How To: Being A Friend Of An Infertile

As I said in my introduction post, the purpose of this post will not be to encourage an infertile person to wallow in their own self pity, or to allow bad behavior to continue. Infertile people can feel sorry for themselves like no one else can, and while some say we might have a good reason, to be honest, we don't! The purpose of this post is to let people on the outside into the world of infertility, so that you might be better equipped to encourage, and to be honest, to hopefully prevent you from saying something that could hurt your friend, and then your relationship.

Unfortunately, infertility isn't usually a topic women feel comfortable throwing out there to the general public, or even to close friends. While that is usually the case, there are people like me who are comfortable with talking about almost anything with almost anyone. Biblically, if you need prayer for something, you are to ask for it. But, people have deemed it 'personal' or 'private,' when in reality, this is probably the time a woman needs to be open the most. The way different women deal with their infertility journey is as different as each of their personalities, but there are some universal commonalities in there also.

Please understand that this post will come across as very sarcastic because I am going to try to portray what goes on in a woman's head who struggles with infertility. With that in mind, here are a few tips.


1. First of all, research your friends condition (see point 3 before you do ANYTHING). 
          There are a bagillion and one reasons for infertility, so Google will be your best friend. If your friend doesn't have to explain every little detail to you about every process she's going through, she will feel more open and more understood.
          *As a side note, if your friend doesn't know what her condition is, she needs to be seen by a doctor.
               Even if she is putting off a doctor's visit because she thinks she'll get pregnant on her own, her            health may be at risk and she won't know it until she sees a doctor.

2. Realize there are different stages of dealing with infertility. 
          There's the newbie, the never-ending optimist... she's been trying for about 6 months, maybe even seen a doctor, or tried some of the less invasive fertility treatments. She believes the problem is temporary and that she'll most likely get pregnant on her own by some miracle. She doesn't need too much in the way of special friendship. It's hard for her, but she doesn't feel broken or separate from the rest of the world.
          There's the long term, tried every treatment she's willing to try, involved infertile... she's tried for so long she forgets exactly when she started. She knows that even if she does get a positive pregnancy test she won't believe it until she's showing. She feels alienated from society and from anyone who can't understand exactly what she's going through because they've been there. She constantly carries the pain of what she perceives as never being able to have a child. Though she may not show it, she is sensitive and easily bruised. It is constantly on her mind, and only sometimes can she push it to the background. In every month, there are two weeks of impatience and two weeks of worry, then a couple days to a couple weeks of depression after the negative blood work. Then the cycle begins again, and she won't quit trying, because if she does, she might miss 'the month.' This is the woman who needs a friend the most, but the one who pushes back so hard when you try to help that you wonder if you are doing more harm than good (and just so you know, she needs attention, whether she thinks she wants it or not. Keep on Keepin' On...).
          There's the Old Timer. She's tough. Infertility is part of who she is. She's been through the Dark Ages of infertility and has come to realize that while the whole situation is almost all total suckage, it's not going to kill you, and there ARE other things to life than having children. She begins to laugh at herself for all of the silly things they tried to get pregnant by doing (ahem, standing on your head and doing bicycle motions with your legs after sex?), and laugh that they took things so seriously. They replace tears of sorrow with tears of joy, that they've made it through, and that infertility is no longer defining them. If you were friends with your infertile before she started her journey, you will start to remember what she was like before.
          Women move through these stages at different paces. Taking on the job of being friend to an infertile is not an easy job. You constantly have to adjust your actions and attitudes, and it wears on you. Being friends with a woman in the Dark Ages of infertility is the worst... her world usually shrinks to the universe of infertility and she usually knows she's going to go insane if something doesn't break. Her reaction to you has almost nothing to do with your ability to friend at this stage. It has everything to do with her ability to cope. The best advice I have for you if you're friending a woman at this stage is to love her from a distance. If she's ready to talk, she will come to you. For the other two stages, a closer, more intimate relationship is often needed for her. She will most likely choose the person she feels 'gets her' the most and pour out her soul to this person. If you're not that person, it doesn't mean that she doesn't want to be friends with you, it means she chose the person she's most comfortable with. Try not to read into it.
3. Don't give advice unless she asks.
          Remember, the stuff you read on the internet is stuff she tried in Fertility 101. She's been there, done that, didn't work, moved on. Yes, she's tried cough syrup and grapefruit juice to increase cervical mucous. She's taken a baby asprin to prevent miscarriages. She's probably tried everything you could think of to tell her to try months ago. And PLEASE, whatever you do, don't tell her to 'just relax' or 'stress can prevent pregnancy, girl!'.... yes, she knows. But would you tell someone who has cancer to just relax? Probably not. Infertility is a disease, and not only that, but you can't 'just relax.' It's constantly on your mind, no matter what you do. And yes, she's tried Chamomile tea before bed to try to relax her system. Relaxing will not change the medical diagnosis that is causing your friends infertility. If she asks you for advice, first of all, that's amazing. Second, be gentle and make sure what you say accounts for her feelings, rather than just facts. Infertility is an emotional journey primarily, and advice given needs to echo that.
4. Please, never, ever, never ever, say something like "Maybe you weren't meant to have children."
          Most infertiles are very understanding people. They will usually nod and smile when someone says "It's probably just God's Will that you don't have a baby right now..." at dinner, but when they get in the car with their hubby they either start bawling or get angry. Because while it may be true that it's not God's Will for me to have a baby right now, you've just said something that makes you feel better and makes me feel worse, and thank you for reminding me at this lovely dinner that I may never have children. While it is important that your friend accepts and wants to be within God's Will, it's still a topic that is sensitive and can easily bruise someone. And the worst part is that you'll probably never know that you hurt your friend's feelings, and your friend will be wondering if she can muster up the courage to do the right thing and tell you about it. How about "Oh, my friend got pregnant naturally after 20 years of trying." "Oh, thanks. Great for her, it's really got nothing to do with my situation, because I don't ovulate. Can't get pregnant if you don't ovulate!!!" Or "I would NEVER do IVF/IUI/Clomid..." Okay... thanks for telling me.... ??
5. Announcing pregnancies, baby showers, birthdays, etc.
          The best advice I can give here, is don't treat her any different than you would a normal person. Though she feels different and isolated, the last thing she wants is for people to actually treat her that way. She knows what she can handle, and she'll be happy to decline an invitation if she needs to. If she's having a bad baby day, say, she just got her period, then she will decline. If she thinks she can handle it, or particularly if she is involved in your and your child's life, she will probably attend. As far as telling an infertile that you're pregnant, don't worry about it. The time in an infertile's life where her friends getting pregnant bothers her is usually a short one, and generally she will want to be more involved in your pregnancy than will your other friends. It will be a temptation for her to live vicariously through you, but she will probably try to resist that and just be a help. Invite her to ultrasounds if you're close, and let her feel your belly when you start showing more.... she'll love getting the chance to feel the baby move.
6. If you don't know how to act, ask.
          Truly, there's nothing more frustrating to an infertile than people who don't understand her, that act like they do. And there's few things more relieving than a friend asking how she wants to be treated. She will tell you honestly. This should probably be number one, but I didn't think of it until just now ;)

