovaries - Part 1

When I was in Mrs. Loyd's third grade class, we were required to write a paragraph about what we wanted to be when we grew up. As a nine year old, I explained (in near perfect penmanship by the way) that I dreamed of being two things as an adult: an NBA player and a mom. My mom still has this assignment tucked away in a box somewhere. In high school she used to mention this assignment if ever I found some success as a basketball player. I think my mom loved the dichotomy of her child. She appreciated the relentless athlete mixed in with something as cute as a little girl wanting to be a mom.

I remember wholeheartedly thinking that I could make it to the NBA. I dominated kids at Nancy Orr Girls Club as a child. A head taller than most with a bit of coordination equaled some pretty impressive Saturday afternoons on the hardwood. Nonetheless, the older I got the more reality set in. I eventually shed the impossibilities of the NBA, and I altered my goals to include much more realistic athletic achievements.

However, over the years I never faltered in my second dream. The idea of being a mom has always been something I want. I think this is only natural as the daughter of Patsy Schrodt. My mom has always made evident to my brother and me that being a mom is the best thing she's ever done. I was never one to imagine my wedding day. I didn't envision a perfect husband. After my NBA hopes were dashed, I was never particularly sold on a professional path (still not sold). I've never known a whole lot of what  I want to do...besides be a mom, like my mom.

What's funny about all of this is that I have never been very motherly. I don't exude maternal instinct. I have never spent much time around babies. I don't even like kids a whole lot for the most part. I have just always assumed that I would like (love) my kids. When I met Cody, I had an even stronger desire to have our kids. I am mesmerized with the idea of creating life. I am fascinated with the idea of having a baby that might look like me (or Cody) or talk like me (or Cody) or laugh like me (or Cody). Literally, I think reproduction is the most mind-boggling part of existing. It is bound to be why we are here. Right?

I realize you're wondering what I'm getting at here...Recently, Cody and I have found ourselves at a bit of a reproductive stand still. We are still trying to sort out all of the specifics, but in very general terms we have determined that getting pregnant for us will not be as simple as we both once thought it would be. I will eventually communicate the actual medical issues that we (I) am facing. It's still a little early in the process to start explaining a whole lot.

At first I was extremely hesitant with the idea of sharing fertility details. I realize that we are all a little uneasy with words like "ovary" or "cervix" or "uterine lining." In turn, we are naturally hesitant to share stories about getting pregnant. However, I have spent the last few months dipping my toe in the infertility waters and have found that it can be a lonely place. (i.e. my infertility comfort has mainly come from Khloe Kardashian and Guiliana Rancic. Not acceptable.) Since I don't have a reality TV show, I figure I will do my part in using my words (even the uncomfortable ones) to talk about something that unfortunately impacts a lot of people.

I will eventually tell my story.

Thursday Afternoons in March

A few days ago I was driving home from work on one of those afternoons when everything feels right. The sun was out. The windows were down. The air was warm enough to make you forget about the morning cold. It was a few days before Spring Break when life as a teacher gets a little easier. As I was driving down my street, I noticed my mom was outside in her front yard, and I stopped to talk to her. We sat on her front steps, also my front steps in a lot of ways. We talked about nothing in particular. The flowers she was planting. My plans for Spring Break. The nine holes of golf she had played that morning. I stayed for maybe thirty minutes before continuing down the street to my house.

As I got in my car to leave my mom, I realized that those are the moments that make cancer hard to bear. Cancer is not so obvious a problem at Thanksgiving or Christmas or New Year's. There is too much already present on those days. Too many gifts. Too many people. Too many chores. Too many things to keep your mind from worrying. It is sunny afternoons in Spring when the work day is done and my mom feels good enough to work in her yard when cancer creeps up on you. It is conversations on front steps where cancer is nowhere to be found in my mom's words or laughter when cancer grabs me once again. It is a random Thursday not worth noting for any other reason than wanting to remember my mom just like that. Happy. Healthy. Funny. Present. It is those moments that remind me that cancer is still a part of our lives. We are not fighting cancer like we were a year or two years ago. We are not going to doctor appointments every week or holding our breath for test results. She is not in enough pain to mention. She is not worried enough to steal her usual ways. But cancer is not gone and in all honesty it probably never will be for the rest of my mom's life. All of our front step conversations will unfold against the backdrop of illness. Cancer will permanently be glaring over our shoulders. Stealing a bit of our afternoons. Darkening the sunlight that used to not be worth so much. Tugging at our memories. Reminding us to hold on to these conversations and these moments when things are better than they used to be, than they could be. These moments are easy. Too easy. Afternoons when things are they way they are supposed to be worry me now. Somewhere on those steps there is a ticking that can't be silenced. There is a relentless reminder that no one knows what is around the corner.

