Alright folks, here we go. Brace yourselves for a ridiculously long post on my personal experience with fertility diagnostic testing!
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Hi friends. In my last post, I confessed that my husband and I have been struggling with infertility. At the time, I was so, so nervous about the diagnostic testing! You guys have no idea. Well, I’m going to lay it all out here for those of you who are interested in the process.
But first, here are a few things I wish I had known before starting the infertility process. This may be helpful those of you thinking about seeking professional medical help. (1) If you work, make sure you have lots of sick leave and a FLEXIBLE schedule. I’m serious. You are required to go in for testing on certain days of your menstrual cycle. And if you are struggling with infertility, chances are high that you have irregular cycles (like me). SO there is just no way to predict when you need to go in for testing! Lucky for me, my boss is super cool and relaxed about my work schedule. Still, it makes it very awkward and risky at work when you abruptly start taking time off for sick leave. Your colleagues will start asking questions, and you will need to rehearse an answer. (Think carefully before telling them it’s for infertility treatment. No one likes to cover for a colleague’s 3 month maternity leave. NO ONE.) (2) Stop waiting and just go for it. Stop perusing forums, stop googling for advice. Be extremely cautious with asking for hmong herbs-- that stuff could mess your cycle up even more. Get professional help so you will know what the problem is and how to attack it. This is because the entire diagnostic process takes a very long time. Here’s how it went: I first called in July for an appointment, spent most of August and September doing tests, and didn’t get our results until end of September. It only took three months because I opted for a doctor with a lighter schedule. To recap, it took nearly three months just to diagnose our condition. It will take even longer to actually start the treatment. (3) Check your health insurance for infertility coverage. I really wish we had checked ours sooner, because our current insurance covers EVERYTHING. I could have started the process months ago and possibly had a little bundle of joy now! But also, I have been going over our insurance EOB (explanation of benefits), and lemme tell you guys—these fertility docs are banking. I would seriously think twice about doing this if I didn’t have infertility coverage. (4) I’m verging on being too preachy, but here it is: timing is everything. You really need to figure out if the timing is right for you two to have a child. *SPOILER ALERT* My husband and I recently decided against going forward with fertility treatment, due to external life factors. There are a lot of pieces in play right now, so I can’t confirm anything yet, but I promise to explain later. This post ended up being 10x longer than I expected, so I’m going to stop here. I’ll explain the entire diagnostic process in my next post. When are you going to have kids?
Ua cas neb tsis tau muaj me nyuam? Without a doubt, this is the most frequent question a married couple gets asked (regardless of culture). It doesn’t simply go away once a couple has a child either. Instead, it quickly morphs into a numbers game: when are you going to have more kids? Don’t get me wrong-- I get it. It’s easy conversation fodder. I sometimes do it too. It can be hard to connect with other nyabs, especially since nyabs come in all shapes, sizes, ages, and from different backgrounds and social circles. Thus, discussion topics usually center on the commonalities that connect all nyabs: food and offspring. Usually the inquiry comes in the form of a mirthful, all-wise quip, “Oh, you don’t have kids yet? Well, make sure you enjoy the married life before kids ruin it!” Then there’s the ticking time bomb, “My nyab had all four kids by the time she was 22. You’re old so you need to start trying now! Your body won’t hold up for much longer.” And finally, there’s the tactless inquiry, “How come you don’t have kids? Is it because you can’t have any?” This question is either innocuous or, at most, mildly irritating. With each passing year, however, the frequency at which we are bombarded with this question increases considerably. For my husband and me, the question is not so easy and painless. We have several reasons for being childless. At first, we had to figure out if we even wanted kids. We loved having unlimited “us time” and financial freedom. Let’s be honest, it’s not easy to willingly turn down the luxury of impromptu travel, sleeping in on weekends, endless cuddle sessions. Further, I don’t like to do things just because I am expected to do it. Cultural norms dictate that a nyab’s primary duty is to serve as the main pillar of the household, and that includes providing offspring. I have lost count of the number of times an aunt/uncle/parent/cousin expressed utter shock and outrage at the fact that we were considering have a childless marriage. It’s pretty laughable. As we grew older, our thoughts on the subject solidified a bit, and we decided that yes, we want a child. Our main concern was whether we could afford it. We don’t have any family to help with childcare and daycare costs in our region are exorbitant. So, for a long time, we wavered between yes and maybe later. If my husband left his job to stay at home, that would be a loss of more than half of our household income. Furthermore, I was not willing