The Loop

About that last post: it was something I stumbled across, which totally caught and held my eyes. I don't know the story behind it. The mystery was what drew me in.

There's no big personal symbolism there—not for me, anyway, although clearly there must be for someone. (Personally, I'm neither a burned-out wreck like that house nor hopeful like that sign on the door.) It just seemed worth sharing, especially at a time when words have been failing me for weeks.

Actually, it's paragraphs that are my problem. Lots of words have been coming up, one or two at a time, in a loop:

How can this be? (…that the happy ending is really not going to come, that time is passing so fast, that excitement about future growth has contracted into fear of further loss)

Who cares? (…about all the mundane daily things I need to do, which don't relate to Finding A New Purpose; I try to weed out these thoughts before they take root too deeply, though)

Ouch. (…when unexpected reminders come up, like the maternity pants in the back of the closet)

Later. (…when I think about just donating the pants somewhere and being done with it)

No. (...when I think about officially ending the TTC effort, and also when I think about starting it again)

How can this be? (…that I'm feeling so very stuck)

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.

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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."

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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.

Resolution

New Year's Eve was always one of my favorite holidays. As a child, I thought it was awesome to stay up late, of course. But it wasn't just party time. As I sat on the couch watching the Times Square events on TV, I'd earnestly write out all my goals for the coming year. What serious business was on my 12-year-old mind? It's long forgotten now.

That routine didn't change much in the next decades. As a teenager and young adult, I still saw New Year's Eve more as a chance to reflect than as a chance to party. (Fourth of July was the time for partying, duh.)

Then there were years, the last few years, when I didn't make any resolutions at all. My goal was to endure. However I managed to do that, pretty much, would be OK.

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This year I'm aiming for the middle ground: no perfectionistic lists, and also no giving up. My single resolution is to have resolution. As in:

Resolution (n.): tenacity, firmness, determination, steadfastness, perseverance, purpose, resolve.

So I got a book from the library called This Year I Will…, which has been helpful. Author M.J. Ryan says:

"Because it takes work, often a lot of work and sacrifice, you have to really want to bring something into being. Deeply, truly, honestly ... Joan Borysenko, Ph.D., encourages us to go beneath the surface to find what she calls our soul resolutions, which are 'based on saying yes to your deepest longings ... Goals rooted in what really matters are far easier to keep.'"

Ryan also recommends making the goals "SMART"—specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound—then gives many tips for sustaining motivation.

My specific goal is to get up an hour earlier each morning and walk on my elliptical machine, at least through January (and then I can recommit). Officially, I'll do it for a minimum of just 10 minutes a day. But getting out of bed is the worst part.

Once I get up, get prepared, and get on the machine, the hardest part is over and 10 minutes easily turn into 20, 30, or more. Sometimes I plod along at a steady pace with my nose in a book. Sometimes I bust out the silly dance moves. Often I turn up the music and run flat-out, like something awful is right on my heels.

Even 30 minutes a day is not a big goal. It feels big to me, though, and sometimes a grand (even foolishly so) gesture is just what I need to shake things up.

I know that I need—on the soul level that Ryan talks about—the power that will come from doing this one thing every day, not just in spite of but because of the fact that my energy has been so catastrophically low.

Yes, I really want this goal. I really need the life energy and the will.

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I've felt increasingly beaten down by the TTC waiting and now—worst of all—the relentless bad news about people I dearly love and can't seem to help. It feels awful. Clinging to anything I can control and "fix," I've wondered which parts of the awfulness might be within my control, a product of clouded perceptions or mental story lines...

So much to analyze. Really, though, how much does it matter? In her book, Ryan says this:

"Over the past forty years, I have gathered dozens of theories of why I am the way I am ... But to change something in myself, to bring something new into being, I need to engage a different part of my brain—my right brain, where innovative thinking happens. The right brain is future oriented. It's where our aspirations, our dreams, our longings reside...

In preparing for the change you're about to make, allow your right brain to help you. All it takes is switching from 'why' thinking to 'what could be possible' thinking. Ask 'what' questions rather than 'why' questions: 'What can I do to have more balance in my life today?' rather than 'Why am I a workaholic?' ... Do you notice the difference in the two choices? One leads to rumination and stuckness; the other to creative possibilities and forward momentum."

Frankly, talk about innovation, aspiration, and longing makes me tired. I'm concerned most with today. But even in that small context, I do get what Ryan is saying about staying stuck in analysis vs. building some kind of forward momentum. My exercise resolution is all about the latter. I'll try to articulate why:

• Over time, it may lift my mood and energy.
• It trains me to face whatever is here (circumstances and my reactions to them) with mindfulness.
• It renews my commitment to live consciously in this world, despite its messiness and my own deep reluctance some days.
• It transforms my default state of defended numbness into anger and sorrow, which at least feel alive.
• It makes me breathe, sweat, and let energy flow in and out. When I let things happen, resistance melts away.
• It reminds me that weak muscles (literally and metaphorically) are strengthened by practice, not by rest.
• It builds my courage to do other difficult things.
• Doing it first thing in the morning puts priority on my mental and physical health. 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. I owe the same thing to myself and those I love.
• Doing it every single day builds consistency and discipline. If I make exceptions for a poor night's sleep or a busy day ahead, etc., every single day will end up as an exception. Instead:

The View Through the Windshield

Years ago, I lived in a very small town that was trying to draw attention to its "international" airport. It was international in the sense that, several times a year, a small plane used its single runway for travel to or from Mexico. The town held an "air fair" at the airport one year to raise publicity.

