What's worse: possibility or none?

I've got to just write something or this blog is going to die a slow death, at least for the next three months while nothing is happening fertility-wise. So I'm just going to write and see what happens.

I'm carrying in my briefcase a packet of The Pill. This is odd. The last time I took the pill I was 25. I was originally prescribed it for painful periods, which HAHAHAH, of course were almost certainly due to endo. But I guess it was a good treatment option, even if they didn't know what they were treating. I thought this morning that I'd be about to pop the first pill today but it seems not. For the first time in about six months I'm expecting a period where there is no hope that I am pregnant and it's strangely liberating. I'm not nervously checking every time I wipe, I just know that sometime in the next few days I will start to bleed. Although heaven knows I bled enough after the lap that perhaps there's nothing left. Oh well, I will worry about that if no bleeding has started by Thursday.

This has left me pondering what's worse: Male Factor or tubal infertility where there is no hope every month, and you just have to get through the lack of hope until your next medical intervention, or something like endo or PCOS or unexplained infertility where there's always that little hope every month. By the way, I'm aware that my wonderings on this are pretty specious, but as usual, it's my blog and I'll be specious if I want to be.

I think I would rather have some hope every month than none. Yes, it is strangely liberating to have no hope, but it has also sent me into something of a tailspin of thinking this will never happen for us. Equally, given H's sexual issues, it means that we just haven't had sex as no matter how  much I hint and cuddle and kiss, he just isn't really ready to take the risk that his parts will let him down, so he just doesn't want to try. When we had a chance, together we would find a way each month to get him started. So a period of three months with no nookie stretches ahead of me, much as I imagine the steppe stretches into the distance to a Siberian exile (although I know there aren't any of these any more, I imagine that the Steppe did stretch flatly in all directions when there were exiles, and that indeed it still stretches, if somewhat less hopelessly, to those who live there now). Of course, if I take Zoladex and if it has the effect you might expect, I guess my libido might tank, too, so perhaps then I won't mind if there is no nookie for three months. But it's not exactly an exciting idea.

The no hope option means less worry every month, less up and down, certainly. It means my exercise regime can become less fraught, less open to finding excuses as to why I can't do what I used to do in the gym. But I miss the hope, the two weeks of feeling that little tiny bit more optimistic. Yes, the crashes were always bad, but they were at least preceded by two weeks of greater energy, an ability to look forward with hope, a general optimism about life, that's not so easy to come by when every day is much like the other. And if I go into menopause, then that's exactly what it will be like. No estrogen, no ovulation, I just won't have a cycle. That's a sobering thought.

How then should I balance liberation against the loss of hope? I don't really have a choice. This treatment seems to be our best chance to get pregnant in the end, so it's not a loss of hope, it's more of a suspension. A limbo. I've been making plans to get my ass back to the gym, starting with tomorrow morning from my hotel, continuing Thursday morning before work in the office. Perhaps that's what I can do with the blog - I can share my planned exercise cycle and you can all help me stick to it, rather than sharing details of a menstrual cycle and having your advice shed light on what's going on. So perhaps I'm not living without hope, I'm just walking, slowly, along a seemingly endless plain, but in the distance there is a mountain with forests and flowers, and gradually, very very gradually, I will find it getting larger and closer, and I'll start to be able to pick out the streams as they run down the hillside, and the individual trees, and then, sometime in late May, I'll be right there and ready to start climbing.

Comments

[Jenny]

You raise a good point. I have often wondered the same thing. I have reached the no hope point. You couldn't get me to pee on a stick if I was a week late.
I think the #1 thing I miss about hope is baby making sex. Knowing there is no hope means you will never have baby sex again. That was the best sex I ever had. So sad:(
Let's hear about the exercise. I am in "health mode" for a while until this cycle gets started. We need something to obsess about in the meantime.

