We Are Go

Sputnik and I had such a good time on “New Years Day Observed”. I promised to take him to this amazing indoor playground after a quick errand that turned into two errands when I ripped a seam in my winter coat. He was moderately well behaved during both outings (I only had to pull him out from under two racks of clothing, and we both left the store with new winter coats in relative short order.)

Still, we made it to the playground a full hour and half after I wanted to, so I was nervous about the proximity to nap time. But it was really great. Even with the “Observed Day” crowds. The beauty of the place lies entirely in having two hours with my kid where I don’t have to constantly yell at him to stop doing something.--Yes, you can climb that thing. Yes, you can jump off that thing. Yes, you can smash that thing into that other thing. Yes, you can knock all that stuff down. Please do.--It’s magical. 

Then we stopped off at the local purveyor of greasy burgers, and took some lunch home before laying down for a late nap. His nap lasted for almost three hours (he really wore himself out jumping off of things), and I got well into a Netflix Original and craft project before admitting that I needed to wake him up. 

I made a surprisingly delicious and healthy dinner, which Sputnik actually ate. Then we had popsicles and brownies on the kitchen floor while we finger painted. Great day. It was a really great day!

And then...the night terrors. 

This is really difficult to admit... I’m the parent of a substance abuser. My son has a substantial milk problem. Sputnik would rather have milk than food, and he wants it all the time. He’s had milk just before falling asleep since he was an infant. And I’m not proud of this, but when he got teeth, I didn’t bother trying to put in a teeth brushing step between milk and sleep. Baby sleep is so hard, y’all. I was just trying to get by. But in the interim, my son has become very attached to a particular kind of sippy cup full of milk. It’s his comfort item. (Why couldn’t it have just been a disgusting blanket?) He mostly just carries it around sucking on it. He’s not even drinking the milk most of the time, but don’t imagine I could substitute water or an empty cup. The essence of dairy is apparently the key ingredient of the sippy cup salve. 

Anyway, I fight with him about the sippy cup all day, every day, but I’m still letting him use this cup before bed and during naps. Except, I’ve just introduced the rule that we brush teeth once he’s finished the milk in the cup (he can keep the empty cup as a pacifier), and there is NO MORE MILK after teeth brushing. I know this sounds stupidly simple, but believe me, it is not. Simple, that is. It’s definitely stupid. 

I repeat over and over that we are done with milk before we brush teeth, and he always nods in agreement--he seems totally on board--but the minute we lay down, he starts demanding milk. The first few nights after I instituted the rule, I allowed a little more milk, with a re-brushing of teeth. But last night, I felt that I needed to die on this hill or keep walking up it forever. So I said no. Repeatedly. For 45 minutes. 

At one point Sputnik was screaming, “Mo’ miiiillllk!!!” at me in pure rage. Spittle flying out of his red, little face. I honestly didn’t know if I was laughing or crying. It was a little funny and a little scary, but entirely heartbreaking. Imagine this, but in a live action toddler.  

I’m actually very surprised he’s never tried to beat me to death with his sippy cup. I’ve seen the thought in his eyes and the impulse in the way he grips the cup, but the fact that he’s never tried it is my main reason to hope that he isn’t really a sociopath. Because I have it on good authority that all two year olds present as sociopaths. 

He eventually fell asleep, twitching in my arms. (I assume the twitching was from excess energy he built up during his hulk out, but it could have been the DTs from milk withdraw.) But even the horror of bedtime couldn’t dilute the glow of our good day. I think having a really good day may have helped me hold it together during his rage fit. And, in theory, bedtime should be easier tonight. Right? 

...Sputnik slept in his own bed last night. For the whole night. For context, he has slept in my bed since he was 10 months old. It isn’t co-sleeping, attachment parenting, or any other conscious decision on my part. It was an accident that I have been helpless to rectify for more than a year.

When my mom’s cancer returned last year, Sputnik and I flew back to Kentucky every month for most of a year. In Kentucky, we didn’t have a crib that he would sleep in (he was super over pack n’ plays by then). So he slept in a bed with me. After two months of that, he was also over sleeping by himself altogether. And I am weak. Especially in the wee hours. 

