The Land of Milk and Poo

INFRTL 4-EVAH?

One of my commenters asked me a question that I find pretty interesting: How can I call myself infertile when I'm pregnant?

This is something that I have thought about: am I still infertile? Does getting pregnant mean you are instantly not infertile? And if so, then what are you? Fertile? Sub-fertile? Quasi-fertile?

Would it be different if I had gotten pregnant, say, on one of my many IVF or IUI cycles? Would I still be infertile (requiring medical intervention to get pregnant) or would that count, too?

Or am I in "remission"? An "infertility survivor" but not technically infertile?

I don't know. Despite being pregnant, I still feel infertile. If you count the definition of infertile as anything worthwhile, I believe it's defined (yes, I'm too lazy to look it up) as the inability to get pregnant after one year of trying, or six months if you're over 35. I fit both of those. I lived with infertility for six years, and after a while, it began to define me. Everything I did or said or thought was colored through the murky lens of infertility--I wrote about it incessantly, thought about it, fought about it, lost friends over it, gained friends over it, grew because of it. Parts of me withered and grew dark. In essence, I became someone else. Infertility was the only thing I felt I did well. It was like an extra limb, constantly growing and sprouting new pieces--some bad, a few, surprisingly, good.

I can't make that go away. My husband and I were married by a priest who had left the priesthood to marry a nun. I made a comment about how he wasn't really a priest, and he looked at me gravely and told me in no uncertain terms that he had taken a vow and would always remain a priest, even if no one else recognized him as such.

I guess I feel like I've taken that vow. My pregnancy does not erase what I went through. I wouldn't presume to jump on an infertility board and post, nor would I title my blog "Cheek: Still Infertile After All These Years!", but if someone wants to talk about infertility and I happen to be around, I do think I've got something to contribute. But I know how it is. A few years ago I wouldn't have wanted pregnant me around, infertility or not. I always considered those who got pregnant who we had identified as infertile "infertile but currently pregnant." And really, really lucky. But the "currently pregnant" part, that was tough--even though I was thrilled for them, I didn't want to be around them, infertility or not. So I suppose I'd stick myself in some kind of limbo--not exclusively fertile, not exclusively infertile. 

And I guess you can, technically, "cure" infertility--I've heard stories of women who were infertile for years only to have five kids in quick succession. From infertility to super fertility. I know women and men who have gotten operations and "cured" their infertility. It's possible, I suppose, that after I have Rocky I could get pregnant again and again, although both Random and I are thinking 2 is a nice even number. I think even if that happened I'd still carry infertility around with me, even if I didn't outwardly identify myself as such. At this point, it's in my blood. And I'm still not convined that pregnancy "cures" infertility.

People have written before about infertility and whether it's more a state of mind or a medical condition. If I had never tried to get pregnant, I wouldn't know that I was infertile for six or so years, and it wouldn't be an issue. But I think it depends on the individual experience, in the end. Who knows why I got pregnant? We were in the midst of an incredibly stressful time, I had a concussion, it was a five minute romp, we had moved into a new house two days earlier. We didn't do anything different. I see it as a stroke of good luck--we just hit a magic combination that no one had been able to replicate before then.

I'm curious as to what the rest of you think, and a big thanks to the reader who brought this up--it's a question I've asked myself, too, and obviously struggled with in writing that last post. So--once infertile, always infertile? What's your experience, what are your thoughts?   

Pregnancy, Post-Adoption

So....pregnancy. I was going to start off writing about how pregnancy compares to adoption, but then I was thinking about it and realized that you can't really compare the two at all. The biggest thing they have in common is that they both are supposed to result in a baby. Other than that, my experience being pregnant has been very different than my experience with adopting.

