Dammit

I just got pink on the tissue after my bathroom break.  AF is technically due any day.  Tomorrow is the blood test to be sure, but this can’t be good.  I have to go to the set and I really don’t want to be around any of these people.  I’m talking to someone and bailing for tonight, I’m sick of babysitting these idiots.  I just want to be in a dark room.  I just want to be alone with MrBeep.  Fuck. 

Feeling nervous and vulnerable

I’m going crazy.  I finally got a morning off from the madness of the film shooting and production problem solving and I lost it.  I woke up this morning so nervous about the results.  My symptoms are few.  Breasts are only slightly tender, with the feeling of heavyness and pressure – but that may be the prometrium.  Nipples are alternately completely normal and then sticking out like gumdrops, sensitive like crazy. 

What. The. Hell.

After you have had a couple of uterine surgeries your mind can hone in on the feeling of your uterus inside your body and mine seems different, weighty, achy, more crampy on 2dp5dt and 3dp5dt and a little wiggly and crampy afterward…but hell that could be the prometrium, PMS, bad craft services food chowed down at 2am while you wait the next camera/lighting setup.  Whothehellknows.

Filming is exciting, frustrating, chaotic, maddening.  In addition to being the producer, I am also the assistant editor, so I have been capturing the daily footage onto my quad-core mac.  It looks great.  The direction is awesome, the lighting and camera superb, the actors sublime.  You can get updates and become a fan on face.book.  Send me an email ifoptimist-at-gmail and I can give you the link.  I think you’ll be able to figure out which one of the fans is me.  There are other aspects of being a first-time producer that are too stressful and these creative types along some flakiness and poor communication skills are driving me crazy.  These people are not like IT computer geeks.  There is too much that feels like herding cats.  Am I complaining?  Are you ready to bitch-slap me?  I should shut the hell up.

I have had some good questions on comments I’d like to address here. 

How old are you? 
I am 40.  I will be 41 in December.  It is a shitty and scary place to be for IF’ers.  Kind of the last chance saloon before the statistics really beat you emotionally into a bloody pulp.

When is beta day? 
It was going to be Friday, but I pushed it to Saturday.  We have no filming that day and I want to be alone with MrBeep no matter what the news.

Are you going to POAS? 
I was going to do it today and then dug around my cupboards and had no peesticks.  I thought about buying one to know early for sure, but we decided to just wait for the bloodtest.  It is more sensitive and I can’t play that hope/no hope game.

Did any others make it to freeze?
I actually don’t know this.  I have been playing phone tag with the RE nurse for days (my fault).  I suspect it is bad news since they didn’t just leave a message with the number, but who knows what their standard operating procedure is for these things.

While I have every reason to be hopeful, I still think I am due for a long road of heartache.  I just can’t believe I will be one of the lucky ones.  I don’t know if it is a coping mechanism or what.  The Ache and The Empty overpowered me today and I had to talk to MrBeep.  I am so nervous and vulnerable.  I don’t want to give up on hope.  I want to have a happy ending.  I want my share of magic too.  I’ve got 3 more days to go.  I need to calm down.  I can make it.  Thanks for your support.  I love you all.  BIG BREATH.  **Whew**

Patience, reflection and time – Part 4

Cycle Update: I’ve had my period and baseline u/s. 15 follicles on one side and about 8 on the other. DocO put me on BCP (for 9 days).  Today is cycle day 7. I have 5 more pills to go before the next monitoring appointment. If all goes well, then I’ll start IVF #2 officially in a week or so.
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I had planned an evening out with friends weeks in advance. I couldn’t easily cancel. One of those friends I introduced to M and they have become friends (she learned of M’s pregnancy two weeks earlier). If I lost it and started crying, I knew she would tell M all about it. I was panicked. This was great stress and the reason why I needed to work through my feelings before I was out in public again. I had to keep myself together but people would be on my doorstep in 3 hours. 