[Lynnette]

I was relieved, at least in the months afterward, when my tubes were removed, that we wouldn't have the monthly disappointments anymore. I still have hope, its just more of a "big picture" kind of hope, instead of the monthly kind. For me, the constant feelings of failure every month, were too hard. We had about 30 cycles of trying and failing before the salpingectomy. And, I feel like I gave them a good go at it, with 5 IUI's, so they had to go, to increase my success (hah!) with IVF. Also, just as an alternate point of view, baby-making sex was the WORST sex of my life. And my sex life has still not recovered. We just have distance and laziness as our excuse. I'm sorry to hear about your reasons. Can he take anything? We've played around with some stolen Viagara from my dad's medicine cabinet. Kind of fun. Different. My diabetic BIL, had a penile implant "installed" (if that's the right term...) and managed to get his 40-something wife, pregnant twice, in two years. (Such is my life with the inlaws...) Anyway, I'm thinking of you. We are both on this three month hiatus (well, mine will officially be 10 months ;-)) and we'll have to help keep each other sane. Remember, I have a 14 hour London layover on May 21st...you still haven't answered me about that cuppa...

[Mellie]

I've had the same thoughts - is it better for me to plan for sex around ovulation time so that I can hope for the last 2 weeks, or not obsess and just be resigned to another failed month. I still don't think I've decided which way is easier - and I do think what might be easier one month might be harder the next.

As for the exercise, I've been thinking a lot about that too. I went to my first yoga class in over a year in a half last night, and am planning to attend 2 pilates classes this week. I'm hoping to get myself back in some shape over the next 6 weeks, so if you want an exercise buddy I'm in.

[Jenn]

When I had to be on birth control pills for three months before my IVF, I felt sad at the loss of hope...at first. After a bit, I think I preferred the not a chance. I think it was different though than if you have tubal or male factor because there was an end date in mind. As much as I hated the break, in the end I was glad for it. It was a total of six months from the miscarriage before I could cycle again. Much longer than I wanted, but it was managable.

[One Half]

Strangely liberating to not have hope? For me it is not! I know how it was to be hopeful. I loved hope, I lived by hope. When we had just started TTC I got so exhilarated when AF was delayed 1-2 days. I thought and hope that "this time" it had worked. Of course I was disappointed every single month, but now afterwards, now that we know that there is no chance, not a single tiny little chance or a micro bit of hope left that it might work naturally I wish nothing more than these feelings. I long for hope. I long to run to the bathroom all the time to check my panties. I miss that so much.

Well I feel that this comment will grow infinitely in length and I feel that I have so much more to say, that I think I will rather create a post on my own blog soon.

Thank you Thalia for inspiring my thoughts and making me remember hope in a time where the closest to being pregnant I get is dreaming about it. I hope you get through the pill time quickly (that it won't feel too long) and that you get going with your next productive cycle soon again.

Take good care!

N

[One Half]

Oh just one tiny addition. Baby sex was good the first 10 months, the next 6 it was hard work and the later 10 months it was no fun at all!!!! Our sexlife is slowly slowly recouperating from the scheduled, no fun, prop up your hips, special positions that are not neccessarily fun kind of sex we had the 28 month of TTC when we didn't know that we could not have a baby naturally....working on it though (which is hard work in itself).

N

[Pamplemousse]

With tubal and bad egg factors, my meagre hope gets squished out of me every 2 or 3 months that a lousy egg does get popped out. I am actually glad that it is not really every month as I think that would be worse.

3 months is not really so bad. All that going to the gym will make it fly by!!

[Fertile Soul]

My vote is for no hope. This from the most optimistic girl on the planet ... Yeah, i know, say it aint so .... But you know, once you get over the "hope withdrawal" pangs, life really does get better. You're no longer in that permanent limbo. It's definitely an adjustment because that permanent limbo of waiting for af to go away for 9 months becomes the norm, when it really isnt. Waiting around holding your breath is really not normal (or so i keep telling myself, when i need to kick start my breathing again).

And male factor infertility is so emasculating to the neanderthalic male mind (i think that portion of their brain remained frozen in the ice ages). After that massive wallop to the male ego, he's really supposed to get it up with gusto and avid interest? Yeah, right.

Someone aught to write a book on how not to lose interest in sex when you cant procreate. As if sex were just for that?!

Hey, there's an idea for you and all this time ya' got!

Keep us posted on your progress ... daily ;)

[katie]

I just posted this in answer to someone else's question, who has one child through ICSI having thought male factor made it impossible to conceive naturally, she has just lost a surprise pregnancy at 10 weeks.

Hope, for me, only works when there is an alternative plan. For me, that's a future decision about IVF - to which the answer will probably be no - or adoption - to which it is more likely to be yes.

Diabetes means that we get Cialis on the NHS, but it's only really an answer to physical problems. But perhaps with the pressure off, now might be a time to do either guided, or DIY, therapy?

