Watching & Waiting

I’ve come to realize that infertility treatments - particularly IVF - are nothing more than giant, expensive, often painful games of watch and wait (although “game” would imply there’s fun to be had, and I can assure you that there is none of that). Waiting for hormones to kick in, waiting for follicles to grow, waiting for retrieval day, waiting for day 3 numbers, day 5 numbers, waiting for genetic testing results, waiting for your next menstrual cycle, waiting for your lining to thicken, waiting for transfer day, waiting for pregnancy test results, waiting for your first ultrasound, waiting to hear the heartbeat, waiting, waiting, waiting. It’s enough to drive a girl mad.

Without even noticing, a life in waiting quickly becomes a life in limbo - a time when you feel stuck, constantly counting down the days until the current wait ends and the next begins. Minutes blend into hours blend into days blend into weeks, and before you know it, you’ve waited away months of your life with such singular focus that everything else seems to have melted away into oblivion without you even noticing. Nothing matters much anymore except making it to the next appointment, the next phone call, the next milestone. Your previously multifaceted, interesting, lovely life becomes an excruciating slog through a never-ending checklist where nothing else matters anymore except ticking off the next item. Time slows down to an aching crawl, with nothing meaningful with which to fill the molasses-thick drip of each passing minute.

If the waiting doesn’t kill you, the watching certainly will. Bobby and I are doers by nature. If there’s something we want to see or experience or accomplish, we figure out the necessary steps and then we do. We love an actionable plan. We thrive on getting things done. When we say we’re going to do, we do. But infertility and IVF don’t work like that. Yes, you have a protocol to follow and steps to take, but the results of those actions are completely out of your hands. And that helplessness, that loss of power, the cruel laugh at all of our best laid plans - well, it’s disorienting and crazy-making at best.

But the hardest part about the watching is that because there’s nothing you can do to affect the outcome, it feels like everything and anything can affect the outcome. You worry about how every little thing you do, say, or even think can change the course of your treatment. You Google everything and, unsurprisingly, fall down rabbit holes of misinformation that only cause more anxiety (I’m not entirely unconvinced that the internet isn’t just a government tool that exists to feed citizens so much contradictory information that we all become numb and paralyzed into inaction). You lose focus easily, and find yourself distracted by everything and nothing all at once. You fall prey to silly superstitions in a desperate, grasping attempt to feel some semblance of control over a situation that is 100 percent uncontrollable.

This is no way to live.

I’ve learned that despite the all-encompassing nature of this process, you cannot forget to keep living. Life is still happening and each day wasted worrying about an uncontrollable outcome is another 24 hours you’ll never get back. Yes, you can easily fill your days worrying about all the ways things can go wrong, or Googling every symptom you feel and every statistic under the sun, but in the end, where does all of that worry and information overload get you?

In the past, I’ve found it shockingly easy to descend into a black hole of dwelling on every possible terrible outcome in any given situation. I’ve imagined it all. But in the last few years, I’ve made a concerted effort to change that tendency. What I’ve found that works for me (both with worry and with handling negative or upsetting emotions in general) is to:

1. Recognize and acknowledge how I’m feeling and why (the why is the key, so don’t skip that part!).
2. Allow myself a set amount of time (say, 15 minutes) to divulge and fully immerse myself in that feeling. Denying or ignoring emotions doesn’t work (at least, not for me). I know I’m feeling that emotion for a valid reason, and it shouldn’t be neglected - but it also shouldn’t consume.
3. When time is up, so is the worry (or the anxiety/anger/sadness/self-pity/fear/what have you). That’s it. I’ve felt the feelings, and now the feelings have no more control over me. Time to move on. Which brings me to the last step...
4. Divert. Shift gears to a neutral or, better yet, positive thought, feeling, or action and be on your way.

I’ve had to employ this method more times than I can count the last several months, but it has been a lifesaver. Even with the best intentions, I still find it so easy to lose myself in the watching and waiting (and worrying). But by recognizing what is happening to me (step #1!), I’m able to address it and then get back to living. Bobby and I have enjoyed a social life again, made time to get out of the house for museum trips or movies or amazing meals, gone for long hikes with our dog, Molly, and I’ve torn through a huge chunk of my ever-growing reading list. Life may be a giant question mark right now, but it hasn’t stopped. There is no pause button on living. Worry does not alter outcomes (and neither does obsessively watching and waiting). Life keeps on keeping on whether we’re ready for it or not, and if this process has taught me anything, it’s to never miss a minute of it, because you never know what life has in store for you.

