A rocky place

Comfort

I have a friend who's 2nd IVF didn't work and I'm wondering about how we help each other, and ourselves, in these times.

In your struggles with infertility, either present or past, what has helped you the most? What kinds of things did your friends do or say that eased the pain? What did you do for yourself? What did your partner do for you?

"Uterus Weekly"

A decent article, in Glamour of all places, on being infertile in this celeb-belly-obsessed world.

I remember realizing that "US Weekly" could no longer be part of my comforting routine--it used to be a couple pints and "US Weekly" in the backyard...then the bump parade...

Big warning, though--spoiler, but I don't care--they mention at the end of the article that the author is now pregnant again...which, you know, is great for her, but if I had read that article before this pg was underway, I would have flung it, and the pint in my hand, into the nearest tree.

Last summer

Wow. Almost a year ago I wrote this post, and I remembered writing it when I saw the lilies that sprung up over the last couple days.

It's amazing to think that a year after that post, I have a healthy baby wriggling inside.

I really thought it might never happen. I thought I'd be left behind as everyone I knew, IRL and in the computer, had babies.

Same with marriage--I really wasn't sure it'd happen, that I'd meet someone who I'd love and who would love me and we'd marry and it would be good.

I don't know if everyone feels this way, or if I just don't assume that my life will be typical, or what. I think some people just assume that husband/family is the normal course of things, and aren't surprised that it actually happens. (This is assuming that the person in questions WANTS these things, which isn't always the case, I realize.)

I never assumed. I guess it's good not to take things for granted, right?

I hope that this provides some reassurance to someone--if deep down you think you will be the one person who never actually has a baby, it doesn't mean you're right. It just means you don't assume. I read the stats on hab-ab. After 4 losses, odds were still good that I'd have a kid eventually. My age, though, that worried me, combined with the hab-ab. But in the end, here I am. I don't want to be a cheerleader, either, b/c that annoys the fuck out of me, hearing that kind of thing. I just want to say that here I am, pregnant, and I never felt sure that this would really happen.

This place

So, this isn't much of an infertility/miscarriage blog anymore, is it?

This is what I hoped for--that one day I wouldn't have as much to say about miscarriage and infertility, because I'd be pregnant. It happens over and over again in the blogosphere. People keep their blogs, and the content changes.

Still, I feel a little strange--I am nearly 30 weeks pregnant, and things don't seem as rocky. I still feel scarred, but, thankfully, I'm mainly feeling like a Normal Pregnant Person.

And hopefully this is inspiring and comforting, the way it was to me when I read about hab-abs who went on to get/stay pregnant. It's probably also annoying, the way it was for me, reading about bellies and baby gear and paint colors.

But I'm going to keep writing, and hopefully I will still have something to say. And, fearful creature that I am, I know that I'm not out of the woods yet. I don't have a healthy baby in my arms. But I think I'm on my way.

Bad apples and bad oranges

Thanks for your comments on yesterday's post. I agree, wholeheartedly, that it's almost impossible to say which is "worse", when they are both so terrible in their own way. And certainly losing twins at 16 weeks, or having a couple late-first-tri m/c's in a row, is very different from me getting a +HPT and then bleeding a couple days later. Being infertile for years is different than trying for a few months with no luck. So it's not an easy question to answer.

I posed the question because I was thinking about my own experience, and about the issue of public support/sympathy with regard to miscarriage and infertility. While I felt very very lonely the whole time, and felt like I didn't get the support I needed IRL when miscarrying, there was a particular type of loneliness during the months of trying and trying and trying. (I know, I should have just relaxed...)

I wrote this to a friend yesterday, a friend who has been TTC for a long time with no luck, about support for infertility:

"I remember how very lonely that first stretch of no pregnancies at all was, b/c there was nothing concrete I could point to as a source of pain, nothing for anyone to feel sorry for. A loss, even an early one, is somehow more acceptable to mourn, and so in a way, my very early losses were easier--there was a specific thing I could be upset over. So I get mad sometimes at all the attention/sympathy for the miscarriage when there's so little said for plain old infertility."

I know it's not true across the board, the issue of support, etc. But for me, having the "event" of a loss, even an early one, meant I had something to lose, something to explain my pain and sadness. The months of nothing happening just stretched out, and there was no particular focus for expression of loss or sympathy. That said, I don't know the horrors of losing even one fetus (my 11 week m/c was a blighted ovum), so I can't imagine what that feels like. I'm sure it's agonizing. I mainly wanted to express my frustration around the issue of infertility, both the silence I felt when I wasn't getting pregnant, and silence from those around me. Maybe there just aren't words for some things.

So for my friends in the computer (and those people I don't know at all) who are TTC with no luck at all--I'm so, so, so sorry. I wish things weren't this way.