Because there's not a lot to do in small towns, many people came to check out the fair, me included. And because people in small towns tend to help out their neighbors (defined in the broadest sense), I got offered a free flight at the end of the day from a friend of a friend of a friend.

He was the pilot of a small plane. And by "small," I mean that he was able to pull his plane around on the runway using one hand. That was a little alarming, but I had just watched these planes taking off and landing all day without problems, so I climbed into one of the four seats and buckled my seatbelt.

It was totally different from any of my previous trips in jets. For one thing, all the instruments were right there. I could watch for flashing red lights, listen nervously for alarms... but no signs of danger appeared. As I relaxed, my focus drifted beyond the cockpit and out through that fabulous, huge windshield. Whoa, I could see everything! I noticed details I would never see from 20,000 feet. I picked out all the local landmarks. I waved at mountain bikers winding their way along a dirt trail.

Then we banked to the left, and the mountains filled the windshield like a wall. They were 10,000 feet high, so they'd been impressive from the airport on the valley floor. But from this midair vantage point, they seemed so much bigger. They went down for thousands of feet, and they went up for thousands more. They seemed endless.

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I thought of that flight lately when I wrote about the depressive fog of TTC for so long. Somehow, looking back to see how far I've come makes the path ahead feel longer, the obstacles more daunting, not less. They block out everything else on the horizon.

In TTC news ... well, there is no news right now. Things are quiet, actually. My next cycle should start early next month.

Wouldn't it be nice to see the outcome as clearly as I saw the peaks from that airplane, or to feel the excitement and expansiveness I did that day? Instead, I'll have to stick with this grounding reminder from Anne Lamott's book Bird by Bird:

"E.L. Doctorow said once said that 'Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.' You don't have to see where you're going, you don't have to see your destination or everything you will pass along the way. You just have to see two or three feet ahead of you. This is right up there with the best advice on writing, or life, I have ever heard."

The Fog

After my recent burst of sunshine, I was shocked by how little time it took for the depressive fog to settle right back down. It's humbling. Whenever I dare to believe that I'm learning to live with or through it (if not "get over" it), there I am stumbling around, lost again.

Why now? No special reason, really. Winter is coming, with its darkness, cold, and relentless (family-focused) Christmas cheer. I just wrote another huge check to the RE. Right after that, the baseline ultrasound picked up a minor problem that meant I'd have to sit out this past cycle.

Of course, none of this stuff is tragic (well, maybe the check...) or new, so you might think that I'd be better at coping with it by now. After all, it's been five years since I started TTC. Then again ... it's been five years.

It just wears me down sometimes.

(source)

More Not-Awful News!

After the fertilization report, five more days dragged by. The nurse had told me that no news was good news, and each day I sighed with relief when 5 PM passed with no phone call.

I'd expected to feel excited and cautiously optimistic, as I did the one other time I've made it this far. That time, having a fertilized egg—the first ever—felt momentous. I felt responsible for it. Didn't like the thought of it being so far away. I imagined bringing tiny booties to the lab, fussing and brooding over it like a huge mother hen.

Seriously, though, I was desperately curious about this embryo, not just in terms of whether the cycle would succeed, but in terms of its identity. Who might it become? What wonderful tapestry was its genetic code weaving right now? The medical staff and I had set things in motion, but now came the most miraculous part, the part for which we hadn't and couldn't have written a script.

I remember that feeling of awe. During the last five-day wait, I had the excitement of a fresh transfer to come right afterwards, and the innocence of never having had a pregnancy loss. This time a longer road lies ahead, and I'm more aware of each step. This time what I mostly felt was tired and numb—preemptively depressed, as if feeling bad now could keep me from feeling totally wretched if the embryo did not survive.

I KNOW that this is pointless. There's a magnet on my fridge that says, "Worry is like a rocking chair. It will give you something to do, but it won't get you anywhere." I'm not even sure how much of what I felt this week was worry. It had even less clarity. It was more like defensive withdrawal.

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On Day 5 I knew that, whatever the outcome, someone from the clinic would call. It was hard to focus on anything else as hour after hour ticked by. I considered writing a post about the wait, then thought, If you write about it, you'll jinx it. I heard a song with sad lyrics and changed it, thinking, If you listen to sad songs, you'll end up sad. I thought of taking a break and calling the clinic myself. If you call them, it will be bad news.

Although I'm grown up, sane, and mostly logical, no, apparently I'm not above magical thinking now and then. I just try not to give into it, since it leads to nothing but more of the same fantasies of control in situations where, clearly, there is none. So I went ahead and called the clinic anyway. And eventually they called back.

Turns out there was more good news. The embryo made it to Day 5, and they were able to do the biopsy and freeze.

I'm in shock. I'm incredibly lucky.

It was Thursday evening when they called. I said a prayer of thanks but still felt mostly numb for hours. Then the tears came and, with them, the thaw. Slowly, the fog of preemptive depression has lifted. Now I'm able again to connect with the wonder that has been here underneath it all along.

Believe me, I know how far this stage is from a birth or even a pregnancy. A five-day blastocyst has, what, about 200 cells? I can't use the word "baby" to describe it, but all the same, these lines from the old nursery rhyme have been echoing in my mind and heart, putting words to the wonder that's there:

Where did you come from, baby dear?
Out of the everywhere into the here...

Into the here.

Grief Isn't Pretty

No, it's not. It's a wild, scary, messy, and personal ride, especially that first day after bad news. And I'd hesitate to write about the details of it here, except that I'm so afraid of the faucet drying up. So why not? Here's a play-by-play report of my Sunday:

10:30   I'm waiting for a call from the RE, but turn off my phone while at a church service. It's a small service in someone's home. I'm able to focus on it only because I don't have much hope about what the RE will say. Mostly, I'm numb. I've been through this before.

