Fall

It is finally fall! Typically my favorite season of the year, despite the fact that here in midwest it is especially fleeting. I've been feeling pretty tired lately and am hoping the crisp weather, beautiful trees, and transition from flip-flops to knee-high boots will perk me up (seriously, fall fashion is the best! The sweaters, layers, scarves, boots, hats but without the below-freezing temps).

I had lunch today with a friend who recently had a miscarriage and is facing possible fertility problems. So far she is the only person I've shared this information with who even comes close to understanding what I am going through. It felt so good to be completely honest with someone, especially regarding my fears about IVF, and know that she gets it. It's almost better that we are not connected more closely - there is just so much emotional baggage involved when discussing everything with family.

It is interesting that so far my closest allies in all of this are women facing infertility. I've yet to find someone who is under 30 and doing IVF for disease-prevention purposes. It's very strange to be playing the role of "woman dealing with infertility" despite the fact that we are not technically infertile. As our RE (reproductive endocrinologist) told us, we've always been careful enough with birth control that we don't actually know one way or the other. From his view, if the egg and the sperm have never had a chance to meet, he's in no way going to medically categorize us as "infertile." Can't wait to explain this to the insurance company - yay.

Note: I'm consciously trying to explain or at least spell out as many acronyms as I can. When I first dove into exploring infertility blogs, it was overwhelming how many acronyms were flying around: RE, IVF, PGD, ICSI, etc. --> Confusing!

That being said, I think for a lot of people going through this (women especially), memorizing and understanding all of those letters feels important. When everything else is out of your control, it's at least a tiny bit consoling to have power over all those letters.