New Year, New Pain

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...

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.

Expectations

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?