When Miracles Happen

It's been a long time. I was writing very consistently until everything changed and I didn't know how to write about it. I also didn't want to jinx anything.

Where did I leave off? I'll sum up and try to keep it short. We were looking for a surrogate. We found a surrogate in New Brunswick through an agency. Going the independent route didn't work out and it just seemed easier to have a "middle-man" to deal with payments. She seemed wonderful. But everything was stressful. All the medical tests she had to do, the healthcare system in New Brunswick we learned was terrible and inaccessible, the costs involved with our fertility clinic, the agency was difficult to work with, the clinic also became difficult to work with, and I felt like everything was against me becoming a mom. Contract negotiations were also taking forever (a document that takes at least 3 hours to read). Summer 2017 was not fun, very stressful, and I wasn't feeling well health-wise. The only thing keeping me going was our canoe trips on the summer long weekends to give us a break from the chaos.

After putting it off forever, I decided that I would start another IVF cycle to create more embryos. This would be my 7th egg retrieval. I didn't know how many tries we would need from the surrogate and was also thinking of future children. Since I don't have a cycle, the new plan was to take the birth control pill for 2 months before starting the IVF cycle. The standard protocol is to go in to the clinic for a beta test (pregnancy test) before starting any cycle / meds. My in-laws were in town from Israel and I honestly just didn't have the willpower to go in. Why do a blood test that's going to be negative? So I was about to start the pill when something in the back of my mind told me to just pee on a stick.

Mother’s Day After a Failed Frozen Embryo Transfer (2018)

I would like to thank this guest blogger, who will remain anonymous, for her courage in writing this. And although Mother's Day has past, the feelings don't go away at the end of the day.

Mother’s Day is hard during infertility.

When it falls days after you find out that your PGS tested perfect embryo transfer failed

Mother’s Day is a punch in the stomach

It’s a constant reminder of everything you don’t have

But everything you want

It’s logging onto social media and immediately logging off because every post is a trigger

It’s staring at baby strollers longingly and wondering if it’ll ever be you

It’s seeing pregnant women everywhere you turn and trying to push the tears away

It’s a constant reminder of what you had, if only fleetingly for those 2 weeks when you were pregnant until proven otherwise

It’s trying to hide, but not being able to

A Passover Reflection

I know it's been a long time since I've written. For reasons that will come out later.

This evening we start the Jewish holiday of Passover. My friend Rachel has written this blog post. Thank you Rachel for sharing your story and your wise words.

During the Seder we will be recounting the story of the Exodus from Egypt and redemption from Pharaoh’s oppression, and many take time to reflect upon the broader theme of national and individual struggle and redemption. Since the birth of my son a few months ago, I have been processing my own challenges with infertility and pregnancy loss, and as Passover approaches I am reflecting on past Passovers without our children. Thank you to Rebecca for asking me to write a guest blog post about this process.

In the Haggadah, we read “All who are hungry, come and eat; all who are needy come and celebrate Passover."  Sometimes celebrating Passover and attending a Seder can be difficult. We may or may not know the challenges facing friends, family members, or strangers at the meal. Maybe you or someone you know are in need of a personal redemption.

The "It could always be worse" Syndrome

In chatting with friends and others going through fertility treatments, I’ve noticed a common theme. We sometimes get these pings of guilt. For a whole variety of reasons, but sometimes it’s because we think that we don’t deserve to feel bad. I’m honestly not for being in a chronic state of wallowing in self-pity, but there’s this feeling that what we’re dealing with is somewhat a choice. We think about how we’re not dying, as much as infertility is a disease and the majority of the time related to physical disabilities within the body, but no, there’s not a death connection. We think about how everyone is dealt different cards in life - maybe my finances are okay, or I have a loving supportive family, but I can’t have a baby, and so I shouldn’t feel bad because others have crappy finances or unsupportive families but can easily have a baby. We think about how we have friends who are still single in their 30s looking for someone to spend the rest of their lives with, and I’m complaining about how I can’t have children when they’re not even there yet! If we have secondary infertility we might think about how at least we could easily have 1 child whereas some people spend years trying for their first. We keep thinking about how it could always be worse.

This isn’t something that others say to us. No friend or family member actually feels this way about those close to them who are infertile. It’s totally something felt inside. In conversations that we have with ourselves or our partners. But maybe this is also our way of seeing the positive things in our lives too. It’s important to remember them. And we can be thankful for our health, our loving partner, our jobs, friends, family, etc.

