Remembrance

First thing this morning on Facebook, I found this.

I've been wanting to write about this very thing for a while; about how hard Facebook has the potential to be if you are on the outside looking in. The ultrasounds and baby photos subbing as profile pictures, the "offers" to sell naughty children, cute birthday/Halloween/Christmas/Thanksgiving stories, announcements about potty training successes, first teeth, and new pregnancies...

Facebook is rife with childcentric information.

And there's absolutely no reason why it shouldn't be. None whatsoever.

But because it is, it can be a dangerous place for someone trying to navigate the bloody waters of infertility and loss. And it can be torture for someone for whom all those lovely baby things will never be a reality.

The interesting thing is that we generally stay very quiet about all this. So much so that it likely never occurs to anyone but us that it might be painful. The landmines are invisible unless you see them as such. We are blown to smithereens every day by things others look at with wonder and joy.

That's just the way it is.

It's the way it has to be, in fact, because the world can't (and shouldn't) stop merely because we are sad. There is no reason our sorrow should trump another's joy.

But that's precisely why I was so shocked to see the link above; stunned that someone would actually dare to put it all out there - to demonstrate in a tangible way what it can sometimes feel like to be a childless person floating alone in a seemingly endless sea of fertility.

We, as a group, generally concentrate our efforts on making sure other people don't feel uncomfortable. The last thing we tend to do is point out our own discomfort. We might be broken, humiliated, and desperate - but we are usually silent.

And I'm not sure what I think about this phenomenon anymore, this strange code of silence.

I don't want to be the person who rains on everyone's parade, reminding people with my sad looks and pitiful sighs that I envy what they have. I don't want to be the needy girl from whom people flee in horror. And I certainly don't want to end up being a one-trick pony who can't talk about anything but the life she wishes she'd been able to have.

But sometimes I do crave a certain level of acknowledgment - a little something that lets me know you would smother my pain with a pillow if you had one big enough, or strangle cruel fate with your bare hands for denying me my joy. I am desperately struggling to co-exist in this fertile world, and that pain I feel is real. This life is hard - harder than I ever dreamed - and I'm not always okay. I probably look it most of the time - maybe all the time - but I am stuck together with tape, staples and prayers. And chocolate and wine.

I'm not looking for pity. I can't stress that enough. I think what we all want so much is simply for people to remember that we're here too.

And her reply...

"Many thanks for taking the time to write this, for your kind way of expressing a disagreement, for your sharing of personal details, and for your very thoughtful advice of your own.

I did receive another well-expressed note like this and have already worked it into a future column.... by way of educating readers further about this sensitive topic, to show the deeper areas than those on which I touched.

May I say - not to excuse myself, but to explain - that anyone who is deeply grieving cannot possibly get enough solace from the 50-100 words of an answer in a general audience newspaper advice column.

I do try to show my compassion, which I genuinely feel....and I do try to offer some possible ways to bring new thinking to the situation, such as that the friends and family who don't mention a subject may actually be trying to be kind, not dismissive.

I thank you for understanding most of my approach, and for deepening my understanding."
 
I wholeheartedly agree that a 100-word column can't possibly provide enough solace for a woman grieving her lost children and her dreams of motherhood, which is why wasting a paragraph on the whole "filling the void" thing bothered me so much, I suspect. 

Well, that and the fact that it was just atrocious advice.

But I give her endless credit for responding so kindly and promptly, and for deciding to tackle the subject again in an upcoming column now that she's heard from those of us on the inside. 

This is such a quiet little world, this childless place, and it's nice to know that people are listening to our whispers and trying to do their best to understand.

It's all anyone can ask for, really.

Thinking

Back in the fall My Beloved and I set an arbitrary sometime in January deadline for sitting down and talking about where this nearly 6-year journey of ours is heading.

The plan was for us both to come to the table, having had two months to mull it over quietly on our own, with some thoughts. Maybe even conclusions.

But, uh, I'm not sure I have any. Thoughts yes, conclusions, no.

Although lately I've had a vague sense that I'm moving into acceptance mode. That I'm recognizing and coming to terms with the fact that our time for having more children may have passed. Entirely. No biological babies, no adopted babies.

For some reason that notion seems to be sitting in my head, making a lot of sense.

