Wednesday, May 27, 2015
Half empty, half full
Here again. 3 months down. Once I hit six I officially then have infertility, after a year with two miscarriages. Not likely, but it does happen. I know a woman who had two miscarriages, and after each one got pregnant with a healthy child almost immediately after--the first cycle. She's having her fourth kid. I can't imagine getting that unbelievably lucky that many times. Do people understand how rare, how hard that is, to have a healthy child? How precious? We are feeling sad, and angry, and impatient. I have so many blessings. I would have had a nearly 6 month old by now. I would be 7 months pregnant by now. I miss being pregnant. For those fleeting weeks I was so unbelievably happy. I want that feeling back, even if I lose it again. That hope. That intense love. I think people want me to be over this by now. I'm so not. I want my baby. I want it now. Tonight. I'm doing everything I can, I've found nothing is wrong, it's just not here. Life is good otherwise--if I didn't want a child so much, and have had the year of trying and losing--well I'd still have other griefs, but I would be able to enjoy the goodness more. But I just have to feel this anger, and resentment, and envy, and sadness, and grief, each times it comes until it passes. I love my child so much, the child I want to have. We both do. We're loving it tonight.
Sunday, April 26, 2015
Anniversary of nothing
I'm here for the same reason I was last month. Living life month to month. We've been actively trying to have a baby now for a year and about...let's see...six months? About a year and a half. With each failed pregnancy, we lost several months of being pregnant, then trying to get unpregnant, then waiting a cycle to try again. Since last month we saw an infertility specialist. My regular OB, I'll call her Dr. Keep Trying, didn't refer me--she said since I hadn't yet had three miscarriages, and I'd been able to get pregnant twice in one year, I didn't need to see a specialist--but I wanted to jump the gun and just be sure we had the most up-to-date medical advice. I was glad we saw the specialist, I'll call her Dr. Special. Dr. Special gave us lots of good news. We took every test in the book, and my chromosomes look good, my egg supply (how do they even know that? I don't really get it) looks good, my innards all look good, and my husband checks out too. She had a long conversation with us about testing our kids for their chromosomes because there's some chance they could pass on something or other to our grandkids--a conversation which had me in a panic because it took me a while to realize she was talking about my grandkids, not my kids, who have zero chance of having any problems we tested for--and while I very much appreciated the good news, and the heads-up, I was like, can I please have a live human baby first, before we start worrying about whether or not I'll have healthy grandkids? But I suppose the casual way in which she had the discussion assuming we will one day have children, should be reassuring. A friend of mine started going to Dr. Special's clinic around the same time I did and got very different news. She's now pursuing ART, no more procreative sex for her. My husband and I--I'll call my husband My Favorite Person in the world, or MFP for short--are still told to go about it the usual way, and I suppose it's good news, statistically, for our future chances, that Dr. Special and Dr. Keep Trying both tell us to watch the calendar and hit the sheets. But fuck statistics. Statistics don't matter much when you're on the wrong side of statistics. What were the chances that I'd have two miscarriages in a year? What were the chances of women I know whose babies were born still? But I suppose it works the other way too. What were the chances I'd find MFP?
I feel sad. I used to live so much in the future. "And then we'll do this and that; MFP and I will take our baby on long walks; we'll take our baby here and there; we'll share this and that with him or her." I have so little to hope for now. Work things. Growing older with MFP. We have some other goals, like moving to a bigger city, seeing creative works come to fruition. But imagining my life, my middle and old age, without a child was never something I thought I'd have to do. Maybe we'll adopt. Maybe we'll adopt a child from foster care. Maybe we'll have a family we never could have imagined, but we'll be sitting together loving each other in a way we never could have imagined either. I just have to wait and see. We have to be patient, me and MFP, and nourish the seed of peace inside us as we watch the emotions of despair and grief and anger float by and through us. On their heels happiness and contentment and maybe even hope might come too.
Not being pregnant this month meant that I will not be pregnant when I turn 35 years old, that threshold after which medical science predicts a steep decline in my chances of biological motherhood. It's an unhappy threshold. I never used to heed it, considering both MFP and me were born after our mothers had crossed it, and everywhere around us are mothers of what they call in Canada, "geriatric maternal age." Now it has me shaking in my boots. It will be such an unhappy anniversary. Two days after I turned 34, I learned that pregnancy #1 had ended at nearly ten weeks. It was a terrible, traumatic day. I had blown out the candles, at a cottage in the woods MFP and I had rented, on my birthday, wishing only for a healthy baby. I had gone on a hike, checking every hour or so, as I had been throughout my pregnancy, for signs of spotting, because I was so worried about miscarrying. There were no signs. As the saying goes, "just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you." Just because I'm anxious and prone to catastrophic thinking doesn't mean catastrophes aren't around the bend. I now won't even be pregnant, let alone safely out of the first trimester, on the anniversary of that terrible day when the sonogram was silent, when all my fears came true. I won't be pregnant when we see our friends who live abroad next month for the first time in two years, even though the last time we saw them I had just stopped taking birth control and had started imagining seeing them again with a baby in our arms. After recurrent miscarriage, the calendar is filled with reminders of what I don't have that I once had hoped for. I suppose grief is always like that, any kind of grief. "She would have been this age." "He would have been doing this by now."
