Category: Infertile Me

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Autumn Soundtrack & Apron Strings

I love autumn. It’s my favorite season of the year. There’s something about it that appeals to all my senses. The air smells crisp … which then reminds me of pumpkin pie and caramel apples. The leaves change to bright beautiful colors and once they fall, they are just so much fun to stomp on just to hear the crinkling sound. And of course, there’s the change in weather … Indian summer is great, but I do look forward to the drop in temperature just so I can start wearing my sweaters again.

Fall always invokes many memories. The absolute geek in me remembers being excited to go back to school so that I could crack open those new books and break in those new supplies. There’s also the annual trip to the cider mill to get fresh cider and hot donuts and/or to the apple orchards to pick fresh apples. And of course, there is always college football.

Over the years, I’ve started to associate certain songs with certain seasons. Most people associate certain scents with memories, but I’ve always been one that tends to gravitate to the music that has surrounded me during the periods in my life. I describe it as my own personal soundtrack to my life.

For autumn, there is something about The Cure that sticks out in my mind, particularly the “Disintegration” album and specifically the song “Pictures of You.” I’m sure it’s because I remember seeing them in concert during the fall of my senior year in high school; and the song has this haunting melody that reminds me of saying goodbye to friends that have graduated and were heading off to college for the first time.

And speaking of college, another song sparks memories of that first weekend of college and moving into my dorm room. “Life in a Northern Town” by The Dream Academy reminds me of leaving that sheltered environment of Catholic school and expanding my horizons. I remember this song being played by a person I had just met and was surprised that this particular person would like this song as well. It reminds me that you can never judge a book by its cover.

Then there’s “Hands to Heaven” by Breathe. Every time I hear this song I remember my first date in my Junior year in high school. It was the Homecoming Dance at my school and I was escorted by none other than the person I would eventually marry nine years later. Can you believe back then we were going to the dance strictly “as friends?” I think it’s rather interesting that the chorus to that song starts out as “So raise your hands to heaven and pray / That we’ll be back together some day.” Hmm… must have been a foreshadowing of what was to come.

And the last quintessential song for my Fall Soundtrack is none other than the song of which my blog title came from. “Apron String” by Everything But The Girl has been a song that has been part of my life since I was in high school. The first time I ever heard it was by listening to the soundtrack for the John Hughes film, “She’s Having A Baby.” Not that I really liked that particular movie, but John Hughes, in my humble opinion, always had a knack for picking such great songs for any of his films. Anyway, this song reminds me of fall simply for the fact that I remember playing that soundtrack over and over one autumn season.

It’s funny how “Apron Strings”, as a song has always been part of my life. First, during that one autumn season that I played that song over and over again. Then, as I began to fall in love with my husband one spring day during a trip to Ann Arbor my senior year in high school. And finally as I have struggled emotionally over the past ten years with infertility.

My husband came up with the name of the blog, I think, strictly on the fact that he knew that this was probably my most favorite song in the world. What he didn’t expect was that this blog and that song would be pretty much the running theme for what I “needed” to blog about. I’ve had people ask me why I decided to name my blog “Apron Strings,” as the common reference to actual apron strings is about either being tied to one or needing to be cut from one.

For me, the song “Apron Strings” is all about longing. When put in context with infertility, it becomes specifically a longing for a child. If you haven’t had a chance to read the lyrics to the song, feel free to read it here. Then let me know what you think.

But getting back to the whole Autumn soundtrack, music has always played a part in my life. I’d like to know what other songs people associate this season with. There’s some R.E.M. songs that I can think of as well as some U2 songs (hmmm … perhaps “October”?). Or perhaps it’s something as silly as a song from the “Grease” soundtrack. Come on … I can hear you humming a song in the back of your head … let’s “hear” it in writing!

Mmmm … all this talk about autumn has got me craving some warm apple pie and of wanting to snuggle under a warm blanket with Hubby. I’ll be catching you guys later!

