Infertility and Loss

Two weeks ago, it was Infertility Awareness week. I was so wrapped up in fundraising for March for Babies that I didn’t have a chance to write anything about it. Today is International Bereaved Mother’s Day. These 2 topics are inextricably linked for me. And this year, I realize that, because we now have a living child, there are probably people who think neither apply to me any more. How I wish that were true.

The fact of the matter remains, I am still a bereaved Mother, and I still struggle with infertility. Both of these roles color my life and have made me who I am, in both good ways and bad.

Let’s start with the bereaved mother part. I recognize that many people think I should be “fixed” by now. It’s been nearly 4 years, and we now have a daughter to hold in our arms.  It’s hard to make people understand that grieving for Vivienne will last a lifetime. There will never be a day that I don’t miss her, wonder what she’d be like, and just generally feel cheated that I don’t get to see her grow up and be a big sister to Eleanor. This does not mean that I spend every day in sadness and tears. But it does mean that it’s always there – sometimes under the surface and sometimes right in my face. Sometimes, the thought of her makes me smile, and sometimes it makes me cry.  No matter what happens, though, she is still my daughter, and I am still her mother. I’m incredibly grateful for Eleanor and love her more than I can say, but she does not take the place of her sister. There is a quote I go to often: Before you tell a grieving parent to be grateful for the children they have, think about which one of yours you could live without.  Bereaved parents like myself can simultaneously appreciate the children they have and mourn the children they lost. I guess broken hearts can handle more complicated emotions than we give them credit for.

Now the Infertility part. Since Eleanor entered our lives, I’ve done a lot of thinking on this one. Mostly because this seems to affect my parenting more than I expected. I can honestly say that I look at my daughter with complete wonder multiple times a day. I know that all parents will say their children are miracles (and they are), but what it took to get this girl here – miracles on top of miracles.

But I also carry a lot of baggage from our struggles. It is still extremely difficult for me to be around pregnancy talk. It’s not very complicated – when it comes to pregnancy, I feel like a failure. It’s something that many people fall into accidentally, and some even plan for it and have everything go exactly as they planned. I have never had a normal pregnancy, and I never will. And I will grieve for a long time over not getting to carry another child and not being able to give Eleanor a living sibling.

 

I worry every day that I will lose another daughter. I suppose this is to be expected when you know all of the things that can go wrong, but I find that infertility colors this fear too. Every time a door closed to us in our efforts to expand our family, I felt like the universe was telling me that I did not deserve to be a mother. Because I did not carry her, I somehow feel that I cheated the system, and the universe will correct for that, some way, some how. I worked harder to become a parent than I have at anything else in my life. And I work extremely hard to be a good parent to my children, and it’s partially because I feel the need to prove to the universe that it was wrong – some crazy cosmic agreement that if I do a good enough job, I’ll get to keep her.

Every year, as these “holidays” of sorts come around, I say how I wish I didn’t know about them. And this year, I say the same thing. Despite the joy and love that a rainbow has brought into our lives, I am, and will be for the rest of my life, the face of infertility and a bereaved Mom. It’s the hand I was dealt, and I’m playing it the best I can. But it never goes away.

Running Out

When I started thinking about writing this post, the title of this one was “Running out of Options.” But as it started to come together, I realized that I’m running out of so much more than options. I’m running out of time. I’m running out of steam. I’m running out of heart to break. And I’m running out of hope.

We learned in the spring that I’d be unable to carry another child. While it was a big blow to absorb, we did what we’d done so many times before. We pulled ourselves up and tried to figure out what our other options were. We knew how much we wanted a child to raise, and with that as the goal, we went to the next way to get it.

And so we began the process for surrogacy. My simply amazing sister had offered to be our surrogate a while ago, and we were in a position where we needed to take her up on that offer. It’s not an easy, simple, fast, or cheap process. It involved multiple medical tests and clearances for her, the sign off of a psychologist for all of us, and the involvement of 2 separate attorneys drawing up legal contracts to formalize the agreement. It wasn’t easy, but it gave us so much hope that we’d finally get the good news we’d been waiting for.

Friday the 13^th was to be that good news day. We’d done the transfer 2 weeks prior and waited. But good news isn’t exactly our thing, and so we received the bad news on Friday. The test was negative. To say that we were devastated again is a complete understatement.

Each time, we’re left to wonder again why this keeps happening to us. God knows we’re trying everything in our power to have another child. We’ve gone well beyond what most people have to do. We’ve saved and spent more money than we care to acknowledge and endured more physical and emotional pain than most people have in a lifetime. And here we are, still with our empty and painfully quiet house.

As we’ve spent the weekend absorbing the bad news and discussing our options, it becomes painfully obvious that we are running out of ways to add to our family. We have to wonder how many more rounds of bad news we can take before our hearts actually stop from being broken 1 too many times. We wonder what lengths we’ll actually need to go to for having another child, or whether it’s just not in the cards for us, and we’re chasing a dream that will never be.