11:30   Checking voicemail. Now I'm shaking so hard that I can barely punch the keys. Wanting so badly to hear joy in the RE's voice, but instead hearing the expected, "I'm afraid I don't have good news." He asks me to call back. Why bother? I think. There's nothing more to say now, is there?

12:00   After playing phone tag, we finally talk. It's another discussion about how donor eggs are probably my only hope, followed by another discussion about how at least I don't have cancer, just infertility. He's not insensitive. He's a caring guy and he tried his best. But when the only comfort someone can offer is to remind you that at least you're not dying … well, no, there really is nothing more to say.

12:30   I sit in a rocking chair in the host's living room, frozen except for the rocking, rocking, rocking back and forth. I can't think of one single thing that I want to do, that I'm actually capable of doing. I feel like a rat who's reached a dead end in a maze and just sits down, staring blankly at the wall. One wall is as good as any other.

12:35   Everyone is in the kitchen sharing lunch, so the room is empty except for me and one friend who wants to help but can't, so just sits there staring at me in a most awkward way. It makes me feel even more like a trapped rat. "I don't want to leave you alone." Please, leave me alone, I think, but I can't work up the energy to say it in a tone of voice that I won't regret later on. Even with you staring at me, the fact is that I AM alone with this.

12:40   Since there's nothing I want to do, I just do the next logical thing: join the people in the kitchen. I'm not capable yet of putting on a mask, so when they ask what's wrong, I explain that I've gotten some bad news. They ask with alarm, "Are you alright?" I answer truthfully, "No, but I will be eventually. Thank you for asking."

12:45   I listen to their conversation and eventually join in. At my little table alone, two women are discussing the different treatments they've had for breast cancer, and a third describes an awful genetic disease that is threatening her nephew's life. I am NOT alone, I realize. Not in this moment, anyway. Pain is not what makes me unique; it's the one thing that I share with absolutely everyone.

1:30   I go to the nearest park. I want to throw rocks and beat my fists against the ground, but the part of the park that's normally quiet is now full of parents pushing strollers. And beaming grandparents. I call my parents to give them the bad news. I am so sick of having nothing but bad news to share with the people I love.

1:45   As I watch the happy families strolling by, spending a Sunday afternoon in this most ordinary way, it feels like I'm standing at a pastry counter. I'm gazing through glass at a bounty of exotic, fabulous desserts, which I can admire but never actually touch. It occurs to me that the rest of my life may be like this: the world reflecting my failures back to me, every day, everywhere. It's the worst kind of self-pity. These are just thoughts, and I know better than to believe everything I think. But in this moment, I can't help it. I'm afraid that this feeling will never end.

2:00   I have to go someplace where I can have my impending breakdown / freakout in privacy. So I find some deeper woods and let it fly: pick up the biggest rocks I can lift and hurl them with all my strength. Pick up branches from the ground and smash them against trees, raining arrows of wood down on the forest. I rip the red thread off my wrist. (Long story short, it's symbolized healthy ways for me to seek refuge and maintain hope, and I've worn it since New Year’s Day.) Now I fling the bright thread into the dirt, grind it gleefully down with my heel, even jump up and down on it in a frenzy of destruction. I think of Stephen Crane's poem "In the Desert": "It is bitter, bitter … But I like it, because it is bitter, and because it is my heart."

2:30   It's a full-on, self-indulgent, two-year-old-style temper tantrum. Once it blows over, I sit down, panting and sweaty, on a swing. Yes, there is a deserted playground in the middle of these woods. Everything is mocking me, I'm telling you. For a while, I just swing mindlessly back and forth, and cry.

2:45   Then I start to look around. I notice how TRASHY these woods are, with litter poking through the weeds everywhere. What a bunch of pigs! Incensed, I start gathering the junk. Normally, I wouldn't pick it up with bare hands, or go charging off into brier thickets wearing sandals and white slacks. But what the hell. It's not a day to be rational. It's not a day to question anything that manages to rouse my energy, only to act wherever action is still possible. So I snatch up handfuls of discarded Coke cans, water bottles, candy wrappers. I leave behind the condom but pick up the paper that I realize, with a stab of pain through my chest, is a child's school homework. These PIGS can have children, I complain under my breath. These PIGS can have families, I rant. And me? I guess I'll just be the old busybody who devotes herself to cleaning up THEIR mess!

3:00   I am being ridiculous. I feel maniacal laughter starting to bubble up from a place so deep it hurts, from some well I'd thought was finally, totally dry. WTF, I think. Who else would turn a temper tantrum / pity party into Litter Cleanup Day? But OK. I'm not questioning why right now. I crash out of the woods, arms overflowing with trash, march up to a dumpster, and throw it all in with one final CLANG of disgust. Then I wipe my filthy hands on my pants triumphantly. Because it is bitter, and because it is my heart. Then I walk slowly back into the woods to retrieve my red thread. It's frayed and faded now, caked with dirt. Carefully, I fold it into the pocket of my ruined pants.

4:00   Back home, I still have some anger to burn off. I want to give the anger as much free rein as is safe, because I fear it less than the depression that's sure to follow. So I put on my iPod and run at top speed for three miles, with my angry playlist at top volume. Yes, I actually have an angry playlist ready to go for occasions just like this. It starts off with Hole's song "Violet," which is perfect for today. The chorus, if you can call it that, is Courtney Love screaming, "Go on, take everything! Take everything! Take everything! Take everything!"

