buoyancy

So… what’s the latest…?

Um, nothing.

Not a damn thing.

I’d never really (REALLY) understood what it meant to live in the moment… but man, if the past two months have taught me anything it’s that that is exactly where I want to be. I don’t want to be two minutes ahead or behind - I’m just trying to appreciate the life in front of me. Honestly, anything else just isn’t important.

So after our horrible, terrible slew of bad news in mid-May, I decided we needed an injection of LIFE. So I bought some sea kayaks.

Kayaks. Kayaks? Well we’ve been meaning to get a pair for years (I mean, we live ON the coast) but we just never wanted to spend the money. But vacation was looming and since we didn’t know what was happening re: baby news, we hadn’t made any travel plans. So screw it, I figured, vacation is now kayaking in our ‘hood. We bought a couple used ones on ebay and paddled around and it was nice. We’ll keep them and go out occasionally when good weather and weekends coincide. Yeah they’re huge and we’ll have to rig a hoist to store them in the garage but whatever. Kayaking makes me happy. Know what else makes me happy?

Being a nerd. After babyfail #2, I decided to go back to school online to get a professional certificate in the type of teaching I do. It’s a graduate-level program from a top-rated university with reasonably well-credentialed instructors and I think it’s safe to say I’m CRUSHING it. The other day I cited five sources including two scientific papers in my blog/discussion/forum post thingy (which is a proxy for an actual class discussion) because… um, it was interesting. It’s making me feel so much more engaged and stimulated and just interested in my job. When this course is over next summer I can seriously see mtself signing up for further certificate programs in complementary areas. Does it make my schedule a bit more of a juggling act, sure – but whatever. Being smart makes me happy.

Other “new” things that I’m doing these days for no other reason than, I feel like it?

• Meeting neighbors for coffee. Yeah, some of it’s related to networking and some of it’s just venting with friends. But it comes with a croissant and I know myself well enough these days to know that talking to other human beings makes me happy.

• Saying no. No, we work a shifted schedule and don’t want to meet at for breakfast at 9am (sorrynotsorry). No, we don't really want to go to visit you in freezing cold Oregon just because you’ll let us stay there for free. No, you’re not my therapist anymore because frankly, you’ve been phoning it in for the last year and I’m tired of being irritated every week by the sucking sound in my wallet. No, I’m blocking those groups (or anyone for that matter) on facebook that posts a single image of an abused animal. Nope, nope, nope nope. No, I really don’t want to have that work meeting on a Saturday because it’s what we’ve always done. I don’t care what we’ve always done. This year, I’m spending time with my husband in a location and time of our choosing because it makes me happy.

• Doing nothing (well, my version which is being still & reading). I can do nothing by the hotel pool, in the hammock, in the evening… frankly any damn place I choose. And doing nothing may extend to fertility stuff too. Because we’re frankly fucking tired and listening to someone scream while I change her diaper at 3am sounds like a complete nightmare right now. Because rest makes me happy.

• Being outside. Go for a hike on our anniversary and get horrible swamp ass and love it. Sit on the porch at sunset and marvel. Watch the dog bounce around the lawn and marvel. Just being out of doors because it’s FINALLY warm and it’s pretty and just the fact that it wasn’t like this for six long months makes me happy.

• Avoiding drama. This one’s hard when you have a friend who’s dying and you’re staring down the busiest month of the year at work. (Just today four colleagues came into my office – simultaneously – to complain about how much work they have. I politely asked them all to leave so we could all do, um, WORK.) And I’m trying to recognize that there’s only so much I can do when a friend’s dying. A mutual friend begged plaintively last week, “but what can we doooooo….???”

Um, nothing, I said.

Not a damn thing.

It’s going to happen and it’s going to be terrible and we’ll help if/when we can but this is their family and their decisions. And my husband and I probably won’t get a child. And it’s all just terrible. And this last item doesn’t so much make me happy… but I just named about 7 things that do. And that’s something.

vast (like this post)

So we still don’t know all we’d like to about our GC’s wife’s health but the CAT scans show what appears to be stage 4 liver cancer – ie: huge masses throughout the organ. We still need to learn if it’s a primary or secondary tumor, if it’s spread elsewhere (lymphatic system, brain) and if there are medications that could give her a few more months. From everything we’ve read, she’s not a candidate for a transplant so this is likely terminal.

For what it’s worth (squat), we got the news at 11:20am. The transfer was originally scheduled for 1pm. I kind of hate that we made the right call to cancel everything.

- - - - -

An old friend yesterday made a very wise observation. I had just spent the past couple of hours over lunch, telling her how things had fallen apart over the past 4 months. (note to self: if it takes you a couple of hours to cover everything… yikes.)