As it stands, none of our options are easy, without significant costs, and none are assuring of a happy outcome. We can try surrogacy again with my sister, but that feels like an incredibly selfish choice. The process was not easy on her, and knowing that I’ve given her a glimpse of my world of going through so much for nothing at the end is a feeling I just can’t shake. We can try surrogacy with an agency, but that costs somewhere in the range of $50,000. We can move to adoption, which will run us somewhere in the neighborhood of $30,000 or more, and if you’ve done any searching on the subject, you’d learn there is no shortage of demand to adopt a baby, and very little supply. There is foster to adopt, which I truly believe is a wonderful idea, but would simply not work for us. The rules of the system are that a member of the biological family has up to 3 years to get their act together and can take a child back. I’ve already lost enough children, I can’t raise a child for 3 years and risk having them taken away. I know enough to say that I would never survive that.

And that’s it. That’s all we have left. Each is expensive, difficult, time consuming, and comes with great risk. But that’s all we have. And you can see how the options are starting to run very thin.

There is a quote that I keep handy that I look at often. “Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying ‘I will try again tomorrow.’” I see so many quotes that are along the same lines. Never give up. Stay positive and try again. Keep the faith. But lately, I’ve been forced to ask myself, when is the better choice to stop? To not try again tomorrow. To let go of the hope because it’s never going to happen. Where are the pithy quotes when that is the dilemma?

Let me be clear that I don’t want to give up. I’m not a quitter. But I have to acknowledge that there aren’t many more options for us. And even if we continue with any of the options above, we face the very real possibility that we will never have a child to raise.  At the end of the day, I’m 41, I can’t carry a child, and I’m not made of money. And I’m completely exhausted every minute of every day.

I’m running out of everything. And ultimately, I have only 2 choices. I can stop and try to let go of the most important and desperately wanted dream I’ve ever had. Or I can keep trying until the options are gone, still facing the real possibility that I’ll have to let go of the dream anyway.

Why I Write, and Why I Stop

When I started writing this blog about a year and a half ago, it was out of a moment of desperation. I felt incredibly isolated and misunderstood, and I was desperate to make people understand, even if just a little bit. Over time, the topics and words have flowed pretty easily. Sometimes, it takes some time and effort to describe something that I think is impossible to explain, but for the most part, I sit at the computer and furiously type because the words and feelings just come.

Over the past couple of weeks, that hasn’t been the case. I haven’t been as eager to write, and I don’t even know what I would want to write about most days. I thought maybe it was because I’d gotten it all out, which I know isn’t true. Or maybe I’m at a stage in my grief journey where the writing isn’t as healing as it used to be. Nothing I came up with felt quite right for what I was feeling.

And then I started to think about why I was writing. These desperate emotions of wanting to be understood have caused me to be pretty vulnerable. I bare my soul in this blog – the raw, ugly parts of loss and grief. Every time I write, I put my heart on the table to be examined and evaluated by anyone who reads about it. I’m not sure what it is that has made me comfortable with being this vulnerable in front of so many people, including a lot of strangers. It certainly was not my style in my Before Vivienne days.

For the first few months that I wrote the blog, I always pushed “publish” with a bit of hesitation. Each time I put my thoughts, heart, and soul out there, I wondered whether that would be the point when someone would tell me enough was enough. I waited for the judgment that what I was feeling was wrong, that it was time to move on, or to say something to minimize what I was feeling. I was always surprised that the judgment never came. I have no doubt that it was there, but at least the people who thought it were kind enough to keep it to themselves.

I don’t have any regrets about putting myself out there in this blog. I know that sharing my experience has helped some other people feel more understood and less alone. And I know that I have helped a few friends have a better understanding of how to help other loss parents in their lives. And because I have shared so openly about what we’re going through, I have received support from friends I haven’t spoken to in years.

But in being so vulnerable and sharing so much, I have to admit that it is starting to make me feel weak. I generally write about the struggle here, and I always wonder if the people who read it wonder how I get out of bed in the morning (sometimes, I wonder that too). Lately, I’ve been struggling with how this blog must portray my life vs. what really is my life. I want to be the person who works through their grief and loss and comes out stronger and more appreciative of life. When I write and read what I have written, I am not that person.

And I’m starting to feel that the blog is having the opposite effect than what was intended. I started writing out of a desperate need to feel understood. I continued to write because it was healing for me, and I really felt like I was helping people understand what it’s like to walk in my shoes. But lately, I feel the opposite effect. I find that when I write these days, I end up feeling even more misunderstood and isolated. Maybe I can’t get the words out right anymore. Maybe I’ve been through so much over the past 2 years that it has become impossible to make people understand. I don't think it's possible to make people understand what it's like to lose a child, followed by more loss, and ultimately being told you can't carry more children. I don’t know why, but I know that the blog is causing feelings that I don’t enjoy and I don’t want to feel anymore.

And so I think it’s time for me to step away from the blog for a while. I need to focus on the person that I want to become, not the person who I have been. Maybe I’ll come back to it, and maybe I’ll find other outlets that help me work through this grief journey I’ll be on for the rest of my life. I’m trying not to hold myself to what I think tomorrow should look like today. When I want to write, I’ll write. And if it doesn’t feel right, then I won’t.