So he moved into my bed and there he stayed. Until last night. I had recently excavated his toddler bed from the piles of clothes it was protecting me from having to deal with. So I started doing some light PR for his bed. “This is an awesome bed.” “Your bed has monkey sheets. I wish my bed had monkey sheets.” “Look, here is a whole bed you haven’t peed on yet.”

Mostly he ignores me. Not just on the topic of the bed. Everything. Occasionally I worry that he’s deaf, but I’ve had his hearing tested... Anyway, last night, he crawled up in his bed and said he wanted to watch his show there. I was all for it, but fully expected him to demand to get into my bed the minute it was over. However, when the pernicious tones of the Fireman Sam theme song came on, he flopped over onto the pillow and pulled the covers up. I thought he was messing with me. I sat there for a moment afraid to move. Basic toddler rules of survival--when the behavior is acceptable, make no sudden movements.  

I ended up laying down on the floor next to his bed and waiting until he fell asleep. Later (after I had my nightly allotment of wine and tv), he was still, unbelievably, in his own bed. Guided by the toddler rules of survival, I decided to make a pallet for myself next his bed. I already had a thick exercise mat down, so I only needed a few blankets and a pillow. You might think that sounds like a reasonable thing to do on the night your kid sleeps in a big boy bed for the first time. And maybe it is...until you consider that my bed is inches away from his bed. But in my defense, I was terrified. I have slept with a child's skull pressed into the small of my back for 16 months now, and my deliverance may be at hand. My logic was that if he opened his eyes in the middle of the night and could still see me next to him, he wouldn’t freak out and would stay in his own bed. And then we would all live happily ever after. 

That logic held until sometime in the wee hours when I realized I was super uncomfortable, and my very cozy bed was right next to me. So I climbed into bed like a reasonable adult who is in charge of her own life. Despite my abandonment, he slept in his own bed for the whole night!! 

I’ve been working on my next post in the “Reasons NOT to have a Kid” series, and It’s all starting to feel a little too doom and gloom. So I thought I would take a time out and make it clear that having a kid on my own has not ruined my life or my kid’s life. Very much to the contrary. I have never been happier. (With my life, I mean. Everything outside of the little bubble of my daily existence, particularly my country, is a heaping pile of misery. I’m no where close to making my peace with the election.) 

I will share an example of the ways in which my life is joyous. I suppose I should not speak for all two year olds, but I can tell you that mine is an acolyte of Kali the Destroyer of Worlds. We have the typical conflicts that blended faith households do, but this weekend we had a moment of true peace. I was reorganizing all of our clothes storage, and my son helped. And by “helped” I don’t mean he threw everything on the floor and turned over a dresser. He actually carefully brought me piles of clothes from another room without unfolding most of them. I’ve been riding that high for days. 

Okay. I already see this might not be the reassuring story I intended. Perhaps my utter joy that a mundane, simple task wasn’t made unbearable isn’t inspiring, but maybe you had to be there. 

Let me try a different tak. Sputnik laughs all the time. Granted, sometimes it’s maniacal laughter, but he is a damn happy kid. Even when he’s done something he’s not supposed to-like hitting, it’s more often than not because he’s really excited. Tonight, when I picked him up from daycare, we were laughing and playing in the parking lot, and he punched me in the nose. And when he’s having an exceptionally good time, he bites me. Hard. It’s like he’s filled with so much joy he can’t contain himself. My best friend has pointed out that he’s going to make a certain kind of girl very happy one day. 

Before I decided to have a kid, I was actually pretty aware that most of what I spent my days thinking about and focused on was bullshit. But if you YOU are focused on something in your life that is not bullshit, AND you are considering becoming a single only parent, then that should give you a moment of pause because being an only parent necessarily splits that focus. 

When I thought about how hard being an only parent would be, I thought about how wistfully all of the women I know who are mothers speak about Free Time. I imagined all of my Free Time being violently ripped away from me. And that made me very anxious. Then I thought about what I did with all that freedom. Binge watch Netflix. Burrito & Movie Saturdays. Kindle & Beer Sundays. Binge watch Netflix. 

