The payoff

It took over two years of therapy to allow me to do this simple act.
I think that it has all paid off, I love my nephew unconditionally and am thrilled that I was strong enough to hold him without an ounce of hesitation.

Hope is a sweet seduction

It is that time of the year for me, I got some new pain meds, strong and super strong.
I was driving to work yesterday morning thinking, "wow nothing has appeared, it hasn't started"....MAYBE....and the mind fuck games began.
Is it possible that we timed it right?
Did that little egg and sperm meet beyond all odds....
past all the possibilities for failure....
Maybe I am pregnant...
Maybe some sort of Divine intervention took place....
Maybe it happened because Jesse mentioned adoption twice in a month....
Maybe my past Nana willed it to be....
Maybe I am and I will lose it again, but at least I can have that moment when I knew even for a moment that I was a mother.
Even for a short time....
I am use to sadness, I could learn to bare the loss...

But...the reality was, real and certain and simply later then normal.
The blood came on silently, simply soaking away the fluffy clouds of fantasy once again.
Staining the dreams dark.

Patience

I have been told to be patient.

I am told this a lot by the medical community.
After looking in my ears, eyes, nose, brain, vagina, feet, blood, urine....
I am a patient person, but pain will drive even to most patient person SLIGHTLY insane.

I am trying another migraine medicine, the other one; though it has taken away most of the pain has left me in a wake of side effects. I am snappy and moody and mostly really angry...things I am not on a normal day. I found myself screaming at the top of my lungs to PJ Harvey songs just to try and blow the top off the anxiousness I was experiencing.
It did little except make me slightly hoarse.

So another happy pill and hopefully relief from the ongoing pain.
Better but different pain.

How much more patient must I be? When is enough, enough?
I must follow the yellow brick road to ask The Barreness, she might have the answer...

Elevation

I saw the neurologist yesterday who told me that my eight plus weeks of headaches are most likely a combination of migraines and stress headaches interweaving!
I am having multiple headaches at the same time...
I wondered where all my drive went, apparently it went strait to my head!

He was calm and pretty much there to write a scrip and then leave, but my list of questions was long and I kept him in the room for as long as possible.

I mentioned that I was concerned about taking pain pills with my quarterly cramping...he asked questions about it.
I wonder now if they ask mostly out of curiosity or truly seeing if there would be a link.
I don't know still how my Barreness has anything to do with taking a migraine pill?

The pill use to be used in the 50's for depression....the house wives "happy pill" is what I can think of. I guess another use is for migraines, it is used widely in Europe for that.

So these little white pills are not only suppose to make my headaches go away but it should leave me happy in their wake!

Miracles of modern medicine.

Trick deck

When has someone experienced enough pain?
Is there such a thing?

I am waiting to see a neurologist this week, to hopefully shed some light on my daily headaches. I have had them now for over 8weeks straight.

In the meantime, I feel like I am meant to be a woman in pain; to some degree.
I am constantly battling he emotional pain of my own Barreness....I am dealing with the physical pain of my periods...I am dealing with the pounding pain of my head.
When is enough enough?

I clearly know that others are in pain too, but when do they get relief as well?
Why is OK for some to be dealt so much and others barely any?

Say Aha!

Well my brain is healthy, in the sense that it is not going to implode or anything.
I got to see images of my own noggin and experienced that surreal reality when you discover that you too have the organs and bones you read about in books.

I could see the delicate bones in my inner ear, my spinal cord, my lobes.
It was beautiful!!

Being slid into the "open" MRI was much less scary then the idea of the closed MRI and my sweetie rubbed and held my ankle the whole time.

My love for him is so deep it has no end!!

I spent the weekend suppressing the mounting fears of the results, trying not to cry or run with my hair aflame.
The "bads" would have been very bad......

I am still struggling with daily headaches; I am seeing a Neurologist next week to hopefully gain some insight from all this.
Ideally, also some longer term relief from the pain, dizziness and blurry vision.

I am so familiar with daily pain, that I wonder who the patron saint of pain is?
Maybe I should make some sort of offering to them on Dia de Los Muertos.

The Barreness, is waving her wand and making me feel ever so small.
I didn't even drink from the bottle!!