For one thing, there's the outside world. It's amazing how the reactions concerning my pregnancy are so different than the ones people had when I was adopting. When I told people I was adopting, most expressed heartfelt congratulations and many surprise, but underneath it all was simple confusion--many people did not know what to say, how to say it, what to ask, how to react. At first, this annoyed me (and even--as some of you remember--angered me) but I began to realize after a while that I sort of kind of had to give people a break. After all, I didn't jump into adoption fully understanding or embracing it; it took me a long time before I was completely comfortable with all of it. So I got used to it, and expected that people might blunder or ask personal or even hurtful questions, or tell me all about how the people in China hate their girls. And I developed a patience towards the end of the adoption process that even I didn't realize I had until after we adopted and people would say things to me that only a year ago would have sent me into a bloggy frenzy. Like when an older acquaintance of mine told me that this pregnancy was my reward for adopting MP (I think I wrote about this a few months ago). I gently explained to him how MP was her own reward, and he realized his blunder pretty quickly. (If he had said that around MP, and she had heard, I might have handled it differently--I don't know. Thankfully, no one's said anything around MP yet. Amazingly. Must be those Mamabear vibes I give off or something.)

Now that I'm obviously pregnant people are flat out interested and inquisitive and eager to share their own stories. When I was infertile (um, I'm still infertile, but I think about the years before I adopted as "my infertile years." After that I no longer defined myself that way anymore) I bemoaned (oh did I bemoan) about not being in "the pregnancy club," and once I started adopting I felt like an honorary member of sorts. Once I was MP's mama, I stopped caring about being pregnant or being in any "club" and just focused on being mom. What I think I was yearning for, during my worst years, was the commonality of experience, the "normalcy" everyone else was living, the bonds they seemed to form so easily. And I see that now. If a woman is pregnant, and we have a chance, invariably we will end up talking to one another, swapping stories. I remember wishing there was something adopting mamas could wear to indicate that they were adopting so that we could recognize one another (I think we all decided on a secret handshake, and I know RumorQueen over at ChinaAdoptTalk advocated colorful bracelets) but nothing announces a baby is on the way like a big old belly. People I don't know ask me about it. People who I'm guessing would never in a million years get personal with me (like the Pottery Barn Kids delivery guys) tell me stuff about themselves. I've come to realize that the pregnant belly is very much a symbol of All Things That Are Good, and many people implicitly trust pregnant women and gravitate towards them. That belly becomes like a sun around which everyone revolves. And if I hadn't been infertile and gone through what I've gone through, I'd be positively basking in this constant attention and goodwill and trust. And, for the most part, I do. I love the way it opens people up and gives them--and you--permission to connect. I actually like people rubbing my belly, or commenting on my pregnancy (unless it's about my weight). But part of me is also so conscious of how it's unfair that we don't have more modes of connecting with one another, that other ways of becoming or being a family aren't more recognized and celebrated. And I'm very aware of how infertile women are relegated to the outside of the circle, sent to the Internet to connect. Yeah, I made some amazing friends online swapping stories about our lame ass eggs or our dismay at yet another failed IVF cycle, and some of the stuff we shared was intensely personal. But for the most part, it remained online, and as good as those moments were, they can't beat face to face.

So I end up feeling pretty ironic in the end--I'm the very thing I wanted so much and yet avoided at all costs: a pregnant woman. I'm finally privvy to the mysterious workings of the pregnancy club, and it makes me wonder how much more incredible my pre-adoption experience would have been if the outside world had reacted to me the way they do now (and if I had reacted to it the way I'm reacting now). And yet I am determined to enjoy this, to wallow in it, to relish every second of it (even the atrocious amount of weight I've already gained--22 pounds at 23 weeks--which is apparently way too much). 

And then there's the connecting with kid part. It's pretty freaking crazy to feel a baby kick. There's no real way to describe it except that it makes you acutely aware of how dependent your baby is on you, how you are not just you anymore but two. When I was getting ready for MP, I went and sat in her room almost every night and talked to her. I imagined what she might look like, pictured us going out, went through her clothes and pictured her in them. I'm not doing this now with the new baby--not yet--and at first I thought it was because I felt Mamaguilt, or because I was scared to get too attached (and I think it was those things, in the beginning). Now I know it's because I don't need to go through her clothes to feel connected. Feeling her squirm around like a sea creature or kick me in one of my various squashed organs is enough right now. Connecting with MP was so different--it was all based on leaps of imagination and intangibilities and unknowns: where would she come from? What would she look like? How old would she be? What would her time before me be like? Would we bond? Would she be healthy? When would we get her picture? When would we travel to get her? Will she grieve a lot or a little?

