Why Not Me?

Greedy

2009-12-05T10:46:00.000-08:00

I had a strange realization the other day.

When I was younger, I was in no hurry to have kids - I had way too many other plans! Kenton and I thought we were being smart, not having kids before we got married or were financially stable. We also wanted to have some time to ourselves, build the founding blocks of what we thought would surely be a wonderful, stable family life.
Still, even though I was never one of those girls who dreamed of becoming a wife and mother from, say, age 7, I always assumed that I'd have two kids - you know, the generic average.

Things changed when this whole journey hit the first speed bumps and I had to come to terms with the fact that I might not just NOT have two, I might not even get ONE. So, all of a sudden one seemed perfectly fine - not ideal, but I'd settle for one. After all, one is better than none and, it's not like I'd wanted a gazabajillion kids in the first place.

Well...it came as a complete surprise when, a few days ago, as I was talking to Dad, I realized that at this point in my life, I felt more than ready to take on motherhood. All this time I kept thinking about all the bad bits and all the crap - the infertility issue, the fact that we might not be able to have kids, that we probably wouldn't be able to afford either IVF or adoption without going broke or even into debt. But I had this epiphany: the gross, the icky, the worrying, the disciplining, the scolding, the yelling, the sleepless nights...all the inevitable drawbacks of motherhood suddenly seemed like they were just not that big of a deal in my head. Before, I had so many doubts as to whether I was just panicking because I'm getting older, because there seems to be a big hold-up in the maternity department and so on. I'd gotten to the point where I was almost embarrassed as I was forced to contemplate that I had become one of "THOSE" women who were constantly talking about the proverbial biological clock ticking.

At the tailend of that conversation which led to said epiphany, I had another unexpected revelation. I suddenly thought, twins might be fun - and it would be cool to have four kids when it's all said and done. WHAT??? I mean, here's the thing. I'm not one of those people who thinks there's some kind of godliness about reproduction. Technically, it's a purely scientific process that, in general, the female body simply negotiates without much input (no pun intended). Still, I had very specific "demands" of potential motherhood: preferably girls or a boy but only first born; no twins (who wants to start motherhood with twice the poo? EEEWWWWW!), and definitely not more than the middle class perfection of 2.2 (rounded down mathematically to 2) kids.

But suddenly I realized that, for the first time in my life, I can say that I really, truly feel ready. And not in that desperate, must-have-a-baby-NOW kind of way. I just feel like I've rounded a corner and feel a sense of balance, almost zen-like acceptance of the potential challenge that becoming a mother would present.

Of course the reality of our situation hasn't suddenly faded from my peripheral vision - it's pretty much still smack-dab in the middle of it all. But Kenton and I had a long talk not too long ago and we decided that, next year, we're going to pull out all the stops. I'm going to get every test under the sun done to find out what's going on with me, demand answers, results & advice, and I will do everything I can possibly do to combat this problem. Infertility? Pah, I'll show you!!

Time After Time

2009-11-28T14:48:00.000-08:00

It's been so long since I last posted on my blog - sadly, there's still no new or positive development in my quest for motherhood. What remains in the pain and emptiness I feel.

Lately, I've started feeling more and more like my life is somehow without meaning because of this whole issue. I feel like I'm waiting, all the time, for this one thing to happen - knowing all the while that it may never happen. Sometimes I think - why write about it? I still feel like I can't talk to anyone about it, and writing the same thing about the same issue seems almost ridiculous. Sometimes I feel like I'm just repeating myself over and over again.

I want to have the patience and the courage to go find other women like me - to strike up a "conversation" with an unknown person on the internet and commiserate. I want to read and write emails that carry the hopes and dreams of two women sharing their thoughts. But where and how? Maybe it's just asking too much, like with everything else. Maybe you can't have it all - or at least some of us can't. Sometimes, when I look at the world around me, it seems that the expression "haves" and "have-nots" applies to so much more than material wealth. It seems that people who are blessed with parenthood are usually multiply blessed so, whereas the poor saps who are still begging for just one chance are forever denied even one.

So I wander around aimlessly, filling my life and my days with things that, when it comes right down to it, are completely unimportant and irrelevant. Because I don't know how else to cope with the hand that fate has dealt me. I want to be one of those go-getters who will stop at nothing until the desired result is accomplished, I so want to be the person who'll spend hours upon hours culling mountains of research, testimony and other information, condensing it until you have the most potent facts in nutshell. Armed thusly, Mrs. Gogetter will march herself into the appropriate place of business and demand that the situation be addressed, the wrong redressed, her helter skelter off balance world put back into "normal" mode.

But I'm not that person. I'm just a sad women lost in self-pity. I feel like I'm floating in this murky pool of emotions, surrounded by darkness and hopelessness. I want to swim ashore, to the warmth of understanding, compassion and answers, but I'm disoriented and don't know how to get there.

Time after time, I feel heartbroken...

Tiny little tears

2009-08-29T14:33:00.000-07:00

It happened again. A totally innocent daily occurrence turned into drama for me. A friend emailed me some pictures of one of her kids, and there was this one candid shot where she's holding her son up...and she's just beaming into the camera. A totally natural, normal picture of an totally natural, normal every day life.

And I cried.

Sometimes, there are these little moments where it feels as though someone is reaching into my chest and squeezing my heart, hard enough to make it hurt, to make it feel like it will burst from the pressure. I want to be happy for others, I do - but it's just getting harder and harder not to be resentful. Each time I have to stop myself from almost starting an argument because I really just want to tell them to STOP SENDING ME REMINDERS OF MY INFERTILITY!!!

But it's not their fault - how could they know that the things that are just normal for them are like shrapnel to me, like a hollow-point bullet that pierces your heart and then expands to cause even more damage. It just hurts so much.

I'm not crying now. I want to, and I know I will again before long - probably before I can hit the "publish" button at the end of this screen, to add another blog entry on this road of desolation. I keep seeing them everywhere - all these women from all walks of life, tall and short, fat and anorexic, young and old. They all have kids, many of them more than one person should want to have, many more pregnant yet again.

Sometimes I feel invisible. I feel like I'm walking through a nightmare - like I'm not really there and no one feels or notices my pain. I keep thinking that I should be able to wake up now, anytime now, please let me wake up NOW. But of course it's not a dream - it's my life. I feel so empty, so lost and deprived of any kind of hope.

I know I'm not alone with this problem - I know there are many women who've walked miles in my shoes, been there done that and got the t-shirt to prove it. But somehow that doesn't help me - it doesn't lessen my pain, my anger, my frustration. It doesn't make me feel any less lonely and alone with this problem that threatens to envelop me and swallow me whole, to wrap a dark ugly cape around me and keep the light out.

I feel so, so alone.

Outside Looking In

2009-08-26T13:35:00.000-07:00

Have you ever noticed among your friends - or, really, ANY group of women - how seemingly unrelated topics have a way of making it back to pregnancy and childbirth? You're talking to someone about a movie you want to see or a book you're reading, and before you know it, somehow someone manages to worm their pregnancy stories - complete with fold-out wallet pictures of 1-18 kids (these days it seems to me that the norm/average lies somewhere between 3 and 7 ) - and you're standing there thinking, ARE YOU SERIOUS???

It's bad enough that you can't open a magazine without 75% back to school content - ok, I can deal with that. I guess I should just not buy magazines - ANY magazines - around certain times of the year. It's even worse when you keep seeing, it seems, EVERY SINGLE WOMAN ON THE PLANET with a slew of kids in tow, preferably pushing out an enormous belly to announce to the world that yes, I really AM that fertile!

The other day I saw this young woman, circa early to mid 20s, with three young boys - all close in age - and heavily pregnant with Spawn of Evil #4. They were hollering, screaming, one of them threw himself down in front of the supermarket entrance and ACTUALLY beat his fists into the ground. And Mom Of The Year (I'm sure they have those awards for people like that - IN HELL!) did...oh of course: NOTHING!

Don't even get me started on anything remotely relating to ANY holidays. I mean, it doesn't matter if it's Labor Day or Christmas - out come the tall tales of Baby BooBoos, milestones of the pregnancy calendar etc. It's enough to make me want to revert to something resembling a tempestuous 6-year old, stick my fingers into my ears while sing-songing annoyingly "IIIIII'M NOT LIIIIIIIISTENIIIIIIIIIING!!!".

Today has not been a good day. There has been absolutely NOTHING good about this day - everything and everyone in this entire day has been nothing but an enormous aggravation. This day should be stricken from the calendar.

Breakthrough conversation?

2009-08-24T15:47:00.001-07:00

It's a strange world we live in - and, as women, we share it with the strangest creatures yet: men. There are so many differences and yet so many similiarities; but often you find yourself as though trying to navigate some tropical jungle without so much as a map.

Last night, Kenton and I had one of The Talks. It was weird. I didn't cry for a change, but I had a hard time looking at him while I talked. I told him how hard it was for me to keep seeing all these pregnant women, to hear about women getting knocked up who don't even want another baby. I can't even fathom the concept of child abuse because if I thought about it, I would probably just implode from a combination of fury and incomprehension.

The world is a big place, and yet sometimes thanks to the internet, it feels like your backyard. There's something strangely comforting about knowing that there are people who've never met you but who, through some chance or circumstance, find themselves in a situation that makes them understand you even without knowing you.

I think we've sort of tabled the whole discussion for a while, in some way. I think we have to make a decision: to either rally the troops and move forward, or to deny the undeniable for a while until we both feel steady on our feet again. We get pictures from friends and family with their children, ranging from newborns to preteens. We look at them and I, for one, have started feeling old when I look at them. I start to think about my age - which I normally never do - and then I think, what if when we turn 60, there's no one left for us? It's just him and me (and in this day and age, even that's not something you can take for granted, no matter how much you love someone in the here and now), our parents are long gone, our friends have grandchildren and we...we have pets. When I think about that, there's this lump in my throat that threatens to suffocate me and I feel as though I'm engulfed in fierce anxiety, like having a panic attack. Part of me wants to scream and holler - I feel as though I'm in danger, as though I need help, need to be rescued, treated for some imaginary wounds.

Only maybe they're not imaginary; maybe they're just not visible to the naked eye. Maybe they're under the surface, never quite healing. Maybe they keep reminding me of the fact that, no matter what I tell myself, I don't think I can be happy without a child. I can learn to live without it - God knows there's a chance I might have to - but it will always be an unhappy coexistence. I will never feel at ease with the thought of not having children.

When we talked last night, Kenton seemed close to the edge too. He started talking about what I always feel too: this great sense of injustice, how we did everything "right", by the book, didn't have sex at a ridiculously early age, didn't sleep around, didn't get knocked up. We were always so careful - so trusting that our time would come, that when we were ready to expand our little duo into a family, it would all fall into place. The 2.2 kids, the child-friendly Golden Retriever, the white picket fence...the whole nine yards. No one told us that being responsible came with such a huge price tag. No one told us to guard our fertility like Fort Knox, that the thing that happens to people everywhere in the world, every second of every day, would just refuse to happen for us.

I want to cry, and I don't want to cry. I want to cry because I'm hurting, because it hurts not to cry. It hurts to pretend that everything is ok. It hurts to watch all these people have babies, watch them grow up and smile at the camera from inside a bathtub or a sandy beach, covered in ice cream or birthday cake. It hurts to feel so left out of something that shouldn't have restricted access. But then I think about how little the crying accomplishes, and how much it brings the pain right back to the surface. I think about how talking and crying and crying some more...it's not getting me anywhere.

I wish I could just sit back and examine this entire situation without emotion. To make a "battle plan" and knock down the door of every doctor until someone, somewhere, can tell me what the problem is and how to solve it. But I'm embarrassed and I'm not made of money. So, instead, I sit here and write, thinking about how much easier this all must be for someone like, oh I don't know, SJP for example. I know money can't buy you happiness, but in this case it can buy you the best doctors, the best fertility treatments - and, if nothing else, at least a better fighting chance than those of us with limited resources have. If I were rich, I think I'd fly to some tropical island and soothe away my pains.

You know how, when you were single and all your friends were paired off, everyone kept telling you it would happen for you too? And you didn't really believe them, thought it was easy for them to say that since they weren't out there looking. The old advice always came back: it'll happen when you least expect it. So now the same advice somehow gets regurgitated when you're trying to have a baby - only this time, it's not a matter of going out there and looking (or not looking, isn't that what's supposed to "make it happen"?). This time you have absolutely NO control. It's not a matter of dressing nicely when you go out because there isn't much you can do if your uterus is on strike, your ovaries are playing Sleeping Beauty or your fallopian tubes are experiencing total gridlock.

And then you have a hundred thousand quacks who try to exploit the vulnerable, hurt little you who's just asking for a chance to do what so many are incapable or unwilling to do: be a good mother. When we first started having these issues - or, rather, becoming aware of them - I went on the internet (my trusted friend) to see what information I could pool. I came across a website that, in my Google search, promised support groups and information. A couple of clicks later, it turned out to be a "members only" club with a hefty price tag. I was outraged! How dare anyone restrict such vital information or refuse to give access to any and all??

Then there are all these other websites that throw together people with the whole panoply of infertility issues - so that you're trying to sift through the "TTCs" and the "finally got knocked ups" in hopes of finding a lost soul like yourself: the '"(seemingly) lost causes".

I don't know if I find it annoying or encouraging when someone who tried to get pregnant for a long time finally does. Part of you thinks, hey maybe it'll happen to me. But part of ME thinks, come down from your high horse and stop preaching like a televangelist "THY DAY SHALL COME!" (cue melodramatic chorus).

So where does this all leave me? I don't really know. I want answers, more than anything. I want to have a good, reliable and honest doctor who will tell me exactly what the science says and how it applies to me: which tests to run, what the worst/best case scenarios are, what options are available for different problems. I want someone who is sympathetic without being patronizing, someone who, above all, is professional in a caring way.

The truth is, part of me just wants my mom - and for her to tell me that everything's going to be alright. I guess that, no matter how old we get, there's still a little girl in every one of us...

In a slump...

2009-08-21T16:17:00.000-07:00

Lately, I've been in a slump. Not just baby-related, although that never helps. But in the past month or so, I just feel sort of out of it. I don't really feel like going anywhere or doing anything. I just sit around at home and watch sappy movies, eat chocolate and sleep. Ok so obviously that's a bit overdramatized, but you get what I'm saying. It's just not a very happy place right now.

I've been trying to distract myself. Kenton has an appointment in a month - the clinic couldn't fit him in any sooner - but there's a chance a business trip may come in the way.

And you know what? I almost don't care. In fact, lately I don't even feel like having sex. I get so mad because of everything that's going on, feeling totally powerless - and everything seems like this colossal joke. I don't even want to think about any of it anymore, and I feel cranky almost all day, every day.

For the past week or so, my chest has been hurting - in the same way it usually hurts when I'm coming up on my period. Except I'm a good 2-3 weeks away. So I have no idea what's going on, and quite frankly I'm so fed up with this whole ordeal that I just want to pull the covers over my head and disappear.

The other day I saw a woman who was both larger (significantly so) and older than I am, with a tiny little rosey baby. And here I thought both age and obesity are supposed to almost guarantee that your chances of having a baby are zilch - and yet EVERYONE AROUND ME is having babies, whether they actually want them or not. My favorite one are the people who keep having "accidents". I literally don't know what to do with that.

So I don't know what I can say that I haven't said before...I'm just not feeling the love right now...