It's desperately sad, yes. I think I would have made a good mother to a living child. I had a very good role model, and I had many quiet, happy daydreams about the ways I was going to mother our children. Making them feel cozy, safe and loved.

But we've had six years of loss, fear and sorrow. I'm not entirely sure I have the mental energy that the me of simpler days used to have. I hate to think that infertility and loss have beaten me. I hate to think that after all this time they have finally won.

But maybe they have.

Maybe I just can't put myself - or us - through this anymore. Maybe it's time for My Beloved and I now. Just us. Moving on and finding peace and happiness together; making the most of the life we have and the love we've always shared.

I'll be 39 in a few months, My Beloved 40. I know people will throw up their hands, stomp about and vehemently deny that we're too old to be parents. But the thing is, we're older than most people our age. We've seen a lot and we've lost a lot. Too much. Too much.

We're tired. I'm tired.

I want my life back. I wanted children. I wanted that life so much. But sometimes you have to accept the life you're given instead of spending all your time wishing for the one you weren't. Because that's no way to live at all.

We have tried so hard. I don't think anyone could accuse us of not giving it 100%.

We are a family of three that looks like a family of two. But we are still a family. We had a child. I was pregnant. I was pregnant four times.

And now, maybe, I'm done.

If I am alone when I'm old - if everyone I know has gone before me and I have no children and grandchildren to visit me - I'll just find comfort in new friends. I'll write. I'll read. I'll crochet. I'll try to pray. I'll keep searching for whatever makes me happy and brings me peace. One day at a time.

And eventually I'll see my babies again. And I'll wrap them in my arms, hold them close and then, then finally have a chance to be the mother I should have been here.

I'm not making the decision alone, of course. And as sure as I might sound at the moment, I'm just as liable to change my mind tomorrow.

But then again, maybe I won't.

The last line on one of those epic Christmas letters sent to my Mom from a cousin of hers was, "Hope Kris and her hubby will be successful one of these days. Must be heartbreaking."

I don't want people to see us that way. I don't want them to think we somehow weren't successful at life because our son died and because I miscarried our other four children. I don't want our losses to define us or our marriage.

The letter really make me stop and think about how long we've been running on the hamster wheel.

And about how I think it might be time to step off and just walk quietly and peacefully together instead.

No surprises

Last night we went out to get a baby gift for friends who just had another baby girl. In the parking lot I discovered that the clerk forgot to swipe the little socks we bought to go with the Pooh sleeper.

$4.97 in reparation from the universe.

That's less than a dollar for every loss, and each year we've struggled. But I suppose that's about what I'd expect from the universe.

Yeah. Fuck. That's about what I'd expect.

It's dark in here

I was wandering through blogland last night catching up on blogs I haven't read in a long time (shame on me), and reading the news that I've missed while I've been quietly keeping to myself.

And, of course, there is pregnancy news - in a few blogs. Which somehow still always surprises me, as though I think since I'm still broken everyone else must be too.

But clearly this is not the case. In fact, in some cases these are second generation pregnancies - babies that have come after babies that came after a loss.

I'm so far behind. If I ran at the speed of light it feels like I'd still forever be so far behind, shackled to my infertility and dragging my busted uterus behind me.

Anyway, I stumbled across a blogger who is newly pregnant via a surrogate, and something interesting happened in my tiny little brain.

"That's okay then", I reasoned, "she's still broken too." It's fine for someone to be expecting a baby, apparently, as long as they aren't actually the one carrying it. Because that would make them whole and capable and fertile - all the things I'm not.

I'm not totally sure what this line of thinking says about me, but I'm pretty sure it's nothing good.

It all makes me wonder what it is about losing a child and dealing with infertility that makes it so hard to be happy for others who make it past the agonizing limbo of childlessness, or infertility after a loss.

I hate that I feel this way. I hate that time hasn't eased the feelings of sorrow and jealousy when someone else - even someone who has struggled - finds themselves pregnant.

It's so ugly. It's so unbearably ugly to think that I should feel anything other than complete joy and happiness for someone whose dream has come true when I know how bright and beautiful that dream is - and what devastation and havoc losing it wreaks.