You’ve all been so generous to read this blog and send me many encouraging notes and comments. I’ve felt a tremendous amount of support in writing about such a painful topic, and I’m very grateful for all of that support. As I’ve battled with this idea of not writing anymore, it only felt right to be honest and share where I am in my journey today.

Thanks for reading and for continuing to support us through our journey.

What If?

In the weeks and months after Vivienne died, it was easy for me to become consumed with all of the what-if’s that surrounded her birth and death. What if I had gotten to the doctor or hospital sooner. What if I had screamed and raised holy hell insisting on being examined sooner. What if they had been able to hold off delivery for just a few weeks. All of these what-if’s, wondering whether doing one thing differently would have led to a better outcome.

I still have those moments where the what-if’s overcome me and can’t be stopped. I try to tell myself that we did the best that we could with the information we had at the time. We never knew that something like this could happen, so how could we be responsible for knowing how to navigate it? But that doesn’t mean that we won’t ask the questions. We will always wonder, and we will always regret.

The what-if’s are getting the best of me again. Our latest news that I won’t be able to carry another child has brought them flooding back. With hindsight, I can see what an absolute miracle Vivienne was for us. If any one of those what-if’s had worked out differently, our lives would be so very different today.

For months now, I have thought about what our life would be like if I could get a do-over on just one of those what-if’s. Wondering where we’d be today if she had lived. It’s a bit of mental torture, but one that can’t really be helped. Would we still live in our house? (we had planned to move to another neighborhood) Would we be at the jobs we are now? (Gordon changed jobs after she died. Mine stayed the same) Would we be trying for another child?

Now that we’ve survived bad news after bad news in our journey to have another child, I also have to think through everything else that was taken from us with Vivienne. If any of those what-if’s had gone differently, I wouldn’t have had the D&C’s after she was born. I wouldn’t have developed the scar tissue. My lining wouldn’t be permanently damaged. And I’d be able to carry another child. When we lost Vivienne, we felt like we’d lost everything. As it turns out, we lost much more than we ever could have expected.

It took me a while, but I stopped searching for a reason for Vivienne’s death some time ago. But I do still wonder why all of this has happened to us – why we continue to have more barriers put in our way, and why we’re on the receiving end of seemingly endless bad news. I know there are lots of people who want there to be a reason all of this is happening – trust me, I do too. But I can’t find one that feels right. Many of the loss Moms that I know who have gone on to have their rainbow child tell me that they can now see that the child they lost made the ultimate sacrifice so that the children they had after them could be here. I’ve held on to that sentiment – feeling in my heart that this might be the reason that felt right to me someday.

It’s almost 2 years later, and I’m still trying to hold on to that idea. It’s the only “reason” I think I’ll ever be able to live with. And I still hope that will be the case. Until then, though, I wonder what if, and if only. 

Mother's Day

Mother’s Day is a difficult holiday for me, as you would expect. Losing a child makes the holiday complicated enough, but adding infertility to the equation makes it an incredibly painful day. I recognize that the rest of the world sees me in this grey area – I’m a mother, and yet I’m not. Whenever I say that to people, they immediately disagree with me. “You ARE a mother!” they say. And it’s true, I am. But I also know that in my everyday life, people do not think of me as a mother.

I get it. I really do. There are many maternal experiences that I just don’t relate to because I haven’t lived them. I don’t know what it’s like to be so tired because of a fussy, colicky baby who won’t sleep. I don’t know what it’s like to manage the terrible twos. I never have to run out of work to pick the kids up from daycare. I don’t watch Baby Einstein or The Wiggles (or whatever is popular with kids these days) because there are no children in my house. And I’ve never had anyone call me Mommy. I know that I live in this in between world where I know I’m a mother and the rest of the world sees me as one only when prompted, but I don’t have any of the “mother experiences” that other mothers do.

Just recently, I had a conversation with someone who asked me the dreaded “do you have children?” question. I talked about Vivienne, as I always do. They asked if we planned to have more children. I said we wanted to, but it was proving to be difficult. And their response was “I hope it works out. You’ll be a great mother.” Not you ARE a great mother. You WILL be. Because parenting a child who isn’t here doesn’t count in the same way.

That was an experience that really summed up how I feel about Mother’s Day. I talk about my daughter freely because she was, is, and will always be my daughter, whether she’s here or not. People will recognize her, offer their sympathies, but then go on to say that I’ll be a great mother some day. I live in between the definitions, and so a holiday that doesn’t include much grey is a difficult one to work with.

Mother’s Day actually wasn’t supposed to be like this at all. You’ve probably never researched the history of the holiday, assuming, like I did, that it was invented by Hallmark or American Greetings. In fact, it is credited to a woman who wanted to honor her own mother, who had lost 8 of her 12 children. But you’d never know that by how it is celebrated now. Today, we have cards to honor the mothers of children here, but not the mothers who only hold their children in their hearts or the mothers who long to parent a child that their bodies won’t let them have.