Oh my god, I miss those things!! But you can see how I might have thought burritos and Netflix weren’t worth giving up my opportunity to have kids. When I imagined my life ten years in the future (when I will be approaching 50), the idea that all that “freedom” was still going to be my life practically sent me running to the fertility doc. But if there had been something truly important to me at the center of my life, it might have been a different story. 

A friend who has three kids gave me a piece of advice when I was trying to make this decision. He said I needed to be aware that my career would probably stagnate for a few years after becoming a mom because I wouldn’t have the time to “go the extra mile” that gets promotions. I thought that was just dandy because I already don’t have the ambition that gets promotions. Now I have an excuse. 

So here it is exactly three years later, and I’m in the exact same position at work. I see a movie in the theater no more than twice a year. I did binge watch the new Gilmore Girls episodes last week with friends, but I had to take advantage of a good friend to do it. Three years ago, I was willing to risk my Phantom Career and Free Time on the chance that my kid would be pretty cool. It worked out. 

Hi Johanna,

Apologies for not answering sooner. I took a bit of a break from the blog. I’m also sorry that I don’t have much in the way of helpful insight. For me I think it all came down to dumb luck (or providence depending on your point of view). It was ultimately a series of circumstances that lead to my IUI happening at the exact right time. I’ll write more about that day in the next few weeks, but really I think timing is what clinched it. 

I hope things are going well for you. 

I’m back!! 

This has been a really, really shitty year. But it’s nearly over, and I think it’s time for a recap and a refocus. 

So to catch you up, I’m the single mom of donor conceived, two year old, funny little man. 

Three years ago I had the disorienting experience of finding out that my ovaries were failing as a single woman. I had a brief window of time to decide whether or not to become a mom and no ready access to sperm. Three months later, I was pregnant. Then my mom got sick. Then she died. And then a bunch of other stuff, and here we are. 

On the whole, I think my experience has been pretty unique. So I thought I would try to pen a series of posts that might be helpful to folks who are faced with similar decisions. Whether you are single and considering having a kid on your own, or facing fertility issues of one kind or another and are considering donor conception (or both), I know these are really, really difficult decisions. Most of us have a picture of how we are going to start a family some day. It's not easy to swap that image for a freezer tank with an ounce of $700 sperm and a nurse named Nancy. It's a little more than a pivot.

So I'm going to try and share some of the thoughts I had when I was first dealing with all of this. Maybe someone will find it helpful. Or not. Maybe my son will find it interesting some day. Or not.

For now. No more from the vault. No more dying moms. I think you get the picture. When I was trying to get pregnant, I was in a bad place. There were bats, and cobwebs, and scary Japanese teenagers crawling slowly through my brain. And it could have gotten much, much worse. Now, obviously I’m not in a great place, but the joy of parenthood is that I’m too tired to be any more stressed than I absolutely have to be. So just the minimum quota of stress. Yay!

I promised I would talk about my son’s love of balls. It’s true. He loves balls. He loves the ones that bounce AND the ones in his diaper. If it’s round, he can’t get enough of it.

But he can’t actually do much with a ball (of any variety). When he first discovered the wonders of the sphere, his favorite thing was to just watch me bounce it. De-lightful! Then he liked to get on the floor and bat it around a little. But the thing about balls is...they roll away from you. And Sputnik will. not. crawl. My word choice there is key. He *will* not crawl. He will get up on his hands and knees and scoot backwards or to the side, but if you indicate in any way that you want him to go forward, he will stop, sit up, and cry. He has performance anxiety about crawling. He won’t even try it. Which makes his love of balls so cruel. They are constantly gliding gracefully out of his life, and watching him in those moments is both heart breaking and sweet. He looks after the ball for a moment. Just longingly. He doesn’t fall apart. He doesn’t cry or look to me to retrieve it. He just accepts that the ball is leaving him. Sometimes with a sigh. And then he goes about pretending that he never really cared about the ball in the first place. “Ball? Oh ball was okay...but...this...this bottle of sun screen is what I really came here for.” 

What kills me is that he clearly does have anxiety about trying things he hasn’t mastered yet. Where on earth does that come from? How does a nine month old become insecure. He’s never been mocked or shamed or reprimanded. In fact he thinks it’s hysterical when you tell him no. He laughed like a damn cartoon villain this morning when I told him to stop ripping the covers off of my paperbacks. So why is he insecure about crawling? People are fascinating. 