Some women deal with infertility better than others, but no matter how badly your friend is handling it, she doesn't need to be treated like an eggshell. If her attitudes are not Biblical, confront her. If she is stuck in a rut of self pity, confront her! An infertile shouldn't be allowed to continue in sin because she is in a rough situation.

I hope this helped clear up some of your questions if you are a friend of an infertile person. Some of the most miserable times for me is when I feel like anything I say to someone might be taken the wrong way!

T-4 days till next blog update...

Love you all,

Ash

Upcoming: A How-To Post (Or a series... Depending On My Mood)

I'm still in the process of deciding whether to make this a series of posts or just one, so we shall see what it turns into.

I feel a huge need to get some info out there to the world about how to interact with someone experiencing infertility. A couple is often more sensitive to certain topics when going through infertility, and friendships can be broken if one is not aware how to handle themselves.

The last thing I want to advocate is to encourage wrong behavior by catering to it. This is not what I'm suggesting, nor am I suggesting that you walk on eggshells around someone who didn't get pregnant within the first three months of trying. I DO want to advocate sensitivity and an open heart. I DO want to save friendships that would otherwise most likely have been lost because of a simple misunderstanding. It is truly tragic that women who have never gone through infertility see it as their duty to inform women who are in the midst of it how to deal with the situation, not because they can't have good, solid, Biblical advice, but because often they say something with only good intentions that really hurts their friend. And most of the time, they're oblivious to it.

So, with that in mind, I just wanted to give a little introduction into what I'll be working on the next few days. If you know anyone who has a fertility problem, I highly encourage you to read the next (or, next few) post(s). And not just because I want readers, either... ;-P

Ash

The Way I Roll...

I have to tell you all the 'boring' stuff.

