A sense of calm and inevitability has settled over me. I can finally accept that while pregnancy has eluded me I no longer feel it has to happen on my terms. I know it will happen; it’s just a matter of patience. Patient is not a word that describes me at all but I’m beginning to feel like someone out there is telling me it’s something I need to work on.
It’s been a long month. Friends of ours that sparked our TTC journey when they became pregnant with their first child are now pregnant with their second. This friend is incredible. While I don’t discuss the emotional ramifications the last two years have had on me, I think she knows it’s been hard. She said “I wish it was you” when she told me she was pregnant.
The Clomid has made me an emotional wreck, but less physical symptoms this time around. I’m pretty sure I felt myself ovulate on Wednesday. Either that or my ovaries were over stimulated and ruptured because there was surely something going on down there. The timing should be just right as well as Mr. M and I have BD’d every day for the last week, including Wednesday morning.
The weather has been teasing us, giving us a nice warm day, all the snow begins to melt and then you wake up one morning and there is two more feet of it. Everyone seems to be affected by it; there is no escaping the feeling of despair emanating from everyone in this city.
Take heart fellow Calgarians, I am now using my amazingly strong will to bring spring. It is time for everyone around me to perk up - look alive! I am back to my old self and now require the rest of you to follow suit.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Thursday, March 26, 2009
I Surrender
While the last two years TTC have been difficult, they in no way compare to how it has been for me the last three months. If you took all of the pain, disappointment, anger and failure from March 2007 to December 2008 and put it in one container and all of the above from January 2009 to today and put it in another, you would need a Tupper.ware sandwich size container for the former and a Rubber.maid tote for the latter.
Mr. M and I were lying in bed Sunday morning talking; taking advantage of a quiet house. I told him how angry I am at our situation. How bitter I feel when I see a pregnant woman. I started to cry. I asked him to take some of the burden from me. I feel like ever since we found out I was the infertile I have walked alone. I felt a lot better, just telling him what I’m going through. I’m pretty sure he didn’t know. I find it difficult, if not impossible to ask for help. I find it even more difficult to talk about “feelings”. As Jon from “Jon & Kate Plus Eight” put it, I don’t like the way feelings make me feel. Even writing this is hard, I reread it and it sounds stilted.
This is all so foreign, I have never felt like I can’t fix something myself. I am not afraid of hard work. I am not afraid of asking for what I want. I have never given up. I don’t know how to give up; I am incapable of giving up.
I have reached my limit. I can’t take anymore. I surrender to the unmistakable higher power out there. I am not in control. I get it. I accept it. Can I have my baby now?
Mr. M and I were lying in bed Sunday morning talking; taking advantage of a quiet house. I told him how angry I am at our situation. How bitter I feel when I see a pregnant woman. I started to cry. I asked him to take some of the burden from me. I feel like ever since we found out I was the infertile I have walked alone. I felt a lot better, just telling him what I’m going through. I’m pretty sure he didn’t know. I find it difficult, if not impossible to ask for help. I find it even more difficult to talk about “feelings”. As Jon from “Jon & Kate Plus Eight” put it, I don’t like the way feelings make me feel. Even writing this is hard, I reread it and it sounds stilted.
This is all so foreign, I have never felt like I can’t fix something myself. I am not afraid of hard work. I am not afraid of asking for what I want. I have never given up. I don’t know how to give up; I am incapable of giving up.
I have reached my limit. I can’t take anymore. I surrender to the unmistakable higher power out there. I am not in control. I get it. I accept it. Can I have my baby now?
Monday, March 23, 2009
Shocked and Devastated by Insensitivity
I’m not really sure what to do. We went on holidays with a couple we consider to be among our best friends and their baby. At the beginning of the holiday their baby, A, was not feeling well. She seemed to recover after a couple of days but had, of course, gotten used to the coddling she received while she was ill and insisted on the coddling to continue.
As a seasoned veteran, I saw what was happening; A’s parents did not. The entire week was filled with A’s whining and her parents questioning “what’s wrong?” Oh, you want up? Ok. Now you want down? Ok. You don’t want the bottle with the pink lid; you want the bottle with the blue lid? Ok.
I couldn’t say anything, I hate sounding like a know-it-all (although sometimes - ok all the time - I find it hard to keep my mouth shut). None of this is what has been bothering me.
We were having dinner Thursday night at a beautiful seaside restaurant and A was being quiet for the first time in a week. We were then submitted to his constant fretting (yeah, I used the word fretting) because she was being well behaved. He was explaining to Mr. M that it’s so hard with a baby because you never know if there is something wrong or how sick they are if they are sick, etc. at which point he said to Mr. M “You don’t get it, when you have a baby blah, blah, blah”.
When we left the restaurant, I quietly said to Mr. M “You do get it, don’t listen to him”. When we were back in our hotel room and Ms. O was sound asleep in her bed, Mr. M and I sat on the balcony and I explained to him all of the reasons he does get it. In case he needed to be reassured. What I would like to say to A’s father is the following.