When I finished my glass of scotch, I did not got back for more. Instead, I picked up the phone. I needed to talk to someone who loved me, who would listen and not judge, let me vent and perhaps offer a different perspective.  MrBeep was not available, and also he is a guy and doesn’t always appreciate the need to just talk it out. I called my friend Lindsay, just to talk for a few minutes.  I didn’t get out more than a few words, something about it being a bad day when the wave finally hit, the flood came and I broke down. “Can you come over?” I said, my voice cracking, the tears beginning to pour out of me. “I’m leaving now. I’ll be there in 10 minutes,” she said. What felt like a heartbeat later, she was there and sat in the garden next to me, held my hand, comforted me.  She listened with patience and offered empathy.  She let me cry and rage. 

When people arrived to pick me up, I was cried out, my rage gone.  The Ache and The Empty were still ghosts in the back of my mind, but they would not overwhelm me.  I went out in public that evening, and was asked by MrBeep at the table full of people about my day with M.  I told him her news. My smile was genuine, my happiness for her true and no tears came to my eyes. 

It is because of Lindsay’s kindness and offer to listen that I got through the day. Being comforted with her and by spending time with myself -- in quiet contemplation that day and for the next few days -- I have come back to a place that is ME. 

Now on to a comments…

Part 1:  I wish I could respond to each and every comment, but it would make this post so much longer than it already is.  Know that if I didn’t mention you directly, I love and really appreciate all of your heartfelt sympathy and warmth. I gratefully accepted your hugs and love. I needed them.

Beautiful Mess said “I hope your friend understand that you are not mad at HER, just sad about your situation.”  Absolutely right.  Some people think that strong feelings are directed toward them rather than just being strong, and hard.  I consciously chose not to direct my feelings at her.  I think she knew this.  I hope she realized and appreciated it.

Meinsideout said, “I get really angry about how IF, loss and all that we have to go through really isolates us. I am sorry that you feel alone sometimes.”  It is a very difficult thing to feel alone while surrounded by people. If I didn’t have you wonderful YOU, I wouldn’t just feel sorry for myself and FEEL ALONE sometimes, I would actually BE ALONE.  That is a scary and dark place.  I hope that anyone who is feeling sad and depressed about infertility can find us, even if they are not a blogger, just joining in on reading and commenting can help. It is why I love the ALI community. 

Darkblack said, “Understanding is not the right word. That's the problem. Our friends and family mean to say that they empathize with our situation, which is fair. Others may not have gone through what you have, but everyone has felt heartbreak, loneliness, helplessness, and pain. They may not understand the journey, but they can empathize with where you are at. Heartbreak is universal, the cause is secondary. I think we can take our friends and family at their word, they do understand on a fundamentally human level.”  He is absolutely right. It is largely the reason why I held fast to my patience. She was reaching out and happened to use the wrong word and I broke down, to a certain degree I failed her. My difficulty wasn’t just WHAT she said, but WHERE and HOW she said it.  She was in a no-win situation and I was so overcome with the sense that my friend had no regard for my feelings, no consideration for my situation. I felt ambushed. Like Sprogblogger said in her comment, “sometimes - a lot of the time these days, it seems - there just isn't anything that anyone can say that I want to hear. No matter how well-intentioned.”  She is absolutely right too.  This is was makes it difficult, that both sides of the same debate are equally correct and true.

Part 2:  It was difficult to understand the feelings I was going through until I gave them names, The Ache and The Empty.

One who understands said, “I think one of the hardest things for me to get people to understand is that I do hope, but I have to be realistic. Happy endings are great, but they are not a guarantee. Sometimes all we need is for people to get that it is hard. It is really stinkin hard.”   YES!  You my dear, are wise beyond your years. It is always a balance of Hope and Optimism vs. Reality.  If you don’t achieve that balance as much as you can, you will walk away from this battle truly scarred beyond recognition.  You also have to recognize when you’ve hit the wall and it’s time to change your outlook and maybe your dreams.

