It’s National Infertility Awareness Week, and this year’s theme is #FlipTheScript. Does it bother me when I see my donor’s features reflected in my daughter? Short answer: no. Although I’d be lying when I am reminded how we live in a society that assumes all family members share DNA (“Ohhh, they look so much like you!” or “Does she get…
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Did You Know: Moms via Egg Donation are Biological Mothers? #NIAW 2018 • Day 1
It’s National Infertility Awareness Week, and this year’s theme is #FlipTheScript. I’ll be posting something here on OFT, as well as on Instagram (@OnFecundThought and @TheTryingTimes) every day this week. And because I’m “out-out” about our infertile struggles and how we came to create our family, I’ll also be sharing to my personal Facebook and Instagram accounts too. To kick…
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FET Accompli
The results of our February FET are in—at the bottom of this [long!] post. Back in November, my RE handed me the reins for a future cycle. By then, we’d had five failed cycles—two were cancelled, two were straight-up BFNs, and one (my May girl) was a chemical pregnancy. In asking me what I wanted to do, my RE clearly…
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Four Years After Fifty-Five Eggs, Ten Embryos, and One Child… FET 6
We retrieved FIFTY-FIVE eggs from your egg donor today, so we got a very large group of eggs today. We’ve already cleaned them to look at their maturity… There are currently 40 mature, with a chance of maybe up to five more maturing in the next few hours. We’d love to discuss with you how you’d like us to inseminate…
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Five Years
It was five years ago today that I took a pregnancy test for the first time and saw a second pink line darken before the control line. I didn’t know it then, but at that moment the biological clock that had been ticking for years started counting down to the infertility diagnosis that had been waiting in the wings since…
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WTF 4
Our WTF meeting didn’t go so well. I mean, after the cursory, “This must be so disappointing for you…,” my RE’s opening words were, “So what do you want to do?” Which, if I were a cancer patient, would suggest more palliative care than cure. I mean, when else does a doctor hand over the reins to the patient? When…
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What is Enough?
It’s noon. Had things gone well, I’d be wrapping up my FET by now. Instead, I’m tapping out anger and wearing my gym clothes. Last night I drank four dry Manhattans. This morning I am dehydrated. I note that normally four cocktails would have brought on a migraine, but I haven’t had one since starting probiotics earlier this summer. Still,…
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78 Days Down the Drain
My cycle—what would have been FET4—was cancelled. And the anger that I feel is deeper than anything I’ve felt in a long time. I went in for my final lining check on Wednesday, and as soon as a small black triangle flashed in and out of focus on the screen, I cursed inwardly. The nurse practitioner suggested that Dr. F…
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Day 5: Capture Your Grief
Day 5 of #captureyourgrief coincides with my undue date for Mizuko Bean. Bean showed up with two bold pink lines, but with my fucked up DNA he never stood a chance: he stopped growing at 6 weeks but I didn’t miscarry. (You can read my letter to him, Dear Little Mizuko Bean, here.) Curiously, my grief for Bean is now…
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I’m a Nominee for Resolve’s Hope Award for Best Blog!?!?!?!?!?!?
When I wrote a blog post back in April about my current favourite slant on infertility—that having a baby cures childlessness, not infertility—I never seriously imagined it would be shortlisted for Resolve’s Night of Hope Award for Best Blog. And, holy mercury-filled mackerel, here I am! Of course, I’d love to win. Who wouldn’t? But even to have been nominated…
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