3rd Wedding Anniversary

To my husband, on our third wedding anniversary:

“If it is your intention to dance together through the years, with your joys and sorrows and all that life will bring, then bind yourselves to each other as husband and wife.”

Once upon a time, you took dance lessons with me before our wedding, learning the tricky steps of the Fox Trot to lead and whirl me around dance floor on the day we married. I know dancing is not exactly your thing, but this was one of the many things you went through to keep me happy and smiling. The supposedly long journey of the first three years of matrimony passed by imperceptibly as every moment you “filled my days with sunshine.”

This year, you have given me such a wonderful gift: My heart’s desire that’s been a long time coming, locked in its secret chambers from trial and despair until you coaxed my dream to life. I have gotten to know ineffable joy and unconditional love as together we await our first child to enter our lives. I can’t wait to share this new adventure with you—in the Subaru that I promised you could have when we are finally blessed with children—and I look forward to continually dancing through the years with you, my love.

Gender and Fetal Movements

Old Wives’ Tales for Gender Determination:

I did these tests for fun to see how these myths stack up to the actual, scientific result.

• Heart Rate: Under 140 (Boy), Over 140 (Girl) = Girl (measured at 8 & 12 weeks)
• Wedding Ring on Necklace Over Belly: Back and Forth (Boy), Circle (Girl) = Boy
•  Cravings: Salty (Boy), Sweet (Girl) = Boy
• Ramzi Theory: Placenta on Right of Uterus (Boy) or Left (Girl) = (Inconclusive—Anterior Placenta)
• Clumsy (Boy), Graceful (Girl) = Boy
•  Left-Side Sleeper (Boy), Right Side Sleeper (Girl) = Boy
• Dry Skin on Hands & Feet (Boy), Normal Skin (Girl) = Boy
• Nose on Mother's Face Getting Bigger (Boy), Not Bigger (Girl) = Girl
• Clear Skin (Boy), Acne (Girl) = Boy
•  Mayan Tale (Add Moms' age at conception + year of conception): Odd (Boy), Even (Girl) = Boy
•  Morning Sickness: Little (Boy), Lots (Girl) = Boy
• Mom's Mood Swings: Mellow (Boy), Moody (Girl) = Girl
• Mom's Hair Growth on Legs: Lots (Boy), Little (Girl) = Girl
•  Cravings: Meats & Cheese (Boy), Fruits (Girl) = Girl
• Linea Nigra: Past Belly-Button (Boy), To Belly-Button (Girl) = Boy
•  Stress Test: Which parent was less stressed while TTC—Gender is less-stressed parent = Boy
• Mom's Dreams: Child will be opposite of that in dreams = Boy
• Chinese Gender Predictor = Boy
•   Boy: 11 Girl: 5

Chromosome Test Result @ Week 13: It’s a Boy!

First Fetal Movements Detected:

• 12-13 weeks: Gas/bubbly feeling in abdomen
• 14.5 weeks: Slight thumping/knocking (“popcorn”) feeling from inside
• 17-18 weeks: More consistent movements and more often
• 19-20 weeks: Daily movements detected (kicks, rolls)

Perseverance

I debated for a while whether the following was an appropriate speech to be delivered at work, as I wanted to announce my pregnancy to my coworkers before I started to obviously show. I joined my company's Toastmasters club a year ago to overcome my fear of public speaking, and for me, this was the ultimate test of bravery--to get in front of a crowd and not only speak, but bare your soul, the most intimate, vulnerable, and embarrassing parts about yourself. This was the speech I gave as a culmination of my TTC journey.

*****

"Perseverance": Delivered on August 5, 2015 

Dear Toastmasters, today I speak to you of an intimate and very personal journey of mine. Any woman who has ever dreamed of becoming a mother knows the very real fear of being faced with infertility and of never having a little voice call her Mommy. For those of you who are already blessed with children, despite how much grief they give you throughout their lives, imagine—just for a few seconds—that they are not a part of yours. This has been my living nightmare for the last 18 months as my husband and I struggled to start our family.