On the same vein, Sunny wrote, “Your dear friend, who is no doubt a lovely person if she's your friend, obviously doesn't even have a hint of insight into the rollercoaster of IF -- the need to be hopeful but CAUTIOUS and REALISTIC. That is a good thing for her. I wouldn't wish the heartache on anyone.”  Thank you Sunny for your nice comment on my friend. She is, like you, a wonderful person.  I was nodding my head while reading the comments and saying Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes.  The perfect words. Cautious. Realistic.

K commented, “I GET your emotion and pain. I get it when I read it. I feel it. It makes me cry too and I don't know M or really you, either...sort of.”  I know you get it, K.  I’m so sorry that any of you have to know this and  I’m sorry that telling my story has stirred up many old wounds and pain.

Wiseguy expressed, “But I would have been equally shocked to find somebody I am extremely intimate with to suddenly come out and tell me that they are expecting...and not at six weeks, but almost shy of giving birth.”  Yes. Exactly. I realized afterwards that I had seen her twice during the time she knew she was pregnant. I dropped everything and spent a day with her when she found out one of her dogs has terminal cancer. I held her while she cried and comforted her…she never said anything to me (she was probably at 12-14 weeks).  I’m not sure how my heart feels about this.

Clare wrote, “She doesn't get it and she won't. It was an intense day for you - the way she revealed her pregnancy to you was quite an ambush, usually when people tell you they're pg you can't see anything, it's not so in your face but at 7 months - there was no escaping it at any point in the day.
You must have felt totally drained when you got home. But i understand the support you feel from the ALI community, without this, I hate to think what emotional wreck I'd be by now.”  See?  I knew you, my bloggidy friends, would understand it all.  You use all the right words, expressed all of my emotions and even knew exactly where I was at the end of the day because you all have BEEN THERE.  No matter what age, not matter what continent, you GET IT and that comforts me.

mekate offered a wholly different perspective, “and she is right too-- we lose site of the magic. We lose sight of it in the flood of other crapola, the stats, our experiences, our rises and falls, but the magic, it really is there. I have to believe it. I have to.” This comment floated with me for days until I realized and accepted that both M and mekate are Absolutely Right, I did lose sight of the magic. You DO have to believe in that magic to truly keep hope in your heart.  The next line, “It will not necessarily be *my* magic, and that perhaps is one of the hardest things to deal with.” broke my heart because I get that too.  There is so much profound truth in that comment.  I am still haunted by it. 

Part 3:  I was actually quite afraid of putting my feelings - the honest, the contemplative, the good, the ugly, the nasty - out to the world to read.  It’s scary to do this, but I felt it necessary.  I have heard so many stories of fertiles and infertiles alike behaving badly when the news of pregnancy appears.  Afterwards there is regret and hurt.  Overall I think I handled it well and wanted to use my pain to help just one person not blow it, no feelings shattered, perhaps a friendship saved. 

Phoebe wrote, “This pretty much sums up the whole gamut of feelings. I think you have managed to summarize all I've been feeling as well! The loss of hope is the worst. How do you move forward when there is no hope? Or how do you have hope when the hopelessness keeps nagging at you? I'd like to think that it comes down to more than hope. I think for me, what it comes down to is love. If it was about hope for me, I think I would give up. The love I have for a child is what keeps moving me forward.”  Thank you to Phoebe, the beautiful phoenix, showing us how to rise from the ashes of despair and fly toward Love and Hope.

Thank you all so much for walking through this ordeal with me.  I am sorry for the length, your time is valuable to me.  The truth is it took me a handful of days to work through it all, but much longer to write about it. I really appreciate you all were so respectful of me and my friend. I didn’t want a bitchfest, filled with vitriol and nastiness, I wanted understanding.  I needed community and I received more than I could have imagined with a full and grateful heart.  Your kind words about my writing truly humble me. Your comments and advice are a solace.  Sending back waves of the same love and hugs you sent to me.  The simple words “Thank You” cannot fully express my gratitude. 

