Phoebe 101

Once upon a time, there was a girl named Phoebe...

Ok, this is no fairy tale, though I wish it were. Here are the basic things you need and want to know about me. My blog is about my baby making journey, cooking, gardening, natural living, and whatever I feel about blogging about. Phoebe is not my real name, but I think it's kind of a cool name.

I am now 43 (updated 8/2009). It took a while for me to find Mr. Magic, and we got married two months shy of my 39th birthday. My first RE visit was just before that 39th birthday. I always knew I would need high tech means to get pregnant with Magic, my husband, but I was very naive about what that meant. I thought, yeah, I'll just do IVF. Little did I know how difficult it would be and how much agony and pain it would bring me.

Magic had a vasectomy 15 years ago after the birth of his second son, thinking he was done with baby making, but saved some of his sperm, just in case. In that 15 years, he was divorced and we were married. A reverse vasectomy now will have little chance of being successful because the amount of time that has lapsed from his original vasectomy directly correlates to the amount of the antibodies that are produced against Magic's sperm.

My baby making journey, which has so far resulted in no baby, has consisted of:

1 IUI
1 IVF converted to IUI
1 IVF
1 FET

I have had my own reproductive problems myself. I had surgery for uterine fibroids, a half a pound's worth, before any RE would touch me. Fortunately, changing my lifestyle and getting serious about taking care of myself have kept anymore fibroids away.

High tech fertility treatments are completely against my own personal philosophies, but since it is the only way I can get pregnant, I suck it up. At this point, it feels like a very expensive hobby.

I did get pregnant from IVF #1 redo (IVF #2?) at age 41. I had serious fucked up problems with my pregnancy that was directly related to doing IVF. I know I would not have had these problems if I got pregnant naturally. One of them was that I had severe prenatal depression and anxiety and was not getting treated for it. I did try taking Pro>zac, but I had a paradoxical reaction to it, meaning it made me more anxious instead of calming me down. In retrospect, I should have been on anti-anxiety medication and a different type of anti-depressant, not an SS.RI type anti-depressant. However, because I was so out of it, I didn't have the energy or will to find the right kind of psychiatrist to treat me, and Magic didn't know what to do. It's difficult when your normally in-control-assertive wife suddenly turns into a withering mass of protoplasm. The doctor who did prescribe me the Pro>ac was my RE, and he did not monitor me. Big mistake when treating someone for mental illness, which is why I could not go back to him, and why I eventually changed fertility clinics and moved my frozen embryos. I probably should have been hospitalized, except on the outside, I was functioning. On the inside, I was falling apart. Even after I eventually got better, I have found it extremely difficult to find psychiatrists and psychologists who treat prenatal depression and anxiety, let alone any doctor or health care professional who understands it. Mental health care is seriously fucked flawed in this country, especially for pregnant women.

Unfortunately, my pregnancy had an unhappy ending, and I do not talk about the details of my loss on my public blog. I was traumatized by the whole experience, and the less I have that trauma out there in the world, the better it is for me. I know that my story could probably help someone, but I get nothing from retelling my story except re-traumatization. I do have a private blog that has my story that I created as an outlet for myself and my healing. I only let longtime readers/commenters access. You have to get to know me first before I will allow you access. If you request access to my private blog first to get to know me, I will have to respectfully decline your request.

I love receiving comments and I love the support I get and give by conversing with other bloggers. I do moderate all my comments. I usually publish all the comments I receive. On rare occasions, I will remove any comments that I deem nosey, mean-spirited, or unsupportive. If you return to my blog and see your comment gone (really, why are you coming back to check on your comment?), that should probably be your clue that I thought your comment was nosey, mean-spirited, or unsupportive. Rather than write another comment that is nosey, mean-spirited, or unsupportive that I will also remove, please simply click away from my blog.

Most of what you really need to know is here on my public blog. Thanks for joining me on this crazy ride.

Maybe This Wasn't Such a Good Idea

"Can you let yourself take a break from this for awhile?" said my trauma therapist last night. She was referring to my planning on trying again and the emotion it has been bringing up for me. When I think about being pregnant again, the panic attacks start coming up and I worry that I'm going to have a repeat of my past experience.

I thought maybe it would be a good idea. Maybe I should take a break from blogging and think about getting pregnant. As I checked my e-mail today, I went into automatic comment moderation when one comment showed up. Next automatic blogging action is to check on all my blogs. I noticed that I reacted to the entries I read, and thought again, yeah, maybe it would be a good idea to take a break.

Another comment showed up in the meanwhile, and I wondered why all the sudden I started getting comments today after not having a blog entry since Sunday. The commenter's signature reminded me, "from ICLW". Oh yeah, I signed up for the monthy Comment-o-thon. Nice timing.

I wondered if my trauma therapist thought that my reliving my trauma from my pregnancy was too much for me. I am making progress. I uncovered some really old baggage last night. I need to go there. I have to do this if I'm going to get through another pregnancy. The only way is through it.

If you are new to reading my blog, you are going to notice here that I don't tell my "story". I've learned that it is better for me not to retell my story because it re-traumatizes me. This is the first time I have been aware of being traumatized in my life, though I am sure it has happened before, and now I understand what it means to experience Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder. My latest mantra is, "I'm not going there," meaning I'm not going to succumb to the nervous system overload that trauma causes.

