Silent All These Years

Yeah, I totally suck. It's just not nice to disappear from the blogosphere for I don't know - 2 freaking years - without warning and then just pop my head back in just to wave "hi" and see if anyone is still around and reading. Anyway, considering that I still occasionally lurk in all your blogs to see how everyone is doing (yay for all the babies!!!!!), I figured I should have the courtesy to post an update in case any of you were burning with curiosity about what's been going on these past few years with me.

And just to cut to the chase for those of you who don't care to read it all: No, I did not get pregnant.

Why the Long Silence?

Well, after a long summer in California (remember this was 2010) of actually not worrying about babymaking, I found myself not exactly happy, but pretty content with life and not terribly eager to jump back into the fertility treatment treadmill. And this somehow translated me succumbing to a depression that winter when we came back to Austin. I got stuck in a rut: I couldn't bring myself to go back into fertility treatment, but neither could I move forward toward adoption or living childfree. So I spent a lot of time feeling anxious, accomplishing pretty much nothing, and berating myself for being a failure at life in general.

I decided to get back into therapy after things devolved to the point where I was going to bed at night and wishing I wouldn't wake up. I had seen this wonderful therapist in my early 20's (eating disorder, parent's divorce), and with her help, I spent a good chunk of 2011 putting Humpty Dumpty back together again.

I was in radio silence most of that time partly out of shame over the depression, but mostly out of the fact that I didn't have any news to share on the fertility front. I was thrilled that so many of you were having babies, but I felt like I had nothing to contribute. Not even tales of treatment and trying, because I had switched battle fronts.

Eventually We Gave it Another Try

By the time 2012 rolled around, I decided I had it in me to give things one more shot, and Mr. Stick bravely got back on board with me. I decided to go with a complete fresh start and found another fertility specialist, Dr. K (who I love even more than Dr. G which I didn't think would be possible).

I'm not terribly sure why I neglected to return to blogging about it, except that I felt like I had forsaken everyone which made me uneasy about coming back to the infertility blogosphere.

Anyway, Dr. K had me try Femara instead of Clomid which was sooooo much better for me. My skin cleared up, my moods actually lightened on it (I joke that it's really an antidepressant), and I grow a pretty nice lining and decent eggs on it. But despite a number of Femara/IUI cycles - some with injectibles thrown in, nothing has actually worked.

In June, I went under the knife and had a laparoscopy to see if there was anything, anything that could be impairing my fertility that no one had yet found. I had been told by two other Dr.'s that there was nothing that indicated that I needed a laparoscopy, but Dr. K said that it would be worth doing if it would put my mind to rest.

The laparoscopy revealed nothing except a healthy uterus, two ovaries, and two intact and clear tubes (Mr. Stick says that now he knows I'm as beautiful inside has I am outside.) which pretty much only confirms that we have unexplained infertility.

But strangely enough, and I can't explain exactly why this is so, but Dr. K was right in that it's helping put my mind to rest. This may sound profoundly stupid, but knowing for a fact that I don't have any answers is kind of like having an answer. Somehow it's been possible for me to live in the ambiguity of it, and I'm coming to a sort of peace about it.

So What Now?

I'm going to be calling it quits pretty soon on my TTC journey. We tried another Femara cycle after the laparoscopy, which recently proved unsuccessful. I'd actually stop now if not for an extra trigger shot I have lying around in my refrigerator because I ovulated spontaneously on one of my treatment cycles. (I went through so much ridiculous sh*t with my insurance getting these Ovidrel shots approved and delivered that I just don't want it to go to waste.) So while there's a miniscule chance this next Femara cycle might actually take, I'm really just doing it because "it's there" with not a whole ton of expectations for it.

I decided against adding injectibles (aside from the trigger) to this upcoming cycle because we both have travel/vacation schedules coming up that will make it hard to deliver and store the hormones. And Mr. Stick and I made the decision some time ago that IVF will not be an option because I have a history of breast cancer in my family. Any evidence linking the two is murky at best, but the whole thing with Giuliana Rancic scared Mr. Stick pretty badly. In his own words, "I'd rather not take the chance for increasing our family, if it means that there's any risk at all of losing you."

I'm feeling good about all of this, much more so than 2 years ago. I feel that we went as far as we were willing to go, and I am optimistic that the universe that has so far denied us children has some other, more interesting plans in store for us. There's definitely been other things happening in our live this past year that I haven't had the time or space to go into, but suffice to say it could be exciting. Adoption is certainly a possibility, but as it has less of an urgent ticking clock, we probably won't visit it for some time.

Anyway, because I seem to be coming towards some kind of closure (not kind I had hoped for, but closure just the same), it felt right to put the news out there in case some of  you were wondering. I'm not sure how much more I'll be blogging here once we're done with TTC, but I may start up another blog (and be better about keeping it up) and will post the address here if anyone wants to keep up.

If you've read this far, thank you from the bottom of my heart for reading. And I'm so, so sorry for dropping out with nary a word and humbly thank you for your patience and forgiveness.