[Sophie D]

I have premature ovarian faliure - I have a 5% shot each month at getting pregnant - we stopped trying in December after a year and a half of planned baby sex (I hated planned baby sex - it is MUCH better now). I do not miss the terrible feeling of failure each month and I do not miss the OPK's or the planned sex or the IUI's or IVF's or the drugs. I do not miss hoping against all hope and praying that the damn stick would turn to two pink lines. I do not miss shelling out $$$. I do not miss ALL the doctors visits and all the needles taking blood and the free peek's at my privates. I had to let that all go in order to start the adoption process. I have to focus on the future because if I think about what I will never have (the excitment of the two pink lines, telling my hubby and family, the U/S, the kicking, the birth)I will never be able to handle it. I just have to look forward to adoption and remember that being a mom is not just the 9 months you are carrying a baby - it is the 18+ years you are loving a child. It is what keeps me going and a child eventually and DEFINATLY coming into my life is my new hope.

[Sunnie]

Let me know when you get there...pick me some flowers *hug*

[Leggy]

Oh man, I could write a book on this topic. I think in the beginning, hope is good. But as the months and years tick on? The few precious months 8 years ago that we had thinking it could work without medical intervention were agonizing. The pain of AF arriving was unbearable. But the death knell of a final diagnosis is pure hell. Over time though, I'm glad not to have the monthly agony. Its kind of like having a choice between dying suddenly vs. dying a slow, painful death. They both have the same end result, but at least one gets the inevitable over with faster.

That was uplifting, wasn't it?

[Lori]

During the brief time we had a tubal diagnosis, hope didn't disappear but just changed shape a bit. I actually felt very hopeful about pursuing IVF. Now that we are "unexplained", I have less hope that IVF will work. Oddly enough, I felt more peaceful when it was not a possibility.
Had you told me in December that we wouldn't be starting our IVF cycle until March I would've been in agony waiting that long. But in truth, it has passed much more quickly than I could've expected. I hope time passes for you in this phase just as quickly. It sounds like you've got a good plan for passing the time by getting back to the gym.

[S]

Holy crap---GET OUT OF MY HEAD!!!!

I totally blogged about the sex factor last week, since it has put our enjoyment of sex at about the level of a colonoscopy or a root canal. Speaking as a tubally infertile, I think that once we were given the honest prognosis of our chances of naturally conceiving (getting hit by lightning is more apt to happen to us)it took the pressure off of us to "baby make" every month. I would never trade in that year of stress, peeing on sticks, taking temps every day, bullying my husband for sex and fighting with him about him feeling like a sperm depository, "and becoming hysterical,then depressed when I saw the blood.

It kind of puts you in a different category of hope. You have to accept that you won't have kids the "old-fashioned way", and be okay with it. I think that it's the loss of my naivete, rather than the loss of hope, that bothers me the most. I miss the blissful ignorance that I had when we first started this journey.

Good luck with your hiatus, and I hope that it goes quickly for you. Perhaps your future exercise entries will motiviate my fat ass up off the couch and to the gym!

[Liz]

When I found out that my IF was due to tubal factor all hope died. It was hard to accept that I could never conceive the natural way. I use to say IVF was our only option now I saw it is our only hope and it does make a difference.

Good luck with the wait and the weight loss.

[Alexa]

You know, I think about this alot. And for me, I would rather have no hope that it would happen naturally than go through the agonizing charting and OPK-peeing and stressful sex and thinking I have ovulated only to find out that once again I didn't. I have actually taken birth control pills on a rest month purely because I couldn't stand to wonder if my period was late because I was pregnant.
You know I am in the middle of a long wait as well--I hope yours flies by quickly.

[Ornery]

As I am just starting my 2WW, I would have to say that I don't mind hope too much right now. I try to supress it, but it always gets the better of me and it does buoy my spirits more often than not. Now, if you ask me again as we get closer to the end of the 2WW, or if I get a BFN, I'm sure it will be a whole different story.

As for baby-making sex, I personally am not a huge fan of it because of the intense amount of pressure that my husband and I both feel. I have a feeling that hubby and I are going to have lots of sex during this 2WW because it will be sex for the sake of enjoyment, not procreation.

Also, I'd love it if you wrote about your exercise plans. After my miscarriage when I definitely knew I wasn't pregnant, I had some of the best workouts of my life. Now that I'm in the 2WW, I'm trying to keep my heartrate below 140, which blows because I can't even work up a good sweat.

