Wednesday miscellany

• This morning I woke up around 4:45am.  Which was actually sleeping in a bit compared to yesterday.  Waking up between 4-5am has become somewhat of a trend for me over the last two months or so to the extent that I no longer bother trying to fall back to sleep.
• I usually try to avoid the rabbit hole that is "how my life would be different if I had kids" but today, for some reason, I can't avoid it.
• One of my goals for 2015 was to read at least two books every month.  I've already read two for January!  I might get a third in before the month is over too!
• I was an hour late to work today (technically I set my own schedule so I wasn't really late, just later than I wanted to be) because apparently it was supposed to snow this morning.  And rain, and freezing rain.  From about 5-9am.  Also, apparently the state department of transportation felt the need to close one lane of a major bridge during rush hour.  So my 15 mile drive was a blazingly fast 90 minutes.  Not a productive use of my time, that's for sure.
• I was supposed to have my annual GYN appointment yesterday afternoon.  But then a meeting that I couldn't get out of was scheduled so I had to reschedule the appointment.  They rescheduled for the beginning of February, which chances are decent that I will have to reschedule again.  I should mention that scheduling an appointment of this nature amounts to a crapshoot for me with somewhat unpredictable cycles and extended periods of spotting.  The scheduling lady was not amused when I told her to just schedule the next available appointment and I would cancel it if I needed to.  Oh well.
• Pregnant sister 1 is due in a month.  Her baby shower is in two weeks.  I'm not going, even if I have to fake being sick. Childish?  Maybe.  Probably.  Do I care?  Not one bit.

 

An interesting conversation

Hubs and I planned a date day yesterday.  We decided to go to the really awesome Natural History museum that is close to our house and then out to a late lunch.  When we got to the Natural History museum and it was overrun by families with young kids.  We really didn't feel like dealing with that so we changed plans and went to the art museum instead (they are right beside each other and we hold a membership that grants admission to both).  We had a great time wandering around the museum together.  On the way out hubs needed to use the restroom and I didn't so I sat down on a comfy couch in a little alcove and started leafing through a book.  Not 30 seconds later a woman with a baby walked in, sat down on the couch, and started breastfeeding.  Here is what followed:

Me: (closes book, places it on the table, and gets up to walk out of the alcove without saying a word or even looking at the lady)

Breastfeeding Lady: I'm allowed to feed my child wherever I want to!

Me: (pauses and then takes another step)

BFL: You heard me!

Me: (at this point I was pissed, I turned around to face her) I am well aware that you can feed your child wherever you want to.  It is my right to not have to see something that I don't want to see too.  That's why I got up and tried to walk away.

BFL: Breastfeeding is the most natural thing between a mother and a child!

Me: (I'm so pissed that I'm about to have a stroke)  So you think that just because you were lucky enough to have your reproductive system function correctly that you can call a random stranger out in a public place for doing absolutely nothing wrong while simultaneously flaunting your reproductive capabilities?

BFL: (stunned and speechless)

Me: (on a roll) For your information I can't have children and seeing you breastfeed your child is a very visceral reminder of what I'll never get to experience.  So I could care less that you are feeding your child but I don't want to see it because it hurts me.  I tried to remove myself from the situation but you felt the need to call me out.  Let this be a lesson to you that things aren't always as they appear.  Maybe in the future you could try being a decent human being and not assume that everyone is out to get you.

Thankfully hubs walked out of the restroom and saved me from going batshit crazy on this lady and making a scene.  This whole interaction took maybe 30 seconds but it was 30 of the most uncomfortable seconds that I've experienced in quite a while.  I probably should have just walked away but it did feel pretty good to stand up for myself!  I've come a long way in the past few months. Four or five months ago this probably would have reduced me to a puddle of tears.

Oh, and we went on to have a great rest of our date day.  I didn't let that stupid lady get me down!

Ambivalent

I'm feeling a little bit ambivalent about life right now.  The searing grief doesn't affect me that often anymore.  I don't feel like I'm walking around under a black cloud all the time anymore.  This is a development over probably the last month.  Lately I haven't felt bitter or angry or overly emotional very often.  It's always there, just under the surface and can come out at any time (sometimes when I don't expect it), but it doesn't consume me, if that makes sense.  How I feel is weird to me, however.  It's a general ambivalence about life.  I'm not really sad or mad or bitter  all the time but I'm not really happy either.  It's like I'm in a suspended state of just trying to carry on with my life.  Considering the alternative is being an emotional wreck all the time, I think this is an improvement.  I'm still mourning the loss of what never was and I think I will be for a long time (maybe even forever), but I'm starting to see glimpses of the me that infertility stole.  I like that me.

I think this is normal.  I think it is part of the healing process.  I think I am in a better place today then I was in a month ago, or six months ago, or definitely a year ago.

Insensitive things that people say

"Trust me....trying for the second child is so much harder!"

This woman knows about my infertility.  I thought she was a friend.

I have never wanted to punch someone in the throat as much as I did in that moment.

