Missed Conceptions

Hiatus

I've become a cliche: the infertility blogger who can't think of anything to say once her long-awaited child is finally here. We are all very well, and very happy, and it turns out that's kind of boring. In a good way.

For the time being, I'd rather spend my time online catching up with your blogs than maintaining mine. So it's time for a hiatus here at Missed Conceptions, until inspiration (or infertility) strikes again.

I'll be keeping track of all your news, and I'll see you in the comments section!

Never Again

If I ever manage to get pregnant again, and carry to term, and can convince the child to breastfeed, I will never, EVER stop abruptly again.

Good God, that hormone withdrawal was like nothing I have ever experienced. I couldn't eat or sleep, my heart was constantly pounding, I was absolutely consumed by irrational fears. I felt panicky and disoriented. It was actually worse than the sadness I felt after my miscarriages, because I was so completely unlike myself. I started to wonder if I would ever feel happy and normal again.

But I think I am finally over the worst. I've been on AD's for almost six weeks now and got my period last week; that combination of chemical and hormonal changes seems to have calmed my anxiety. I still have trouble sleeping without Am*bien, but I have managed to get down to a prescription strength that is half of what I was taking before, and hope to wean myself entirely within a month.

I've worked really hard not to let any of this impact Jack, who grows more charming by the day. And so full of new skills! He is rolling over like a fiend (seriously, I'm afraid he's going to give himself whiplash due to the speed with which he rotates) and is starting to scooch himself forward on his belly. He absolutely cannot wait to be mobile. He's grabbing and holding everything he can get his hands on and babbling up a storm. And he gives the greatest belly laughs in the world. So things are good. And getting better.

P.S. Today it is four years to the day of my first miscarriage. I still remember it all so vividly, and I still miss that much loved and longed-for baby. I think I always will.

Coming Up for Air

What with all the not sleeping, and the anxiety, and the rapid weight loss, and the sudden onset of various little physical ills, my doctor questioned whether I might be suffering from PPD. No, I said irritably. I am not depressed, I am happy. I have a wonderful son and my life is finally complete. Now could I have some more Ambien please? And something that will make my hands stop shaking?

Well, she said, why don't you just fill out this PPD evaluation form and see where you fall?

Huh. It was like reading my autobiography over the last few weeks. Turns out I am pretty fricking depressed after all.

I blame hormones. The first three months of Jack's life were pure bliss. I'd never been so happy. I was nervous about taking care of him, but at the same time confident that I loved him so much I couldn't possibly do any serious wrong. And then my milk supply just seemed to dry up, and I stopped breastfeeding, and...boom. A sudden and rather violent crash.

I hit an especially bad patch last week, after a terrible night's sleep full of bad, broken dreams. I woke up with my heart pounding, feeling so anxious I could barely stand. But I didn't want to say anything to J., who had an early meeting he'd been stressing about all week. So I held it together until he left, at which point I put Jack in his crib, curled into a little ball, called my mother and asked her to come stay with me. Bless her, she was there within the hour. My mom had pretty severe PPD after my sister was born, so she understands very well. She calmed me down and helped me with Jack, and after a few hours I felt more like myself again.

Still, it comes and goes. I am on medication, which seems to be slowly taking the edge off. I'm thinking about therapy or a support group, though I'm not sure I'm the type who would benefit from either. We have a wonderful local resource that focuses on parent/child support in the first year of a baby's birth, so I've been looking into some of the things they offer, like a visiting mom program.

I haven't much felt like writing about this, because I hate acknowledging it. After everything I went through to get Jack, it seems absurd and ungrateful that I should feel anything less than utter joy.

I adore my little guy more than ever, and except for that awful day when I needed my mom, I've never felt I couldn't pull myself together enough to give him all the love and attention he needs. He lights up when he sees me, just like I do when I see him. There are still moments of great joy, they are just a lot more hard-won lately.

Better

Things are a bit better now. My doctor thinks that my abrupt withdrawal from breastfeeding may have resulted in a hormone crash that's bringing on the sleeplessness and anxiety. I am back on a small dose of Zoloft, which helped me tremendously during my miscarriages. She also prescribed a time-release Ambien, so I am able to get some sleep. I don't like the idea of being dependent on something for sleep, but I do need the rest and my hope is that after a week or so, when we are settled into the work/daycare routine, that sleep will come more naturally.