[pixi]

Gosh, I so hope that this treatment works for you. And whatever you want to blog about in the meantime, I'll be reading. Your writing and your insights are amazing.

[Beth]

This post really made me introspective. Like Ornery, I have just begun the two week wait. I don't think hope has factored in yet - I am feeling more a sense of relief that the long stim phase is over. I am relieved that I don't have to go have anything else invasive done to my body for two weeks.

We will be moving on to IVF most likely after this cycle (perhaps one more IUI) and we are toying with the idea of taking a break for a couple of months before we cycle. I can admit that I already think of that time with trepidation - it is a hard thing to go from doing something all the time (although I bemoan it as it is happening) to simply being.

I hope your time on the pill goes by quickly, and I will be here reading and supporting you, whatever you choose to blog about.

[Mary Scarlet]

As a tubal girl, I do find the black/white nature of my problem somewhat comforting. There was a period there where I convinced myself I could conceive despite the tubal problems, and it was really torturous, that hoping. But ask me again if my last IVF fails and the finality is truly upon me if I wouldn't welcome back some uncertainty.

Beautifully written post, Thalia. I hope you share your exercise plans and we'll help all we can.

[Kath]

I agree -- beautifully written post, Thalia. I've also thought a lot about the hope question, and about sex, and about how the two interplay. My experience has been that baby-making sex is only fun in the very beginning, and baby-avoidance sex is only fun in the very beginning. There's just too much baggage now, too much disaster. My sister-in-law had a different experience. After lots and lots of trying, she was diagnosed as infertile and then embarked on the IUI/IVF journey. From that point on, sex for her was independent of the baby question, and that, ironically, kept the spark alive. Of course it could have gone the opposite way too.

Yes, hope -- what's better, hope and the risk of repeatedly having it dashed, or no hope at all? I've had those repeated three-month moratoriums during which conception was forbidden, and I must say that they helped me. There were always those three months when the approach of the end of the cycle did not mess with my head. But of course that's a somewhat unusual case.

Yes, please do write about your exercise regimen! You have the full support and admiration of this Lard Butt over here.

[T]

Hope can be one addictive bitch. I think you lose hope the longer you go on. At this point I would never think of sex = pregnancy for me. Yep, hope is just like a drug (to me).

I'm sorry about the long wait Thalia, they're tough, but I like the exercise cycle idea!

[Chelsi]

What an excellent post, Thalia. Because I am in the "unexplained IF" category, I can only view this from the point of hope, even though we've been trying 5 1/2 years and my this hope is squandered with each passing month and year. For me, this ever-persistant hope has made it difficult to move on and pursue adoption, although I'm trying my best. I have actually considered the pill to help with this, but like T said, hope is one addictive drug!! So, I don't know which is worse - they both have their drawbacks!! Best of luck with the excerise stuff!!

[Cali]

for what it is worth - I think knowing that you are actively doing something is helpful. You are taking the pill every effing day in the hopes that things will be all groovin' in a few months. It's the oddly proactiveness of it all.
But I'm a control freak & find comfort in weird things.
I took some time off (um, due to mental breakdown) & have been loving it. Just to remember who I am when I am not spazzing about cycles & the such.
I'll be thinking of you, gal.

[JennaM]

I have always had a cruel (and secret) urge to hope even in the most hopeless situation. I frequently can conjure hope despite these bleakly chronic realities: positively no viable eggs, no response to mucho drugs on multiple occasions, definitely not enough sex, and frequently on the pill. And yet I will almost always hope against hope. I wish I could turn it off and accept my place in the "no hope" camp. Sigh.

[Suz]

It's an interesting question. Before we found out about our MF infertility, we tried for six months and I remember the roller coaster ride of "maybe we could" and then, "we aren't." I always dropped so hard that MF came as a real relief.

[Beagle]

Great post! The jury is out for me on this question since I just had to make similar decision again. The Pill and no hope or a tiny chance for hope and the bigger chance that my cycle won't cooperate and I'll miss the IVF deadlines. So I am on THE PILL as well. Reluctantly. It is liberating in a way but also depressing for me. Every day when I swallow one more PILL, I rehash the question again.

I'm on the gym train as well . . . passing time 'til May for IVF#2. It's giving me something positive to focus on. I may as well be as healthy as I can for that next round of fun, fun, fun!