It is all in my head

I have had a headache since August 21st or so.
For those of you keeping track that is 6 weeks of daily headaches.

Some are mild and I can ignore them most of the day, like a low buzz in the back of my head; but others are like a waterfall of pain and pulsing and pounding sensations.

Most of the time I am dealing with a general ache, that punctuates itself from time to time with blinding pain.

Current state of headache: dull ache, throbbing temples, discomfort moving my eyes and to light and pony tail head...I am a little nauseous and am working hard at keeping things in focus.
I see the doctor today, she was hoping it was a sinus headache and that the antihistamines and steroid spray would have me blowing gobs of green stuff out of my nose.

I made the mistake of reading about brain aneurysm, the signs and symptoms. Aside from now being scared ,I am afraid of what medical test I will be subjected to next.

All of this makes me feel so much more broken.

Specimen cup

I have something swimming around in me.
In the 50-60's it was called a nervous breakdown.
Now it is called "burn out" or "exhaustion"

I am having all of the above. I have been run dry.
All I had in me is gone, the reserves are gone ,the emergency back up is gone, the back up for the backup is gone.
There is nothing left to draw from.

I was told to take some time off, I can't afford to. I have bills to pay and frankly, I like eating and having clean clothes.
So instead my body is starting to break down.
I have trouble sleeping, I have trouble shitting, I have trouble paying attention.
I am trying to distract myself from myself with new "projects", but I find that I only have a short attention span.

I am planning a surprise party for my mother, I was excited about it...but that is fading and I am one week away from it. I need to focus and pay attention or else I will be disappointed; and it will disappoint her and the guests.

I went to the doctor yesterday, as I have had a headache everyday for the last three weeks! Either I wake up with one or I am awoken from sleep with pain or I develop one during the day and go to sleep with it.
I have one everyday and have stopped taking pain pills for them as they are simply poisoning me.

The doctors assistant did some tests in house and finally said, I need to ask you to pee in this cup so I can check it off the list of possibilities.
I looked at her and said, " it will be negative, but I understand"

As I squatted over the toilet imagining water flowing in an effort to make myself pee....I filled the container with urine and closed it tight, walked back to the room and waited.

Sitting there in silence and anticipation, I had to tell myself out loud that "it will be negative. Even as much as you want it to not be, it will not reveal a secret pregnancy"
sometimes I image that I will be the shocked and it will happen out of no where and against all odds....but that never happens.
So on top of my head throbbing and not being able to deal with the light in the room, I was emotionally stepped on again.

She was at least compassionate about it, and said it was negative in passing, making the whole ordeal easier to swallow.
I have muscle relaxers and a nasal spray. They seem to be helping.
Tension is to blame for now...and maybe sinus inflammation.

Summer

* written by our "niece" following the first day of school.

I am managing to make it through the summer so far.

Watching small people start school for the first time; I am pulled back into the memories of times gone..... Childhood, children and dreams.

Repeat punishment

I went back for another visit.

I used the concern I had for my friend as the focus.

If given the choice I would have stayed away a little longer.

The little one was unwrapped this time...the long and grabbing arms and legs made him real. Flesh and blood, breath and scent.

I cried myself to sleep that night, wondering why I, we didn't get that chance in life. I guess we got a chance, it was just never meant to be filled.

I went to the garden in hopes to mend myself.

Sometimes the quiet, warm wind and insects bring me peace when my heart is so upturned.

The stork has been delivering

The stork has begun his rounds...I have always imagined the stork being a male bird.
He has arrived first to my oldest friend, delivering a healthy baby.

He forgot to deliver her milk.

I visited her at the hospital, and cried on the way there. Mourning as I drove closer and closer...
The night I received her call, I dozed off with my arm wrapped around my invisible baby...wanting so badly to wake from this horrible dream I am in.

I felt like Dumbo's mama watching all the other mothers receive their babies.

I have not slept well and had a panic attack in the shower this morning...feeling as though I would faint. I fought the collapse, because I didn't want to frighten my husband in the early hour.

Sadly, it would have been very easy to surrender to the dark.

searching

I have started volunteering at a rescue group that helps cats.
It is for slightly selfish reasons really.
My therapist had suggested an exercise that would involve me going to a hospital and holding babies...the idea still sends a deep rattle through my bones. As well as a pure sense of terror.
So in an effort to smooth those edges, I figured I could start with cats and kittens and work up from there. Making the assumption, that by the time this newest round of babies is born I will be slightly less commit-able.

