Breaks

Spring is coming, which means that my commute to the far-away clinic will soon be safe again. In fact, it may be safe now. The worst of the snowy weather should be over, so I thought about going back this month. But there were some financial ... uh, to put it mildly, issues. Anyway, between the snow, finances, and family crisis, I will have missed three months by the time I get started again.

This winter hibernation is one of several breaks I've had since starting TTC. They've been both required (after the miscarriage) and semi-optional (after the breakup with my ex). I've missed a few months for abnormal cycles. There were also months that passed by when I was moving, researching protocols and clinics, doing the paperwork and tests required to change docs…

I know that lots of women find it refreshing and healing to take breaks. For me, what they've mainly been is distracting. And distraction can be either good or bad. It's a short-term relief when I'm feeling overwhelmed, and there's nothing wrong with that. But distraction is no substitute for doing something meaningful, even if—like TTC—it becomes very hard.

When things aren't working out, I have to guard against letting discouragement turn into doubt (Do I even want to be a parent, if thinking about it just fills me with pain now?), apathy (Why bother, when this will just fail, too?), and short-sighted indulgences (So why not take another month off from the clinic?). I've even had to stage an intervention or two to make myself face reality, to get out of that comfy but unproductive habit of distraction and denial.

Being stuck in limbo isn't really comfortable, not deep down. There's the sense of unease, vague but always present. There's the hesitation to make any plans, and the frustration of waiting. There's tension and guilt when short-term pleasures (eating junk food today while promising to make the tough decisions tomorrow, or maybe the day after that...) threaten deeply held long-term goals.

What I'm avoiding, even more than the daily work of TTC, is the ending. The ending is what scares me.

In an online forum this week, another woman put my thoughts about it into words. She wrote that leaving IVF in her arsenal, unused, gave her emotional protection. I feel the same way about my upcoming final cycle(s) and PGS. It's comforting to have these final options, but now that the time has come to USE them, use them NOW when every month counts ... there's a part of me that still hesitates. And there's another part that has to (lovingly) stand behind her and push.

What's your attitude toward breaks from TTC? How have you managed to make them refreshing, or at least not too disruptive?

Calling Tech Support

If anyone stopped by earlier and saw some heinous-looking, non-functioning menus on this page ... uh, yeah, that was me showing off my mad CSS skillz.

I just wanted to add drop-down menus. Blogger doesn't support them, unless you make your own, which I've finally managed to do ... I think?

What do you see? Do the links in the submenus work? (In what browsers?)

I don't really have a clue. What I do have is Google, tutorials like this one (Thanks!), and the patience for tweaking lots of things until they *seem* to work. There will be more tweaking, but for now I'd better go get some other things done.

Pain

Don’t let the title turn you off. This won't be an angsty, weepy post, just some quotes I love from a book that I read a while back and tracked down again yesterday, mainly for one short chapter. The author is Nevada Barr, who mostly writes mysteries, but she’s also written this non-fiction book called Seeking Enlightenment Hat by Hat: A Skeptic’s Path to Religion.

Don’t let religion turn you off either, if it normally does. Barr's thoughts about pain, I think, have a pretty universal relevance.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

She starts with this:

"Somewhere along the line I got the impression pain was currency… I came into adulthood thinking that if I suffered enough, I could somehow get my own way; that pain could be exchanged for forgiveness, acceptance, success, or strength."

Or at least some knowledge and growth, right? (As if these things can't be achieved in other ways.) How do these beliefs affect our behavior? We hold onto resentments as if they can punish the person who hurt us. Also:

"A lot of us have allowed ourselves to become addicted to emotional, if not physical, pain. I remember an unfortunate woman I knew in Minnesota. In unkind moments, her friends would joke that when she introduced herself, she’d say: 'Hi, my name is Alison and I’m in pain.' There was some truth to the joke. She had come to hold pain as an important aspect of her personality; suffering as a replacement for real relationship to others or self.

Another woman of my acquaintance converted her pain into anger and used it to indicate she was not one of the common folk willing to turn a blind eye to the evils of the world, that, unlike us tawdry happy people, she was too good to settle for less."

