Uncertainty

I went to an infertility forum tonight in my town. There were 7 local western medicine professionals that gave a short presentation each and then afterward some local alternative medicine professional gave complimentary sessions. Some of it was redundant for me (get an Hsg, yup done, get a semen analysis, yup done, take omega 3, yup etc) but parts of it were helpful. 

One thing was that it made me realize that I probably should get involved with my local resolve chapter. It was nice to see so many other couples there, and know that I was not alone. I found myself wanting to ask them questions and talk to them, but I was too shy and it's too personal a subject. I think it would be helpful for me to have a place where I can meet other women and talk about what we are all going through. For a while I thought I hadn't been TTC long enough, but I am past that point now of being judged as not "infertile enough" for a group like that. 

A reproductive endocrinologist was there and he spoke up and for a couple minutes talked about how one of the major sources of stress for couples who are struggling with infertility is the uncertainty that accompanies it and I couldn't agree more with that. When you first start TTC you are uncertain if you have a problem, then you are uncertain what the problem is, then uncertain if one treatment will work, uncertain if you are ever going to become a parent.
He went on to talk about how people can deal with uncertainty for a short amount of time (like here in New England when they were searching for a bombing suspect loose in a nearby town) but people can only take so much of it. 

This really resonated with me, I feel so uncertain all the time and like all these circumstances are beyond my control. I don't know how many interventions I am going to have to do or if any of them will work and that is what makes this so hard. It's nice to know that I am not the only one who feels that way. 

 

Exhaustion

Through an unfortunate set of complicated circumstances I am currently on a stretch of working 9 days in a row without a day off. It's compounded by the fact that I am just finishing my transition back to work after my hand injury. I am exhausted beyond words and my hand hurts like hell. 

What is keeping me going is knowing that Thursday is my baseline ultrasound to start our fertility cycle which I am BEYOND excited about. I will update after that.

How to behave around your infertile friend when you're pregnant

Yesterday I talked about some pointers for acting around your friend who has infertility, today I'd like to focus on how to act when you are pregnant yourself.

Expect that your friend with infertility may distance a little from you. She's probably trying to be happy for you, but watching your body change and seeing you reminds her of what she can't have. It's ok to still reach out and call your friend or see if they want to make plans, but if she doesn't call back as often know that it's probably a protective mechanism for her. She's not mad at you and she still likes you, she is just really jealous. 

Please don't complain about your pregnancy symptoms. Your infertile friend is not going to feel sorry for you, and your complaining makes you sound ungrateful. That said, if your friend asks how you are doing, be honest and tell her. Just don't rub all your pregnancy symptoms in her face. 

When you announce your pregnancy, please be respectful. Please don't do it in a huge group with a lot of excitement. I still burst into tears when I find out someone is pregnant, and I don't want to do that in public. Don't get me wrong, I am happy for you, really I am, it just brings up a lot of emotions for me that I would rather a big group of people not witness. Personally, I would rather be told in a text message or email so that I can have some time to process before I react, but I am sure that is different for everyone. However you do it, just please don't make a big silly show of it. 

Other than that, just be yourself. Don't be scared of being around your friend. We still like each other, and have all the reasons we became friends in the first place. I am sure that we still have a lot of common interests that we share. 

I think Garfunkel and Oates sum it up nicely (warning, gets a little weird at the end)

How to behave around your infertile friend

I realize as I write this that really all I am saying is how I prefer people to act around me, but it may be different for everyone. The words that make me want to punch you in the face, may give someone else comfort, but I think a lot of people who struggle with infertility have similar triggers. 

Please don't:
- Make jokes about your own super human fertility powers

- Offer insight on how tiring motherhood is, or offer to give away your children. We all know that you love your children and think they are worth the work, don't imply that someone might not be up to the task. 

- Say cliche's about how everything happens for a reason or children come when they are ready. I have a medical problem where I don't ovulate. Children will happen when we can figure out how to make my ovaries work. Just like cancer is (hopefully) cured when they resect a tumor or figure out the right dose of drugs for you.  

