Secret World

Tonight I was reading Hope Deferred by Lady Grey Hope Deferred by Lady Grey and in her "About Me" section she mentioned how the blog is her secret world. That phrase really struck me because I often feel like infertility is a secret world, these horrible and painful experiences we go through we keep to ourselves and we feel isolated from the rest of the world. Those of us who have difficulty conceiving operate in two different universes; the one flush with babies and couples who have no idea that some struggle to conceive, and that full of pain, grief, heartbreak and resentment.

It is so unfair that some have no concept of what we go through. They constantly talk about their pregnancies, their babies, breastfeeding, labor, etc. They assume you are doing something wrong and that's why you don't have babies yet. They assume if you just ate differently, exercised more, prayed harder, stopped worrying, had more sex that you, too, would be pregnant.

Ignorance is no excuse. Lack of experience is no excuse. Sympathy, empathy, come from recognizing sorrow in someone else. You do not need to have lived through the same shitty experiences to acknowledge others face different circumstances. Our situation calls for awareness, sensitivity, kindness, but these are traits that so many humans cannot extend or do not hold. The funny thing is that while we are mired in our misery, suffering in our grief and frustration, we have a heightened awareness that others may be experiencing difficulty. Those who have everything they want with no effort are focused solely on themselves.

There is no one in my life who has experienced these hardships, so I turn to the authors of the blogs for comfort, support and kinship. Even though I may silently stalk the blogs and not comment or reach out, all of you have kept me going. You all offer reassurance that my husband and I are not going through this alone, navigating this secret world without a pilot. I am sorry that you are all dealing with this, but thank you for sharing. You may never know just how much you help.

Are You Fucking Kidding?!

Unbelievable. I waited as long as I could. Day 32, 2:00 p.m., I went out to buy pregnancy tests because I still had not started my period. Right when I sat down to take the test, my period started. Now Husband is angry with me for taking a test when he wanted me to wait-we both know my period would come, we knew I wasn't pregnant, wanted to postpone the pain. But I figured that I had spent all morning and afternoon cleaning and running around being very active and it hadn't started, so taking a test was logical.

I'm not crushed that it's negative, I am furious. Furious I was able to wait this fucking long before giving into that excitement and taking a damn test. Furious that my body strung me along for days when all along it had no intention of being pregnant. Furious that we can't have what we want most. Furious we don't have enough money to feel comfortable doing private pay IUI or IVF. Furious, again, at everyone else around us who children, whether they are good parents or not. In my heart I knew I wasn't pregnant, but c'mon, why did I have to wait so long to find out for sure?

What does this mean? The right ovary ovulated instead of the left where there is a tube intact or we didn't have enough sex because husband was camping that weekend and we missed a day of possible fertility, that there is some other problem that was masked by the blocked tube, or simply that we will never get pregnant for no known reason. Makes me want to give up. Makes me want to walk away from everything and just go be alone and not think about trying anymore-just being a woman outside of this fertility madness cycle. Am I the only one who feels this way?

Symptom Obsession

Here we are on day 31 of my cycle, no period yet. Been trying to be patient all week, not expecting anything, trying not to get my hopes up that we just may be pregnant this time. But who am I kidding, I've been obsessing all week! Right now I'm sitting at work and am bored so I pull out my calendar and go through it to see how long my cycles have been and if the start dates have correlated to when I ovulated. This month I ovulated a little later than normal, so I was curious if that's why I hadn't started yet. As I flip through my calendar, marked with "Positive OPK," "I" (intercourse), "IUI," and "Negative Pregnancy Test," I notice that the date of ovulation did not appear to impact the date my period started. Very good. Then comes April 2012, and there it is, a day 32 start. It felt like a jolt of electricity shot through my head. Written in pencil is "period started in the evening. No spotting." This empirical data was building me up, making me believe that if I did not find such a late start date in my records, then this would certainly mean I was pregnant.

This week I had some very light spotting that began on Tuesday and has continued at that level all week. It is way less than what I had when we were pregnant with the ectopic. This has continued to give me hope, while I tried not to hope. It's useless trying to not get my hopes up-everything is a sign that I am, yet at the same time, a sign that I'm not. This time I have little breast tenderness, little spotting, my attitude and mood is as bad as it usually is, but I've been dizzy in the evenings, not interested in drinking wine. All of these things I have experienced before and I know better than to believe them as symptoms of pregnancy, but I want to believe they all mean something.

