I need to have some hope. I need something to look forward to. It is hard for me right now because I am a do-er person. I don't sit around and hope for things to happen. When I feel stuck (and boy do I feel stuck right now) I look around for something I can do about it. Which is how I got into this mess in the first place. Since there is nothing I can do about my current situation, I have decided to look back. There were so many times I have been down-in-the-ditch-low with seemingly no way out...and yet I'm here. I'm not in that ditch anymore. I may be in an equally nasty ditch of my own making, but if I made it out then, I can make it out now.
January of 2003 was a nasty spot. We had been ttc for 3 years, and had been undergoing ART for one of them. 2002 had been a whirlwind of doctors, tests, piles of medications...but only two actual cycles attempted. After the second cycle failed, a FET, my RE told us that he would not go forward and pursue any more treatments until I had my nasty fibroid removed. The only thing was that the fibroid was of a sort that had many tentacles reaching outward. There was a good chance that I would lose my uterus from blood loss. There was also a chance that it was cancerous because it was growing so fast. I wouldn't be able to go through the surgery until May, and then there would be months of recovery after that...if I had a uterus. I was already 33 years old. I didn't want to wait anymore. I didn't want to have surgery. I was a mess. But here I am now! I've still got my uterus, and it still works. I lost my job, I spent a whole summer pretty much an invalid, but it was worth it. I can say that now with my 20/20 hindsight.
January 2005 was equally depressing. After finally being allowed to do another round of ART, I was finally pregnant. But it was short lived, and I ended up using cytotec to end the pregnancy after 8 weeks because there was no heartbeat. I was terrified because I thought that the surgery had rendered my uterus totally inhospitable. We had some embryos frozen in storage, but I was afraid to try again. I began looking at our state's foster care website, and I began to have hope again...even if it wasn't the road to parenthood I'd been expecting. We had awesome insurance which paid for a limitless amount of cycles...and we had embryos in storage. We couldn't pursue adoption while leaving that chance up in the air, so in March we did a Hail Mary FET. It was both frightening and depressing, there wasn't much hope or happiness in it. But needless to say, it worked. By the end of 2005 our twins were born safe and healthy, and after 6 years I considered our TTC journey DONE. I was wrong, of course, but at least the hardest parts of the road were behind me.
There have been many other hard things than infertility to deal with along the way. Trying to buy a home comes to mind...it was really tough both times. Looking around at my house now I still can't believe it that we could afford this place. (I won't talk about all the frightening possible paranormal activity, or the mice, which are annoying but at least cute). And I haven't mentioned January of 2006, in which I was totally, utterly miserable from PPD with a dash of PTSD thrown in for seasoning.
I am here. I don't know what to do about my current state of unhappiness and helplessness, but this too will pass, and if it works out the way that I wish and hope for, how amazing will that be? Maybe next year I will be able to look back on this time and smile.
Thursday, January 10, 2013
Friday, January 4, 2013
Hey, 2012, don't let the door hit you on the way out!
2012 was not the best year for me. It wasn't the worst, not by a long shot, but it wasn't great. I am glad to see it go!
The Christmas season was a lot of fun here. Aside from the moments of total melancholy on the 19th and the 21st, I was too busy preparing for Christmas, cleaning up after Christmas, preparing for in laws, cleaning up again, having a New Year's party...then cleaning up again. I had offered to have Christmas dinner at our house this year, but I didn't expect my mom to take me up on it. I was very happy she did. Focusing on getting everything I needed done took my mind off of things until Christmas.
I spoiled my kids absolutely rotten. It was the first Christmas I have worked and had my own money to spend since the twins were born 7 years ago. I took absolute delight in choosing gifts I knew they would love. My sister and mother in law also spoiled them, buying all three of them big Christmas gifts for the first time ever. Christmas morning was a crazy delight...and then I had to find a home immediately for three kids worth of stocking stuff and a giant pile of wrapping paper.
By 10:30 I had the turkey on the spit and in front of the fire. (the pictures show a chicken, the turkey looked exactly the same when it was done, only twice as big). The contraption that you see there is called a 'tin kitchen' and it is an 18th century cooking device. It is the best way in the world to cook a turkey, and incredibly easy to boot. We had 14 adults and 4 children for dinner, including ourselves, and it was a bit of a trick making enough table space for everyone. We ended up pressing every table we own in the house into service, including our computer desk and the boys' desk from upstairs.The dinner went amazingly well, but I was exhausted and glad to have the last of our guests leave at almost midnight.