And on the topic of toys and my son’s emotional development, I was pretty sure I broke him with a mermaid puppet. Last night he was over tired and just falling apart about everything. Diapers, lotion, fish sticks could all go fuck themselves. So while I was trying to wrestle him into his pjs, I desperately grabbed for anything in the toy box to distract him. Mermaid puppet it is! So I put the puppet on my hand and did a slightly higher version of my normal, mommy voice (which is a slightly higher version of my normal, person voice). Sputnik’s attitude changed immediately. He very obviously fell in love at first sight, and also, very obviously, was going to punch her if she came too close. It’s understandable. She has this bright yellow yarn hair and blue eye shadow that would woo any man, and the distinct features of a Muppet that scare the shit out of any reasonable person at close range. As the puppet (who I hastily named Veronica), and Sputnik were getting acquainted, I started to get a little worried. Though he would like her to stay the eff away from him thank you very much, you creepy little fish Muppet, he was also obviously smitten. Where there had been tears, Veronica brought joy. As I nattered away in my puppet voice, I became very anxious about what would happen when I removed my hand and Veronica turned into a lifeless pile of yarn and sequins (told you she was trashy). Would he think she died? Would he think I killed her? Would I have to keep this puppet on my hand forever? Of course, it was none of these. He doesn’t know from dead, and he was already so tired he didn’t have the attention span to demand a lifetime of puppet shows. I propped her up and finished putting pjs on a slightly confused boy. The end. 

I had pretty good reasons for not considering single parenthood before I was forced to by my waning ova. I had thought about it. Especially after I turned 35, people often asked me if I had thought about single parenthood and sperm donation (sometimes even in appropriate conversational circumstances). But I had done the math—the daycare fees are too damn high! More important than the money, I didn’t want to do it by myself. I watched coupled friends with kids, and the greatest joy seemed to be in sharing a smile when their kid spit out that first bite of strained peas or told a stranger in the grocery store to fuck off. That’s what I wanted. I wanted to be able to share those moments with someone else. I still believe that’s the biggest downside to doing this alone. Often when Sputnik (the handle my little guy’s been saddled with since before he had limbs) does something amazing, I’m the only one who sees.

But I have had a partner. My mom has been with me through so much of this experience, and she loves Sputnik so completely. She came and stayed with me for almost two months before and after he was born. She was with me in the delivery room, every minute of our epic hospital stay, and for the first three weeks of his life. When I was trying to figure out life alone with a baby, I was never really alone. The first time he smeared sweet potatoes all over his face everywhere, we were video chatting with Grandmama. And the first time he threw up, I was on the phone with her before I grabbed a towel. She’s rearranged her life every time I’ve needed her. She’s my first call for the good and the bad.

And now she’s dying. In many ways she’s already gone. The cancer has spread to her brain, and she often doesn’t know where she is. And if she does, she’s usually too pissed off to be Grandmama anymore. A few weeks ago, Sputnik hit his head, and we had to go to the emergency room. I didn’t even tell my mom. I knew I wouldn’t be able to handle it if she wasn’t capable of being supportive that evening.

So I’m losing my mom, but I’ve already lost my partner in marveling at my little boy. 

Another gem from the vault. _______________________________________________________

Once my doc dropped the news that I needed to get knocked up right ‘effing now, I had A LOT of decisions to make. These decisions required me to envision a world where I had a child. Eventually the idea of infertility faded into the background, and I was totally focused the process of getting my baby. 

Now that I’m really doing it, I feel like infertility is looming over me again. I’m so confused by what my diagnosis means and what my doctor says is possible, but I do know that the best case scenario is a 10% chance of getting pregnant. After a month and a half of pricing daycares and thinking about names, that number is pretty hard to face again. 