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Faith and Longing

I didn’t know this, but October is National Pregnancy and Infancy Loss Month. My Mom, a devout Catholic, told me this information last week after reading her church bulletin. Apparently, the Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament (which is also the Archdiocese of Detroit’s “home parish”) was holding it’s annual mass for those couples who have lost their baby or for those couples who were trying to achieve pregnancy. She had called me thinking that my sister-in-law (SIL), Janet, and I might be interested in attending the mass. I told her that I would talk to Janet and then call her back the next day if we decide to go.

Right away, I knew my decision was going to be based on whether my SIL wanted to go. It’s not that I don’t have any spiritual faith or that I don’t believe in a higher power. It’s more because the past 10 years of infertility have caused a “rift” between God and myself.

Let’s start with a little background. As I mentioned before, my mother is a strong believer in her Catholic faith. Growing up in our household, God was always present in our daily lives and activities. The weekends revolved around when we were going to mass. We would spend summers volunteering to do “Meals on Wheels” through our Church and any Catholic holiday helping out with preparations for our Church. Every night, we would read a chapter from the Bible. And because religion was very important to my parents, I attended Catholic school up through high school. I consider myself truly lucky that my parents invested their time and their money in bringing me up with such a strong faith background. And I truly admire my Mom for all that she continues to do on a daily basis for her faith.

And there’s me. After twelve years of Catholic school and the freedom of going away to college … well, of course I detoured and explored life without organized religion. It’s not that I stopped believing in my faith or stopped practicing the basic morals of what I was taught growing up. Rather, I stopped going to mass weekly and only went when it was absolutely necessary. I also stopped my habit of saying my nightly prayers. Let’s face it, college life (and even post-college life) was just more interesting and religion was put on the back burner.

However, even back then I always knew that I would return to my faith. The one thing that Hubby (who is also Catholic) and I always said was that when it came to raising our children, we wanted to provide them with the same faith and morals that we were taught growing up. And when that time came, we both knew we would whole-heartedly return to our faith.

So imagine what has gone through my mind these past ten years as pregnancy never came. Now most people would have turned closer to their faith. And at first I did. I returned to my nightly prayers and attempted to go to mass weekly. My prayers for a family initially started out as “Please God, I ask that you provide me with the family I’ve always wanted.” As the years went on, it became “God, I know I’m a good person but I don’t understand why you’re testing my faith. Why can’t I get pregnant?” Eventually, I just became very angry at God. Why would He do this to me? Why does He allow other people to become parents when they don’t deserve to be? If God has a reason for doing things (as everyone has a way of telling me over and over AND OVER again), what “reason” did He have for making me feel so sad and miserable and GUILTY for feeling the way I do?

So when the opportunity to go to this mass came along, I wasn’t jumping at the bit. However, I knew that this would be a good thing for my SIL, especially since her loss is so recent. After a bit of discussion, we decided to meet up for breakfast on Sunday and head down to the Cathedral, sans husbands (my hubby had to work and hers is not of the same faith).

Overall, I am truly glad that we went. My SIL had the opportunity to place Liam’s name in the Book of Innocence, in which prayers will be said for these babies’ souls. A prayer was said to all those parents who lost their infant and each family was given a rose and a rosary blessed by Cardinal Maida. A prayer was also said for all the couples wishing to become pregnant or adopt a child. We were individually prayed over by the bishop with an actual relic of St. Gerard and given his medallion to continue to pray to him so that St. Gerard would “intercede” to God on our behalf. It was pretty emotional being up there and being surrounded by the beauty and strength of the Cathedral. And I do admit, I certainly did feel God’s presence that day.

However, there was one thing that truly bugged me. This mass was sponsored by the archdiocese’s Natural Family Planning program. Which makes sense, given the nature of what this Mass was about. What had bothered me was the handout they provided on all their methods for Natural Family Planning. Not that I have anything against it, but obviously I wasn’t able to get pregnant using that method. At the very bottom of their handout, it made mention about the Catholic stance on infertility procedures. The basic gist of what they said was that certain infertility procedures are appropriate; however, those procedures that involve a third person in the creation of a child is morally unacceptable.