Anyway, she commented that I seemed awfully… hard on myself in the telling of the tale. Well, yeah, I admitted. I sort of have a black belt in beating up on myself. I feel extremely guilty about all this. She asked for clarification since of course, what I was saying didn’t appear to be a terribly rational take on things. So I listed my mistakes:

• I should never have even considered surrogacy and read more about others’ experiences before embarking on this. I may have realized it could be too difficult financially and emotionally for us.
• Instead of surrogacy, I should’ve put my time/money/efforts on taking better care of myself so that I don't require medication and could just carry the embryo myself.
• I shouldn’t have allowed a friend to volunteer to be our surrogate. I should’ve said, thank you for the amazing offer but we’re going to go with a stranger who we're less emotionally intertwined with.
• To that end: I did not adequately investigate what burdens she already had in her life, namely the state of her wife’s health. I did not want to pry & assumed the fertility clinic was adequately vetting this.
• I should’ve listened to my gut when it told me that my friend was overwhelmed by the commitments she already had and stopped in February.
• I should’ve been nosier when her wife received the initial cancer diagnosis. If we had known more, we would’ve immediately learned more about the prognosis & treatment for this type of cancer helped them find a specialist who may have caught the metastasis in time.
• I should’ve told her not to hide bad news from us – that more information helps us make better decisions.
• And there’s probably about 12 other things I blame myself for too.

And then my old friend reminded me that the universe is vast. And that there is so much that is just beyond our control. That biology and families and people are messy things. That we are not clairvoyant and cannot research our way into a complete prediction of the future. That sometimes life just spirals into a mess despite our best efforts.

And that made a lot of sense. And sounded pretty familiar since my husband had just recently told me almost exactly the same thing.... He said that I really needed to stop believing the script my parents had bequeathed me that there was a RIGHT choice for everything and every scenario. He said that one of the things that bugs him the most about my family is our belief that if we just think hard enough we can figure everything out. Anticipate every problem, game every situation, avoid every mistake. It’s not only just not true, it’s a dangerous, egotistical way of thinking. It makes you paranoid and overly cautious and very, very critical. And then my old friend asked me something that another friend had asked me just 24 hours before:

“What do you think the larger message is here?”

Normally, I bristle at questions like this. There is no larger message. There is no grand plan or god. Stop getting all Zen up in my face. Life just sucks sometimes for absolutely no reason. But this time it dawned on me: that doesn’t mean you can’t LEARN from the suckiness.

When my first friend asked me this, I nodded and said, YES. Finding a message in all this would be kind of nice – it would give me something to take away from all this mess – like a goody bag of wisdom handed out at the worst party every. I said:

“Well... when I realize this likely means we’ll never have kids, my initial reaction is that perhaps I get to spend my whole life taking care of myself and not someone else. I had a hard go of it for a long time and nurturing myself would not be the worst thing to happen in the second half of my life.”

But when my second friend asked me the same exact question yesterday, I instantly had a different answer. I don’t think my first answer was off base, it just wasn’t specific enough. We’d been talking about guilt and I said:

“Perhaps the message is that the best way to nurture myself is to forgive myself.”

Ever since I got super-duper-call-the-cops (twice) sick in 2003, I’ve been pretty hard on myself about how all that played out. I’ve always hated the idea that my mental illness made me a liability in the lives of those I loved and I often think that what I put my husband through 11 years ago is so unforgivable that I will never be able to make up for it. All I could do is try my damndest to never, ever let things get that messy again. I frequently ruminate over the mistakes I made back then:

• I should’ve realized that I was self-medicating with alcohol and found a doctor to prescribe me proper medications instead.
• When I finally broke down and did ask for meds, I should’ve gone to a psychiatrist and not my internist. I knew better, I was just scared of shrinks.
• When I started the medication, I should never, ever have kept drinking. Or when I realized that I couldn’t do that, immediately asked for help.
• When I did start to realize I couldn’t stop drinking, I should’ve just gone inpatient like people recommended and trusted my family to take care of me.
• When I really started to go off the rails and it became clear that I needed hospitalization, I shouldn’t have fought it for so long & trusted my husband’s judgment.
• When I thought there was no other way out besides suicide or lying, I should’ve just walked into the nearest hospital and said uncle. I came close one day. I stood in the elevator lobby of a local hospital and studied the directory. I knew which floor to get off on. I was just too scared of how much it would mess up my life. So I drove home.

I’m guess you could say I’m petrified of messiness. I’m scared of things getting dirty and disorganized and conflict and unpredictable disasters. But I cannot control everything and should not expect myself to do so. And I can try to forgive myself for thinking I could.

Because the universe is messy and unforgiving. And vast.

Nevermind

Well. That ended rather quickly.

During a conversation yesterday morning with our GC (we were discussing transportation to next Friday’s 3^rd embryo transfer) she casually mentioned that her wife would be having a PET scan the day before the transfer.

