Family Building – Maybe Mama

Hopping Off the Mary-Go-Round

I am no longer seeking medical treatment for my infertility. I know that’s a jarring and blunt opening statement, but there’s no reason to surround this with fluff or filler. I’ve decided that I no longer want to subject myself to injections, bruising, bloat, mood swings, and acne. No more transvaginal ultrasounds and blood draws every other day. No more of my fridge and bathroom being overtaken by meds and needles. No more surgeries.

More than that, the emotional rollercoaster, the strain on my marriage, and depression and anxiety were becoming too commonplace in my life.

It is settled in my spirit.

It makes sense to me logically and spiritually.

I initially started this post on December 30, 2019. It sat for over a year. When I initially wrote this post, I thought I was in a good space. I wasn’t entirely. It was only the beginning stages of understanding and dealing with the decision and making peace with the decision. But there was so much more.

It really took almost a full year to continue to process this decision. I did not come to this place easily. There has been a lot of tears, yelling, therapy, skipped events, journaling, and isolation. I had to include my husband. We often forget for those of us with partners, we’re not in this alone. They have a say, opinions, and feelings. And while I had come to a place of peace and a decision, my husband had not. He has his own journey that is linked with mine, and it was important to allow him the space and time to come to his own conclusions and be at peace, and that we were on the same page.

There was a time when I thought not pursuing treatment was giving up and not having faith. I thought I was letting people down: my family, my husband, those of you who follow this blog.

The guilt that I felt, I know we all feel in this journey. The loneliness. The inadequacy. The trauma of infertility is never going to go away. It can be managed, but not erased. There will always be baby showers, and women talking about how they got pregnant without even trying. There will always be days when I feel sad or guilty (or both) about my infertility.

If we choose not to have children, we will always be questioned as to why. By not having children, I will always be seen by some as some pseudo-woman because I never carried a child. If we decide to adopt, there again will be the questions: Why? Where’s their real mother? Not to mention the trauma that comes with adoption for the child and their birth family (and to a lesser degree, the adoptive parents). There is no perfect ending to an infertility journey. Even when that miracle baby comes, infertility trauma is always right there.

This blog will continue to be a place where I tell my story. To give women a safe space. To talk about being a Black woman, battling infertility and navigating life. An information resource. A support system.

8 Things You Need to Know about your IVF Protocol that No One Told You

Hi Maybes!

I’ve been a little quiet because…..I just finished my first protocol for egg retrieval. We’re going to freeze and transfer in a few months once we get this thin lining resolved.

Updates on my cycle soon to come.

Having just finished the whole processes of stimulation and retrieval, I feel like there are things no one told me,practical things, that I never knew, so I’m going to share a few things I think might be useful to know before your start.

Step. Your. Sock. Game. UP
Seriously. You will be in the stirrups more in these 10-12 days then you probably have been in all of your adult life. Give yourself a boost of confidence. Give your doctor and staff something fun to look at. Keep them guessing. Wear fun socks. Trust me on this.

Drink A Lot of Water

Why? Because you will have blood drawn every time you go in. Every. Time. You’ll feel like a pin cushion. If you’re like me (and hopefully you’re not), and have small and hard to find veins, drinking lots of water will help you a lot. Even if you’re a standard blood draw, being well hydrated makes your veins plumper and easier to find. It will make this part of the appointment go a little bit smoother.

One of my arms on the **last** day of monitoring.

Give yourself an extra 5 minutes your first dose day

When taking your injections , its important that you dose at the same time every day, or as close as possible. On your first day, or your first day adding a new medication, give yourself an extra five minutes, especially if its something like Menopur, that has to be mixed by you.

It can be a little cumbersome sorting out all of your needles and viles, mixing, and measuring. Add in at least a one minute pep talk to yourself the very first day to hype yourself up to stab yourself with a needle.

On that note….

The needles for the injections are not that bad

They really are thin, tiny needles. Unless you have a real fear of needles, you’ll be a pro at jabbing yourself after about three doses. Except for the trigger shot. THAT needle is longer, and a little wider, but it goes in your butt, not your tummy, and is intramuscular, going into muscle, so it needs a little more length and needs to be a little wider. Its all relative, because none of these needles in more than a few millimeters across.

For this process, a little tummy fat is a good thing!

Many of the stimulation meds are given subcutaneously, meaning under the skin. Usually you have to pinch an area of skin/fat on your abdomen. If you have a lil extra there, it will be a good for these purposes for this.

You can’t be Shy (because you may have to do your shots in a public space)

If you follow me on Instagram, you saw me post about my first public dosing. Long story short: I had the bathroom all to myself, them someone came in. With her nosey self, she lingered around, taking forever to wash her hands and re-applying her lip stick oh so meticulously, to see what I would be doing since by that point I had my supplies laid out. After a while I just said “F it! She gon’ learn today ” and proceeded with my shots.

I had 2 more times I had to dose in public restrooms. Fortunately, there was room and shelf (or shelf like) space in the stall where I was able to have more privacy. Except for the lady at the road stop that was telling me her whole life story from the other stall….