“Mr. M has been at this parenting thing for five years, I hardly think you can compare your year and a half of parenting experience to his. While his seed was not the seed that created Ms. O, it does not change the fact that he has made the choice, every single day of the last five years to be her father. He could have and can walk away at any point and have zero obligation toward Ms. O and I. I have seen him hold back tears when she hurts herself, coach her soccer team, cuddle her on the couch after a bad day, obsess over her temperature when she is sick, do her homework with her, agonize over what to do when she is misbehaving, take her on errands with him, spend $200 on a fish tank and fish because her $5 fish died and he couldn’t bear to see her so grief stricken.”
“Mr. M is a better person than I, and I suspect you, because I know I could never feel that way about someone else’s child. I truly believe he loves her as much, if not more, than he would his own flesh and blood. He consciously and subconsciously considers her his first born.”
“I am devastated by your insensitivity because while I would not expect just anyone off the street to realize this, you are one of the people I thought would have. You have seen what we have put Mr. M through over the last five years and you have seen him stay and fight to be a part of our lives every step of the way. You have witnessed the lack of effort and superficiality of her biological father.”
“At this point I will have to ask you to SIT DOWN and respect him for everything he is and strive to be as good a father as Mr. M.”
So I ask, is this something I should bring up or should I let it go now?
P.S. I wrote this last week but hadn't posted. Over the weekend Mr. M and I discussed the situation and decided since we do consider A's father to be one of our best friends we are going to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he realized what he said, felt like a complete ass and has been kicking himself since. If it happens again, something will be said.
As a seasoned veteran, I saw what was happening; A’s parents did not. The entire week was filled with A’s whining and her parents questioning “what’s wrong?” Oh, you want up? Ok. Now you want down? Ok. You don’t want the bottle with the pink lid; you want the bottle with the blue lid? Ok.
I couldn’t say anything, I hate sounding like a know-it-all (although sometimes - ok all the time - I find it hard to keep my mouth shut). None of this is what has been bothering me.
We were having dinner Thursday night at a beautiful seaside restaurant and A was being quiet for the first time in a week. We were then submitted to his constant fretting (yeah, I used the word fretting) because she was being well behaved. He was explaining to Mr. M that it’s so hard with a baby because you never know if there is something wrong or how sick they are if they are sick, etc. at which point he said to Mr. M “You don’t get it, when you have a baby blah, blah, blah”.
When we left the restaurant, I quietly said to Mr. M “You do get it, don’t listen to him”. When we were back in our hotel room and Ms. O was sound asleep in her bed, Mr. M and I sat on the balcony and I explained to him all of the reasons he does get it. In case he needed to be reassured. What I would like to say to A’s father is the following.
“Mr. M has been at this parenting thing for five years, I hardly think you can compare your year and a half of parenting experience to his. While his seed was not the seed that created Ms. O, it does not change the fact that he has made the choice, every single day of the last five years to be her father. He could have and can walk away at any point and have zero obligation toward Ms. O and I. I have seen him hold back tears when she hurts herself, coach her soccer team, cuddle her on the couch after a bad day, obsess over her temperature when she is sick, do her homework with her, agonize over what to do when she is misbehaving, take her on errands with him, spend $200 on a fish tank and fish because her $5 fish died and he couldn’t bear to see her so grief stricken.”
“Mr. M is a better person than I, and I suspect you, because I know I could never feel that way about someone else’s child. I truly believe he loves her as much, if not more, than he would his own flesh and blood. He consciously and subconsciously considers her his first born.”
“I am devastated by your insensitivity because while I would not expect just anyone off the street to realize this, you are one of the people I thought would have. You have seen what we have put Mr. M through over the last five years and you have seen him stay and fight to be a part of our lives every step of the way. You have witnessed the lack of effort and superficiality of her biological father.”
“At this point I will have to ask you to SIT DOWN and respect him for everything he is and strive to be as good a father as Mr. M.”
So I ask, is this something I should bring up or should I let it go now?
P.S. I wrote this last week but hadn't posted. Over the weekend Mr. M and I discussed the situation and decided since we do consider A's father to be one of our best friends we are going to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he realized what he said, felt like a complete ass and has been kicking himself since. If it happens again, something will be said.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
I can't wait to go to Mexico!
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A message I came across on Ms. O's chalkboard this week...We leave Saturday morning-I can't wait either!
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Everything in it's place
Co-workers, friends and family often comment on how laid-back I am. I never think of myself that way. It bothers me that their perception of me is so different than my own. I have put some thought into why I might seem relaxed to the outside world, while never really seeing it in myself.
It seems I have developed an interesting coping mechanism. I have compartments. There are the big three, "I can do something about it now", "I can do something about it later" and "There's nothing I can do so just deal with it". My mantra is "If there's nothing you can do about it, then don't think about it". I find this helps make me the decisive person I am. Nothing bothers me more than someone that can't make up their mind. Well, that's not true - laziness is my number one pet peeve, but indecisiveness is a close second.
There are smaller compartments; "This is way too much to handle. Ever." consisting of a few events I prefer to keep there until I'm 75 and can, without guilt, become a raging alcoholic. Another would be "To do list for today" which involves the mundane workings of my life, but a very important compartment if you ask me. "To do list for this year or next" always has "save money" in it (I might try to move that one into the daily list soon), but also holds some pretty profound things. And many, many more.
This is on my mind because today, while daydreaming a bit, I found myself aware of scanning these compartments, shuffling things around and cleaning out anything no longer applicable. It occured to me that this might not be normal. Is it?
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