After we got married, we decided to get our traveling fix out of the way and see the world. You know how it is when you first start trying. People tell you, “Just relax! Don’t stress. It’ll happen.” After 6 months of trying naturally and nothing happening, I began to suspect that there may be something seriously wrong with me. I went in for blood tests and ultrasounds to be diagnosed with a condition called Poly-Cystic Ovarian Syndrome, or PCOS. In order to be diagnosed, you would have to meet the minimum of three of the many criteria, and mine, namely were: 1.) Elevated levels of testosterone and androgens; 2.) Irregular cycles; and 3.) The formation of cysts along the surface of my ovaries that, on ultrasound, appear like a ring of pearls. These were the follicles that failed to mature month after month to become viable eggs that could be fertilized.

Statistically, 12% of couples, or 7.3 million people in the United States are diagnosed with infertility every year, according to the Center for Disease Control (CDC) in 2002. 10% of women in the US are diagnosed with PCOS.

I started my battle against infertility by turning to Eastern medicine in an effort to be as gentle to my body as possible. My weekends were shot as, every Saturday, I’d lay beneath a heat lamp for fertility acupuncture, poked by 3 dozen needles along my abdomen, up my legs, and on my hands at key fertility points. My acupuncturist prescribed these herbal teas that I had to brew myself and drink twice daily. They smelled like forest floor, tasted like dirt, and were quite frankly very difficult to swallow. Over the course of being on this treatment for 3 to 4 months, I ended up ingesting over 200 cups of this tea.

A year passed, and when I had no results to show for, I decided to pursue more aggressive Western hormone therapy. I was prescribed medicines called Clomid and Letrozole, which were designed to help me ovulate consistently. In her memoir, Waiting for Daisy, Author Peggy Orenstein calls Clomid “The Gateway Drug”: You start by taking a little hit of Clomid, and before you know it, you’re spiraling down this rabbit hole where suddenly, it seems like a brilliant idea to drop $30,000, inject yourself with daily hormones, have your eggs harvested while you’re under anesthesia, and tossing them into a petri dish in a procedure known as Invitro-Fertilization, or IVF.

Before we got to that point, my husband and I decided to pursue Inter-Uterine Insemination, or IUI. When you’ve resigned yourself to this procedure, the intimacy and spontaneity of creating life between you and your husband is lost. Dignity goes out the window as every month, during your peak ovulation days, you’d lie there, poked and prodded every which way by a team of medical professionals who ask you intimate questions in an effort to find out the root cause what’s wrong with you.

Meanwhile, in my regular life, the pressure was on. Upon seeing my cousins cradling their newborns or bouncing their toddlers on their knees at family gatherings, my mom would turn to me and ask, “When will you give me grandchildren?” Well-meaning friends and acquaintances pester, “When are you gonna have a baby?” Upon seeing me give up things such as alcohol, caffeine, and raw foods like sushi, women would actually walk up to me and ask, “Are you pregnant?” These were the words that wounded, despite their best intentions.

At work, I sit but a few paces from the New Mother’s Lactation Room. It’s just one of life’s little ironies that I’m situated next to this room, watching women go in, day in and day out, some on their second child, while I have not yet my first to cradle and love. Those women who have already used this room may think that it’s nothing more than a mandatory convenience provided by the company. Men may not even know it exists. But to people like me, this was the Mecca of all rooms—the one that I aspired to one day be in.

I was used to hard work generating desired end results. I studied hard and got a graduate degree. I worked hard and landed a promising career. I saved hard and afforded a house in the competitive Silicon Valley. I never thought I would work so hard at something like Trying to Conceive, not to be met with desired end results. Outside, I am still your coworker, Daisy. I write your tech manuals. I lead your Toastmasters meetings. I share a drink and a laugh with you during Friday Happy Hours. Inside, I was broken, my self-confidence shattered, the very essence of my womanhood in question as I struggled to do something that was supposed to be inherent to my gender. I gave up everything that meant anything to me—aikido, because I was afraid this high-impact martial art would jeopardize my chances of implantation. Every time my cycle ended, I’d break down. In the early morning hours before driving off to work, I’d stuff pillows underneath my shirt in a pathetic fantasy to feel what it would be like to have a ballooning belly. The sheer desire to feel life growing inside me raked across my heart with ragged claws. I was failing, and I was coming to terms with the very real possibility of never being able to give my husband biological children.