And so I’m left unsure of how to manage through this holiday. When they ask the Moms to stand and be recognized at church, it doesn’t feel right to stand. But sitting doesn’t feel right either. And so I stay home. My husband and family struggle to find an appropriate card or gift that recognizes me as a mother, but doesn’t imply that our children are here. I know it’s a difficult task. I can’t really leave my house on that day because of everyone enjoying their Mother’s Day with their children, another painful reminder of things we miss with Vivienne. And so I put my head down and power through, like I do with most holidays. Except that this is a holiday that smacks me in the face with the inconsistency in how I see myself and how the world sees me.

How Are You?

I have been asked this question several times over the past week. For the strangers and acquaintances who don’t know what I’m going through, I can usually answer with “I’m fine.” But for my friends and support system, the question has been a little heavier. It’s a genuine question of wanting to know how I’m doing, how I’m absorbing the news we got last Friday, and if I really am fine. I’ve been answering them with a shrug of the shoulders and tears, because I can’t say that I’m fine. And I have so many emotions going through my head that it’s hard to pick 1 or even 2 to be able to answer the question. So for those of you who are wondering, here are the ways I would answer.

“I am relieved.” In a lot of ways, the doctor finally telling us that we shouldn’t get our hopes up and that my chances of carrying another child are not good frees me. I am relieved that there will be no more procedures, no more poking and prodding, no more medicines. I am relieved that I can start some things that had been put off while trying for another child (like working off the 10-15 pound infertility gain). And most of all, I am relieved that I do not need to spend another month setting myself up for failure. I feel a bit of a weight lifted off of me, and like maybe I’ll get the chance to breathe again. But the second I start feeling this weight lift, it is replaced with another one.

“I am wracked with guilt.” There are still things that we could try. And while the doctors don’t have much confidence that any of them would work, they are still hanging out there. In my heart, I know it’s time to stop. But, the truth is I could still try. When people tell me that I did all that I could, it doesn’t feel right to me. I am not exhausting every possible option, and I feel like I should.

“I feel alone.” I should probably say that “we” feel alone, but I don’t want to presume to speak for Gordon. But this feeling of loneliness doesn’t come from any problems in my marriage. It comes from being in a place that so few people understand or know how to handle. I feel like the pitiful person that everyone feels sorry for, but no one knows what to say to, and so most say nothing at all.

“I am lost.” Having a child has been my primary goal for nearly 3 years. Our life has been largely built around it, because it had to be – I had medications and doctor’s appointments. Just last week, I was taking multiple pills and 1 shot every day and had 4 doctor’s appointments to navigate around. And just like that, they are all gone. My nightly ritual of taking a prenatal vitamin, which I have been doing every day for 3+ years, is no long necessary. I still reach for the vitamin bottle every night, and feel that stab in the heart when I remember that I’m not taking them anymore. This week, I didn’t need to think about assembling my meetings around a doctor’s appointment. When a potential work trip came up, I didn’t need to think about how that fit in with my cycle. The thing that I organized my life around is over, and I’m feeling pretty lost on how to go about my day without it.

“I am profoundly sad.” Hearing that news last Friday really represents yet another loss for Gordon and I. People will say how there are still ways to build our family, and that is true. But the fact is I will never carry our children. I will never feel my baby kick for the first time, I won’t feel them grow, and I won’t get that early physical attachment. And while it’s the destination (having a child) that matters most, there is still grieving when another path to that destination closes.

“I have never felt worse about myself.” I have answered the question this way for only 2 people – my husband and a dear friend who I knew wouldn’t judge me for it. But, here it is. My feelings of self-worth are at an all time low. To feel so damaged, both physically and emotionally, is a feeling I wouldn’t wish on anyone. You start to think that God just thinks you’d be a horrible parent, and so He finds every way to stop you from violating the plan. You see pregnant women and parents with children everywhere and wonder why you are so unworthy of that experience.  Infertility already does a number on the self-esteem. Getting the “probably never going to happen” speech from your doctor sends the self-esteem to record lows.

“Mostly, my head is swirling all day, every day.” All of the emotions I described above, I feel simultaneously all day long. I’m finding that it’s hard for my brain to process all of this when it feels relieved, guilty, alone, lost, sad, self-loathing and other-emotions-I-have-yet-to-identify all at the same time. I try to move forward with something to take steps to move on, and I become paralyzed by sadness. When I even start to think about getting rid of my maternity clothes, I get so overcome that I can’t even breathe.

It’s only been a week since we’ve had to let our dream go. I know there is still much healing to be done, and time will do what it always does – make things more manageable. In the meantime, I sort through all of these complicated emotions and attempt to figure out a way to answer “how are you?” in a way that is more easily understood, but still honest. It will be a while before that answer can be “I’m fine.”

A Window Closes Too

This post should probably come with a disclaimer. This is not a happy, hopeful post. This is the harsh reality that is my life.

We’ve been keeping a secret from pretty much everyone we know. Over the past few weeks, I have been preparing for a frozen embryo transfer. We didn’t tell many people because it felt private. I have taken countless pills, both orally and vaginally (sorry if that’s TMI – welcome to my world), been on a high iron and magnesium diet, and gone to acupuncture twice a week. All of this was in the hopes that it would thicken my endometrial lining, and we could move on to an embryo transfer. We’ve had mixed results throughout, but got a glimmer of hope earlier this week that maybe, just maybe, we could get there.