Now the holidays are finally over. I took the last of the decorations off of the tree today. I'm so sad to see it go. I wish I had big plans for 2013. But I am left with a weak resolution to not be so sad. 2012 had some great times. There was my daughter's birthday party and the first day of school.
Halloween and the boys 7th birthday. But the special times make me sad, too. I walked down the street on Halloween looking up at the stars and just wishing that I could stop time. If I could just hold my breathe, would they stay little, just a little bit longer? I'm not sad because I don't appreciate everything I have, but because I am infinitely greedy. I can't get enough. How many more years will my boys let me hold their hands as we trick or treat? How many years will they believe in Santa Claus? I don't know. And I am afraid that I will spend the rest of my life bitterly resenting my husband and never forgiving him for taking my last chance.
I spoiled my kids absolutely rotten. It was the first Christmas I have worked and had my own money to spend since the twins were born 7 years ago. I took absolute delight in choosing gifts I knew they would love. My sister and mother in law also spoiled them, buying all three of them big Christmas gifts for the first time ever. Christmas morning was a crazy delight...and then I had to find a home immediately for three kids worth of stocking stuff and a giant pile of wrapping paper.
By 10:30 I had the turkey on the spit and in front of the fire. (the pictures show a chicken, the turkey looked exactly the same when it was done, only twice as big). The contraption that you see there is called a 'tin kitchen' and it is an 18th century cooking device. It is the best way in the world to cook a turkey, and incredibly easy to boot. We had 14 adults and 4 children for dinner, including ourselves, and it was a bit of a trick making enough table space for everyone. We ended up pressing every table we own in the house into service, including our computer desk and the boys' desk from upstairs.The dinner went amazingly well, but I was exhausted and glad to have the last of our guests leave at almost midnight.
Now the holidays are finally over. I took the last of the decorations off of the tree today. I'm so sad to see it go. I wish I had big plans for 2013. But I am left with a weak resolution to not be so sad. 2012 had some great times. There was my daughter's birthday party and the first day of school.Halloween and the boys 7th birthday. But the special times make me sad, too. I walked down the street on Halloween looking up at the stars and just wishing that I could stop time. If I could just hold my breathe, would they stay little, just a little bit longer? I'm not sad because I don't appreciate everything I have, but because I am infinitely greedy. I can't get enough. How many more years will my boys let me hold their hands as we trick or treat? How many years will they believe in Santa Claus? I don't know. And I am afraid that I will spend the rest of my life bitterly resenting my husband and never forgiving him for taking my last chance.
Friday, December 21, 2012
The End of the World as We Know It
Last year on December 21 I had my first scheduled appointment with my OB. It was supposed to be a happy time, but instead I got to see my doctor's newest most wonderful ultrasound machine giving me a clear image of the bean floating to the bottom of my uterus, it's sack collapsing upon it like a deflated balloon, no heartbeat in sight. It wasn't like it was a surprise or anything. I had started bleeding on the 19th and they showed me the fact that it had no heartbeat then. But I had been hoping, not for a miracle, but that there would be nothing there, so I wouldn't have to schedule a D&C. No such luck.
December 19th started my week at the end of the World. I am no longer the same person. I no longer have the same life. The bean died and it took a part of me with it. All year I have been dreading this time, it's like a twisted alternate Universe Advent, with little chocolates of pain behind doors of razor wire and glass. On the 19th I just broke down and cried, right there at the kitchen table. I didn't even have the decency to go into the bathroom and hide my tears. I sat there and dared my daughter to come in and ask me why I was crying, but she didn't, and I got up and washed my face and carried on. I don't want to carry on. I want to curl up in bed and wake up on Christmas morning and wallow in my children's happiness and love. I don't want to be here for one minute of December 23rd. I don't want to remember, not for one moment, the hard looks on the nurses faces...as if I was having an abortion by choice two days before Christmas. I don't want to think about the elderly nurse asking me if I was still bleeding in her heavy accent, and her telling me that it meant that it was not too late for me to have more children if I was. I don't want to hear them telling me it was not too late to change my mind. Then the icing on the cake, the anesthesiologist asking me the date of my last period, and then inquiring if I could possibly be pregnant? Begging the question, does anyone in a hospital read a fucking chart anymore? Why didn't it say anywhere, this is a miscarriage, handle with care, be kind? Because I need some kindness, here, at the End of the World.