- Tell me to relax. Or tell me about how Monica from Friends got pregnant after she decided to adopt. Everyone has a story about someone who stopped trying and got pregnant. Here's the thing about that; almost no one is completely infertile unless they have no uterus and their partner has zero sperm. Most of us are actually subfertile, and spontaneous pregnancy is possible but does not occur within a reasonable time frame naturally. Most of those women who got pregnant naturally did so after many many years of trying. Don't minimize their struggle by saying they were too stressed and that was why they didn't get pregnant. I feel shitty enough about the fact that I can't get pregnant, and yes that leads to stress, I don't need further stress by you telling me it's all my fault.

Please do:
- Listen when someone with infertility is sharing their story with you. It's a deeply painful and personal thing they are describing, and listening is a way of showing respect. 

- Be willing to tolerate a little extra bit of crazy. This whole thing is really hard and leads to a lot of stress and the fertility meds can make you wacky.

Shellseeker

I cast on for the Shellseeker sweater about a week ago. It's a top down raglan pullover with a neat little pocket detail. I am usually way more of a cardigan girl, but I have been having a hankering lately for a cozy pullover. I am using Cascade 220 that I bought last year at Webs on my way to Rhinebeck. 

My grandmother died this winter, and one of the things I inherited from her was her knitting supplies including the basket that you see in the above photo. I miss her so much every day. But when I am with her knitting tools and supplies and books, I really feel like she is there with me, helping me pick a pattern or reminding me about gauge. It's amazing to me how the things we touch and use and value everyday become such a part of us. I think she would have liked the sweater I am making right now. She might have even asked me for the pattern, and that makes me smile and feel like she is still with me. 

Chomping at the bit

Two weeks tomorrow I go in for my baseline ultrasound. As long as my lining isn't too thick we will count that day as cycle day 3 and start taking fertility medication. Why call it cycle day 3? Historically doctors would wait for you to have a menstrual cycle and then start you on fertility medication on either cycle day 3 or 5 depending on their preference (cycle day is the first day of your period). Calling it cycle day 3 makes is easier math-wise to date everything else.

For women who don't ovulate like me, and therefore get cycles very rarely a lot of doctors will induce a period using progesterone before starting medication, however my doctor says that is not needed as long as your lining is not prohibitively thick. It's a bit controversial, but I am trusting my doc on this one.

If my lining is too thick then I will need to induce a period, that usually takes about a week or so. I don't mind it too much, expect taking the progesterone makes me really sleepy and feel icky. I guess I shouldn't complain though, if I ever get pregnant that is probably what I will feel like all the time since pregnancy causes a huge increase in progesterone. 

I wish wish wish that I could start right away! Mr. Chickadee and I had to put a hault on this whole thing in early January when we decided that I was going to have hand surgery because I needed to wait until I would be eligible for an FMLA again by my due date. As it is we are cutting it a little close in case I do get pregnant and have to go out early... but we will cross that bridge when we come to it. 

In the meantime I am nearly constantly consumed with thoughts of what if. What if it works, what if it doesn't, what is NOTHING works, what if we are bankrupted by trying only to end up bitter and childless forever,  what if it works and then I miscarry (which is fairly likely with PCOS compared with other women), what if it works and I get preclampsia and have to go out of work when I am 5 months pregnant and I lose my job and then we lose our house and then I get deported back to Canada. Yup... reasonable concerns. 

Amy Butler's Modern Diaper Bag - Finished

I finished my version of Amy Butler's Modern Diaper Bag. Overall I liked this bag pattern. As I mentioned earlier some of the pattern notes were oddly worded, but if you have any prior sewing experience, especially with bags it's pretty simple to figure out. For example when making the pockets, just make the markings and then go ahead and make a box pleat, don't even try to decipher her instructions, just make a box pleat the way you know how. And if you don't know how, Google it, it's not difficult. 

I read that some folks online had a hard time assembling the pockets, I didn't find this too hard personally. I was a bit worried because I did not have enough fabric to make the long pockets as long as they were suppose to be, but I just made the pleats smaller and it worked out fine. I think might actually have been better, as I have read online that a lot of people found the pockets took up too much space inside the bag. 

The only other modifications I made was using the outside print for the pockets (because I didn't have enough liner fabric) and I eliminated one layer of interfacing. I thought two layers of fusible fleece gave enough structure without a third layer of midweight interfacing.

One more thing, this bag is HUGE, like HUGE. I would look totally ridiculous carrying this thing around town. That said, none of our family lives super close so it will be a perfect travel diaper bag. And if the whole having kids thing never happens for me I will definitely use it as a weekend away bag for myself.

