grief | The Blessed Barrenness

I Wouldn’t Have Made It Without You!

I’m not going to lie, the last week has been emotionally tough. It definitely ranks up there as one of the lowest points I’ve experienced in my life. I’m been confused, sad, angry. I’ve felt lost, overwhelmed and depressed. I’ve questioned myself over and over again.

Is this adoption loss a big deal? Or am I just being melodramatic? And if it isn’t a big deal, why do I feel so crushed by it. Is it the actual adoption loss that has me feeling this way? Is it immense disappointment that has me feeling this way? Is it the break down in trust of a system that has previously seen Walter and I blessed beyond our wildest imaginings with Ava that has been feeling so gutted? Why am I so angry? Why am I so sad? Why do I have so many questions? Why am I struggling to accept the hand that has been dealt?

But the one thing that I have not questioned, the one thing I’ve been most grateful for is the support that we have received, from our families, my Mom, who kept her composure until we left last Wednesday evening to return Baby K and only then allowed herself to fall apart and cry, her attempt at shielding us from more emotional trauma. Our friends who have rallied around us, making sure that Baby K would have clothing and other necessities, when last minute we got The Call and after having to give him back, ensuring that all traces of their baby donations vanished from our lives and not be a constant reminder to us (me) of what was lost. The phone calls, text messages, BBM’s, Whatsapp’s, Tweets, Face Book messages and emails expressing support, that have buoyed us and carried us through this difficult time.

And then there are those who deserve a special mention – my online support system. Tweeps and bloggers who I have never met, who only know me from my online persona. Who have surrounded, comforted and carried me with compassion and kindness. Your love and support has left me feeling cared for. Your support without pressure to answer questions about what happened. Without judgement. Without curiosity. Your support that was based purely on compassion and without a desire to share what I’m not willing/able/ready to share has meant more to me than I can ever express. From the Tweets, to the Face Book messages and even the phone calls and blog posts, from people I do not know nor have ever met and possibly will never know in real life. Your antics at promoting us as the most deserving to win the #TsogoSale give away have made me smile, made me feel like I was validated in feeling the way that I did, that it was ok to be sad over what had happened and most of all that I was cared for.

I wouldn’t have made it without you!

Posted in Mindful Meanderings

Seeing What Infertility Made Me

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This is a post I’ve been thinking about for a while. It’s not been an easy post to write, mostly because it’s not been an easy topic to own up to. But I have, for the most part accepted and forgiven myself and have asked some of the others from my past to forgive me to. So here it is:

I realize now that I’m no longer blinded by the pain of my infertility, that in the 7 odd years it took to get to where I am now, I was not a very nice person. I would never in a million years have been able to own up to this if Ava hadn’t come into my life and opened my eyes and shown me things I never/refused to see before. I would have cut you out of my life in an instant if you’d even dared to tell me I was any of these things. I behaved, at times, in a nasty way, to the point where I’ve contacted certain people to apologize now.

I would imagine it is the nature of pain and/or grief to behave in this manner, I can’t bear to think that it’s because I’m naturally any of these traits, but rather that I displayed these traits because of my pain and grief. I’ve had a taste of my own medicine, on my old blog, with some of the truly spiteful comments, of which I gave you a small taster a couple of weeks ago. I’ve seen my own poor behaviour reflected back at me by these comments and commentators. I like to think I wasn’t as blatantly nasty just that I played the victim in it all to my advantage.

I realize that in the past 7 odd years, that there were times when I was overcome by bitterness, I was jealous, I was not very good at feeling or expressing joy at others good fortune, mostly because I was so self-absorbed. I was so involved in my own pain, in my own desires that at times, I stopped caring about the needs and the desires of those around me, all I could think was what about me, what about my pain.

These are not easy things to own up to, but I’ve always believed that once you can name it, you can claim it and go about, trying at least, to make things right. I’m not perfect and I suppose I did the best that I could at the time. But it feels good to be able to recognize these things and to set myself free of them.