I am enjoying the quiet times I get holding kittens and talking to cats.

What I did not prepare for was the emotion that runs me when a kitten is adopted and the mother is left behind. It broke my heart the first time, the mother left there alone while her baby is taken away by strangers....

I wonder if I will never be OK, if I will forever make a motherhood connection with everything.

I love the idea of being aware of my connection to everything, but this is truly exhausting!

I can not listen to the news, as there seems to be a report almost daily now of how some parent has killed, lost or assaulted their child, another child or someones child. The first idea that runs through my mind is " How come they could have kids?"

The world makes no sense anymore. I feel that I have lost "faith" and that I am simply an empty vessel. Walking aimless and wanting desperately to have a path or purpose.

So I hold and talk to cats until I can find a way.

Those little cats, so pure... sometimes it feel like they are all that help me make it to the middle of the week sometimes.

Empty like a hunger

I saw one of my VERY pregnant friends unexpectedly yesterday. Actually she saw me and called my name. I was dazed...almost as though I had been caught like a deer in the headlights.
I was afraid to look at her 8 month pregnant belly, but I did.
She invited me to touch her belly to feel her son moving around...I was dreading the invitation; but I spoke honestly and said " uh, no thank you" and held my hands up like I was being robbed.

I was robbed; I feel it every time I see my friends and their kids, or my brother with his.
I feel the gun or knife every time it is quiet, or after I make love to my husband. It was all taken from me, in a swift fast motion leaving me reeling its wake.

I had a lovely, polite conversation in the parking lot and we parted ways. I filled my trunk with groceries and she vanished into a see of cars.

I got into my car, The Barreness into the passenger seat, and we drove home in silence.
I ate dinner but I never seemed to get full.

Deconstructing my nest

It felt like I was dismantling the nest I had started to weave, pulling sticks apart and throwing fluff to the winds.
I decided to clean last weekend, you know, too much time on my hands. I cleaned out my bathroom cabinet.
In doing so, I dusted off all that nest, those woven sticks and fluff.
I unearthed boxes and boxes of pregnancy tests and ovulation kits. I dusted off the ovulation scope; and remembered looking into the glass hoping to see " ferns" from my dried saliva.

There were so many sticks and boxes, it made me realize that I was desperate, I really wanted this and I really did try.
I remember thinking that couldn't bear the idea of throwing out a box.
If I threw out a box, it meant that I failed.

The Barreness was born from this.

Sedation

I found myself hoping again that my period would not arrive. Even as I laid in bed and experienced my back tightening and my abdomen ache.
I thought for a moment, wouldn't it be the biggest of surprises to be pregnant. It is a sweet daydream, no malice, just joy in the idea.

It is when that fluffy cloud dissipates that I realize that the blood will arrive and I will hide from the pain with pills, hot baths and sedated sleep.

How deeply it still hurts.

Mother's Day

As Mothers day approaches, I feel anxious. My mood is hard to read, even to myself.
The day was created by the card industry, I am well aware of that, but it does not change what the meaning of the day does to me.
I think my mother finally understands what a painful day this has become and has made efforts to make the day "easier" for me. I don't attend massive luncheons with family, but instead just have a simple one-on-one kind of day with her and my father.
I avoid television commercials, and try to focus on thing at a time to eliminate the wall of images and sound bites thrown at me.

I use to celebrate it in a big way, I would make sure all my aunts and grandmothers and mother-in-laws got something. I made donations to breast cancer funds in their names, sent cards, made things.
I made a special effort to make sure that the Aunts that did not bear children were included, because they meant so much to me. Those fine women are all gone now, and I know that my tradition has gone with them.

I wanted to send cards to all the "mothers" I know, but the list became overwhelming and I found myself crying in the card section of the store. I have decided to simply make breakfast for my mother and send a card to my sister-in-law for the afternoon's BBQ I am not attending. I don't have it in me to make things or get gifts, or make multiple calls. I feel badly about that but I have to deal with that reality.

Maybe I will be away for Mother's day next year.
I know my mom would understand.