Coming up on my anniversary of nothingness, my first anniversary of my first pregnancy loss, also reminds me that my own birthday is such a sad anniversary. I once asked my mother, from whom I am estranged, what my birth was like. What she could remember was filled with anxiety and bitterness, and the rest of it she couldn't remember the difference between that day and the birth of my brothers. When I asked her what I was like as a baby, she said, "You were born at a crabby time." I've hard from others that I cried all the time as a baby; I was known to be a pain to watch. When I was eleven or so months old I was taken to the ER because no one was watching me and I fell down stairs and split my head open. I asked about that time, and I heard that no one was hardly ever watching me; that when the doctors at the ER talked with my parents, they grilled them with questions about child abuse. I was born quickly after my older brother, probably too quickly; I can imagine my mother overburdened with her reproductive power, perhaps even feeling betrayed by it. There wasn't enough joy, energy, attention, love to go around. Yet here I am, even younger than my mother was when she became a mother, filled with attention and love to give, with time, energy, commitment, and confidence in my free and deliberate choice to become a parent, and I'm just here, babying my dog. Like I said last month, Go figure. My birthday wasn't much to celebrate when it originally came around. It's not much to celebrate this year either. Maybe I'll celebrate the moments in between, the first signs of spring, the life I began with MFP, the beautiful memories we've already made. Maybe it's not about the births but about the moments before and after.
I feel sad. I used to live so much in the future. "And then we'll do this and that; MFP and I will take our baby on long walks; we'll take our baby here and there; we'll share this and that with him or her." I have so little to hope for now. Work things. Growing older with MFP. We have some other goals, like moving to a bigger city, seeing creative works come to fruition. But imagining my life, my middle and old age, without a child was never something I thought I'd have to do. Maybe we'll adopt. Maybe we'll adopt a child from foster care. Maybe we'll have a family we never could have imagined, but we'll be sitting together loving each other in a way we never could have imagined either. I just have to wait and see. We have to be patient, me and MFP, and nourish the seed of peace inside us as we watch the emotions of despair and grief and anger float by and through us. On their heels happiness and contentment and maybe even hope might come too.
Not being pregnant this month meant that I will not be pregnant when I turn 35 years old, that threshold after which medical science predicts a steep decline in my chances of biological motherhood. It's an unhappy threshold. I never used to heed it, considering both MFP and me were born after our mothers had crossed it, and everywhere around us are mothers of what they call in Canada, "geriatric maternal age." Now it has me shaking in my boots. It will be such an unhappy anniversary. Two days after I turned 34, I learned that pregnancy #1 had ended at nearly ten weeks. It was a terrible, traumatic day. I had blown out the candles, at a cottage in the woods MFP and I had rented, on my birthday, wishing only for a healthy baby. I had gone on a hike, checking every hour or so, as I had been throughout my pregnancy, for signs of spotting, because I was so worried about miscarrying. There were no signs. As the saying goes, "just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you." Just because I'm anxious and prone to catastrophic thinking doesn't mean catastrophes aren't around the bend. I now won't even be pregnant, let alone safely out of the first trimester, on the anniversary of that terrible day when the sonogram was silent, when all my fears came true. I won't be pregnant when we see our friends who live abroad next month for the first time in two years, even though the last time we saw them I had just stopped taking birth control and had started imagining seeing them again with a baby in our arms. After recurrent miscarriage, the calendar is filled with reminders of what I don't have that I once had hoped for. I suppose grief is always like that, any kind of grief. "She would have been this age." "He would have been doing this by now."
Coming up on my anniversary of nothingness, my first anniversary of my first pregnancy loss, also reminds me that my own birthday is such a sad anniversary. I once asked my mother, from whom I am estranged, what my birth was like. What she could remember was filled with anxiety and bitterness, and the rest of it she couldn't remember the difference between that day and the birth of my brothers. When I asked her what I was like as a baby, she said, "You were born at a crabby time." I've hard from others that I cried all the time as a baby; I was known to be a pain to watch. When I was eleven or so months old I was taken to the ER because no one was watching me and I fell down stairs and split my head open. I asked about that time, and I heard that no one was hardly ever watching me; that when the doctors at the ER talked with my parents, they grilled them with questions about child abuse. I was born quickly after my older brother, probably too quickly; I can imagine my mother overburdened with her reproductive power, perhaps even feeling betrayed by it. There wasn't enough joy, energy, attention, love to go around. Yet here I am, even younger than my mother was when she became a mother, filled with attention and love to give, with time, energy, commitment, and confidence in my free and deliberate choice to become a parent, and I'm just here, babying my dog. Like I said last month, Go figure. My birthday wasn't much to celebrate when it originally came around. It's not much to celebrate this year either. Maybe I'll celebrate the moments in between, the first signs of spring, the life I began with MFP, the beautiful memories we've already made. Maybe it's not about the births but about the moments before and after.