Reading the various fertility forums, I see that hope can be an addiction. Women who want to have children but can't CRAVE stories of women who beat the odds. And they'll do just about anything to be one of the big winners. ______________________________________________________

Okay. Obviously, I’m one of the winners. But looking back to this moment in my life still makes me a little sick to my stomach. Even though it worked out for me, that craving for hope still doesn’t seem healthy. But there isn’t anything to be done about it. I only tried to conceive for two months, and I think I would have needed serious intervention before I could have given up on that picture of my life with a baby that germinated as I was making the decision to try. The folks who’ve been doing it for years...I don’t like to think about it. To anyone reading this who is trying, I’m both so pleased and so, so sorry to be one of those stories to give you hope. I have zero advice to give someone who’s tried for even half a year, but I know what was starting to happen to me after just one failed attempt. I don’t think the person I am could have survived it for too long. And I don’t think I would want to meet who was left. 

And here is an example of my mental state during that period between my first failed attempt to conceive and my second successful one. Please note that I immediately transformed into one of these annoying bitches I’m complaining about here. The entire world was sharing in my joy, and I basked in it!! I was a special snowflake miracle. Good times. Now I’m just a normal human mother who can’t find pants that fit.  _____________________________________________________

There are pregnant women everywhere. There’s been an average of two pregnant ladies in every meeting I’ve been in for the last four months. Yesterday in my first meeting, there were a lot of sly looks between one of my more visibly pregnant colleagues and her newlywed assistant director, who I realized was looking rather buxom all of a sudden. I executed a full body eye roll. I then went back to my office where a contract employee I see twice a year proudly revealed her six months pregnant belly. I may have pulled a muscle during my aggressive exhibition of “So Happy For You!”

Pregnant women seem so smug to me now. What is somehow surprising to me is that these women have no shame. They are so pleased with themselves that I think they really do believe the entire world is tripping over itself to share in their joy. And maybe they are. But from where I sit, they are just braggarts. That sounds petty…even to me. But I can’t see it any other way anymore. Surely they are aware that there are women who can’t or have difficulty conceiving. Have a little shame.

The day after I got the first FSH results and did my initial search into what they meant, I was just trying to stumble through my day without cracking up. One of my weekly meetings is with some colleagues with whom I’m quite friendly. And half of these ladies were very pregnant at the time. We often talked about their pregnancies, and usually I was happy to be a part of those conversations. But this day was out of control. There were ultrasound pics. And joy. So much fucking joy. I’m pretty sure I floated up out of my body. I was aware that this was objectively funny. They were showing me photos of their unborn children on the day I found out I couldn’t have any. Hysterical!

That day I was not into it. Obviously. I jumped out of my chair and stood awkwardly next to the table until everyone realized the meeting was over and left my office. I’m sure they thought I was being exceptionally rude. Or crazy.

Last night my kid saw a rubber ball bounce for the first time and he thought that shit was HYSTERICAL! He laughs all the time, but it’s always been in relation to him. What other people are doing to amuse and delight him. This was him observing something in the world around him and judging it good.

This is all to say, YES! I have a kid now. And he is a real person with his own thoughts and reactions to things.

I realize it's been a year and a half since I last posted something. There are a lot of reasons for this. At first it was because my first attempt to conceive failed, and I took it kind of hard. I realized that I was not as sanguine about all of this as I was trying to tell myself I was. I thought I was ready to make my peace with whatever my life was going to be. I logically knew that the chances of ever conceiving were pretty low (10% according to my doc), but when faced with a raft of urine soaked plastic with only one, lonely, barren pink line looking back at me, I realized I was not going to be okay with a childless life. So I stopped writing. At the time I wasn't willing to really confront how I felt about it, and I knew that if I did, I would't be able to communicate it in any way I wanted other people to read. 

 But then...I got knocked up the very next month! Take that universe...and statistics... Even though I had proved my fecundity once and for all, I still didn't want to write about it. At first it was because I wasn't telling people yet, and I was afraid someone would find out by reading this blog. (Which is absolutely absurd. No one is reading this blog. Especially not people I know.) But then I became entirely absorbed with research. Massive amounts of research. Into things like, "How to bathe a baby without drowning it" and "How to live comfortably with an infant in your car" (Babies be expensive, y'all). Mostly I just realized that I was really, really boring and no one wanted to read about my obsession with Amazon reviews of diaper genies. 

It’s been an eventful couple of months since I last wrote anything here. I’ll post the big news now, but I want to catch up on all the details over the next few days.