And yet last night I found myself comforted that someone had to resort to surrogacy.

It's so unfathomably ugly that I'm even ashamed to write it (and, frankly, have no idea why I'm admitting it). But there it is. It seems that I have let go of none of the bitterness.

Maybe it's not surprising given the decrepit state of my own fertility, my advancing age, my reluctance to have "just one more" surgery to fix what allegedly ails me.

The trail of death and destruction in my wake.

Maybe it's normal to still feel this way. It probably is. But it doesn't change the fact that it makes me feel small and ugly and horrible.

Lest one be forced to surmise that there isn't one single ounce of goodness left in my battered soul, I should clarify that I do manage to feel joy for others. I do. But the bitterness is always following right on its heels. Not towards those who are pregnant, exactly, but more at the universe, at God, at fate - at whatever seems to be preventing me from finding my happy ending.

I just want my happy ending too.

And seeing others get it reminds me of how much I want it. And how far I am from having it. And how close I once was. Four times.

I read about how healing it is to have a baby after a loss, and I rage against the universe for denying me that chance to heal. I read about how apparently you can't know the true depths of your sorrow until you hold another child of your own, and I rage against the universe for denying me the chance to complete my grieving process (although I also bristle at the suggestion that if I never have another child my sorrow is somehow less than someone who has gone on to have another baby - because I'm pretty sure that just ain't the case).

Today at Mass I watched an old lady gazing at someone's child the way old ladies do, with that serene, loving half-smile. And as I watched her, I realized that I will never be that old lady. I will never, ever be able to look at children with the simplicity of thought that many people do, a blissful smile playing on my lips. Other people's children will always remind me of my loss and my agony - of my own missing children. Even if one day I have another child.

But especially if I don't.

And I'm not at all happy that this bitterness seems to be planning to dog me for the rest of my life.

The road less traveled

Does everyone need permission to feel the way they feel, or is it just me?

That familiar, slightly dull, knicker-binding sense of doom and gloom was bugging me last week. I couldn't shake it. It sat on my shoulders with its hands over my mouth trying to smother me for days.

I couldn't for the life of me figure out where it came from and how it snuck up on me so quickly and quietly.

On Friday, Therapist Lady pointed out that there is anxiety in reaching decisions. Silly me. All this time I thought indecision was my issue. But apparently I have the ability to stay freaked out even when decisions are actually made.

FANtastic.

She said that our decision not to have the surgery, even though it's still classified as a tentative one, means that we have decided to move in another direction. Which isn't a bad thing, but when you're not sure what that direction is - or what lies along the road you'll eventually end up choosing - it can be anxiety producing.

And I can attest to that.

The interesting thing is that as soon as she made this proclamation, the doom and gloom started to lift. Being given permission to feel anxious made a huge chunk of the anxiety simply vanish.

Because it's okay to feel unsure. It's okay to feel scared. It's okay to be confused. It's okay to need to think about the possibility that it's time to start mourning the loss of future biological children who may never come. Who will probably never come.

It looks like a lot of work ahead. Good God. When I see it laid out before me in print, it looks like a fucking shit-load of work.

But I'll get there. Eventually. With constant reminders that it really is okay to be overwhelmed by a life I never in a million years expected would be mine.

Oh, if only it was this easy...

Sigh...

How?

I have a high threshold of pain. I do. Really, I do. But three attempts at a saline sonohysterogram? (Which, in case you've never had one, involves a clamp and a catheter - and that should be all I need to say for you to understand why, upon attempt three, I thought I was going to die).

But I could have endured that quite handily. Even the emergency run they made to get a tech who they thought might be able to get a better picture of my uterus. Even the repeated injections of saline. Even the failed attempts being blamed on my tipped uterus (and not the OB's incompetence). I could have dealt with it all had they been able to give us good news. Or at least conclusive news.

One OB, two techs, 49 million gallons of saline and that fucking clamp on and off three times.

And at the end? Something. What, they don't know. But something. Probably scar tissue. Maybe scar tissue?

They don't know.

I sat there in a puddle of saline, gel and blood while they told me they just weren't sure what it was they saw, but that there appears to be a blockage of some sort in my uterus.