So wow. My first response on that? Holy Mary, Mother of God … I sinned. And I sinned REALLY badly. And apparently that’s the reason why my IVF cycle failed. So guilt was my first reaction. The second one was that of anger. Why the bloody hell is it considered immoral? I tried everything under the sun to try to procreate naturally and it didn’t happen. So are they telling me then that if pregnancy didn’t happen “naturally” then it’s God’s will that I remain childless? And yet … (here it comes again) there are people out there who don’t deserve to have children?

Okay, so logically I know my first reaction was irrational. And the second one is indeed justified. But it’s that type of thing that leaves me feeling disappointed in my faith.

Despite all that, I do admit that I’ve been trying to work on returning to my faith. As of recently, I have started meeting with a Stephen Minister through a local Catholic Church who just sits and talks with me about all this anger and guilt that I feel, especially about my infertility and my fears about the adoption process. Perhaps one day, whether I continue to pursue having a family or not, I will fully, without any reservations, return to my faith.

Hmm … I wonder if the Catholic Church knows that the week of November 4-10 is National Infertility Awareness Week. And I wonder if they’ll have any events that commemorates that week?

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Baby Picture

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A couple weeks I stumbled onto a picture that I had tucked away inside my dresser. At the time I tucked it away, it was the intent that I would someday look back at it and think, “Wow. I can’t believe how far I’ve come since then.” As it happened, that day I was busy looking for something else and I pulled the picture out and put it on top of my dresser (actually, on my mirror) and then went about my business.It wasn’t until yesterday when I was talking to a newly acquired friend, about my recent find that it hit me as to what the picture actually was. The picture I found happened to be the picture of my “would-be babies,” the embryos that were implanted into my womb during my one attempt at in vitro fertilization (IVF). As I was telling my friend about the snapshot, I felt myself begin to cry yet once again.

I relived that period of my life yesterday afternoon as I told her my story and my struggle. She’s heard bits and pieces about it before, but never to the extent as I did yesterday. She had previously heard about the treatment I went through, all leading up to the IVF cycle. And she certainly heard about all the wonderful medications I had to inject into myself each month and especially during the IVF cycle month. But what she never heard (nor anyone else for that matter) was how emotionally spent I was after each monthly disappointment… especially after the failed IVF cycle.

What I had told my friend is that when I looked at that picture, it reminded me of how different a person I was since that period of time. And even how much more different a person I was since starting my infertility journey ten years prior.

Ten years ago, I saw myself as a pretty optimistic person. A “glass is half-full” type of person. If pregnancy didn’t happen, then it just wasn’t meant to be just yet. Almost a year later, I began to become cautiously optimistic. And by the time I had my first hysteroscope, my mindset was of “let’s just get the task done.” At my lowest “pre-IVF” point, I was definitely very pessimistic about any chance of ever getting pregnant. By that time I had already had done enough ovulation charting, had more than enough Clomid cycles followed by even stronger injectable medication cycles, and had enough surgeries to last me a lifetime. It was at that time I became a”glass is half-empty” person.

So when Hubby and I finally decided to try the IVF route, I knew I had to change my attitude. And although I knew that IVF was never a guarantee that I’d be able to get pregnant, I had to think positive. In fact, I couldn’t just think positive, I had to put every effort into making sure that I was going to be successful at becoming pregnant. It was actually not as hard as I thought, especially with all the hormones I was pumping into me. I knew then that if I had even a shred of doubt, I would fall deep into the abyss of pessimism.

So imagine how far I fell once I found out my IVF cycle was unsuccessful. I certainly did plunge deep into that deep pit of despair. There was the initial shock and disappointment, followed closely by hysterics for the next couple weeks. Anything at that time set me off into waves of sadness and tears. A year after the failed IVF attempt, when we made the decision to let our one frozen blastocyte “go,” it was like reliving all the emotions of the year prior.* And in that moment, I knew I would never be able to go through another IVF attempt. It was just too emotionally and physically painful for me to ever have to go through again.