Since my last post…I finally talked to my doctor, went to China, came home, celebrated my grandmother’s 100th birthday, panicked about a NOT getting one virus while fighting nausea from another, bought a whole bunch of sperm, celebrated Thanksgiving, and generally spiraled in and out of crazy town several times a day.

So some stuff’s happened.

Actually I got a call from my doctor a couple of hours after I wrote my last post. She confirmed premature ovarian failure (POF—I’m learning the lingo), but said that for the moment, I have just as much of a chance at conceiving as any 37 year old woman. For the moment. She made it clear that I don’t have any time to waste. And then she said this: “I suggest you try to conceive immediately with donor sperm.” I’m not sure if it was the word “immediately” or “donor sperm” that made me feel like my head was filled with cotton and my living room was on the moon, but I’ve definitely been in another reality since that moment.

I have 54 first cousins. 27 cousins on each side of my family. The symmetry is stunning, no?

My family has babies. It's our most singularly defining characteristic. My maternal grandmother had 8 children, and my paternal had 13. Yes, we're from Kentucky, but even by holler standards, we are a fecund bunch. 

In fact, one of the things I've been most proud of in my life is NOT getting knocked up. For many people where I’m from, getting knocked up at 17 is just moving on to the next phase of your life. It's becoming an adult. If you can graduate from high school first, good for you!

Me...I learned how to use birth control and had some goals beyond moving out of my parent's house. (To be completely fair, my parents were able to pay for college and actively expected me to go, so my situation was only different from some of the people I grew up with in every possible way.)

I honestly don't remember what I originally thought I would write about when I set up this blog. Obviously I was ambivalent about a lot of things (especially my dating life). 

That was a couple of years ago. Since then almost nothing has happened with me, but my mom got cancer and beat the ever lovin' shit out of it. Even so, it's left her with a sense of urgency about some things. One of them is the notion of me and babies. 

She convinced me to talk to someone about freezing my eggs. I'm 37, single, and that doesn't seem likely to change anytime soon. So I said why not...it's a practical conversation to have...having spares of your critical components only makes good operational sense. 

This week I got the blood work back. Follicle Stimulating Hormone (FSH) is 22. That's more than twice the recommended number. Not that my doctor explained this to me, by the way. These test results were automatically posted to my online medical record. I got an email. Most of the results come with a "standard range" attached. The FSH and estrogen had no range with them--just my number. It is terribly thoughtful of them to spare me the panic of looking at a number associated with my ability to have a child and seeing that it is out of the standard range. Or it would be if I weren't a human being living in the United States in 2013. What kind of woman looks at that and does anything other than immediately typing "FSH standard range" into Google. Probably not the kind of woman who makes appointments with fertility specialists. 

Obviously I found a shit ton of bad news about FSH levels. Such as this little gem:

"There is no single “normal” value for a basal FSH level.  The value varies from clinic to clinic and varies based on the assay used.  At InVia Fertility Specialists, we like the FSH level to be < 10 mIU/mL.  A value between 10 and 15 mIU/mL signifies diminished ovarian reserve.  A value > 15 mIU/mL (and definitely > 20 mIU/mL) signifies severely diminished ovarian reserve and a pregnancy rate with IVF of < 1%." 

Anyway. I've also found some very hopeful information for people with elevated FSH (though not a lot about numbers as high as mine). But pretty much all of it assumes that I am, in fact, people...as in, more than one. All the single ladies...don't have fertility issues. In case you were wondering, I just have a constant loop of WHAT. THE. FUCK. playing in my head. 

Somehow I hadn’t noticed that some people were being dicks about the show Whitney last year, so this NYMAG article is the first I’m hearing of it. I’m baffled. I’ve been telling everyone who would listen to watch Whitney. I spent a really great evening showing multiple episodes of Whitney to my sister while our mom slept off the chemo next to us and occasionally woke up enough to giggle. (My sister and I don’t agree on ANYTHING, and agreeing that something was funny felt like a miracle that night.)

Apparently some people had the audacity to suggest that Whitney Cummings is not a good role model for women. And I absolutely LOVE it when when people decide what is good for me as a woman. (There should be a cartoon of me here with little lines of rage coming off of my angry, angry body.)