Now that my IVF cycle is looming, however, I have developed a sudden, intense aversion to needles.  Even acupuncture needles (although I’ve had regular acupuncture treatments for years without problems.  For the uninitiated, acupuncture needles are *tiny,* about the size of a cat whisker.)  Every time I have blood drawn or an acupuncture needle punctures my skin, I tense up tremendously.  This, as you may imagine, does wonders for the comfort I feel as the needles actually enter my skin.

It is like my body knows the IVF drugs are coming and already has an aversion to them and, by extension, the needles that bring them.

I am really at a loss for how to get past this because I’ve never dealt with anything like it before.  Thoughts?  Anyone else experience something similar?

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Now I sit here two years later and reflect on the process so far.  When I first started this blog, I was TTCing at home with ICI-ready frozen sperm.  I wasn’t taking any meds and was wary of having to do so.  I’m not sure if its a Seattle-specific phenomenon or something common to dyke culture in other places as well, but in Seattle at least, using meds to get pregnant (and sometimes also using a bank as opposed to a known donor) is seriously frowned upon.  I think it comes from the whole DIY movement – creating a baby is seen by many as something that is ideally DIY as well.  And of course its wonderful if that works for you … but for some of us that road dead ends and we have to try something else.  It took me a while to grow comfortable with that.

So from TTCing at home, I headed to my gyno’s office and then on to doing IUIs with femara at a fertility clinic.  My experience at the clinic hasn’t always been positive (timing of insems was done on their schedule, not my body’s, for example), but I was also surprised to find that I had a great deal of control over what meds I took and what interventions I did when.  In addition, I began seeing an acupuncturist who specializes in fertililty and who also gave me (terrible tasting!) herbs to take 2-3 times a day.  After my first five femara cycles were unsuccessful, I started combining a double dose of femara with HCG shots, and continued with the acupuncture and chinese herbs.  I have now done three of the femara/HCG cycles, none of which were successful.  So here I sit getting ready for IVF, and I am alternately excited at the new possibilities and increased chance of success on the one side and freaked out at all that is involved as well as the medical risks on the other side.  I’ve talked to a few folks who’ve done IVF – and read some of y’all’s blogs about it – and, for the most part, the consensus has been that its not as bad as people thought before they started trying.  I have my 2-3 hour (!) intake appointment on Monday for the IVF, and will likely start birth control next month and the actual IVF procedure in June.  (I’ll also probably have to take ~2 weeks off work in June, too, because of the daily ultrasound monitoring!  How exactly do people work while doing IVF – especially as teachers, where you can’t just leave work for an hour or so and make up the time later?)

My blogging has changed since I first started Ocean Dreamer as well.  When I first started it, I started it with the intention of building community for other single LGBTQ parents/parents-to-be – and also of building community with LGBTQ parents/parents-to-be in general.  As a former social worker, this fit quite easily in my professional mind and within my professional boundaries.  At times I felt I didn’t share my full self on here because I was living within the confines of professional boundaries instead of personal ones (of course, I would never share everything in a public forum, but I hope you know what I mean by the difference).  I shared some of my misadventures on here (such as refilling the tank), but I hesitated to share much of my real feelings about the process.  Now, though, my feelings around that – and my relationship to this blog and the community – have changed and I imagine you will find my posts to be more complete now and in the future than they were in the past.

I am hopeful as I look into the future.  I recently had a conversation with some friends over whether saying “I’ll be a mother some day” was good (in that I really believe it will happen some day) or bad (in that positive thinking in any form can be damaging to folks dealing with infertility and that you don’t really know that you’ll be a mother some day – there is no way to be 100% certain).  I believe – as did these friends for the most part – that it is good.  I do believe I will be a mother some day.  It may be through pregnancy, it may be through a different path, but I wholly believe that one day I will get there.  And, for today at least, I am feeling hopeful about it.

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*And* she thought my pulse was slippery only 5 days after the insem and ovulation – *way* before the end of the 2WW.  How nice it is to only have to wait 5 days, instead of 14.

I’ll be testing this weekend and will post once I know the results.

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