December 19th started my week at the end of the World. I am no longer the same person. I no longer have the same life. The bean died and it took a part of me with it. All year I have been dreading this time, it's like a twisted alternate Universe Advent, with little chocolates of pain behind doors of razor wire and glass. On the 19th I just broke down and cried, right there at the kitchen table. I didn't even have the decency to go into the bathroom and hide my tears. I sat there and dared my daughter to come in and ask me why I was crying, but she didn't, and I got up and washed my face and carried on. I don't want to carry on. I want to curl up in bed and wake up on Christmas morning and wallow in my children's happiness and love. I don't want to be here for one minute of December 23rd. I don't want to remember, not for one moment, the hard looks on the nurses faces...as if I was having an abortion by choice two days before Christmas. I don't want to think about the elderly nurse asking me if I was still bleeding in her heavy accent, and her telling me that it meant that it was not too late for me to have more children if I was. I don't want to hear them telling me it was not too late to change my mind. Then the icing on the cake, the anesthesiologist asking me the date of my last period, and then inquiring if I could possibly be pregnant? Begging the question, does anyone in a hospital read a fucking chart anymore? Why didn't it say anywhere, this is a miscarriage, handle with care, be kind? Because I need some kindness, here, at the End of the World.
Friday, December 14, 2012
Tragedy
On the other side of the state, a gunman walked into an elementary school and murdered 20 children and 6 adults. It is a town much like our town, a school very much like my kids' school. All of my heart, the most important part of my life, goes to that school each day, and I trust that they will come home safe to me. Today, 20 sets of parents and 6 other families had their trust shattered and their hearts torn apart.
My husband and I had our first apartment in Danbury 15 years ago. We lived within minutes of that school. There is a very good chance that people that both my husband and I worked with went to Sandy Hook, and have kids that go there now.
How can this happen? It took over six years to bring our sons into being...the thought that they could be taken away from us in just a minute by a madman with a gun....there are no words. I don't think I could survive it.
All my thoughts and prayers are with the families of the children, teachers, and the brave principal at Sandy Hook. I hope that our Governor and State Board of Education do something, anything, to improve the safety of our schools.
My husband and I had our first apartment in Danbury 15 years ago. We lived within minutes of that school. There is a very good chance that people that both my husband and I worked with went to Sandy Hook, and have kids that go there now.
How can this happen? It took over six years to bring our sons into being...the thought that they could be taken away from us in just a minute by a madman with a gun....there are no words. I don't think I could survive it.
All my thoughts and prayers are with the families of the children, teachers, and the brave principal at Sandy Hook. I hope that our Governor and State Board of Education do something, anything, to improve the safety of our schools.
Monday, November 12, 2012
Today
Today it has been a year since I found out I was pregnant with the bean. In another 4 weeks or so it will have been a year since I lost the bean. Happy times.
I'm no closer to trying again than I was 5 months ago. I feel like I was forced off of the IVF cycle train onto a platform in the middle of nowhere, and no train ever comes. I'm not sure what to do here. Should I jump off the platform and start walking? Wait for a train? Give up and decide that the platform is a great place to hang out indefinitely?
I'm so tired of being angry at my husband. I'm not all the time, but often enough, and rightfully so. He hasn't done anything about finding us a couples counselor or trying to bridge the gap between us. That's not to say that he hasn't been nice, or sweet, or that I haven't tried to do nice things for him and be sweet back. But sometimes I just get so angry. I am also tired of being sad. I don't want to be sad anymore...or hopeful...or to want another baby anymore. But I DO want, and I can't help it, and I can't make myself stop wishing or hoping that things will change.
I know how old my baby would have been. I feel its absence all the time. I missed the little costumed bundle on Halloween. I missed the baby in the backseat today when we visited the aquarium. I miss the crying in the night when I am lying in bed awake.
Kant says that the recipe for happiness is to have something to do, someone to love, and something to hope for. Well...I love my children desperately, but I have nothing much to do except laundry and yard work until I get my job back in the Spring...and as for something to hope for, I don't have much.
Thank You to all of the kind people who have dropped by here during my self enforced exile. Reading about pregnancies and babies is still very painful, but I still read your posts. I'm trying to crawl my way back, and I wish you all the best. I'm going to try to comment more and post more, even though I don't have anything to say.
I'm no closer to trying again than I was 5 months ago. I feel like I was forced off of the IVF cycle train onto a platform in the middle of nowhere, and no train ever comes. I'm not sure what to do here. Should I jump off the platform and start walking? Wait for a train? Give up and decide that the platform is a great place to hang out indefinitely?
