PreConception You vs Subfertility You

What a difference a year (actually, 13 months) makes!

13 months of trying to make a baby. You've changed so much in this year, and I'm not sure if it's for the better. Let's take a look back at the happy carefree Preconception You, and the slightly jaded and still not pregnant Subfertility You.

Preconception You LOVES to talk about getting pregnant. Good people to pump for information are hair stylists, as they are cutting your hair. You shyly tell them that you are planning on starting a family soon too. They tell you all about their 5 kids, and wish you luck on your impending conception.
Subfertility You doesn't go to that stylist anymore.

Preconception You blows her nose, and throws away the tissue
Subfertility You examines the contents, and wishes your cervical mucus looked so good. Subfertility you is also obsessed with pretty much anything that shows up on toilet paper; always on the lookout for good cervical fluid or the elusive implantation spotting.

You go for a run on the trails by your office. The secretary warns you not to go, as there is likely a rapist behind every tree.
Preconception You blows off her warnings, because she is an alarmist and a conspiracy nut.
Subfertility You thinks, "A rapist? Do you think his sperm is any good?"

Preconception You loves to coo over other people's babies. You love to hold them, cuddle them, and ask their mothers all sorts of questions about conception, labor, delivery, appropriate times to introduce the bottle, maternity leave, and their opinions on pacificers.
Subfertility You doesn't want to talk to anyone about their baby. Because, it will lead the the question of, "are you going to have one?", and you like to avoid that conversation now. You don't even like to hold people's babies now. Probably, because you know you are likely to steal the baby, and you need to practice a measure of restraint.

Preconception You has a bunch of baby-planning books that other people have given you, as well as baby toys and clothes. They say, "just tuck this away for someday".
Subfertility You has only read the first chapter of each of these books (the one about pre-conception and conception). It's too depressing (or it feels like you might jinx yourself) if you read any further. The Baby Naming Book is under the wobbly leg of the table. All the baby toys and clothes are now molding in the basement, far out of sight. Sometimes you even give them to other people, as they have their babies, or second or third babies.

Preconception You thinks it would be fun to have an "oops" baby, preferably in the summer, when your work load at your job is the lowest. Subfertility You will take any kind of baby she can get, at any time.

Preconception You assumes your husband masterbates from time to time, but doesn't want to know about it. Preconception You also has no interest in sperm, other than the fact it is messy. Subfertility You is obsessed with sperm numbers: motility, morphology, volume, live sperm per volume, fragmentation, healthy tails. You also demand that your loved one jerk off into a cup while you wait with the car running, so you can transport it (in your armpit) to the clinic within an hour of emergence to be analyzed.

Preconception You likes to say, "oh, I'm so against using drugs for anything. I'm an all-natural kind of girl." Subfertility You will swallow, inject, or shove up your hooha any drug your Reproductive Endocrinology tells you too. You'd even inject it into your eyeball, if the RE told you it might help.

Preconception You drinks because there is no baby.
Subfertility You drinks because there is no baby.
(hey! I guess not everything changes!)

X will make you fertile! Y will make you infertile!

If you start hanging around fertility boards, you get a lot of advice on what enhances fertility, and what hampers it. You get some good suggestions, such as:

Losing weight will help your fertility!
Okay. I buy that.

Going off birth control will make you fertile!
Yeah. That makes sense.

Having sex will help make a baby! If you don't have sex, it's harder to get pregnant!
Got it. Sex = baby.

If you don't have sex during your fertile period, you won't get pregnant!
Right. No egg = unemployed sperm.

Then you get into the realm of "alternate therapies"

Acupuncture will make you more fertile!
I don't know about this one, but it's been around for a while, and a lot of people put stock in it. I'm not going to discount it.

Sugar will make you infertile!
I guess I can kind of see that, if you have PCOS and blood sugar issues, then cutting out sugar will stabilize your blood sugar levels, disrupting the negative feedback loop between insulin and low hormone levels....okay....

Use Instead Softcups! They'll hold the sperm up near your cervix - it will have no where else to go but into your egg.
Maybe if you plan on doing Jazzercize right after you have sex...

And then you get into the sphere of Crazyland. And granted, I fully understand why people want to visit Crazyland. It's lovely this time of year. And in Crazyland, the following things make you fertile:

Fertility stones, fertility candles, yams, sleeping with the lights on, crazy nasty herbs , soy, maca root, baby aspirin, chiropractors, vitamin B6, Red Raspberry Leaf tea, green tea, tea tree, lavender, dextoxing, oil pulling (swishing oil in your mouth), Chaste berry tea, yoga, meditation, robitussin, royal jelly, uterine massage, lunaception, Fertibella, Tulsi tea, iodine, melatonin

And the following things make you infertile:
Coffee, Tea, alcohol, high heels, hot tubs, peas, soy (ha! it's on both lists), stress, dairy, gluten, too much sex, not enough sex, low iron, antihistamines, microwaves, cell phones, radios, air pollution, NSAIDs (IBproufin)

To simplify things, I've made my own list of what helps fertility:

Being fertile

You're welcome.

Everyone Knows a Miracle Baby

If people know you are trying to have a baby, or if they just *assume* you're trying to have a baby (since you've been married for 8 years and have no offspring), they feel the need to give you all sorts of reassuring stories. Like, "Maybe you are trying too hard. I know a couple that tried for a long time, and then they got drunk one night and got pregnant". Sadly, all my nights of heavy drinking have resulted in no babies.

Maybe you explain to them that no, it's not that we're trying too hard, I actually have an endocrine problem that makes it hard for me to get pregnant. And then they (of course) know someone who tried for YEARS to have a baby, spent $30k on in vitro fertilization, donor eggs, donor sperm, donor uterus, donor storks, and got nothing. So they gave up, prepared to live out their lives in childless loneliness. And then lo and behold! They had a miracle baby! It's amazing that everyone seems to have one of these stories.

