broken

I woke up this morning after having a bad dream that the clinic hadn't actually put my embryos in culture but had transferred them by mistake into someone else. I opened my eyes to see my son in front of me holding his precious balloon from the party in his hand. It had had flown out of his hands and been thrashed to bits by the ceiling fan, and his face looked every bit as sad and broken as I felt. "Can I plea ea ea ease have another one?" he sobbed. I held him in my arms and said "Of course."

Since Saturday that's all I've wanted. Another chance. All Sunday morning I ran about cleaning in a fog of misery. I threw out the trash that had the pregnancy tests and estrogen patches and cried inside. I took AK's cradle out of the parlor and put it, with baby doll X, back into her room and tried not to look at it lying there in the little outfit I had bought...hoping I would get to use it, and I cried inside. I put piles of flotsam and jetsam in the back room and tried not to look around and imagine it as the nursery, and failed, and cried some more...inside. When the party started it was like opposite day for me. Where I used to walk around with a hidden bubble of happiness and hope, I instead walked around with a bubble of sadness in my gut. I would be having a great time and then suddenly 'pop' something inside would break a little and I would feel broken and said, while still trying to smile.

Today I felt better, most of the time, but every once in a while a feeling sort of like squirrels running around in my gut came out of nowhere. All I could think was "I am so unhappy...what can I do what can I do what can I do?" but I had no answers. Then my husband came home so I could take AK to her annual well visit, and the clinic called. My husband answered the phone and handed it to me...and the embryos didn't make it to freeze. I felt like a giant hole had opened up at my feet. The nurse was asking me if I planned to try another cycle, or if it was just a "use up the embryos kind of thing" and my husband kept shaking his head NO NO NO. I mumbled something about talking it over and hung up the phone. I made it through the doctor's visit, AK was a great, and through taking the kids through the balloon store, but all the way home my heart kept dropping. I couldn't look at my husband, I couldn't open my mouth. I didn't want to start crying.

I made it upstairs. I blocked the bedroom door. And I haven't stopped crying since. I can see the picture of my embryos in my mind. They look so beautiful, the cells like perfect soap bubbles...popping one by one. And I just want someone to tell me I can get another one. Is that too much to ask? I guess it is.