I track every symptom and I'm beginning to think that is a bad idea. It causes me to over think every little thing and I'm wearing out the binding in my calendar, constantly opening it and flipping through the pages, desperately trying to find some kind of evidence that would prove I am pregnant. It's crazy!

Husband and I have already decided to wait to take a pregnancy test until either tonight or tomorrow morning. A negative test is so heart breaking we just want to put it off as long as possible. In the mean time, it's still possible my period will start. It's also possible that I'm not pregnant, just didn't have a period. My body is so mean to me!

After a Long Hiatus

It's been quite awhile since I last wrote, and not much has happened. The major event was having my right fallopian tube removed via laparoscopic surgery. Surgery went well, recovery was quick and I was able to see photos of the damaged tube. It was attached to the inside wall of my abdomen and had spots on-spots which the surgeon suggested were scar tissue from an appendectomy I had when I was a little girl. With the tube removed, Husband and I decided to give ourselves three months of trying to conceive on our own. If we are still unsuccessful after that time, we will return to the out-of-pocket fertility clinic for further treatment.

In the weeks following the surgery I felt quite relaxed, hopeful, empty of the jealousy and anger I had been feeling for the past few years. I felt so much relief, that I was able to let go of the absolute hatred focused at Brat & Wife, especially as they sent my flowers following my surgery. This was especially remarkable considering the utter miserable holiday weekend Husband and I spent with his family over Memorial Day. So much happened that weekend that I don't even want to recap it. I will say that even our cousins were bothered by what was said and certain behaviors exhibited by Brat & Wife and Husband's parents.

Sadly, this break from misery was short lived. As more time passes since the surgery, I have felt the anger and resentment return. The more time that goes on, the more Facebook posts about other peoples babies (announcements of how smart, funny, cute they are), pregnancies, etc., the more hopeless and frustrated I get.

We had yet another horrible weekend with the family over the 4th of July. This time, it was so bad our cousins left the vacation house early to get away. Still, Husband and I are too fearful of causing a fight to say anything. So I retreat to our room and cry or take the dog for a walk alone to get away. It's just more of the same-constant discussion about Precious, other people's pregnancies, names for a second baby, on and on and on. Is there nothing else that family can discuss? Every conversation is changed to be about Precious and I'm not exaggerating.

Things continue to be tenuous with Brat & Wife, but MIL is trying to connect with me again and I'm very glad. We have been chatting more and there is some ease in our interactions now. Even as she does and says things that bother me when Precious is around, the rest of the time, she is normal. I have been trying to meet her efforts as I don't want to lose a close relationship with her again.

As our struggles persist, Husband and I continue to work on forgiveness and trying not to take everything so personally. Logically we know that what is done and said is not done with any malice or intent to hurt us, but emotionally, it is so difficult to not react. We are trying, I guess that's all we can do.

This week will tell us if we've another failed attempt at conceiving. This is my second cycle since the surgery and our first attempt at conceiving. I was still recovering during ovulation last month, so we couldn't try then. We are both somewhere in between hopeful and cynical, optimistic and realistic.

Just a Tuesday

Today is one of those rare days where I'm in a good mood. Positive OPK this morning, the boss is out of the office and I'm productive at work. That stupid digital smiley face on the OPK gives me such hope, even after all this time.

Managed to get through Mother's Day. I just stayed inside drinking wine, reading and watched the final two episodes of The Voice-I'm so sad it's over! That show is pure entertainment and I get emotional when the performances are really good. Of course, I am emotional all of the time, but especially, during really great songs.
Luckily the day passed without too much emotion, except I started reading a book Husband recently purchased, "Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road" by Neil Peart. It is the story of how he lost both his daughter and his wife within a year which led him to take a long motorcycle trip in an attempt to deal with all the pain. Husband is further into the book than I am, but in just the first three pages I was bawling. For me, reading about grief written from a man's perspective is even more heart breaking because they (typically) rarely discuss emotions. While the book is not related to infertility, it is all about loss and I'm so glad Husband found something that includes his biggest passion, motorcycles, with an emotional element. A sort of self-help book in the sense that it is a man discussing his pain, giving Husband someone to relate to.