to leave my job either. I have personally witnessed colleagues and friends struggle to get back into their industries after taking a few years off to raise their children. Call me selfish, but I can’t do that to myself when I have spent the past 25+ years to build my career. Truthfully, we still haven’t figured this part out yet, and I don’t think we ever really will. However, we have both agreed to remain open-minded about the process. We will just have to tackle the issue when that day comes… if that day ever comes. You see, we started trying a while ago. Like many couples, it started out pretty casual. We just figured that if it happens, great! And if it doesn’t happen, we’ll just keep trying! As several months passed, however, we started to become very worried since I have a history of very difficult and painful cycles. Thus, we have decided to seek medical help and are currently in the process of completing diagnostic tests to determine the cause of our infertility. At this point, I am quite anxious to get answers. We don’t expect to conceive immediately, but I do want to know if something is wrong. And if there is something wrong, we would like to figure out if it is something that can be fixed. If it can’t be fixed, we’ll just have to choose from the options still available to us. And that’s okay. But we need answers first. So, looping back to that dreaded question: when are you going to have kids? Ua cas neb tsis tau muaj me nyuam? Truthfully, it’s getting harder and harder for me to answer the question. I don’t know and I’m getting tired of having to give you a reason why, so please stop asking. There is so much more to me than my ability or desire to have children. With that said, we hope to get answers soon. I do not intend to turn this into a full-blown infertility blog. However, I do intend to share parts of my story, in the hopes that maybe, just maybe, I can help someone who may have the same anxieties and concerns that I do. Today, I want to talk about an issue that many don't like to discuss openly: loneliness in marriage.
My husband and I dated for many, many years before we married. During those years, we fought like hell to make our relationship work. And, as a result, we thought we were ready for anything. In our naiveté, we thought that the only hardships of marriage that we would have to endure would be the addition of extra family members (because everyone knows that when you marry a Hmong man, you marry his entire family as well). Never have we been so wrong in our entire lives. Our first year of marriage was the hardest year for us-- and we've been together for more than ten years. Now, I am the first to admit that I am the more sensitive one in the relationship. I can read my husband's emotions immediately, just by looking at his body language, his slight facial expressions. So I was the first one to notice that something was off in our relationship. Initially, I believed myself to be paranoid. We had only been married for four months, surely I was just thinking too much? I rationalized my paranoia. Perhaps I was just restless because the stress of the wedding was over with. However, I couldn't shake off the feeling that something was amiss. And I was right. Slowly, my husband stopped kissing me on the forehead in the mornings. He stopped sharing his work day with me. I chalked it up to "work stress" and ignored my gut. It only got worse. He stopped hugging me when he came home from work. We began to eat separately at different times. He started sleeping on the other side of the bed and complained that he was "too hot" to snuggle. We barely talked or texted anymore. He watched football. I watched other happy couples on social media. This was the first time in our relationship that I began to feel lonely. It is hard to accurately describe such a disparaging feeling, but, to sum it up, I felt lonely even when he was sitting right next to me. How could I, a person who just pledged to love this man through sickness and health, be contemplating the big "d-word" less than a year after our wedding? And how did it get to this point? This period of depression was further exacerbated by the fact that I had no one to confide to. If I confided to my family, they would hold it against my husband forever. If I spoke to my in-laws about it, then the situation would blow up into something worse. If I confided to my friends, then that meant that it I was acknowledging that something was wrong. I didn't know what to do. I tried to discuss it with my husband several times, but he shrugged it off each time, saying that I was just thinking too much and that work was stressing him out. So I kept it to myself and remained angry. Angry about our dissolving marriage, angry about my job, angry at the demands made by both families. Angry that perhaps my husband was right—perhaps I was just over thinking it? But in my heart, I knew I was right. Our marriage was rapidly deteriorating. My husband had closed himself off from me and I didn’t know why. And it hurt. So I spiraled even further into depression. Thankfully, I am a very tenacious individual. After I wallowed in self-pity and spent a few months resenting my husband, I came to a realization. I did not need my husband to reciprocate my emotions. We made vows when we married and, as a result, we would work things out. Even if my husband did not want to acknowledge what was wrong, I would not give up on us. I had to reframe the negative thoughts and turn them into positive thoughts. The question was not whether we could work things out