424 Posts

That's what I have to show for five years in the blogosphere. Five years! Whoa. I'm an oldster. Don't stare at my gray hairs. I've earned every single one. (But you would tell me if you saw one, right? Because I will dye the shit out of it.)

Does one get presents for a blogoversary? Considering I don't get any for my actual anniversary, I'm guessing odds are slim. But just in case the goddesses (or my husband) are listening....

Could someone clean my bathroom?

That would be so great. M has been giving me some shit about it for a few days now and I'm a little tired of it. Yes, my bathroom is cruddier than yours, I tell him. That's because my bathroom is where everything ends up when we get company and you get thrown out of yours. And I have far more hair. Long, long strands of hair that like to wind and weave their ways into strange places, I know. My bathroom gets far more traffic since its the one connected to our bedroom. It's the deep dark den of a bathroom so of course its not going to shine and sparkle like the spartan room of tile you happen to shower in.

Jeez.

If something's dirty and its bothering me, I clean it. If my bathroom is dirty and bothering M, I think he should clean it, no?

I'm going to remind him today's a special day, not tell him why, and watch him stress just a bit.

**
I'm finding it hard to blog today, because these days, I'm eating, sleeping, dreaming advocacy strategies and next steps. Who to see. What to say. How to follow up. I've got my game face on and even when I'm on the couch chilling with M. watching F*nding B*gfoot, I'm kind of not really 100% there. I'm thinking about my day job. So, in line with my current frame of mind I'm presenting to you both a timeline and a statistical overview of our five years together:

February 28th through the yeeeeears (minus the Kenny Rodgers song that's now stuck in my head):

• 2007 - opening day
• 2008 - two canceled cycles and one fresh IVF down, I was in the midst of our first frozen embryo transfer and feeling lucky (wasn't, but I think I might been on an uber exercise kick back then. Maybe a few pounds lighter. Go me.)
• 2009 - still in that funky place of grief, processing that between this year and the last I was pregnant and then I wasn't. I'm intermittently disconsolate and ridiculously upbeat. Here, I'm looking to the future, with a balloon up in my cooch (post-surgery)
• 2010 - looks like I skipped a celebration this year. 2010 kicked our asses all over the place. Don't feel like you have to click on this one. It's kind of a downer.
• 2011 - Seeing half of Ween. The Gener. Feeling older, feeling wiser. Not a bad thing.
• 2012 - It seems I am kvetching about a dirty bathroom.
• 2013 - ???????
  

**
5 years of www.themaybebaby.com in numbers:

1825 days
424 posts
4 canceled cycles (2 due to donor eggs issues, 1 with eggs didn't make the thaw, and one when we realized my lining wasn't going to magically grow 4 more mm in a night)
2 fresh IVFs with donor eggs
2 FETs with donor eggs
1 pregnancy
almost 22 weeks of bliss
2 beautiful babies not here
100+ amazing people encountered, including over a dozen that have turned into real life friends.
4 offers of compassionate surrogacy
1 potential baby mama in the works....

Yes, friends, we've cleared another hurdle. Our potential gestational surrogate passed our clinic's medical record review. (woo hoo! cue streamers and balloons. This is kind of a big deal) Now we are scheduling a marathon day of exams for her, for us, for us together. Whew. forward motion. It's a beautiful thing. And a lovely gift for my five year blogoversary.

I suppose the bathroom can wait.

So hey, thanks for being here. Thank you for reading. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and opinions. I see this as my safe place. I hope you do too.

2 Years? And She's Still Talking??

I turned on my computer this morning and noticed I had this blank reminder on my computer. Just a little tag reminding me to remember. It took me a minute and then I did.

Today is my 2-year blogoversary.

HFS. Holy. F*cking. Shit. Two years? Two years.

I'm still feeling quiet (but hopeful) so instead of getting too wordy, I think I'll just point you to a pretty decent summary of where we've been recently. And let you know how things went yesterday:

successful surgery.
all "retained tissue" removed.
NO SCARRING. NO ADHESIONS.

Now how fucking cool is that? It is great news. Really great news! It's like after weeks and weeks of stress. After several really hard conversations with M. After more marital and mental stress than I can ever, EVER recall, we can breathe a little sigh of relief. Of course, there's the little issue of getting pregnant that remains, but now we know it is still a possibility.

And that is a fucking big deal.

I'm still trying to get my head around it. It's like I spent so long resigning myself to this particular future, and now I don't have to. At least not yet. It's like bracing yourself for the punch that didn't connect, but you're still there, face scrunched, teeth gritting, waiting for it. I need to unclench my teeth.

And get ready for the next round.

Which will probably happen in a couple of months - after I get this balloon out of my cooch, do about a month of estrogen to heal my endometrium, get some sort of scan to make sure everything is clean and clear (maybe an HSG, maybe a sono, so many choices....) and then have a "normal" period. Then we try again.

It's funny. When I first started blogging, I couldn't really understand the women who were on their 6th, 7th, 8th IVF attempt. I didn't get that the closer you get to having a baby in your arms, the more desperately you want to try to get there again. No, I never thought we would get lucky in one go. But I also didn't see this journey stringing out this long either. Not without something to show for it. Now I am just thankful for the opportunity to be able to try again.

And speaking of being addicted to hope, Tertia's book So Close: Infertile and Addicted to Hope
is finally available in the States. Mel is holding a virtual Book Shower for her. Me, I am waiting patiently for my copy to arrive in the mail.