After a period of time, I just became “numb.” Crying seemed to be useless, and to tell you the truth, very humiliating. After all, in my culture, crying is only appropriate for a set amount of time. After that, crying is just considered a sign of weakness as we are taught to quickly “get over” our loss and “move on” right away. So after awhile, I learned to stifle my pain and pretend as if nothing was wrong. I pretended to be “over” the failed IVF attempt and let people believe that I was just content with my current situation. I also let others believe that eventually my Hubby & I would be working towards adoption. And truthfully, I tried to convince myself of that for the next three years.

However, as the past three years went by, I unconsciously knew that something was missing. By all standards, I looked like I was okay, but inside I felt miserable. I probably would have continued to go on feeling like this if it wasn’t for the news that we received a year ago next month. That news was of my sister-in-law’s pregnancy. And well, if you’ve read my previous posts (not to mention the most recent posts of Liam’s life), you’d know that I didn’t handle the news very well. As of recently, I’d like to think I managed the most recent events rather decently, but it’s only after I spent this last year talking (and subsequently blogging) about the gamut of emotions I’ve been through.

So where am I at now? Well, obviously I’ve been crying a lot lately (cultural behavior be damned!). In fact, I think I’ve cried more this past year than I did over the last ten years, since I started this crazy infertility journey. I know for a fact that all the events that have transpired over the past year is responsible for the river of tears (not to mention the trails of tissue paper) that follow behind me. And while it’s been a terribly difficult year, I do have to admit I feel I’ve grown a little more emotionally stronger from it. I would think that just by being able to post my “baby picture” shows that I am. (At least I hope so).

Wow. I can’t believe how far I’ve come since then.

* For a quick overview of our IVF history, we had 13 eggs retrieved, 8 of which were fertilized using ICSI, 3 of which “matured” enough, 2 of which were implanted in me. The lonely one that was left was frozen for the possibility of later doing a “frozen cycle.” What we didn’t expect was that we’d only have one blastocyte mature out of the 13 eggs that were originally retrieved. As there isn’t much success rate in doing a “frozen cycle,” let alone with only one blastocyte, Hubby & I elected not to proceed with that next step.

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Quiz Time

Okay, I admit it. I was feeling a little bored. I was surfing some blogs and stumbled on to the first quiz below on someone else’s blog. And well, then I kept finding more quizzes I wanted to take on the site. Scary thing is that the results, although not 100% accurate, do reflect how my life has been affected by certain circumstances, particularly infertility. Anyway, below is the extent of my boredom.

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Your Mind is 79% Cluttered

Your mind is quite cluttered. And like most clutter, it’s a bunch of crap you don’t need. Try writing down your worst problems and fears. And then put them out of your mind for a while.
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Why am I not suprised?!
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You Have Low Self Esteem 60% of the Time

While you sometimes feel good about yourself, you tend to struggle a little with self esteem issues. It’s not about changing who you are, it’s about accepting your faults. You just need to be less critical and demanding of yourself!
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Seriously?! Thought it would be more.
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The Part of You That No One Sees

You are balanced, peaceful, and sincere. You’re the type of person who goes along to get along. And you’re definitely afraid of rocking the boat. Underneath it all, you fear your world falling apart. You’ll put up with a situation that you don’t like in fear of changing it. Disruptive and forceful people intimidate you – and sometimes exploit you.
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Well, that’s actually pretty accurate.
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You Are Probably Not Pregnant

It seems like you’re in the clear, but you should really take a test to be sure.
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Duh…. I think I failed this test, or um … quiz.
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Well, maybe next time I’ll find something more productive to blog about. Like how I’m enjoying some of the new shows out there on TV this fall. Or how I find it completely adorable that Hubby likes to find movies he knows I’d love to watch over and over again and puts that on the TV instead of something I know he’d love to watch. Yep, gotta love Hubby.

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Saving Face, Losing Control (Alone? Part 2)

Well, my post has been up for over a week now, and no response from anyone. Hmm … the power of words wasn’t strong enough I guess. Really, I can’t complain. I’m seriously not trying to fish for comments at all. In fact, the reason I started to blog was more to get all these intense feelings and emotions out into the world. And in doing so, I do admit it feels good.

