clearing out

I've been getting the itch to do some spring cleaning a bit earlier than usual this year.  I was tackling the kitchen "junk" drawer, when I found this item in the very back:

My heart sank, just a bit, and I could feel the familiar fog of grief starting to creep in.

Sadness was streaming over me, as I was reminded that I will never need to take one of these tests again, since the surgery last fall.  I thought about how appropriate the term "barren" really was, now that the lining of my uterus was removed and cauterized... depleted, empty, fruitless.

Then I felt intensely guilty as I heard Emma yawn in the next room.  I felt as if the longing I was feeling in that moment, the remembrance of the years of trying, hoping, grieving, and trying again... it was insulting to my beautiful baby, that I would ever feel regret or yearning for another, an other, child.

I have what I had always longed for - an incredible little girl, who fills our house with so much joy and completes our family. She snapped me back out of my self-indulgent moment, and gave me the strength to throw the test away, and with it the last of my guilt over not being able to sustain another life within myself.

My goal, throughout this journey - I should say *our* goal, as it is the same for The Boy as it is for me - has been to be a parent, not to biologically pass on my genes.

I don't need this test anymore, just as I don't need to be pregnant and experience childbirth to be a mother. And I absolutely do not need to feel bad about my journey to parenthood anymore.

Closure, that is what I found tonight, in the back of a kitchen junk drawer.

(which, fyi, now looks lovely and organized!)

not yet

Looking around the house for things to get rid of in the yard sale tomorrow. I thought about clearing this section of my bookshelf.  I almost pulled the books out, my hand was reaching for them, but my heart sped up just a bit... and I hesitated.

I don't think I'm ready yet. Not quite ready to let that dream go just yet, I guess...

Soon.  I hope.

Yearning.

There is a deep, pervasive ache. A scream being stifled, just below the surface.

Wheels are spinning in place.

Time is wasting.

tick tock, tick tock.

Another beautiful photo of a healthy infant, carefully swaddled, sleeping peacefully. Another shot of one of my friends, grinning widely, hands placed on their swollen abdomens just so, accentuating the beauty of their impending motherhood.

I am genuinely, lovingly happy for them. I am so pleased by their wonderful news! And yet...

 And yet.

 My heart aches with loss and stings from jealousy. I do my best to contain those feelings as I wish them all well, because indeed I do. My grief does not colour my happiness for them, it only serves to remind me of the losses we've had and the experiences that we won't get.

 I keep getting to a place where I think I am at peace with our infertility, but there are days when I've just had enough of being happy for others and I need a little time to feel sorry for myself. I need to cry, or write, or paint... whatever it takes to get the pain out of my heart, and out of my mind, and stop it from tearing me down.

I need to refocus. Be productive. Move forward.

I need to beleive that this gets easier with time.

(more than a ) few words.

I'm supposed to blog about my day today, but I'm kind of at a loss for words.

It's not that my day was awful, it was terribly average if anything... but my mood is sour, and my words are few.

I puttered around the house this morning, putting things in order, attending to errands that needed doing, then I headed off to work. It was steady, but not too busy, and I was able to close up shop pretty quickly.

I just can't shake this mood. I'm going to go ahead and blame my hormones. After three cycles on Clomid, I'm all out of whack and nothing seems to be going normally with my body this month. That has to be it.

After work I played with the dog a while before heading up to the office to check my emails before bed. I decided to have a look at my RSS feed reader. One of the woman I read is having twins. The jealousy hit me like a kick to the chest.

The mix of frustration, envy, anger and self-pity that I'm feeling sickens me. I don't want to be that woman who can't be happy for others who are more fortunate. The self-centeredness of my feelings is gross.

I don't know how to deal with this, but I know that I need to. I can't live my life this way... it is neither productive, nor healthy.

Huh. I guess I did have a few words after all.

making vows

This is from August, but as I am about to embark on this journey with fertility drugs, I feel like it is appropriate for me to revisit the vows I made to my body a while back...

nobody's mother.

Sunday was Mother's Day.

My father-in-law called from the other side of the world to wish me a happy mother's day. The boy reminded him that I am not a mother, and he replied that I was a mother to our cats and the dog, so "that's something..."

I know he was trying to be sweet, and had nothing but the best of intentions, but it added a piercing blow to my already aching heart.