Bloat. All of the bloating. And Gas

I’m telling you because I love you. After a few days of stimulation meds, you will be a little bloated, OK, a lot bloated. And gassy. You’ll feel the pressure and heaviness of those enlarged ovaries (which is great!), but it makes you feel very bloated and full. Your injection areas will be a little swollen as well. Its uncomfortable, but manageable.

Your mind will be a little foggy. You will have emotions and moods

This is commonly said, but I wanted to clarify. For me, it wasn’t the violent, quick, up and down mood swings, it was little things. I cried about something every day the first five days. Things that would usually just annoy me, made me really pissed off. Things that wouldn’t bother me at all made me upset. It’s like PMS turned up a little. There were times in the middle of an emotional moment, I said to myself “why am I crying?” or “What is wrong with me?” I was very on edge.

The fogginess, I imagine is similar to what pregnant women call “pregnancy brain”. I just didn’t feel like myself. I forgot a lot. I felt like I was operating out of body a lot of the time. It was just a general lethargy and sluggishness I fought through pretty much every day once things really go going. Some of it may not have been the meds, but also the overwhelmingness and newness of starting my first IVF cycle, and all that it meant. Just know that you will be in a strange head space, rather its med induced or not.

*Bonus Don’t call new people you meet by the name brand of one of your meds

This seriously happened to me, but I didn’t say it to his face. A group of my friends and I had just met some new people, and later I was trying to remember one guy’s name. It had a “V” and an “L” in it somewhere. I said this with all seriousness:

Me: What was his name? Vivelle? Oh wait, that’s my estrogen patch.

November: Adoption Awareness Month

As we walk, sometimes crawl, though this infertility journey, we have to keep our minds and hearts open.

Of course, there is nothing like carrying your own baby, but as we all know, sometimes that’s not possible. That doesn’t mean you don’t get to have a family.

Maybe you use a donor egg.
Maybe you use donor sperm.
Maybe you use a surrogate.
Maybe you adopt. And maybe, you adopt an older child.

November is National Adoption Awareness Month. And while all adoptions are special, the focus of this month is on kids currently in foster care. Many of those are older, have siblings, or may have a disability.

Family is who and what you make it. We all want a new, snuggly baby to complete or family. But this month, while you think about family building, think about adopting from foster care, and consider older kids.

It may not be as easy a road, but no less rewarding.

So a Woman Thinketh, So is She

It is Mother’s Day. Again. Last year for Mother’s Day, I unplugged, and I was able to lift my spirits and cross off a major bucket list item by going to see Prince in concert. Alone. It was one of best days EVER!

This year, Prince has passed away, I am still sad about it, and I skipped going with my Husband to brunch with my Mother In Love (Law) because I just wasn’t in the mood. She doesn’t yet know about our struggle, and I just didn’t feel like pretending I was in a good place. I sent my card with my husband.

Instead, I’m home with the cat, listening to Prince, and blogging, which is perfect.

Of course, this week, I’ve been thinking about and dreading Mother’s Day, like many of us Maybe Mamas do. The past month or so, a lot of things have happened on the road to possible motherhood. In April, I had a final hysteroscopy to check out my uterine cavity, to see if the balloon used in the November procedure helped in minimizing/preventing scar tissue. A few days before I went in, my husband and I had a conversation where I questioned if I even wanted to have kids at all. I went on about how our time would not be our own, how all the moms I know (with kids under 5) are so boring now. They’ve completely lost their sense of self. All the money we’d now have to spend on the child’s needs, how uncomfortable and unpleasant pregnancy seems….
But in the next breath, I answered my own question: “But I guess, if I didn’t want to have a baby, I wouldn’t spend all this time and money making sure I could”

“True”, hubby responded.

Let's be real for a second, this ish does not look fun. — Let’s be real for a second, this ish does not look fun.

So I really started thinking: What do we tell ourselves to make this all hurt less? I’ve come to realize my main coping mechanism has been a denial of sorts. I’ve tried to convinced myself that I don’t really want to be a mom. I see all the negatives in parenting: The screaming toddler in Target, the sleeplessness, the projectile vomiting, constant worry if you’re doing right by your child. Never having a life. These things are real, and a part of motherhood, but that’s not all that it is.

I truly have come to terms with the fact that I may never be a biological mother, or a mother at all. I think that is part of the infertility journey. Keep hope alive, but acknowledge all possible outcomes. What I have done over time is beyond that.

I’ve tried to shield myself from disappointment and hurt by trying to convince myself it doesn’t matter. Motherhood is not something I really want.

Its like Cinderella when when she realized she wasn’t going to the ball, despite doing everything her step mother said she had to do. She did her best (for all of 5 seconds) to convince herself that that Ball was going to suck, and she wasn’t missing anything.

"Oh, well, what's a royal ball? After all, I suppose it would be frightfully dull, and boring, and completely... completely wonderful." — “Oh, well, what’s a royal ball? After all, I suppose it would be frightfully dull, and boring, and completely… completely wonderful.” ~Cindy

But the reality is, I do want to be a mother, and its painful to think that I may never be. Some days, its too much to think about, so I don’t. The best I can do is try to convince myself that like the Royal Ball, Motherhood sucks. Except, much like Cinderella, I’m not doing such a great job of fooling myself.