A Year After Coming Out - A Reflection on my New Identity

When infertility becomes a part of your identity you can end up in a very dark place. There are many ups and downs, but it’s a huge adjustment. Some people grow up with a specific medical issue, or had a disease along the way, and are perhaps more prepared for the fact that infertility is a part of their lives. But for most of us, it’s a huge shift. We’re not prepared. There’s no book on “what to expect when you’re not expecting to be infertile”. And often, it’s something that we’re not willing to accept as a part of us, but rather something we “deal with” or “endure”. A combination of medical problems we didn’t even know existed, or didn’t realize would contribute to baby-making.

It took me a long time to accept the fact that infertility is a part of who I am. It was a deep secret. Many people hurt me because they didn’t know this side of me. I / we didn’t share it. Eventually we realized that we had no choice but to share. On the one hand, it was eating me up inside, making me bitter and angry. On the other hand, we had run out of resources.

A year ago I posted on facebook with a notice that we’re searching for a gestational surrogate. I’d say it was one of the scariest things I’ve ever put out in public. We had extended family and close friends who had no idea. In fact, no one really knew. And there it was, out in the world.

Rosh Hashana - Wishing for a Sweet New Year

This past week Jews around the world celebrated Rosh Hashana - we brought in the Jewish new year. It is a beautiful holiday, with mostly too much food. We spend a lot of time with family. Many of us go to synagogue for prayers. We dip apples in honey.

I often experience Rosh Hashana in 2 ways at the same time. The first is, “here I am again, on Rosh Hashana, and a whole year has gone by yet again without expanding our family.” It’s pretty pessimistic, I guess, but I can’t help but reflect on the year that was and realize that in this specific aspect of my life, not much has really changed. With almost every other aspect of our lives we have the control, we make the choices. Not getting that deserved promotion? We look for a new job. Hate where we live? We can find a new apartment or house. Feeling unhealthy? We can choose to eat better and exercise more, even if it’s really really hard to make these decisions and stick to them. At the end of the day, we control that. When it comes to baby making, everything is out of control. If a cycle will even work. Our response to drugs. How many embryos will develop to Day 5. If we’ll find a surrogate. If she’ll sign the contract. If embryos will actually develop better with an egg or sperm donor. So much up in the air. All the time.

Breaking Routine

We haven't taken a real vacation since last August when we flew to Israel for my sister-in-law's wedding. On the way back to Toronto, we took 6 days in Switzerland. It was amazing. But it's been tough to get away this year. So a few weeks ago my parents-in-law came in for a visit for 2 and half weeks. We had a great time. Although we were still here, this totally broke up our routine, which was excellent.

We're creatures of habit. We love our routines. And now that they've left, we're happy to get back to routine. But it was nice to create a sort of staycation. We travelled a lot. Stayed within a 3 hour radius of Toronto - Killbear Provincial Park, St. Jacob's, Prince Edward County... So much to see around us! And eat. We got to see Toronto through a tourist's lens. While we went to work, we sent them all around the city. Made them walk everywhere. Through them we discovered new neighbourhoods that we must go to.

Exercising the Patience Muscle

I am a very impatient person (I'll be blunt). I get frustrated when people don’t understand me or my intentions. Usually I’m the one not being clear enough, but it’s difficult. I used to be a teacher and for kids, I somehow have tons and tons of patience. But if I’m teaching my husband something about the English language, for example, I’m terrible, and can’t understand if it takes him too long to get it. We live in a world of quick results. If a website takes more than a second to load it throws off SEO. We send emails and call that person to see if they got it. Like, why not just talk to the person to begin with? Social media updates instantly with new posts. I’m not blaming society for my shortcomings. I know this is something I need to work on. I’m just saying that it’s a lot easier to work on it in the middle of nowhere with no distractions or expectations. But that’s not where I live - at least not for most of the year.

Going through infertility has brought light to my lack of patience. The whole process is a huge test in patience. We have no choice, but to be patient. Otherwise we’d all give up. And I don’t blame anyone that does. Sometimes you just need to say enough is enough. The best is when healthcare practitioners will encourage you to be patient - as if patience is what gives us a baby. It’s not. It’s technology. And money. And the stars of reproduction lining up. And luck.

I like to think that I am at least aware of what I need to improve about myself. I recognize that no one is perfect, and neither am I, obviously. So after almost 5 years of trying to have a baby, I am finally going to intentionally try to practice patience. Perhaps it will help me deal with infertility, and hopefully also help me in life in general.