And then today, Kim sent me an email containing a fable, she sent it to me saying it had reminded her of the nasty comments I’d recieved on the old blog. When I read the fable I realized that it reminded me of me! The infertile me.

So here it is:

The Fox And The Grapes

One hot summer’s day a Fox was strolling through an orchard till he came to a bunch of Grapes just ripening on a vine which had been trained over a lofty branch. “Just the thing to quench my thirst,” quoth he. Drawing back a few paces, he took a run and a jump, and just missed the bunch. Turning round again with a One, Two, Three, he jumped up, but with no greater success. Again and again he tried after the tempting morsel, but at last had to give it up, and walked away with his nose in the air, saying: “I am sure they are sour.”

It is easy to despise what you cannot get.

http://www.aesopfables.com/aesopsel.html

So there it is, layed bare, in all the ugly truth!

Posted in Infertility

How Do We Do It?

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Please head over to Tammy’s blog and go show some love! She could really use it right now. They’ve just had the crushing news that their GIFT has failed and there aren’t a lot of alternatives left for them. When I read Tammy’s SMS yesterday morning, I couldn’t help but get this revolting sinking feeling inside as my eyes started to burn from the tears. That horrible, familiar feeling, the one I’ve had so many times in the past, was there. In an instant, on hearing the news of a friends failed cycle, I was thrown back into my days of treatment.

How did I do it? How did I get through that? Survive it? Of all the truly shitty things that can happen to a person, of which there are many, infertility has to rank up there with some ofthe shittiest of the shitty! That feeling of utter hopelessness and despair. Of wanting to give up. Of wanting to make the pain stop at any cost. It’s all too familiar for me, it’s still all too painful.

I got to thinking back on my years of treatment, on all the disappointments, all the despair and especially on the nature of this type of grief. It’s an odd type of grief and we infertiles seem to grieve our failed treatments in pretty much the same way. Or a lot of us do in any case.

I recall how I hated myself and my body so much after a failed cycle or miscarriage that I wanted to punish myself in some way and the only way I could do that would be to deny myself the one thing that kept me going….. hope. To crush my hope was the strongest form of self flagration. I would spit venom at how pathetic I was as a woman, my useless ovaries, useless uterus. What was the point? And I’d crush anyone in my path that tried to give me hope as well. Anyone that said it would work out one day, we could try again, we had frozen embryo’s…. after my IVF in March last year failed, after a 2 year break from treatment cos after my 3rd IVF failed I swore I’d never do it again, I wanted to give my frozen embryo’s up for adoption. I didn’t want them put back in me, my useless crappy uterus, my shitty body that was a not a baby grower/baby nurturer, my crappy body that was a baby killer. I wanted my frozen embryo’s to have a chance at life, I felt the only chance they’d have had if they were given to somebody else. On many occasions I wanted Walter to leave me, I wasn’t deserving of such a husband, he was deserving of a better wife.

But then time would pass, and despite my self flagration & best efforts, hope would start to spring a new again in me. Hope has got to be one of the strongest emotions, no matter how you try to crush it, someway, somehow, sometime it ALWAYS sneaks back into our hearts.

So, because I remember what it was like when I was walking the path, when a woman with a baby would try to offer words of encouragement, the bitter or rather perhaps broken infertile in me would think: “What a smug bitch” and I never want my friends to think that of me now, because the words I’m trying to use for encouragement are not meant to sound smug, I simply want to say this.

Sam, Tam – I am still believing for you both even when you can’t believe for yourself. Allow yourselves time to grieve without making any plans, just feel the emotion and in time, the answer will come to you. In time, you will know how to proceed don’t try to find the answer now.

I promise you this…. as empty as it may sound… the sun will shine again!

Posted in Infertility

A Terrifying Thought

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On Friday, while I was lying on my bed, waiting for the time to pass and for the inevitable to happen… the most terrifying thought came into my head. One that filled me with fear and panic and anxiety and such overwhelming sadness that I landed up sobbing for hours.

There’s a very good possibility that I’m never going to be a Mom.

