August 26, 2013

It's finally here: my would-have-been due date. If not for the miscarriage, I would have been 40 weeks pregnant today, if the baby hadn't already arrived.

Strangely, this date hasn't been as upsetting as I'd thought it might be. It's just another day in limbo, and I'm used to that. Yes, I'm thinking about the baby with love. I do that every day. What I don't do is spend much time dreaming about the details of what might have been. Years of infertility have trained me not to get too attached to dreams.

Yes, after 8 or 10 weeks of pregnancy, when I started needing to map out future medical appointments on the calendar, I was bold enough to note all 40 weeks. But I did it in pencil. Wow. It didn't occur to me until today how telling and sad that really is. My due date was never marked with a celebration of circles, exclamation points, and smiles, just a businesslike "40" with a mental asterisk and footnote saying, "if I should really be so lucky after all..."

Nope. 

Daydreams of motherhood require some details. I could fantasize about everything that might have been ... but the truth is that I have no real details about the life who was so briefly here, really here. All I have of him or her are questions. And the only way I can honor him or her is to hold the questions in my heart and just let them be.

Questions and love. Today and every day.

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!

I Don't Want Spring to Come

This morning the whole country turned clocks forward an hour for Daylight Saving Time. Now it will be light out until 7 PM. Also, the temperature is supposed to reach over 60 degrees today. I know what all this means: spring is right around the corner.

I hate it. I dread it. This was when I was supposed to start feeling the baby move. The "supposed tos" and "should haves" are only going to get more painful as spring and summer go by.

Although I didn't think about the timing of this pregnancy at all while TTC, it could not have been more symbolically perfect. The positive beta results came back just a week before Christmas. I've never gotten a better gift. And this was a gift I could pass along to others, like my parents, who were thrilled. I'll always remember the serene drive to their house on Christmas Eve, on the back roads past the country church with its nativity scene, listening to "Silent Night." I had one hand on my belly, tears of wonder and gratitude in my eyes.

At the start of the new year, I heard the baby's brand-new heartbeat. It was loud and insistent—BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!—reminding me of a newborn's first cry. It seemed to announce to the world, "I AM HERE!" More tears of wonder and gratitude.

I would have felt the baby's first movements near Easter. My belly would have started growing visibly at the same time all the leaves and flowers spread out toward the sun. I would have worn cute little maternity clothes, which wouldn't have cost much.

Then in August, in the fullness of summer, I would have given birth. People joked about the misery of being nine months pregnant in the summer heat, but I love summertime. And August is the one month when no-one else in my family has a birthday. The baby would have had it all to him- or herself.

Those were my daydreams. Now I just want to stop the clocks at winter, because it's still winter in my heart. I have different daydreams now. When I see Easter lilies in the stores and sunshine filling the sky, I close my eyes and think again of "Silent Night":  Sleep in heavenly peace, Sleep in heavenly peace.

Source: ForestWander Nature Photography

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.

Memorials (Part 1)

The Lumineers' song "Ho Hey" ("I belong with you; you belong with me; you're my sweetheart") was special to me while I was pregnant. Lately, I haven't heard it much—maybe once in two weeks. The break from it was a relief. Then on Sunday, in just a few hours of flipping through radio stations, I heard that song five times.

I had been planning to order a little print with the lyrics to put in the baby's room. On Monday, after some internal debate, I went ahead and ordered it anyway. It belongs in my memory box along with the ultrasound pictures, the journal I kept for the baby, and the magazine I couldn't resist stealing from my RE's office in December because the cover headline said "2012: A Year of Incredible Miracles!"

Gathering these things helps me to focus on the baby instead of on my own general hopelessness. It's actually a comfort. It’s one of the few actions I can take that still feels motherly.

Always

by Sweet Lemon Art