I'm so tired of being angry at my husband. I'm not all the time, but often enough, and rightfully so. He hasn't done anything about finding us a couples counselor or trying to bridge the gap between us. That's not to say that he hasn't been nice, or sweet, or that I haven't tried to do nice things for him and be sweet back. But sometimes I just get so angry. I am also tired of being sad. I don't want to be sad anymore...or hopeful...or to want another baby anymore. But I DO want, and I can't help it, and I can't make myself stop wishing or hoping that things will change.
I know how old my baby would have been. I feel its absence all the time. I missed the little costumed bundle on Halloween. I missed the baby in the backseat today when we visited the aquarium. I miss the crying in the night when I am lying in bed awake.
Kant says that the recipe for happiness is to have something to do, someone to love, and something to hope for. Well...I love my children desperately, but I have nothing much to do except laundry and yard work until I get my job back in the Spring...and as for something to hope for, I don't have much.
Thank You to all of the kind people who have dropped by here during my self enforced exile. Reading about pregnancies and babies is still very painful, but I still read your posts. I'm trying to crawl my way back, and I wish you all the best. I'm going to try to comment more and post more, even though I don't have anything to say.
Thursday, May 31, 2012
I wish I had something to say. I keep coming back to my blog as if I'm hoping that some happy entry will appear, just like when I'm reading other people's blogs. But alas, no happy blogger gnomes have written any posts about my life. Oh dang it.
I do have good news. I got a job. It is actually in my field, the pay is better than minimum wage, and the commute can't be beat..all I have to do is walk out my front door and cross the street. At any other time I would be floating on cloud nine. One of the reasons I was so excited to move here was because there was a museum across the street and I was hoping that I could get my career back on track. I am so sad that an opportunity that at any other time would seem heaven sent just tastes like ashes in my mouth. I am just so struck low. I am happy for no one, I envy everyone, I hope for nothing.
I spent a good two hours pouring through a box of papers looking for my birth certificate and social security card. What I found instead were baby shower cards, newborn photos of my twins, ultrasound pictures, mothers day cards, love notes from my husband, and so many cards and letters from him telling me "we will get through this, we will have children." I envy myself most of all. Why can't I remember all these happy moments better than I do? Why does it seem like it has all happened to someone else? I walk around during a normal day and a sudden jolt will hit me out of the blue. It feels like the sudden panic that you get when you are in a taxi and you realize that your purse with all of your money and your passport is still hanging over the back of the chair in the restaurant, or maybe the one when you get off the elevator in the parking garage and there is only a glass on the ground where your car is supposed to be. I keep hoping for the relief when I look down at my feet and see my purse has been there all along, or that I took the wrong elevator and my car is safe and sound across the lot. But the relief never comes. I feel so helpless to do anything to make that feeling go away. And my husband has been so incredibly....nice! I can't stand it. Why can't he at least be a jerk so I can hate his guts? He's a nice guy. He WANTS to be the nice guy. Except that nothing about what he did was nice. He stole my purse, he stole my car, he knocked me down. He dangled hope in front of me and then he snatched it away.
I was so lucky to be able to vacation on the most wonderful island you can imagine. All I have ever wanted since I left was to go back. I know that there are so many others who have never been there even once...but I was so close.
I do have good news. I got a job. It is actually in my field, the pay is better than minimum wage, and the commute can't be beat..all I have to do is walk out my front door and cross the street. At any other time I would be floating on cloud nine. One of the reasons I was so excited to move here was because there was a museum across the street and I was hoping that I could get my career back on track. I am so sad that an opportunity that at any other time would seem heaven sent just tastes like ashes in my mouth. I am just so struck low. I am happy for no one, I envy everyone, I hope for nothing.
I spent a good two hours pouring through a box of papers looking for my birth certificate and social security card. What I found instead were baby shower cards, newborn photos of my twins, ultrasound pictures, mothers day cards, love notes from my husband, and so many cards and letters from him telling me "we will get through this, we will have children." I envy myself most of all. Why can't I remember all these happy moments better than I do? Why does it seem like it has all happened to someone else? I walk around during a normal day and a sudden jolt will hit me out of the blue. It feels like the sudden panic that you get when you are in a taxi and you realize that your purse with all of your money and your passport is still hanging over the back of the chair in the restaurant, or maybe the one when you get off the elevator in the parking garage and there is only a glass on the ground where your car is supposed to be. I keep hoping for the relief when I look down at my feet and see my purse has been there all along, or that I took the wrong elevator and my car is safe and sound across the lot. But the relief never comes. I feel so helpless to do anything to make that feeling go away. And my husband has been so incredibly....nice! I can't stand it. Why can't he at least be a jerk so I can hate his guts? He's a nice guy. He WANTS to be the nice guy. Except that nothing about what he did was nice. He stole my purse, he stole my car, he knocked me down. He dangled hope in front of me and then he snatched it away.