We found out today that this isn’t the case. My lining is pretty damaged from the D&C’s I had after Vivienne was born, and despite medications, diet, and acupuncture, it will likely never get to where it needs to be to sustain a pregnancy. While there are still some other options we could try, the doctor told us not to get our hopes up.

And so a month ago, I closed the door on ever getting pregnant on my own. Today, I attempt to close the door on ever carrying another child.

It’s probably for the best, in some way. My body has been nothing but a deathtrap for my children. It has failed me and them more times than I can count. To continue to try for a miracle feels incredibly selfish, like I would just be inviting more loss and heartache. To continue to try would only be for my own self-worth, so that I wouldn’t continue to feel like a failure. I can’t justify putting one of our precious embryos in an unviable situation just so I can feel like I tried.

I have never tried harder for anything in my life. I have endured countless procedures, 3 surgeries, pills that could fill your medicine cabinet, and shots and needles that fill 3 hazards containers. All of this in the span of 16 months. And ultimately, all for nothing. All that I have to show for it are 3 more children in heaven, a few extra pounds, a lighter bank account, and a heart that has been broken over and over and over again.

We will figure out a way forward from here. But for now, I am just exhausted, confused, frustrated, angry, disillusioned, hopeless, and most of all, unbelievably sad. I don’t exactly know how to accept that you can work so hard for something you want so desperately and come up empty handed.

How Did I Get Here?

I’m trying really hard these days to focus my attention forward. It’s not always easy, but I try to focus less on what this latest surgery means for me overall and focus more on what it means for me moving forward. Yes, it takes away my ability to get pregnant on my own, but it also opens up the option for a successful IVF. And that is where I try to keep my focus.

But there are days where that’s easier said than done. And there really is no telling what will be the trigger for those emotions to pop up. Today was one I wasn’t expecting.

I’ve been wearing dresses all week to work. I have 3 incisions from last Friday’s surgery (one in my belly button, and one on each side a few inches out and a little below my belly button). These incisions are still pretty painful, making sweatpants and dresses (really anything that doesn’t put pressure on my incisions) as my only clothing options. I’m not usually a dress wearer, so I understand this probably seems weird to people who don’t read this blog.

I’ve seen the suspicious looks on my dress attire, and I’m sure that I’ve caused some discussion. It wasn’t bothering me too much until today. As I was running off to a presentation, a friend (who I obviously haven’t caught up with in a while) stopped me to ask me if I was pregnant. I get the suspicion – I’m wearing a dress, I’m still bloated from my surgery, and I’m not able to work out (generally because of countless treatments, but right now because until yesterday rising from a seated position and vice versa was still incredibly painful).

I know she didn’t mean anything cruel or mean in the question – she was simply hopeful that all of our treatments and pain were somehow paying off.  No matter the intention, it was still a question that felt like a punch in the gut. I already don’t feel great about my shape these days, so basically being told that I looked pregnant wasn’t an uplifting thought for my self-esteem. And I also had to respond “no” to a question that I desperately want to answer “yes.”

As I told a coworker what happened, she tried (in vain) to get me to see the positive in the situation. Again, well meaning, but difficult for me to do. So she said “maybe you are pregnant and don’t know it!” I had to respond that it was physically impossible for that to happen – no amount of miracle can make my tubes grow back.

As I drove home and thought about my day, I was struck by the question “how did I get here?” How did my life come to this in 2 short years? Knowing that I’ll never be “pregnant and not know it” and where a well meaning question can stop me in my tracks? The series of unusual events and rare diagnoses that have led me to this point is pretty mind-numbing when you stop and think about it.

And so, I’m trying to look forward, but there are still days when I have to stop and wonder. How did my life become this?

A Door Closes

On Friday, I had another surgery. We are hoping it’s the last one before a successful pregnancy, but time will tell I guess. I have to admit, I have some mixed feelings on this surgery. While I am mostly relieved that it’s done, and the doctor did as I asked, there is a small part of me that feels sad about it and sees it as another loss.

This surgery was to remove my fallopian tubes. I was pretty clear going into this surgery that they needed to go. After 2 ectopic pregnancies, hydrosalpinx that caused no transfer in IVF #2, and inconclusive tests on them, I wanted them gone. They’ve been nothing but problems for me, and now that we’ve moved on to IVF, they are an unnecessary organ. So, as I would with an appendix, I said just get rid of the problem. And the doctor did.

I am mostly relieved that they are gone. They were getting in the way of expanding our family, and now they can’t anymore. There is no more risk of another ectopic pregnancy, so I never have to have that scare again. And I won’t have to worry about them causing problems as we move onto a frozen embryo transfer.

But I have to admit that I also feel a little sadness about it. The removal of the tubes means I’ll never get pregnant on my own. Pregnancy will never be a “surprise” or “we didn’t expect it” miracle for us. It will always require some pretty significant medical intervention. It will always be very planned, very clinical, and always have a doctor present. And there is a sadness that comes with that.

