Jun
30
GAH. What a broken record I have become. Sounding off constantly about not being pregnant, about infertility, about money, about frustration. I am sick of listening to myself. Although, fortunately for those around me, it’s mostly all inside my head.
We’ve got the money now to go through IVF. It’s not long, a month or two. And yet, the waiting is still making me crazy. I know all it takes is patience. But it’s so hard to come by these days after all this hassle and waiting and trying and disappointment. It’s so hard to wait. I get so frustrated and upset when all these people around me are getting pregnant and I am still waiting. Women are having babies and I am still waiting. Trying to be happy for everyone else while I am still waiting. Explaining again and again to people about the infertility treatment process while I am still waiting. It’s hard.
I try not to complain to people anymore. My poor husband gets the worst of it, of course, and he has his own frustrations and impatience too. But people are tired of hearing about it. They were a year ago. So I try not to talk about it to people anymore. It is isolating, but it preserves the relationships I DO have. And mostly, I’m okay with it. It’s just every now and again, it gets to me. I see people walking their new baby and the neighbours cooing over the child, and it kicks me in the stomach. People I was on the trying-to-conceive journey with are getting pregnant in droves and it kicks again. People I know will be abysmal, irresponsible, undeserving parents are having babies, and it kicks once more. I think about the baby that could have been and it kicks, hard. It just reinforces the isolation and the unfairness of it all.
But most of the time, it’s okay. My friends have been so supportive through all this, and that has been really good. During the times I do need to vent, they are always there. Blogging has been helpful too. I have always written when I need to get something out of my system; before, it was in a journal, and now, it’s blogging. I used to post in a forum with other people about trying to conceive, but over the last year I just have not felt like I fit in anymore. Too much talk of cervical mucus and examining your cervix and charting and acronyms — stuff that is long since not applicable to me. Some people are just obsessive, and that makes me uncomfortable. And there’s this thing about trying to conceive — this alpha-female vibe about who’s got the most pain — that certain women just grabbed onto, and I wasn’t comfortable anymore. When did it become a competition? I guess when it comes right down to it, the people there have their own struggles and mine just don’t relate to theirs anymore. So I keep it to myself for the most part. But the friends and the blogging help with the patience.
I’ve never been a patient person. I am as impatient a person as you can find. I know when I think about it logically that this process takes patience. I understand when my case nurse tells us that we need to be patient that it is true. I realize that we need to take it month to month, and that requires waiting. I know there are women out there who have had babies in their 40s and been healthy and happy and fine — mostly celebrities, certainly few in my own circle of friends — but that it does happen. I’ll only be a circus freak for a little while, and then I’ll hopefully blend in with other mothers and children and not be an aberration, an anomaly, a joke. I know all that.
But waiting until I no longer have to wait any more is the (second-)hardest thing I have ever done.
Jun
22
I have been blessed to have this time off work. I was good at what I did — too good, and so I was usually the workhorse of every team I worked with. I kind of liked it that way, because I enjoy the role of “go-to girl”. I set policy, I determined workflow, I set standards. But it was exhausting and stressful, and towards the end, not terribly rewarding and completely demoralizing. So this time off has been a blessing. I am happier than I have been in years. I am feeling the coiled spring of my psyche start to relax. I am starting to feel some self-worth and fulfillment again. I am beginning to like me again.
In my 15 years on the fast track, there were so many things that I had forgotten made me so happy. It’s probably because I did not have the time or the mental “space” to enjoy and appreciate them. So I am taking moments of each day and remembering just how wonderful they can be.
I never realized how much I enjoyed silence. That was the first thing I noticed when I was off work. The silence of my house mid-day, the quiet of my neighbourhood in the morning, the wind in the trees in the conservation area behind the house, have all been delicious and calming. There’s such peace here for me. No phones ringing, no stupid people hanging over my desk, no need to talk to anyone if I don’t want to… it’s been so calming. Just now, sitting on my porch, it is quiet enough to hear the flap of a robin’s wings as it lands on the lawn 10 feet in front of me, the swish of the grass as he hops around looking for food. The only quiet more delicious than this is at the cottage, mid-week, when there’s no one around for miles.
I am also enjoying my time as a “housewife”. It is so foreign to me — my mom was dead, my dad was never home. And growing up, doing things around the house was a chore, an obligation, a punishment. Now, it’s quite different. Yes, it is still work, but it’s often joyous work. I still have routines and tasks and lists like I did when I was working, but completing these tasks and jobs are so much more fulfilling. I can enjoy the fruits of my labour, instead of handing it off to endless criticism and underappreciation. My husband gets to come home to a healthy meal instead of the eating out we did because we were too tired to cook. He can relax in the evening or on weekends, or putter around, or tackle jobs that have been sitting for months and years because we had no time or energy, knowing that the house is clean and the laundry is done and the groceries are bought for the week. My house is (for the most part) clean — with much thanks to my husband, who has tackles some pretty heavy jobs recently. I get to cook every day. I often get to bake. I garden. I paint. I take so much pleasure in a clean bathroom, dishes always done, fresh sheets on the bed. Things I never really had time or energy for before.