The OB who did the test (and God help both of us if I ever lay eyes on her again) recommended surgery to determine what exactly it was that they couldn't see. That's what she put in her notes to my OB.

My OB, who I can't see for another three weeks. And only that soon because I lost my shit on the phone with the clinic when they tried to tell me it would be August before I could get in front of him to discuss the fact that there's something lurking in my uterus that's likely the cause of last 12 months of failure.

A spot magically opened up on July 14th when I went into meltdown mode.

So, all in all, it's been a shitty week.

No one has told us we need to stop - or should stop. But this broke me in a way nothing has before. I barely made it out to the car before I burst into tears, scaring the shit out of My Beloved who had no idea what exactly I was crying about.

It was just too much.

I'm not a pussy - I sailed through my HSG, the IUIs and my C-section recovery, even after hemorrhaging and getting a blood infection. I'm strong and stubborn. But this? Somehow it was just too much. It hurt like hell (I'm not sure, but I think she was digging for gold), I'm still spotting five days later, and we have no clear answers. Only the specter of another surgery lurking in the darkness before us.

But I don't know if I can do it. I don't know if I have anything left. Like I said, I thought I would walk to the ends of the earth to have another child. But maybe this is what the end looks like. Me, completely out of courage and mental stamina. And hope.

"That's it. We're done. No more." Was My Beloved's conclusion upon finally calming me down enough to allow me to tell him what had gone on in the little exam room.

My Mother agrees. So does his. So do I. Mostly...

But part of me is down on my knees begging someone to tell me how you stop when you have nothing to show for your five years of effort except for an ever increasing stack of therapy receipts, a basement full of unused baby things, and a tiny grave marker.

How? How?

What a wonderful way to spend a Saturday morning

Ultrasound technician: Oh! Oh, you were pregnant last summer? Did you get a baby?

Me: No.

Ultrasound technician: (Long pause) Did you have a miscarriage?

Me: (Wondering what else she thinks I did with the babies) Yes. Yes, I did.

Ultrasound technician: Oh.

Me: (Laying very still and quiet on the tiny table hoping there won't be any more questions)

Ultrasound technician: Oh. You've had a C-section?

Me: (Shit) Yes. We had a baby in 2005 but he died too. I had a C-section then.

Ultrasound technician: (Quietly) Oh.

The rest of the exam proceeded in silence until we said polite goodbyes and I retreated back into the protective cocoon of the change room to nurse my wounds.

After this the nurse stuck me in both arms trying to find a decent vein.

All in all, pretty much just as shitty a time as I'd remembered and expected.

I came *this* close to fleeing in a hail of tears just before I was called in for my ultrasound, but I talked myself down off the ledge. I decided it's better to just suck it up, submit to the prodding and deal with the aftermath of whatever results they find sooner rather than later.

The clock won't stop. Time waits for no broken uterus. I can't suck out now.

Good times, my friends. Good times.

Oh, for the love of crap!

It seems unnecessarily cruel to have to spend part of Father's Day weekend at the fertility clinic.

Not a big part (just long enough to have an ultrasound and wait God knows how long to been seen by a doctor afterwards) but still, cruel just the same. Particularly since this visit signals the failure of another cycle and the start of more poking, prodding and general torment.

But then again, there's nothing particularly kind about infertility, so I shouldn't be the least bit surprised by this.

Nothing much surprises me these days.

Good times, my friends. Good times.

And I've just remembered that I forgot to go get a lottery ticket. Someone else is going to win my $14 million.

Double crap.

Clearly I'm going to need some chocolate tonight.

Sigh

Oh Lord. It just never seems to end, this three year battle with broken innards.

I haven't been back to my OB or to the clinic since I had the post-miscarriage blood work last fall. I was endlessly paranoid about a clotting disorder, given the bloody drama that was my D&C, so I insisted upon some additional blood work to ease my rapidly disintegrating mind.

It all came back normal. Yeah, can you believe it? Some part of me is actually normal.

Anyway, since it's been 7 months since we last discussed the state of my lady bits, I decided I needed to do a bit of a "where are we at now and where should we go from here?" check-in with my OB. We met yesterday.

He was so kind. He always is, but yesterday he really seemed to have time to listen to me in a way he sometimes can't because he has waiting room full of 42,000 other busted uteruses waiting to bend his ear.

