Picking Up The Pieces

It's been a long time.  I shouldn't have left you...without a dope beat to step to.  And for this I apologize.  But the truth is I lost my rhythm there for a while.  Coming down after my disappointment at my third attempt/first IUI when everything that made the attempt even possible at all indicated (or so I believed) that my last chance would be the last chance I'd need...To say that I was depressed seems like an understatement, to say the least.  I mean, comparatively, maybe I wasn't at an all-time-low sort of depression like I was during the second half of college and the two years that followed.  No pushing people away.  No really bad and simultaneously grim/melancholy poetry was written (unless you count this blog).  No suicidal thoughts or being angry and/or sad to wake up in the morning.  What I did feel the same (or at least similar) was the inkling that I was letting both myself and my family down.  The feeling that there is/was something specific about me that was making things just not work out the way I felt they should, even though I couldn't quite put my finger on what that something may be/have been.

I didn't push people away, but I was/am stranded in Hong Kong, so I don't really have anyone here to push.  I knew three people living in Hong Kong before I moved here.  One I'd long considered to be one of my most trusted friends and confidants who's turned out to be a ghost.  She seemed excited for my move before I came, but hasn't materialized in any way, shape, or form since my actual arrival nearly eight months ago.  If it weren't for outside confirmation, I might have persuaded myself to believe that she was a figment of my own imagination.  In a way, I suppose she was...the other two friends here never hear from her either.  She's become a myth.  Another friend who lives a little bit of distance away and whose schedule is so at odds with my own that we only touch base sporadically and through e-mail.  And a third who is a bit of an anchor point for me here, though she'll soon be setting sail on another journey to another land.  I didn't push her away, but I didn't go out of my way to get in touch with her all the time either.  I was upset about my third failed attempt (which may be my last attempt until I make a break for it and quit Hong Kong altogether who knows how far into the future).  I didn't want to 1) be the mopey friend who brings the room down just by being in the room, and 2) over-burden the only real friend I have here with a lot of emotions she can't relate to and therefore may not be able or willing to hold my hand through.

I definitely wasn't having suicidal thoughts or anything even remotely close.  I wasn't angry or sad to wake up in the morning.  But I wasn't happy either.  I was indifferent.  Indifference has a way of being far more insidious.  There are support groups and forums and prevention hotlines and therapies and pharmaceuticals to help deal with depression.  No one really seems to notice the negative effects that indifference can have on a person's life.  But I guess indifference was my way of dealing with (or more to the point, not dealing with) the fact that my quest toward motherhood was at a stand-still.  Can't make babies solo in Hong Kong.  Can't/won't leave Hong Kong even though I continue to miss New York like a regretful ex.  Even if I did leave Hong Kong, I'd be heading back to the states jobless and homeless; so it's not like I'd be in a good position financially/situationally to jump right back into the baby-making game.  So I lingered on the periphery of existence.  I woke up every day and went to work (and I do love my job, thank God).  I continued seeing my acupuncturist/herbalist and taking my vitamins daily to keep things in order and physiologically ready for a baby to happen at any moment.  I continued updating my BBT chart.  I continued to go through the motions of living my life, all while isolating myself in the tiniest apartment I've ever lived in and eating my ice cream-covered feelings on a nightly basis.

And then we got closer and closer to birthday season...For those of you that don't know, my birthday is my favorite day of the year.  It's a high holy day in my life and times.  I start advertising about my birthday (generally) around six months beforehand in the previous November.  Now, this year I had all manner of reasons to continue being depressed and/or indifferent around my birthday.  I'm in a place I don't really want to be, on the other side of the planet from all of the people with whom I would have liked to have been celebrating.  I knew only three people in HK, and only one of those was even responding to my e-mails and texts...and she was planning to be out of the country for about ten days during the height of birthday season.  Was I upset?  Yes, but...I don't know.  I guess no matter what the situation is, I'm always happy about  my birthday.  I may not be happy to be living where I'm living, but I'm happy to be living and celebrating another new year.  The other side of that coin is that I started my TTC journey with the full intention of being somebody's mother this time this year.  So, that was something that I had to let go of.  And look to the future.  Make a plan of attack.  Maybe not attack, but some kind of a plan for sure.

