California Dreamin

Today I realized that it has been nearly a year since my last blog posting.. And in that time SOOO much has changed.. I mean nothing really for the better, just different.. The wife and I finally gave up.. We literally did.. Gave up everything we knew and loved, and moved from AZ to Southern California..

From the top, our first few weeks in Cali were brutal.. Every possible thing that could go wrong, did.. Hitting every lump and bump in the road possible.. But we made it through, hence me being here writing this post.. We made our way into some new company, both personal and business.. We met a group of awesome women who'd all been TTC as long or even longer than my wife and I have, and can gladly say that since then they have all gotten pregnant.. Of course, considering the wife and I have the pregnancy touch.. If an infertile or any woman for that matter wants to get pregnant all they need to do is be in our presence for half a second and they'll conceive that cycle, without fail.. But that is neither here nor there, back to the point.. We moved here in the hopes that we would be able to move forward with more extensive fertility treatments (i.e., IVF) with a world class awesome thoughtful and understanding Dr.. And the perks of being able to have both our names on the birth certificate and having 2nd parent adoption be options are amazing as well.. All these high hopes for just a place on the map..

We did do 6 cycles since being here in Cali, all resulting in the same negative outcome.. This brought a sense of realization to our moving here.. We are now trying to find our place.. We are now well aware that moving states was never going to define our journey for us.. It was never intended to make our journey any easier.. We'd just placed way to much weight on our being in a fresh new place.. This new place doesn't change the fact that the wife and I both are dealing with infertility, while still longing for children, and hopelessly trying to fight and scratch our way to have the means to continue towards our dream.. We can now say that we have spent upwards of $35k over the course of 4years on our hopes of trying to become parents.. And being here now would still need an additional almost $9k to continue forward to IVF treatments..

Being that we are both fighters and apparently stubborn, we are taking on the challenge.. I will be picking up my 3rd job this week (2 part-time and 1 full-time), and my wife her 2nd.. We are either glutton for punishment, can't admit defeat or both.. No matter were the road takes us, we are determined to have our dreams come to fruition.. Now more than ever..

I would die for that....

This is a project that we hold dear to hearts, and were more than happy to be a part of.. In this video, that isn't a couple that looks like us.. THAT IS US.. We were blessed to meet, walk, chat, and bond with with some amazingly wonderful people.. All dealing with the struggles Inez and myself have to endure day in and day out.. Really hope you take a few moments to click the link provided and watch.. It seems at times that others may not care about your struggles or want to hear your story while you are in the midst of the storm.. No matter how many years things have been stagnant.. They only want to hear of them once you have made it through to some sort of happier ending.. One more palatable for their lives.. Well truth be told, there aren't always happy endings.. And during the struggle is when they were needed most.. Worst than any one part of this journey, is the isolation and loneliness that is felt.. This project reminds me that we are not alone, no matter how much this world likes to make us think that we are outcasts because we have to :try: for our blessing..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXvJSWzpA84

I do know love....

I’m finding myself hurt by the tags/comments/pix that we’ve all seen.. You know, the ones that say something completely terrible like “You’ll never know love until you’ve loved your own child”.. To that I say “Screw, no, FUCK YOU”..

I know a love no one would ever understand, unless placed in our shoes..

The kind of love that leaves us susceptible to an unbearably painful hurt on a month in month out basis..

The kind of love where I have to feel a grief for child that was prayed for so hard that never came to be..

The kind of love that I sink my ALL into, every ounce of  free time, every possible cell of energy available in my body, and every dime we make just for the hope that one day..ONE DAY..we will be blessed with something that came so easily to so many others..

The kind of love for a wife who has held my hand through every medical procedure, every blood draw, every mood swing caused by fertility meds, every failed cycle, and every devastating ultrasound result..

I’m blessed to say I DO know love.. One that I know is stronger more in depth and unbreakable than what most will ever experience.. So for now I will continue to take solace in the blessings I have received, and file your comments away as sheer ignorance.. I pray for your sake, you never see any hurt that nears what we’ve endured.. And I can promise, I will never take for granted this dark before our dawn.. It has shaped enlightened and humbled us.. We don’t see any light yet, I'm faithful and know that I have experienced the purest love, there for the light will come..