It was both a comforting and a disconcerting visit. Comforting because he listened and because I know he genuinely cares about what happens to me, disconcerting because for the first time he gently suggested we may be coming to the end of the road.

There's another test he wants to run (a delightful sounding syringe up the duff/ ultrasound combo dealie) to rule out inter-uterine scarring, and he suggested a couple of cycles of monitoring just to make sure I'm still ovulating and still as thoroughly hormonal as I need to be.

So it sounds like it'll be another summer of great big infertile fun.

Fantastic.

I want a baby. But I want all this to end too. So much. So, so, so much.

I'm strong. I am. But come on now, everyone has a limit.

Apparently someone thinks I haven't quite reached mine yet and is having a good old laugh while watching to see just how far I'll actually go.

Because I'm just crazy enough to do it

Okay, Baskin-Robbins Canada (who aren't even participating in the "Bump Day" promotion) are going to think I'm a complete raving lunatic, but I needed to complain to someone.

I said I wanted a free pint. I said all the people left out of their cruel and exclusionary free-cone celebration of fertility want a free PINT of ice cream.

I'm sure it'll fall on deaf ears (because really, what are we supposed to do - bring in copies of our failed charts? OB/RE notes? IUI and IVF receipts? Empty Clomid wrappers?), but at least I feel a little better now.

More or less.

Harrumph.

I know it's nice and everything...

I just found this little announcement on Facebook:

Baskin-Robbins is introducing Soft Serve!

To help welcome this new addition and to pay tribute to all mommies-to-be, Baskin-Robbins is turning Wednesday, May 21 from “hump day” into “Bump Day,” by offering a FREE cone of Soft Serve to all expectant mothers across the nation!

Baskin-Robbins Bump Day will take place on Wednesday, May 21 from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. at participating store locations in California; Chicago; New York; El Paso, Texas; and Nashville, Tenn.

During Bump Day, expectant mothers will be treated to one free 3 oz. cup or cone of soft Serve. For more information about Bump Day or to find a participating store, please visit http://www.baskinrobbins.com/bumpday.

Isn't that sweet?

I mean, it really is and all, but I think I may need to write to Baskin-Robbins and suggest that maybe the fertility-challenged could benefit from free ice cream too. I'll tell them it's therapeutic; necessary in a way it simply isn't for those with already expanding waistlines. Because God knows it's nice to have options when it comes to the monthly routine of drowning your accumulating sorrows.

Quite aside from that, I for one would love to catch a fucking break one of these days.

Free ice cream would be a start, she said as she stormed off in a self-pitying huff.

I wasn't going to say a word

I went for my bloodwork this morning. I had to go to an independent lab outside the clinic for OHIP related reasons that still aren't particularly clear to me. I finally decided it wasn't worth trying to find a third person at the clinic to explain this to me in layman's (or crazy-bereaved-stressed-out-hormonal-fragile-tempermental-lady's) terms, so I found an independent lab and headed there this morning.

The drive was quick, there was plenty of parking, the wait was short, the phlebotomist was experienced and I barely felt a thing. Even though she sucked 9 vials out of me.

But then she opened her mouth.

I was happily looking at the crappy landscape photographs someone tore out of a real estate calendar and slapped up on the blood-letting room wall (yeah, that'll make me forget that you have a needle in my arm) when she started to pry.

"So, why are you having all these blood tests? Do they think you have lupus?"

Yeah, sure, go ahead and ask. It seems perfectly reasonable to try to worm information out of a quiet, sad-looking girl staring at the wall minding her own business.

You'd think after all this time I'd be good at dodging, but I'm tired these days. It's been a trying few weeks. My guard was down. So despite the fact that "____ REGIONAL FERTILITY CENTRE" was clearly marked on my lab requisition, I mumbled something about having some fertility issues.

And that, apparently, was her opening.

Listen up all you uterinely challenged ladies, all you mothers of dead babies - my phlebotomist has the answer you've been searching for:

You should go to Vegas.

Imagine that. After all this time, after all the perfectly timed sex, the dildocam monitoring, the Clomid, the HCG shots, the surgery, the miscarriages, the child buried a half hour from our house - after all that, turns out all we really needed to do was buy a ticket to Vegas.