I know that must sound strange, since we’ve already moved on to IVF. I accepted long ago that medical intervention was necessary for us to expand our family. I moved onto fertility treatments without hesitation. But, there’s always been that thought in the back of my head that maybe it will just happen on its own. That thought is impossible now, and letting go of it feels like yet another loss.

And so we close the door on ever getting pregnant on our own or having an unexpected pregnancy. It’s a necessary step in order to move on to the ways that can expand our family and give us the greatest chance of success. But it is a door closing nonetheless, and that brings some degree of sadness. 

I don’t plan to focus on this closed door for long, since I know there is a window opening that needs my attention. But, a door has still closed, which must be acknowledged and grieved. And then, we move on.

The Grass is Greener

A while ago, I wrote a blog post about how the grass isn’t always greener on the other side. These days, I’m completely going back on that idea. Right now, it is impossibly hard to convince me that there aren’t a lot of people out there with much greener grass than mine.

I know that in some ways, my grass is greener. I have a pretty amazing and supportive husband who I actually like being married to. I have a good job, some financial security, and a loving family. Unlike a lot of people, I really know who my friends are – the people who I know I can count on, who support me and have my back even when it’s not easy to do. But when it comes to expanding our family, my grass could not be less green. And it seems like everyone around me gets to have it so much easier.

I know that I’m not supposed to compare my life to others, but right now I’m a bit trapped in this comparison dynamic. It’s hard not to be. I don’t think anyone could argue that our journey to add children to our family has been incredibly difficult. It seems that we have to fight for it harder than just about anyone else I know, which is hard enough to take. But when I sit back and see it come so easily to so many others, it is a very hard pill for me to swallow.

When something that you’re forced to really truly fight for comes so easily to people around you, it forces you to ask a lot of very uncomfortable questions.

Why them and not me? It is always the first on the list of questions. I have had a lot of times throughout my loss and infertility journey where I’ve seriously battled with my own self-worth. Every time I think I’m past it, I see someone else stumble into parenthood, barely even trying to get there. It’s hard not to start wondering whether you’re just completely unworthy of the privilege.

Why does it get to be so easy for everyone else? I wouldn’t wish my struggle on anyone. I would never want anyone to have as much difficulty as we’ve had in bringing a healthy, living child into this world. At the same time, I have to admit that it really bothers me when people have it so easy. Those people who “try” for a month or just wing it to see if it will work – that’s hard for me to watch unfold. I know that they appreciate their pregnancy and children, but I don’t think they can really appreciate how easily it came to them or how much harder it could have been.

Will it ever finally be my turn? We passed from saying “when we have another child” to “if we have another child” a long time ago. I have to admit that passing into the world of “if” is something that’s still very hard for me to accept.

When will life start balancing out a little more? No one knows more than I do (except maybe Gordon) that life is exceptionally unfair. I keep waiting for the time when things will even out a little – not a lot, just a little. And I always seem to get another round of heartache, so you’d think I’d learn to stop expecting it to happen.

I don’t like comparing my life to others, especially when they are being handed something that I am desperate for, and I certainly don’t like asking myself these uncomfortable questions every time it happens. I avoid it as much as I can, but there is only so much I can do. Sadly, I’m getting kind of used to it.

Waiting

I feel like the last year and a half of my life has been a series of waiting. It seems that we’re always waiting on something – a test to be done, test results, the green light to try again. I have to say that over the 52 weeks of 2012, I spent each one of them waiting on something. I’m tired of waiting, but it seems I have no choice.

Have you ever been forced to wait for something you wanted? I mean something you really, really wanted? I’ve had to do that every day, and there isn’t anything I can do about it. Timing is everything when it comes to my situation – tests and procedures can only be done at certain points in my cycle. Even on fertility medication, you only get 1 chance a month to try to make a baby. And it seems like every time we get that once a month shot, we have to wait on something else.

I think a lot about all of those quotes to “seize the day” or “make today count.” I recognize that our time in this life is short, and we’re here to make the most of it. And I have to admit, I feel really conflicted about that. In one sense, I am making the most of my life by organizing it around the thing I want most in the world. In another sense, I’m waiting for something that may never come. Will I look back someday on this time as wasted time – time and effort that I should have put towards something else?

Gordon and I have, in my ways, put our lives at a standstill over the past year. Big decisions get put off or pushed to the side because we have to focus on this 1 big goal in front of us – to have another child. We can’t move, change jobs, or even plan a big vacation 6 months down the line. It’s important that we are here, with our doctors who know us, and that we’re available and ready when our once a month shot comes up.

We talk a lot about how that can make us feel stuck. We can’t move forward on other things we want to do, because this is our primary #1 goal. And goals 2, 3, and 4 fall WAY behind this one. And so we stand still, and we wait. We don’t often feel progress or forward momentum. Every time we do, it seems like there is a “wait and see” right behind it.

And so here we are again, waiting. My hope is that a year from now, we have the living child we have wanted and worked so hard for. I hope that this year is spent on waiting out the 40 weeks of pregnancy, and not on more procedures, tests, or my worst case scenario, giving up the dream. As much as I hate the waiting, I guess I’ll take it as long as it comes with the possibility that this can still happen for our family. But I can’t help but constantly feel like I want to be doing something to move us toward our goal. But that’s not my reality. My reality is that I wait. And then I wait some more.