Oh, I relate to both of those women, more than I want to admit!

Barr's beliefs about the value of pain started to shift when she quit taking the antidepressant medicine that had helped her. She'd felt ashamed to take it. Without it, though, she spiraled "down into the dark places," until she found herself desperately praying one night, "Dear God, what shall I do? Help me? What can I do?" The answer: "Take the damn medicine."

"I came to the conclusion that pain is nothing but pain, a cry from the body or the soul to be healed. Pain itself is merely an alarm bell set off to indicate all is not well, but, in and of itself, it has no value."

I've also heard it described as simply a sign that either something we need is missing or something we can't tolerate exists. In any case:

"When I am in pain it’s hard to be kind, generous, understanding, productive, giving. It’s all I can do just to keep my own head above water. Pain does not make me a better person; it makes me petty and crabby and selfish. And it makes me a liability to others."

She writes about how first responders like EMTs are taught that, before they can be most useful to others at an accident site, they need to ensure their own safety. The same is true on airplanes, where parents are told that, if the cabin loses air pressure, they should put on their own oxygen masks before helping their children. She concludes:

"I have come to believe that it is a duty to relieve our own pain."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

That's a very strong word, "duty." It's not a luxury but a DUTY to relieve our own pain, to the extent that we can, to best serve not only ourselves but also the rest of the world.

Of course, it's easier said than done. Our particular pain doesn't always have a medicine that's specially designed to treat it. And medicines—like all treatments—don't always work. No treatment can guarantee a life that's totally pain-free.

I'm sure that's not Barr's goal. She's just advocating a shift in our beliefs about pain. Yes, it can result in growth, but it can also grind us down, and growth can result from joy too. Pain has no inherent value. It's "nothing but pain": a part of life, not to be pushed away in horror, but also not to be embraced as something that defines who we are.

Happy Birthday, Blog

It was a year ago yesterday that I took a deep breath and—with very few expectations—hit "Publish" on my first post here, which was written in the middle of the night, in the middle of a sleepless week. Looking back, I'm surprised that it was coherent. It still does a good job of explaining why I came here.

And what is it about blogging that's made me stick around?

• Fluidity:  Mainly, as mentioned in that first post, facing the reality of difficult emotions helps me to keep them fluid. It keeps anger and sadness from congealing into bitterness and despair.
• Release:  This is hard to explain to those who haven't felt it, but it feels like there are just things I have to say. In daily life, I'm not a big talker. I especially try to avoid overloading friends with TMI about TTC. No-one wants to be a bummer. That's not to say that I let it all hang out here … just that no-one has to come here, you know? So I don't feel guilty about focusing on the same basic topics, which take up a huge and important space in my life right now.
• Clarity:  Writing makes me more mindful of emotions, thoughts, beliefs, and patterns that are normally just below the surface of awareness. The more precisely I can describe them here, the better I can see and respond to them "in the wild."
• Guidance:  Without really setting out to make it happen, I now have a record of what's helped and what hasn't during this very hard year, which can serve as a guide the next time I'm feeling lost.
• Connection:  When I see how many people struggle with similar feelings (if not the exact same circumstances), it helps my heart expand rather than shrivel up in self-pity. I don't have to take it personally. It's not "my pain" or "my joy," just pain and joy, things I share with absolutely everyone.
• Support:  Other people's posts have given me such good food for thought. They've led to new perspectives, posts of my own, practical tips, books and articles to read, questions to ask my doctors… Thank you all!
• Warmth:  Reading a person's blog is a little like visiting a room in her home. Personality comes through not just in words, but also in the layout of the place, the pictures on the wall, how often she's there, who else drops by… I get to know someone better in her own space than when she's one username of hundreds or thousands on a forum.
• Acceptance:  I tend to publish posts when I feel about 95% done and ready to move on. Completing that last 5% would take longer than all the rest and turn something fun into a self-absorbed chore. I can always go back later and make a sentence more precise (hey, it's not journalism) or write some kind of follow-up. My writing, like everything in my life, will always be imperfect and unfinished, and that’s OK. 