It's what her daughter did. After 10 years of trying they gave up, went to Vegas last Christmas and had a baby boy on Friday. So clearly it works.

I quietly explained that our situation was a little more complicated. I mentioned Thomas and the Tigers and the complications during the D&C and watched as she avoided eye contact and stopped talking altogether.

And then I let her off the hook, asked about her new grandson and quietly left the office.

This is why I'm so tired. It just. Never. Ends.

More musings

Does it say something about a person who makes it all the way to 37 before realizing that the "K" in Special K cereal stands for Kellogs?
____________________________________

I flipped through a couple of books on Infertility at Chapters the other day. One had all kinds of advice on things like dealing with uncomfortable social situations, making informed decisions about treatments, and when to let it all go and move on, etc. I perused a few passages that pertained to things that have been rumbling around in my head then shoved it back on the shelf. Like I was mad at it.

Because that makes sense.
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It can be hard to resist the lure of the "I have it way worse than you" game, particularly on those days when you feel especially low and woebegone.

I sometimes play it in my head, but it has recently occurred to me that I'm not exactly sure how you win. Am I winning if I believe I do have it worse than someone else, or am I winning if I determine I'm better off? Is a lose-lose game one I should even be playing in the first place?

Yeah, really, no one should play this game. Ever.
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My cat's leg is clicking. I don't know why. She doesn't seem to notice it so I'm not going to point it out.
_____________________________________

Three years ago I was pregnant. I didn't know it yet, but I was about two days pregnant with my beautiful boy. It was the start of our 38 weeks together. The start of his very tiny life.

How can so much have happened in three years? How is it possible that he came and went without a single sound except one little gasp?

Three years. Good God.
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My neighbours are away at a cottage this week. Because everything everyone else does always sounds so good to me, I want to be away at a cottage too.

Only clearly I'm not.

Sigh.
_____________________________________

Is it possible to have too much yarn? Is it somewhat insane to buy yarn on sale when you have no plans at all for it? Is this an addiction? Should I be worried?

It's just that it's so pretty...
_____________________________________

Two weeks ago My Beloved and I went to a Hallmark warehouse sale. We spent a total of $6.20 (including tax) on items that would have cost us $1285.98 (including tax) if we'd purchased them in-store at regular retail prices.

We saved $1279.78.

I'm still riding that bargain high.

Oh, and if you need any gift bags, let me know.
______________________________________

If you tailgate - if you ride so far up my ass that I can see the colour of your eyes - I'm going to slow down and drive right on the speed limit.

Just so you know.
______________________________________

There's a mandatory watering ban being enforced in our town because we've had so little rain over the last month and a half.

I understand the need to conserve, but the thought of my beautiful lawns drying up to match the brown of the rest of the neighbourhood is making me a little crazy. Plants and grass are the only things I can nurture and help grow right now and not being able to take care of them the way I want to is torture.

RAIN, DAMMIT!!!
______________________________________

Lucy is happily scratching her claws on the carpet at the top of the stairs. With gusto.

I don't think the clicking leg is an issue at all.

Crisis averted.

Nobody told me there'd be days like these

..with my apologies to John Lennon for stealing his lyric.

Seriously. These are strange days indeed.

I feel like the only person on the planet who is destined never to be pregnant again. Ever. Period. Pardon the pun.

And you know what else? People always say that they lose their identity when they have kids. They say they become "mom" and nothing else. Well let me tell you, for four years I've been either mourning lost children or dealing with infertility - two of those four years doing both. And it's easy to lose yourself in that too. Very easy indeed.

I don't know who I am anymore. And it's not just the Mike's Hard Lemonade talking either (okay maybe it is a bit, but screw it - it was needed and deserved).

Seriously. I'm the most boring woman on the planet. These are my claims to fame: to never be pregnant again, just forever mind-numbingly boring. I live from cycle to failed cycle and the longer this goes on, the farther away from my friends with living children I feel. They're kind enough to keep me in their world, but why the flock they do is beyond me sometimes.

I have nothing to talk about except my uterus and its spectacular penchant for failing me.

BO-RING.

I've run out of things to talk about. And I've run out of things to think about.