Our give a damn is busted..

    It’s been 24months now since we 1^st decided it was time to start tracking cycles, looking at donors, researching fertility, etc.. And still no babies to report.. It seems that every time I want to be excited about anything, the wind is sucked out of my sails and my hearts broken..

    We’ve officially reached another impasse in this whole TTC process.. Being that in this time we’ve had people ask us about getting pregnant, get pregnant, and have their babies.. Yet, we are still here with very empty arms.. Peoples comments are becoming more and more insensitive and the intolerance for our inability to be “chipper” has become overwhelming..

    My words of wisdom to those who have apparently not the slightest bit of couth when it comes to dealing with us infertile folks…….  

·         Don’t ask us how we’re doing, it’s never “great” or even “good” for that matter.. You looking at us like we should be so happy just because we exist makes me want to slap you.. Just saying..

·         Don’t tell us something stupid like “Oh, well why not just take my kids for a while.. You’ll surely change your mind about wanting kids..” You come off as an ass..

·         Don’t say “Well if you can’t get pregnant I’d carry your baby, or donate eggs”.. Going there might seem like a polite or generous thing to say to someone like us, but just leads us to believe that you feel that we are inferior to your all mighty ability to lie on your back and produce a baby.. Shuddup..!!

·         Don’t mention adoption or IVF to us, unless in that same statement you’ll be offering us the $20-30k for that to happen.. Like we don’t know those are frickin options.. WTAF..!!

·         Don’t talk to us about going out and having a good time drinking, partying, and whatnot.. Like as if any of that is truly healthy or will take our minds off any of the horrible crap that has happened to us.. We obviously made a decision that it was time for kids because we were done with all of that.. Common sense would tell you we don’t think that shit is fun anymore..

·         Don’t tell us about someone else’s pregnancy or baby and expect our eyes to light up with joy and excitement.. WTF is wrong with you..??

·         Don’t tell us what so and so from your cousins, step-dads work did in order to get pregnant.. I’m sure if my Dr who specializes in fertility is stumped, whatever crap they did means nothing in my world.. And 2^nd, don’t assume just because we haven’t had a baby we don’t know what we’re doing.. My advice apparently works for everyone but us.. So I know what the fuck I’m doing.. TRUST..

      I’m tired of us being treated like my wife and I have something wrong with us.. The ones who’ve achieved pregnancy don’t want us around because we are a “bummer” in their prefect little lives.. The ones who aren’t in the ‘married with kids’ phase don’t want us around because either they feel they don’t know what to say, so would rather say nothing at all to us, or because we “don’t party like we used to”.. Well in all honesty, we’re not who we used to be.. And will never be those people again.. We’ve seen too much, been through too much, to ever be able to go back..

    We’re in limbo, and alone.. We know this.. I just never knew that it was at all possible to continue to feel so hopeless, yet daily life seems more and more bleak.. I feel blessed to have found the love of my life, but question why we would have this perfect life dangled in our faces.. With no way of actually achieving our picture of true happiness.. Life’s way beyond a bitch in my book..

    All and all, if you can’t be here with us and I mean truly with us in our darkest hours, then we don’t need nor want you around when we finally make it through to the light..

Crowdfunding

Trying so hard to remain faithful...

  Completely blank.. That is the best way to describe my feelings today at the start of today.. Sometime during last weekend my wife and I had a brief convo discussing the brand “Lost” that I used to rock hardcore a) when it was popular like 7/8yrs ago, b) when I always felt so lost.. I used to always feel so detached from everyone and everything until my wife found me.. It seemed during that time when I was “lost”, that no matter what I still felt full of faith that there was something better.. That things could and would get better.. During our convo about being lost, we continued to discuss how we would often speak to God and our angels.. How we both always felt a sense of, though we were lost, we never felt alone.. We never felt that our voices, our cries, our tears went unheard..  