The Last Man on Earth

“Maybe to be powerful is to be fragile.” - Ai Wei Wei

Infertility is isolation. You hesitate to talk to people about it because a) you don’t want to unload your shit on people, b) they likely won’t get it, c) you don’t want to upset or worry those who care about you, or d) you’re like me and you shut down and don’t want to talk to anyone about anything. What we didn’t expect, however, is that the isolation would creep into our relationship. Infertility wouldn’t leave us alone, but we were leaving each other alone.

I’d had two semen analyses and they persisted with the same issue: low morphology. That big fat “0” would not budge. I was suffering in silence and saying everything was fine. One night Melissa asked me to watch a pregnancy announcement video on Facebook. As we watched, I looked away from the video and saw the tears in her eyes, but instead of wanting to comfort her, I found myself frustrated, thinking, I’m not going there. There’s nothing to be upset about. We’re going through a process and it will work itself out, whatever happens. Being upset or emotional is just a waste of time.

I refused to acknowledge externally what was going on inside of me because it was too scary. There was an overwhelming fear that if we hit the end of this road, and we can’t have a kid, it’s all my fault. Based on everything her doctors have told her, Melissa is completely capable of having a child, but because of my problem, I’ve denied her a natural motherhood. Physically, she is not barren, but because of loving me, she is. And there is no way, for the rest of my life, that I don’t look at this beautiful, loving woman, with so much to give, this “human piece of sunlight” (to quote Philip Roth), who would make an incredible mother, and not feel the weight of her childlessness on me. Like everyone, I’ve had my share of envy, self loathing, difficulties, humiliations, and disappointments, but through all of the things that life, and especially adolescence, threw at me, I never wanted to not be me, or not be in my own skin. Suddenly I found myself feeling fundamentally flawed in a way I couldn’t comprehend. There was a piece of me that was wrong and I wanted to find and exorcise it from myself, but I knew that was impossible.

I felt the only way to deal with it was to keep trucking along, granite-faced. I found ways to pretend everything was okay. I would make jokes to Melissa about how I was “broken.” “Oh, you want to buy that thing? Don’t ask me, do what you want, I’m broken.” “You pick what movie to watch tonight, I’m broken.” “Oh, of course I spilled something, I’m broken.” It was an easy way to make my feelings a joke. See? It’s fine, I can laugh about it. But it was also pathetic. I got a laugh from Melissa the first time I did it, and that felt good, but then it started to bother her.

Melissa kept telling me we should talk about how I was feeling, that I should open up and say whatever crazy things were going on inside my head. I held back. I felt I couldn’t talk to her about it because I knew that everything she would say would be perfect, and that would be too much to bear. I didn’t want her to say anything to try to make me feel better. I felt undeserving of any comfort she could offer. So instead I grew short with her, angry, and at times, rage-filled, but nevertheless convinced that I was dealing with it.

One day I went crazy with research about infertility. I was reading about chemicals, endocrine disruptors, toxins, and suddenly I was convinced that I would not have a kid. Later that day I went on Facebook (big mistake) and I saw a picture of an old friend I hadn’t seen in nearly fifteen years. After high school he went one way and I went another. While he was busy living the single life, I met Melissa and settled down. But right there on Facebook is a picture of him in the hospital with his wife and their new baby, and I thought, that guy had a kid? Suddenly it was like the world was slipping away from me. It was like an anvil of frustration landing on my head.

The next morning I woke up still thinking about that guy. I was annoyed with myself. I don’t compare myself to other people. I should be happy for him. And now, on top of being annoyed about seeing that picture of him, I was angry at myself for being annoyed about it. I was pissed off and zoned out. So of course Melissa and I had what should have been a trivial disagreement, but instead I completely bugged out. We were running late, I was worried I would miss the train, and as she dropped me off at the station, I broke one of her cardinal rules. I flew out of the car - no goodbye, no kiss, and most importantly, no “I love you.”

That night, Melissa picked me up, but she made clear that we were not getting out of that car until we hashed everything out. She explained how much I had been isolating both of us, and how alone we both felt in the process. And I mentioned, again trying to be tongue-in-cheek and failing, that I felt broken and Melissa said, “Stop feeling bad for yourself.” And it was exactly what I needed to hear. I opened up and told her about the fear, the frustration, and the self loathing that I was feeling. What I feared most, that she would give me a pat “Don’t feel that way, you’re wonderful,” she didn’t do. Instead, Melissa told me that she knew the self hatred I had felt, that she had been there in other ways, at other times in her own life. She also told me that she knew from experience that the place I was going was a dark place and “there is nothing good in that place.” It was the simplest, most concrete advice she’d ever given me, and I heard her words, and I decided I needed to stay far away from that dark place. And suddenly, after telling her how sad I was, I wasn’t as sad.

