Touching Base

Touching base... Some rambling thoughts...

I've had several different ideas swirling around in my mind all week.

I've also been doing what I need to do, just fighting through exhaustion. No matter what we're all doing, we can all relate to that. I'm not doing the whole "take pride in being busy" idea, but, yeah, I'm happy to have things going on. After so many years of... waiting, hoping, planning, and waiting... I don't mind being busy.

Anyway.
I'm rambling.

Usually, when it comes to this blog, I just think something and type a few things out. Might as well, before I judge myself, right? I mean, I'm not the only one to have the thoughts I have. So might as well put them out there so other people can be like, oh good I'm not the only one. :)

I read blogs for yearsss and never commented. I could totally relate, but I didn't grow up with the internet and wasn't totally comfortable commenting. And here I am with a 6+ month old blog...

But, like I said, I'm not the only one.
This is becoming common.

Not common to where I'll meet others like me, just living my life. I'm still in the minority.
But common to where I can say something anonymously on the internet and another woman will think, yes, me too.

It's weird. I don't want anyone else to know my pain. But, if/since there are, I want to know them. And do fun stuff together. Wouldn't that be fun? Like, a global small group party. :)

So, as I have some free moments over the next month, which will be more likely compared to the last several weeks, I'll just ramble some more about the aforementioned ideas. :-D Sound good? I'll be around.

Hope all is well with you!

Angry

I've been so angry for the last couple of weeks.
I don't really like anger. It doesn't feel good, and it's kind of exhausting.

But school is full of so much busy work! I strongly believe you are never too old to go back to school, but I also often think, "I'm too old for this." Some of the assignments and projects have no professional value, yet they are tedious and a complete waste of my time.

So that's part of it.

But when I'm feeling angry for a sustained period of time, I try to think about what it's really about.

Five years ago this month my husband and I stopped using contraception. Oh... That...
The body never seems to forget.

I thought I'd get pregnant. I thought I'd have a baby. I thought I would be raising a child by now.

So I'm just doing the best I can. Trying to get my work done, trying to take care of myself. Definitely making sure I eat and get plenty of rest. I know life is hard, whether you're working and/or going to school and/or raising children. I know I'm lucky I get to study for a new career. I know it is a great opportunity. But sometimes I get sick of looking on the bright side. And, like I said, I've been feeling angry lately.

I worked all weekend long and I wasn't studying anything terribly interesting, but it all had to get done anyway. So tonight I decided to treat myself to an exceptionally good dinner at one of my favorite restaurants. Everyone was busy, including my husband, so I went by myself. I enjoyed the atmosphere of the restaurant and savored the food. I even purposely over-ordered so I would have leftovers for tomorrow, because tomorrow is going to be an extremely busy day without a lunch break. (Yay classes, meetings, and group projects...)

And at the end of my delicious meal, which I thoroughly enjoyed, the waitress said, "You've been the happiest person I've waited on all night. You just exude such a happy energy."

Wow. I didn't see that coming. I guess I'm doing something right.

Now I'm feeling thankful and I'm ready for the week.

Stupid IVF

I wish everyone who wanted to get pregnant and have a baby could get pregnant and have a baby.

Just two weeks ago I learned about a friend who was pregnant from IVF. I was sad for myself but happy for her.

Today I found out a different friend was not pregnant from IVF. I was sad for myself and sad for her. She has many more embryos left in storage, so she is staying on the fertility treatment roller coaster for now. I hope it works out for her. I hope it doesn't all come at too high of a cost. And anyone who has tried fertility treatments knows the cost isn't just financial.

I hate IVF. I'm glad it works for some people, but I wish it worked for everyone. I wish we were told that it actually doesn't work over 70% of the time. This is such a rarely known fact.

I'm glad I made the decision to move on. The waiting and hoping and the devastation and trauma of trying to conceive was too much for me. I'm sad that I'm not a mom and not raising a child, but I'm glad I am creating a new life for myself.

Self-Care Above All Else

I missed my first class in this program. I felt really proud about my perfect attendance so far because I've never had perfect attendance in anything in my life. Oh well, it was nice while it lasted haha. Self-care above all else.

One of my classes is discussion-based. Each week everyone reads the same research article and then one person leads the small group in a discussion. Last week I sat down to prepare for that week's article. It was about motherhood. Oh shit... I started reading. Within the first paragraph the article started talking about how motherhood brings meaning to women's lives. Fresh off a recent pregnancy announcement where a good friend's IVF had worked, I immediately started crying.

Oh hell no.

There is no way I'm going to this class.

I can't even get through the article.

I tried again and immediately thought, Why am I doing this to myself? Who freaking cares??