Whenever people ask me if I have kids I feel my stomach sink a little, and a twinge of grief creeps into my heart. "Oh, your time will come!" they always assure me. Or they casually assume that we can easily adopt, if we wanted to, and I don't care to explain the costs and lengthy processes to them.

We spent the day at my sister-in-law's home with the boy's family. My mother-in-law was there, as well as my sister-in-law's mother-in-law (I know, that's a lot of "in-laws" in one sentence, and reads pretty awkwardly, forgive me!). I love spending time with his family, and playing with our niece and nephew is one of my very favourite things... but all of the mothering, the fussing over mushy cards, the hugs and kisses and celebration of the wonderful relationship that is mother-to-child, left me feeling like I'd been kicked in the gut.

Of course I would never do anything to take away from their day. I enjoy the time I get to spend with the kids, and have some fun conversations with the adults. We share a meal, laugh together, and I manage to maintain a genuine-looking smile when I'm asked, again, when we plan to start our family.

"Soon, we hope!" I answer as sweetly as possible.

It is difficult to fail gracefully. I would like to say that I have become immune to the pain of watching everyone around me having children with ease, but I haven't. I feel like an outsider.

I feel this horrible longing to have what they have, and I feel awful because of my jealousy. I am conflicted and confused. I am so happy for them at the same time that I want to scream out that I DO NOT want to hear about it ANYMORE!!!

I feel selfish and ashamed. I know that I am not alone in this, nor am I the only woman struggling with fertility and procreation... but sometimes it feels that way.

I am nobody's mother. I am incomplete.

the almosts and could-have-beens

I've been feeling nauseous off and on for the past three days. I'm attributing it to my meds, or that I started taking the pre-natals again (just in case we ever get lucky), or that it's just another symptom of the foul mood I've been in lately.

I do my best not to let the boy know just how foul I'm feeling lately because he worries so much. It's probably counter-productive, since I end up feeling cruddy longer because I'm holding it in... but I don't like that look he gets when he's worried about me... his brow is knit with concern and he is determined to fix me... to take on my stress, or ask an endless stream of questions until he gets to the bottom of what's bothering me. Sometimes I don't want to have to explain that there is nothing in particular that is bothering me, it's just that I am bothered in general. Does that even make sense?

Probably not.

So I'm sitting at my desk, working away... reconciling receipts, listing prints, and sipping on room-temperature water, trying to ignore that wave of yuckiness (is too a word spellchecker! Because I said so, that's why!) that comes and goes. I put my head down on the desk periodically and wait for it to go away. I'm trying to ignore it because I'm sure that it's nothing. I really am.

I won't let my mind go there anymore... I used to get just a little bit excited if I started feeling nauseous, because it could mean that we had succeeded... that my biology wasn't a failure after all! I don't allow myself to get my hopes up anymore because I don't want to feel like I'm mourning every time I bleed... especially when it comes late, as it often does. I don't like imagining that we were (at least partially) successful, and maybe conception had in fact occurred, and it's more than run-of-the-mill menses being flushed away.

I don't like knowing that it is often the case... that my problem isn't entirely with conception, but with getting it to stick. I don't know how to stop myself from grieving the almosts and the could-have-beens.

Then I get angry with myself for feeling like I'm losing hope... for not being more positive. As if a smile on my face will somehow a baby make. I try not to let it get to me when people say "maybe if you weren't trying so hard" or "maybe if you just stopped thinking about it... it will happen when it is meant to". Because it's somehow my fault that my plumbing doesn't work, right? Clearly I am subconsciously and deliberately self-defeating, psychically destroying each zygote with my negative thoughts! Thank you for pointing that out to me - it's all so clear now!!!

Grrrrrrr!!!

I know... I don't need to be an asshole about it. It's not anyone else's fault either, and their intentions are not to make me feel worse. I know that I should lighten up, and that there are other (very expensive) options out there for me... for us... but it's hard to be positive when the chaos in your uterus matches the clutter in your mind.

I know I shouldn't dwell, and I'm not trying to be this way... I swear that I don't live in my own perpetual self-pity party. I'm actually a pretty bubbly person... but sometimes I'm a mess, and I wish I was just a little less so.

I'm rambling. Again.