What is WRONG with this picture??

2009-07-31T14:24:00.000-07:00

I really need to understand something: what is it with people having not one, not two or even four kids but 14+? SERIOUSLY??? What the hell is wrong with this picture?? How is it that some people get pregnant more times than any one person should reasonable WANT to get pregnant (I'm not even going to get into what I think about the sheer lunacy and complete irresponsibility of having that many children) while there are some of us who'd move heaven and earth for just ONE baby, and can't even get that?

I want to know who's responsible for this complete injustice - and I want to file a complaint!! If there is a God (which, being agnostic, I'm neither denying nor endorsing), I would really like to know what kind of circus he's running here.

Recently, I learned of someone I vaguely know falling pregnant again. Nevermind that she's already got a slew of kids (where have I heard/thought/read that before? Oh yeah, on a DAILY BASIS!!!) running rampant in food-encrusted, baby sick infested clothes and wailing for a parent who's too self-absorbed to care (or, it would seem, consider having her knees sewn together since she's clearly never heard of contraceptives). Bitter, me? YOU'RE DAMN RIGHT I AM! If there is someone in charge of this whole fiasco that's arbitrarily making some of us fertile like bunnies while others are growing cobwebs in our wombs, then, to borrow a line from the movie Good Morning, Vietnam then his "ass is grass and I'm a lawn mower!" (sorry about the vulgar expression, I'm having a MOMENT).

I am SO sick and tired of all these protruding bellies - preferably hanging out of skinny coochie-hugging jeans shorts that look more like belts than pants - or kids who should be in college getting an education walking around with a bunch of kids who, of course, won't learn a damn thing because their parents are idiots.

I wonder why no one has thought about making medication for the reproductively challenged - you know, the kind that suddenly makes you think everything is going to be alright, that prevents your heart from bursting into flames or shattering into pieces every time you hear a baby laugh. You know how, apparently, when you've had a baby, some (not sure if this is true of all women) women end up lactating spontaneously when they hear a baby cry, even if it's not theirs? Yeah, sometimes I think that the tear ducts of those of us who don't have much hope to ever find out whether this could/would happen to us have a similar problem.

I find myself almost daily on this journey where I feel like a trapeze artist, or more like I'm walking on this tiny rope without a safety net to catch me: on one side lies acceptance, on the other is anger and frustration. And I keep balancing between the two because I can't seem to move forward for some reason: I can see the goal ahead of me (not sure if that would be babydom or just plain peace of mind, regardless of where the chips fall) but, no matter how much I push and wiggle and twist and turn, the result is the same. I'm stuck in this ridiculously teeter-tottering imbalance, treading water, not able to turn back or move forward.

Then there are the daily challenges of not running interference when being subjected to cases of Bad Parenting (e.g. a tiny tot trying to scale a bookcase at the local bookstore, with no parent in sight). There are times when I see things like that, and part of me wants to scoop up the kid, find the parent and say: "I'm sorry but you're time's up. You clearly don't want this kid and don't care about it, so I'm taking it home with me." Other times, I just want to yell at someone. Sometimes it's someone specific (see Bad Parenting comment), sometimes I just want to yell and scream at no one in particular, just because I'm so frustrated and so tired of waiting without knowing what's going on.

Which reminds me of something the good Doctor Doolittle (literally did little, if anything) did say to me at my gyno appointment a couple of months ago: that, despite the fact that until now we thought Kenton was the one with the problem, this wonderful lady said that despite his practically immobile sperm, it should still be possible for him to knock me up. Translation? Now it's supposed to be MY fault. Nevermind that this whole ludicrous PCOS stuff hasn't been brought up to me until that appointment (gee, I wonder why that is??). Nevermind that no one has bothered to suggest maybe running some tests to either confirm or disprove her highly hypothetical analysis (get your diplomanat Quack University, didya?). Yes, this has all been incredibly helpful - not only to the mind and heart in turmoil, but to the planning stages that require ACCURATE information in order to advance.

I am so tired of this whole debacle. I want a doctor who will run every single test in the good book of medicine, who will present me with every single scenario ranging from 1% to 99% chance of possibility, who will advise me on the best course of action and will do everything he/she can to turn this disaster around and give me, for crying out loud, just ONE baby. I mean, I wanted three, but I'll settle for one - seriously. Occasionally I get so desperate, there's a part of my brain that's thinking, maybe I should go put flyers at the local high schools & colleges saying that if anyone gets knocked up accidentally, I'll be happy to take their baby if they don't want it. How pathetic and ridiculous is that???

Well, there's that then. I feel like I'm on a rollercoaster, only it's going really slow: sometimes I'm up in the clouds where there's sunshine and I feel like I'm on top of the world (or, putting it in perspective, at least feel like I can deal with all this stuff), but then I end up going through a tunnel or a valley, round a corner, take a sharp turn, and it's back to Doomsville, population: 1.

You know something? The worst part of it all is the lack of answers, the uncertainty, that cloud of "what if" hanging over my head not entirely unlike the mythical Death figure in its long black robe. I know that probably sounds really morbid, and it's not an image I literally carry around with me (thank God for small favors, right?). I just want some answers. I just want to know what's going on. I want to know if I should just give up hoping. I want to know if there's a light at the end of the tunnel, if this is just a particularly trying period in my life that I'll be able to look back on and thinking, wow that was really hard there for a while.

I can't help but keep coming back to what I've written before: sometimes you just don't know how much you want something until you can't have it, or at least it seems that way. I never questioned for a moment that I would have a baby - no one in my extended family has infertility issues - so I really didn't give it much thought at all until a couple of years ago. If I'd known the way this would all turn out, I would've tried getting pregnant as soon as I had a ring on my finger...

Be Still My Breaking Heart

2009-07-22T12:29:00.000-07:00

You know, there are days where you think you just might have rounded the corner on Heartbreakville when, out of nowhere, something smashes into you and you're once again left with the smithereens of your bleeding heart.

I was at the hospital a few weeks ago to meet a friend for lunch. Obviously hospitals aren't my first choice of venue for any get togethers, and in view of my predicament this dislike has only grown exponentially. But I hadn't been able to catch up with her in ages because both of our schedules were crazy, so I gave in.

Lunch was great, catching up even better (even though I'm still holding down my silence on The Issue) and I was in a wonderful mood. On my way out, I walked by a waiting area for a particular section of the hospital - I don't even remember what it was - and there was this little red-haired girl. She was maybe 2, I think, and had really short impish hair. And as I saw her, her eyes lit up and she instantly broke into a smile so big I thought it would swallow me whole.

It was at once the most wonderfully elating and tremendously heartbreaking experience I've had in a while. I smiled and waved at her, which made her break into this beautifully light-hearted and completely insouciant laughter. Oh and I wanted so much to go up to her and pick her up, hug her and tickle her, anything for her to keep smiling and laughing at me like that. But I walked away, of course, feeling like some kind of perv because I keep having to remind myself not to STARE at other people's babies/children.

It's hard with any baby, but there are so many that make me feel less frustrated. Sometimes there's the ones that are just whiny and crying, which most of the time makes me think, phew glad I don't have to deal with that. Then there are the ones that just have this really ugly, pouting, attitude adjustment problem displayed on their tiny bunched up faces - which just makes me want to turn away.

But then there are always those that smile or wave, that look at me for a split second and then beam at me like I'm the person they love most in the entire world - and it's those that make me want to scream, cry, run away and hide under the bed until I'm all covered with dust bunnies, or at least my heart is. Even now, sometime later, I can still see her face in my mind - and I replay my own imaginary home movie with my child, my baby, the one I'm starting to lose faith I'll ever be able to hold and smile at.

Because the truth is that I'm starting to feel really, truly hopeless. I kept thinking that it was just temporary because things weren't happening the way I'd always assumed they would. I thought maybe it just had something to do with my unwillingness to share this burden, this sadness, with my family and friends. But the truth is that for all the fake bravado I've tried to muster, I can't keep pretending that I'm not at the end of my rope. Part of me wants to die when I think about this, it makes me wonder why this happened to me and why I'm going through this all alone in some way. Why I can't reach out and ask for help - and why I can't find comfort in the success stories of others like me who've navigated this rough and bumpy terrain to find happiness one day. I feel like there's no light at the end of this tunnel anymore.

As I sit here writing this, I realize that it's the first time I've admitted defeat even to myself. I kept thinking, you know there's some kind of cosmic wisdom out there, someone watching over you, and whatever or whoever that is wouldn't let someone like you go through life completely childless. Part of me thinks, why do I have to go through all this when there's no end result? The periods every month with their aches and pains, aging, marriage...What's the point of it all in light of this complete denial of what, as a woman, should have been a given, a birthright?

I want to find hope or make peace with this, but I can't - I feel like there's this big open wound where my heart used to be and it just refuses to heal. Every now and again, it almost scabs over but then somehow it breaks open again, hurting worse than before.

I even got to the point where I thought, you know maybe I'm just not meant to have kids, and maybe that's not the end of the world. But that's not how I really feel, and I know now that I will never, ever be able to be completely happy or content without a child of my own. I mean, I'm not asking for much, you know: I always wanted girls, then after I got married I thought a boy first and then two girls, but now I don't even care.

I guess I'm just a typical example of not realizing how much you want something until someone tells you that you can't have it...

The Sound Of Babydom

2009-06-15T12:07:00.000-07:00

The last couple of days have been...interesting. On the one hand, I've been smiled and grinned at by an alarmingly large amount of little people (can you say heart-breaking?). On the other hand, I went shopping today and, while trying on clothes, was subjected to what I can only refer to as hyena-like screeching. Then there was the highly pregnant woman holding the hand of a little girl wobbling along, barely just having learned how to walk (and there she is already pregnant again).

I don't know what to say. I'm just sad and empty.

tiny salmon swimming in the stream...

2009-06-09T13:13:00.000-07:00

I don't know where it came from anymore, but I have this infantile voice singing this sentence in my head sometimes. It makes me think of the whole procress of procreation, the sperm swimming (or, in our case, making like Homer and sitting around doing NOTHING) in the race to get to the egg (or, in our case possibly, what with PCOS, no egg, just a lot of empty space and dashed hopes). I wonder, do they get lost because, like men, they refuse to ask for directions? Or did they maybe realize there was no main attraction and simply give up?

I've been cold a lot lately. I guess it speaks to my state of mind. I reach for my fuzzy warm oversized periwinkle blue bathrobe more often than usual. I watch sappy movies. I sit in silence, not really paying attention to anything, letting my thoughts wander...and often find myself thinking nothing at all.

And then you find out that someone you know, who already has several kids, is expected another one. A totally unplanned one that no one is excited about. It's not exactly being approached as a nuisance by the women in question - more like a "yeah and what else is new". I have to suppress the urge to scream or slap her. Or maybe make an inappropriate comment to the effect of, you have a bunch, I have none, why don't you just give me that one?

I haven't cried lately. I go through these ups and downs; only they're not really ups and downs - more like downs and way downs. Or gradients of downs - like shades of gray.

I wonder what it is that I'm supposed to do with all this crap - the thoughts, the fears, the anger, the sadness, the jealous. What am I supposed to do with this useless mental debris?

Rock-Bottom

2009-06-04T09:19:00.000-07:00

To borrow the infamous words of Rachel on Friends in an episode that in no way relates to this blog:

I really thought I just hit rock bottom. But today, it's like there's rock bottom, then 50 feet of crap, then me.

In this whole struggle, this whole ordeal, this seemingly unending, unnerving journey that's been forced upon me against my wishes, today was, without a doubt, THE WORST DAY - ever. Today was the day of my appointment at the clinic.

The day started out seemingly innocuous. I didn't sleep too well but not too badly either; I wasn't (yet) feeling any undue apprehension about this appointment which, after all, I had to wait almost a whole month for. Pulling into the parking lot of the clinic, I started to get a hint of nervousness but I brushed it aside.

The bottom starting falling out when I saw the first sign reading "Maternity Ward". Out of nowhere, my hands started trembling almost imperceptibly, my mouth got dryer and dryer as I pushed through a seemingly endless amount of double doors leading to the OB/GYN clinic. It was earily quiet at first - until I got to the waiting room. There, in perfectly harmonious homogeny, not entirely unlike walking into an alternate Stepford Wives type scenario, I was suddenly surrounded by pregnant women: women of all ages, sizes, ethnicities, in different stages of pregnancy, in different styles of clothing. And, one by one, all eyes turned to me as if to say: "What is SHE doing here? She's not pregnant! She's not one of us."

I checked in with the receptionist and sat down, trying hard not to look at all these protruding midsections. I tried to read a magazine and felt a huge wave of relief when, only mere minutes after I had sat down, a nurse called me in. Phew, I thought (stupidly!), so glad I won't have to be sitting there any longer. But this was only the beginning of my ordeal. The nurse - cold, uncaring, clinical and not the least bit warm or friendly - went through a series of questions with me that felt like I was being interrogated as a murder suspect. To say that I felt stripped bare, vulnerable and defenseless would not be an overstatement at all. I felt, to be perfectly honest, VIOLATED.

Finally Nurse Frostbite left, saying the doctor would be with me shortly. And there, without warning, without ANY real notice, I burst into tears - uncontrollably, barely managing not to turn into a squeals of anguish and anxiety. It was all just too much at that point - it was as though, once again, the magnitude of what women came there for NORMALLY, what kept eluding me, was brutally and bluntly forced down my throat. I tried to calm down in vain - I bit my lips to where they hurt, thinking GET A GRIP! To my compelte and utter shame, Nurse Frostbite then returned, just as I was struggling to regain any form of composure and wiping the smudged mascara from below my eyes, my reflection in the mirror pale while my eyes looked strained and bloodshot. I was taken to a different room - and, as if someone had gleened what could possibly send me straight over the edge, the whole room, wall to wall, was covered in baby paraphernalia: pregnancy charts, Anne Geddes pictures, checklists, diagrams...It was like my personal purgatory. Everywhere my eyes darted, like that of a caged animal, there was yet another poster, picture or other pamphlet to further break my heart.

I don't know why I was so emotional today, but for once I didn't mind waiting for a doctor to see me. As I struggled to find an arbitrary spot on the floor that I could focus on - anything to not have to be surrounded by all these buoyant reminders of just how marvelous this time of my life and this place is supposed to be since, well, shouldn't I be pregnant and coming for my check-up here? Shouldn't I be listening to helpful advice on breastfeeding my newborn?

For a moment there, to be perfectly honest, I thought I might have a nervous breakdown.

So I sat in the chair like a mental patient, rubbing my hands up and down my thighs in opposing directions, attempting to direct all my attention and focus to the synchronized movements. I started tapping my feet to an imaginary tune. I started humming. I silently reasoned with myself. Anything, ANYTHING, to try not to think about where I was and why; not to look at all these reminders about what women everywhere take for granted - what, even I, took for granted as my birth right, the right of being a woman, the right to reproduce without poking and prodding and questions by sterile nurses who couldn't care less whether you're about to curl into a fetal position and wish the ground would open and swallow you whole. I had just read, somewhere, that in order to challenge your brain you should try to do minor actions/activities with the hand/leg opposite of the one you normally use for that purpose; for example, if you're left-handed, the exercise would be to try writing with your right hand, etc. And that's what I did. I tapped out entire charts of songs with complicated rhythms, switching which foot was doing what and trying to keep going as long as possible without losing the beat. It sounds INSANE, I know - and I can only tell you that, at that moment, I really felt like I was going to lose it if I didn't get my shit together (pardon my French, it's just the best way I can put it right now).