This journey has taught me a lot about my body. Before I started tracking my Basal Body Temperature in an effort to pinpoint my key ovulation dates every month, I couldn’t tell you where I was in any given month with my wacky cycles. And now, not only can I spell and pronounce, but define words such as: Hysterosalpingogram, Human Chorionic Gonadotropin, and Inter-Cytoplasmic Sperm Injection. Yes, I was failing, but knowledge is power, and power can be used to succeed for next time.

Dear audience, my story may seem intimate and personal, and some of you who may not even want kids may struggle to understand the depths of what I’m willing to go through for the chance at having a child. But tell me, who here has not been faced with a seemingly insurmountable battle that they feel they cannot win? Well, I’m here to tell you that, with perseverance, there is always hope. On days when it’s a Herculean effort to haul yourself out of bed—those are the days you think of me. On days when it’s just too much work to get yourself dressed, go through your basic hygiene routine, eat your basic meals—those are the days you think of me. On days when you feel like there’s this huge cloud hanging over your head, threatening to overwhelm and undermine you—those are the days you think of me. Because there is always hope, that last little creature to fly out of Pandora’s box with gentle wings. After 18 months of trying and failing, trying and failing, I am happy to announce that in another 6 months, if all continues to go well, on January 24, 2016, I will get to meet my very first baby, for the very first time.

“What ended up working?” you may ask. Nothing more, and nothing less, than my regular dose of the “gateway drug,” a vacation to Las Vegas, and an upgraded suite. So there you have it, “Vegas, Baby!” and “Vegas baby!” After all, you know what they say: What happens in Vegas…ends up coming home with you, as one of the greatest accomplishments in your entire life.

Letters to Poetwig: Sugarcanes

Dear Baby,

Tomorrow, I take my first liver ultrasound in pregnancy to make sure my liver functions are in order. I got Hepatitis B from your grandma, at birth, Baby, and am now a permanent carrier of the virus. I want to make sure the same thing doesn’t happen to you, so I will be regularly monitored by a Gastroenterologist with blood tests and ultrasounds. Your father asked me why I’d go through all this. To me, it’s simple: So that you would not be born with the same thing that plagues me now; so that you do not have to fear passing it on to your future wife or children, and feel guilty for following your heart; so that you may not have to face a liver transplant or worry about dying of liver failure one day. And maybe it’ll never be that dramatic. But if I can save you from any kind of pain, I would.

The liver ultrasound requires fasting from food and water after midnight until 9:40AM the next day. Not a huge feat if you think about it, but possibly made more difficult by the demands of pregnancy’s constant hunger and thirst. When I think about how little we go through with technological conveniences and nutritional abundance today, it really puts into perspective what your maternal great-grandmother went through when she was pregnant with her first baby. She earned a little money by selling pre-mixed fishsauce—the culminating sauce for Vietnamese cuisine, one that your own mother learned to make very well. Every morning, she’d carry two big buckets of fish sauce suspended by a pole draped across her shoulders, balanced like an old-fashioned scale, and make the trek to sell her goods.

The hunger of pregnancy is like no other; even after you’ve eaten not long ago, lack of food can claw at your stomach as your baby demands more and more from your body. That’s how it feels like to me, and your great-grandmother had even less to eat. On the side of the road along her journey were disposed sugarcane stalks from a plantation; they had been juiced dry, and it was these that she picked up to suck on, the last remaining sweetness that remained hidden in the fibrous husks. I think of your great-grandmother making this long trek alone, the hot sun beating down on her, hunger haunting her footsteps, the baby inside her wanting more and more and not getting nearly enough. I think of my last meal before my ultrasound being but a mere twelve hours prior, and a fulfilling one at that, and how I spent my work hours before that sitting in an air-conditioned office, well-fed, well-hydrated, and you sitting happy in my belly.

I have no reason to complain. I did not suffer as she did. And I am doing my best to safeguard your health and your future. So bear with me one night, my hungry little bean, and we will meet the hour after the ultrasound with a delicious meal, with your father beside us to entertain us as we eat, my perfect little family.