4:30   Ouch. I am not used to running at top speed. I've been sedentary, especially just two days after egg retrieval. Now I feel like throwing up. I think about filling the Vicodin prescription I got on Friday, not so much because of physical pain but because I'd prefer not to be fully conscious now. I've never abused painkillers, but I've taken them before (during my miscarriage, most recently) and know that feeling when the buzz hits. I want it now—want it to hit me right between the eyes like a cattle prod. That's why I need to throw the prescription in the trash.

5:00   Instead of taking pills, I take a nap. I love naps.

6:00   Email the church leader to thank her for her message this morning, which was basically about keeping our hearts open despite our fear. Even with all of today's drama, her words have been percolating through my mind all day.

7:00   Dinner. This time it does not involve salmon, kale, avocado, pineapple, or other "fertility foods." It involves sugar. Sugar and a lot of chemicals I can't pronounce. Also caffeine. After weeks without my beloved coffee, I brew my third cup of the day and raise it high in a middle-fingered salute to the universe.

8:00   Start writing about today's news.

To be continued. I'm still careening from fury to despair, from the most embarrassingly immature self-pity to moments of totally unexpected grace.

You know that saying about how what doesn't kill you makes you stronger? That saying makes me gag. Here's what I believe: what doesn't kill you … doesn't kill you ... and some days that has to be enough.

The Law of Attraction (Part 2)

Last year, after a dismal RE meeting and five hours in traffic, I came home to find that my whole garden was dying. It was a big patio garden, and everything (all but two or three plants in the corners) had caught some kind of awful, fast-spreading disease. I still don't know quite what it was. I just call it The Plague.

Hearing this story, a woman I knew suggested I might be putting out negative vibes that were attracting these problems into my life, a la The Secret. Maybe my identity was getting wrapped around this idea that "bad things happen to me."

Let's back up a little. This garden was really special to me. I didn't know much about plants, since I'd always lived in apartments where gardens weren't allowed, or where (if they were possible) it seemed silly to make that investment when my time there would be short. But last year I'd had enough of waiting. Tending the garden was tending the part of myself that needed to keep believing in the possibility of growth. And the garden wasn't modest; it was BIG, lush, beautiful. The woman's suggestion that I killed it with my low expectations, negative thoughts, bad-luck cooties, or whatever, really shocked and pissed me off.

But she was right about one thing: my identity WAS getting wrapped around the idea that bad things happen to me. And it was making me more depressed. What if I hadn't been quite so depressed? If my powers of observation had been better, if I'd had more energy, might I have been more concerned about the one plant that looked sick before the others? Then maybe followed an instinct to research what was wrong, and taken action before the infection suddenly took off and spread? I think so. I think what killed my garden was 90% disease, combined with 10% ignorance and inaction.

God grant me the
Serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

Courage to change the things I can,

And wisdom to know the difference.

When I think about what I can and can't control, the garden comes to mind, along with a story from a few years earlier. I was trying mountain biking for the first time. "Focus on where you want to go," my boyfriend at the time suggested. "Don’t focus on the rocks and ruts in the trail, or you'll think Oh no, a rock, and you'll freeze up and stare at that rock, and sure enough you'll hit it." He was exactly right. Not that I never wiped out when focusing on the route I wanted to take, but focusing on the obstacles usually made my fear, and therefore my clumsiness, worse.

To sum it up, I don't think special "Laws" are required to explain what's going on. I just function best when focusing outward on the situation itself, when my mind isn't clouded by fear, despair, or other internal reactions. OK, so how do we get to that state? I'll let you know when I figure it all out. (Don't hold your breath.) What I've learned so far is the importance of trying to find balance—not grasping after overly specific outcomes (I'd like that BMW in blue, please.), while still allowing enough healthy desire and will to keep moving ahead.

Two Years

As of this weekend, it's been two years since I've had any alcohol. Actually, I've gone longer than this in the past and don't want to make a fuss. But it's a big enough deal that the date has stayed in my memory, and seeing May 18 roll around again has me in a reflective mood.

Two years ago was a dark time. Nine months before, the bottom had dropped out, and I did what people instinctively do when they're falling: throw their arms wide to grab onto anything that might help them stay upright. One of the first things I did was give up all alcohol, because even in the chaos of those days a few things were clear:

• I had a history of using it as a tool to get through this or that difficult time. It was becoming more and more of a habit.
• If there was ever going to be a time when I could go back to drinking with happy, social moderation, this was not it.
• To drink—a depressant—on top of depression was clearly a Very Bad Idea.

Sobriety was just the start. I also volunteered, went to church, exercised, took classes, went to various support groups … threw myself into getting out, feeling better, learning and growing from the challenges…

Oh shut up.

Still, nine months out, I felt like shit. So one day I shrugged and bought a bottle of scotch. Why not? If staying sober wasn't helping, then maybe alcohol hadn't been hurting after all. Clever logic, right?

I have friends who can tell a similar story, and this is the part where they say, "Then I drank for ten more years." Apparently my level of pain tolerance (or addiction, or whatever) was nowhere near that high. I drank for two more months, and that was plenty. At least I hope it was enough, because I never want to go back there again. When I need a reminder, I tell myself, There's nothing in my life so bad that taking a drink now couldn't make it worse.

How bad was that time? Sorry, I have no exciting stories to tell about run-ins with the police. What it was instead was just the bleakest, emptiest monotony. I went to work, I did what needed to be done, but the best part of my day was the unconscious part. That's how it feels when you've given up.