And there, in the middle of Meltdown Madness, I heard a baby cry: the clear, distinctive sound of a newborn baby. It's a miracle I didn't start ripping out my hair.

Thankfully, the doctor was nowhere near as much of a bitch as the nurse was and gave me some helpful information. The said that based on my bloodwork it was possible, if not likely, that I had Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS), which, from what I understand, is basically a fancy way of saying that a woman menstruates without ovulating. Figures that some cosmic force would come up with a way to make me suffer through the pain, the cramps, the mood swings and outright inconvenience of periods without the reward of being able to conceive.

So here we are. On my way home, I bought a pint of Haagen Dazs and basically pigged out while watching a made-for-tv movie. I didn't even really cry - I think I used up everything I had at the clinic today. Now I just feel numb, like someone hit me in the head and caused me to black out - and now I don't remember what actually happened. Except that, of course, I do. Remember. Vividly, in technicolor details.

So what else is new?

2009-06-01T12:02:00.000-07:00

I went shopping today. And, of course, there was this little kid in a stroller. Who suddenly sat up, alert, and looked at me intently with this startlingly blue eyes and broke into a big smile. I smile back and waved, trying not to assume the mom "appraised" me with pity because I was forced to make do with smiling and cooing at someone else's baby. What else is new, right?

This week I finally have an appointment to try to figure out if there may be additional hurdles preventing us from conceiving: namely on my end. While, on the one hand, this would just be yet another setback (and this after just being told, by my father-in-law of all people, how sad it is that Kenton and I don't have any kids - why don't you just shoot me??), at least I'll be able to be pro-active and ask questions that, I'm sure, Kenton failed to do during his appointment a millenia ago.

The truth is, of course, that I really only have two questions: can we ever conceive, and if so, how? To be honest, I don't really care about the biology behind it. I don't care what isn't working and why it isn't working and how or why what is preventing me from getting pregnant. I just want someone to tell me HOW TO FIX IT!!

Yesterday I was cleaning up, and I found these handmade burp cloths I bought on Ebay a long time ago. My first instinct was to pitch them, donate them - anything to get them out of my field of vision, now blurry with tears and a deep sense of injustice. But then I thought, I'll keep them for now. Maybe all is now lost yet. Or maybe I'll just have to upcycle them into something else eventually.

I see so many cases where I wish I could take a child away from someone who cannot possibly, from their actions or inaction, comprehend the miracle, the grace, the completely random gift that they are holding. There are times when hearing a baby cry makes me whince internally, where I keep thinking to myself: why is this person not picking that poor little baby up and cuddling it, reassuring it, comforting it? Why are they ignoring the cries and pleading of this little being that can't yet speak for itself? The truth is that, to them, it's just part of the furniture, part of everyday life - nothing extraordinary. So if it cries? So what, it'll cry again tomorrow, and it'll still be crying after they finish their copy of Sports Illustrated, caught up on juicy gossip with a neighbor or have had their mani-pedi completed. For these people, extraordinary becomes ordinary - becomes boring.

A few months ago, I once did something really stupid. I put a pillow under my shirt and looked in the mirror sideways. I pretended to pat the non-existing belly. And then I looked at my reflection through my own eyes, and I felt like a great big fool. I felt...childish and embarrassed that my need, my desire, for a baby had grown so strong as to make me, a grown woman, play "make believe". Sad, but probably not all that uncommon among those who want but cannot have...

Some days I feel like sleeping all day. I feel like it's easier not to leave the house, easier to just pull the covers up to my chin, hug a pillow, daydream until it's time to go to be for real. They probably have medication for things like that, but why dull something that may not go away, rather than confronting it? After all, eventually all suppressed feelings catch up with you, whether you like it or not - God knows I learned that lesson loud and hard.

You have GOT to be kidding me!!!

2009-05-21T17:53:00.000-07:00

You know, sometimes things happen for a reason. And then other times, things happen completely randomly and you sit there thinking, are you SERIOUS with this bullshit???

So there I was, a couple of months ago, getting blood drawn to run yet another battery of tests to determine what the problem with me is. At this point, for the first time in my adult life, I hadn't had a period for three months (of course it happened to come back three days after the damn blood test, thank you very much for this incredibly fortuitous timing), so I was beginning to, well, sort of FREAK OUT. My doctor was cautiously approaching the subject of premature menopause (interestingly enough, I think I may have had an out-of-body experience right about the time he said that because I thought, there is no way in hell you are telling me that I don't even get a CHANCE at this while Trailer Trash Barbie over there just popped out Babie #5, aptly named for some D-type celebrity she can't get enough of from the National Enquirer). Resentful, me? Never.

So what seems like an eternity later, the blood tests come back and confuse everyone - especially me, since, believe it or not, the finer points of my menstrual cycle with all the fluctuating hormones, phases etc, has never been of particular fascination to me (read: I may have been daydreaming about something or someone during that particular biology class). What became clear, though, is that my cycle is all jacked up, I'm not ovulating when I'm supposed to or - get this - it may just have been an abberration. EXCUSE ME?? Did I mention we stopped using ANY form of birth control over HALF A DECADE AGO?????

IS ANYONE EVEN LISTENING TO ME??????

Well, so the next step was a referral to a specialist, which isn't for another 2 1/2 weeks...so I'm stuck playing the waiting game again. The irony is that my doctor speculated that, perhaps, I may have some problems with my pituitary gland - waaaaaaaaait a minute, where did I hear that before? AHHHH, yes, the very same problem my husband has. What were the odds of that happening, I wonder??

If I'd known this was going to be such heartbreaking, backbreaking work, I sure as hell wouldn't have wasted so much money on contraceptives for years. JEEEEEZ!

(and to add insult to injury, this blog post went on to rant for at least another 500 words +, but of course it got lost in translation, aka the stupid website froze and only saved HALF my damn post. )

Catching Up...

2009-03-10T12:49:00.000-07:00

In the last month or so, I've found myself staring into space a lot: at the ceiling when I'm lying in bed at night or first thing in the morning; at the wall when I'm somewhere in a room, a building; into just plain oblivion most other times of the day. I feel like I'm just trying to survive every single day.

A few weeks ago, I had quite possibly the worst day yet. I had to go to the hospital to have some blood tests done in what I imagine will potentially be a long battery of tests to determine whether or not I'm reproductively challenged - which, of course, will affect not only the course of action for the doctors as far as Kenton is concerned, but also our decisions based on that. We've talked about it a little, and I've already told him that I'm drawing the line where surgery is concerned - if that's the only hope for having biological children, then I guess we'll have to pursue other avenues. I'm not putting his or my life on the line on some small fraction of "maybe, someday".

So I spent about 6 hours in the hospital. Surrounded by mothers, women with heavily pregnant bellies, nursing infants and baby cries. It was literally like someone had scripted my worst nightmare and cast me in the starring role: Alexa, Infertile! Thankfully, I had brought a book so I was barely able to keep it together. Yet every time I heard a baby crying, something inside of me felt like needles and pins - like all I could think about was MY baby crying, the baby that's not even conceived and may never come to be, the baby that I would take care of and love and never neglect. Not that, in this instance, I'm saying that the cries came from neglect of course - it just hurt me, physically as much as emotionally.

To boot, when I later when to do some shopping, a woman said to me: "Oh, you smell good! Is that baby powder?" I think I probably looked at her like I'd missed a vital dosage of my anti-mental medication. Of course I tried to get a grip, give her a thinly veiled smile and told her that it was probably my shampoo.

Baby powder. Those little, insignificant, basic things that are of absolutely no importance to mother other than a product regularly purchased along with toilet paper and butter. To me, these things are taken on near-iconic status:

"BABY POWDER - now only for those who CAN have babies!"

I'm having these movie-type moments where I imagine these blasts or blips in some spoof-type, retro voice-over - and I'm sitting here, little pile of misery, advertised as Coming Soon To A Theater Near You. I imagine this black and white scene with beautifully coiffed, perfectly silhouetted middle upper class 1950s housewives with their 2.1 children whispering behind upheld hands, eyes wide open, aghast at The Woman Scorned By Nature.

And, still, Kenton is not getting the picture. I feel like I'm sitting on hot coals - and he keeps throwing these things into everyday conversation like "what are you going to do when we have kids" - like that's just assumed, like there's no hindrances, like there's a bun in the oven as we speak. INFURIATING!! I know that he has a different way of dealing with this, but I am so damn mad at him. I mean, I keep trying to EXPLAIN (read: beat into his male brain) that I have a limited amount of time left IN THE BEST OF CIRCUMSTANCES, which clearly isn't even the case with us. And I told him, I cannot, cannot, CANNOT go through life without a child, not completely. He keeps throwing adoption in there like that's supposed to make it all better - like that's not just one of those things we might not even be able to afford.

So then, the other day, I'm talking to this 21-YEAR OLD GIRL who tells me that they're having issues because she's been trying to get pregnant - without success - for two years. Part of me wanted to throttle her because I felt like saying: WTF YOU HAVE NO CLUE!! And there was that evil, disgusting, horrible part of me that thought: good, serves you right. I can't even begin to describe the shame and horror I feel when these kinds of mean, selfish and pathetic feelings overcome me - but I keep thinking that, whenever I'm confronted with something like that, there's this little voice that's telling me, seeeeeee, you're not the only one, it's not your fault, it's not you're fault. Because, somehow, I still feel that it's all my fault. It's my fault.

I go through these phases of wanting to do a lot of stuff just so I can block out the pain and these feelings of...what is it? Being incomplete, a failure, dysfunctional, BROKEN. I feel broken. I feel like something got ripped out, trampled on, and then put in a totally dislocated place so that I can never be the same again. God and, for such a long time, I didn't even really think about any of this - even until a couple of years ago it wasn't this bad. Now all I can think about is that little wiggly thing that's not in my arms, those tiny hands not clasping my fingers, that tiny little face not smiling up at me. I AM BROKEN. I feel shattered. I feel not whole. I feel like part of me is dying a little bit every day - and Kenton doesn't get it. HE DOESN'T GET IT. I just don't know what to do, don't know what to say, don't know how to deal with this.

And then there was that consultation with a doctor who, quite obviously, couldn't have cared less about my concerns or my issues. My regular doctor was out of town, which I hadn't known - because, trust me, there's no way I would've seen this guy if I'd known what I was in for. He didn't bother to read my file, didn't even really look at the blood test results, but only told me that the starting point for an infertility workup is a hysterosalpingogram:

http://www.webmd.com/infertility-and-reproduction/guide/hysterosalpingogram-21590

http://www.advancedfertility.com/hsg.htm

Aside from the fact that I'm not really that crazy about letting someone loose with a bunch of tools in my reproductive organs, there also seems to be no information whatsoever about whether or not this is PAINFUL. There's all this clinical blabla which, when it's all said and done, tells me precious little other than that it's the first step to determine whether, in addition to Kenton's problems, I might be throwing my own in the balance. Thanks, that's really helpful. NOT! I feel violated just thinking about it.

So that's where it's at. I'm sorry I've been silent so long - your comments continue to give me hope and something to hold onto in these trying times. Thank you for not giving up on me.

Tears, tears and more tears...

2009-02-17T09:58:00.000-08:00

Once again, the comments to my last post really made me feel better - THANK YOU! It's nice to know that some people can really relate, and know exactly how I feel and what I'm going through.

The other night, we watched Cheaper By The Dozen 2 - and when Piper Perabo has her baby, I literally sobbed. I tried to stifle it so that I was just this pathetic, wimpering, shaking mass of pent-up frustration, pain and despair.

All day long, I see all these women - mothers - who couldn't represent a more diverse group: tall, short, skinny, fat, pretty, ugly, smart, stupid, kind, mean, well-mannered, rude...You name it, they're all there. And I KNOW how shallow it is of me to think this, but sometimes I see someone and I can't help wondering: HOW THE HELL DID SHE END UP WITH A KID??? Today was one of those times...ALL! DAMN! DAY!!! When I went to the post office, I saw this woman who was what I always think should be the picture next to the dictionary of (female) couch potato: she looked unkempt, unwashed, was quite overweight and made no bones about it in her crappy, ill-fitting clothes. So she gets out of the car, and as I'm looking her over from a safe distance and thinking to myself, good grief woman!, another thought sneaks into my head: 20 bucks says SHE has a baby. And sure enough, bulging pants and nasty tshirt, greasy hair and all, she opens the trunk of her minivan and takes out a stroller. I actually felt nauseous - and there was a part of me that just wanted to SCREAM.
Then there was the woman - two kids in a stroller - who was so skinny, even her jeans made her look anorexic. I started thinking that she was probably one of those women who breastfed because they say that it burns extra calories (so I've read somewhere, a long time ago).

I HATE MYSELF FOR THINKING BADLY OF OTHERS!!

Don't get me wrong - in many instances I feel that my judgment is, while perhaps snide and mean, nonetheless correct and appropriate. When I see a baby in a car seat being stuffed with Burger King, there's a part of me that wants to yank the child away from the person fueling childhood obesity and a host of other developmental crap.

Everywhere I look, people have kids - dads absorbed in tickling a too-cute-for-words infant, mothers scolding (or, more often than not, failing to do so with bratty kids), sometimes yelling for no apparent reason. And it hurts. All of it.

I found myself in the car today, driving without really paying attention to anything around me - when a sudden realization hit me. I can't live this life without children - I can't give it up. For such a long time I kept thinking, maybe it's not that big of a deal. Maybe I don't NEED to have kids - maybe I can just deal with that not being part of my life. I kept thinking, do I really want to get pregnant - with all the discomfort, pain, potential risks etc that come with it? Do I really want to deal with sleepless nights, poopy diapers, potential medical conditions etc? And I kept thinking, no - I'm not ready. No, it's not that big of a deal - I don't think this would work for me anyway. But today, it hit me like a brick. I started thinking about living the rest of my life without ever having children, without grandchildren, without cute little smiles as the world's greatest reward there ever was or could me, without tears of joy and tears of pain, without MOTHERHOOD. And the thought breaks my heart - and I think that, if it turns out that there's no way for us to ever have kids, it'll break my spirit in a way that I'll never be able to fully recover from.

People make it look so easy - women have kids all the time. Sometimes back to back, sometimes multiple births - regardless of social class, education, weight, age...It happens all the time. In fact, sometimes it seems to me that the ease with which some women have kids is directly proportionate to how UNsuitable they are as mothers. I mean, teenage moms? Or women who push a stroller with one hand and puff a cigarette with the other?

I often think about writing a post, and then don't - because I feel like I'm going in circles, like I'm always just saying the same thing, over and over: that I hurt, that I'm sad, that I'm scared, that I don't know what to do or how to handle this at all. I have days where I feel like I'm on autopilot because I just can't get through the day any other way. This is one of the most lonely things that could possibly happen to anyone...

What's wrong with this picture?

2009-02-10T10:21:00.001-08:00

Lately, I'm getting increasingly fed up with the fact that I'm surrounded by these people who have kids but seriously shouldn't. From the early-twenties skank with THREE children to parades around like a dime-store whore, to some blip I caught about a woman who wasn't paying attention to her kids - the result being that her 4-year old daughter ended up locked in the washing machine and tumbled to death.

Anger doesn't even come CLOSE to what I'm feeling! INDIGNATION! Frustration! Pure, unadulterated RAGE!!!!