    Fast forward to our current life’s struggles.. We went on to talk about how all things TTC have made our lives feel so empty.. That after so much effort, so many prayers, and so much sacrifice we are still left in this complacent state of uncertainties..  Where’s all the faith we once had in the workings of the world..?? I mean I once felt that anything was possible and all would work as it should, when it should.. I was always taught that God would never place more on you then you can bare.. Before, I didn’t understand how someone could lose their faith in their being an ultimate plan for them..

    I’ve now had reality check the hell out of me, and I’m still trying to catch my breath..  Just trying to remain focused and follow all of the things that were instilled our whole lives.. To know this is only a test but we HAVE to pass.. That the rewards will be great for all of this heartache.. But how do you deal in the meanwhile..??  At this point we are trying so hard to remain faithful..

   I just today saw a saying “In the end it will all be okay.. If it isn’t okay, then it isn’t the end.”, and to see this written, when I did, brought me right back to believing in the plan.. It may differ from the one I’d written for myself, but I feel again that after all is said and done it will be OKAY..

Crowdfunding

We’re the kind of lesbians that go both ways…

   It has come up quite a few times throughout our journey the assumption that I (the more visually feminine one in our relationship) am the only one who has been actively trying to conceive… I’d felt prior to our new found openness that it wasn’t my place to discuss my wife struggles with infertility… I’d just say “Well, we both plan to carry” and leave it at that… And even still when starting this blog and our donation site wasn’t sure if my wife was comfortable having the FULL story… She is a very private person and I respect that… She recently gave me the go ahead since we are being as open as we are being and  we  both think it’s time to put it all out there on the table…

                                                          So from the top, here goes……

   When my wife and I met she was 18 and I was 21.. We both knew we’d wanted to have kids, but it was definitely only a pleading thought back then.. About 1year into our relationship my then 19year old wife decided she had baby fever.. I didn’t think we were ready.. I thought then that it took tons of money to raise a child and that I wanted to be further along in my career.. It truly was I just wasn’t ready for so much responsibility.. I was happy in our little 1bdrm apartment close to all the clubs.. Yeah, I cared about that sort of thing back then..

     The years passed and my wife would often mention her urge to start to expand our family.. By this time the wife was about 22, it came up that my wife has quite a few issues with her inner workings.. She’d always had problems as long as she could remember having her period.. But it finally came to a head when she went to go see her Dr for her yearly, and the Dr was concerned by how much discomfort my wife was experiencing during the exam..  She was then referred to an OB for more in depth testing and they discovered a cluster of cysts on her ovary..  The 1^st OB she’d seen injected my wife with a Deprovera sort of shot to prevent her from having her period for a while, so no more cysts would form.. My wife wasn’t fully aware of the full side effects of the shot and allowed the 1^st of the shots to be administered..  This same OB then mentioned that maybe she should look into getting a hysterectomy in the sort of near future because the cysts were so severe.. We both were like WHOA, WAIT, WHAT.. That was her 1^st and last appointment with that OB.. Even with just the 1^st shot she ended up not getting a period for a good 3-4months, thank goodness she didn’t go back for the other one.. This whole experience opened my eyes that it was about time that we started having serious discussions about our future family plans.. It immediately put me mentally where she’d been for 3+years..

       We then started working towards our goals, saving money, taking trips, just doing all the things that you supposedly are no longer able to do once kids are in the picture.. We’d during our preparation/party time discussed our expectations.. That we wanted to use a sperm bank and would prefer to do at home inseminations.. We both wanted to carry and didn’t care if we carried at the same time.. We wanted to move out of our condo and into a house.. Then BAM, the wife’s severely painful cycles returned..

    We thought this would halt all of our plans, but instead it made us even more focused on the health of us both.. I’d started tracking both of our cycles at this point and learning about TTC, inseminations, etc.. This time she went to see a new OB, who was really cool.. She did an ultrasound and found that my wife not only had more cysts then previously (the others resolved themselves since she spent so many months not ovulating), but she appeared to have some other shadowing in there.. This could be polyps, endometriosis, or who knows.. She then set up the wife for immediate exploratory surgery, or a laparoscopy.. Within a week of her 1^st appointment with her new OB, she was being wheeled into a hospital room and put under..