Suckful vs Suckass

So, infertiles and hab-abs, and former infertiles and hab-abs, I have a question. Which, in your opinion, is harder to bear, and why--not getting pregnant at all, or getting pregnant and having it end, over and over in some cases? I know it's hard to know what one is like if you've only experienced the other, but in your imagination...And those who've been lucky enough to experience both types of dreadfulness, how do you feel? I have thoughts on this, but thought I'd ask for comments first.

I never thought I'd say this, but...

Yay for the Dixie Chicks!

Read this.

Sad news

A friend in the computer delivered her twins today and yesterday, beautiful babies, but born far too early, at just over 19 weeks. She was one of us, someone who had a hard time getting pregnant, and this little boy and little girl were hard won. Please take a moment to think about K and her husband and babies. There's no "fair" in any of this stuff, but dammit, this is really, really unfair.

Sidewalks

It feels so strange, yet exactly as wonderful as I imagined, to walk around looking pregnant. I'm not being beamed at, from what I can tell, but that may be because I don't make eye contact with people. I don't look at the ground, more like straight ahead.

I feel so, so, so lucky to be the pregnant person that I'd envied for so long. To be getting so close to having this real actual baby.

And I feel so sad and scared for the "me"s walking around, the me of last summer, who'd cross the street to avoid a belly. So I don't look in anyone's eyes, because I don't want to force anyone to look at me. I know that I'm projecting, that 99% of people walking around really don't even care or possibly notice that I'm pregnant. But for the 1%, the infertile or miscarrying me walking around, I want to hide myself.

I at least want a t-shirt that says "I'm Infertile", or "Ask Me About My Blighted Ovum!!", or "Hab-Abs Unite", something that tells people that this wasn't an easily achieved state, that I don't take it for granted, and that I'm not a smug fertile.

Fear

I'm scared, I've been scared for so long, and I don't like it. I have been in therapy for a lonnng time, though not anymore, and was on meds for a while for OCD/anxiety...and I think have a decent handle on my fear mainly through cognitive/behavioral stuff. I'm not a slave anymore.

I remember being 10, babysitting, and hiding under the kitchen table with the chairs pulled around and fruit baskets on the chairs to make me invisible. I remember being afraid of windows. I remember being afraid to even think my worst fear b/c then someone would know what it was and do it to me.

I'm not as scared as I was then. I realize that those fears had to do with other things going on in my life at the time, things that left me feeling out of control.

But I'm still scared, mainly for S's safety. I'm also scared of flying but I do it anyway, usually by having a few drinks first, which, um, I can't do now.

I worry when S drives, rides his bike, runs around and could have a heart attack. Basically if he's not in the house with me, I worry. And even when he's in the house I've been known to check his breathing at night.

I don't want to be paralyzed by my fears, and I know my worrying is annoying to S--he doesn't worry. At all. He said he never, ever things about me dying/being hurt--that it would devastate him, to be sure, but he never thinks about it. His attitude is that All Will Be Fine. Mine is that Something Bad Must Happen.

I know that being married/pregnant has made it worse in so ways b/c I now have two people I'm really, really attached to. I didn't have as much to lose before--no one was there in this constant way, so I didn't have anyone to miss in that way. My anxiety centers around S, worried that he'll never know his child. I worry obsessively about car accidents, and am in utter panic about this summer, when he'll be driving 100 miles each way out of town 10-15 times for work, all on the highway in our tiny tiny pickup truck without airbags.

It seems too good to be true that I met this man, loved him, he loved me, we have a happy, secure marriage, finally got/stayed pregnant, and we'll actually be a family--I feel like something bad has to happen now--things can't turn out this good. I know lots of people marry/have kids and don't feel like it's too good to be true--it's just life, it's what MOST people do.

For me, it feels like an almost unattainable pinnacle of joy, and I can't imagine I could have it all. Like many of us, my past wasn't so easy, and nothing's seemed simple/to be taken for granted. Even though so many people have this basic thing--a family--I can't believe I'll actually get to have oneI can't believe that something bad won't happen, though I try to just distract myself.

S seems to be inherently Buddhist, if I'm not misusing that term--he accepts that Life is Pain, and he doesn't dwell on it. He says that he tries to face his worst fear, imagine himself going through it, and then it's not so scary. I just can't imagine losing him and moving on, though I know people survive all sorts of things.

I used to have bad dreams, but not so much anymore. And I don't constantly obsess about this. But I am concerned that I am going to be a freaky overprotective mom,and sometimes panic when I realize parenthood means trying to sleep while the kid is a teenager, at a party, driving with friends.

The world seems so big and dangerous to me, but not so toS. Can I change? Have any of you successfully overcome Fear? If so, how?

Thanks.