….

Oh that? That’s the sound of a needle scratching.

Apparently she has spots on her liver. Enormous spots. Spots the size of a salad plate. Spots that were 1/10^th the size in November. They’re trying to think positive and just go on with their lives with a ‘business-as-usual’ mentality. ½ denial + ½ overwhelm + ½ they don’t live with a scientist.

But I do. And I instantly understood what we were potentially talking about here. Sometime the day before or the day of the embryo transfer next week, they are likely to learn that my best friend’s wife has terminal liver cancer. My husband did a quick pubmed search and discovered that the skin cancer she was diagnosed with 2 years ago typically metastasizes to the liver and has a 22% survival rate at 5 years.

We of course, did not know this when we agreed to try and have a baby with them. I’m not sure they know it. And of course, none of us is sure if this is what has happened. But salad-plate sized spots are never a harbinger of smooth seas ahead.

So over dinner last night my husband and I discussed what to do. Gamble on the test results coming back fine? That seemed so unlikely given all we were reading. And if we did that and the test results weren’t OK, we’d have to make all these decisions at the very last minute. And if for some reason we didn’t have all the information and went ahead with the transfer anyway we’d be in a really terrible spot. Either it’d fail and we’d always wonder if the stress of the situation had done it, or it’d WORK and we’d be watching our baby be gestated in possibly the most stressful situation we could imagine – while our GC watched her wife die. And if she is going to be extremely ill or die we’d be the ones who would want to help – not add another stressor to her life. We’d need to help out with her sons and support her and… and this was all getting WAY TOO FUCKED UP.

I looked at my husband and said: “I don’t know about you but my gut is screaming, ‘this is 110% more crazy than I can tolerate’”

And then I picked up the phone and in the most delicate way possible, told my best friend that we were stopping. I told her it was a “break” but I don’t really think that’s true. I think we’ve hit an enormous brick wall that we are not going to see the other side of. I think this is really and truly it. They will be dealing with a very serious illness and husband and I will be moving on with our lives.

Yes, we might briefly talk about if there are any other ideas left out there. I could attempt to wean myself off my medication and have a go at it myself. But I don’t know if that’s even possible or a good idea.

Right now, I have three main emotions:

1. 1.     Relief. This cycle was getting hard to deal with. I don’t know why exactly. Chalk it up to battle fatigue. But knowing you’re walking into almost certain failure was not sitting well with me each passing day. And yesterday, that fatigue turned into panic and I just wasn’t going to be able to sit with that for the remaining 3 weeks.
2. 2.     Guilt. I cannot believe my desire for a kid dragged my husband and I, my best friend and her wife and my parents into what turned out to be an incredibly expensive, upsetting and bafflingly complicated mess. I did not want to spend a year of our time/money/energy on something that turned out to be so pointless.
3. 3.     Fear. I am not ready to hear that my friend’s wife is as sick as I think she is. I’m truly petrified for them. I’ve known her for 20 years. She is essentially my sister-in-law and the primary caregiver for my two ‘nephews.’ I do not want this for any of them.

I suppose if this really is the end – there will also be grief. But honestly, right now that’s just going to have to wait it’s turn.

Yes, seriously.

Ok so the boodwork was negative - no surprise. Still no kid anywhere in sight.

And I guess I'm through at least a couple stages of grief by now since I'm no longer angry like I was on Thursday. Well, maybe a still a bit angry at the universe but that's kind of like background radiation at this point. I've either skipped completely over the bargaining stage or am so squarely immersed in it that I can't tell. I'm definitely hitting some of the highlights of the depression stage (why bother, what's the point, ect) but lord knows that's NO country for me to linger in. I would not say I've reached any form of acceptance - though we have made up our minds about what we want to do.

We're going to try again. Husband is very adamant we not give up, GC has said she's ok to go again, and the money - well, that just is what it is. Let's hope we don't owe the IRS too much this year and that we can find a cheap place to take a few days off this July. HOWEVER. I really want to try to make this next round easier.

For starters: I will talk to the clinic about getting their shit together. I want to switch coordinators and get one that will always keep me in the loop and take a lot of this organization off my shoulders. I will also probably talk to my friend, my "GC," about how it's just hard for me to feel like all of this is out of my control. I know she knows this (I've said it before) but it'd probably be good for me to say it because I really don't want her to pick up on my frustration and ever be insulted in any way. I do trust her judgement - it's just hard (for me) to trust anyone with something like this. Lifting some pieces of furniture and driving through a snowstorm is not really considered dangerous if you're a little bit pregnant. I mean, it's not like she was skydiving while drinking a handle of tequila. I'm just hyper-sensitive. And when you spend two weeks hoping and frankly, looking for any kind of a sign that this worked, you get hyper-ultra-crazy-sensitive. So that one's on me.