I was so lucky to be able to vacation on the most wonderful island you can imagine. All I have ever wanted since I left was to go back. I know that there are so many others who have never been there even once...but I was so close.
Monday, May 14, 2012
Mother's Day
I'm still here. Limping along.
Mother's day was about what I expected. I loved waking up to my kids piling on top of me with the cards they had made and purchased. Both of my boys had cute crafty things they had made at school, which are worth their weight in gold. I was always totally skeptical of my mother's teary-eyed joy when I would give her my handmade cards and gifts, but now I know she wasn't lying. They are truly priceless.
The rest of my weekend pretty much sucked off and on. Friday I found out that my daughter got into the pre school program. I thought I would be happy with the news, but it made me weepy on Friday and I have been fighting a downward funk ever since. I was supposed to be having a baby in July. AK going to school for almost 3 hours a day was going to be the time I could spend alone with the baby, as well as giving AK time to socialize and prepare for kindergarten. I keep thinking I should be happy, that I should be looking forward to a chunk of time without any children around, but I'm not. The silence of having the house all to myself is the last thing I want. It's not like there isn't a thousand things I could find to occupy my time for 2 hours and 45 minutes...it's just that I probably won't want to do a single one of them.
I truly don't know what to do or where to go from here. If I had transferred embryos and gotten a BFN, I would be where I am now, grieving and struggling. That's fine. Well, it's not FINE, but it is what it is. I was prepared for the giant tidal wave of loss-on-top of loss-on top of this-is-the-very-end that I'm drowning in. But, now I have the never ending suck of not knowing how to deal with my husband. I just don't know what to do. I guess it's like how two people stumble around each other after one of them has had an affair, when neither one of them wants to give up on the marriage and leave. Except that is something my husband would understand, my reaction to this he thinks is "childish"...any day now I should just get over it and everything will get back to normal. What he doesn't realize is that right now he could toss a woman on the floor in front of me and go all '50 shades of grey' on her ass and I wouldn't even care. I'm that numb inside. If it wasn't for our kids I would probably have changed the locks weeks ago.
Mother's day was about what I expected. I loved waking up to my kids piling on top of me with the cards they had made and purchased. Both of my boys had cute crafty things they had made at school, which are worth their weight in gold. I was always totally skeptical of my mother's teary-eyed joy when I would give her my handmade cards and gifts, but now I know she wasn't lying. They are truly priceless.
The rest of my weekend pretty much sucked off and on. Friday I found out that my daughter got into the pre school program. I thought I would be happy with the news, but it made me weepy on Friday and I have been fighting a downward funk ever since. I was supposed to be having a baby in July. AK going to school for almost 3 hours a day was going to be the time I could spend alone with the baby, as well as giving AK time to socialize and prepare for kindergarten. I keep thinking I should be happy, that I should be looking forward to a chunk of time without any children around, but I'm not. The silence of having the house all to myself is the last thing I want. It's not like there isn't a thousand things I could find to occupy my time for 2 hours and 45 minutes...it's just that I probably won't want to do a single one of them.
I truly don't know what to do or where to go from here. If I had transferred embryos and gotten a BFN, I would be where I am now, grieving and struggling. That's fine. Well, it's not FINE, but it is what it is. I was prepared for the giant tidal wave of loss-on-top of loss-on top of this-is-the-very-end that I'm drowning in. But, now I have the never ending suck of not knowing how to deal with my husband. I just don't know what to do. I guess it's like how two people stumble around each other after one of them has had an affair, when neither one of them wants to give up on the marriage and leave. Except that is something my husband would understand, my reaction to this he thinks is "childish"...any day now I should just get over it and everything will get back to normal. What he doesn't realize is that right now he could toss a woman on the floor in front of me and go all '50 shades of grey' on her ass and I wouldn't even care. I'm that numb inside. If it wasn't for our kids I would probably have changed the locks weeks ago.
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