It is afternoons like this one that cancer is a problem; however, without cancer these afternoons would not count nearly as much. The ticking would be gone. The skies would just be bright. The flowers would just be blooming. The words would just be words between two people. Cancer takes away, but it also gives back. It makes you (me) stay a few minutes longer and laugh a little quicker and make note of Thursday afternoons in March when the world is right and the people you love so much are planting flowers in the front yard.

Friend Diva

Cody: Why don't you like my mom?

Me: I like your mom!

Cody: She doesn't have enough to offer you, does she?

Me: What's that mean?

Cody: You only have so much room in your life for people. If someone doesn't have something to offer, you just don't let them in.

Pause.

Me: Just be glad I had an opening a few years back.

I recently devoted 2013 to finding new people in my life. I chalked my lack of good people up to a new crop of babies (see http://codyandkaty2010.blogspot.com/2013_03_01_archive.html) or people just not being interested in being friends like all the cool people on tv (see also http://codyandkaty2010.blogspot.com/2013_01_01_archive.html). 

After the above conversation with Cody, I realized that I'm a friend diva. I expect a lot out of the people I consider my friends and in turn require an extensive commitment from someone before I "let them in" as Cody puts it. I'm starting to think that I don't have a waiting line of friends because word has gotten around that I require a boot camp like initiation into the friend zone. I require endless conversations about ridiculously depressing or over talked about topics (i.e. men, the existence of god, my entire high school sports career, terminal illness, fate, destiny, and why we are really here). I expect text messages to be answered in the utmost timely manner. I need you to watch at least half of my favorite tv shows which all come on premium cable channels. I need you to thereafter analyze my favorite characters in those shows...also in a timely manner. I like to hang out at least twice a month. I'd prefer you to not have children. I need to like your husband/significant other as much as you. Democrat over Republican. Dogs over cats.  A user of correct grammar. Willing to travel when I want you to. No country music fans. No smoking. No loud breathing (no, I'm not kidding). And a propensity for a well-timed curse word or caddy remark is a bonus.

I know, right? Quite the exhaustive list of characteristics in a friend. Cody made me realize that I am impossible to be friends with due to the above mentioned traits of my perfect friend. I'm a friend diva. Cody tried to describe my extensive screening process for important people as me having a high barrier to entry (Cody is really into business stuff lately. Barrier to entry refers to the obstacles present when starting a new business). I expect the best and only the best. I need to have real conversations with real people about things that matter in this big wide world. I don't have time for acquaintances and superficial chatter. In other words, I have a high barrier to entry when it comes to letting people in my life. Surprisingly, I think Cody is completely accurate.

In honor of Cody highlighting my high barrier to entry, I have decided to revamp my friend resolution for 2013. I don't want to find new friends necessarily. Instead, I want to start being more appreciative of the ones that I have. I want to stop requiring so much of my people and instead focus on all of the good they bring to the table. I have good friends and good people. I have never questioned this. I have just lost focus of what is right in front of me. I have let the changes that naturally happen to people impact my relationship with them. I assume everyone has as much time on their hands to cultivate deep, meaningful relationships with me as i have to cultivate relationships with other people. Not every person has to be the person. Maybe the answer is to roll with the punches a little better and accept that each person is good for something. I need to start finding the good that everyone around me has to offer. Even my mother-in-law who I need to work on allowing in a little more. Or some at all. 

New 2013 resolution: stop being a friend diva.

Babies and Northern Lights

I am in baby hell and there is no obvious escape route.

Two of my good friends have had children within the past three months. One of said children was born just last week. Today I went to visit this newly created human. As we were sitting around admiring this little guy, we all started commenting on the looks of the baby. My first-time mother friend said that the baby's appearance had improved since being born. She noted that his head was sort of cone-shaped from the get-go and that his nose was sort of smashed. She went on to admit that her and her husband had tried to brace themselves for their new son not being the cutest addition to the family. Being the animal lover she is, my friend said that her first thought upon seeing her baby boy was "it's no puppy."