Looking Forward on my 5th Childless Birthday

This past week has felt weird. A few days ago I turned 32. I’m not sure if I’ve ever been one to overly celebrate my birthday. It’s never been a count-down for me like some other people I know. I think I’ve always been pretty modest about my birthday. As a kid, it was obviously fun with birthday parties (I had a bowling party 3 years in a row) and presents and friends and cake. I’d often be at summer camp either skipping around a room, with my face in a cake, or thrown into the lake. My early twenties also included some fun Toronto bars. I think the last birthday that was really exciting for me was 25. I had just moved to Israel a few weeks earlier, and it was a quarter-century, so I sort of cared. 26 was fun because 10 days earlier I got engaged, so I was still high from that and this was the year I’d get married to the man of my dreams. At 27 I had gotten married a few months before and was getting excited for our honeymoon in September to Thailand for a month. And then we started trying to have kids and I figured by 28 I’d be a mom, or an almost mom. I definitely figured I’d have at least 2 kids by 32.

Last week I couldn’t really figure out why I wasn’t excited for my birthday. For a few years now I haven’t really wanted to do anything. For my 30th my parents came to visit for a few days in Israel and the whole family celebrated with me. Even threw me a surprise party. Which was fun. But it feels like every year that goes by is just another year that I’m not a mom. I keep feeling like I’m getting older, like not just a year older, but old. I keep thinking about how when my kid is 30 I’ll be 62, which is fine but older than the original plan, and it could take more time. So each year I think about how I’m getting into my 60s rather than my 30s. How I’ll be an old grandmother even if I’m a “normal-aged” mom in my mid-30s (hopefully). This might seem crazy, but as the years keep progressing with infertility, my sense of urgency increases, and my age to me seems so much older than I probably am. Constantly joking about how I’m old probably doesn’t help my psyche either.

So I did end up celebrating my birthday. We had cake at the office (this is standard). I went out for dinner with my husband, parents, and brother to this really great local pub and had an awesome time. I had some close friends over for food and drinks (and more drinks) which was so fun! I can’t hide from my birthday, so why not celebrate.

Why I Love the New American Greetings Commercial

I love this. LOVE this commercial. It’s been floating around for almost a week and every time I see it I cry. They took a real couple going through infertility and summed up the whole experience in less than a minute and a half. I can relate to every single thing in the video. Great direction and marketing, American Greetings.

I think their Not Alone / #givemeaning campaign is an important one. They’ve pushed the boundaries of card giving from the usual occasions of birthdays, anniversaries, births, and thank yous to something that brings people together on a whole other, more intimate level. It’s not just for infertility, although that’s the subject of the commercial, but we can often tell when someone is going through something but isn’t talking about it. And sometimes, that person just needs to know that others are there. What a nice gesture. They also brought forth an important concept that the friend giving the card doesn’t pretend to understand what is going on. She’s not looking for solutions to the problem, not offering advice. She’s just putting it out there that she’s there. How refreshing. And significant.

Waiting

When we start our journey of infertility nobody really tells us anything about what to expect. We learn about the technical / medical side of things. We’re told not to lose hope. We trust our doctors. But no one talks to us about the level of patience involved. As in, the enormous amount of patience that’s involved. And honestly, if they did 4.5 years ago, it wouldn’t have really meant anything to me anyway. No one says, ok, you may need to prepare yourself for something that could take the next 5 years of your life or more. Here are some resources to help you deal with that. Or, here are the people who will help you through the two-week-wait. Infertility has been a huge test of my patience and oftentimes I feel like I fail that test over and over and over again. If it wasn’t for my husband keeping me level and breathing, I’d probably have let my lack of patience affect me even more.

We live in a world where things happen instantly. We’re used to getting results quickly. We expect people to return our texts and emails within minutes. And sometimes we even call someone to tell them that we emailed them about something - how ridiculous is that? And social media… enough said. You get the point. So how do we take how we behave in the real world, to how we behave in the world of “if you don’t have endless patience you may potentially have a breakdown.”

"How Many Years Have You Been Married?"

I’ve been meeting a lot of new people lately. I’ve been going to some conferences and networking events, and our office has recently expanded. There are a lot of first topics that people talk about to get to know someone. Mostly it revolves around work, career history, maybe a significant hobby, and sometimes if it’s obvious that there’s a spouse people will ask what they do. And sometimes one of my most dreaded questions arises, “so how many years have you been married?” This is a totally normal question to ask. It’s not one of those questions you shouldn’t ask people who don’t have children or you know are suffering from infertility. It’s really a part of everyday conversation. And yet for me it’s one of the scariest.