The unconsciousness and numbness really were a relief. There was one evening when I wrote a letter to my ex. I'll never forget writing the word "heartbroken" … then pausing, and realizing that what I actually felt at that moment was … nothing at all. Perfectly numb. A miracle—I'll drink to that!

But the numbness didn't last. Getting and staying there meant passing through waves of raging bitterness—which were totally out of character, by the way. I'm the kind of person people describe with words like "gentle" and "so calm!" Still, two years ago, there I was sitting in a park on a lovely spring day, watching smiling families as they walked by hand in hand. And oh, how I hated them all. In my memory of that day, my vision was even shaded red by the miasma of hate.

That same weekend, I came across this paragraph in the book Alcoholics Anonymous: "It is plain that a life which includes deep resentment leads only to futility and unhappiness. To the precise extent that we permit these, do we squander the hours that might have been worth while..." To put it another way, holding resentments is like taking poison and waiting for someone else to die.

The word that stuck in my mind, and echoed there for weeks, was the single word "futility." This path that I was on? It was the definition of futility. Luckily, the unexpected fall had been so abrupt and steep that I could feel the drop and catch glimpses of what lay ahead. Long story short, I was able to throw my arms out and catch my balance again.

This time I did a few things differently. I tried to stop comparing my insides to other people's outsides (those "perfect" families in the park), and spent more time around others who'd been through really painful things and were willing to talk about it. Lo and behold, we've almost ALL been through really painful things. I could let the pain harden my heart with bitterness or try to let it soften my heart with compassion.

Finally, I let myself grieve. What with one thing and another, I had pretty much tried to skip that part. Ironically, I'd been afraid that grief (rather than "I'm over it" denial) was the force that might drive me to drink. In fact, as intense as the grief felt with all the band-aids finally ripped off, I was afraid that it would KILL me.

It didn't, of course. Two years later, I'm still here, dealing with circumstances that look pretty much the same. I can feel stuck and impatient, wanting to get somewhere better faster, wanting to turn away from the realities that are here. But turning away from the pain also means turning away from the love and longing at the source of the pain. Then I think of how things might look now if I'd continued down that bitter, escapist path, instead of facing the wave with my wits mostly intact.

Motherhood would be off the table completely—I would know better than to try taking care of someone else, and wouldn't have the mental focus to navigate all those steps and decisions anyway. My health would probably be damaged. Many good people would not be here in my life.

However down I still get now and then, the main thing I'm feeling today is grateful for the people who've been with me through this time, even the ones who are still strangers, who will never know how much they've helped just by offering a map for others to follow. Wherever it leads must be better than the dead-end path that I was on. Remembering the nihilism of those days, I picture the ancient maps that showed the sea full of serpents ("Danger! This way there be Monsters!") with the edge of the world beyond.

Back in my initial hurry-and-get-over-it phase, I kept a bulletin board in my bedroom. It was full of inspirational quotes, lists of things to do, and so on—all good stuff, just way too much of it. Today, there's a single piece of paper posted in the middle of that big, blank space:

Choices

They're two lines, which start out almost parallel and slowly diverge. They're a reminder to do the right thing in this moment, and to trust that those little actions add up, even if the big picture won't become clear until much later on.

I'll end with a quote from Parker Palmer on his own struggle with depression:

I had missed the deep meaning of a biblical teaching that I had always regarded as a no-brainer: "I set before you life or death, blessing or curse. Therefore, choose life" (Deuteronomy 30:19). Why, I wondered, would God waste precious breath on saying something so obvious? I had failed to understand the perverse comfort we sometimes get from choosing death in life, exempting ourselves from the challenge of using our gifts, or living our lives in authentic relationship with others.

I was finally able to say yes to life, a choice for which I am grateful beyond measure, though how I found that yes remains a mystery to me.

It remains mostly a mystery to me, too, with the path becoming clear only one step at a time. So I'd better keep walking.

I Survived

This morning I finally got around to taking that kickboxing class I wrote about two months ago.

In the past two months, the anger I felt right after the miscarriage got swallowed up by depression, as I was afraid it would. For those who haven't been there, I should explain that depression doesn't equal sadness. There's some sadness in the mix, but for me the main feeling is unrelenting exhaustion, plus mental fogginess.

I know what to do in this state: whatever I can to stay active and connected. But have you ever had one of those dreams where someone is chasing you and you have to run, except that you're running through mud or snow, and despite your best efforts you just keep slowing down? That's how it feels sometimes. Yesterday was about the worst it's ever been. I could feel my body and mind grinding down toward absolute zero.

Needless to say, I haven't exactly been getting much exercise. Not unless you count lifting big mugs of coffee. What possessed me to take a class so clearly beyond my comfort zone (735 calories burned in an hour, they say)? I knew it would kick my ass, and yes, it certainly did. But I knew I had to try, because sometimes an ass kicking is in order. Believe it or not, I mean that in the most compassionate way. Sometimes a grand (and foolish) gesture is exactly what I need to shake things up.

Not only was the class a challenge, but it was also out of character for me. I'm more a yoga-and-pilates type who likes to take walks in the woods. With each punch, I saw the red thread that's tied around my wrist, representing the Buddhist three refuges. The incongruity made me laugh. Then I thought of what I learned the other day: a red thread can also be an infertility symbol. With that thought, my taking the class no longer seemed funny or strange. I wanted to smash things.

So in that safe and imaginary context, I beat on infertility. I punched the OB who just sent a bill for our useless "follow-up" appointment: the equivalent of three hours' pay for me, for five minutes of his time. I threw a right hook at my ex, and a kick to everyone who ever asked when I was going to have kids, "since you’re not getting any younger!"