So I stopped reading. I cannot even tell you the relevance of this article to the class or my profession. It seemed pretty out of left field to me. Maybe there was an explanation further in the article. I will never know. I threw away the article and emailed my professor.

I told her I would not be attending class because the article was too upsetting for me, but I was more than willing to do a make-up assignment or read an additional article if needed.

She wrote back. (She never writes back. Add that to my list of complaints about this program.)

She said something along the lines of: I am disappointed you chose to skip class for this reason. You will not have any choice in the future about which patients you work with... Something about being unprofessional... Blah blah blah...

Um... What?

That's not even relevant.

In the future I will not be having hour-long discussions with patients about how motherhood gives women's lives meaning.

Plus, I would not have been able to make it through that discussion without crying. Hard. Listening to my classmates inevitably talk about how their children gave their lives meaning and how they are working hard for them to give them a better life. It was a no-win situation for me. Unprofessional if I missed class, unprofessional if I cried throughout the whole thing.

I wrote her back.

I said something along the lines of: Thank you for your feedback. Each month I make great strides in my grief and recovery from losing my children and I feel confident that I will be able to handle whatever situation comes my way in the clinical setting in the future.

She said nothing.
How rude.

Anyway, I don't really care all that much. I really don't. I'm not impressed with my professor's first response and I'm definitely not impressed with her lack of response after sharing with her that I lost my children. But I don't feel even 1% bad for missing that class. There was no way in hell I was going.

I don't expect anyone else to understand my life. But I also don't have to do things just to make other people happy or comfortable.

I'm the only one that lives my life and I put self-care above all else.

Honoring My Sadness

It has happened again.
Another friend is pregnant.
Complete with a cute photograph shared on social media and accompanied by 500+ "Likes."

Again, I am happy for her. I really, truly am. This woman is a special person who makes everyone she meets feel good. She has struggled to get pregnant for years and has had many surgeries to make her body hospitable to pregnancy.

But.
But...

I lost it.

I hadn't cried over an announcement in a seemingly long time. I have begun to realize that other people's lives are separate from mine, that I've got my own thing going on and I am moving on. But this announcement still made me sad for myself.

Why does IVF work for other people but it didn't work for me???

I am proud of myself. I didn't read the comments. I knew they would hurt me.
Lots of:
-No one deserves it more than you
-God has blessed you with life's most precious gift
-Welcome to motherhood, it's the greatest thing ever
and more comments of that nature, I'm sure.

I am happy for her, but it's another lost friendship for me. For us. Her husband was one of my husband's closest friends. Our lives are going in different directions now. We won't see them for at least six months, because I don't like to hang out with pregnant women. And my husband said he doubts we will ever hang out with them again. They have a ton of friends and they all have children. Our lives don't match anymore.

For the first time, my husband got what I call a "fishing" text, though he didn't realize it at the time. I have received lots of these over the years. The kind of text where the person feels you out, sees what you're up to, and how you are doing, especially with regard to the whole baby situation. We had already shared with them that we were done trying and we thought maybe they were coming to the end too. Turns out she was pregnant and they wanted to see where we were with the whole topic... He didn't say anything, but, in retrospect, I think my husband felt a little weird about the text. Or maybe I'm projecting. I always feel weird, a little pitied, after receiving those fishing-type texts.

So, anyway, I cried. A lot. At first it was just a little. A few tears silently streamed down my face. But that wasn't enough. I could feel it deep down throughout my whole body, so I just gave in and had a really good cry about it.

I felt dumb for crying. (Geez, will the self-judgment ever end??) I thought, I've come so far in my healing. Why am I upset? This woman is awesome and her pregnancy has nothing to do with me. Why, after all these years, am I crying about her announcement?

I texted my best friend. I said, "I hope one day other people's pregnancy announcements don't affect me. I'm happy for this most recent couple but I get jealous that IVF worked for them but not for me." And my best friend, my wise, loving, inspiring, and beautiful best friend, wrote back: "I think that's fair!" I told her I had been crying and she said: "Okay, I'm being serious- why wouldn't you? What 'honor' is there in not being sad?"

Wow. I had never thought about it like that before. Honoring my sadness. She is so right. Of course, I don't have to be happy all the time. I already knew that. But honoring my sadness? Yes! That is so valid and necessary. I love her. I loved her comments to me. I continued to cry, but this time I didn't judge myself. I let the tears flow. I felt sad for my children that didn't get to be here and that I didn't get to raise. And I honored that sadness by expressing it instead of ignoring it or judging it.

Grieving is not a linear process. And losing my children to infertility is a lifelong loss. So I will continue to feel sadness at different points throughout my life. And I will honor my sadness when it surfaces.