You can list questions like this for a newborn born to you, but invariably they will have something behind them to make the answers more than just complete conjecture. I know where my baby will come from. I know she'll probably have blonde hair, sensitive skin, and light eyes. I know how old she'll be, what her time before being born was like, and when she'll arrive (approximately). I know she's as healthy as any healthy baby at this stage. And I plan to breastfeed and stay home for a few months, so I know we'll have a good shot at bonding. Sure, there are many unknowns, but they aren't basic stuff. I knew nothing about MP. I bonded with an idea, a dream. Bonding with a kicking baby requires a much smaller leap of faith on my part than bonding with a bundle of I-don't-knows.

And one other thing about that kicking. It makes me wonder about MP's origins, and her feelings, even more. Many times, when Rocky kicks, I imagine MP kicking inside her birthmom's belly. It's strange to say, but being pregnant is a double-edged gift in terms of MP's past and her birthfamily. On one hand, I feel oddly connected to her birthmom. I think about her feeling MP kick, I think about her putting her hand on her belly to feel it from both the outside and the inside. I think about her dreams for MP, what she hoped and wished for. I wonder about how she must have felt, knowing she might have--or would have--to give the child up and yet carry it for nine months. I wonder whether she let herself grow attached, what she thought at night, when dark came and no one could see her face. Whether she cried or rubbed MP or sang to her.

I never allowed myself to think about these things before. Because I had never experienced them, it was a leap to imagine them for myself, let alone another woman. And I will admit that it was painful to imagine those things. And now I find myself thinking about these things a lot.

The other side of that sword is that MP's birthmom no longer knows MP, and that I will not have to give this baby up. She has experienced a loss that I will not know, cannot share. And MP has experienced a loss that her sister will not know, cannot know--that no one in her family can fully know. So even as I feel more connected to MP's birthmom, I am aware that I am in such an entirely different situation and place, and that MP might have feelings about my pregnancy when she is older that I will never be able to connect with, no matter how much I want to or try.

I don't know if any of this makes sense. All I know is that I hope that I find a way to help MP, and her sister, navigate the very different waters of their beginnings. And that I help them each celebrate those beginnings in a way that makes them feel loved and secure and confident in who they are and where they came from.

I think about meeting MP's birthmom, about what we'd say to each other. I know I'd hug her, probably not let go for a long, long time. I know there's some cheesy metaphor about umbilical cords and connections and families beginning simmering in there somewhere, but I can't write it. All I know is that being pregnant has become, for me, about much more than growing a baby. 

The Where Are They Now? Post

Hi! It's been awhile. I've been overwhelmed with family and work and home and have been trying to limit my computer time after work so I can spend time with MP. She's growing up WAY too fast. More on that below.

On the pregnancy front, I just recently had another ultrasound done. My cervix has decided to stretch out a wee bit and I'm now in the "just fine" range. I suspect I'll continue having bi-weekly ultrasounds until a bit later, which is okay by me as I get a peek at baby every time. Rocky looked good--she had curled up like a potato bug after a rigorous bout of kicking me in my organs (which is perhaps the weirdest thing to feel ever) so we didn't get a look at her face on the awesome 4-D machine my practice now has and will use whenever you want. (Have I mentioned how much I love my OB? LOVE.)

It seems to me that the thing about pregnancy is that you are always waiting for another milestone to pass so you can supposedly "relax." When I was in my first trimester I waited for the first ultrasound for evidence I wasn't crazed and making stuff up. After that I waited for the next check up to make sure there was still a heartbeat and things were progressing. After that I waited for the first tri to be over and for that magic "now you can relax" feeling to come over me, but it never really did. Because then I was waiting for my nuchal scan results, and after that for my blood test results. Then it was my fetal anatomy scan at 19w. After that I started waiting to feel some kicks that I could actually identify as kicks, and then I started counting them like a fiend to make sure I heard enough. I'm now 21w4d, still counting kicks and waiting to make it to 24w because then the fetus's viability outside the womb (should something terrible happen) is more of a possibility. After 24w I suspect I'll be waiting for the end of the second tri, and then after that 30w, when I've heard the baby sits more on your pelvic bones than your cervix. And so on.....it's freaking exhausting.

