Talking about IF

I did something I’ve never done before.  I told someone I barely knew that we were infertile.  Actually, I did it twice in the span of a week.  This is a big deal for me since I’m super private about personal stuff.  Normally I’d want to tell someone about our IF as much as I’d want tell someone we were having marriage problems (we’re not).  Being shy and an introvert, I have to build trust with someone over time before I share anything personal.  But in these two situations, I decided to take a risk…

The first conversation started as any get-to-know-you conversation goes.   What do you do?  How long have you been married?  Do you have kids?  They were seemingly innocent questions until the woman dropped every IF girl’s favorite question, “So don’t you WANT kids?”  It struck me as a bit odd because of the setting.  It was the lunch break during an all-day marriage prep session at our parish.  I was sitting with the couple who was going to co-present the talk on NFP with me after lunch.  We had done the talk together once before, so she knew we were going to talk about being open to life.  Perhaps she was checking my credibility as a Catholic NFP instructor?  Or maybe she was just curious because of how long we’ve been married.  (I think other people’s curiosity about family size and TTC timelines is my biggest pet peeve…)  Anyway…  The question caught me off guard but she seemed trustworthy enough, so I admitted, “We’ve been trying for years.”  I could tell she immediately felt guilty for asking the question.  Her eyes widened and she repeated, “Years??  Oh.  I’m sorry.  I’ll pray for you.”  I was impressed at her response.  It’s probably the only “correct” response you can say to an IF girl that won’t hurt her feelings.  Since many people don’t naturally come up with an acceptable response, I wondered if she’d previously had this conversation with someone else.  It turns out she did; one of her good friends was infertile.  I shared a bit about NaPro, and she was going to pass the info along to her friend.  The rest of the conversation went as well as I could have hoped.  She asked questions and listened to my answers, offering no advice whatsoever.  If there were an IF sensitivity training course, she would have passed with flying colors.  :)

Side note:  The conversation made me think that everyone should have an IF friend who can teach her how to respond appropriately to someone with IF in case IF sensitivity doesn’t come naturally…

The second conversation happened at a party hosted by a woman from our parish.  I had never met her before that night, but we had spoken on the phone.  Our conversation started almost exactly like the one I described above—length of marriage followed by, “Do you have any kids?”  She answered the questions first, stating she had four young children.  When she asked me, and I said we didn’t have kids yet, she said, “Oh, you’re infertile, too.”  It wasn’t a question.  It was a statement.  It felt refreshing that she would just assume we were IF.  All I had to say was, “Yeah,” and she proceeded to tell me her IF story and how she adopted her children.  She was rather outgoing, so I think she would have shared it with me even if I wasn’t IF.  I could have talked to her all night, but I think it’s bad party etiquette to monopolize the hostess’s time...  I did get to ask her details about adoption, and she was a wealth of information.  She said that when she and her husband realized they were infertile, she didn’t want to do any testing to find out what was wrong; she wanted to pursue adoption right away.  I had never met anyone who didn’t want to know the reason for her IF, so it was interesting to hear her perspective.

Based on these two encouraging experiences, I may be more likely to share our IF with someone now.  I know that just because two individuals responded well doesn’t mean everyone else—or anyone else—will.  I mean, I’m not ready to go shouting it from the rooftops (i.e., Facebook) that we’re IF.  But at least it built up my courage a bit knowing that I can talk about IF without breaking into tears.

Distractions from IF

What a month and a half it has been.  It all started with an ER visit due to the worst pain I’ve felt in my life.  Several doctor visits, tests, procedures, and some prescription medication followed.  I have some lovely new pictures of my insides to add to my collection from my laparoscopy.  Everything turned out to be normal except a small hernia, which the doctor shrugged off and said we don’t have to do anything about.  The hernia doesn’t explain the pain I had, so some of the procedures may be repeated at a future date if the pain ever returns.  So far, that pain was just a one-day occurrence.

What compounded things a bit was that my body did not react kindly to the cocktail of medications I was taking.  Shortly after starting the above-mentioned prescription for a problem the ER doctor assumed I had, I started the antibiotic Flagyl to possibly combat my TEBB.  Meanwhile, I had been slowly increasing my naltrexone dose under Dr. K’s direction to reach the usual dose they prescribe for PMS.  Managing to take all the pills at the right times was the easy part (surprisingly).  One medication was to be taken twice a day with a meal, another was not to be taken within an hour of eating (twice a day), and the third taken four times a day.  (This excluded my T3, which is taken every 12 hours on an empty stomach, and the probiotic, which was not to be taken within 2 hours of the antibiotic, but prior to eating.)  The hard part was dealing with the nausea and vomiting that resulted.  It became pretty predictable at night.  Naltrexone anytime after 6 PM plus either of the two new meds within hours of each other resulted in my GI system declaring war.  When it got bad enough that I couldn’t think straight, I would be reduced to tears.  I admit I’m pretty weak when it comes to that... No amount of eating after dinner would prevent or lessen the nausea (but it would give me heartburn so I slept on the couch in a sitting position several nights).  Sometimes it would return after I had fallen asleep, and I’d go sit on the bathroom floor in the middle of the night until my stomach decided it was empty enough.  If my experience is similar to what happens during pregnancy, I have a new profound respect of what women go through.  I even tried to imagine that I was pregnant (I wasn’t, of course) to try to make dealing it better, but that didn’t help. 

I spoke with Dr. K’s nurse several times.  She said my side effects were really unusual for naltrexone; most women have no side effects and actually feel great.  She thought that my hernia was further exacerbating the medication interactions.  (She also informed me that it would cause extra nausea and heartburn during any future pregnancy on top of what is normal for pregnancy.)  She gave me suggestions on how to try to reduce the side effects, including lowering the naltrexone, which helped sometimes.  I ended up just sticking it out since the antibiotic was almost gone, and I was tapering off of the other prescribed medication from the ER visit (which was deemed unnecessary after all the tests).  Just a few days ago, when I was down to only naltrexone and T3, all my side effects disappeared.   In fact, I felt great.  Fabulous even.  It kind of feels like the small high you get after exercising.  Or like the time right around ovulation where you feel extra motivated to get things done.  So this is how naltrexone is supposed to work.  I love my naltrexone now.  :)  I’m really looking forward to post-peak this cycle to see if my PMS is gone.  And I’m almost to the point where I can take non-compounded naltrexone just once a day (easier than four times a day and cheaper hopefully).  I’m at 32 mg (compounded) per day now.  The end goal is 50 mg (non-compounded) per day.  Things are looking up!  :)

So after DH and I took the Flagyl simultaneously, there has been no change in my TEBB.  Bummer. I wonder if they’ll try a different antibiotic next.  Maybe Biaxin?  I know that worked for one of my clients to get rid of her TEBB.

This whole series of events took my mind completely off of IF (and blogging and even reading blogs) for quite a while.  I missed everyone and have some catching up to do!

We’re thinking seriously about doing the ultrasound series to monitor ovulation in January.  PPVI said it would be best if DH could come along so we could TTC, but right now we’re just planning to have me go alone.  It may be possible for DH to come for a couple days, but we won’t know that until the last minute because of his work schedule.  I am looking forward to learning if my ovaries are doing their job!