After unleashing all that stuff, I was exhausted, totally spent. "Alright!" the teacher yelled. "That finishes our warm-up!"

CAN we do it??

Haha, OMG, what have I gotten into here? I sucked down more water and somehow dredged up more energy. My goal was just to finish the class. It didn't matter if I had to modify some of the moves—the point was to keep moving.

That much I could manage to do. Will I do it again? We'll see. First I'd better make sure that I can still move tomorrow. Meanwhile, if the class blew a few cobwebs out of my body and mind today, I'll be very grateful for that.

ICLW

If you're here as part of ICLW, welcome! (If not, you're still welcome! And you might want to check out the ICLW list, since it includes a lot of great blogs.) I signed up for a second time because last time was so worthwhile.

You can read the basics of my infertility journey here, and my first post explains why I started writing about it.

What's new this month? I'm still sitting out the recovery time after a miscarriage, which means there will be more than a 5-month gap between my last cycle and next. I have mixed feelings about the next.

On one hand, I wanted to start trying right away, because last time (almost) worked and that was awesome—it felt like a miracle. Also, there's just no time to spare; I have severe DOR, and it's probably time to move on to the most aggressive options.

Which leads to the mixed feelings. Surely I'm not the only one feeling discouraged, afraid, and overwhelmed sometimes? When those feelings are at their worst, I want to curl up under the covers and avoid dealing with anything else that's painful (enough already!) ... even if there may be rewards beyond the pain.

So last weekend, in my best kind-but-firm "mom voice," I had a little talk with myself about the avoidance habit. It was an infertility intervention—a name I borrowed from this post at The 2 Week Wait, which says:

I know firsthand that it's easier to hope that things will work out somehow. That maybe next cycle, somehow, I'll get pregnant if I pray really hard or maybe I'll get pregnant while I'm in Disney World or maybe I don't have a problem and I just need to eat more chocolate.

No one wants to have an IVF. No one wants daily blood work or to be regularly intimately involved in vaginal sonograms. It sucks, it's not fun and it's not the way you expected it to be. The fact is though that if you're not getting pregnant, this is my personal urge to you to fight. Fight hard. See another doctor, get another opinion, be your own advocate and don't waste time avoiding what may be the very thing that can help.

That last sentence was just what I needed to hear. My own "intervention" involved several days of medical research and financial planning. (I've done all that stuff before, of course, but it's been a while.) It helped me separate feelings from facts. (Both are valid, but it's important to understand which is which.) It was unpleasant. It was also necessary. I now have a much better list of things to consider and to ask my REs.

So that's what's new. When I'm not obsessing about TTC options, I'm probably thinking about fostering options or just trying to maintain some sense of humor and perspective. Feel free to look around and comment on anything new or old. I'll pay you a visit in return. Sharing this journey with and learning from others has been one of the main forces helping me stay sane.

Happy ICLW!

Intervention

The time has come: I'm staging an infertility intervention on myself.

No more blogging, reading, or other great but time-consuming activities for me until there's a plan in place for my next cycle, which may start as soon as May 6. That may sound like plenty of time, but it isn't at all. There's a lot to consider.

And, frankly, I'd rather not. I'd just SO MUCH rather do almost anything else ... fool around online, spend an afternoon at the dentist, alphabetize my grocery-store coupons. Or take a nap. Oh yes, naps are a favorite escape when I'm feeling overwhelmed.

The thing is, I know that this avoidance doesn't mean that it's time to stop trying. It's not a subconscious way of telling myself that I'm done; it's a subconscious way of stomping my feet in protest that "This sucks!" Of course, this mature response does nothing but contribute to the suckiness.

Yes, I'm weary of starting over again so soon after the miscarriage, and afraid that some things that matter most to me may stay forever out of reach. There's a real temptation to numb out, to insist that I'll think about the next steps tomorrow ... or maybe, what the heck, the day after that.

So let's be honest here. I'm doing nothing but hurting my own odds by pretending that I can have BOTH things I most want right now: a nice, dreamy reprieve from pain today, AND a child in my future.

What could I be doing instead of avoiding reality? Some highlights of my to-do list:

• Decide on another natural-cycle IVF vs. stimulated IVF.
  • If natural-cycle, order a few drugs, like the trigger shot and antibiotics.
  • If stimulated, decide which RE (two options, although maybe I should get one more opinion...) and protocol to use. Decide whether to pay (*gasp*) for two discounted cycles at once. Order a boatload of drugs. Check limits on all credit cards. 
• Decide whether to genetically screen the embryo(s).
• Order my "other half" from the sperm bank.
• Research the Affordable Healthcare Act, to see if anything in there may help.
• Research more natural ways to improve fertility, to see what special foods or vitamins may boost my odds by 0.00001%.

There's so much more I could and did start to say about that first bullet. Then I realized that it would more than double the size of this whole post. There are so many issues hidden in there, and they overlap and intersect in ways that make my head hurt. 

So, for now, I'll just leave you with the simplified, diagram form:

ICLW Thanks

As my first ICLW comes to an end, I'm already looking forward to the next. It's been enlightening, healing, busy, and fun. I found some wonderful blogs to follow and got so much food for thought. In fact, there are ideas for many more posts swirling around in my head now, along with topics to research, questions I should remember to ask my doctors, etc.

I even managed to, you know, keep up with the commenting part. It shouldn't be a surprise, but secretly I wondered how this week would go, since it turned out to be busier than expected when I signed up. And, as always, the regularly scheduled depression was there to interfere.