My morning walk has also been such a positive time for me. A few mornings a week, I drag my sorry butt out of bed, I put on my headphones and go. Sometimes BDH comes along, and sometimes I am alone. I get absorbed in the music, whatever it is, and put my legs on autopilot for an hour. I don’t think of anything, really. Thoughts come and go and it’s really relaxing. I look at gardens. I see people’s cats in windows. I enjoy breezes and smells and colours. And the workout has brought my weight down to pre-fertility treatment levels, before the drugs made me blow up like the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man. I have energy and feel fit (and apart from the new probable stress fracture in my foot, I hurt less than I have in awhile). I appreciate mornings again. And it helps me keep some structure in my day.
The smallest things make me happy now. I love the smell of my flowers when the breeze blows. I watch the birds play and peek out of the eavestroughs and hop around in the garden. I am writing a little bit again, trying to get that feel for words and language and turns of phrase back again. I could spend hours sitting in the back watching the deer just do their thing — which is NOT the Charleston, as Kelly would have you believe 
. I plant flowers in the planters on the porch while my husband works on his laptop and we enjoy the evening sun and the beautiful weather. I see rabbits in the grass in the early mornings. I read the posts of my friends online, and I marvel at their kindnesses to me in recent weeks. I listen to Kerrigan burble on about Teletubbies and blow kisses on the phone. I try a new recipe, something that ends up being really tasty. I sit and read with my husband in the evening.
I feel peace and contentment for the first time in years.
Jun
3
I have not blogged in a long time. I haven’t felt like it. Sorry. Life gets in the way, and I haven’t felt like it.
The last few weeks have been busy. What with Penn State and the end of volleyball season, and my failing fertility, it has been nuts. I have not wanted to blog because I have not been able to make sense of the mess in my head enough to put pen to paper — or in this case, fingers to keyboard.
Recently, I have come to a crossroads. Inertia is killing me. I need to get moving. Not just physically, although dotGod knows, I am in definite need of a run or three hundred. But I am also in need of motion emotionally, spiritually, mentally. I am stuck. I am in a rut. I am paralysed. And so, I have got to make some decisions, or I will go mad.
I have been sitting here, waiting on my body to do something to help us on our way to having a child. I have very carefully and faithfully followed four courses of IUI. And my body has failed me. No baby. And now, the money has run out. We had actually believed that it would work, and being off work, it was the perfect time to devote my time and energy to this. Well, it failed. I failed. And I do not have a job, and money is tight. So for the last few weeks, I have been dealing with the death of our dream of children.
For you see, when you are infertile, if you have no money, you have no dreams. You can no longer afford them. It will cost us $10,000 to do one cycle — ONE CYCLE — of IVF. Which is actually fine, because after I turn 40, they will not allow me into the program anyway. And I turn 40 in 6 months. And to adopt an infant, domestically or internationally, the costs start at $10,000. If I went to China, well then, it would be about $25,000. Either way, we cannot afford to have more debt, even if it is just $10,000 more. When you are drowning in debt, what’s another $10,000 more, you say? Well, if I am not working, we haven’t got enough money to pay it back. And by the time I find a job, I may be out of time anyway. So the way is beginning to look a bit clearer.
So I asked the Big Damn Hero, can we please talk about it. I need to make a decision. I cannot sit in limbo anymore. If we cannot have children, so be it. But I need to have a decision made, so I can begin to deal with it. I need to cry for a few weeks and then be done with it. Move on. I can deal with the knowledge that I will not have children, that old age will be a lonely time, that I will die alone, if I can just decide and get the grieving process over with. And so, I asked him can we please make a decision.
He is not prepared to give up hope. He is younger than I am. Despite all medical evidence to the contrary, he still thinks we could magically conceive naturally. He is sweet in his innocence. He’s still got some hope, some idealism. He has not been dealing with the pain as long as I have, since it has only just recently begun to sink in for him. He’s only just recently discovered the hurt and the anger and the unfairness of it all. But we talked, and we agreed that we cannot afford the costs of trying any further to have our own child, nor can we afford to adopt.
So, good. So we will be a childless couple. I can begin to wrap my head around this. I can cry and grieve and try to piece together an existence without children. I CAN do it. I just needed a place to start. I just needed some sort of firm decision. I need to start living outside this bubble of infertility again, or I will die.
And then, I got approved for unemployment benefits yesterday. It means $400 a week until next April. And now my idealist husband thinks we can afford to scrape through IVF. So sweet, so hopeful, he is.
And I am paralysed again.