Sunday Catch up

In my last post I wrote about an email interaction with a couple of colleagues that crossed into uncomfortable territory for me when talk of pregnancy was mentioned.  The next day the colleague stopped by my office to bum some coffee and we got to talking about, of all things, birth control.  To give a little bit of context our employer sponsored healthcare plan does not cover contraception.  She asked me what kind of birth control I was on and I told her "broken ovaries."  She quickly connected the dots and began to apologize profusely.  It lead to a very meaningful but not invasive conversation about infertility.  I wish more people could be like her.

Pregnant sister 1 continues to be challenging and oblivious.  Thankfully pregnancy lasts for a finite amount of time and, at most, I have six more weeks of this.  I know she's due in February but I don't know and don't care to know her actual due date.

One of my goals for 2015 was to read two books a month.  I'm pleased to say that I'm almost half way through my second book for January.  I read A Fault in Our Stars by John Green per Klara's recommendation.  Right now I'm reading The Girl You Left Behind by JoJo Moyes.  Klara also recommended Moyes.  I'm terrible about writing book reviews but I may do that at some point.  Probably not for the Green book because it's popular and was made into a movie, but maybe for the Moyes book.

We had friends over last night for game night.  They're a few years younger but they don't have kids, so that is nice.  Even though (to my knowledge) they haven't even started trying, it was really nice to have adult conversation that didn't center around offspring.

If you haven't already done so, please go and read Mali's most recent post.  I needed those words. I bookmarked this post to go back to when I need to be reminded that it does get better, and I'm sure I will need the reminder frequently.

Otherwise, that's about it.  Work is busy, but it's always busy in January.  It will calm down significantly in a week or two.  For me busy is good.

I think the universe hates me

I think that the universe is intent on reminding me that I will never have children and rubbing my nose in it.  This is my life today:

Pregnant sister 1 texted me a video of the baby kicking (I think, but I deleted it rather than watch it so I could be wrong).

Pregnant sister 2 called me to tell me that they found out they were having a girl this morning.  Yay.

Our 2015 membership card came for our local natural history/art/science museums came in today's mail.  We signed up and paid for the dual membership (two adults in the same household) again this year but our new membership card indicates two adults and four children.  This sort of makes me want to cancel our membership.

I'm working on a project with three colleagues (all female, all have at least one child).  This project has the potential to be really cool and also result in a conference presentation next fall in Florida.  We've decided that if our proposal is accepted that we're going to rent a beach house and that it will be a no husbands/no kids trip.  In an email exchange one of my colleagues said to the group "everybody needs to make sure that they're not pregnant for this trip so we can have plenty of cocktails on the beach!"  Which was followed by another colleague lamenting that this is when they were planning #2.  Which was followed by the third colleague stating that she and her husband are done and suggesting that I plan a spring 2016 baby.  I didn't even bother to respond.

Finally, as what will hopefully be the final reminder of my barrenness today, I started my period this morning.  I suppose it's preferable to another day of spotting.

The universe gets a two middle finger salute from me today!

New year=blank slate

Hubs and I always have a very low-key New Year's Eve celebration.  We lit a fire, ordered a pizza, and watched Football (American variety) on TV.  Hubs' cold is still hanging on and making him miserable so he went to bed early and I stayed up for a bit.  I sat in front of the fire and tried to read but couldn't focus so I watched the fire burn in the hope that it would relax me enough to actually sleep.  Instead it made me think about the year that 2014 was.  All of a sudden I started to cry.  Not an angry cry.  Or a bitter cry.  It wasn't a breakdown.  It wasn't an ugly cry.  It was a sad cry.  Of all of the cries I've had so far this one was unique.  I wasn't blaming myself or my broken body.  I wasn't feeling inadequate.  Or jealous.  I wasn't guilt-ridden.  I was just sad.  We lost a dream in 2014.  A big dream.  We never thought we'd end up without a child or two or maybe even three. But here we are.  We are grieving the loss of what never was.

Sometimes I feel like a fraud because we didn't pursue all options.  We said no to IVF.  We said no to donor eggs.  It wasn't right for us.  There was a low chance of success.  I knew in my heart that it wouldn't work.  I couldn't handle the heartbreak.  But I feel like a fraud, like we didn't do as much as we could have or should have.  It was the right decision for us.  We haven't regretted it once.  But we also have to live with the consequences of the decision.  I don't want to be judged for not trying harder.  We did what was best for us.

I'm still reeling a bit from last night.  The wave of emotions that I experienced caught me by surprise. To this point the majority of my emotions have been around the themes of anger, bitterness, self-blame or guilt, and this was none of those.  I don't know how long I cried but I did feel somewhat renewed when I was all cried out.  I'm still thinking about everything 24 hours later.

2015 is going to be a year of change.  A blank slate of sorts.  A year of redefining what we want our life to look like.  I am so much stronger than I thought I was, even though I feel incredibly weak right now.   I can do this.  Being nice to me is a start.  None of this is my fault.  Biology failed me.  This isn't my fault.  It sucks but nothing I have done or that has happened to me caused this.  My relationship with hubs is as strong as it's ever been.  We can do this.  Together.  Maybe if I write all of this enough I'll actually believe it.