Not So Happy Announcements

Nothing can ruin my day quite like a pregnancy or birth announcement. It’s something I’m not proud of, and quite frankly, an aspect of my new normal that I downright hate. I’ve had to endure many of them over the past year and a half, and each one comes with pain, shame, guilt, anger, jealousy, and a feeling of defeat. Very rarely does happiness enter that emotional equation, which leads to a type of self-loathing that I have never experienced before in my life.

Celebrity announcements are the worst. You don’t even want to know my reaction to Jessica Simpson and Kim Kardashian. I don’t even know these women, and yet I can feel the bile rise in my throat every time I see a story about them. I don’t wish for bad things to happen to them or their babies (I’m not that terrible). I just want them to go away. I don’t want to hear about how easy it is for them or monitor their baby bumps and cravings. I like my celebrity gossip and read People and US Weekly online every day. Lately, I have to scroll quickly through their newsfeeds to skip the multitude of stories about them each day. You really have no idea how many celebrities are procreating until you’re trying to avoid news about it.

Then there are the strangers on Facebook. The ones where I have to see their announcements, comments, ultrasound pictures, and new baby photos because my friends comment on them, and Facebook thinks I want to know about that (oh how little you know me, Facebook). More people that I don’t know, but can cause tears to flow seemingly from nowhere.

And then there are my poor friends. I have a couple of friends who have had the misfortune of having to tell me in person that they are expecting. Bless their hearts, they tried to do the right thing and tell me privately (which, by the way, is the right thing to do). I remember one friend who had to tell me her good news just weeks after Vivienne died. I can still see the fear in her face at having to tell me she was pregnant. It was the happiest time of her life, but you’d never know it by how she felt having to tell me.

It’s no one’s fault that this happens. I certainly don’t expect people not to get pregnant, or to not be happy about expecting a baby. I don’t expect people not to share their joy in welcoming their child to the world. This is a situation without a good resolution. Unfortunately, some people’s happiness causes me pain. It doesn’t make their happiness wrong, and it doesn’t make my pain wrong. It just is. It’s an unfortunate aspect of how I live my life now, and one that I wish more than I can say I could make go away.

I have to admit that I had a lot of hesitation in writing this post. It’s not an easy thing to admit that you can’t be happy for people when they have good news, but unfortunately, it’s true. I really wish that I could find happiness for them, but if I’m being honest (which I vowed to be when I started this blog), I only feel bitter. And that bitterness cycles into me feeling like a bad person because I SHOULD be happy for them, but I can’t. It’s a spiraling of bad emotions that I really can’t do anything to prevent or stop. Another aspect of this “new normal” that I completely despise.

Still No Joy in Christmas

In the years before my children, I loved Christmas. I would put up my Christmas decorations on the earliest possible acceptable day, l would only listen to the radio stations that played all Christmas music all the time, and I would watch every Christmas movie I could find.

Last Christmas, I didn’t put up all of our Christmas decorations. I didn’t listen to a single Christmas song or watch even 1 Christmas movie. For the first time in my life, I did not go to church on Christmas Eve. Vivienne had been gone for 4 months, and her due date was on December 22. The Christmas spirit or any joy for the holidays was impossibly hard to find. I told myself it was OK to take a year off.

This year, I decided to push myself a little and got out all of the Christmas decorations. It didn’t take long for a complete and total emotional breakdown. I can’t even pinpoint it to one thing. In so many ways, this Christmas was supposed to be different.

Last year, I was in the depths of my grief. It was supposed to be the best Christmas we could ever have imagined – our daughter’s first Christmas, having welcomed her just days before the holiday. It was harder than I could have imagined to make it through that holiday without her, but I still had hope. We were getting ready to try again, and I believed that next Christmas would be different – we would have some joy in celebrating with Vivienne’s little brother or sister.

This Christmas was supposed to be different. It should be a time of letting some joy back into our lives. In many ways, it feels worse than last Christmas. Last Christmas, I had some hope that next year would be different. Now I know better, and I can’t find that same hope anymore.

So as I started putting up some decorations, I was reminded of all of the things I’m missing this year. I don’t have my 1 year old daughter playing with the ornaments, getting ready to see Santa, or picking out my favorite pictures of her to go on our Christmas cards. I don’t have the rainbow baby that we tried so hard for over the last year – a new life that would put at least a little joy back into Christmas. And I don’t have the hope that next year will be different. This could be our Christmas from now on – always grieving what could have been, but never seems meant to be.

I can’t quite decide what to do with myself now. It doesn’t feel right to put the decorations up, and it doesn’t feel right not to. Either way, it’s a reminder of all that is missing. I wanted this Christmas to feel like a step forward. I wouldn’t take another year off, I would move myself forward, whether I wanted to or not. Instead, I’m realizing how much more I’ve lost and wonder whether I’ll ever be able to find joy in this holiday again. 