After more than 7 years of trying and now 7 pregnancies, its terrifyingly difficult for me to admit to myself that it may never happen for us. I was never really afraid of this thought before, mostly because I never thought it was a reality, we had options, we had treatments to try, we’d been given a diagnosis with our second opinion, all had been repaired and I knew it was just a matter of time before I got pregnant again and that diagnosis was proven correct and we’d have a baby and live happily ever after.

And then I did get pregnant again, but instead of having a baby and living happily ever after, we’ve been forced to face the exact same outcome, the same outcome we’ve faced countless times previously. Its painful and its hard, but I have to admit defeat and I know in saying that I sound like I’m giving up and I suppose I am. But this was supposed to be our chance, I was supposed to be fixed, this wasn’t supposed to happen this way, but it did.

The thought of never experiencing motherhood is terrifying, but so is the thought of going on, of trying yet again and facing the same out come over and over and over again. I’m hurting terribly right now, so perhaps I’m not making any sense or perhaps I’ll change my mind,or perhaps in a few months I’ll feel strong and willing to try again.

But for right now, the way that I’m feeling, the experience we’ve gained, I’d be being dishonest with myself if I weren’t willing to start facing the reality of our situation, no matter how much it hurts, no matter how much I don’t want to think about it, no matter how much my friends and supporters tell me it isn’t so. The sad fact is that it is so, that sooner or later we all run out of options and have to accept that maybe that cliche is correct, maybe we’re just not meant to have children.

Even saying that crushes my heart just a little further……….

Posted in Questions About Infertility

Dealing With Grief

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I watched the Sex & The City movie on Sunday night for a second time and this time around, I was struck by the similarity of our grieving processes. The causes of the grief may be different, but the processes are fairly similar. Yes, we all deal with grief differently and we move through the various stages of grief at different paces, but at its very core it seems similar.

There are only a couple of instances in my life that have caused me this type of grief, the first one was loosing what I, at the time, believed was the greatest love of my life and then of course all of my miscarriages & my failed IVF’s. Oddly, the grieving process in all of these was pretty much the same for me. I grieved my lost love in the same ways as I grieved the loss of my babies. I grieved in the same way (not necessarily the same time lines) but in the same way as Carrie when Big stood her up at their wedding.

I recall withall of my miscarriages and with the loss of my “great love” that I cried uncontrollablyfor the first day or so, that I couldn’t eat, think or talk, all I could do was cry. The next phase of my grieving is sleeping. I become weighted down my the heaviness of my grief and look for the sweetest escape in sleep. There’s just one problem with that escape… the sleep is wonderful, its freeing and healing, but each time I woke up, in that second before becoming fully conscience, the weight of my grief would coming crashing down on me as I relieved over and over again the losses that had caused the grief in the first place. Even now, when I think about waking up from sweet slumber during periods of intense grief, I’m gripped by a feeling of sadness, remembering what it was like to become awake, to lie there and remember again and again what was causing the pain in the first place, to experience the sense of loss over and over again.

The other part of Carrie’s grief that I so related to was when she was on her honeymoon with oher friends in Mexico, when she was finally through the sleeping phase, she was sitting out on the deck with her friends and she asked them: “Do you think I’ll ever be able to laugh again?”. That statement brought tears to my eyes because I so related, especially after my last miscarriage and also after my last failed IVF, I truly believed I would never laugh or smile again. I felt like if I tried to laugh or smile, my broken heart would crumble into a million little pieces. That was life without joy and it was quite possibly the most painful part of the grieving process. Perhaps not as intense as the crying or sleeping phase, but definitely a scary phase, to feel dead on the inside that was by far the scariest. Certainly not the most painful because I couldn’t feel anything, but scary non the less.

So here I am, planning & preparing for my 5th IVF or my 1st Frozen Cycle, depending on how you look at it, and to be honest, a part of me is truly afraid. While I know I will have the strength and courage to get through it again, I’m just not sure I WANT to face the possibility of having to go through that extremely painful grief process again.