Jack did very well at daycare. He didn't cry when being dropped off, and the staff all reported that he was smiling and cheerful all three days he was there, unless he was hungry or tired. His nap and feeding schedule remained pretty much the same as it is when he's at home with me, so I think that consistency is good. Each time I picked him up, he was being cuddled and was smiling up at the person holding him. J. stopped by a couple of times during the day; both times Jack was playing contentedly. So we think he is in a good place.

But I miss being with my boy full-time. I miss breastfeeding terribly. I didn't think I would; we had such a hard time getting started, and then I never felt fully confident that I was feeding him enough. But I miss the closeness so much, and I wish we could have gone on longer. I miss those halcyon first couple of months when it was just him and me, figuring out our new world together. That time we had was so short, and now there are so many others involved.

Yet there's a part of me that enjoys the time at work, and that time away makes the days I do have with Jack so much more precious. I think I need to stop looking at the glass as half-empty, and concentrate on the good in this situation. We are financially much more stable, which is better for my marriage. Jack is happy and social at daycare, and I am able to reclaim a bit of my adult life at work. Logistically, daycare is tough, but we will get there.

It's funny, when I was going through my miscarriages I thought that if I could only have a baby, I could stop worrying and stressing all the time and just enjoy life. How naive of me! There is no question I am happier today than I was two years ago, but I am still an intense person. However, as I told J. the other day, if I wasn't this way, we wouldn't have the boy sleeping in the next room right now. You have to take the bad with the good, I guess.

Trouble

Well, Jack has corrected somewhat on his sleep, and is doing a decent job of sleeping through the night again.

Unfortunately, I'm not.

Today is Sunday, and I haven't had more than four hours of sleep a night since last Sunday. Last night I got two. It started with Jack's sleeplessness, but even once he fell asleep I found my brain was racing and I couldn't turn it off. And of course, the more I thought about sleeping, the harder it became.

I called my doctor on Thursday and asked for a prescription for Ambien, which worked for me once in the past when I had a short-lived bout of insomnia. I took it at 9:30 at night, and woke up at 1:30.

I am so tired and anxious now, I can barely function. I don't know what's wrong with me, other than an inability to turn off my brain. I'm suddenly afraid to be alone with Jack, fearful that I won't be able to meet his needs. I feel unworthy to be his mom.

Two things are probably contributing: I am going back to work part-time tomorrow, and my milk supply has suddenly and dramatically dwindled. I don't know why the latter happened, but I noticed a definite downturn about two weeks ago, and have not been able to get it back even with extra pumping. So without wanting to or planning to, I have essentially weaned Jack.

Both those things are stressful on their own, but without sleep, they seem unbearable. I don't know how I am going to do everything I need to do, and do it with the smile and affection that Jack needs and deserves. I had been so blissfully happy since his birth, and now I'm so full of anxiety that I can barely function. I don't feel like myself in the slightest. I don't know who this person is.

Thankfully, before my doctor would prescribe the Ambien, she insisted I make an appointment to see her next week. So I have a doctor's appointment on Tuesday. Maybe she can suggest something stronger than Ambien, or perhaps the insomnia is a symptom rather than a condition on its own. Could I have postpartum depression, or am I just so tired that I've become depressed?

Doubts

I have had a pretty easy go of new motherhood to date. Jack is generally a relatively cheerful baby, a good eater and, perhaps most important for our sanity, a good sleeper.

But a few days ago, he suddenly became much less so. He fights his naps with the force and fury of a thousand suns and wakes up in the middle of the night, which he never used to do.

This change sent me scurrying to the "sleep" sections that I barely glanced at in the baby books. Their contents, along with my sleep deprivation, has me wigging out a little. "Baby 411" lists 10 common infant sleep mistakes, and we are making half of them: we sneak him into his crib when he's already asleep, we let him fall asleep while eating, we let him use a pacifier, we don't have a set routine for him in the evenings, and we don't make him self-soothe. (In case you're wondering what we don't do: we don't feed him in the middle of the night, miss naps, intervene at partial wakenings when he's not truly crying, put him to bed late, or bring him into our bed when we're not co-sleepers).

For nap time, I always sing and rock him until he falls asleep, and at night we just stuff him full of food and then he's been out like a light. When he was sleeping through the night, I didn't really care what the experts said because we were all well-rested. But now that he isn't, I'm wondering if we need to change the way we do things. And that worries me, because I'm effing terrible at letting him cry for any length of time. I know I need to change that or he'll rule the roost and that's not healthy.

Which is related to another fear I have, that I am spoiling him. Can you spoil a three-month old? I don't know, but lately he's been awfully fussy when he's not being held or played with. I held him constantly his first couple of months - I loved having him near me, and wanted him to feel safe and secure. But lately I've been realizing that it's a little inconvenient to try and get anything done during the day with a baby who insists not only on being held all the time, but being held a certain way (no lounging on the couch for you!)