Maternal Stage

I saw this on a news site, I feel for this bird.

Ananova News:
Cockatoo mothers creme eggs
A confused cockatoo at a wildlife sanctuary has spent a fortnight trying to hatch a bowl of chocolate eggs.
Pippa has been protecting the chocolates at Nuneaton and Warwickshire Wildlife Sanctuary since she was taken outside and saw them on a table.
Her owner, Geoff Grewcock, said: "She went straight over, climbed on the creme eggs and that was it. She thinks they're her eggs.
"Until she clicks they're not real eggs, we'll just leave her there."
The 17-year-old cockatoo, who has been at the sanctuary for about four years, is expected to live until the age of 70.
Mr Grewcock described her as "very, very protective" and she had been through a "maternal stage".
He said: "She picked an egg up and threw it at a photographer with her beak as if to say 'leave my eggs alone. They're mine'.
"She's got so much character it's unbelievable. She hates men - we've had a builder in who had his neck bitten. We had to prise Pippa's beak off his neck.
"When she attacks you, she attacks your ear lobe - she goes straight through them. We do free ear piercing here. She's ever so comical - always has been."

Swarming

I feel as though I am in the middle of a swarm, trying to keep myself calm by repeating a silent mantra.

My swarm are not bees threatening to stick me with their points. Instead it is the stinging reality of people easily getting pregnant. Both of my sister in laws are filled with babies. It was so easy for them, it was almost like they simply had pixie dust sprinkled on them and their wombs were instantly occupied.

Their discomfort of "morning" sickness is something I try to have sympathy for, but it is a front. I secretly wish that I was the one feeling sick, and my womb was full with a flinching baby. Instead I ask if I can make something or do something for them, weeping silently inside.

Not only are my sister-in-laws pregnant, but so is an old friend, and another member of my family just adopted...they are in shell shock(but that is a different thread)I am going to be invited to her baby shower....something I dread, in fact I am not going to it. I will push myself through the process of making a baby gift for her, for some reason that is less painful then the prospect of going to a baby shower. I shake at the idea of holding a baby, being near a baby...this must be handled better before the birth of my newest nieces or nephews.

I feel that I only have so much in my reserves and I would rather exhaust it with a sister in law shower then a newly adopted baby shower.

On that thread I was going to mention another time: The new adoptive mother already asked what "we were going to do"-...from infertility to adoption and the shock in the middle...quick to pull as many people into this to make them feel more OK with everything!! My mother was kind enough to simply tell her that "we are doing nothing, we are simply living".

It feels like I am just barely doing that. Instead of having the dream fairy visit me at night and swoop me away to far off places, The Barreness visits instead. She reminds me of my lonely days and sorrow. Sorrow I carry like heavy weights under my eyes and shoulders. My heart is sucking at air, and not drawing blood.

Vultures are swarming to pick at what is left of me.

The Island of The Barreness

I feel so very lonely.
I was recently contacted by some old childhood friends and was asked the common questions...the questions one asks when you have not seen each other in many many years.
I got the child question...mind you all these women have multiple children, have been married and divorced and remarried taken on new children.
I gave my little spew, answering as many questions as I could, before addressing the child questions. When I did I was straight to the point...."turns out I can grow all sorts of things but not babies" followed with, " no we are not adopting, it is not the right thing for us"

I have not heard from them since the email was sent over a week ago.

The Barreness has struck again, I have been further alienated from old friends. I wanted to talk to these women again, they sought me out...but now the same women that were eager to talk to me and catch up are silent.

I have two members of my extended family that were a childless couple struggling in a world of children. After many attempts they too were not able to conceive and maintain a child. I felt a silent kinship to them...they have just been delivered a child. An open adoption...a child is now theirs.

I feel so totally alone....such a barren island.

My children

My beloved furry sons are both sick, they both ingested the poisoned cat food. My week has been spent at Vet ER's, and clinics. Crying and trying to understand the tasks at hand...what we can do to save them. Anything to save them.
Pleading to whatever or whoever still listens to me, to save them.
I feel guilty for not having hope anymore....I question my purpose.
" There must be another purpose for you"; I am beginning to wonder if that is to experience sorrow. Deep, hollowing, sorrow.