I tried to comment on every blog that I read and to go down the list randomly, not just picking situations that seemed to have the most in common with mine. And I'm so glad. Before, I might have turned away from those who wrote a lot about their supportive spouse, pregnancy, or existing children. (Sorry—it's just a self-protective thing.) I might have resented women whose TTC odds seemed better than mine. And I would have missed out.

Because here's what I learned: we're ALL struggling with pain and fear, just in different forms. Yeah, we know this. But it's one thing to know intellectually and another to read about it in depth, day after day. Those people who "have it better" than me in one way or another? They also spent everything they had on multiple IVF cycles / have a husband who's away from home on military deployments / have a child with a serious birth defect / have a high-risk pregnancy / fought infertility for a decade / need major surgery to correct a uterine problem / lost babies to miscarriage and stillbirth / just lost someone else they loved / and many more situations than I can list here.

So I bow to those people—to all of you—for living through what you have and for sharing your example. Thanks for getting me out of my own head (see link above!) and making me feel at home.

Winter in My Heart

One Month Out

It's been a month since that awful, silent ultrasound.

No, I'm not "over it" yet. In fact, you don't want to know how many times I snooze the alarm before dragging myself out of bed each day.

AND—I'm learning to say "and" instead of "but," which brushes off the truth of everything that came before—tonight I took a shower (the one I had no time for in the morning) and made a big glass of green juice. It has kale, broccoli, cucumber, celery, and apple in it, and it really is THAT green. It actually tastes pretty good (light and refreshing) for something that looks like it came out of a swamp. I made juice all the time when I was TTC and pregnant. Since then, I haven't done that or really any other healthy stuff.

The thing is, making these commitments to health again feels like I'm also committing to TTC again … which, of course, is true. The clock is still ticking and there's absolutely no time to waste. The idea of trying again, so soon, is what really feels overwhelming right now.

AND … all the same … here are the commitments I've made tonight:

• Cut out the physically unhealthy habits. That means all junk food of any kind, including the tasteless chips with only five ingredients.
• Add back as many healthy habits as I can without feeling too resentful. I'll get back on the prenatal vitamins, and I'm still looking forward to that kickboxing class. But no, the hippie deodorant can wait until CD1.
• Put together a list of follow-up questions about maternal testing for my OB. Our appointment today got rescheduled due to the snowstorm of the year half an inch of slush outside.
• Put together a list of TTC options and questions for my RE. 
• Take a close look at my finances, which will determine which of the TTC options are even possible now.

Oh, that last one is a killer. I've been avoiding it because (especially on top of the pregnancy loss) it's so depressing and scary. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go throw up that glass of juice now…

I am a Walking Cliché

In the grocery store last night, I felt like a walking PMS cliché. I used one of the self-checkout machines so that no-one would see the contents of my basket: a pint of ice cream and a bag of chips, topped off by a Diet Pepsi (to magically cancel out the calories in the other stuff).

Do I actually have PMS? Who knows? My last period started 21 days ago … and then lasted for 16 days. After the miscarriage, I have no idea when it will reappear.

I'm just eating this junk because it's a small pleasure, and pleasures are scarce lately. Also, I was so very health-conscious for months without a break. I gave up coffee (which shocked my friends), gave up soda, gave up sugar and most carbs, ate more protein than ever before, drank more water, made fresh juice from organic vegetables, switched to a "natural" deodorant that worked half as well and cost twice as much … I was so careful. And what did it matter in the end?

I just came across this story, which really hit home:

At twelve weeks you are supposed to be safe … You have walked in the world differently and you have no idea how no one has noticed.  For weeks you have wanted everyone to know about the little life growing inside you but at the same time you have loved it being just you two … You have touched your non-existent belly to comfort the baby inside ... You have become a better person simply because THEY deserve a better person. You do everything you can … And then you find out nothing you did worked, nothing mattered. The spinach you ate, the walk you did briskly (but not too briskly), the vitamins you took, the good thoughts you made yourself think. All the love in your heart…

Someday I hope to have enough love for myself to take the actions I was willing to take for my child. Even now, I still do sometimes. The chips I bought last night were the tasteless kind with only five ingredients, for whatever that's worth. And tonight I bought veggies for juicing for the first time in a month. I really had mixed feelings about it. I haven't done anything with them yet except throw them in the fridge and shut the door.

Maybe tomorrow. One day at a time.

Taking in the Good

Lately I've heard several people talk about the importance of gratitude. I wish that counting my own blessings made me feel good in the way that these people described. When I think of the best things in my life, what I feel instead is FEAR: Oh please, don't let me lose this, too! I couldn't stand it! The fear is paralyzing. It makes me feel like there's nothing to look forward to.

How to let the good stuff sink in, to feel gratitude in my heart as well as think it in my head? I'm trying to do what Rick Hanson and Richard Mendius suggest in their book Buddha's Brain: savor the good and even neutral moments as they come up, in a vivid and physical way, to balance out the negative bias of memory.

Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love & Wisdom
by Rick Hanson, Ph.D. with Richard Mendius, MD

They explain how our brains evolved to pay more attention to negative experiences than to positive ones, because the negative ones usually had more impact on survival. As a result, our baseline state is one of vigilantly scanning for threats. Also, our brains tend to detect negative information faster than positive information, then emphasize it more in memory. Hanson and Mendius explain how these changes happen neurologically. Then they summarize:

Your brain preferentially scans for, registers, stores, recalls, and reacts to unpleasant experiences; as we've said, it's like Velcro for negative experiences and Teflon for positive ones. Consequently, even when positive experiences outnumber negative ones, the pile of negative implicit memories naturally grows faster. Then the background feeling of what it feels like to be you can become undeservedly glum and pessimistic. 