A No-Progress Report

Here's the latest TTC report: there's been no progress to report.

The snowy weather has made my usual three-hour commute to the clinic just too risky. I could do it if I were willing to scramble (and pay a lot extra) to set up local monitoring on snowy days, and if I were willing to stay in hotels and miss even more time at work. Instead, I'm just sitting out the winter months.

That's not snow piled up in my parking space; it's ice!

On another note, my mother is finally going home after a long recovery from multiple medical problems. Such a relief! In recent weeks, she's gone from barely being able to hold up her head, to walking, talking, and even getting excited again about her "grand-cells" (my two frozen embryos).

So, even though it's not happening in my ovaries, there is some important progress going on after all.

Memorials (Part 3)

Now that this time of year has rolled around again, I'm not sure what date to identify as the anniversary of my pregnancy loss. Today, Feb. 6, the day the doctor broke the bad news? Feb. 12, when the bleeding finally started? Feb. 27, when it finally stopped?

This whole month is an anniversary, I guess. But today's date seems to carry the most weight.

Like my due date, it's been surprisingly ... OK. (The lead-up to it was worse.) And despite what I wrote yesterday about triggers, the "gentle, wistful sadness" is the main mood that's been here today, and especially tonight.

I won't write much about it. I doubt that words can capture the mood as well as this one image can. It's from a locket, which says "I Love You to the Moon & Back" inside. I printed the image and pinned it to the side of the prayer box (not quite sure what to call it) that my best friend made. It's like a little altar where I've gathered a few important things and where I light candles sometimes.

There are candles burning there tonight, as I look out at the winter moon.

by EverAndAnon

Triggers

Pregnant women and babies don't hurt me. I'm used to them, prepared for them, and usually not too unsettled.

Most of the time, what I feel is not much at all. Defended numbness. Sometimes a passing joy. Sometimes a gentle, wistful sadness for what might have been and obviously is not, so there's no point in brooding about it. No point in focusing much on the future, for that matter, since who knows what might end up happening then. Best to conserve my energy.

Then something blindsides me and flattens the careful defenses, as this beautiful post about the difference between grief and trauma describes:

"I've learned to walk and talk and laugh around the grief and while I never let it go, it's become easier to carry, to shift to one side when necessary. I wear it like the bracelet on my arm that has Eliza's name. It no longer feels like my defining characteristic, even though I carry it every day and it's become part of who I am.

The trauma lurks, sharp and scary and real, and when it surfaces, it takes me out."

It's true: the smallest things can hurt the worst, because they're so unexpected and so visceral. They're sensory things. A certain song that was popular when I was pregnant. The smell of hand sanitizer, which I used a lot that winter in my quest for perfect pregnant health. There are visual things, too, the worst of which hit me again this past week:

They're baaaack!
(source)

February 6—a year ago—was the date of that awful, silent ultrasound. After the OB's Doppler picked up no fetal heartbeat, there were actually two ultrasounds, an abdominal (just to make sure that everything was alright), followed by a vaginal (to confirm the worst).

A weird, stoic numbness started enfolding me right away. The OB looked worried, as if he'd rather see me cry or rage, but I didn't even have the energy for a bitter "oh SURE" when he asked if I was going to be OK. Was there a choice?

I just wanted to go home. But it was afternoon, and on the 40-minute drive I got stuck behind what seemed to be every school bus in the county. Numb, numb. I could feel my heart closing and shrinking more with each passing mile. Then I stopped at the grocery store to pick up the diapers ultra super-size menstrual pads I'd need for going home to have a miscarriage.

And there was that wall of cheerful balloons. They were shaped like giant glossy hearts and kissy lips. I stopped in my tracks, struck twice, first by all the imagery of hearts ("I'm sorry, but your baby's heart has stopped.") and then by the whole concept of Valentine's Day. Oh yeah, I thought. Almost forgot that part. I'm going home to have a miscarriage ... alone, on what would have been our anniversary.

Time does soften the rough edges, and it will probably continue to do so, but as long as I live I'll never see Valentine's Day in the same way again.