Except that. Except what I've lost and what I can't for the life of me seem to get. Children.

Am I boring? AM I??

PMS makes me incredibly paranoid. And, evidently, so does this hard lemonade.

Strange days indeed.

Whew...

Yeah, so enough with the Clomid. It's dastardly, that shit. They say it works (although I have plenty of evidence to the contrary) but in the meantime it makes living hell and me hell to live with. So we're taking at least a once cycle break from the stuff.

There are times when I think that if God wants this to happen, it will happen no matter what we do or don't do.

Well, we have to have sex. That I realize.

There's that story about the old man going to church day after day begging God to let him win the lottery until finally after several months he hears God's great booming voice pleading with him to buy a ticket. I know God helps those who help themselves. I know that. I know we can't sit around willing a baby into existence and doing nothing to help the process along.

But sometimes you have to know when enough is enough. At least for now.

I can feel all the tense little fibers of my body slowly relaxing as the drug works its way out of my system. I can feel the sanity returning. I can feel me again.

The fall is so much harder when it's a drug/IUI cycle, and not just because of the drugs. The hopes and the expectation of success, I think, are so much higher for me - and in everyone else's mind too. Because yeah, everyone knows. And my God, It's hard to fail so publicly. It makes it a rather spectacular exercise in agony, having to make the awkward, "Uh, yeah, so I got my period..." calls.

And doing it when you're so disappointed and so hormonal you're barely functioning adds that extra little dash of torture.

And I mean that seriously. Addled doesn't even begin to describe it. Fog is closer. But that horror movie style fog - the kind that strangles everything in its path and drags gouls and goblins along with it as it seeps into sleepy New England towns.

But it's better now. After a few days of angry tears, agonized longing for the boy I lost, and self-indulgent wallowing in the "should have beens", " could have beens", and "why, why why's", I'm finally feeling something akin to even keeled.

You know, for now anyway.

Sigh. I truly don't understand why this is so hard. I will never understand why all of this has been so hard.

Sorry. I need to rant again. And whine. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.

Okay, I know I whine about this every time I'm in one of my great, foggy-headed Clomid hazes, but seriously, why is this stuff so flocking AWFUL???

It's like having PMS ALL. THE. TIME. And it's all I can think about.

Literally all I can think of is how much I don't feel like me when I'm on this miserable fertility drug trip. And how much I miss the me I am when I'm not.

Yeah, the mourning, barren, slightly obsessive compulsive and mildly paranoid me. I actually miss her.

For the blissfully uninitiated, it's a little like standing in a giant water glass that is slowly filled to the brim while you stand on the bottom looking out at the world. By some miracle you can breathe and you don't actually die, but you can't react to anything around you the way you're used to, and you see and hear things WAY differently than you normally do. And no, you can't swim up to the top. Or get out. All you can do is stand there on the bottom, stupidly and helplessly, while the pressure of the water relentlessly squeezes the crap out of every little bit of you.

Everything makes you cry. Except stuff that actually should. And every once in a while you think you might actually be going insane, but you're not.

That's when the Clomid laughs its hardest.

Well, it also has a giggle when you allow yourself to consider the prospect of having to do it all over again when the current cycle fails. And it always seems to, doesn't it?

Doing it all again is terrifying to me. It builds up in your system, this heinous thing, and the amplification of crazy is...well, who the hell wants to amplify crazy???

Seriously, why can't they make something that doesn't fuck with your mind in such an awful way? Why? Why? Why?

Women are walking bags of hormones to begin with, can they not invent something that DOESN'T upset that easily upsettable balance??

We can put a man on the moon, but heaven forbid we should find a way to create a drug that doesn't contribute to an infertile woman's pre-existing brand of insanity.

Ugh.

And on that note I'm going to bed. Last night I dreamt that a naked man was carving a life size wooden sculpture with a sword out on his front lawn while My Beloved and I pondered a way to drag the life-sized matchbox car he'd just bought home.

I'm not even safe in my dreams...

Clomid, you are a bitch.

