The shipping forecast

A friend suggested to me that in my recent post about how I should occasionally talk about how I am feeling, I cleverly managed to avoid any real discussion of how I am, in fact, feeling. Damn. Nothing gets past you people, does it?

I guess there is no short or easy answer to how I am feeling. It's a bit like the British weather- ask me now, you'll get one answer. Ask me again in five minutes, you'll get another. I think this is defined as "variable".

The thing about a diagnosis of "unexplained" infertility is that it is such a double-edged sword. There is no apparent reason why conception and pregnancy do not not occur. The tubes are clear, the swimmers viable, the egg trundles down the line, on schedule, as it should. Therefore, logically, you tell yourself to "relax", because you could get knocked up any month now!

But on the other hand, the very fact that you have reached the point of receiving an infertility-related diagnosis at all suggests that everything is not quite as it should be. And the months go by, and you begin to think that the your infertility is not so unexplained after all- they just haven't looked hard enough for the cause. There's a reason there somewhere as to why you DON'T GET PREGNANT- you just don't know what it is yet.

And yet you hope, because, well...why not? In the absence of something concrete to cling onto as to the why, the brain (which is quite happy at the best of times to devise all sorts of self-deluding theories) happily chugs along in merry denial mode. There's nothing wrong here! It's only a matter of time! Lalalalala!

Unexplained infertility is basically one gigantic head-fuck. And so like may people living in a state of constant head-fuckery, there is a pendulum action going on. Some days I tell myself that it will be fine, to be calm, that the drugs will work, or that nature will take its course as it should. And then other days I am overcome with the urge to run screaming in a blind panic down the street. AIEEEEEE! BARREN AND DOOMED!

It's like that expression, "just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they are not out to get you. " Well. Just because we are unexplained doesn't mean we are not infertile.

Add this to all my normal human emotions in day-to-day existence. For example, even without infertility, I get cranky. Like yesterday, when we were in the hardware store, and people were doing that thing where they stand, for hours, right in front of the stuff I want to look at. My whole life, this has driven me crackers. As in "WILL YOU MOVE YOUR GIGANTIC HEAD AND SELF OUT OF THE WAY IMMEDIATELY BEFORE I SPONTANEOUSLY COMBUST WITH IMPATIENCE AND IRRITATION?"

Or my tendency to find things delightfully absurd. E. and I have a similar sense of the ridiculous and we laugh about things every day, all day. It's very rare that even on the darkest days that a giggle can't be raised out of me about something particularly goofy.

So what you have is a big swirling mix of internal stuff, all the time. Infertility is just one aspect to add to the overall composition. True, at the moment, it's a big aspect. It does tend to seep into everything else. But sometimes I have to stop myself and ask if I am pissy because of our situation, or just pissy because I haven't had enough caffeine.

In short, how am I feeling? Complicated. I feel complicated. My internal messages are frequently cryptic and hard to decipher, like listening to the Met Office shipping forecast. East or Northeast 4 or 5, but mainly 3 in East. Fair. Moderate or Good, occasionally Poor later.

Totally OK, and not OK at all. Panicked and calm. Optimistic and wracked with a sense of foreboding doom. Naive and enthusiastic, cynical and doubtful.

And a bit peckish- what's for lunch?

Comments

[Emily]

Yeah Mare, I get this well. My actual diagnosis vascillates between 'unexplained' and 'old age'. I live with the old age diagnosis because it's something I can get my teeth around. The truth is, it's not really it because it was the same when I wasn't 'too old'. It's only when 40 came around that the doctors could just throw up their hands and say, "Advanced maternal age, now don't come back unless you'll do a donor egg." And it's frustrating because we've run through all the tests and if push came to real shove, a doctor will tell you that all my results indicate that everything is in working order (even though I identify myself as having high FSH, it's really isn't high enough to be dismissed the way I have been from doctors because it's never been over 10) and yet, month after month drags by and nothing. And it's head bashing frustrating especially when I run into someone who just has to tell me about so and so who got PREGNANT HER FIRST AND ONLY TIME TYRING AND IS 43. The reason I have such contempt for the medical profession is because, like you, I don't believe that my diagnosis is 'unexplained', nor do I believe it's because of my age because I am healthy and have things about me, like low blood pressue and the heart rate of an athlete (excuse me a moment while I laugh at this one) and the doctors just simply can't or won't think outside the box to find the real answer. It's so much easier to just dismiss me because there are so many others who are easy cases to solve behind me in line, so it's "Next" and oh yes, please make sure to blame the patient for their incompetency. I know the answer is out there, I know it is fixable and explainable and I just hope it's discovered before I really do get too old.

I'm thinking of you my dear and hope the forecast improves soon.

xxoo,

[Amyesq]

This is so sucky. Unexplained has to be the crappiest (non)diagnosis out there. All through my IVFs, I could at least cling to "male factor" as a small life raft, more of a buoy, actually, in the infertile sea. You are stuck with nothing, which could be something or could be nothing. And the monthly hope and disappointment. I'm thinking of you.

[Anna H.]

I hear you on this, dear Mare. Not the unexplained part (I have too many explanations and never know which one to go with on any given day!) but just the endless see-sawing between hope and despair, just fine and not so good, happy and sad sad sad... hmmm, we sound suspiciously like Alanis Morrisette, so let's finish this thought off: what it all boils down to / Is that no one's really got it figured out just yet / I've got one hand in my pocket / And the other one is playing the piano.

(Now I dare you to try and get that out of your head!)

Thinking of you.

xxoo

[Soper]

Yep, unexplained just means they havne't figured out how you are fucked yet.

Or should be (wiggles eyebrows meaningfully....)

[Suz]

I don't know, we have Male Factor to cling to, but I think at the root of it, it's all "unexplained." We don't know if anything can be done to improve the MF or what exactly we learned/didn't from the most recent crash n' burn. Ultimately, I don't think that any reason they give you really matters very much other than just being a small something to cling to, but sometimes, that is important too, I guess.

[Kristin]

I have a diagnosis and I still get neurotic and have all the lovely mood swings. I can't imagine how frustrating it must be to not have an explanation.

[kristy]

totally understand this too.

i have just gotten pregnant after 2.5 years of infertility treatment for 'unexplained'. after injectibles and IUI failed, i somehow managed to get pregnant naturally, on a break. annoying, yes. but there is NO rhyme or reason. who knows why it happend that one month, and no other month for the last 36 months.

keep the hope alive. i'll continue to believe it's only a matter of time for you, dear mare.

[Karen]

Urgh. I am also "unexplained," although I have high-esh fsh and my hubs has lower sperm count. But with IUI and IVF, we should be a-okay--so our IVFs are unexplained failures.

I know how it feels, to be unexplained...I thought we were for two years. What's also hard is knowing you're fucked and there's nothing you can do about it. That's where we are. (Although we aren't so fucked, now that we're adopting. But we were. YOu know.)

Even in the midst of your unexplained hell, Ms. B. Mare, you are still amazingly funny and awesome.

[Heidi]

I have nothing witty or helpful to say. (I think I'm feeling "complicated" today too.) Just want you to know I'm out here listening. Take care, Mare.