First, the pills they have me on are not, I REPEAT! NOT making me ill! This is a huge praise, because every other time I have taken multivitamins they never agreed with me. So, since I don't really have a choice in taking these ones, it's awesome that they aren't causing adverse side effects. The only thing I've really noticed is that I was a bit more tired than usual, but that is pretty much gone now.

Second, the Clomid also made me less ill this time around. I was on a lower dose, so that's probably why.

Third, definitely my ovaries are bigger. If you looked at my stomach you would ask me if I'd gained weight... or if I was 8 weeks pregnant. Your pick.

When I went to the doc on Wednesday, my ovaries were nice and huge... multiple follicles in each one and on my right side, one that was 18mm! Go ovaries! Go Clomid! So, Doc told me to go ahead and give myself the hCG trigger shot that night at 6 (which just so happened to be right before Wednesday night church, when I just so happen to be in the sound room). Dan rushed home from work to be able to give me the shot... cutie. :) This is what the shot looks like!

The needle is literally the size of a tic-tac, which, BTW, is so much smaller than what I THOUGHT it was going to be. Sometimes they trigger you with a 20 gage needle... in your butt... Lucky me I got the tic-tac kind :) I felt super nauseated for about 4 hours afterwards, but after that I was fine. Other than that, really just my typical early pregnancy symptoms. I can smell a lot better too, and almost threw up when I smelled a banana. I'm going to be the worst pregnant woman ever.

Well, there's two things I need to tell you in order for you to understand what I am about to show you. First, I AM NOT PREGNANT right now. Second, I am addicted to peeing on sticks. Yes, you read that right. I LOVE peeing on ovulation tests and pregnancy tests. It's like an adventure of finding out whats going on in your body. So, as you can imagine, considering they gave me a shot of the pregnancy hormone, I went a little crazy (and to be honest, still am going crazy) with the pee-sticks. To make a loooonnnggg story VERY short, LH (luteinizing hormone) is the hormone that makes you ovulate. You get a surge of this hormone 24 to 36 hours before you ovulate, and it prepares the egg to make it's appearance. Well, hCG (the pregnancy hormone) is the exact same hormone, except with a little 'beta' tag on the end of the protein structure that makes it. Well, ovulation tests test for LH, pregnancy tests test for hCG, so since LH is so similar to hCG, I wanted to see if an ovulation test would turn positive if I had the pregnancy hormone in my system. You can see the results for yourself!

*Green = Ovulation Test

*Pink = Pregnancy Test

Um, yeah, seems like the ovulation test is even more sensitive than the pregnancy test! So, while this is not a definite conclusion of pregnant vs. not pregnant (since some people get another LH surge right before their period), I think I'll be using OPK's for pregnancy tests for a while. 1, because they work. 2, because they are WAAAAYYYYY cheaper!

So, now that that's all cleared up...

Alllllll of my pills also came in this last week. There's a lot of them. I mean a LOT of them. I feel like an old person, and have been scouring garage sales on Saturday mornings for a pill box. I have to take massive, MASSIVE amounts of folic acid, B12, and B6. I have a prenatal with lots of folic acid, two pills of Folgard, which is my prescription amount of the folic acid, B6 and B12 (which, in case you're wondering, comes out to 4.4 MG of folic acid, 24 MG B12 and 12 MG B6. Recommended doses for pregnant women are 800 mcg - 1MG, 4MG, and 3MG, respectively), and 800 mcg of folate (the kind of folic acid I can actually use). Plus, did I mention I hate swallowing pills???

There they are, in all their glory. Add another to this, when I'm taking Clomid.

Left to right: Zinc, Folgard, folate, iron, prenatal, intestinal complex,

baby asprin (to thin blood), folate, Folgard.

Yeah, that's pretty intense, I know. I would rather have them put all that into a shot and take the shot, I really would. I'd pay big money for it too.

So, as of this morning (Friday) it's been about 45 hours since the shot and I do feel like I'm ovulating (if I'm not, I probably have appendicitis). According to Doc, we timed everything perfectly and have a good chance of getting pregnant this cycle (to which I add... Lord Willing. If there's one thing I learned, it's that no matter how far you go with doctors, they still aren't God and you aren't getting pregnant without God's help).

So far, so good! Now I'm sitting here praying my brains out for blessing on the spermies and my eggy... and for FBD. :) We've done all we can this cycle, so now we pray and we see what happens! I go next friday for a progesterone test to see if I have enough to sustain a pregnancy, and then on the 31st for a blood pregnancy test if I haven't already started by then.