10 things I happen to hate about infertility

1. Feeling broken (the not-quite-half-a-woman style of broken).
2. Fertility medications that make you a raving lunatic, burying the real you under layers of artificial hormones, crying jags, tantrums, paranoia and black moods.
3. The fact that trying to conceive is no longer something between you and your spouse. The fact that your uterus becomes public property that everyone seems to have a stake in. The longer your innards sit empty, the more people wonder, the more people ask, and the more they think they have a right to know every single little thing that's going on. Even when it's no one's business but you and your Beloved's.
4. Telephone calls from the clinic telling you to have sex.
5. Repeated poking and prodding in areas that, ideally, shouldn't be subjected to poking and prodding more than once a year for 39 seconds at your annual physical.
6. Did I mention the drugs?
7. The devastation of each failed cycle.
8. The ticking of the clock.
9. The hopeful looks and the pitying looks (particularly when under the influence of #2)
10. The guilt, the jealousy, the uncertainty, the sorrow, the anger, the confusion, the frustration and the mental gymnastics necessary to muster up the strength to carry on after each failed cycle.

This self-indulgent little whine-fest, albeit admittedly gross and unpleasant, is a necessary evil. It just is. Sometimes you just have to let it out lest it consume you from the inside out.

For the most part I quietly deal with the intense displeasure I have for this whole process because it's just what needs to be done and whining about it won't change a thing, but for the record I hate this with an all-consuming passion. I hate the intrusion into our lives, I hate the way it all makes me feel, I hate the way I act and react when I'm in the throws of drug-inducted hell and I hate the lost innocence.

Oh I hate that so much.

I miss the days when I didn't have to discuss the intricacies of every cycle with nurses, doctors, ultrasound techs and phlebotomists. I miss the days when that was the farthest thing from my reality.

I miss when it was just My Beloved and I who knew what was going on. I miss being able to have the intimacy of that shared secret. I miss waiting and wondering and having only HIM know why.

I realize if I'd stop talking about it here I could probably get back some of that privacy, but it just feels too late for some reason. Even if I shut up right now there would still be questioning looks and prying questions from people I know mean well.

And you know what? There would be even if I'd never talked about it at all here. After two years, there would be a LOT of questions, curious looks, whispers and speculation.

I. Just. Want. Another. Baby. For God's SAKE, why is this so hard???

Things I've noticed the past few days...

If you dream about forgetting the forms you're supposed to take to your pre-op physical with you, you'll probably forget them in real life too.
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The winter hides a lot of things. When the warm spring weather lures people out of their houses and out of the protective cloak of their winter coats, you see pregnant tummies that weren't there in the fall.

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If you're going in for exploratory surgery to determine why you are suddenly mysteriously unable to conceive when it was once relatively easy for you, it will appear as though people are getting pregnant or having babies all around you.

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When a guy you had a huge crush on once upon a time has his second child - a boy - on the anniversary of the day your dead baby was due two years ago, it will feel very much like the gods are laughing at you. And heartily so.

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Having your OB approve your request for a little hit of pre-surgery Valium will relax you almost as much as popping one of the blessed little things.

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Even though the idea of surgery is terrifying, the thought of not being able to eat after midnight the day before (when your surgery is scheduled for after lunch) is kind of disturbing too.

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For some reason bringing a bottle of pee back from the doctor's office washroom through a waiting room of bored, gawking patients is somehow almost as embarrassing as dropping your pants and peeing right in front of them.

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When you're feeling fragile and really need to be treated with kindness and a modicum of respect by an otherwise brusk and busy nurse, dropping the dead baby story into conversation really works.

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Realizing you've forgotten your pre-op physical forms when you're more than half-way to your doctor's office, racing back home to get them and arriving for your appointment 10 minutes late will miraculously result in your blood pressure being the lowest it's ever been.

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Finding out that your blood pressure is the lowest it's ever been when you're as freaked out as you've been in a very long time will make you worry that the nurse, distracted by your tale of woe, has somehow taken the reading incorrectly. It will take the reassurance of an exasperated husband to quell your fears.

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Sometimes pretending you're not afraid fools even you.

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Finding a nearby linen outlet that sells really nice pillowcases for $1.50 each feels a little like winning the lottery. Especially when you're very close to having to admit that you're pushing 40.

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Writing down "pushing 40" in reference to yourself when you're two days away from exploratory surgery to determine why you have secondary infertility is a stupid, stupid idea.