Chase is shown in the last picture partly for scale and partly to illustrate how this little tabby lets me get nothing down without nosing her way into it. She can hear the sounds of me getting ready to do a project and loves nothing more than to get between me and whatever I am working on. Shortly after this picture was taken she climbed inside the bag.

Happy Birthday Mr. Chickadee

Today is husband's birthday.  We celebrated this weekend with a dinner out on Saturday, a little celebration with cake and friends last night, and tonight I will make him his favorite meal (pork curry with squash, sweet potato, and spinach). 

We've been a couple since I was 18 and he was 19, about 10 years now, because we met so young we have grown up together a lot. I have been teasing him this weekend about how much lower key we are then when we met. We will both now admit without shame that an ideal Saturday night often involves being home by 8:00 curled up on the couch watching procedural detective shows, whereas when we met and I wasn't legal to drink I thought nothing could possibly be better than staying out as late as possible because WE DIDN'T LIVE AT HOME ANYMORE!

He has helped me to be a calmer happier person. I tend to be a little ball of stressed out anxiety, with a special talent for taking any problem and assuming the worst possible outcome. He on the other hand is the calmest person I have ever met with a constant view that everything is going to work out. Just because it has to. This calm attitude has been a rock for me with my infertility journey, his quiet confidence that our becoming parents is a matter of when not if. 

I like to think that I have expanded his culinary universe. When we first met his favorite food was spaghetti and he had never really had a lot of food that was unusual or spicy. He still is not obsessed with food and talking about food the way my family is, but his taste's have become much more gourmet. I am very proud that his most favorite birthday cake is no longer store bought mix but my home-made chocolate marble chiffon cake. So yesterday I was more than happy to spend the majority of my afternoon beating egg whites to stiff peaks, folding them into the batter, carefully separating the batter and mixing in the chocolate and pouring it into the pan to get it just right. And it made me so very happy to see his delight as he ate his second slice after dinner.

About 15 months ago Mr. Chickadee and I were in a car accident. We were rear ended while waiting to turn left and it scared the living shit out of me. Took a long time before I could ride in a car without panicking and to be honest, I still don't like being in cars. Psychological trauma aside my worst physical injury was to my left hand. I broke my hand in at least 5 places (a few more spots have been debated back and forth) including two bad fractures through my proximal interphalangeal joint. See picture below for reference.

I was out of work from my regular job for almost six months, which is a crazy amount of time, I just had too much pain and no strength in my hand for a really long time. The pain never really went all the way away, so in January I decided to get two joint replacements, I got one in my index finger PIP and one in my middle finger. It's still semi-experimental, but so far the results have been good. I still have daily pain, but I think it's getting better. 

The best part is that knitting doesn't hurt anymore, yay! Knitting has always been one of my favorite occupations, and it was so hard for me not being able to enjoy doing it as much since my accident. AND this week I got permission to take my bike riding. It feels like I might finally be coming around the other side of this thing.

Effie and Ollie by Heather Bailey

My first sewn toy was from Heather Bailey's Effie and Ollie Elephant pattern. I love love love this pattern. This was my first, and I have made a few since then (my new ones actually look a lot better). They can be made with less than a fat quarter, probably you could actually get two out of one fat quarter, although I have not tried. There is minimal notions, just some safety eyes (or black thread), a little interfacing and of course poly fill. The pattern is beautifully clear, and once you get going with these they come out pretty quickly. I plan on making a heard of them for our future kids.

So it's probably becoming noticeable that I make a lot of baby things for someone that is "subfertile" as the Reproductive Endocrinologist puts it.  I have days where I wonder if this is wise for my own sanity. So far though, it feels right. I love to knit and sew and I want my baby to be surrounded my handmade things. I really don't think I will have enough time in my pregnancy to get everything made that I want to (especially since we plan on doing cloth diapers, and I want to sew all of them).

When I make baby things it doesn't make me feel sad that we don't have one. It just makes me feel warm and happy thinking about one being in our house. I know that one way or another we will have a family, and I can just save things in the meantime for when that happens.

Pain

I work in a hospital, and I see people in a lot of pain every day. I have experience with physical pain too, after my car accident my hand hurt more than I can possibly describe for a long time. I remember having my eyes opened to what real physical pain was. But the thing about pain is that once it's over, you don't really remember what it was like. You remember that it hurt, but you can't really feel that pain again. 