I can tell you some parts of my story on my babymaking journey. Fibroids, IUI, IVF, prenatal depression & anxiety, multiples, and loss. I prefer to think of my blog more as Eat, Pray, Love, some of my most favorite topics to talk about.

Land of the Free

Home of the Brave

It's been a rough week for me. I started out the week feeling pretty good. I felt I had found some meaning in our loss. I felt some hope in transformation through The Phoenix Process. Then, just when I thought I was doing better, reminders of our loss kept popping up. I haven't been getting much sleep because of these things bothering me. This morning's experience pushed me to act.

After a restless night, I woke up depressed. I allowed myself to grieve some more in bed, sobbing, and wondering how I would get through this. These feelings are intensified by the fact that I am ovulating. I can feel my uterus today, and it strangely feels similar to when I was pregnant. Yesterday morning, I woke with a clear message in my head: "I do not want children." Well, that's true, in that I didn't want children right at that moment. I wondered if it was really a true feeling, or a reaction to the trauma I experienced while pregnant. I went to the office and was completely engrossed in my work, when another reminder hit me like a 2x4 in the head. I walked in the bathroom, and one of the pregnant women in my office just came out of a stall with her very large belly exposed as I nearly ran into her. A cascade of emotions began flowing from my heart. First jealousy that she was having the baby girl I should be having. But no, I wasn't angry with her. It wasn't her fault, what happened to us. Then, wishing that we had never been put in the position we were in. Angry with our clinic. Regretting that we had been put in a shitty situation that I never wanted to be in. I spent the rest of the day mulling over the events between work commitments, and it continued into an emotional session with my therapist. My therapist described what happened to us in a metaphor, about all the efforts I had put into getting pregnant and what happened afterwards: "It's like you were driving 65 miles and hour, and you hit a brick wall that you didn't know was there. Now, you are left to pick up the pieces."

This morning, when I sensed into my uterus, I felt her love. I felt her love for a child. Since our loss, the couple of times I have ovulated, I've felt a renewed desire to have a child. Even if I am not ready to go there yet or I am considering quitting all efforts to get pregnant, ovulation pulls me back into wanting a child. This drive feels stronger than my will.

I was feeling all this love and desire for a child again, so I picked up a book I had been avoiding, Understanding Your Moods When You are Expecting, and dang it, if there wasn't a story that paralleled mine right on the pages I opened to. My heart stood still, ready to break all over again. Luckily, the story did not say what the outcome was, but it did confirm that I was not crazy.

I have been fairly cryptic about my pregnancy loss experience for many reasons. It was a complicated situation that not everyone would understand, but I believe would be a helpful story for those who are ready to hear it. Unfortunately, Blogger does not have password protected posts. Wordpress does have password protected posts. I tried to get comfortable again with Wordpress last night, but I really don't like it. Today, after reading this uncanny story similar to mine, I found the only way to protect my posts in Blogger is to create a separate private blog and link the posts. I am going to try it out today, on Independence Day.

"The truth shall set you free"
American's have this thing about the truth. We value the truth. Our Constitution talks about our truths (guess I'm feeling a bit patriotic today). While I am a lover of truth, not everyone is. Sometimes, I feel like I'm having this conversation with the blogsophere, or maybe even myself, when I think about sharing what happened to us. It's one of the great scenes from an American movie classic, "A Few Good Men":

Col. Jessup (Jack Nicholson): "You want answers?"
Lt. Kaffee (Tom Cruise): "I think I'm entitled."
Jessup: "You want answers?"
Kaffee: "I want the truth!"
Jessup: "YOU can't handle the TRUTH!"

This scene from the movie will raise hairs on the back of your head. It's such a great performance by Jack Nicholson, that I couldn't resist including it here again. Americans, if you're not feeling patriotic today, this will surely make you question your country!



She's Got Ovaries
In the book Broken Open that I talk about in my previous post, The Phoenix Process, the author, Elizabeth Lesser, writes about her extramarital affair that she had for a year before divorcing her husband. I thought that was pretty ballsy of her, or, as my friend likes to say, "she's got ovaries". The affair and her former lover was what prompted her decent to the fires of hell, metaphorically speaking, and she emerged like the phoenix from the ashes to transform her life that was true to her real self. When I first read it, I thought she was being awfully self-indulgent, but as I pushed my ego's judgment aside, I saw that she was making a point. That life might unfold in such a way that you find yourself doing things you that you never thought you would do, but that there is a method to the Universe's madness, or at least, I'd like to believe there is. She didn't have to divulge this controversial thing that she did in her life, but in her candor of her humanity, I got the point she was trying to make, probably much more so than if she just lectured about the process without the personal connection. I got it, and I respected her for her honesty and humility. Sometimes, it takes an experience like hers to really crack you open.


If you would like to read my story, e-mail me at phoebephoenixtales@gmail.com to request access to my private version of this blog. Please also write a line or two about why you would like to read my story. If I like what you say, or I know you are a regular reader from your comments, I'll grant you access. My story may be potentially disturbing to you, so consider that in your request. If you want to read my story for entertainment purposes only, then I'll have to decline your request. If you are a lover of the truth, then I welcome you. It goes something like this...

Not What I Expected When I Was Expecting