Patience, reflection and time – Part 3

Then I did something I have never done before in my life.  I walked back into the house, poured two fingers of scotch and took it back to the chair in the garden.  Every time The Empty and The Ache boiled up trying to engulf me, I took a sip. It is a scary thing to fully realize what turns some people to drink.  The burning sensation of the scotch matched the feeling in my throat, pushing it back.  I needed to calm down, I needed time to process.  Pick them apart -- The Ache and The Empty.  Dissect each one.  They were so unfamiliar, too overwhelming.

Was I angry?  Angry because yet another person came before me?  Angry for being told this way?  Angry for feeling humiliated and crying in public?  Angry for being locked out of my friend’s life?  Angry for not being trusted?  Angry for being told that I wasn’t hopeful enough?

The honest answer is yes. However none of it was strong enough to cause my reaction, my total shutdown.  Anger was there, but it wasn’t the key.

How about Guilt?  Did I feel guilty because I didn’t jump up and down and squeal when I heard her great news?  Guilty because I didn’t tell her sooner how my IVF went?  Guilty because I didn’t push going to the RE sooner?  Guilty because I waited for surgery?  Guilty because I didn’t reveal MY true feelings to save HERS?

I have some guilt, but it’s mostly internal things about what I COULDA SHOULDA done to move things along quicker when I was younger.  But even these arguments break down because the time I waited gave extra time to MrBeep to fully come on board and really want a family with me.  I would rather have his extraordinary 100% support at 37, 38, 39, 40 than have 30% at 35.  So no.  The big empty ache was not guilt.

Shame?   Shame about my situation?  Shame over my reaction?  Shame at feeling this way and not keeping my shit under control? 

I do feel ashamed sometimes.  A bit.  I’m 40, maybe I’m too old to be a good mom.  I never wanted to be some tired old hag.  And there are children starving in remote countries while I am shelling out a fortune that could be feeding them instead.  But we all know the truth is you can’t take the whole weight of the world on your shoulders along with IF.  I have to finish working on this, my heart’s desire before I can give my heart to another cause.  I think overall I reacted well.  I am very, very happy for her – said so, acted so.  The truth is I was very worried she would realize how much she wanted a family when it was too late for her.  She is 39 and for some people it can be tough, if not impossible.  I’m glad she didn’t have any problems conceiving.  Given our earlier conversations, I suspect it took them 1-3 months.  I would never wish the pain, the grief that is infertility on ANYONE.  I was ashamed at being overwhelmed, but I knew it was not the reason for being overwhelmed.

Bitterness?  Oh my god.  Am I bitter?  Have I reached that horrible stage?  Has my heart truly blackened to that degree?

This is a place I fear.  I thought long and hard about this one.  What does bitterness truly feel like?  What precisely is it?  Intense hatred, rancor, resentment.  Feelings of malice and spite so intense as to overcome all of the goodness and joy in my heart.  That is bitterness to me.  I am NOT THAT.  Not now, hopefully not ever.

Jealousy or Envy?  Could I be jealous of my friend?  Have I let my desire to have what I want trump what I feel for another person who I love?  Do I think I deserve it more than her?  Would I have the audacity to believe something like that?

This is an interesting thing to think hard about.  We all say that we are jealous sometimes at a surface level, but if you dig down…are you really?  Does envy mean that you want what they actually have?  Something so strong, if you had the power you would take it away and keep it for yourself? I thought about this and realized…No.  I don’t want what she has.  I don’t want to be Her.  I don’t want Her life.  I don’t want Her husband.  I don’t want Her baby.  I want MY baby, OUR baby.  I want MY life with MY husband to include a family and if it can’t be MINE on MY terms…then I don’t want it at all.  I’m not trying to sound harsh.  I am not speaking for everyone.  I am expressing my own personal truth. 