Sure, negative experiences do have benefits: loss opens the heart, remorse provides a moral compass, anxiety alerts you to threats, and anger spotlights wrongs that should be righted. But do you really think you're not having enough negative experiences?! Emotional pain with no benefit to yourself or others is pointless suffering. And pain today breeds more pain tomorrow. For instance, even a single episode of major depression can reshape circuits in the brain to make future episodes more likely (Maletic et al. 2007).

Oh great, another thing to fear. But they do have a suggestion. Instead of "thinking positive"—sweeping negative realities under the rug while reading a mental list of all the reasons we should feel happier—here's what they suggest:

The remedy is not to suppress negative experiences; when they happen, they happen. Rather, it is to foster positive experiences—and in particular, to take them in so that they become a permanent part of you… 

Turn positive facts into positive experiences. Good things keep happening all around us, but much of the time we don’t notice them; even when we do, we often hardly feel them…Whatever positive facts you find, bring a mindful awareness to them—open to them and let them affect you. It’s like sitting down to a banquet: don’t just look at it—dig in! 

Savor the experience. It’s delicious! Make it last by staying with it for 5, 10, even 20 seconds; don’t let your attention skitter off to something else. The longer that something is held in awareness and the more emotionally stimulating it is, the more neurons that fire and thus wire together, and the stronger the trace in memory (Lewis 2005). Focus on your emotions and body sensations, since these are the essence of implicit memory. Let the experience fill your body and be as intense as possible...

Finally, there's this:

Positive experiences can also be used to soothe, balance, and even replace negative ones. When two things are held in mind at the same time, they start to connect with each other. That’s one reason why talking about hard things with someone who’s supportive can be so healing: painful feelings and memories get infused with the comfort, encouragement, and closeness you experience with the other person.

Dignity

"As you face loss, hurt, and conflict, invite a sense of your own dignity. Sit up, stand up tall. Have respect for yourself, and patience and compassion." (Jack Kornfield, A Lamp in the Darkness)

I like this quote, so I've been thinking about what it means to have dignity … and I'm honestly not sure. At what point does "invite a sense of your own dignity" become "pretend that you are fine when you are not"?

I'm pretty sure that dignity does not just equal decorum, which means conforming to all the rules of polite society. Dignity has more to do with honoring a person's worth, which is something inherent, I guess. But what does that mean in real life? After two pain pills and a sleepless night, these distinctions seem pretty obscure. They still seem important, though. I need some kind of guidelines to follow.

Staying in pajamas all day does not conform to the rules of decorum, but when is it actually undignified or unhealthy? Does it matter whether I've consciously chosen to be gentle with myself, or whether I've just given up? And wouldn't scolding myself for feeling defeated be undignified in its own right, if dignity requires patience and compassion like the quote above contends?

See? It's confusing. When I get caught up in these questions, my mind eventually drifts back to the days right after getting the bad news. I found myself responding to everything with an attitude of "So what, who cares?" I'd look at my unmade bed and think, "It doesn't matter." I’d look at work piling up and think, "I don’t care."

Then it felt very important to stop, even physically put a hand over my heart, and acknowledge, "I DO CARE."

No, these things can never mean as much as my baby's life. I may act on them (the work) or not (the bed). In any case, I cared enough to notice them.

The point is that the part of me that cares (to whatever small degree) about other things is still alive, and it wants (to whatever small degree) to stay that way. Maybe that is dignity.

Hello, Blank Page

"For some reason, just before I take a look inside myself I always think it's going to be fun." (Alan Alda, Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself)

OK, I know that this is not going to be fun. I was planning to write a fun blog—maybe one about renovating the old house that my partner and I planned to buy, or maybe one about parenting (the project I looked forward to the most). I pictured myself learning things and spilling over with eagerness to share them. I was ready to jump in and get my hands dirty, literally: I would hang drywall and change diapers. I would take pictures and lovingly document the building of our life together.

That was the plan. In reality, the home is not to be, my partner of more than a decade is gone, and I'm miscarrying the much-loved baby who took years to conceive. Yes, right now. After 12 weeks of pregnancy, miscarriage is far from a quick thing; it's been going on all week. So no, this is not going to be fun.

And my first impulse is certainly not to write about it. My instinct, like most people's, is to escape from pain—to lock the door and turn off the phone, have a stiff drink or five, and smash things, then hide the baby keepsakes in a shoebox in the back of the closet somewhere.

And then … what? It's a dead end.

That's how I grieved the loss of my partner and home. Not only did escaping from the pain not work, but the efforts just hardened my anger and grief into bitterness and despair.

My heart, as I picture it now, is not like a faucet with separate controls for hot and cold. There is only one source, so to turn off the grief is to turn off all potential for joy as well, to turn off giving a shit, and even to turn off the energy I need to get out of bed and get through the day.

If it sounds like I'm still learning things and sharing them, however much the lessons differ from the original plans, I should warn you that trying to sound in control is a habit and a defense. The truth is that this is as lost as I've ever felt.

One new thing I've done this week, though, is to stumble across other people's blogs about baby loss. And that's how I came to be here, starting a not-fun blog of my own. Other people have put the unspeakable into words that are raw and still somehow beautiful. To borrow a line from The Velveteen Rabbit: "Once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand." These other people's writing has been one of my few comforts this week. Maybe it's been a comfort to them, too?

If anything is guiding me now, it's this thought: I don't want to freeze up with bitterness and despair. If I have to feel these things, and apparently I do, then let the feelings stay fluid. Let me do what I can to keep the faucet open, if that makes any sense.