Were I not in this situation, I would maybe be content with just shaking my head. But as it is, I'm getting increasingly angry about it: how come all these totally unsuitable people are able to reproduce like bunnies, while those of us who are decent, upstanding citizens and would actually make good parents are having such a hard time?? I just don't get it. I know some people find comfort in their faith - but, truth be told, if anything I find that this injustice, this completely random selection of those who are fertile and those who aren't, is just proof to me that there is no God - or, if there is one, he's got one hell of a sick sense of humor. I mean, really??

Meanwhile, everything in the world revolves around children - and that's the one universal constant regardless of race, religion, wealth etc. Whether I open an interior decorating magazine, browse online or watch the news - everywhere people have kids as though there's nothing much to it. And I feel like some doofus who doesn't know the answer to something as basic as 1+1. It's just not fair!!!

I go back and forth between trying to find some solace and feeling completely outraged. I can't find my footing, I have no balance. Sometimes I almost manage to forget about the whole thing - right up until I see another unsuitable mother and have to grit my teeth not to scream. I can't believe that time is just passing me by without bestowing this one very crucial "gift" on me. I am just SO frustrated.

Meanwhile, Kenton had some tests done and they want to do some more - and have now said I should have a workup done as well. So I'm going to have to try to set that up this month and try not to freak out at the possibility that not only one of us has a problem, but both of us. Wouldn't that just be typical? I mean, it's just enough to drive you stark-raving MAD!

Good Days, Bad Days...Mad Hatter Days!

2009-01-16T06:18:00.000-08:00

My emotional rollercoaster continues. I am still frustrated, and I'm only just starting to feel a bit better after falling into a bit of an abyss. For over a week now, I've been grouchy and basically avoided leaving the house unless it was absolutely necessary. Of course anyone will tell you that social isolation is only likely to make these types of things worse, rather than better - but I disagree. Sometimes, I need to crawl under a dark rock and BROOD. Because, really? Sometimes I just feel like I can't handle the stress of this whole baby thing.

And then there are other things that come along to aggravate me even further. It's been not quite 6 months since Kenton's first sperm test, and about a month since the second one. And only NOW are they thinking, hey - wait a minute! - maybe we should also do a blood test! Needless to mention, I was just a liiiiiiittle bit unhinged after hearing that. I thought, ok are you KIDDING ME??? Quit wasting my - our - time and GET! WITH! THE! FRIGGIN! PROGRAM!!!! To boot, Kenton is being all "private" about all these issues - I offered to come with him to his appointment, which he flat-out refused, making me get even more annoyed because I thought: hang on, this affects BOTH of us, so get over it!!

I am so frustrated. I mean, at this point, I'm starting to think that it's just never going to happen. Because I honestly don't want to be a mom at 40. I mean, I don't think there's anything wrong with that - but it's a choice that wouldn't work for me. I don't want to be pushing 60 by the time my kid gets out of high school, no thanks.

So of course I continue to torture myself with celebrity bump watch: Nicole Richie being rumored to carry Baby # 2, Jennifer Aniston supposedly trying to get pregnant. I don't know WHY I insist of tormenting myself; sometimes I honestly think I must just be a glutton for punishment or some sort of masochist when it comes to this particular issue. I think that, at this stage, I'm almost going into denial. I just feel like I can't "deal" with the reality of what's going on - with the reality of potentially never having a baby. It drives me completely stark raving MAD!

The solution? Grumpiness barely abated by copious amounts of chocolate - which I figure is passably better than, say, imbibing to drown out my sorrows or harassing the doc for some seriously mood-altering narcotics. What did help, the other day, was to actually physically write something of a diary entry. It was in the middle of the night, I couldn't sleep - so I was sitting at the table just brooding some more and, basically, feeling pretty sorry for myself. But there was something really cathartic about writing down a lot of the crap that was going through my head just then - and I also ended up doing some thinking about past issues that have bugged me for years. The bottom line, of course, remains that I'm still frustrated and still mad - but as I snuggle under the blankets and hide behind a never-ending supply of chick lit, fueled by steaming cups of something hot and soothing, I have to believe that things are going to get better. I'm trying to stop living in the past or the future - I read something not too long ago that made a lot of sense (though I can honestly say that IMPLEMENTING these words of wisdom will probably be a lifelong struggle of mine):

IF YOU'RE CAPABLE OF BEING HAPPY IN THE FUTURE, YOU'RE CAPABLE OF BEING HAPPY RIGHT NOW.

I keep hanging on to these ideals and promises of future happiness - when I have a nicer house, a better job, a baby, when my husband gets this promotion or that contract, when I can buy this designer handbag or that watch...But the truth is, while I keep moving the goal posts, life is going on - with or without me. So, as hard as it is, I'm TRYING to be more grateful and apply the latin motto: CARPE DIEM. Every day spent wallowing in self-pity is a day not spent doing something more fun, meeting new people, experiencing life.

There's that new movie with Jim Carrey, The Yes Man - and I started thinking: what if I did that? I mean, realistically speaking, there's no way on God's green earth I'd go bungee jumping or snort hot sauce, but the concept, in its basic tenets, seems one worthy of contemplation. What if I stopped limiting myself so much? What if I stopped obsessing about this baby thing? What if I just thought, ok - there really isn't much that I can do about this except, in a very far-reaching sense, plan for financial security - so that if and when we do end up either miraculously conceiving or looking into adoption, I haven't just been treading water all the time leading up to that moment.
More importantly, though - I think that, as women, we tend to sort of feel like big fat failures if we're unable to reproduce. And I don't know about anyone else, but somehow the fact that, in our case, it SEEMS that the only obstacle right now is a case of MALE factor infertility - it doesn't seem to change MY sense of failure. I guess that, in a way, I feel responsible for my husband - I feel that his "failures" (real or perceived) are also MY failures. And while it's not his fault, obviously, that he has some sort of problem that acts as a roadblock in our family planning, I still feel that it's some sort of failure.

Oh and I do not cope well with any sense of failure - again real, imagined, feared, anticipated or other. Just the word "failure" makes me at once adamant, scared and angry. I think maybe because I associate it with weakness - and that's something I find hard to deal with.

I'm not religious, I don't pray. I don't ascribe my life's unfolding events to any one deity (or several deities, as the case may be) - although I do occasionally cast my eye upward and think, you're really just trying to mess with me, aren't you? So I can't draw on my non-existent faith for some measure of comfort - because there's nothing there. I still haven't managed to talk to my family about this - and I can't foresee this happening anytime soon. I think I'm more inclined to keep these things under wraps and then deal with it if/when something final has occurred - either that I do get pregnant, or that whatever Kenton's problem is turns out to be irreversible.

I hope that, somehow, we all will wake up one day with a big bump - I know it's sounds so cheezy, but I know how many of us really struggle with this sense of being deprived of what, let's face it, most if not all of us totally took for granted. It never occured to me for ONE split second that I wouldn't have kids - if and when I was ready. I guess I just figured that, when that time came, everything else would just come together. HAH! Not so much, eh?

So I'm still here...A bit hurt, a lot frustrated, occasionally angry. But I have to believe that it's in my power to deal with this situation and make a decision, eventually, when all the cards are on the table. For now, it's all just a maddening waiting game - and that is what REALLY drives me crazy.

Don't Mind Me: mini-vent

2009-01-07T13:00:00.000-08:00

Ok so after having resolved to an "altered state of mind" in relation to the infertility issue, now I have to get mad about this website of all things!! I come here looking for resolve, peace of mind - and find myself suddenly without my carefully chosen profile image. So I try to upload it again - and get an error message that there's an internal error. I think, ok - maybe there's something in the image. I try 3 other images, same deal. So I think, ok - maybe I can get some help. BUT OH NO, that would make too much sense. Clearly, the fact that I've decided to publish a blog must mean that I have HOURS to kill scrolling through blogs, FAQs and other related bruhaha in an effort to find a solution to my problem. Thanks for nothing, Blogger!

Change Is Never Easy

2009-01-07T10:52:00.000-08:00

I have a confession to make: I'm tired of my endlessly self-indulging pity party. I'm tired of moaning, groaning, complaining and whining. You know why? Because, for one, it does NOT change the facts of our situation. Second - and that's really the crucial point here - what it DOES do is make me feel even more irritable, miserable and just plain grumpy. ALL! THE! DAMN! TIME!!! So I've decided that it's time that I TRY to contemplate all these issues - and my feelings in relation to them - in a different light.

Am I suddenly converting to a new-found belief in some higher authority which may or may not have decided that I'm quite simply not "meant" to have children? Nope. Have I perhaps decided to attempt to reduce my exposure to Belly Town by become a complete hermit? No, siree! Rather, I've had this sudden "aha" moment: the only thing all this belly-aching is accomplishing is making me feel LESS empowered, LESS in control, and MORE upset. Errrr, no thanks!

The other reason for this attempt at redirecting my thoughts and feelings is the cumulative of a number of different things. For one, the wonderful, warm and thoughtful comments that often pop up on my blog, which I value and which make me feel not only like I'm not alone, but that there are people out there who can empathize. The other thing is that, in the past couple of months, there have been so many tragedies (admittedly most of them in remote corners of my life) - and I'm starting to feel like my constant griping is insolent, childish and ungrateful. Don't get me wrong - the hurt, the frustration, the anger and everything else hasn't gone away. I haven't suddenly embraced some new zen-like outlook (glazed eyes optional) that would do away with the emotional side of this journey. Oh no, I'm still strapped into my seat with the same bewildered look and fright wig.

Only...you know what it's like. If you're constantly miserable and keep focusing on the negatives, eventually, that's ALL there is: your life becomes this abyss, this black hole, and before you know it, you've become your own worst enemy. And, seriously? Who needs that kind of pressure?

So...I guess what I'm trying to say - to myself, to the wonderful, lovely, sweet & caring ladies following this blog, and to everyone else - is that maybe, just maybe, it's time to take a step back and stop focusing on the thing that ISN'T going right in my life - in all of our lives - and get back to the business of being happy about the things we do have: good friends, plentiful lives, partners and families who love and support us (and who, in some cases like mine, learn to love us despite our obsessive-compulsive need to over-analyze everything! :) Maybe it's time to take a better look at ourselves, our lives, and ask some critical questions: WHY is it such an imperative for me to have a child? WHY do I keep berating myself for things that are OUT OF MY CONTROL? At the end of the day, sure, there are some things that CAN promote fertility and other things that MAY jeopardize fertility - but beyond that, it's really just Russian roulette: you, yes; you, not so much.

Unlike some people, however, I'm definitely not a fan of the "meant to be" school of thought. I don't think there's any rhyme or reason why some people abound with babies, while others are left with a not-unlike-dessert feeling of DROUGHT. What do I mean, you might wonder? Well, it takes a mighty strong woman NOT to feel slighted when surrounded by women who, seemingly without difficulty (and I would like to stress the word "seemingly" at this point since, of course, we can never really know with how much easy OR difficulty someone has achieved that which we all covet so much), managed to pop out one or more of those tiny little gurgling thingies that make your heart thump wildly in your chest, threatening to make you go deaf with excitement. And then...those feelings of being left out and let down: by nature, by God if you're a woman of faith, by something, somewhere...until all you're really left with is a single, painfully one-sided question to which you may never get an answer: WHY NOT ME?

I, for one, am choosing to end hostilities - at least for the time being. I'm tired of being at war with myself and the world. I'm exhausted from endless "what if"s without answer, of guilt and shame. For now, I'm just going to take each day as it comes to me - in the hopes, as always, that things will eventually fall into place - somehow.

New Year, New Pain

2009-01-05T05:07:00.001-08:00

The last few weeks have been a bit of a blur - with holidays, little bouts of the flu and other things to make me chicken out from dealing with The Issue. But here I am, still in the same boat. No need for New Year's Resolutions on this subject, since it's out of my control to begin with...

Kenton did gave another sperm sample last week, so we're waiting to hear back on the results. I don't even know why they had us wait so long after the first one. Meanwhile, he still acts like nothing's wrong - and apparently doesn't realize that in NOT dealing with this issue, he's actually hurting me even more. He keeps saying things like "when we have kids", as though it's just a matter of us decided on the time and place of conception. Each time, it cuts me like a knife because I keep thinking: what do you mean, WHEN? How about IF? And what IF we CAN'T???

Of course, life around me goes on unchanged. Oh, no, wait - that's not true: in my immediate environment, as well as in the world of celebrities, people are having second and third babies, twins, more babies...And I'm still sitting here thinking, wait a minute - what about ME??

In light of some personal things that I've become privy to in the last month or so, I know I shouldn't moan and gripe - I should just be happy to be alive and be happy to have a good, caring husband. And I can deal with not having a baby right this second - but I'm starting to have this horrible feeling of growing old and never being able to have a child. The other day, I got one of those glossy gossip magazines, and there was this picture of Jessica Alba with her baby girl. She's crouched and has a hand protectively around her daughter to make sure the baby doesn't fall down, and the baby is sort of glancing backwards so that it seems as though it's looking almost straight at the camera. I looked at that picture for what seemed like hours - the little ears and a hint of a smile playing on her lips. The maternal gesture of keeping the baby safe. It all seems so normal, so NOT extraordinary, almost banal - and yet I feel like a goldfish, forever going round and round in the same old way, looking out at the world but unable to participate in any of the wonderful things going on out there.

Even my hairdresser got pregnant, and up and quit her job in the advent of her first baby being born - and she pretty much got knocked up on her honeymoon. It's like Bump City out there. Meanwhile, I'm stuck in Misery Central, population growing.

Over the holidays, I fell into one tub of ice cream after the next, not unlike an alcoholic looking for salvation - or maybe just a dulling of the senses - in the bottom of every bottle. I feel like crawling into bed and pulling the covers over my head, but ironically, sleep continues to elude me. Instead, I lie awake at night, tossing and turning, hundreds of images in my mind, all competing for a chance to drive me insane. I haven't had a decent night's sleep in so long, I think I've forgotten what it felt like to wake up and NOT have my whole neck and back in knots.

So here I am: New Year, but no new me. No dreams of motherhood fulfilled. No pain of childlessness abated.

You know what really gets me? If I were a recovering alcoholic, no one would expect me to go bar hopping with my gal pals. If I was doing Weight Watchers, people would understand if I said no to chocolate cake. But no one understands that, when you're in this kind of predicament, the last thing you want is to keep having your face rubbed in other people's fecundity. I don't want to constantly be confronted with this notion that, without kids, I should still participate - gleefully! - in activities that revolve around family life. As much as I love Kenton, I'm starting to sense that I don't think I'll feel fulfilled if we can never have kids. And I know that I've written here and talked to friends about adoption - which I still think is an important choice, alternative, option; what have you. But I am suddenly - and painfully - aware of the fact that, as it turns out, adoption was a wonderful option - so long as I had a choice. As in, I would CHOOSE to adopt a child instead of having my own, or as well as having my own. As it is, of course, my choices are growing smaller by the week - outlook: not good.

For the first time in my life, I feel as though my resources are failing me. My family still has no idea about what's going on - I really just couldn't cope with the mixture of pity, dismissal and judgment that I fear would sound loudly from that corner if prompted for a response. So I still live with this deep, dark, hideously paralyzing "secret" of sorts.

But I guess I have to find an outlet somewhere, and that will be my challenge in the weeks to come. I have to DO something - with myself, with my thoughts, with my pain. So, I'm still here...

Same old, same old...