So why am I still feeling alone? Well, after posting my latest ramblings last week, I happened to stumble upon an article at work that helped explain a little about why I continue to feel the way I do. And now I’m sharing this information with whoever wishes to read on.

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The article discussed the reluctance of Asian-Americans to seek or use mental health services. It even goes on to cite that when Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders eventually seek professional help, the severity of their problems tend to be high, most likely because of the delay in seeking treatment until their problems reach crisis proportions.

It also states that Asians are not used to meeting with strangers and discussing their problems because many of their cultural beliefs go against this. Traditionally, Asians with mental health problems tend to speak first with a family member and then maybe with a close friend about their issues. Only after that might they consider involving someone outside their networking community. While talking to a therapist would be more accepted by a second-generation Asian person, many of the traditional values of their culture, such as seeking help from an “outside source,” still permeate their belief systems.

The reason, as the article states, that many Asian cultures associate seeking mental health services as a “weakness” is largely from the fact that these cultures stress “saving face.” According to the article, if a person was found to be talking to a therapist about issues that cannot be solved amongst family or close friends, this would be considered “losing face.” Once a person “loses face”, they can no longer function in his or her social network and are therefore not considered useful in certain situations.

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The findings in this article aren’t anything completely revealing to me, a second-generation Filipino-American. I have always, in some way, known that “saving face” was always something that our culture did. Growing up in the Filipino culture in the US, I have witnessed some situations where family or friends have had to “save face,” but I never had the “opportunity” to experience it myself. That is, until now … as I continue to struggle with infertility.

To give you a little more background, my husband and I are both Filipino. We both grew up in a typical Midwest suburb, met each other in high school, and married shortly after college. We started trying to start our family within a year of after getting married with (obviously) no success. Two to three years into our marriage, I was already on Clomid and doing the whole ovulation charting. We didn’t tell anyone about our problems because we figured that it was only a matter of time. And I’ll admit it now, we also didn’t say anything because, well … frankly, we didn’t want to “lose face.” For a while, it wasn’t a big deal with our parents that we were having “issues” until other family friends started to ask them when my husband and I were going to make them “grandparents.” And well, I can’t imagine what it was (or still is) like to have to try and “save face” for them.

Now the Filipino culture, like many other Asian cultures, places emphasis on family and on being a parent. Women, particularly, are seen as the nurturer’s in the family and are expected to manage the household and raise the children. The woman can still have a very successful career or work outside the home, but the expectation is that she is still the primary caregiver for the children.

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If infertility gets thrown into this mixture, many times it is “hush-hushed” because it isn’t an issue that: #1 other people, let alone Filipinos want to talk about, and #2 it’s a matter of being able to “save face.” If we don’t talk about it, it doesn’t exist and therefore those affected by infertility can still be connected to their social networks.

Now “saving face,” in my own personal experience, only works for a period of time until there’s a feeling of losing control. When no one talks about the problem, then the feeling of anxiety increases until loneliness starts to settle in. Questions like “Why am I going through this?” and “Am I the only one that has this issue?” suddenly become “I’m so alone” and “no one understands what I’m going through.”

For lack of better words, there is no support. There’s no one there to talk to about such issues and no one to empathize with what I’m going through. And it’s mainly because no one wants to talk about infertility. It’s a disease that no one, especially those who have a strong cultural upbringing such as Asians, can get a firm grasp on. I seem to think it’s because literally … there is nothing to grasp on to, as a person going through infertility isn’t visually sick. And that’s certainly different then, let’s say, my nephew Liam who is still in the NICU, or someone who is suffering from cancer.

Please don’t get me wrong. I don’t mean to belittle any of these health problems because they certainly are life-altering events. These just happen to be health issues that people can readily understand and empathize why someone can be sad or depressed over. Infertility is not.

So this is another reason why I’ve been feeling alone in this journey. My husband and I do talk about these issues quite often and he certainly continues to provide me with much support. But sometimes it’s nice to be able to talk to someone other than my wonderful husband about these things.