I read (well, truthfully, devoured) a good book last week called The Baby Chase all about surrogacy. It basically confirmed that we're doing the right things and for the right reasons. It made me feel better about not trying any half measures or adoption and going straight to the most extreme intervention possible. However, it did explain that even when you get all the pieces right, no one really knows why IVF only has a 33-50% chance of working and there are a lot of people who try and try like us with no success - and how galling that can be. It also talked about the expense and how most people cannot do this and wind up going to India or a foreign country where health care is cheaper.

My favorite part of the book was that the woman trying to have a baby (real woman - nonfiction) was ineligible for adoption because of a history of psych issues. And it talked about how parody laws were supposed to cover mental illness but they don't really deal with so many things that I guess some would deem quality of life issues. Yes, in American today, you now can be mentally ill and have some access to care (well, unless you get incarcerated in which case, god help you). She had medicine and was no longer a risk to herself. But most mentally ill suffer daily with a chronic disability that there are no handicapped ramps for. Access to many of the things in life that "regular" people have is out of reach. Like raising a child. Like a career.

Last night, my conversation with my husband turned back to why I can't carry this baby in the first place - my anxiety and the physical symptoms it's spawned. Why AM I so anxious we both wonder sometimes. We have a very nice life these days. Ultimately, I told him, a lot of what frustrates me these days is how small my life has become. I grew up thinking I'd be someone important in my field. Then, when I was extremely sick and trying to get better, I believed that was a noble battle to be fighting and was proud of how better I got after how sick I'd been. But since we left California, and my illness has been "in remission," I haven't really done anything too spectacular: I've kept a house, organized our financial lives, performed well at my job and took great care of our marriage and pets. But none of that comes close to the level of achievement I expected. Perhaps it's foolish and egotistical to dream big. Or, perhaps it's appropriate considering my education. I'll never know.

I do know, however, why I no longer dream big. I assume I cannot do things because I'm disabled. And hunkering down into a little inoffensive ball is making my neck hurt - literally. I want to stand UP.

seriously? no really. SERIOUSLY?

WED AM:

Gestational Carrier “GC”: “Hm. My wife wants those twin beds our sister in law’s giving away so since I'm off work, I guess I’ll rent a truck, drive out to pick them up and then drive them up to our weekend house – I’m sure that snowstorm won’t cause any problems - and lifting furniture seems fine for a woman who's getting a pregnancy test tomorrow as long as I disassemble it into little parts.”

WED PM:

GC:  “wow – that was an unpleasant and stressful drive. Oh hey, I got my period - darn it. Well I won’t tell Juniper 'til the morning - that way I can talk to the clinic first about what to do. I’ll just tell her I’ll call her tomorrow at 10am after I drop my son off at his appointment.”

Juniper: “Wow – hard to believe we won’t find out the pregnancy test results ‘til tomorrow evening. It’s been so hard to wait. Wish we just knew already.”

THURS 11AM:

Juniper: “Hey… what’s up? Haven’t heard from you.”

GC: “Good dropped the little man off and am at Starbucks. I know you are in with a client so I figured I wouldn't bother you.”

Juniper: “Ok. When do u go to the clinic for the bloodwork? This afternoon?”

GC: “I am waiting to hear from the clinic. I emailed them this morning. I got my period last night and I didn't know if they wanted to do the test or reset the schedule.” 

Um… reset the $20,000 schedule my husband & I aren’t sure we can handle?!?

Juniper: “Ok. I assume they'll still want u to take the test b/c you could still be pregnant & have a period (I think - I mean, I grant u, it's not likely)”

GC: “I know. But if I am not I want to get started on the next cycle.”

Juniper: “Well they won't start anything ‘til after your period’s over & we consult w/the Dr. anyway.”

GC: “hold on – they emailed. I am going to do the bloodwork and then we will see where we stand.” Of course they are – that’s what I just SAID.

Juniper: “Ok. So when will u go?”

GC: “I'll go to test tomorrow morning at [the clinic near my house]”

Juniper: I just talked to [my husband] and I think we’d prefer you go today as planned - If we wait ’til tomorrow, there’s no certainty we’ll get the results from the city ’til Sat AM and that's a long time to wait.” She went.

THURS PM:

Clinic: “Hi Juniper,  [GC] went into the lab after 2PM today so I do not have results, I will call you tomorrow.”

Juniper: “OK I understand. Thanks for the update. [GC] was reluctant to go when she saw that she had gotten her period but I knew we'd need to do the bloodwork nonetheless so I urged her to go this afternoon when she had a free moment. I knew this would, unfortunately, delay the results until tomorrow.” Cue screaming sound in my head…