I could not agree more with my friend in respect to human babies being anything other than a puppy. They are not as cute as puppies. They are not as easy to take care of. They are not as affordable. Human babies cannot be put in cages for hours at a time. They cannot be bathed with a garden hose. Human babies require feeding numerous times a day and cannot be trained to use the restroom any specific place until years into the relationship. Human babies do not come when you call them. They do not take a liking to having their ears aggressively rubbed or being left outdoors on sunny afternoons...or any afternoons for that matter. And yet, nearly every woman I have in my arsenal of friends has signed up for a bare minimum of eighteen years of human babies for which I have very little explanation.

As an adult I have seen a few lines drawn in the proverbial sand. College or no? Moving away or no? Marriage or no? The only line drawing I ever gave much thought was moving and marriage. I knew that both of those decisions would very much dictate most aspects of my life. I sort of understood the ramifications of picking up and moving away and sort of understood the ramifications of getting married. Whether I understood the specifics of those processes is not as important as me having understood the seriousness of whatever the ramifications were. And yet, I always took solace in the fact that both moving and marriage is somewhat easily reversed. I knew that moving can happen at most any juncture of a journey. I knew that marriage was a little more difficult to reverse, but nearly half of us find a way so I could too.

Recently, I have started to notice that the number of folks on the other side of the baby line is rapidly increasing. Facebook is a hotbed for baby videos and baby announcements and gender reveals and 20 week updates (by the way, no one cares that your fetus is the size of a fig). Babies are everywhere and they don't seem to be going away. People I don't even know are having kids and announcing it to the world of Facebook on a daily basis. With every new baby, I feel a stronger sense of urgency to finalize my decision on which side of the line I want to stay. With every 20 week bump picture, I find myself considering what I would be craving if I were pregnant. With every gender reveal surprise, I find myself sucked in to the wonder of so-and-so having a baby girl as if one of these times someone's gender reveal party is going to expose that someone is having a pterodactyl instead of a boy.

I honestly don't get the attraction. Yet, I understand that I must be missing the appeal of children, because we all keep getting pregnant. Some of us are even signing up for baby #2.

I ask my mom friends to articulate what is so intriguing about their own child, and I never get a sufficient answer. I get a lot of "make sure you do everything you want to do before..." answers. And a lot of "you have plenty of time before you have kids." I've had a few "I would have waited a little longer" responses, but I never get an answer that communicates the reason for having a baby. I even ask my own mom who claims that my brother and me are the best thing she has ever accomplished. She gives me the predictable "you just don't know until you have your own" response, which I think answers why we all do just that. Babies benefit from the ultimate marketing campaign. We are all persuaded to jump on the baby bandwagon because the only way to understand is to get one for yourself. Babies are unable to be appreciated from afar. There is apparently some magnetic pull of early morning feedings and incessant crying. There is power in those little cone shaped heads and dirty diapers. In between the spit up and poop, there is some sort of baby drug these little unassuming humans are creating. To non-parents babies are like a mystical creature unexplained by all the parents in this world. Babies are like Nessie or Big Foot. They are UFOs and aliens. Babies cannot be defined or understood until you simply drink the kool-aid. Babies are the Northern Lights of adulthood. You don't know when exactly you're going to get to see them, but everyone testifies to the transformative experience of being in their presence.

I don't know when or if I will ever get to see the Northern Lights of parenthood. I used to think I would just sign up to get on the baby train whenever it was that I got bored with being just me. I assumed that since sixteen-year-olds all over America get pregnant without even meaning to (shout out to "Teen Mom" by the way) the process of getting pregnant must be pretty simple. However, I think getting pregnant can sometimes be as complicated as finding the Northern Lights. You've got to be in the right place at the right time. There can't be a cloud in the sky and it needs to be a new moon. You need to be outside of the city lights and it needs to be just the right time of year. I suppose having a baby would not be quite as magical if every person in this world simply put their name on the baby list and one showed up a few months later.

Sometimes I talk myself into wanting a baby. And then sometimes I remember that I have blankets hanging over the windows in my bedroom in some pathetic attempt to block out the sunlight allowing my husband and me to sleep until eleven on Saturday mornings. I realize that blocking out sunlight will be useless with a crying baby in that same room, and I heed the advice of all of you frazzled parents who longingly remember a time before parenthood when the sight of the Northern Lights was still just a dream in your clear, well-rested mind.