In my heart, in my head, it has always been impossible for me to be jealous of other pregnant women because babies are not a limited supply item.  We don’t all get to stick our hands in a jar and pull out a marble.  If a girl comes up with a red marble, she gets and baby leaving fewer chances in the jar left for me.  There is no magic being that decides who gets one and who doesn’t.  Anyone’s success in getting pregnant and having a child is completely separate and independent of mine.  I will admit to a feeling of longing, wondering if it will ever happen for me.  That longing is not jealousy or envy and for me it is certainly not The Ache or The Empty.

Fear?  Worry?  Will this ruin my relationship with MrBeep?  What will go wrong next?  How many more months can my sanity take? Will I go through all this only to realize it will NEVER work?  Or that it worked but then having to suffer loss after loss?  When should I give up?  Will I still be here no farther on the journey another year from now?

As I went through the myriad of swirling feelings that accompany fear and worry, admitting just how scared I was to fail in the end, to lose my dream, The Ache started to release it’s strangling grip on my throat.  The fear and worry build up over time, trying to consume.  I want this thing, I do, but I also don’t want it to take away my joy.  I am so scared in the end to live with regret or pain.  I don’t want every friend with a family to avoid me. I don’t want to see families or children and feel a sense of loss each time.  Those tiny little bites will eventually eat away your soul. 

Truth is I can see no way to remove fear from my mind. No magic elixir to make me stop worrying about the future.  All I can do is stand and look fear straight in the eye.  See it for what it is, it’s dark shape, and try my best not to let it steal me away in the night, leaving an empty shell in my place.  I will use them, they will not use me.  I choose to use fear and worry as tools to make smarter choices that either take me to my goal or let me know when it’s clearly time to change the game.  I do not choose to give my life away to fear. I do not choose to be consumed with worry.  With that realization, The Ache faded to something small, still there, but not engulfing me. 

Sorrow?   

The Big Emptiness in my chest was still there as I considered sorrow.  Here was MY truth and I was gripped with an overwhelming sense of sadness.  I thought through it for a long time and finally recognized it’s cause.  It was TIME.  When I looked at M I plainly saw the physical reality of 7 months flash by in a second.  I felt more sorrow from her comments about knowing I was going to be pregnant soon and we would absolutely have our kids play together some day. I had the same conversations with another good friend.  We talked about how wonderful it would be to be pregnant at the same time, have our kids play together, etc.  Her son is now 8 months old.  Add that to her pregnancy and it was over 17 months ago.  I was empty and sad that so much time has flown by.  I have poured out so much of my soul only to have gone no where with less chance of success.  It saddened me more to think another year from now I could be in the same situation, a friend telling me how they knew it would happen for me and how my time was next.  How long must I stay in the recurring nightmare?  I also knew how sad I was to watch every year my statistical chances slipping away.  When I started this at 36, the chances for my clinic/age group for IVF were 49%.  At 38 they slipped to 39%.  At my next birthday (in 4 months) I will be in the group 41-42 where the general population’ chances list at 14%.  Being this age, still in this place is really fucking hard. 

I have heard all the stories from friends of how they knew of a woman who got pregnant at 42, her doctor gave them no chance to get pregnant on their own, etc.  I always tell them, “I know these stories are meant to give me hope, but the TRUTH is you only hear publically the story of the ones that worked.  The ten-people-in-a-hundred.  You don’t hear about the ninety others who wanted the same thing and tried their best but instead endured heartache and problems and sometimes, ultimately the loss of their dreams.  Those people suffer privately.  You don’t get babies because you deserve them or because it makes a good story.  It is largely luck and circumstance and dna.”  I do always end by telling them I appreciate their love, their understanding and all the good thoughts and prayers.  Those mean more than a thousand stories. 

Then it came to me.  My Big Emptiness represented the loss of hope.  I thought through the pain and sorrow.  Was I overcome?  Was I too sad at my prospects?  Was it time to give up?  Hope starts out as a bright shimmering light that slowly, eventually dulls and finally fades until it is gone.  Was it entirely gone?  Sitting in my garden, the wind beginning to blow the wind chimes from our wedding sang to me.  The sound hit my ears and woke me from my contemplation.  I knew I was not done on my path.  I knew I still have reasons to be optimistic, I still want to TRY.  I am not giving up yet.  I choose to SEE HOPE still in my journey.