So, any advice from you veterans on sleeping and/or spoiling?

Oh, Dear

One of the many things I learned from Julie, in the early days of blogging when dinosaurs roamed the Internet, is how to find out which search terms people use when they stumble across your site. This can be funny when it's a series of random words that somehow were cobbled together on your blog, or heartbreaking when someone Googles "hope after fourth miscarriage." But I don't think I've ever been quite so sad as when I saw one of today's search terms:

"Donor egg mother doesn't love baby."

Oh, I hope so much that this is just someone concerned about a possible outcome, not someone who is actually experiencing that feeling.

If it's the former, and if you ever make your way back here, I can't guarantee that you will love your baby. I can only tell you how much I love mine. I don't have, and never will have, a genetic child, so I can't tell you it's exactly the same. How would I know? But I cannot imagine loving anyone more. Every morning, I wake up happy because I know I get to spend the day with my boy. When I lean over his crib, he smiles up at me and positively wriggles with joy, and I cannot imagine a better feeling.

He doesn't have my DNA. But I carried him for nine months, felt him kick and squirm, watched his fluttering heartbeat on ultrasound and counted the tiny pearls that made up his spine. I held him in the special care nursery after he was born and watched him relax into me in a way he never did with anyone else. I know how to make him laugh and how to comfort him when he cries.

Of course I have pangs and fears related to the way he was conceived. I wish I could take credit for his beautiful blue eyes. I hope he never feels as though a part of him is missing. But if I was offered the chance for a reproductive do-over, to have one of my miscarriages erased and my "own" child born without ever having gotten to the stage of even thinking about donor eggs, I'd hug my funny, feisty boy to my chest with a heartfelt "No thanks."

Building a family through donor egg isn't for everyone, of course, any more than adoption or even IVF is. I think most donor egg recipients wonder, at least initially, whether they'll bond as well with their baby as if they'd had a regular pregnancy. It's smart to question your reaction to the whole process, and to choose another route if it doesn't feel right.

But if your baby is already here and you're experiencing a lack of emotion toward him or her, please think about getting some help as soon as possible. Many, many mothers don't bond with their babies immediately, regardless of how they were conceived. I'm sure that having used donor eggs adds another level of complexity and fear to postpartum depression. Please don't let those feelings simmer in silence - you and your baby deserve so much more than that.

One Year Ago Today

As Labor Day approaches, so does the one-year anniversary of the transfer that resulted in Jack. I looked back over what I'd been writing then, and found this post. It's one of the few hopeful posts I ever wrote while in the throes of infertility. When you've been disappointed so many times, it's hard to believe that things will ever turn around. I'm reprinting this because it's nice to know that sometimes they can.

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Why Not Us?

I promise, this post isn't just about baseball ...

Before 2004's World Series win, Red Sox fans were a neurotic and fearful bunch. No matter how well a game, a series, or a season seemed to be going, the slightest hint of trouble would send us into a collective fetal position, rocking back and forth like Rain Man while we steeled ourselves against crushing disappointment. And it always came.

Then last year, as the team prepared to enter the playoffs, pitcher Curt Schilling reminded fans on an online message board he frequents that someone has to win the whole thing. Why not us?

It's a deceptively simple question that cuts to the core of a Red Sox fan's psyche. Because we're unlucky, because we're cursed, because letting yourself get hopeful, or excited, only makes losing worse.

But Schilling kept asking, the team kept winning, and "Why not us?" became a rallying cry – complete, as all the best rallying cries are, with T-shirts and hats – that sustained fans throughout the playoffs. And remarkably, things started going the Red Sox's way. A ground-rule double that left a run for the opposing team stranded at third. A walk and a stolen base at precisely the right moment. Two blown umpire calls reversed in our favor. Over a magical two-week stretch in October, our bad luck finally ran out, and it was us.

As it turns out, the suffering of Red Sox fans was never about being cursed. It was about baggage, and how the accumulation of negative experiences alters your innate reactions.

I think about this often as our donor cycle draws to a close. Over the past three years, so many terrible things have happened to us that it's almost impossible for me to imagine something good occurring at last. When I wonder how the cycle will end, it's like choosing from the world's suckiest menu: will we fail because Emma doesn't produce any eggs, because I don't become pregnant, or because I become pregnant but miscarry again?

But there is still a small, stubborn voice inside me that keeps asking, Why not us?