2008-12-08T08:35:00.000-08:00

I got my period today.

That just about says it all, doesn't it. Happy period?? I THINK NOT!

I'm just tired of being in this boat. I'm tired of dealing with this. I'm tired of feeling rejected and denied - feeling incomplete. Like showing up late for a job interview and finding out they gave the job to someone else, someone less competent, because they showed up at the appointed time.

Kenton finally called the doctor's office today, so I'm waiting to find out if/when he's going to be seen. What happens from there on out, who knows? Just having my periods makes me feel so bleak and sad, again.

I keep wondering how this happened to me. How did I end up in this situation? How did I end up married and comfortable enough, smart enough, old enough, to be able to face any and all challenges of motherhood head-on - and be denied? I feel like I got kicked out of some fancy country club without even being considered in the first place. It's ridiculous - all of it. This whole failed "experiment" is making me angry and it's making me unhappy.

Some days I just feel like smashing things around me. I am overcome by this blind rage - really just a feeling of impotence (ironic how this word has such different meanings depending on the context) as I am faced with this...sentence. Yes, that's what it feels like: I feel like I've been sentenced. Sentenced to a life without children. Sentenced to a life without ever becoming pregnant - and yet, how ironic, since as with so many other things, I didn't know how much I wanted it until I found out that I most likely will never even have the damn friggin CHOICE in the first place!!! Cue: rage.

Yet...at this same time, there are other aspects of my life - which for personal reasons I won't go into here, as they involve other people's lives and only vaguely my own - that give me pause to reflect. It's easy to get caught up in your own little world - with its ups and downs, its joys and pains. It's easy to forget that, no matter how lousy you feel, there's always someone else who has a worse lot in life. Strangely, I feel horrible these days when I even CONTEMPLATE sinking into my own private, morose abyss of unhappiness. I feel like I am so ungrateful - ungrateful for what I DO have. There are so many maxims, sayings, quotes out there that resonate with me on so many levels - yet actually LIVING according to the principles they espouse seems to be beyond me.

I sit back and think, life could be so much worse. I could live in a war-torn country. I could be pregnant as a result of rape. I could have a horribly crippling disease. Someone I love could die suddenly. And in the absence of all these far more horrific considerations, shouldn't I be able to put my own misery into perspective and think to myself: you know what, I got it good!!

But musings and ponderings don't quell the heart that wants what it wants. The other day, Kenton and I went to a nearby Starbucks - and there was this couple, probably about our age, all decked out for a weekend outing with a tiny, bundled up baby boy. I smiled at the father who glanced my way, pride beaming all across his face. And then I looked at Kenton, studiously avoiding the general direction of the couple - and I thought, why not us? WHY???

People often try to comfort those in pain or sadness with platitudes like "it wasn't meant to be" or, more theologically, "it's all part of God's plan". I have to grit my teeth when I just THINK about things like that because my reaction would probably be something like WHO THE FUCK ASKED YOU FOR YOUR TEN CENTS??? Comfort? I think NOT! What ever possesses people to think that these things are supposed to make you feel better is something I'll probably never understand.

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Meanwhile, life continues unabated. I'm reading, working, occasionally doing some menial tasks that allow my thoughts to roam freely. Sometimes, though, I find myself driving - and completely getting lost in these internal debates or monologues. I hate to admit it, but it's not uncommon for me to get to someplace and suddenly realize that I've been driving for half an hour but have little or no recollection of any part of the journey. Other times, I get so distracted that I either slow down or speed up without realizing it. Thankfully, it's never to the extent where I'd cause or be involved in an accident - but, still, even as far as it's been going on with me, it's not without its dangers.

I try to stay busy, as before. I try not to think about it. But then I look in the mirror and I think, I'm too old for all this. I shouldn't have to worry about this, it should already have been over and done with. I should have my statistically correct 2-point-something kids and be able to enjoy the things most parents probably take for granted.

So many people make judgments about things they don't understand - especially about things like parenthood. Without knowing my circumstances, several people I know have made comments to me about other people, intimating that if nature doesn't give you kids without trouble, then you're just not meant to have any. Easy to say when you're not affected by that proposition. And then I've heard, more than once now, that in-vitro children are considered "sub-standard" by many - being as they do not hail from the most "potent" combination of their parents' characteristics and genetic material. So where does that leave me? I really don't know. I don't know how to feel about any of this anymore. I feel like I'm just going in circles, going through the motions, trying to pretend everything is ok. Trying to pretend I don't think about it all the time, don't peruse baby websites in some sick, sadistic way of punishing myself, maybe.

I just don't know what to do with all these thoughts and feelings anymore.

Bump This!

2008-11-22T13:39:00.000-08:00

I feel like I'm in some strange D-list movie from the 60s - something along the lines of "Valley of Bumps". Everywhere I look, there they are: distended bellies pointing out, to no one in particular, that they belong to someone who is completely oblivious to my personal hell.

Of course that's probably not entirely true of ALL of them. I'm sure that, thrown in with the colorful mix of Fertile Myrtles proudly pushing their Peg Peregos - or, the more glamorous ones, Silver Cross prams that I am embarrassed to say are, in my humble opinion, the motherhood equivalent of the iconic quilted Chanel bag - there is one or the other who is still cautiously optimistic after the trials and tribulations of Trying To Conceive (which, btw, is now a common acronym among many - something that makes me, quite frankly, just want to THROW UP).

Lately, I've barely managed to keep the crescendo of cascading panic attacks at bay. I can count on one hand how many years I have left until I'm going to be my MOTHER's age when she had me - and she had me quite late for her generation. And then there's this nagging feeling in the back of my head - you know, that dusty attic room you keep under lock and key because it houses your most unpleasant superstitions and insecurities - that maybe I jinxed myself.

Confession: I have been "planning" for motherhood quite a while before I actually felt physically and mentally READY. With every single one of my friends toting around at least one child - and me, in tow, happily running along to children's boutiques and little shoppes - it was just a matter of time before I found something irresistably cute.

See, I thought I was being smart. Get a little blanket there, maybe a silver feeding spoon - and stash it all away like a chipmunk with a healthy harvest of nuts. Needless to mention, this is quite easily one of my most embarrassing little foibles. Because, really? It's kind of like the line in that movie The Wedding Planner: "Those who can't do, plan." (or something to that effect). I guess that, on some level, I thought that if I was prepared, then things would go smoothly. I wouldn't have an unplanned pregnancy and have to scramble to find cute things for my bundle of joy. But - and I hate to sound like a total snob - the biggest part of it, I guess, was seeing what a lot of other people did with their kids. Entire meals plastered across pill-tastic faded Walmart t-shirts. Infants glued to television sets. Little girls in Mini-Whore-Me outfits. It was enough to make me want to gouge out my eyes sometimes. So, I thought: well, we may not be hobnobbing with the rich and famous, but that doesn't mean my kids have to look like they came straight from the favelas either.
Enter a whole new world of shopping. Within less than a year, I was semi-fluent in the high-brow fashion world of baby boutiques. Smocked dresses, christening gowns, embroidered cardigans...Before I knew it, I was kitted out for the next two babies which, as it turned out, never did show up.

And there I was, with all these hopes pinned to my booty, so to speak - and suddenly I felt like a big fat loser. What had I been thinking? How ridiculous! Who shops for unborn, unplanned and not-at-all-in-the-making babies??? So I sold some, donated others, and went to a lot of baby showers. Pretended that the gift I brought wasn't something that I would've put on MY CHILD. The one that, as it now looked, I might never have anyway.

After a while, I started remembering something my mother had once told me a long time ago - some superstition or old wives' tale, if you will: you should never make up the crib before you bring your baby home safe and sound. And then, the other day, I either heard or read something that extended this "belief" to cover any and all child-related accoutrements. Suddenly I had a moment of uncertainty - in a way, you could say that padlocked door to The Unmentionables in my head flew wide open - and I thought: did I put the cart before the horse and somehow jinx us???

From a rational point of view, that's all a bunch of nonsense, of course. But maybe that's the point all of this has made abundantly clear: none of this makes any sense, and there's neither logic nor reason involved in what we go through when dealing with infertility. I have moments of lucidity when I think, hey it can still happen or we can adopt; or maybe we can just have a lot of pets or something. There are days when I meet up with someone and their kid turns out to be a little, grouchy, miserable mini-tyrant - and I think to myself, PHEW, thank God I don't have that problem (incidentally, this frame of mind is particularly evident when I hear tales of Exorcist-like vomiting etc).

Lately, I've been feeling a lot more panicked - not just about the whole baby issue, but about life in general. I always believed that there was a natural progression to life: you're born, your parents give you a set of values and a code of ethics to guide you in life, you live and learn - and eventually find someone you love and get married. Everything else, I thought - foolishly, I now realize at the 11th hour - would just "happen". It never occurred to me that having children would be something I would have to "work" at. For the better part of my life, I didn't give either marriage OR babies ANY thought whatsoever - watching my parents, I just thought, this is the way the story goes. It never entired my mind, for a split second, that I might not meet someone and get married or that, even if I managed to find that, I would still be denied what one could argue is a basic right of being a woman. I mean - sometimes it really gets to me: the sheer indignity of getting periods - the ONLY reason for which is procreation - and still not be able to bear children. I mean, it's like as if you won a competition and then they told you, hey by the way, you know that $10,000 prize you were competing for? We just made that up! HAHAHA!

Well, I'm not laughing. I'm not crying either. I feel like I'm hovering in this state of constant anxiety. This infertility issue is suddenly making me feel OLD and it keeps reminding me of my own mortality. Maybe that's partly because, all of a sudden, that dream life filled with laughter and joy, with little babies and family holidays - that all went up in smoke before I could say WHAT?

Sometimes I think, so what. I can do without it. I can learn to live without having kids. I can get a tropical bird or something. I can play with someone else's kid - and hand it back when it starts revisting with lunch. But I know that, deep down, all that's just big talk from someone in pain and in denial. Because, really? It's all out of my hands. It's not like, say, if I were single. I could tell myself - do I want to raise a child by myself if I don't find someone I want to marry? I don't know. I just feel like someone tied a noose around my neck and hung a great big boulder around it - every which way I move, the noose just gets tighter and tighter.

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So here we are, coming up on the holidays again. I love this time of the year. I love the changing of the leaves and I love when it starts to get cold. I love bundling up with big sweaters, scarves and hats. I love dashing into a warm, cozy coffee shop to meet a friend over steaming hot coffees. I love decorating the house for Christmas.

But this year, it all seems a little harder; my heart a little heavier. Everywhere I go, it's Bump City. The other day, at the post office, I saw this petite, thin woman with a bump so big, it made me wonder how she managed not to fall forward all the time. And it's in all the magazines - ads for strollers, for kids stores, advice for safe-guarding kids against flu season etc etc etc. I'm starting to get sick of it. I feel like saying, guess what, WE DON'T ALL HAVE KIDS!!!

It's also a trying season for me as I'm seeing more and more people with newborns or infants - and many women who barely gave birth a couple of months ago and are back at work, eager to resume their careers. It makes me wonder: why would you want to have a baby only to leave it in the care of strangers for the better part of its formative years? Sometimes, I indulge myself in the heart-wrenching fantasies of what I would do if I had a little baby: how I would bundle it up with ear muffs and warm snuggly blankets, talk and sing, delight in every little smile, in the grasp of those tiny little fingers that magically form through this most amazing of all miracles. And every time that I come back home, these days, I feel like a big sigh is just sort of making me slump a little more.

The truth is that I'm tired. I'm tired of this membership I didn't ask for to a club no one wants to belong to - and that still seems so fraught with lack of consideration. People ask and say the craziest things to you, sometimes - and I wonder, how would they feel if they were in your situation? These days, everytime someone asks me whether I have children, I feel like I have to put on this brave front - almost indignant, like I don't LIKE children. Like, somehow, in saying that I don't, all my most private misgivings, fears and heartache actually are written on my face like on a billboard.

So what do we do? Where do we go from here? Sometimes I think it would be so much easier to have people to talk to about all this. But then I feel that so many women approach this situation in an entirely different way than I do. I don't feel like I could EVER proclaim to the world at large, face to face, the exact amount of time that we haven't been using birth control, or how often we have sex, or my personal feelings on this issue. I somehow feel that so many women I've met immediately throw their entire marital relationship at you like some sort of Cliff notes - even if you didn't ask. I am privy to a ridiculous amoung of superfluous information - some of it extremely personal - about people I hardly know. One woman went so far as to describe in some detail the extent of the sexual dysfunction in her marriage - making me want to start flailing my arms wildly and scream T-M-FUCKING-I!!!!

So here I am. I don't have any answers - just a lot of questions, a lot of worries, a lot of sadness in my heart. I don't have any comfort to share or give, because I don't know what you can say to someone in these shoes. Nobody wants to wear them because they hurt, but you don't get to choose whether or not you do - so what do you say? Tough break? It'll be ok? Because, really? I don't know that. I don't KNOW that it's going to be ok - for me, for you, for any one of us who deal with infertility. Is it ever going to be ok if you can never, ever get pregnant? Can you ever REALLY come to terms with being denied like that?

I know that other people may find comfort in their faith. They may say to themselves, it's all in God's plan (or, as the case may be, not so much). I take a less religious approach and tell myself that things happen for a reason. But then that just begs the question: what's the reason? WHY NOT ME??? What did I do that was so terribly that I shouldn't be able to have a child? And how come there are all these other people who couldn't possibly be WORSE examples: crack addicts, teenagers, people in abusive relationships or people who just have kids because they either don't know about birth control or don't care. All these people who have kids that they don't care about, don't take care of, don't give the love and affection to that so many who can't have kids would. Where's the fairness in all that? Where's the grand master plan in all that?

I am just...not happy with any of this, and I don't know how to make it better...

Letters From The Edge

2008-11-12T13:15:00.000-08:00

Do you ever find yourself feeling like you're standing outside of some 5 star restaurant, in the pouring rain, looking in and watching all these lovely people in gorgeous clothes, feasting on the most amazing foods? Kind of like being an adult version of Curly Sue?

That's how I feel a lot of the time. I feel like I'm observing this whole motherhood thing from a distance. Almost like when you're not totally asleep, but not quite awake either. You sort of have a vague sense of what's going on around you but aren't actively participating.

To be honest, I never thought that blogging would help me. I didn't think that sharing my thoughts and feelings - in all their gritty, raw honesty - would make me feel better. It never occurred to me that, somehow, somewhere, there would be other women - struggling just like me - and that their words of encouragement and sympathy would somehow be like a band-aid. Yet...that's exactly what's happening.

At a time when I feel I can't confront the reality of infertility with those who are, arguably, closest to my heart, it seems almost strange to find comfort in the words of people I don't know - and who, for all intents and purposes, don't know me either. Yet, somehow, in that sense of anonymity, maybe the real issues become more clear and less clouded by other considerations.

Today, I had one of those moments that felt like a snapshot in a movie. I saw this woman with a little child in a stroller. At first glance, nothing new - I'm almost becoming numb to the sense of injustice, longing and despair that floods me like some venomous chemical. But as I watched, the little child - I couldn't quite tell if it was a boy or a girl - became ANIMATED. It stretched, laughed, smiled, giggled, reaching for its mother as the whole world in its little eyes.