as a couple. Instead, the question was when. So I resolved to myself that I would find a way to fix "us". The hard part was coming up with a plan. I had never faced this situation before. All of our past arguments were resolved with talking together, but this time, my husband was shutting me out. So, I did what most women do in troubled times… I treated myself. I started with a little retail therapy. I bought new clothes. I indulged in expensive foundation. I went to the movies by myself. Over time, I made more substantial changes in my daily routine. I stopped planning around my husband’s schedule. I cooked and ate whatever I felt like eating that day. I picked up reading again. I picked up an instrument. I volunteered for events. I reconnected with old friends and made time for new friends. All the while, I made sure to remain accessible and affectionate towards my husband. As silly and trivial this may sound, it actually saved our marriage. (You heard that right—shopping saves marriages! Ha.) At this point, you may be wondering what it was my husband was hiding from me. I am not going to go into much detail for my husband’s privacy, but, ultimately, it was MARRIAGE itself that created the distance between us. Society tells us that when two people marry, they become one. In the Hmong culture, your souls merge and you are bound for eternity. The lines blur between I and us. Prior to marriage, we were individuals who loved each other. After marriage, we were no longer individuals with separate and distinct identities. Instead, we became a pair. We were unable to go anywhere without the other being mentioned. We essentially lost ourselves to our marriage. Before you start rolling your eyes, hear me out. This is not an uncommon phenomenon. Just ask all the empty-nesters out there who are now faced with re-discovering their identities once their offspring have flown from the coop. It is so frighteningly easy to lose yourself in a marriage. You are no longer permitted to put yourself first. Everything you do, you must do for the sake of your relationship. And that is fine. That is what I promised to do when I vowed to marry him. However, in the struggle to fight for us, we forgot to fight for ourselves. I believe we both knew what we was happening, subconsciously. I also believe that we both tried dealing with it in our own way. My husband withdrew into himself .I sensed it, but I did not know how to save us, so I threw myself at him and clung onto the idea of “us” (a la Miley Cyrus’s Wrecking Ball), which only served to exacerbate the situation and my own loneliness. And this is where we finally arrive at the ultimate lesson of the day. Loneliness forced me to face a long lost friend: self-love. By putting myself first and loving myself, I gave my husband the space and time that he needed to figure out how to fight his own battles. And, little by little, he came back to me. We became a force of nature together. We toppled monarchies and bore through mountains faster than John Henry (just kidding, but you get the point). We were whole again and stronger than before. And that, my friends, is why loneliness in marriage can be okay. Disclaimer: Loneliness in marriage is never okay if you are the victim of abuse. Please seek help right away if that is the case. You can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline 24/7 at 1-800-799-7233. I have an announcement to make. It is a great and terrible thing. I have wished for this once upon a time, with hope. I have also come to dread the arrival of this news. I knew it was coming, but I did not realize it’s proximity until the clock struck midnight and ushered in 2016.
I am nearing the end of my twenties. I understand that the phrase “roaring twenties” is reserved for the 1920s, but, personally, I think it applies to age as well. How else can we describe the tumultuous years of early adulthood? What other phrase can perfectly detail the years filled with wondering and wandering? Those wild nights of revelry that burn forevermore? Roaring, indeed. Thus, I believe it is only fitting to memorialize the ups and downs of the past ten years, as this chapter comes to close. In Year 20, I learned the joys of friendships. And alcohol. Lots and lots of alcohol. In Year 21, I learned that it is okay to let go. Some dreams are meant to be let go so that you have a chance to fulfill other dreams. In Year 22, I learned how it felt to have $8 in the bank. In Year 23, I learned that priorities are important. Real-life does not play nice with aspiring Renaissance women. In Year 24, I learned how to wear a suit and play the part of a “professional”. I also learned to drink wine. In Year 25, I learned that success can be obtained with hard work. I also learned how to function on four hours of sleep. In Year 26, I learned humility. Achievements are nothing without humility. Work hard, be humble, and count your blessings. In Year 27, I learned that marriage is hard. However, if the both of you are committed to making it work, then struggles will only serve to make your bond stronger. In Year 28, I learned that life is too short to play it safe. Take risks. In Year 29, I learned that one should never stop learning. :) So, as I roar and rumble into my thirties, I hope that my heart stays young and my head remains resolute. After all, according to Ursula Le Guin, “time is not duration, but intensity”. Right? |
AuthorA young professional and her struggles as a Hmong nyab, wife, and daughter. Archives
October 2016
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