I love that my husband and I have been married for over 5 years now. I actually love saying how long we’ve been married. It’s the question that potentially comes after, that makes me all anxious. “Do you have kids?” The truth is, that most often, it’s not asked. But the potential of that question instills so much fear in me.

Focusing on our Husbands this Father's Day

When going through infertility, us women are pretty focused on what we're dealing with. Treatments can take over our lives. It's hard for us mentally, physically, financially. We're the ones who have to go to the clinic all the time. We have the painful tests to do. We get the phone calls from the clinic with either good news or bad news. We're at the front lines of war on infertility. There are constant triggers and reminders of what we cannot do. I swear, it doesn't matter what direction I look, everyone is pregnant. Or has a baby in a stroller. Even when I went to the bank this week to take cash out of the ATM, there was an ad for mortgages or something on the machine of a happy family with a toddler and the wife is pregnant. Even at the bank I'm reminded that I'm not a mom. And we get really caught up in it that sometimes we forget about the other half of Team Want To Be Parents.

When Someone You Love has a Baby

I really debated writing this post. I don’t want to make anyone feel bad through my blog, and this topic is a little bit touchy. After all, the purpose of this blog is help others going through infertility and those connected to us, and to also help me deal with what I’m going through. I believe that this what all women in my situation feel, so I’ll do my best. Don't worry, at the end I get all optimistic.

When dealing with infertility, our brains and hearts get a little mixed up sometimes. They communicate in this odd way, and send each other messages that often don’t make sense. Like dating in high school.

Taking a Break or Vacation

Summer is here!!! Ok, it’s cooler and rainier than I would like, but summer signals us to slow down a little, have a beer on a patio, and maybe even take a vacation. A lot of offices even switch to summer hours so that everyone can leave early on Fridays. I’m just excited to start camping again. For those going through infertility, planning a vacation can be impossible. But it’s important to try and get away, even for a long weekend.

Once a couple starts fertility treatments, it’s as if any option for going away comes to a halt. I’ll let you in on how the thinking works. It goes like this:

“Ok, so we’re starting IVF next week, that means 2 weeks of hell, egg retrieval, hopefully an embryo transfer, and then the 2 week wait. If we are pregnant (hopefully!), that means that we wait until there’s a heartbeat at week 6, which is 5 weeks after the embryo transfer. To be on the safe side, let’s wait until the 2nd week that there’s a heartbeat. Then maybe we can find some deal to get away for a week at some point. But this is assuming that all is going well and there are no complications. So let’s book for 9 weeks from now. But wait, if we’re not pregnant, are we going to do another cycle right away? We should probably wait a month for all the hormones to leave my system, so that’s a good time to go away, and that would be like, a few weeks from now. But in case we’re pregnant, I can’t ask for time off work now to book for a few weeks from now. So let’s wait for the results of the pregnancy test and then decide. But what if I am pregnant and not feeling well during the first trimester. This means we should wait until we know that I’m feeling well. But I’ll have to let work know at the beginning of my second trimester and what if they don’t let me go away on vacation knowing that I’ll soon be taking a lot of time off. But so many people go on “baby-moons” so it should be fine.”

When Our Clinics Own Us

There are so many instances and situations at my various clinics where I have felt that I am completely powerless. When I have not been given choices or there are no choices. When we’ve had to just deal with the situation, accept it, and resort to the terrible phrase “it is what it is”. I’m not sure what the solution is. I think it would help for us all to share our clinic experiences - perhaps more transparency would do the trick. Like when you give a review on Yelp for a restaurant you just ate in.

There was a situation recently which made me feel awful. And it got me thinking about all the times that my clinics (and there have been a few) have complete power over me. I went online to pay my visa bill and saw that my clinic charged me $2,000. I was never made aware that I would be charged this amount for something so figured it was a mistake and called the clinic. Turns out that it was for a medical consult of our (hopefully) gestational carrier (GC). (good news, we have found someone amazing, but more on that soon, I want to focus on the topic at hand). This was a short chat between my doctor and our GC. And that’s what it costs for some reason I have yet to figure out. Do I have a choice in this? No. She has to speak with him and do all these tests. But the clinic doesn’t have to charge that exorbitant amount of money. And my doctor was running over an hour late and made our GC wait for his call. My fertility lawyer’s fees come nowhere close to what my clinic is charging for a short phone call. Neither do my accountant’s. It’s crazy. I think. So I made a huge stink about it. I spoke up. I emailed everyone necessary and unnecessary. Turns out that is was an error. And I will be completely refunded. Also turns out that there was supposed to be a charge for the appointment, but no one has yet told me what it is. Due to the huge stress this has caused me, I have demanded no charge at all for the appointment. This got me thinking of how easy it would have been for me to miss this charge. And to how many people must not realize things and perhaps pay for no reason.

