The Wonders of Medical Menopause

For those of you unawares (and that can only mean some poor soul has wandered into this site from out in the void - welcome!), Wanda and I have been trying to make babies for many years now. We have always wanted a large family, at least 4 kids, but so far nothing. We've had all manner of medical intervention, including 3 failed rounds of in-vitro fertilization. As you might imagine, this has proven to be something of a downer.

We have now entered the world of chemical warfare on infertility. All of our treatments in the past have been positive treatments, that is, they were designed to encourage Wanda's body to produce eggs for fertilization and to then also make it a safe harbor for the fertilized zygotes in the hope that they will implant and become viable fetuses. Our current, and final, treatment can only be described as the nuclear option. She's taken 3 monthly injections now of Depot Lupron, a chemical designed to eradicate any trace of hormones in her body, effectively putting her into artificial menopause.  Yes, that menopause.  Hot flashes (power surges, Wanda calls them), headaches, and Wanda's new favorite conversational ice-breaker, vaginal dryness.  The hope is that 3 months of hormone starvation will kill off, at least temporarily, the endometriosis which has been the culprit in our infertility woes. Once this treatment is done, we wait for her to have her next cycle, and then we take one last stab at in-vitro, harvest as many eggs as we can, and then hope for the best.

It's not an easy road, and I must admit that I have mighty feelings of hero-worship for Wanda, who takes all of this in stride; the constant poking (depot lupron and progesterone (which is suspended in sesame oil, I swear to god!) are injected into the ass with a VERY long needle), while the egg-producing Follistim is injected into the abdomen or thigh with a micro-fine needle TWICE DAILY), and prodding (weekly and then daily ultrasounds as the treatment progresses), endless visits to the doctor, to the drug store, all of it in the name of making a baby that is half me, half her. If any of you people out there had the slightest bit of doubt before, let it be known throughout the land now :

Wanda is a stupendous badass. She's more of a badass than you, more of a badass than me (and I'm a pretty stupendous badass myself), than all of us.