A voice in the back of my head is telling me what people people are saying about me..." they are pets...why are you so disturbed ? " Invalidating my feelings and emotions.

They are more then pets, they are my children. I am fighting for them just as any other parent would.

My fear is that, I have nothing to draw from anymore; I am a shallow puddle.
The title The Barreness is more now...not just my body, but maybe my life too.

I finally sent a baby present out.
It grew from "forgetting to send it" to something I was becoming aware of avoiding.
I needed to get the item out of my home.
It is gone now.
Boxing it up, wrapping it carefully in the tissue paper, thinking of my friends swollen belly...it was all very painful.

I went to dinner with friends last night, they have two children. I found myself spending time just gazing at the girls.
Looking closely at their hair and skin, imaging cuddling and whispering to them in the dark night.

I am so sad that I will never have this.
Why was I chosen to be barren? Why am I The Barreness?

Smoke and Mirrors

I was enveloped with my smoke...covered and cocooned in the sadness.
Deep darkness, my husband was desperate to find or create an antidote....

I fell last night, fell deep into my emptiness.

I feel as though I have resumed my "auto drive", I am here but no one seems to be home. Kidnapped by it.

I tried to bat at the smoke; make it go away, but the more I swung at it the more it seemed to create.

I walk as the Barreness, crown and jewels, but I fear there is emptiness behind my eyes. For if they are windows to the soul, my eyes are averted.

Smoke and mirrors.

When you gonna get started....?

When you gonna get started?
I attended a party the other night and was asked this question right after "Hello".
I had three choices in my answer...
1. I could rip them a new asshole, asking what part of this is ok? I was not aware I was part of a reproduction race.

2. I could give them the whole story of my Barreness and leave them as a puddle of tears and guilt.
or
I could say " We have cats. They are like kids but don't require any gasoline in their entertainment "

I chose the last answer, as it was my sister-in-laws birthday and I didn't want to embarrass my brother and sister in law with my insane actions.

My husband tries to chime in, but it always seems to to be me answering.

Pain

It is battle week.
I battle myself and my emotions.
I can not be touched, or eat. I am sick to my stomach and dizzy.
It feels as though I am swirling.

Nothing like being kicked when I am already down.
The medicine helps take away most of the physical pain, but leaves me reeling in its wake.

The potential womb has left me, bit by bit.

Zero population

We received a letter from my husbands Uncle last night; mostly an update on what he has been up to, as well as updates on his kids.
Our letter had a little hand written note after his signature.." your cousin is beating you, when you guys gonna have some little ones?"
He is refering to his son completing the task of creating a daughter, his third attempt at this feat.
He knows we cannot have children, or simply forgot in the glow of a third grandchild.

Regardless, my first desire was to write a scathing note, telling him that: we can not have a child now, as his son and daughter in law, in their quest for a girl have popped the population bubble.
As a result, we need to not create a child in order to not destroy this world even faster, but instead be resonsible earthlings.
Thanks to his children, we will now have more disposible diapers in landfills, more gasoline needing to be consumed to transoprt them in their oversized SUVs to and from their assorted activities...more food needing to be grown, more, more,more,more,more..... oh but by the way, congratuations on the newest addition.

Is it really a competition? It feels like it at times...lets see how many kids we can have before we realize we are over our heads? How many kids will it take before we actually start to think about all the others around me and how my little family will be effected by my decisions....
Should we enforce a one child law here in the USA? There are people out there procreating that are clearly not thinking at all....how about that dad that smacked his daughter so hard that he knocked her out and then put her outside in sub-zero conditions to die...and she did. Then returned home to sexually abuse the other child still at home.
Well that is another fine darwinian choice...clearly he was much better suited to be a parent then myself. I would only love and care for the child...silly evolution.

I am not saying that these new parents are the same as this horrible man, who should be eaten alive by his fellow inmates, but they are being greedy with children.
Why is one child not enough? Why must they still reach for more, still desire more. Does it go back to the quest to understand ones own mortality? Never wanting to die or be forgotten?
I don't want to die or be forgotten, but does the fact that I will not leave behind a child mean I will die and be forgotten, fading into nothingness, never being.

Maybe instead my failures of parenthood have saved a small piece of earth for us to survive in as the whole place crumbles around us.
I am the sole ruler of this space, for I am the Barreness!! and beside me is my true love the Barren.