Well, the inkling of a plan materialized not too long after my last best hope of getting knocked up for Christmas didn't pan out. My lovely sista-friend/donor buddy/confidante & supporter of all things baby-making-related, Miss T., was looking into the possibility of moving on from IUI's to IVF.  Un-widen your eyes...I'm still on the IUI track.  But T's been at this a bit longer and more consistently than I have, and she's ready for the next step.  Put a baby in there already!! - know what I mean?  What does this have to do with yours truly then, you ask?  Well, T lives in California where pretty much no insurance company covers IVF, regardless of how long or to what extent you've been trying.  So T was thinking of maybe going to Thailand to do her IVF.  Apparently, IVF in Thailand is about 1/3 of the cost that paying it out of pocket in California would be.  She's since decided to go to Barbados (BarbadosIVF.com) for her IVF, since the travel will be less expensive and they seem to have whole package deals for "Fertility Vacations" all mapped out.  Barbados isn't as close to me, though, so I've been looking into Thailand to do the next round of IUI - possibly medicated this time.  Not sure yet.  We'll see.

The truth is, this has been on the menu since just before I tried my IUI at Christmas time.  I had even reached out to a few clinics/hospitals in Thailand to see what their programs and protocols were.  Now ask me if I ever ended up sending all of my medical records to any of these places for their physicians to review and get back to me with a suggested plan of action....Nope.  I can only chalk it up to my depression and indifference and more feet-dragging enui.  Part of the reason for that is I had hoped to try Thailand by April.  I knew that I would have at least one 4-day weekend off from work that month and if I could work with a Thai doctor remotely, I might be able to get it handled.  That just was not to be.  I got hit with a bloodwork/urinalysis bill from the midwifery practice that was nearly twice as much as it cost me to have both IUI's and acupuncture treatment done.  Seriously???  On top of that, my pay here in HK is directly deposited into my account here, but I also have arranged for my boss to transfer part of my salary to my US account in New York since that's the one that pays my student loans and credit card bills.  The catch: my salary in HK is paid monthly on the first of each month.  The US funds are deposited quarterly, and they're not automatically scheduled.  My boss has to put them through himself.  So I got my US pay for the first quarter of the year closer to the END of that quarter.  Quick, ask me how much of my quarterly deposit has been made for the second quarter so far...suffice to say, the payment is still not fully complete and the quarter is now nearly 1/3 over.  I will try now not to rant about how they didn't have to beg me to move to Hong Kong, and they don't have to beg me to show up every day to raise, educate, stimulate, inspire, and love their children on a daily basis, so why do I have feel like I'm begging each quarter to get paid on time?  *sigh* That's for another post altogether (possibly even for a whole different blog).

So anyway, when I realized early in the year that April would not be a possibility, I think that's when the indifference really took over.  But April is my birthday month, and March really opens the whole birthday season.  Even though I didn't anticipate enjoying my birthday at all over here, I really have been pleasantly surprised.  And now I turn again to the future and my plans for it.  Summer.  I will go to France solo with the children this year so that they can visit their grandparents.  I've always also gotten two weeks off either directly before or directly after the France trip.  The key now is to solidify those plans with the family I work with so that I can determine which two weeks I'll be able to spend in Thailand and (hopefully) plan to get knocked up in and around that time.

And that, dear reader, is The Plan thus far...wish me luck!

A Confluence of Events Part Trois: IUI 1.2

So, when last we spoke, our heroine was gearing up for IUI Day 2.