A friend of mine (who really did have a miracle baby - I told you everyone has a story like that), told me that there are probably a limited number of miracle babies in the world, but most people know them. Like the 6 degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon. 3 degrees of separation from someone's miracle baby.

But what about the other stories? The couple that tried for years, spent their life savings, and then got rejected from the adoption process because they were too old at that point? I'm pretty sure everyone knows LOTS of people like that. I just haven't decided if it's a kindness or not that people don't share THOSE stories with me.

Reminders...

"Oh - you're having a baby shower? Yes, I'd love to come. Um...sounds great."

All About Sperm

Remember back in junior high health class, when you learned all about sperm? Sperm was magical, as well as diabolical. Sperm could live for days on a toilet seat. Sperm could swim though 6 layers of clothing and impregnate you. It only takes one single sperm (ONE!) to get you pregnant. And sperm could be deposited on your clothes, and a week later, find its way inside you and burrow inside your egg. Ah, the good old days, when sperm could not be defeated. And for most of my adult life, I adhered to this guidance. Any loose sperm was a cause for alarm, much like a biohazard spill.

After a year + of subfertility, you learn a few truths about sperm:

-Sperm doesn't like things too warm

-Sperm doesn't like things too cold

-Sperm doesn't like coffee, alcohol, tobacco, or soy

-Sperm doesn't like hot tubs, hot showers, saunas, restrictive underwear, bike shorts, biking, synthetic fabrics, laptops, or scalding hot liquids

-Sperm doesn't like to be in the testicles for longer than 7 days

-Sperm doesn't like having to regenerate every day

-Sperm doesn't like it when you get old, or overweight, or stressed out

-Sperm doesn't like lube, saliva, petroleum jelly, baby oil, or any cervical fluid other than "eggwhite"

-Sperm doesn't like to be kept waiting in a cup for over an hour

-Although it only takes "one good sperm", having a sperm count of 1 will never get anyone pregnant

Why Aren't You Pregnant?

After about 8 years of marriage, people start looking a little askance at your lack of offspring. They wonder if maybe you don't like kids, or maybe you're just too selfish and immature to have them. In our case, we were on the 5-year no baby plan. The five year plan stretched into a 7 year plan, with us both in grad school and having absolutely no money. We wanted to be stable, and not crazy busy and stressed. So, here we are, 33 and 40 years old, both with careers. The perfect time to have a kid. Except it didn't work out that way. I had a feeling something wasn't going to work right. I had had crazy cycles ever since I was a teenager. Weight gain, acne, no period for 4 months, then getting my period of 6 weeks straight. Then when I was 18, I started getting horrible pelvic pain. I was diagnosed as having ovarian cysts. The easiest thing for doctors to do was to put me on birth control. I know some women don't like to be on hormonal birth control, but for me, it was a magic drug. My cycles were normal. My weight was stable. My skin looked great. Once, in my 20's, I went off the pill for a few years. And all that crap came back. Weight gain, bad skin, pelvic pain, and crazy periods. Around this time, I got married, so I went back on the pill. Once again, the universe was in harmony.

Fast forward 7 years. We were finally in a place where it made sense to have a kid. We had careers, a house, some money in savings, we hadn't killed any of our pets yet. We were ready. I scheduled a pre-conception appointment with a doctor, like all the books say you are supposed to. Well, I'm not sure what I paid for, but there were no tests, no exam, no blood work. I told the doctor my concerns about going off birth control. She told me, "There's nothing you can do about that. Just try to get pregnant right away". So we tried. And....nothing.

Six months later, I was in for an annual exam (different doctor). She referred me to get an ultrasound, just to make sure I didn't have any fibroids, car keys, or alien babies in my uterus. During the ultrasound, the radiologist mentioned I had ovarian cysts. In my head, I responded, "No sh**, tell me something I didn't know. I've been dealing with that since I was 18". And then he pointed out on the screen (for the nurse's benefit, not actually mine), "Look at that. Classic string of pearls". I had no idea what he was talking about. Exam was over, I left.

About a week later, the nurse from the doctor who referred me for the ultrasound called. She said, "Because of your Polycystic Ovarian Disease and your Ovarian Dysfunction, we're referring you to a fertility specialist". My WHAT? Those were the first time I had ever heard those words. It's on my to-do list to write that doctor a note, and let her know she needs to find better ways to tell unplesant news to her patients.

Fortunatly, the doctor I got sent to (an RE) is great. He did lots of tests, and confirmed, yes, I do have PCOS. We formulated a strategy for getting preggo, and how to deal with a lifetime of PCOS.

If you've never heard of PCOS, just google it. Now imagine someone tell you that you have this syndrome. And it will scare the hell out of you. Apparently, one thing you can do to improve things, is to cut out sugar and refined grains. So, I've been doing that since late April. The first few months were hard, but it's gotten better since then. But it's going to be a battle. And it's never going to go away.

Introduction

So it's come to this. An infertility blog. Or as I like to call it, "subfertility". Infertility has such finality to it. I never thought I'd be in this demographic - women who have difficulty having children. I think every woman who plans on getting pregnant (and not everyone plans), has a tiny voice in her head that says "maybe I can't get pregnant". And for most women, that voice is wrong. But for me, that voice was dead on. So, I figured the best way to wrestle with all these emotions is to write about them. I could have just typed them all up, and put them on my computer and no one would ever see them. But the truth is, I scour the internet looking for other women's stories - what they went though, did they have any success, what worked, what didn't work, etc. So, I'm hoping maybe this blog might help someone else out too.

If you're wondering about the title of the blog, it's from The Beatles "Hey Jude". Because subfertility is a sad song. And I'm trying to make it better.