The emotional pain from infertility is similar. You want something so much that your heart aches, it can consume you, you would give anything, ANYTHING to have a child. It can feel hard to take joy in anything else in life when you have this gaping, raw, sorrow following you around everywhere you go and in everything you do. 

At least with physical you can talk about it without shame or embarrassment and be reasonable sure people won't say completely unhelpful things in response. After you break your leg no one tells you "Probably the bone will heal if you stop thinking about it so much" or "Your leg broke because it was meant to be, it's part of God's plan" or "haha, wow my bones never break! I wish they would break more often!"

The pain from infertility changes who you are. I find myself thinking horrible, hateful things about pregnant women. Today I was listening to NPR and there was a woman talking about how she "had three babies" while working on this book and how it hard that was. I found myself thinking "oh you got yourself knocked up, how HARD for you". That's not the kind of person that I am. I like other human beings and I can normally empathize with their strife and identify with their own situations. 

I hope that I won't be infertile forever, that I will be able to have my own family, and if not I hope that I can find a way to live without feeling this huge hole in my heart. 


 

Amy Butler's Modern Diaper Bag

This weekend I started making Amy Butler's Modern Diaper Bag, from Little Stitches for Little Ones. I have made a number of projects from this book and so far have been really happy with how they turned out. So far the pattern is very Amy Butler, overly wordy with way too much interfacing. Seriously, I think she has stock in Pellon. For fabric, I'm using Avery II from Joel Dewberry that I have had in my stash for a while. 

I read online from a few other bloggers that it turns out way too large to use as a regular diaper bag, and I tried to scale it down but the link to the blog that everyone else used for scaling it down is missing, and hating math as I do I decided to make it the original size. So far it is HUGE, however it would be a great bag for a weekend or long day trip. Made with less pockets it would be a great overnight or beach bag too. 

I'll update when there is more to show. 

Clara and Clancy aka Francis Bacon and Hamantha

 
When I do have children I want to wait as long as possible to get them any kind of plastic/mass produced toys. My husband works for a non profit that has done some research into plastics/chemicals and it is alarming and horrifying to me what they put into children's toys. A lot of even very popular main stream toys contain lead. What doesn't have lead may contain BPA or some other chemical that we don't even know is toxic. I am well aware that eventually all kids end up with "regular" toys, but I'd like to keep it home-made and natural for as long as possible.

Recently I started making kids toys. I have knitted some, but I find them to be fiddly, time consuming and tedious. I wanted to sew a few toys, but I was really intimidated by the process. I was worried I would end up with some vague toy type shaped blob that would frighten children away from miles around.


I was delighted to discover though that Heather Bailey's patterns are really easy to do. The directions are so clear and well written that as long as you take your time, and don't mind a little hand sewing they come together really quickly.

These two friends are from the Clara and Clancy pattern. The first one I made was the green "Sir Francis Bacon". When I bought the fabric I didn't realize it was shaded until it had already been cut from the bolt, but I like how it turned out. You can see that when I got to the second pig "Hamantha" the nose turned out a bit better, and the head shape is closer to the pattern. I thought about fixing Francis but the general consensus is that he looks good the way he is.

A few notes about the pattern. You don't need nearly as much fabric as is called for. For the hooves, ears and snout you can away with 1/8 yard, and although for the shirt the pattern called for 1/2 yard, I did it with one fat quarter (with some very careful layout).

Francis's shirt was a bit time consuming, but worth the effort in the end. I had the hardest time with the buttons on his shirt, but that was mostly because my one step button-hole maker and myself are not good friends. I do like the little details on his shirt, such as the back pleat and collar facing.

Hamantha's dress was easier for me, although that may be because I am very comfortable with rouching. I like the back detail and snaps on the back.

Both the pants/bloomers were very easy and came together in about 20 minutes each. I really like how Francis's came out, I had some leftover cotton/linen that I think makes him look very classy.

Overall, I was very happy with how they came out and I may make this pattern again. I think it was worth the time and effort. Now I just have to figure out what to do with them.

The past two years of my life have had some changes that were beyond my control that caused significant stress. This blog is intended as a journal, to chronicle my adventures in photography, sewing, knitting, infertility, arthritis and life. If anyone finds this blog: welcome, it's nice to meet you.