On the growing belly front i definitely look pregnant now. I was asked by someone the other day "if I was sure I only had one in there." It amazes me that no matter what the situation, people will find a way to be buttheads. I've only had two people want to rub my belly, and neither one bothered me, but I'm waiting for the grocery store ambush and wondering how I'll handle that one. It's not like we're strangers to attention, though. When people stare at MP and me (which they occasionally do) MP looks them in the eye and says, very loudly, "MY MAMA!" At which point the person will usually blink and smile and nod and comment on how cute she is. So it will be interesting to see how the attention changes. People are less inclined to come talk to me now, I think because MP is older, which is just fine with us.

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On the MP front things are getting more and more fun by the day. She's developing quite a little vocabulary. We've been playing this game recently where we switch personalities. "You be MP," she says. "I Mama." So then it goes something like this:

Me (as MP), whining (because she whines all the time): I WAAANNNNT SNAAACCCKKKY!"

MP: (as me), in steady, firm voice: No, you have to eat dinner first.

Me (whining): I'm itchy!

MP (concerned but a bit tired of hearing it): Yes I know, we'll take a bath, okay?

Me (whining): What are you doing? (she asks this nonstop even when it's clear she knows exactly what I'm doing)

MP: I'm making dinner!

Me (fake crying): I want Daddy!

MP (hugging me and rubbing my back): You want Daddy? Okay, Daddy will be home soon, honey.

Me: Where's the baby?

MP (rubbing her belly and sticking it out a bit): The baby's in here! (pauses and looks down) There's food in there, too!

She does this with her dad, too. He calls her "Maccy Moe" and she calls him "Daccy" (this is their thing--if I call her "Maccy May," for example, she'll say "NO! I'm not Maccy MAY, I'm Maccy MOE!") She switches personalities with him and becomes "Daccy," and he becomes "Maccy Moe," and they walk around being each other. This can make me pee myself--it's easily one of the most hilarious things I've ever seen. It's incredible how smart and aware and funny she is. She totally gets us--the inflection in our voices, the things we say, the way we say it. Sometimes it's a bit sobering.

She's also doing a lot of creative playing, especially with her dolls. She walks around with them patting their backs and telling them they sure are stinky. Then she'll make one hit her and then put it in time out and yell at it. (She rarely hits and when she does it's usually a mistake, so I'm not really worried about this.) I can't stop laughing when she puts one of her dolls in time out. Sometimes one doll will be napping, one will be in time out, and one will be getting wiped down with a wetnap. She runs from one to the other taking care of them, yelling at them, feeding them, and rocking them. 

I got her a Cabbage Patch newborn that you can undress and she's fascinated with the "tattoo" on its butt (it's the creator's signature) which cracks me up because she'll walk around saying "Mama! MAMA! Baby has a tattoo on her bumbum! Where is MP's tattoo?"

She's such a good, funny, silly, affectionate kid. Sometimes it's hard for me to understand how we got so lucky.

I just ordered her some new furniture including a new big girl bed (which she said she didn't want because "Maya fall out of") and it should be delivered in two weeks, so that should be interesting....I'm curious to see how she does in a real bed. I'm curious to see how we do. Right now she's trapped in the crib so I don't worry too much about her if she's alone in there--once we graduate to a big bed I suspect I'll be worried she'll hurt herself or--horror of all horrors!--open doors and find us.

I guess I can't keep her in a crib forever. I was planning on waiting till she was, like five, but the new squirt will need the crib, so I guess it's time. She'll be in diapers until she's twenty, though.

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Happy Chinese New Year to everyone!