The next day I interviewed someone for my documentary. I was at his house with his young son and his pregnant wife. My own interest in kids came up, and I was honest with them about what I was going through. And the wife said, “I had a bunch of friends who had a hard time, and I’ll tell you, they all have kids now.” I’m almost afraid to write those words. I know it means nothing to my situation, but it’s a reminder that all you can do is move forward.

Between A and B

Early in our relationship, Melissa and I were on a road trip, probably up to Boston where I attended film school, and we hit traffic. The likelihood of hitting traffic on a trip from New Jersey to Boston hovers somewhere in the area of 50 percent, increasing to 100 percent if you’re foolish enough to take I-95 the whole way. I hated traffic so much that I became obsessive about avoiding it. I researched and tried out various routes until I was sure I had the best way. I would leave only at a certain time of day, even if it meant dragging Melissa out of bed at 5:00 AM after a night out behaving like twenty-two year olds. And so we would depart, customized “I’ll outsmart not only other travelers but also the computer” MapQuest printout in-hand (this was in the days before Google maps and traffic alerts, of course).

Nevertheless, despite my best efforts and strategies, one day we hit an awful jam. I was enraged. It was a blow to my ego. I don’t hit traffic. I’m smarter than everyone else and figured this thing out. This does not happen to me. And there I was fuming, probably cursing, maybe yelling. It’s a miracle Melissa married me after seeing my traffic behavior. Watching me fly off the handle, she did probably the worst thing you can do to an irrational lunatic: she reasoned with me. “It’s just traffic. Why don’t you make the best of it?”

“Best of what? This is the worst possible thing that could be happening right now.”

“There’s probably an accident up ahead. Someone might be dead. We could be dead in an accident. Or hurt, or a lot of other more horrible places than traffic.”

“That’s just stupid.”

“You can’t spend your life being pissed off at things you can’t help.”

“Well I wanted to be there at 10:00 AM and now who knows when we’ll get there.”

“Life doesn’t stop when you leave Point A and start again when you get to Point B. All that space in between is still life. And you’d be a hell of a lot happier if you filled that space with something besides freaking out about when you’re going to get to Point B.”

Boom. Melissa, as she so often does, dropped knowledge. Sad to say, but I lived my life so obsessively by the clock, by an agenda, by what comes next, that I had never in twenty-two years looked at life like that. I was enlightened. I calmed down.

Do I still obsess about traffic? You’re goddamn right I do. I’m not going to sit here and pretend that I don’t still act, as Melissa so affectionately tells me, like “a whiny little bitch” in the heat of a traffic catastrophe (sometimes in Melissa’s battle between passionate feminism and North Jersey attitude, North Jersey wins). In the over ten years I’ve known her, however, I try to take her words to heart. If we’re stuck waiting for a table at a restaurant, or in a crazy long line at the store (who am I kidding, does anyone go to stores anymore? Amazon!), or counting down the days before an exciting vacation: Life exists between Point A and Point B. Embrace the journey.

We’ve been saying that to each other quite a bit over the past year.

Melissa and I are both planners. As our 30s approached, we watched friends having kids and we thought, “We’ll know when we’re ready.” As “ready” approached, we told people, “Oh, we won’t be like those crazy people who track ovulation and all that weird stuff. We’ll just stop not trying and when it happens, it happens.” But then we decided we were ready, Melissa went off of her birth control, and a month later we looked at each other and said, “All right baby, get here already.” Once we want something, we want it. But as it continued to not happen, we took a deep breath and remembered the mantra. Hell, when you’re first trying to have kids there’s a hell of a lot to embrace, but along the way, after three months, six months, OBGYN checks, urology appointments, and multiple semen analyses, it became more and more difficult.

Now it’s harder than ever. We’ve reached a new, major phase: the fertility clinic. The past few months have been a struggle of stress and frustration. We’ve been searching for an outlet, searching for meaning, searching for a way to embrace a part of the journey that leaves little to embrace (and little in your savings account). We came to realize that people don’t talk about infertility. People get pregnant, they make an announcement to the world, and they celebrate it. Guys are happy to point out if it only took a month or two of trying, but stories of pregnancies that took years and visits to the fertility clinic rarely leave peoples’ inner circles. This code of silence is even more prominent around male-factor infertility.

Why aren’t we talking? What can be gleaned, or gained, around a broader topic of infertility?

It’s time to find out.