Ah, winter

It must be the winter. The darkness, the cold, the inability to make plans with any certainty for fear the roads will be sheets of ice, the general feeling of being trapped like a caged animal.

It must be the winter that's making everything so much harder to endure.

It's also possible it's the shitstorm of loss, grief and infertility. It could be that too, I suppose.

But whatever. I find it takes me so much longer to recover from upsets these days. And I'm tired. Worn right out physically and mentally.

The classic signs of depression. Yeah, yeah, I know. But under the circumstances I'm inclined to cut myself some slack. The past two years have been an absolute living hell in more ways than I can count or name, and if the winter blahs have me in a death grip because of my inability to cope with frigid, dark weather on top of sorrow, loss and a funky uterus, well so fucking be it.

So it looks like a lap is our next stop on the fertility train. More surgery. Because the last one (a c-section that left me infection-riddled after they were finally able to control the hemorrhaging) wasn't enough fun.

The good doctor seems to think that our last, best hope to figure out why the hell I can't conceive after almost two years of trying is to take a looky-loo inside and see if I have adhesions or scar tissue. All signs point to yes, I suppose, given that I conceived three times before with relative ease.

The idea of having surgery - of going back into a hospital, donning a gown and laying in an operating room with the sounds, smells and sights I remember so well assaulting me at every turn - quite frankly makes me ill. I'm very excited about the possibility of it being the answer to our prayers (or, more accurately, the answer to our wails of "WHAT THE FUCK????" directed at the universe in general), but it's the getting through it that worries me. Getting to it, and getting past it.

How will I cope with that? Particularly when a snowy day makes me tense.

Eeeeek.

I know several people who have had this procedure done. They all survived. None of them had complications. Many of them went on to conceive - some right away.

But none of them lay on an operating table listening in shock, horror and confusion while a team of doctors bagged their dying son either.

Clearly I'm approaching this a little differently than the average lady.

But I know I have to suck it up. My only choice is not to have it done and spend the rest of my life regretting it and wondering if we'd have had another child if I'd only been able to summon up the courage to have a simple 40 minute surgery.

I'm no picnic to live with now, but My Beloved would surely grow weary of the guilt seeping from me like sweat, the begging for forgiveness, and the relentless "what if" style speculation that I know I would be incapable of quelling.

So I don't really have a choice. But I don't have all that much courage either.

I wonder if they'd be willing to start administering the drugs from home...