A Lonely Combination

I’ve talked before about how the loss of a child can be an incredibly isolating experience. As I sit here today, I realize that I had no idea what isolation really felt like. When we lost Vivienne, I felt like no one could possibly understand how that felt. And then I found support groups and other loss Moms who did – they made me feel understood and less alone. But as we’ve battled miscarriages, infertility, tubal issues, Asherman’s, and surgeries, the circle of people who truly understand gets smaller and smaller. The group of women who understand what it’s like to fight so hard to get that living child, when all of your children are dead, is impossibly tiny. I can count on 1 hand the number of women I know who deal with this, and I only know one of them in real life (not just on the internet).

It’s an incredibly lonely and isolating combination to have the one-two punch of loss and infertility. We defy every cliché that people like to use in the loss of a child (“you can have another one” “at least you know you can get pregnant” “everything will work out” “at least you have your other children”). Every child is a miracle, there is no question about that. But when you suffer with infertility and find yourself pregnant, it is a miracle of miracles. To have that miracle taken from you is soul-crushing. To live not knowing if you will get another chance at that miracle is beyond words.

Working through my latest hurdle and coming out of my latest surgery has made me feel like the worst possible 1 in a million. I had multiple doctors in my pre-op appointment, my surgery, and my follow up. Doctors and medical students who wanted to learn about my case, because it’s not very common. The doctor treating my Asherman’s has treated 4 other cases this year. He’s the chair of the OB/GYN department at my hospital network, the lead dog, and the one with the most experience. I was his 5^th case over the course of the entire year. In medical terms, it makes me unusual. To me, I just feel like some freak of nature.

I am fortunate to have many friends and family who genuinely try to understand my circumstances, which I so appreciate. But I learned in dealing with losing Vivienne that there is no substitute for talking with people who understand because they have lived it. Try as hard as I can to understand and empathize, I cannot truly know what it’s like to walk in another person’s shoes. But these loss Moms had walked in my shoes, and they made me feel understood and part of a community. And lately, because of all of the other battles that infertility and Asherman’s brings, I feel less connected to that community. The community of people who understand the combination of infertility and loss is very, very small.

I don’t know what the coming months will bring for us. To say that I hope that we can join the community of rainbow parents is an understatement (hope just isn’t strong enough, and there isn’t a word that is). I know that we have lots of people walking behind us, cheering us on, supporting us, and hoping that same hope. But as we continue on our journey, it feels very much like the path not traveled. There are very few guides who understand the landscape or the route. Gordon and I are on our own here. And while it helps to know that we have each other, I’m finding that I really miss having a room (be it chat or real) full of women who nod their heads at me in agreement because they have been there and they understand.

How Many Hurdles?

Yesterday, I had surgery. Another hurdle to jump over in our journey to have another child. As I sit here recovering, I can’t help but think about how much more difficult this journey has been than I ever expected. And how confused I am at how it happens so easily for other people, and we just keep getting new hurdles thrown in our path.

I can’t lie – I’m running out of steam. I’m not quitting by any measure, because my ultimate goal is still to have a living child. But I really don’t know how many more hurdles I can jump. I’m just tired.

Yesterday’s surgery was to remove scar tissue from my uterus. I went into the day thinking it was just another thing to check off the list, we’d get through it, and we’d move on. But it’s been more physically and emotionally painful than I’d prepared for.

The physical pain and discomfort is caused by a balloon filled with saline that now fills my uterus. It causes some pretty serious cramping and makes any other position but lying down uncomfortable. I have a tube hanging between my legs that connects to this balloon, which weirds me out in ways that I cannot explain. I will have this until Tuesday and will be on medication for a month. At the end of the month, my doctor defines a successful surgery as me having a “horrendous period.” That’s how good news goes in my world.

The emotional pain was something I hadn’t really prepared for. As I lay in a hospital bed yesterday waiting as people got me ready for surgery, I looked up to heaven and pleaded with God that this be it. That this is the last of the hurdles before getting a chance to try again. I feel, in some respect, that I’m asking God for an easy way out. But let’s be honest, nothing about what I’ve gone through has been easy. And I don’t even have an easy path forward – it will still be IVF that gives me the greatest chance for a living child. At some point, I just want someone, maybe God, to acknowledge that I’ve been through enough. I’ve certainly been through more than most people I know in getting to this point. So when is enough enough?

My biggest reassurance yesterday came in a sign from my daughter. Just before I was taken in for surgery, the nurse led me to a bathroom down the hall. I had to walk through another patient room to get there and hanging on the wall was a painting I could not have imagined in my wildest dreams. It was a large painting of a rainbow with the words “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” around it. Surely, a sign from Vivienne that she was with me through all of this, sending me a rainbow the only way she could inside of a hospital. Nothing that any doctor could have said to me could have reassured me more than seeing that painting.

And so now we soldier on, trying our best to hold on to the hope that this really is the last hurdle, and keeping firmly focused on our goal. It has been more difficult to get to this point than I ever could have thought. I’m so very tired, and my reserves are low. But, I’m not giving up. All I can ask is that please God, let this be the last hurdle. I’ve given it my best fight, and I don't know how much fight I have left.