The Power of One

This past week I attended an event called JEDx put on by a Jewish organization for young professionals called The House. It’s basically like a Jewish TEDx where speakers come from all over focused on a theme and how their Jewish values came into play, and how to be a better person in society and our own communities. This year’s topic was The Power of One, and it was a group of extremely inspirational human beings. The House was started over 10 years ago by one of my heroes and high school teacher Rabbi Rafi Lipner (he was also one of the first people I told about looking for a surrogate as he’s super connected and has been so supportive and kind during this journey of our’s). At the end of the event Rabbi Rafi said something along the lines of you don’t do inspiration at an event, it’s what you do afterwards. And it got me thinking. It’s twofold - first, how am I going to be a power of one, the goals of this blog, how to reach out to people to make infertility a little less pain and a little more love, and two, how I have been affected by so many ‘ones’ who have made me get to the point where I’m staying mostly sane on this crazy journey of infertility and am now writing my 10th blog post.

There are 2 speakers from the event in particular that spoke about things that really resonated with me.

Why I'm Celebrating Mother's Day This Year

Mother’s Day is one of these holidays that either you’re on board or you’re not. For years now I’ve mostly seen it as a hallmark holiday - shouldn’t every day be mother’s day? I like to think she should feel appreciated all the time.

There’s a whole variety of reasons as to why one may not like mother’s day. For infertiles, the reason is pretty obvious. And for weeks there’s so much hype about it. Constant reminders of what we cannot do. Become moms. Even Ellen DeGeneres has a Mother’s Day show full of soon-to-be moms with giant bellies. I’ve mostly avoided all things Mother’s Day. And I’ve read a lot of pretty depressing posts lately, and rightly so. It is tough this time of year - also with spring now here and all the pregnant women have magically appeared all around us. But I’d like to lighten up the mood a little bit. And I don’t need actual children to celebrate Mother’s Day. I’ve done quite a lot for my future babies!

1. They’ve already costed me a fortune. Everyone complains about how expensive children are. Well, I’ll probably be poor by the time they show up! And now with potential upcoming surrogacy costs… Just sayin…

My Top 5 Criteria for Fertility Doctors and Staff

Obviously, you want to choose a good doctor. It’s hard to know from the start who is going to be good and who isn’t. They all graduated, right? Recommendations help. And sometimes, it’s just good chemistry. Also, at the beginning, you don’t know how far into the whole process you’re going to need to go. In my 4+ years of experience at different clinics and with different doctors, here are my top 5 of what to look for.

1. They care about me

This may seem like something obvious, but it’s really not. Like most doctors, fertility doctors have hundreds if not thousands of patients. Each one has her own expectations of how much attention she should be receiving relating to the problem at hand (including myself). And we’re talking about hundreds of very hormonal women here. I don’t envy fertility doctors, it’s a hard job. So on top of all that they have to deal with, my good doctors hav often made me feel like I might be their only patient. They have seen me on short notice, and have squeezed me in between other patients. They have always been there for me / us, to get us through tough results, miscarriages, moving countries or clinics, and have cared to have conversations that don’t just relate to follicles, embryos, linings, and sperm.

National Infertility Awareness Week and The Psychology of Infertility

We are at the end of National Infertility Awareness Week (#NIAW), and a big issue that I've seen a lot of is the psychology of infertility and the toll it takes on us. The theme for this year's NIAW is Listen Up! When talking to people with infertility, all the technical medical stuff is irrelevant. Show some understanding. For some of us, at certain points along the journey, we are almost always hurting, our anxiety is high and depression is very present, and just listening can make a world of difference. When I was a little girl and asked "what do you want to be when you grow up?" I remember answering, "I want to be a mom." That and possibly also a hair dresser. At the age of 31, I'm not really interested in doing my dolls' hair anymore, but I do know that one of the things that has stuck with me forever is that I want / need to be a mom.

1 in 8 couples experience infertility. This means that you all know at least one person going through it. Friends, family, coworkers.