And again, I really will be happy either way. I want to be in God's Will, because what He has is always best. If I don't get pregnant this month, I will know it's in my best interest. That's all! I don't want a baby now if that's not what He wants! It's pretty simple. I have the best husband in the world who is my best friend... we have so much fun and I can't even ask for anything else. I'm so happy right now I can barely stand it, and I'm so thankful. So, if I blog and say "We are not pregnant" let's not have any of the pity parties that people like to throw for infertile people... I really am happy and will be totally ecstatic if I am, if I'm not, I will be just as happy as I am now! No reason for a sad face! The only thing that makes me want to feel sorry for myself is when people say "Oh no, I'm so sorry!" I know you're trying to be nice, but for real! I'm NOT sorry, why are you??? (I'm cracking myself up. Just thought you should know.)

So. We covet your prayers way more than anything else. I know there are so many of you praying for us already and I just have to say in every blog post THANK YOU SO MUCH! Gives new meaning to the verse "For this child I have prayed..." I have a bagillion people praying with me! Awesome. Just. Awesome. Gives me chills, it really does.

Later for now!

Ash, Dan, and FBD

MTHFR And The Happy Ending

If you have no clue about clotting/gene disorders, and are not generally a medically informed person, you probably think I just abbreviated a nasty word and made it my blog title. However, I will explain.

First, I had another appointment with Doc today. He wanted a full appointment to discuss our test results and determine which course of treatment would be the best.

Let's go over my general results first. We discovered that my ovaries are pretty much dormant on their own. I don't even try to ovulate at all without some kind of outside stimulation. He's not sure why, but he thinks if I get pregnant, the problem will fix itself, and I'll return to my normal, ovulatory self after I deliver, and if I don't for whatever reason, we'll see about treatment then. We also found that as far as hormones, everything is normal baseline. I do look like I can produce a ton of eggs, so that's positive :)

With all of this positivity I was starting to get negative. "What if nothing is wrong, and it's just not happening for some unknown reason?" I said to myself. My biggest fear = the unknown, and I'm trying to do better. But then he said "This is the only thing that came back weird."

He pulled out a piece of paper and told me that I have a double gene mutation. It's called Compound Heterozygous Methylenetetrahydrofolate Reductase. It's called MTHFR for short. Without going into extreme depth and detail, I have a mutation on my A1298C gene and my C677T gene. Those are actually positions on genes, but you get the basic idea. It causes me not to be able to turn folic acid into folate, which is the 'useable' form of the nutrient.

It is also a clotting disorder, so the less grand news is that I have a good chance of having a stroke or heart attack when I get older. However, this

explains SO many health problems I've had, and, since it is in fact a clotting disorder, it explains all of my miscarriages, or at least certainly gives a very good case that it could be the culprit.

There are four types of this disorder, and I have the more popular (as in, more people have this, than the other kinds), and of the four, this is the most serious version of it.

AH-HA!!! So, there IS something wrong with me, this isn't just 'really bad luck', and I actually do have a good chance that with treatment, I'll get pregnant right away. Since the treatment is only one more pill a day to my current 3, I definitely don't have a problem with that.

As far as Dan's results, we were pleasantly surprised. His count came up by 8 million (yes, 8 million.... good job, sweetie. :), and his morphology is better. His motility is still a little low, but Doc says we can work with that. SO, we don't have to pay $500 per cycle to get treatment at this point...

Right now the plan is to proceed with the previous plan, which was Clomid for cycle days 5-9 and I go in for an appointment on the 12th for an ultrasound to see if I have any follicles, or 'follies" as we call them. The goal is for at least one egg to be around 16-22 mm, so that we can then trigger the release of that egg with a shot of pregnancy hormone. Which looks like this!

This whole time I really was thinking I was going to have to do this shot intramuscularly, but ALAS! I get the short stubby little needle instead! Pleasant surprise, after trying four different pharmacies and waiting almost 2 hours (meandering around Walmart AND being entertained is only possible for so long) for my prescription to be filled.

I start the Clomid tonight, so we're praying for at least two follies on Wednesday and obviously pregnancy about two weeks after that :) We're also praying for the new meds and vitamins Doc has me on to not make me totally ill... which has been known to happen to me with multivitamins.

All in all, I'm still loving this doctor, and I'm still learning so much at this point. I've really learned to be content in my life right now. I mean really, who could complain in my situation?? I have everything I need to be extremely comfortable and I'm WAY to the point where I thought I'd never get... Where I really will be okay if I never have children. I seriously never thought I'd say that.

Welp! As always... still praying to be preggers by Decemeber and while we're praying we might as well pray for twins! :)

Love you all, thanks for the prayers and for the read!

Ash, Dan, and FBD