I got up early to get ready. When I called in to AICGB at 8:30am, I got the weekend answering service. Following the instructions in my welcome packet, I asked them to page the midwife on-call so that I could schedule an IUI for today. The woman on the other end of the line took my number and said the midwife would call me back soon. And she did. While I was brushing my teeth. Her name was Laura and she asked me if I could come in at 10:30am. I said yes. I finished getting myself together and asked Auntie if she'd give me a ride to Wonderland Station. She was eating breakfast, so I made myself some oatmeal with flax and raisins and put it in a container to go. I also packed a baggy with some almonds and cashews and more raisins in case I got hungry between the IUI and getting out to the alternate acupuncture office in Brookline. Which reminded me...I called Karin to let her know what time my appointment was, and made plans to meet her in Brookline at 1pm.

By this time, I knew a ride to Wonderland probably wouldn't cut it. I asked Auntie if she'd mind dropping me closer in/further along on my trek. She took me to the Red Line at South Station. How I love Auntie so! With the extra-transportational push, I was able to get to AICGB by 10:50am. It might have been sooner if I hadn't just missed the bus coming out of Porter St. Station. The next one took forever to come. I called Laura en route, but she didn't pick up, so I left a message.

When I arrived, Laura was there to greet me...and so was Margi!!! Margi, without whom none of this would have been possible. She fielded all my e-mails and answered all of my questions and really made everything fall into place. It was like old home week. Hugs ensued. I may have mentioned my tendency to erode people's boundaries. I'm a hugger. If I like you, you're probably gonna get hugged. Deal with it. Margi had actually come in just to meet me face-to-face and wish me luck. How sweet is that?! After she left, Laura showed me into the exam room and closed the door. I undressed from the waist down (except for my purple fuzzy socks), got up on the exam table, and draped myself with a clean white sheet. I reached over and pulled the chair with my things on it closer, and dug into my bag for my phone - which is really more of an mp3 player on which I send and receive texts and occasionally place calls.

Laura came in and I scoot-scoot-scooted to the edge of the table, trying to relax. I'm not sure if it was me or Laura, but the speculum definitely required more breathe-through on my part this time around. I asked how things were looking. She said, "Good! Like you're ovulating..." The catheter pinched as it went through. It hadn't before. I turned on Adele and worked on relaxing all the muscles in my body, starting with my girl parts. As before, the IUI was over in an instant. Laura suggested something new. Instead of the lay-back-with-a-pillow-under-my-bottom, she had me completely rotate myself on the table so that my bottom was on the elevated incline part, and my head was resting on a pillow on the pull-out extension part. It felt odd, but anything for the cause! I lay there, once again, quietly singing Adele to myself, and my eggs, and the swimmers, and hopefully my future baby for thirty minutes. It's not easy to quietly hold notes in your smallest voice when you're upside down.

Got dressed. Thanked Laura effusively. On to the next step. Acupuncture with Karin. I hadn't been to the Brookline office before. Actually, I can't definitively say I'd ever been to Brookline at all before. I just followed the directions I'd gotten from the MBTA travel planner. Bus to Harvard Station. Then another bus from somewhere in that neighborhood that would take me directly there. First problem, the first bus took forever to come. Second problem, when I got off at Harvard Station, I had no idea where I was. I found the bus stop at last. Oops. No I didn't. I was on the wrong side. After making my way to the right side, the bus actually came pretty quickly. And soon we were on Harvard Street, so I just kept an eye out for the address. 318. We passed it by a block, so I got off and walked back. Didn't look particularly office-like. But my massage place in Brooklyn is the ground floor of a residential brownstone with a modest little shingle out front, so I figured it was just more low-key than the other location. Rang the bell and an unkempt, but very polite college guy came to the door looking as confused as I felt. I said I'd come to see Karin (maybe she worked out of her home on weekends???). He said it was just him and three other guys living there, and before they moved in it was also a bunch of guys, so he didn't really know what to tell me...I confirmed the address. And therein lies the rub...I was at 318 WEST Harvard Street. It was freezing outside, so I walked down the block to a library I'd seen and stepped inside the foyer. I called Karin. I was tired and cold and now lost. I thought I'd call it quits and just go back home the way I'd come. There was no way I was gonna get to her in time. She (much like Laura and Margi) had come in especially for me that day, so now I felt like a total ass. She asked me where I was exactly, and said she'd call me right back. After what I assume was some astute internetting, she figured out that the bus I was on probably did stop at her office if I'd have stayed on. I told her the buses were coming pretty frequently (i.e. I'd just seen one go by as I answered her call, so I figured they were coming about every 10 mins or so). I'd hop back on the bus and head her way, unless I could snag a cab (which I didn't think likely in this neighborhood). But just as I was crossing the street to the bus stop, a cab came down the street and I flagged him down. There was a lot of traffic on Harvard Street once we finally got there, but we got there and that's the main point.