And I felt like someone had literally reached into my chest and pulled out my still-beating heart. Ok, I know - that sounds overly dramatic and graphic. But I felt that I needed to use words that would lend this sort of strong, almost violent, quality to the force of the pain I felt. In my mind, like some sort of torture device, the scene keeps replaying - but, in this bizarre masochistic way that the mind was of rendering the pain even more unbearable, the scene keeps replaying...only I'M the mother...and it's my little baby casting its eyes adoringly on me, giggling as I tickle it and talk to it. Loving the sheer adulation, the eternal bond formed between mother and child.

Lately, I've been having nightmares a lot more. I keep dreaming of getting old and everyone I love dying around me. I think it's this sense of not having new life around me; of not having off-spring to raise and to keep me grounded in my later days. And so, barely grazing my early 30s, I have moments when I feel like I'm entering the last decade of my life. This whole ordeal is literally sapping the life out of me. I try...I try so hard not to let it get to me ALL THE TIME. But then I find myself sitting across from a couple with a little girl, for example - like I did today - and this family unit, so cohesive, so loving, so in tune with nature...And I feel left out. I feel like some shaggy old dog sitting in the rain, begging for scraps.

There are times when it gets worse than others. Sometimes I hear kids screaming or misbehaving and I think, THANK GOD I don' t have to deal with THAT. But then, I always think - that wouldn't be me. That wouldn't be me, trying to "reason" with a 2-year old, as opposed to being firm and setting boundaries for the child whose life I am solely responsible for. Because, at the end of the day, as women, I think that our responsibility towards the life we bring into this world is greater than that of anyone else - after all, we carry the unborn child with us, nurture it even before its birth, bond with this amazing "being" that we are able to produce.

I wish there was an easy way to deal with this - but then, I guess, anything worth having is worth fighting for. Sometimes I think it would just be as well if we adopted - but then, that's hardly even a consideration at this point, since we'd probably have to take out a loan just to cover the ridiculous fees involved in adoptions. And the weird thing is this. Before I ever felt ready to have children - long before we had any evidence that there might be issues with conceiving - I always considered adoption as a viable option. Not just instead of giving birth, but AS WELL AS giving birth. In some sense I felt that, if I was going to be a mother, I should be selfless enough, also, to give a home to a child who had no parents.

Ironically, it seems, that fate has decided both of these issues for me: we probably won't be able to conceive naturally, and other avenues may not be open to us for financial reasons. Isn't that just the biggest joke? All these people who have a ton of kids, can't support them, even beat and neglect them...all these orphans, foster kids etc...And here we are - you, me, every other women going through this ordeal - with so much love to give...and no one to give it to. You really have to wonder about the ways of the world, sometimes.

I try to take comfort in these wise words that "this too shall pass" - but I can't help but wonder: will it? Will there be a happy ending, one day? Will there ever be hope? Or will this just be a dark chapter in our lives that will forever cast a shadow over our marriage?

When you get married, and you say your vows, and you consider the traditional "for better or worse, in sickness and in health" - how many of us assume that we really will be put to the test? How many of us, occasionally, think: would this have happened if I had married someone else? Would this have happened if I hadn't waited to have children? Would this have happened if...?

And, really, it's all those "IFs" that finally make you want to tear out your hair. Because you can never get a straight answer to an "if" question - it's always cast in doubt.
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After reading some blog comments over the last month, I've been feeling guilty for not taking into account that Kenton may be harboring the same kind of pain, just not showing it the way I do. And, really? I'm not showing it either. I still haven't told my mom, my best friend, or anyone else that you'd think this kind of information would be shared with. I JUST CAN'T. I can't face the conversation. I can't face the inevitable questions, comments, suggestions, advice...Just the thought of it all makes me feel VIOLATED. So I have to put on a poker face, bravely smile at cute babies and cooing parents, comment on a cute baby here, and adorable toddler there, and just grin and bear it. Pretend that it's not tearing me up inside; that I don't have to fight it every which way - that it doesn't take every ounce of self-control not to burst into tears every day, every minute, every hour...

Anger

2008-11-05T13:03:00.000-08:00

For the last week or so, I've been consumed by anger. I can't seem to get a grip and I can't seem to do anything to make it go away. I am just so, so angry.

I saw someone today that I don't like. This woman is a real bitch - excuse me for saying so - and a liar, hypocrite and backstabber. And of course she - like the rest of the female population of the world, it seems - has a baby. I can't think of a person whose motherhood annoys me more. Not just because of her overt smugness but because, as much as I know it's horrible to say this, I just think she doesn't DESERVE to be a mother.

There. I've said (or, rather, written) it.

Maybe that makes me a bad person. Maybe it just makes me human. Maybe it's just one of those things that's like rubbing salt into an open wound.

A lot of times people tell you all sorts of assorted BS when you're going through a rough spot - whether it's a divorce, unemployment, loss of a loved one or any number of things that elicit (or at least SHOULD elicit) sympathy. One of the things that gets under my skin the most is when people act all fatalistic about it, like oh, well, I guess it's just not meant to be. NOT MEANT TO BE??? WTF??? Some white trash retard has 6 kids and that's ok, but then someone like me apparently can't have any (through no fault of my own, it would seem), and suddenly it's some sort of cosmic conspiracy.

If there is a God, he's sure as hell not on my Christmas card list.

===================================================================

Today should actually have been a good day. It should've been fine. I talked to a lot of friendly people (except for one idiot who was trying to be all high and mighty - but then, some people are just like that and occasionally I can almost relate so...stones...glass house...you know where I'm going with this). There were no real tragic mishaps today. No one cut me off on the road, no one was rude to me - quite the opposite in fact - and I had a semi-productive day.

But lately, every time I pause to think - about my life in general, my marriage, my future - I feel this black cloud of doom and gloom descend upon me. Suddenly, no matter what else is going on, I am nearing a panic attac and just wish I could literally split the ground and disappear in a chasm. I don't know what's gotten into me. I've had ups and downs before - but this is just completely ridiculous. Worst of all: I can't seem to get a handle on it.

I AM JUST

SO

DAMN

ANGRY!!!!!!!!!!

I don't do yoga - not for want of trying, mind you. The whole chanting and listening to some weird instructions to bend my body as though I'm some sort of human Gumby...yeah, not my bag, baby. Pilates? Let's not even go there. So, I guess, the truth is that I really just don't have an outlet for all this pent-up frustration, despair, this anger I feel. I have no way to...let it out and get on with it. So it just sort of hovers like smog all around me.

I considered spending the next three days in bed. Pulling the covers over my head and pretending that everything around me just stopped. Or that, at any rate, my participation in this life was suspended.

I feel ashamed of my feelings, my downtrodden attitude. So many awful things happen in the world, I really shouldn't even have an ounce of unhappiness to contend with. But, alas, that's just one of those things that, if you ask me, aren't nearly as easy to control in reality as one would think.

I talked to my parents earlier today. My mom sensed - of course, as she would - immediately that I wasn't myself. My dad tried to cheer me up - but, try as I might, all I could think was, I am SO not in the mood to talk to ANYONE.

If I had a lot of money, I think I'd hop on a plane to some exotic island and spend a week or so just regrouping. But then - look at all these celebrities and how f***ed up they are. Really??? I mean, sometimes I wonder how you can possibly have issues if you're rich. But then, I guess, while money certainly does make the world go around (latest evidence the astronomic campaign expenditures during this last election), it doesn't buy you happiness.

If you've ever read this book called The Perfume - about a man whose quest to bottle the perfect scent eventually leads to murder - it makes you wonder what it would take to bottle happiness, so to say. I have this little cutout somewhere that says:

"If you have the capacity to be happy someday, you can be happy NOW."

I wish I could just somehow LIVE those words, instead of bemoaning my life for what it isn't. So sad, when you think about it: that I can let this one thing - this fact of being childless - stand in my way of an otherwise happy life. Life is, of course, always what we make it - and right now, dear void, there isn't much in it.

Grateful in spite of it all...

2008-10-28T13:34:00.000-07:00

First of all, I want to start this post by saying thank you to the lovely comments that have been left on my blog lately - you will never know just HOW MUCH they mean to me, how much they give me strength and make me feel like, somehow, somewhere...Someone understands. My heart goes out to all of you who, like me, face this difficult situation armed with nothing but hope, everything riding on a wing and a prayer so to say...I am with you all in my thoughts.

-----

Lately it seems that, everywhere I turn, it's not the married women my age that I "fear" because of their happy pregnancies. Rather, it seems that, increasingly, more and more teenagers between 15 and 17 are getting pregnant. This is, of course, where I sometimes think I have to tread lightly, carefully - because I know that my own very strong opinion on these issues is probably not shared by all. I think we all are products of our upbringing - of the time and place we grew up in, the relationship our fathers & mothers had; not only with each other but with the world around them.
For me, the idea of a teenager (who isn't even yet legally entitled to vote or drink) being flies in the face not just of my current dilemma, but of EVERYTHING I believe in and hold dear. It seems ridiculous to me - like some sort of cruel joke Mother Nature is playing on me and on others like me. How can you sit there, contemplating the emptiness, the void in your life that can only be filled by something which, undeservedly, happens to someone so much less well-equipped and prepared for the challenge than you are? It makes me ANGRY.

Yet, at the same time, I wonder if, despite my personal feelings about teenage pregnancies, this is the way of the future. Increasingly, there is talk of an infertility epidemic - as even arguably healthy women in their mid- to late twenties face problems conceiving. It makes me wonder what's in store for us all, for the world at large...

And then, of course, there's the issue of celebrities - and their babies. Until about a year ago, I went through this period of reading all the gossip magazines almost religiously. I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I got some sort of voyeuristic pleasure out of catching a glimpse into the often much less-than-perfect lives of these people who, arguably, have everything they could ask for. After a while, though, I realized that reading these magazines made me distinctly unhappy - that being constantly confronted with these people who live in the lap of luxury and STILL somehow find ways or reasons to be unhappy, do drugs or otherwise do some of the most stupid, ridiculous and inconsiderate things, made me look at my life and find myself coming up short. Where was the money for ME to buy a dozen quilted Chanel bags or drive a 6-figure car? And how come Britney - possibly one of the WORST celebrity mothers - could have not just one but TWO babies, when she didn't even care enough to strap them into their car seats?

So it happened that, yesterday, for the first time in a while, I picked up some of these glossies as I was waiting for a friend I was meeting for lunch. And, lo and behold, they've all been so busy - having MORE babies! I found a familiar heaving in the pit of my stomach - sick with envy at this people who just seemed to have it so damn easy. Every page I turned, there was someone else who'd gone and had another baby since I last perused these magazines of dubious content and low quality - in the case of Brangelina, even TWO!

But then the strangest thing happened. Amidst all these feelings of loathing - myself, all these rich people, pregnant teenagers...YOU NAME IT! - of inadequacy, of fear and failure...I found comfort in the kind words of strangers on my blog; hope in the email from my husband; joy in the simple fact of a sunny day.

Life isn't perfect - and that fact doesn't change, no matter how much money or how many kids you have. So often, we keep looking to a distant future and set high expectations instead of realistic goals. I am weak in that way - I keep looking forward in anticipation of something intangible, something that I think will or must necessarily make me happy. And all the while, life is passing me by. Instead of living in the now, enjoying what I DO have - I keep pining over what I've lost and waiting for things that may never come to be. I am reminded of a maxim I read somewhere a long time ago:

"Blessed are the flexible - for they shall never be bent out of shape."

So simple, yet so true. Life is like a river, ever changing as it goes - I think those words are even incorporated in a song somewhere. The true test of character, of your own worth, is not metered by an easy life but borne out of adversity. I often think that, so many times, as women we have this unrealistic expectation of ourselves: that, somehow, we have to be able to fulfill a multitude of roles - and excel at them ALL.

The other day I found out that someone I had known a long time ago died. I didn't know this person well or seen them in years. But the death was unexpected - came without warning. And it made me realize, once again, how FRAGILE life really is - and that there are no do-overs. I am so often caught up in daily trivialities - getting upset about this or that, bemoaning our infertility issues, feeling so down. Yet, most important of all, I have my life - and the lives of the people I love and care about. I have the ability to do almost anything with my life - yet it has been YEARS since I've truly felt that I could "dream in possibility".

So maybe, what I really want to say today, in this post, is THANK YOU. Thank you to my family who loves and cares about me; to my parents and my husband, who would give me the shirt off their backs. Thank you for my best friend, who has stood the test of time and is still my greatest champion.

And thank you - to those of you who read this blog and find yourselves walking along this journey with me; offering your comforting thoughts and advice. Thank you for being you.

Unhappy.

2008-10-26T15:30:00.000-07:00

The title of this post just about sums it all up. I am unhappy. Not happy. Happy no more.

Today, I watched a bunch of soldier tributes on YouTube. Don't ask me why - I have no idea. Sometimes I just feel the need to connect with something outside of this little bubble of sorrow that I live in. To look outside and say, you know what - there are much, much bigger issues and problems out there.
So I watched these heart-wrenching tributes, reunions and so on...Crying as you saw soldiers walking through and airport and people standing up clapping. And then, suddenly, I realized something else: all of these people had one thing in common - aside from the uniforms, the tear-stained faces of joy as a loved one returned to safety: kids. Lots and lots and lots of kids. Proudly waving flags, sleeping in strollers, hugging a returning parent.

And so I cried some more.

I'm almost getting to the point where I feel like I should just give up. I feel like I'm dealing with this by myself - like Kenton doesn't even GET IT. I mean - I know this is going to sound so incredibly horrible: but how come he doesn't feel guilty? How come he doesn't feel BAD?

I know - I sound like the world's most selfish, petty and horrible wife every to (dis)grace the face of the earth. But I just keep thinking - if I were the one with the problem, I would feel so horrible, like I'd somehow let us down. I'd try to find some answers, talk to doctors, do whatever it takes to sort this out.
Not Kenton. He's so absorbed with the day in, day out of work, it's like this whole thing isn't even real.

I go between being angry as hell at him and being angry as hell at myself. Because, the embarrassing and sad truth is that, sometimes, in the dark hours when I feel most insecure and cheated - I wonder if I made a mistake in marrying him.

There, I've said it. Or, rather, typed it. Now, of course, I feel like the biggest bitch EVER. Kenton is, in so many ways, my soul mate - if there is such a thing. He is so much like me in many important ways, and complements me in others. Yet...there's this nagging thing in the back of my head that keeps saying, maybe this wouldn't have happened with someone else.

Of course this is all piggy-backing on some other issues in our marriage, but that's not within the ambit of my blog. So, all in all, I'm basically living in this inner sanctum of absolutely unadulterated HELL - going between thinking that I could never love anyone else the way I love Kenton; and wondering if I need to seriously, clinically, analyze my situation and my options.

So I feel like my heart is breaking all the time. I mean, I just about have gotten to the point where I don't feel like I might be violently sick at the mere sight of yet another big, proud pregnant belly or a peacefully sleeping infant. But I feel so, so lonely. I feel OLD. I feel useless.

I feel so, so, so UNHAPPY.

Forever Love

2008-10-17T12:44:00.001-07:00

Today was one of those days that could've gone either way. Again, I saw one proudly stuck-out pregnant belly after another, some women practically bending backwards to show off their glorious protrusions. I could be cynical - in fact, I am, most of the time, when I see these things. I think of women who are unsuitable mothers of many - and then I grieve for those of us with so much to give, and nothing but a cloud of rain to pin our hopes on to.