To be completed in the next post, including my views on your comments - in Part 4.

Patience, reflection and time – Part 2

Thank you all so much for your wonderful comments.  They deserve a post of their own and will  get it in Part 3. This is continued where I left off from my prior post “Patience, reflection and time – Part 1.”  

As I started to cry down in the field, my dear friend M tried to comfort me.  She put her arms around me and held me tight.  She cried too and offered many words of encouragement.  “I know that we were destined to have families together.  Just think about it, we went back to school at the same time, we were laid off from our boring jobs at almost the same time – me first and then you a few months later, and I know you will be right behind me with your family.”  I nodded my head, dried my eyes (swearing to myself I wouldn’t cry that day in public again), put on a smile and said, “We’ll see.  I hope so too, that would make an amusing story to tell, wouldn’t it?”  We continued picking and talking for another thirty minutes.  I turned the conversation back to her, their baby and plans for the house and the future.  Eventually our little buckets were full, the blueberries weighed and paid for, then we headed out for lunch.

While eating lunch we talked about many things.  Eventually, she expressed how worried she was about telling me her news.  I gently admitted it was kind of hard for me to have a good friend who I confided in over the years suddenly show up 7 months along.  I understood why she waited but I thought it would have been easier knowing that she was at least trying.  She seemed slightly annoyed and upset at my confession (sting).  She admitted that they didn’t try for very long (another sting).  Then she started to tell me how I would be pregnant soon anyway and how we were going to have our kids play together, take day trips, go to the zoo, etc. 

I told M I wished she would be right, but I didn’t know.  The odds over the years were starting to creep against me and this was making me terribly afraid.  She became a little frustrated, but smiled anyway and hugged me as she was leaving.  She encouraged me to stop being pessimistic, stop being so scientific, looking at odds and statistics.  I needed to have a little more faith in the magic that it would happen.  She knew because she has a great feeling about this and that I’ll see.  “That’s not quite fair” I told her, “I was very much full of hope in the beginning, but realistic expectations must have a place too.  After a while, if you don’t do that, you will absolutely break down.  The potential lifts you up and every month, then the failure crashes you down.  You have not watched your chances slip as each birthday passes.  You have not walked the years and years in my shoes, on my path.  I appreciate the prayers, good hopes, faith and optimism of all my friends.  Wish very very hard for me.  I do too, but respect also my need to protect my heart.” 

She nodded as she got into her car, but she did not understand, and that’s OK.  She doesn’t need to.  I knew I had a cadre of people who unfortunately do understand.  Who appreciate my situation in a unique way and in that I NEVER feel alone.  If if weren’t for this blog, the ALI community, I wouldn’t have made it through that day with a shred of integrity or grace.  So many of you are my heroes, for your kindness, your perseverance, your intelligence, your wit.

I drove home in utter silence, playing the day over in my mind.  No tears hit my eyes.  All I felt was a load of cotton in my throat and a big ball of empty in my chest.  I needed to be home.  I was tired of being in public.  I wanted the opportunity to process all this in solitude. I finally got home, walked down to my garden, sat right next to my wind chimes and waited for the wave of emotion to crash over me.  The tears to come.  The understanding to begin.

It didn’t crash.  No tears came.  I didn’t understand.

All I felt was The Ache.  The Big Empty.  My throat jammed with cotton, each swallow like razorblades. I sat there, unmoving for two hours, trying to understand what The Ache was.  Exactly how and what I truly felt.  I didn’t know.  I searched my mind, my heart, my soul.  The puzzle didn’t fit. What was this empty, cold feeling in my chest?  Anger? Guilt? Worry?  Shame?  Fear?  Bitterness? Jealously? Sorrow? I truly didn’t know.

continued in Part 3…