I paid him and thanked him for picking me up and hurried upstairs to meet Karin. I rather like the Brookline office. It's in a "wellness studio" that also has yoga, pilates, and other stuff. But today it was just Karin and me. I apologized for being late (I think. I hope I did...It seems like the sort of thing I would do in that situation). She was super nice about it. After a quick trip to the bathroom, I was ready to surrender myself to a rigorous poke-a-thon of relaxticity. Yes, I made up both of those words. She also did some moxibustion, which I'd never had done before. Good stuff. Overall, I think it was a really good session. She knew I was heading for New York the next day, but we planned another session for the day after I got back. I paid. Said goodbye. Hugged. And off home back to Autie's...this time via the Green Line which was just down the block and so much quicker than the bus.

And now, we wait...

Stay tuned...

A Confluence of Events Part Deux: IUI 1.0

Last time on Self-Made Motherhood Blog:

Our heroine had just landed in Boston from Hong Kong and straightened out some paperwork issues with her HK girly-business clinic.

The very next morning, I got up bright and early, put together some oatmeal to go, and headed out the door to my first meeting with my baby-making team at AICGB. It almost goes without saying that I underestimated the time it would take me to walk to Wonderland Station from my Auntie's house, and was a little on the late-ish side and getting nervous by the time I actually did get there. I went through the station, got a 7-day Charlie Card, and walked back out the other side of the station to find (through some miracle) a taxi waiting outside. I gave him the address and whatever cross streets I could glean from what was meant to be my public transportation directions printed out from the MBTA website. He flipped through a map book, pulled out a magnifying glass, and away we went!

I got to the appointment with a few minutes to spare. As soon as I walked in and gave my name to the woman behind the glass partition, voices were raised and heads were turned in my direction. Apparently, through my correspondence with the staff, I had become a pretty big deal. I filled out a little more paperwork and gave her the paperwork she'd sent to me in Hong Kong that I'd already filled out. After not too long of a wait, I was called in for my consult with Amanda, one of the CNM's on staff. Just as we were going through my medical records to piece together which tests on their long list of prerequisites I'd already had done elsewhere, Jeannie the Nurse popped in to hand over (da da da-DAAAA!) my long-awaited records from Planned Parenthood! SCORE! So in the long list of things to test for, I had everything covered except for Hep C, Varicella, Rubella, CMV, and blood type. After some consulting and question-and-answering (and a blood draw for the remaining tests), I was on my way out the door. Armed with an info packet and some unnecessary local sperm bank info, I marched out into the cold to forage for food in the neighborhood for an hour or so. AICGB has an acupuncture therapist on staff, but she's only there on Wednesdays in the afternoon. Luckily this happened to be a Wednesday, so I'd made a 2pm appointment with her already. Grabbed some Thai food, read some magazines, and headed back up the block for my first Stateside acu-treatment. Pat (the acu-lady) was awesome. Very sweet and chatty. The session went really well (I think) and I thoroughly enjoyed her Chinese relaxation music selection. After all was done, I headed for the bus stop to go home to Auntie's.

