Interesting article on infertility

Interesting article about how infertility changes our perceptions, and perhaps how others perceive us.

I am currently on leave for a week - yay school holidays! I hope to make some artwork this week. I have a couple of ideas so we'll see what I can magic up :P

Unfortunately this time of year is hard for me. I have 1 year left to wait of penalty time before hubby and I become eligible to go on the 18 month waiting list for publicly funded IVF, ICSI, sperm retrieval.

That is a total of 2.5 more years to wait. That will make the total time that I've been waiting = 10.5 years. I will be 31. I am 29 now and I was 27 when I started this blog.

It's not an easy wait. I have had absolutely no contact with the clinic for months. I last spoke to the clinic manager on the phone, telling her I would send in a formal complaint letter. Inertia has gotten the better of me, and when the local politician, and the Minister of Health both shrugged and said they couldn't help, I kinda resigned myself to waiting. Fighting was destroying me.

I would dearly love to change clinics. But because I am not a human being, the NZ health system sees fit to restrict me, someone from the provinces, to a single clinic. This is the only location in NZ where I can access publicly funded treatment - once I wait wait wait and wait for it.

Time away from work is hard, because IF consumes me. I keep thinking about how the beauracrats classify our case, and how we don't fit into any neat little pigeon-hole:

I have primary infertility, but I am perfectly fertile.

My hubby has secondary infertility caused by a vasectomy during his first marriage. So is it secondary IF when it's with different spouses?

Hubby is adopted, and early on he raised the idea of us adopting a child. I knew then that he understood how much a child would mean to me, but not that I needed the child to be mine. Of me, and of him.

Partially, this idea has been tested. I have 3 step kids. They don't live with us full-time, and we get along well. But they're not mine. I look at them and my heart is crushed each time as I remember that hubby has this past which I can do nothing about to change.

Which is also strange, because if any part of hubby's past was different (if he never met his first wife, never had kids, never got talked into having the vasectomy etc etc) then chances are I would never have met'n'married him. And he is my best friend. So I am absolutely torn when that ugly desire rears it's head.

I feel alone. Because I am going thru IF. I am the one who doesn't have kids and he does. So he doesn't have the same sense of urgency or need. Plus I'm not really infertile at all. Technically, I don't know, since my eggs have never been anywhere even remotely close to any sperm ever.

I feel full of unsettling opposites. Infertile but not. Secondary versus primary. A step mom but not a real mum. Happy with life and love and job but unfulfilled. 8+ years in this situation but not long enough duration to qualify.

I haven't even contacted my OB who referred me to the fertility clinic. Maybe he could help - of course that would cost money.

My new GP is very nice. He actually trained in the same class as the head of the fertility clinic franchise. But what can he do? He can change the law can he?

I am a patient who has been left completely alone. No follow up care whatsoever. And reading the article at the top of this post, seeing stories about how the relationship with the RE is crucial - I just feel lost. If I complain now, will they make it harder for us later? They are a business that is largely unmonitored, so they can probably chuck noisy customers to the bottom of the heap.

As you can see, holidays have once again given me too much time to think and mope. Either I spend this week making artwork, or start writin' letters again.

What do you think I should do?

Some media about the ASB bank TV adverts...

Every couple of months I trawl Dr Google looking to see if any new diabetes/ivf/NZ blogs have turned up.

Today, to my surprise, I found a whole bunch of articles relating to the TV ad for a New Zealand bank, ASB, that is offering loans for IVF. I wrote an article about it here.

These are some of the more interesting ones I found:

• http://bioethicscentre.posterous.com/are-banks-wrongfully-exploiting-the-childless
• http://www.rsiinfertilityblog.com/2010/12/02/poor-taste-in-ivf-ad-from-new-zealand/
• http://www.thehastingscenter.org/Bioethicsforum/Post.aspx?id=5032&blogid=140

Just interesting to see that I wasn't the only one who reacted strongly to these ads.

Amongst all the bad stuff:

• IVF is expensive
• And emotionally taxing
• And there is not enough public funding in NZ for it
• And access to that funding is very strict and unfair
• Maybe the ad is exploiting infertile people?
• And it's definitely not realistic - very much rosy-tinted glasses material
• Such as being able to afford a loan - that means that one of the parents is wealthy enough on a single income to look after the whole family while the Mum is on maternity leave etc... Not very realistic, for us at least.
• And they get triplets! NZ has a single embryo transfer policy for public funded treatments
• Then they have enough money for a new car!

Was some good news:

• ASB (the bank who made the advert) has raised the awareness of infertility in New Zealand
• This could in turn make people aware that IVF/infertility treatments are very expensive, and more public funding is desperately needed here.

Watching an IVF show with the family

It was really weird watching this: http://tvnz.co.nz/sunday-news/jay-and-dom-s-ivf-battle-3568371/video with my Hubby and 3 step kids.

At first I was sitting there in my armchair, a bit nervous and shaky, cos I didn't know how they would react. My eldest stepson had an idea of why we wanted to watch it, but the two younger ones were just confused as we were missing a new episode of The Simpsons! :P

But then, when the show got to the part where they were showing Jay Jay getting brave and injecting herself with hormones, everyone laughed when I said "Oh come ON!". (As a diabetic, I find it really curious watching non-diabetics trying to inject themselves :P )

Hubby and I thought we might broach the subject with the two littlies, but they were pretty tired, it's a school night, and it just didn't feel right to tell them something like that when they go "home" to their Mum tomorrow.

Overall I feel really good :) Had a great day and learned quite a lot from watching the show. Thanks to Jay Jay and Dom for sharing their journey with us.