Days like this make me feel as though everything really will be okay. I'm sure tomorrow I'll be back to being angry and bitter. Maybe I'm bipolar.

Weapons of Mass Emotion

Pregnant bellies instantly bring tears to my eyes. Coming out of the restroom at work just now this cute, younger woman who is quite pregnant was walking directly toward me on her way in. Her belly sticks out a bit like a torpedo and it feels as though there is a direct connection to my emotions. Immediately tears welled up in my eyes. It happens everytime and it makes me disgusted with myself. I often see her in the restroom-either she is is behind me in line, or behind me waiting while I am washing my hands, etc. There are probably three hundred people who work on my floor and two sets of restrooms, but it appears that all of the pregnant women and new moms who are pumping are on my side of the floor so I cannot escape them. These sightings leave me feeling one of two ways: absolute hatred for the lucky woman or utter saddness for Husband and I. It still amazes me how present my grief is and how deeply effected we are by our loss last year.

As Mother's Day approaches I feel increasingly more emotional. We got lucky however, and won't be celebrating it with our mothers this year. Husband's mother is upset that her Precious will be in Hawaii with Brat and Wife so we won't be doing anything with them. Of course, that means I will miss the chance to spend time with MIL without Precious, Brat and Wife. Then my mom told me "I don't think about it now that Grandma is gone." So at least Husband and I will get a bit of a break and the day is free for us to enjoy as we see fit, which will likely be a little bit of yard work followed by entirely too much eating and drinking.

Also, as the month progresses we are getting closer to surgery to have the hydrosalpinx removed. Initially, I wasn't worried, but the closer it gets, the more concerned I am about them messing up. I fear they will take out the wrong tube or cause damage so that we can't even do an IUI but will have to do IVF. We are both hoping that we conceive this month, a viable pregnancy, not an ectopic, and will not have to have the surgery. Of course, we wouldn't know if it's ectopic by the date of the surgery which is equally nerve-wracking. After surgery I have to wait to have a period, then we can do an IUI. We can only do that if the left side is ovulating, which as the first quarter of this year has shown, could be once every three months. I hate this never ending cycle of hurry-up and wait, wait, wait, wait....

Mother's Day

While I was searching on ETSY today to find something, anything, to give my MIL and mom for Mother's Day, it ocurred to me that this would have been my first Mother's Day as a mother. This would have been the first Mother's Day in years where I wasn't emotional, disappointed, heart broken. Instead, no matter what I do, it's going to be the worst one.

Logically I know I need to stop doing this. I need to stop thinking if our pregnancy had been viable things would be so different, I need to stop thinking this day or event would be my first as a mother, Husband's first as a father, but I can't. There has been a voice in my head over the last few days that has been reminding that there was a heart beat and in a flash I'm back in the hospital, listening to the doctor tell us about the heart beat and the size of the embryo. It was real just for one moment-our little baby.

Last year I gave cards to my girlfriends on their first Mother's Day, am I supposed to do the same for Brat's wife this year? I don't want to. The thought of standing in the card section at Target having to buy her a card makes me angry and sick. Honestly, like Christmas, I'd rather avoid this holiday all together. MIL was not a great mother this year, neither was mine, and frankly I am tired of celebrating everyone else's children. However, I fear that if Husband and I don't give cards to Brat and Wife on their respective parent holidays, they will feel slighted or feel we are being jerks, even though they would never reciprocate anyway. I just don't want to hear about it again like we did over New Year's after skipping Christmas with them, "But it's the baby's first Christmas! How could you miss it?!" and the phrase I'll never forget, "you just have to let it go."

Yes, I am still holding on to negativity from the past, and despite attempting to not let all these negative thoughts crowd my brain, they sneak in. I'm trying to not give them room, to not allow them to breathe and grow because it would only send me down a spiral I'm not sure I could recover from at this point. So I continue to try to block out the thoughts, the hatred and anger and pretend everything is fine. That is what THEY all want from us because it makes it easier on THEM. Maybe that will be my Mother's Day gift to everyone this year.