    The surgery went well, though they did confirm that she has PCOS as well as a severe case of endometriosis.. During the surgery she removed a few cysts from her left ovary and was able to also scrape her uterus to remove some of the endo. scarring.. As we were leaving the hospital we got to talk to the OB again, she confirmed that it is known that pregnancy can actually help endometriosis.. If you are able to achieve pregnancy, that is.. Recovery was quick compared to other surgeries she’d had (my wife is like a Operation Game life size, forreal).. We knew then it was time to stop thinking about it and start trying.. Within a few weeks we found a house we loved AND finally picked a donor..

   Since we’d already been tracking our cycles we knew what had to happen when.. We decided since swimmers are so expensive to try one at a time.. I’ve already written an entry about the horribleness that was our 1^st cycles trying, so no need to get into all of that again.. After I miscarried I was a little bitter and broken and looked to my wife and decided it was her turn..

     The 1^st cycle she tried to our surprise she got a BFP.. We didn’t think it was possible considering all of the issues she had, but there it was.. Soon after however, she started cramping.. Those severe cramps that she knew where her period.. And sure enough, she miscarried.. Once both of our cycles returned to normal we continued to try with us both inseming, in hopes that one of us would be able to have a baby bean stick.. But no such luck, even still…

      I said before that we both felt it was time for us to put the FULL story out there.. Us putting our journey out there for everyone to see isn’t us asking for “ideas”.. We know we’ve done everything possible outside of IVF in order to conceive.. We’ve exhausted all efforts financially, emotionally, and mentally.. At this point we just need your love and support..

   *** If you would like to help us turn we into three by donating, please click the following link: http://www.gofundme.com/1crkr0 ***

Crowdfunding

Is this the aftermath of TTC failure….???

    After being engulfed in all things TTC for almost 2years, starting with preparing our minds and my body.. Then to prepare financially and rearrange our living situation on top of all the researching, it now appears that the fact that our lives just aren’t were we’d expected to be by now, is definitely taking its toll.. Both the wife and I are breaking down and infertility is the blame.. My wife tells me often she misses my smile.. The genuine one I used to radiate at everyone no matter what I was feeling.. I guess the optimism behind a high wattage smile I was once able to share with the world has been dimmed..

    The other night I had nightmares of watching multiple women get pregnant over and over again while I sat infertile, barren, childless.. I woke up and cried in my wife’s arms for a good 20mins.. So you’re saying I can’t escape the harsh realities we're living, not even in my dreams..?? That is definitely a scary thought.. This is bringing a list of questions to mind that seem to not have answers.. How do you move forward from here..?? How do I again enjoy being around friends/family..?? When if ever will I be able to see a baby or even children and not feel intense heartache..?? Why isn’t there just some button where I would be able to rewind the last 24months and un-know all that I know..??

     I don’t need coping mechanisms, tried them, they don’t work.. Not for this.. The feelings I have are different from any I’d ever thought where possible to feel.. I do well with coping with the loss of a loved one.. As odd as that may sound.. I have always had a “Everything happens for a reason” sort of outlook,  and felt that there has to continue to be death in order for there to be life.. That we have to let our loved ones go for this reason.. That grief was a selfish feeling since our loved one is no longer hurting, or stressed, or tired..    

    I now on an almost daily basis feel a sort of grief for a loved one I never met, a life I never experienced.. To me it makes no logical sense, yet I am unable to kick the seemingly uninterrupted depression that is felt nonstop.. Unable to kick the constant feelings that I am less than a woman.. That “God” must hate me.. I mean everything SUPPOSEDLY happens for a reason, right..?? “God” obviously feels that the crackhead on welfare who has now given birth to her 5^th child addicted to drugs and going home to an abusive, unstable, and toxic environment was more deserving of motherhood than my wife and I are, right.. As much as I don’t want to believe it’s affecting how I function, or made me different from who I once was, or dare I even say bitter, I know it has..

             Final question.. Will this get easier, ever..??


I guess I'm living through the aftermath of TTC failure..


   *** If you would like to donate, please click the following link: http://www.gofundme.com/1crkr0 ***

    Thanks so much for reading.. Knowing that our very emotional journey is finally out in the open actually brings much comfort..