Now their policy on IUI scheduling goes like this: when you get your OPK+, you call in to the office between the hours of 8:30am - 9am. If you get your OPK+ after 9am, then you call the next day between the hours of 8:30am - 9am. It was CD10, so I knew that I'd get a + on CD11, but not until later in the day. CD11 came, and I was right. My first OPK+ came on CD11 at 2:20pm. I made plans to get to bed early-ish (well, earlier than usual anyway), so I would be already ready to do another OPK before I called in to the office to schedule on CD12. Then I came up with another plan. What if I could get in for a later-in-the-day IUI appointment and do an acupuncture appointment first? So I hit research mode and through numerous pointings and clickings and follow-up phone calls, I found On Point Acupuncture's lovely and amazing Karin Kramer. I explained my situation to her (going in for an IUI tomorrow. not necessarily infertile, just single and ready for babies to happen. need some acu-mojo to get blood flowing to my girl parts, relax, etc.). I made an appointment with her for 9am the next morning at her office on Milk St. in the financial district (she practices out of a few different places depending on the day of the week). I figured I could call in to AICGB at 8:30am, take the 9am acu-appointment, and then make my lazy way over to AICGB. Easy peasy!

Well, the next day came: CD12. I got up early and got ready. Packed up my things and took the Blue Line from Wonderland to State Street, just a short walk from the acu-place. I got off the train at State at about 8:26am, so I tried calling then, but only got the voicemail. Waited a couple of minutes. Called again. Voicemail. Waited another few minutes. Called again. Bingo! Told them I needed to schedule my IUI for today. Got my OPK+ yesterday. She put me on hold for a moment and when she came back on the line she said, "10:15am" I tried a very weak protest, saying I was hoping for an afternoon appointment, but she said the CNM doing inseminations that day was only there in the morning and if I wanted to get my IUI today then 10:15am was the only slot available for me. I said I'd be there. Now it was 8:35am. AICGB is still about an hour or so away from where I was just then. So I walked down to Karin's Milk St. office. I tried calling on my way there, but she didn't pick up, so I left a voicemail and kept on. When I got there, I explained the situation. 10:15am IUI, so no time for acu-anything beforehand. Very sorry for inconveniencing you, blah, blah, blah. She assured me that it was fine and not to worry about it. She said I should come back after the IUI and she'd do some work then. I thanked her and hurried off to South Station to catch the Red Line out to Harvard Station. By the way, not that you were wondering or anything, but Karin is just a lovely, lovely person and I liked her the minute I saw her face. I am terribly superficial, but you should also know that my first impressions are never, ever wrong.

So, Red Line to Harvard Station and then bus from there down Mass Ave. within a couple of blocks of AICGB. Got there with ten minutes to spare even...not bad. Said hello to the ladies in the front, and was shown back to an exam room where I left my stuff and then went to quickly use the bathroom. Full bladder's just not a good idea when someone's about to be all up in your girl space. The CNM doing my insemination on this very lovely, but very cold Friday CD12 was Megan. I generally hate speculums on any occasion and I was a bit worried that my natural tension at this particular occasion would make, uh-hem..., everything more tense. But Megan was great, and the speculum wasn't so bad. Since it was only CD12, I was also worried that it might be difficult getting the catheter in for the IUI, but when I asked ,"How are things lookin' down there today?", Megan said my cervix looked really good. Very open and lots of CM. YAY! So anyway, it was all over so quickly, I barely had time to process. Afterward, I lay back on the table with my butt on a pillow for thirty minutes listening to Adele's latest album on my headphones and quietly singing along.

As I was leaving the offices, I rang over to Karin to see if she'd be available around 12:30pm-ish. Yes. Took the trek over there. Went over some preliminary paperwork with Karin, and she asked me a gazillion questions about my life, my habits, diet, etc (the only frustrating thing about this whole trip has been continually meeting medical professionals for the first time and all of the extra paperwork and self-explanation that entails). We started with the session. It was really good, but a bit intense. I asked if I could come and see her again the next day after the second IUI. She was surprised that I was doing two (a lot of people have been actually). We agreed that I'd call her in the morning after I'd scheduled the IUI with the midwife, so I'd have a better idea of what time I could get to her. I went home, ate, and had a long nap.

One down, one to go!

Stay tuned...