Through blogging over the past couple of years, I've seen many people who have struggled as long or longer than we have achieve their dream of a family. Maybe it's because they hit on the right diagnosis, found the right doctor, underwent the right treatment. Or maybe their bad luck just finally ran out.

I have to believe that luck and lives can change, or I couldn't get through today, let alone the last three years. People do eventually conquer infertility. Why not us?

Just Because...

...my boy is so damn cute. (images removed)

And thank you all for your advice on the work conundrum. You are very wise. I'm leaning toward giving going back a shot - as many of you pointed out, I can always change my mind later.

Happy weekend!

Back to Work?

I'm due to return to work in less than four weeks, and I'm still on the fence as to whether or not I actually will.

My company has bent over backward to accommodate me with a part-time schedule: I'll be working Monday, Tuesdays and Thursday, with Tuesdays being at home most of the time. When I first arranged this schedule way back in May, I thought (HA!) that I would keep Jack with me while I worked at home. Now I realize I couldn't possibly get anything done, so he would need to be in day care that day, but I'd be able to pick him up early if I was having a quiet afternoon.

So it's a pretty nice schedule, about as good as you could hope for and still have an office job. Part of me looks forward to going back and having a bit of adult time, not to mention more money (I took 16 weeks off for maternity leave, but only got paid for eight, and that at only 66% of my salary). But the other part of me wonders why the hell I'd want to leave my not-quite-four-month-old baby with someone else when we could, with a bit of belt tightening, get by on one salary.

There are lots of pros and cons about returning to work that are rattling around in my brain:

CONS
1) The biggest con, of course, is no longer being with Jack full time. He will probably be my only child, and I'm already sad about how quickly time has gone by since he was born. I love seeing how he changes day to day, and watching him experience and react to the world. We're pretty tightly bonded, and I've gotten to know his moods and rhythms pretty well.

2) I'm not passionate about my work. Some days I enjoy it, and I love the people, but for the most part it's just work, and I don't look forward to it or feel as though I need this particular job in order to be fulfilled.

3) I'm not sure we made the best possible care decision for Jack. We elected to go with a day care that some of our friends have used, which adds a level of comfort. But to be honest, when I was looking into care options back in March, I wasn't convinced I'd ever have a live baby and I didn't invest as much time in research as I perhaps should have. For example, I never even looked into the possibility of hiring a nanny, and now I wonder whether Jack would be better off in a one-on-one situation, where someone is focused exclusively on him and has time to really interact with him.

4) I'm not convinced my three-day-a-week schedule would really be only three days. You know how it goes: somebody asks if you can sit in on just one conference call, or review something via e-mail, or edit a document that has to go out that day. I worry that my days off won't be fully off if I want to be able to do my job effecively.

PROS
1) We can get by on one salary, but at a sacrifice. It's not the loss of little luxuries that worry me: it's the inability to save much (or anything) for either college or retirement, and the fact that we'll need to stay put in our small and inconvenient apartment indefinitely. Even at three days a week, with day care factored in, my salary is enough to erase those concerns.

2) Sometimes, the days at home are long and I miss being a separate person who can eat or go to the bathroom whenever she wants. I miss being out in the world and thinking about things other than breastfeeding, diapers and peekaboo games. Sometimes, I wonder if Jack would benefit from being around more people and other babies, rather than just me.

3) I worry that if I don't go back to work now, it will be hard to re-enter the working world later, at the terms that I'd like. If I take a year or two off and then want (or need) to go back, where am I going to find a high-paying job that lets me work three days a week and is completely flexible about doctor's appointments, etc?

4) J. really worries about the impact on our finances, both short- and long-term. He was laid off several times during the dot-com bust, and I think he's really nervous about being the sole breadwinner. And while I tend to have the attitude of, "Well, I could always find another job," he's lived the frustration when it's not that easy. I also wonder if the dynamic of our relationship would change at all; we've always been equal contributors, and if you asked him he'd say we still are if I stayed home, but I wonder if a little subconscious resentment might creep in that he's working and I'm "not."

Other possibilities: I could ask my company for more time off, but I likely wouldn't get it (my immediate supervisor had to make special arrangements with our corporate office to give me the time I've already taken), or I could try freelancing. The latter is certainly a possibility, though I'm not sure I have the right personality to hustle for business. If it didn't come my way through my existing contacts, I'd have a hard time making new ones.

A llittle perspective: I do realize this is a problem I would have killed to have in the past. I don't think I can lose either way; I'll still have a lot of time with my beautiful son. But I'm interested in your opinions and experiences, if you'd care to share.