Screaming

The feeling of missing something is there almost all days. It is similar to leaving something behind when you take off on the plane. You wanted to bring it but it is too late to bring it now. I feel this way...that desire to have a child but I seduced away from these thoughts by the distractions of the day.

I have been having some unwanted side effects from some medication I am taking and it made me wander down a familar street of thought, could I be pregnant...but the pain began and I was quickly reminded that I am not. My uterus would not have it.

The recent news of more babies coming into the world have woven themselves into my recent thoughts, I read a blog of a woman who gave birth in her bathtub and read it with tears streaming down my face....I was suppose to do that, I was suppose to have that.
I feel an urge to send a congratulations card to my friends and soon-to-be mothers, but something stops me, something makes me forget to for one more day. I am not ready to I guess, or just don't want to, can't.

I went to talk to another friend and she was contending with her two daughters, one screaming in protest to the prospect of a car ride, the other begging to leave. I watched her as she held the screaming daughter, letting her kick and cry...talking to her in a totally calm voice. "Why are you crying, what do you need?...I can not understand you when you cry..." I stood in silence, witnessing something I feel I would never be able to do. It made me feel like a failure once again, failed to make a baby and with motherhood. It will always be something I can admire from afar...but never hold close, like the screaming child.

News...for others

The power of the Barreness has struck again! In the last week I have received news that two people I am close to are expecting. It was so easy for them, in fact so fast and easy that it stuck they by surprise.
I can see their hesitation in telling me, and in fact maybe even fear.
I am a master of the " happy face", I amp up my mood and smile big smiles and cheer and laugh and express my joy for them. After all is said and done and we part ways...I am silent and empty. I feel barren once again;reminded of my real emptiness and destiny.

Restless Sleep

I am not sleeping, not soundly at least. The last time I did was after my Nana died and that was after being awake for almost two days....I slept deeply in my sadness.

I remember long ago when I was younger, I use to see this image of myself with a child on my back, I was walking by myself across vastness; just this child and myself, silently walking.
I see it now as a symbolic dream.
I alone walk with this cargo, across the emptyness...I am the barreness...I have all the right jewels but wonder what good are they in all this nothingness.

I had a "thing " with a friend recently who was angry at me...It was the first
"thing" since I have known her, that is over 8years. I call it a "thing" because it was not really a fight, as there was no yelling or slamming of doors...but the strange uncomfortable silence, the tactile sense that all is not alright in the world. She cracked me. She forced open a sliver of space and poked herself in, braving the darkness and screams of pain. I felt splaid when it was happening, almost paralized with fear for her and what she would reveal. I sat crying mostly, as she was exposing feelings that were green to even me still.
She is a mother, and is trying desperatly to still connect with me, as much as I try to explain what is so deeply wrong she struggles with understanding.

I admire what she is trying to do, but I wonder if she will ever really get it.
I don't even really get it yet...

as time passes

Time wounds all heals....
I find that as time passes I feel less of me and more of nothing. I have been struggling for the last two years to reclaim elements of my old self, the self before I learned I could not carry a child in either my womb or my arms.
I read and article the other day about uterus transplants and found an interesting comment from one of the doctors heading the program...he refered to the " instinct " that drives women to try anything to become a mother. It was the first time that the word instinct was used in the context of childbearing . I always think of instinct as something that is completly underlining, something that is not consciencly thought about....it made sense to me. I mean birds have an instinct to build nests, if they don't then they die. I have this instinct that I was suppose to have a child and I am now stuggling to suppress that in order to function daily. The whole world is gear to people that have children. I sometimes find that i am making decisions that I can or will not go somewhere based on the level of interactions I would have with children.
Would it be less painful for me to go to the farmers market after 10am or better as soon as they ring the bell? There are less babies there before 9am...i think i will go then. I have made the mistake of trying to go after then and I find myself lost in day dreams, watching mothers and fathers push strollers and feed fresh food to the children.
I have found that my sorrow is a seductive smoke that slowly makes it's way into my day, sneeking into my thoughts when my defenses are slightly down...when my mind is wandering listening to music...or when i am trying to fall asleep.
It is a seductive smoke, it makes me forget the physical reality of me and our decisions.