But there was a turning point - that point where having a girly chat with my best friend and dancing in the kitchen with my husband made me feel...a little less wounded. Kenton isn't a dancing kind of guy - in fact, I think in his 30-something years on this planet, his tap-tapping feet may have stepped into a club not even half a dozen times. Me? I'm the reigning Dancing Queen supreme - just a beat on my car stereo and I'm bopping along like Wayne to a favorite Queen song (which, incidentally, is a group I really DON'T like...but I digress).

So there we were, bellies full of piping-hot apple crumble, smothered in Haagen Dazs Vanilla ice cream, getting our groove on like there was no tomorrow. It's those days that make me think - be still my beating heart. I ache, still - with so much confusion, so much frustration and envy, mixed in with a deep sense of injustice...but I'll be ok, one way or another.

Because this journey, I'm not taking it alone.

Trouble Bubble

2008-10-08T12:54:00.000-07:00

It's been over a week since my last post. The problem I have is that I feel like I'm going in circles - that I have nothing new to say, and nothing I write is original either because I'm hardly the first, only or last person to go through this.

Kenton has an appointment in a few days to talk to the doctor about running some blood labs and other tests. I hope that he can make it clear to them that we've already waited FOREVER, that every single month we're put off is like rubbing salt in an open wound. I just want to move on, one way or another. I just want some answers, black on white - and I want to be able to make a decision of what to do next. As long as none of the basics have been completed and checked off the list, we're in limbo - and that, more than anything, is just killing me.

You'd think that I should be immune to it by now - or, conversely, in tears practically every day. There's not a single day that I venture out without knowing that I'm going to be confronted with the same, painful images of children - young and old, tall and short, thin and fat, cute and ugly, quiet and loud - assaulting my sensitivities. I feel somewhat taunted by these constant reminders - and yet so alone, so guarded, in keeping this sad, unfortunate issue to myself.

I've further contemplated whether or not I should broach the subject with my best friend, but it seems like such a burden to ask someone else to share. And, at the end of the day, what is she supposed to do? Miles away with a husband, children and pets - the complete white-picket-fence-life that we BOTH thought we'd have by now - how can I ask her to deal with this? But, perhaps, in some way, the truth behind my hesitation to tell her is what I'm afraid would be missing: a real understanding of the depth of pain we're going through. As much as I love her and trust her, there's a part of me that keeps imagining the conversation she'd undoubtedly have with her own husband - and what he might think of Kenton. I know - it's silly. But I feel so protective of him. I fear that, if I tell those closest to us, they will - albeit silently - judge him. I worry about the "talk" behind our backs - questioning his virility, his masculinity, calling our marriage into question. I know that, in most cases, it wouldn't be meant as mean or degrading - but just the idea of it makes me reconsider any ideas I've had about disclosing our misfortune.

They say that shared pain is halved pain - but I wonder if that's true in this case. Because, really? There's nothing anyone could do to help us. I guess I just feel kind of hopeless - and cheated. We were so careful, so "smart" about always using protection when we were still dating; never being "stupid" or taking unnecessary risks. Even when I'd known Kenton long enough to be able to say that he would never have let me deal with an unplanned pregnancy by myself, we were both on the same page: we wouldn't start a family until after we'd been married for a while and had a nice nest egg to fall back on.

What a joke.

So now I watch him sleep at night, restless, while I try to pretend everything is ok. I read for hours, sometimes until the sun is practically coming up - trying to somehow dull the emtpy, sad feeling. It's sort of like coming to someone's house when you have every reason to believe you were invited - and then having the door literally slammed shut in your face. You stand there, unbelieving - shocked, hurt. For a moment you think, no - there must've been a mistake. You almost convince yourself that this didn't really just happen. Surely you just had a day dream or something. But it's all too real.

Baby Blues

2008-09-30T11:26:00.001-07:00

Yeah I'm definitely singing the baby blues. What else is new?

It's almost as if everything around me has conspired to remind me of The Issue.

Still...it's fall and I'm loving it! It makes everything less...painful, somehow. It doesn't change the problem at hand, or the long uphill battle we're facing - but it changes my perspective of things, at least occasionally.

Of course part of that is due to the fact that I've started spending more time at home. To be honest, I just can't foresee when something is going to strike a chord with me and bring on the waterworks - and, to me, it's still such a private thing, at least in terms of not bawling in front of people and so on. So, I'd rather stay away from situations where it's going to become a really big deal. It's not like I'm turning into a total hermit - this time of the year makes me want to spend more time at home anyway.

It's strange how, when you get that "yearning" or whatever you want to call it, you suddenly see it everyone. Just like when you're single and, on that occasion where you feel sorry for yourself or bemoan your singleton status, people invariably feel the need to "console" you with advice like "it'll happen for you" etc. You can't get mad at those people who actually mean well - because, let's face it, what else are they supposed to say? How about: "Sorry, but all the good ones are taken." Hmpf. Or, maybe: "I know you want a baby, but it's not going to happen so just suck it up!" Well, no one in their right mind would say that, obviously.

And then there are times, like today, when I catch something that makes my blood boil. On tv, today, there was this sob-fest about some 24-year old, unmarried girl who already had a kid and was 5 months pregnant with the second. No dad, no bf or anything - clearly that ran in the family since it was just her and her mom with the kids. Oh and, lest I forget the cherry on top: she was a heroine addict. And there she was, on tv, blathering on in her pity-me manner, how she wanted to try so hard to quit because of her unborn baby...and how she was going to give it up for adoption because it was the right thing to do. UHm, OKAAAAYYYY. So then someone else has to try to deal with a heroin baby. THANKS! Not to mention - what I really wanted to know is: how exactly do you get pregnant when you can't even take care of your BORN child, nevermind raise another one without a guy in the picture and no job.

AND WE'RE SUPPOSED TO FEEL SORRY FOR SOMEONE LIKE THAT????

No way, Jose - my give-a-damn's definitely busted when it comes to that kind of stuff. When I think about the fact that I'd give anything for Kenton and I to be able to just have a baby, the normal way - and here's this dumb blonde who can't keep her legs crossed anymore than she can keep a needle out of her veins, it just makes me STARK RAVING MAD!!!

Well, there you go - I guess my blog entries just swing back and forth between sad and angry. But then, is that really surprising?

Soundtrack Of My Aching Heart

2008-09-23T08:14:00.000-07:00

Today was not good. It's not even that the day has been particularly bad or otherwise unpleasant - far from it, on the whole. But it's just been one of those days only a woman longing for a child can understand.

Everywhere I went, there was a cacophony of baby sounds: laughing, giggling, parents oohing and aaahing their offspring. Most of it was terribly endearing - especially this one guy I saw. At first sight, he looked like someone who might belong to a gang: baggy pants, big sweater, goatee and just generally a bit aloof. But he had a little daughter who was just the cutest thing - not even so much that she was particularly pretty from an objective point of view, but she was just adorable. And you could TELL from the way he was talking to her just how much he loved her - that he would be the kind of dad who would always be there for her, dry her tears, always try to make her world whole. It was with a heavy heart that I thought about Kenton, what kind of a father he would make - maybe never will be able to make. He said a few days ago that it tore him apart, too - and, for the first time, I put myself in his shoes and tried to imagine what it must be like for him: seeing all these other guys with their kids, loving, caring, doing what every man should be able to do with the woman he loves.

It was ironic, really - there I was sitting in a coffee shop, listening to this song that sounded vaguely familiar but that I couldn't have told you the name or singer of, and I had this strange feeling that I could've been the central character of a dramatic movie of sorts - the quest for a baby. It was unreal - I was listening to this song and saw everything else in slow motion: the woman bending over the carseat in which her baby was slumbering safely and quietly; the woman who was having a little snack with her toddler; and one particular woman with an infant so angelic that it broke your heart to look into such an innocent face. In other words, it was like stepping into Hades without your summer clothes.

As I looked around in between reading a few pages in a book, I caught the eye of the woman with the baby in the carseat. Our eyes seemed to lock for a couple of seconds - and I was absolutely horrified at the thought that I had been caught red-handed, that it was OBVIOUS that I didn't have any kids and that it was breaking my heart. I felt completely exposed - sort of like in that all-too-common nightmare of being in school and realizing that you're completely naked, with everyone pointing and laughing.

It's hard not to be resentful, but when I see adorable kids with happy parents, I always compliment them - I always find something nice to say, because I know that, for those people who really love their children, they are their pride and joy. So when I was driving home I struggled not to cry; unwilling to give in to feeling sad again. And as if to drive home the point a little harder, this song came on the radio: Want To Grow Young by Andy Griggs. It talks about these two people, so in love, who want to "grow young" together so that they can spend more time with each other.
It really hurt, those lyrics - not just because I know that this whole baby thing has every chance to drive a wedge between Kenton and I, but also because it made me think about how this whole situation is making me feel OLD. It's not something I feel very often - most of the time I don't think about age at all. But I couldn't help but wonder, as I have before: would we have had these problems if we hadn't been so careful NOT to get pregnant when we first got married?

I'm sure I'm not the only one who's driven mad by what-ifs - and in this situation they seem to be all the more toxic. So I did what any respectable young woman in my situation would do: I went shopping. LOL Yeah, I know I'm really being sarcastic about that - but retail therapy seems to be the only thing that's mildly helping. I bought a pair of gorgeous shoes and some other things. And it made me think about all the stuff people buy when they have kids - and I started wondering what kind of mother I would be. I will admit that I drooled over Gwen Stefani's Gucci baby carrier - and while $800 are definitely NOT just lying around at our house (or, as the maxim goes, growing on trees), I remember thinking, mmm that might just be worth it. And then, of course, I started looking up Bugaboo strollers a while back - although even I have to say that, for all my love of shopping, I can't imagine throwing away $2000 on a stroller.

I know what you must be thinking: what on earth is this woman going on about? What's the point of thinking of all that when she doesn't even HAVE a baby to begin with - and, what's more, how are material possessions even RELEVANT to this subject matter?
No amount of money can compensate for or take the place of having the ability, so often taken for granted (and I'll admit that I was definitely one of those people) to bear a child. It's what Kenton told me he worries about with me so much: that it hurts me MORE because he may never be able to father a child and that, consequently, I may never be able to give birth. There, I've said it. Sometimes, when I think about all the issues surrounding this topic, it feels almost dirty, almost vulgar to talk about it - to describe in detail the almost feral feelings that come with being on the receiving end of the infertility-doody-bag.

So I thought I'd share a few choice "words of wisdom" that I've appropriated in the time since we got The News. One of the things I've found that helps me a lot is to read books that make you feel less intimidated (read: jealous) of motherhood. This is obviously not for everyone, but the book I started reading right now is called Momzillas - and it's absolutely snort-inducing! From the beginning of the book, which has a short glossary that'll make your eyeballs pop out, to some of the phraseology the author uses, so far I'm thinking that this is going to go into my Emergency Kit (which I'm now thinking I need to start building: you know, one of those kits that you go to in times of emotional distress like, say, when someone you totally HATE gets pregnant).

What else? I've slowly come up from my low earlier, and now I feel a little less...sad. The other day, when I posted several times, I was really wound up - not just about the baby thing but about a million and one other things - and I needed to VENT. Sometimes I just need that...thanks for listening.

Exsqueeze me? Baking powder????

2008-09-21T13:56:00.000-07:00

(In case you're not a movie buff, I believe this line came straight from Wayne's World. Party time, EXCELLLLLENT!)

Ok so, last post for today I SWEAR. I just couldn't help myself after I went back to the WTE website (which I'm finding to be a distinctly hair-raising experience). I decided not to keep a separate blog there but, for s & gs, thought I'd browse the blogs in search of light or, failing that, at least someone who might be interesting to talk to about all this stuff. Here are the highlights of the first page:

" I'm 20 yrs. old and I'm pregnant!"

"Hello everyone! I am a follower of Jesus, a health nut, and a housewife!"

"Im a very nice person and I love babies and kids I want 12 but i will have to go with what I can get so heres my life and things that happen to me an how my life is in general on a day to day basis."
(No, really, there WAS no punctuation.)

Ok so, let's just say that I went from shaking my head, to laughing, to wanting to gouge out my eyes. Yes, that's terribly judgmental of me - and yes, I do realize that. But as this is my blog I am totally going to claim all rights to turn into Judgy Van Holier Than Thou when confronted with people who, erhm, how should I put this delicately...should really just not put themselves out there. In the words of one of my many heroes, Happy Bunny:

MAKE THE STUPID PEOPLE SHUT UP!

'Nuff said.

PS: Lest you should think about cursing my evil ways of pointing out the obvious (e.g. inability to spell, stupidity, etc), this is a totally censored and moderated blog so, uhm, BITE ME.

Ode To The World Of Blogging

2008-09-21T13:33:00.000-07:00

In line with one of my favorite maxims, "Appearances can be deceiving.", I know I shouldn't really even care about what my blog looks like. BUT I DO. I am my blog. I want this blog to be an ambassador of good faith, so to speak, in my quest to find others who are in the same boat as I am - or can, at least to some extent, relate.

But try as I might, I can't get this damn this to look anything but like what it is: the feeble (aka unsuccessful) attempts of a html-challenged person. I wish I could make my blog "sing", to be like a phone conversation with your best friend: instantly recognizable. I wish I could just make it look the part instead of some haphazard hack-job, which is pretty much what it is at the moment. I tried to toy around with layout and colors for a bit, only to change barely anything - with the result that I now like the look of it even less than I did before. Hmpf!

I guess I should do something about this. I should arm myself with information and tackle this insubordinate blog until I've beaten it into submission (that is, transformed it into the virtual glamazon of blogs that I really envisage myself penning in the months to come). A tad over the top? Perhaps. I don't know what it is - maybe just the idea of being able to connect with others and share this unforunate journey, in hopes of giving and receiving support in a situation that, quite frankly, no woman should have to suffer through.

But maybe there's an interesting lesson to be learned here. I've always been one of those people who are all about instant gratification. Why go for a small cup of coffee - only to have to buy another one half an hour later - when you can buy the ginormous one to begin with? In that vein, I've yet to organize my ever-increasing list of internet favorites - and, quite frankly, if they ever invented a machine that, without any or only the tiniest minor side-effects, could effectively remove all UNWANTED hair at the drop of a hat, I'd be first in line. Maybe I'm just lazy. Or maybe I just don't like to waste time of things that, in my own personal opinion, should be signed, sealed and delivered to me in exactly the way I want them - rather than me having to do the 21st century's equivalent of coal mining to get to it. Such as with this businesss of blogging. I mean, come on: why can't I choose from a bazatrillion layouts, templates etc (that I'm sure are floating around SOMEWHERE on the internet) right here, right now? Why must I be satisfied with this lame, boring setup - when I should have 3D Marilyn Monroe-esque lips floating around in tailing the cursor movements of a new visitor? Why, oh WHY???

Alright. That's it for my ranting today. I feel the distinct need for caffeine sneak up on me. (And on that, last, note: how come there's not some sort of Jetson's-type machine that can simply be TOLD what I want my coffee to be like - is that REALLY so much to ask??)

Expectations

2008-09-21T12:18:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to distract myself by reading about anything EXCEPT infertility.

On some level, I know that the best thing to do right now would probably be to arm myself with information. But, then again, how is that information going to compete against FACT? And, to be perfectly honest, I've found the entire experience, so far, entirely unsavory.

