What a Long, Strange Trip

I have been an avid infertility community blog reader for over a year now and finally decided it's time to get off the sidelines and participate. When I read other blogs, and leave comments (as I frequently do), I feel sort of like a "fraud"-- or a sense of imbalance-- since I get to look into other peoples' lives but provide others no opportunity to look into mine. Plus, I have so many thoughts swirling around in my head about infertility, parenting after infertility, parenting multiples and other topics that I figure a blog will be a good place to put those thoughts into words. Hopefully by doing so, I'll feel like I'm truly a part of the online community I've grown to appreciate over the past year.

So, who am I? Good question. I'm certainly a very different person than I was three years ago when my husband and I started going through fertility treatments. Diagnosed with hypothalamic amenorrhea at age 29 after going off the P.ill and not getting a period for over a year, my case seemed "easy" to the doctors with whom we consulted. We were otherwise in great reproductive shape- we were young, had no family history of infertility and no other medical issues. I distinctly remember our RE telling us "as soon as we get you ovulating, you'll have no problem getting pregnant." Ha. Two IUIs and five rounds of IVF (two with PGD) later (all fresh, as we never had anything left over to freeze), all we had to show for it was a string of BFNs and a bank account that was getting lower and lower. That's when our local RE told us that getting pregnant with my eggs was going to be like "finding a needle in a haystack" and that we should just move on to donor eggs or adoption. Before we could accept that conclusion, we went to The Top Clinic (starts with a "C" and is in NYC) for a consultation with the doctor of one of my online buddies who urged me to consult with him (also her doctor) before we made any life-altering decisions. He concluded that the treatment we had at our local clinic wasn't the optimal protocol, and felt strongly that with a few minor tweaks there was no reason we couldn't have success. Overwhelmed with the logistics but convinced we'd always wonder "what if," we did a (what we claimed would be one last) "hail mary" cycle at The Top Clinic. Lo and behold, that cycle resulted in our boy/girl twins born in March 2006.

The experience of infertility changed me as a person. I had always been set on returning to work after having children, but as soon as I got pregnant I told my husband there was no way I could leave children we worked so hard to conceive. He was a trouper (I had always promised him HE could stay home with the kids and he was pretty psyched about that idea) and agreed it would be best for me to stay home. Now I can't imagine my life any other way- the thought of returning to work makes me tear up, and I know that as long as we can afford it financially, I will be home with our children and will only work around their school schedules. Our children mean the world to me-- I worry constantly about their well-being and think I am a much more patient and laid-back parent than I would have been had we not experienced infertility.

I am a much more skeptical person, sadly. I was always Ms. Sunshine before going through infertility- now I am less trusting (especially of doctors), more cautious and less naive. Infertility, in a way, came to define my life. I became very involved in RE.SOLVE, the national infertility association, participate in online infertility communities and read infertility-related blogs in my spare time. I was very closed about our experience while we were going through it, but now I am very open and tend to share the fact that we struggled with infertility freely. Most of my friends have experienced infertility because I tend to feel most comfortable with other mothers (or hopefully future mothers) who went through what we did.

And then something happened to shake this new found (and comfortable) identity: we conceived spontaneously when our twins were just 11 months old. We knew logically it could happen-- after giving birth to our twins (and when I stopped pumping for them), my period came back like clockwork for the first time in longer than I could remember. But when you put back so many embryos and end up with zilch most times, you just can't imagine how things could ever work out on their own. Apparently, somehow they did.

Instead of being elated and carefree about this pregnancy, I found myself with very mixed emotions. Sort of like a girl in junior high who is afraid the popular girls at her lunch table are going to shun her from the group because she talked to someone in the "unpopular" crowd. I felt guilty that this pregnancy had come so easily, and found myself justifying the pregnancy to everyone and anyone with a "but we had to go through six rounds of IVF for our twins!" I dreaded telling my friends who had struggled with-- or were still struggling with-- infertility. It just seemed unfair. Not to mention a kink in our plans...or my own plans- to run the Boston Marathon (four weeks after I found out I was pregnant- needless to say, I had to cancel the airline ticket and hotel reservations...), to compete in my first triathlon this August. Imagining going through the newborn stage (and a pregnancy!) again freaked me out, frankly. I had always said that I'd be happy to have a third if we could do it without medical intervention, but I meant several years down the road- not 19 months after our twins were born!

So we found ourselves going from no children (and the fear that we'd never have children) to the prospect of having three children under two years old. As grateful as I was, I can't deny that I was still stressed out. But over time, the shock and stress has passed and instead I'm feeling optimistic and, amazingly, strong. I feel a sense of pride (and maybe too much optimism?) knowing that I WILL be able to care for three young kids, and I'll do it with grace, energy and a smile on my face. Or at least that's what I'm telling myself. I'm going to be Supermom, and my family will be my source of pride and joy.

This blog is going to be my place to talk about whether I can really be the Supermom I imagine, the days that I feel like anything BUT Supermom, how infertility still plays a huge part in my identity, family life, playground politics and chatter and anything else that comes to mind. I hope I'll find a community of readers who will chime in to give me perspective, support, advice and inspiration.