I chose the title of this post based form Proverbs 23:7, which most people interrupt as a verse cautioning us to be mindful of our thoughts, as they become who we are. Reading the whole verse, and the verses before and after, and other translations, that’s not what is meant at all.

The verse is referring to a person who says one thing out of their mouth, but doesn’t mean it. They invite you to come over, eat and enjoy, but inside, they’re hoping you don’t. The full scripture:

Do not eat the bread of a miser,^[a]
Nor desire his delicacies;
⁷For as he thinks in his heart, so is he.
“Eat and drink!” he says to you,
But his heart is not with you.

Now, I’m no “miser”, but I am being insincere with my words when I say I don’t really want to have a baby. I say I’d much rather just O and I be the “cool auntie and uncle”, that way we have our time, money (and my body) to ourselves. The ultimate proof that its all bs is not the myomectomy, or the three procedures I’ve undergone to remove scarring (and recently endometriosis), and the months of hormones I took to try to restore my uterine lining. Its not the research I’ve done on adoption. Its the consult we had this past week with a fertility doctor, and the tests we’re about to take, and the IVF journey we are about to start. Someone who doesn’t want it would not bother with any of this.

So on this Mother’s Day, I give myself the gift of acceptance, and permission to feel and experience all of the emotions that come with this journey. Some days are hopeful. Some days are depressing, and that’s OK.

Its OK to want something that seems just out of reach, and its OK to feel the creep of that green-eyed monster when it seems everyone else but me is enjoying that which is illusive: Motherhood.

I want to give this gift to you too. My sisters in this battle. Give yourself permission to feel how you feel, today and everyday.

What have you been telling yourself?

Dear Tyra: An Open Thank You note to Tyra Banks

Dear Tyra,

Hey girl! I wanted to drop you a quick note today because, you were “on my heart” as the church ladies say.

I guess you can say I’ve been a fan for years. In the 90s, when you were in your modeling prime, I was in high school, and it was always nice to see a brown girl doing fashion, slaying. Giving us #blackgirlmagic before we had a name for it. You jumped into acting on Fresh Prince, and in Higher Learning, and who can forget that TV movie where you were a life sized doll come to life (I don’t think I actually watched that one though), oh, and the slightly bitchy fiancée in Love and Basketball.

Of course, you had your shows: The Tyra talk show, and America’s Next Top Model. When ANTM started, I was newly out of college, and my friend/roomie and I made sure we were off the phone from moms and boyfriends, and had our snacks on deck so we could watch. In the later seasons, I stopped watching, but my mom “discovered” the show and took all the modeling tips to heart. She smizes in damn near every picture now.

I was also a fan of the talk show. It was fun. Informative. Honest. I know you took some criticism when you dressed as a fat person, or went as homeless. But one of the moments I loved, was when, after paparazzi got some pics of you on the beach and the “Tyra’s getting fat” articles and comments began, you told them all to kiss your fat ass. Classic.

You started your foundation (TZONE) for girls to empower and inspire. When you decided you wanted to be an entrepreneur, you enrolled in classes at Harvard Business school.

I bring up all of the things you’ve done in your career just to highlight that you have been a role model to women and girls, especially Black women. I think your place and accomplishments are often overlooked. You lay low. You say what you want. You keep it classy. Thank you for being an example of girl power.

A few weeks back, I saw segment on FABlife, where Chrissy Teigan talked about her difficulties getting pregnant, and you also took that moment to share:

I want to co-sign what Chrissy is saying and say ‘You have no idea what people are going through’. Why am I crying? You just have no idea what people are going through, so when you ask Chrissy [why don’t you have kids] or me that or anybody that, it is none of your frigging business, okay? And for any women, it is none of your business what somebody is going through. Whether they want to have a child or don’t ever want to have a child or may have a child on the way, it’s none of your business, okay? Until somebody wants to make it your business

Exactly.

I loved this whole moment, because, I too, am one of those women. The 1 in 8 couples who struggle to get pregnant. I too, am tired of people asking about “when?” or “why?” when it comes to having a baby. Its not their business, and you don’t know what I’m going through or how hard I’m trying to get pregnant.

I love when those who have a platform use it. You, Gabrielle Union, Tamar Braxton, and other celebrity women have come out and said pregnancy has been a challenge. I love even more that as a Black woman, you’ve said something. We just keep acting like this is not a problem in “our” community, when it is. Just as much as it is in any community.

Tyra, the point is: Thank You for sharing you journey to motherhood! Thank you for putting a face to infertility. Thank you for being open and vulnerable. Thank you for sharing your son with us.

There are hundreds, maybe thousands of every day women, who share, or try to inspire others with their journey. (Like myself), but you are able to speak to more people with one post than many of us can all year.

Thank you again, Tyra for being someone who has consistently taken risks, taken a stand, and been yourself.

Congratulations on your new baby boy!

via @tryabanks instagram — via @tyrabanks instagram