Not that I should've expected anything else. But then - I didn't expect ANY of this... I got this book from some website/foundation called Resolve. It's an outdated copy but I thought I'd look through it to see if there was anything dealing with the actual EMOTIONS surrounding this kind of harrowing experience. I even went to the website - only to find out that you have to PAY for the "privilege" of actually accessing any of the information, support groups etc. I was so angry that I just wanted to scream! What kind of a sick, twisted organization tries to make money off of the misfortune of others? Not just misfortune, but being, in effect, denied a basic, fundamental HUMAN right: procreation.

But maybe that's the point: it's not a right, is it? Only now, after all this time, am I beginning to understand the monumental concept that giving birth is a gift. Sounds cheezy - to me, especially - but that's the best way I know to describe what I'm trying to say.

So...then I magnanimously decided that rancor was NOT the best way to approach this entire situation - that, perhaps, the reason why this website for Resolve charges a membership fee is to fund research or something (one can dream, can't one?).

I registered on www.whattoexpect.com, which has some forums for trying to conceive, infertility etc. Is it just me or is that a bit ridiculous? Seriously, how many of those of us poor souls who have to deal with the unthinkable - maybe NEVER being able to bear a child ourselves - want to be lopped together with a bunch of happy-go-lucky moms posting pictures of smiling babies, playing kids, or mothers-to-be with their countless trackers, blog bling etc announcing to the entire world, look at me, I'm a Fertile Myrtle! Cynic? Me? You're damn right I am!

Last night I couldn't sleep. I kept thinking about Kenton - how lucky I am to have him, and whether I shouldn't just be grateful to at least have a loving, loyal husband instead of bemoaning the fact that we may not be able to ever have children - or, at least, not the easy way. There's a part of me that is completely scared witless at the huge responsibility of motherhood - to say nothing of the fact that your life, as you know it, is effectively over at conception. The truth is that it's "frowned upon" for women to think about the fact that a baby is, among many many other things, a time constraint. Then again, I can't imagine being like a lot of these women I've come across: lugging their off-spring around like cattle from one brain-dead activity to the next, punctuated only by early-addiction pitstops at McDonald's et al.

In my mind, I keep thinking about how I would do it differently. No, scratch that - BETTER. Yes, I know - I sound totally snooty, especially given the fact that my experience in the department of child-rearing is, well, close to non-existent (bar humoring the children of close friends and relatives). But I can't help it! When I see kids wearing an entire panoply of food groups strewn across their Walmart clothes, screaming like little banchees, I can't help but think of how I would act so differently. Maybe I'm kidding myself; maybe in NOT being able to just get pregnant, I'm safely tucked into this Utopia where our kids would be completely gorgeous, well-behaved, and of course the envy of everyone.
Why? You know, it only just hit me in writing this why I keep thinking that. The truth - as embarrassing as it is to admit that - is that I want those people who go around having a million and one babies (without then even taking proper care of them) see HOW IT'S DONE.

I have this fantasy. It's probably kind of sad, but then I'm hoping maybe someone out there can relate - and maybe that person will read this and think, Thank God I'm not alone! So here goes. I have this idea that I find out that I'm pregnant - of course, in this little fantasy of mine, there's not even a discussion or any hint of infertility issues, ergo the term fantasy, right? And of course, from the moment I find out, we're both deliriously excited and happy - and I put nothing but good food into my body because I know that whatever I eat, the baby "eats". Not like half a grapefruit because I'm more concerned about my post-baby body than the health of my unborn child. Not rounds and rounds at fast food joints so that my baby can come out looking like Ronald McDonald or, as I've witnessed more times than I can remember, learning fast food related words before ANY others. (Sad, but true: I know several women whose children have no verbal skills - yet, somehow, even without being able to talk in any coherent way under any other circumstances, they still manage to say something like "chicken nuggets". Talk about SCARY!). And then we have this baby - which, in my mind, is always a girl, always with dark eyes and dark hair - and she's just the most amazing thing I've ever seen. The sad, painful irony of this fantasy is that I have an almost tangible picture in my head - and it's really, truly harrowing. Not in so far as it would be morbid or weird, but because the entire prospect of having a baby with Kenton is so...normal, so natural - so EXPECTED.

Isn't that just the most ironical twist of fate, this play on words? What to expect when you're expecting. Except that most of us EXPECT that we'll be able to get to the point of expecting, that is, getting pregnant, in the first place!

Ok so I know this post is really confused and confusing. I'm sure most of it doesn't make much sense because it's all a bit of rambling from all the different corners of my heart: the sadness, the anger, the denial, the sheer envy. How come no one ever tells you NOT to expect that you'll get pregnant at the drop of a hat?

The Waiting Game

2008-09-18T11:59:00.000-07:00

In a situation where, in my mind, time is of the essence, Kenton was just told that before he can even get the urologist to see him, he has to take another sperm test - in THREE MONTHS. Needless to mention, I was just beyond aggravated when I heard that - and then we ended up getting into an argument because, of course, Kenton being a MAN, hadn't thought to tell whatever "genius" on the phone that we hadn't used contraceptives for, oh, about 4 years now - and that, clearly, SOMETHING was wrong.

But we did finally have a talk about it. He said that, knowing how close this issue was to my heart and how sensitive I was about it, he just didn't want to be the one bringing it up or starting a discussion about it. I tried to explain to him that I felt bad to always bring it up and that it would actually help me if HE would occasionally bring it up - but I can kind of see, now, where he's coming from.

Yesterday was much worse than today though - in terms of my mood, that is. I seem to be swaying between feeling like the world has just crash-landed on my heart, and just feeling removed and numb. Either way, I passed a woman yesterday who had a really cute little girl - and when I stopped to say how adorable she was, the baby actually SMILED a big, fat happy smile at me. Here's me sighing at the sheer irony that babies - and kids in general - have always loved me.

Then, today, I saw a woman AT LEAST 15 years my senior, with a head full of gray hair - and a big pregnant belly. Incongruous! Without wanting to, I find myself feeling increasingly resentful that it seems all these women from all walks of life, all sizes and ages, are pregnant! It's just not fair. But I know that I'm only seeing one side of the coin - and that I have no way of knowing how many of these women conceived easily; how many of them had to have fertility treatments or other types of support and help. All I know is that I feel so...deprived.

Still, I feel a little less raw today. Which is ironic considering that I couldn't even get my caffeine fix today - but perhaps also due to the weather, this wonderful, sunny fall weather, and the fact that a truck-load of mail came in today. I always love to get mail.

I talked to mom and dad today, for almost an hour, which was nice. Sometimes it makes me sad that I can't really talk to them about this issue - but I know that telling them would bring me no comfort because they just wouldn't be able to understand where I'm coming from. Plus, to be honest, I just can't even begin to tell them that Kenton has - or, pending that second sperm test, may have - problems producing a child.

When we talked about it last night, lying on the bed together and finally, it seemed, actually opening all the doors, I tried to think about what our alternatives are from a REALISTIC point of view. It's all good and well for books or people to tell you which options are out there - but, let's face it, how many people can actually AFFORD all these treatments? How many people can afford to go through in vitro more than once, maybe twice? And as for adoption - that, alone, can cost as much as a new car.

So...today is just one of those days where things are sort of up in the air. I feel weird, somehow - but there are other things that are taking my attention away from feeling too sad, too upset, too hurt.

When Everything Hurts

2008-09-16T21:28:00.000-07:00

There are moments in time when everything around me seems to disappear, and the only thing coming into sharp focus is The Issue. I watched a movie and cried; saw a preview for another movie and got choked up again. It seems almost ridiculous.

After reading through parts of one of the books I have on infertility, I felt more confused and scared rather than reassured. In aiming to provide a comprehensive analysis of available options, the book somehow managed to twist the knife just a little bit more. The options discussed in the chapters I read include things like Donor Sperm - which I found really disturbing - and a host of different surgical procedures, some extremely invasive, that Kenton would have to undergo depending on what the specific problem turns out to be. It's daunting, to say the least - and I find myself struggling with the ache of wanting a baby and the love and concern I feel for the man that I love. How can I ask him to undergo surgery in the quest for a family of our own?

And then, of course, there's adoption - something we'd already discussed a while back, before we ever really started trying. It's almost as if, instinctively, we both KNEW that we would have to seriously consider it at some point or another.

Just when life is throwing us these curveballs, it seems harder than ever for either one of us to talk about what we want. How far are we willing to go? I don't even know that I can answer this question for myself, even without considering how Kenton might feel about all of this. The other day I got so mad at him - I felt that he'd just taken this information we got on board, and then conveniently filed it away somewhere in a DO NOT DISTURB pile.

I'm ashamed to admit that, intitially, I felt a strange sense of relief when we got the lab results back. Because it meant that it wasn't my fault. Which is ridiculous - because no one can foresee or change these kinds of things, and it's not a question of fault. Yet, presumably, it's not entirely uncommon for people to inclined to point the finger at someone. Maybe that's because of the magnitude of this kind of information - the impact it has on a marriage, on a person's sense of self.

The worst thing for me, perhaps, is that I think Kenton doesn't even begin to realize the depth and extent of my pain. I don't think he understands just how much this is taking out of me. Or maybe he's just dealing with it in his own way - in the way that men tend to deal with these kinds of things: head down and keep moving. I, on the other hand, find myself completely paralysed. I feel, at times, that I turn into an automaton in public: smiling, commenting on someone's baby, feigning interest. Whatever envy I may feel towards another woman who has a newborn or a slew of kids is compounded by what I often perceive as lack of interest in their offspring. I turn into Judgy Van Holier Than Thou amid comments on strollers, toddler clothing and diaper bags - all things that, for a woman, should be as much a normal part of life as make up and sanitary products.

As a child, I had a bad habit of picking at scabs. I got some sort of perverse pleasure of ripping them off - knowing full well, after the first few times, that it would just end up bleeding again and therefore take longer to heal. Similarly, I feel an almost irresistible urge to keep looking at things that drive home this void ever more forcefully. Masochistic? Perhaps. Destructive? Quite possibly. Normal, given the circumstances...? Who knows.

For some reason, I've had a few country songs randomly play in my head - just snippets, really. Why not us, why not now...Is there a cure for the broken-hearted...All those songs that Frank would've called crying-in-my-beer music. Then again, I've always been a sucker for wallowing in these kinds of songs when I feel that I've really hit rock-bottom...

I tried, again, to find some sort of self-help group or a support network. I went on Oprah's website because I remembered that they used to have groups on there a few years ago - different ones for all sorts of different issues. Well, apparently they've done away with that in the years since I last checked it - figures, right? So I started to browse around and came across an article by Gena Rowlands, who is one of my favorite (and, in my opinion, one of the most underrated) actresses. And not 3 lines into the article I am hit, abruptly, with yet another affirmation to torment me:

"Mothers are the most powerful people in the world. "

Of course this has nothing to do with power in the sense of controling people or anything like that; nothing to do with power in a political or scientific sense. But I read over the sentence several times and thought about the simple things mothers take for granted: a baby clutching its tiny fingers around your finger; a broad smile that lights up an entire face and all that is around it. I walked past someone at a shop this afternoon and the woman was engaged in some sort of conversation with a very young girl, maybe 3 years of age. And there was something so...easy, so relaxed, in her manner. I smiled, sadly, almost unable to look away. It's kind of like that theory that you can't NOT watch a car crash or something like that - how, as things careen out of control, everything seems to proceed in slow motion and you can't tear yourself away.

Why not me, why not us?

2008-09-16T15:46:00.001-07:00

I've struggled long and hard with my decision to chronicle this journey I'm about to embark on. Part of me shies away from openly committing to these issues; part of me hopes to find solace in trying to find others who, like me, are confused, angry and sad.

Last Friday it became official: Kenton is unlikely to be able to father a child. Staring at this sentence, I feel a wave of surreal pain wash over me. How could this happen to US? We did everything "right", the way I thought you were supposed to do things. We got educated, traveled the world, didn't rush into marriage and didn't try to conceive the minute he'd carried me over the threshold. We thought we had time. We thought we were being smart - planned parenthood and all that.

As we sat in the doctor's office, listening to him explain the lab results, I found myself nodding to indicate that I understood what he was saying. It was like having an out-of-body experience: I was there, sitting in the hard plastic chair, looking at this man who was calmly explaining to us that we may not be able to have children by conventional means. As if it was the most normal thing to say. As if he'd just told one of us to take an asprin for a mild headache.

We left, neither one of us really saying anything; the piece of paper burning a hole into the pocket of Kenton's cargo pants. I felt numb, almost as if I had been given sad news about someone else - vaguely concerned, a little sad.

I went home by myself - Kenton had to go back to work. It was, after all, the middle of the day. I sat in the driveway for what seemed like forever: tears slowly running down as my vision became increasingly blurred. Once inside the house, a sound escaped from my mouth that was like the howling of a wounded animal - because, in all truthfulness, that's how I felt: wounded. As if, somehow, someone had deliberately injured me, delivering a potentially fatal blow to our plans and hopes for the future.

The worst part was the aftermath of that day. Kenton acted as if nothing had happened - jolly-go-lucky, goofing around like there wasn't that proverbial elephant in the room, constantly begging for attention. Alone, I cried like I haven't cried in years: anguished, broken. I listlessly stumbled around search engines in hopes of finding a support network, but nothing seemed to fit the bill. I couldn't join a group of women trying to conceive - knowing that, any day, someone might post that they'd finally gotten pregnant. I started reading about infertility, options for treatment - all the while thinking: why did this happen to us?

For a while I'd had an inkling that something might be wrong with one of us - like some sort of premonition or 6th sense, I've had this nagging feeling for years that we wouldn't be able to conceive, wouldn't be able to have what most people take for granted. In a sea of people, it seemed I was surrounded by women proudly displaying variously advanced pregnant bellies: beautiful women, plain women, skinny women, large women, young women, older women. I felt like I had been snubbed; like being turned down by a maternal sorority of sorts.

I am completely unprepared and unarmed to deal with this situation - to handle the cascade of unexpected emotions. I was angry at Kenton - I still am. Not because of his condition but because he doesn't seem to care. I know that he's just in denial - when I finally cornered him the other day, amid tears, and asked him whether he wasn't even the least bit upset, he grudgingly admitted that he was, that he just couldn't dwell on it like I did. But what else is there to do? How can I possibly just brush this under the carpet, pretend everything is alright - when it so clearly ISN'T?

I try not to think about it. I try to ignore all the pregnant women around me, the little girls with long hair and April Cornell dresses...so much that I had hoped for myself. But more than anything, I feel so completely ALONE. That, more than anything else, is probably what I was least prepared for. I feel like there's no one I can talk to: not mom, who didn't even know we had talked about wanting to try; not either one of our sisters (one of whom would put-put some platitudes of no help, while the other would launch a diatribe of finger-pointing).

I can't even bring myself to call Kathleen, my best friend, the one person who's as close to me as any blood relative - who, when we talked about this subject a couple of years ago, said that if we couldn't conceive she would be a surrogate for us. I tried to write her a letter, to tell her all I was feeling and the overwhelming pain that I couldn't even begin to lend credence to in words...and I failed, miserably, because I couldn't see out of my eyes once I started to unleash the pain and anger, the sense of injustice...

So here I am. I feel empty, cold, like something is missing. I look at a magazine and an ad for The Children's Place makes me cry. I watch a woman cradle an infant in a cheap blanket and think, my baby would have something much warmer and softer. I cuddle and talk to the children of my friends and acquaintances, trying to ignore the lump in my throat. And then, sometimes, I just sit there: staring into space, shivering, not knowing where to turn.