Thursday, March 26, 2015
Another one bites the dust
So sad, and no one to call. What's the news? The same thing is true that was true yesterday, and that has been true for the vast majority of my life. I'm not pregnant. The progesterone I started taking this month tricked me back into hoping--the side effects mimic the signs of pregnancy, right down to keeping my period at bay--even though I'd sworn off hope after I had my second miscarriage in six months last fall. I've been learning to accept and cherish my life as it is. My soft, sweet dog. My partner's kind eyes and smile. Our shared laughter over coffee; dancing, when we have the heart too. I think of the other couples we've met on this journey--different kinds of pregnancy losses, all heartbreaking--and I know we are not alone. It helps me feel less resentful when I know I'm not alone in finding the sight of a small, wiggling child in tow behind a parent simultaneously devastating, angering, and unbelievably wondrous. I used to love admiring children. Now encountering them is like staring at the sun. I'm blinded by my own pain, grief, envy, shame.
Everybody's infertility story is unique--like Tolstoy wrote, happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in it's own way. Well if that's true than every coupling that can't even be a family must be radically distinctive. I've always wanted children, though I've wanted other things too, and thanks to good luck and some bravery and work on my part I've gotten some of those other things. I blame myself sometimes, or really worry that others will blame me for my miscarriages by saying I focused on the wrong goals, like I can only have one or the other. I knew I didn't want to be only a mom in my life as a social role, but neither did I want to be only not a mom. Mostly what hurts though is how much it's come to mean to me to love and raise a child. I've learned a thing or two about what a child needs and what I didn't get; which is to say, I've learned a thing or two about love. How much I want to give that love to my child, to share in that intimate joy. I loved my babies during my short, debilitating pregnancies last year, much of which was spent trying for an unusually long time to get unpregnant. Those two brief interludes were the happiest, most hopeful stretches I've had in a long, long, time. I had already been experiencing a lot of loss, a lot of grief, and I felt shocked, taken aback, by how quickly my planned pregnancy became the possibility that mattered most to me in my life. I had no idea how much it would mean, how much hope I'd feel, even in the face of what I thought was the worst of my despair. And then--you know the story, "I have bad news, there's no heartbeat"--and complications, and then after a few horrible months, a new hope, then "I'm sure it'll be fine, we get calls like this from women every day"--and then it wasn't fine; and then emergency surgery and a jerk surgery resident, and a long journey back to normal, and here we are. Just me and my partner and my dog know the story--the supplements, the acupuncture, the trying not to think about it, the testing, the careful effort not to pretend that it's really in my control anyway, so it's okay not to wear myself out. The way I miss caffeine and an occasional Manhattan; the temp-taking, the yoga, the vigorous shaking of my head at friends who gently encourage me to let go and "see what happens," the surveillance of my most intimate self. I mean who really wants to hear all about this anyway? Do you? I used to read a lot of mommy blogs for some reason; now I'm writing an infertility blog. Go figure.
Everybody's infertility story is unique--like Tolstoy wrote, happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in it's own way. Well if that's true than every coupling that can't even be a family must be radically distinctive. I've always wanted children, though I've wanted other things too, and thanks to good luck and some bravery and work on my part I've gotten some of those other things. I blame myself sometimes, or really worry that others will blame me for my miscarriages by saying I focused on the wrong goals, like I can only have one or the other. I knew I didn't want to be only a mom in my life as a social role, but neither did I want to be only not a mom. Mostly what hurts though is how much it's come to mean to me to love and raise a child. I've learned a thing or two about what a child needs and what I didn't get; which is to say, I've learned a thing or two about love. How much I want to give that love to my child, to share in that intimate joy. I loved my babies during my short, debilitating pregnancies last year, much of which was spent trying for an unusually long time to get unpregnant. Those two brief interludes were the happiest, most hopeful stretches I've had in a long, long, time. I had already been experiencing a lot of loss, a lot of grief, and I felt shocked, taken aback, by how quickly my planned pregnancy became the possibility that mattered most to me in my life. I had no idea how much it would mean, how much hope I'd feel, even in the face of what I thought was the worst of my despair. And then--you know the story, "I have bad news, there's no heartbeat"--and complications, and then after a few horrible months, a new hope, then "I'm sure it'll be fine, we get calls like this from women every day"--and then it wasn't fine; and then emergency surgery and a jerk surgery resident, and a long journey back to normal, and here we are. Just me and my partner and my dog know the story--the supplements, the acupuncture, the trying not to think about it, the testing, the careful effort not to pretend that it's really in my control anyway, so it's okay not to wear myself out. The way I miss caffeine and an occasional Manhattan; the temp-taking, the yoga, the vigorous shaking of my head at friends who gently encourage me to let go and "see what happens," the surveillance of my most intimate self. I mean who really wants to hear all about this anyway? Do you? I used to read a lot of mommy blogs for some reason; now I'm writing an infertility blog. Go figure.
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