Mothers Day

 

I made it thru mothers day...there was some drama, some backlash, some response to our absence.

I was able to turn the channel when a commercial came on, or when a movie played. I turned off the radio when an ad was touting the all you should do for your mother.

I mostly did damage control. Control potential damage. 

Mothers day also fell on my fathers birthday...I wanted to celebrate my dad's birthday but not Mothers day.

We did his birthday, a day early....it felt like we had moved his birthday, like I had asked them to change their lives because of our sensitives...this is still sitting heavy with me.

My father was a little upset that we don't celebrate mothers day...I am not sure he can really wrap his head around the depth of hubby and my loss; the daily reminders and images.

I managed to give gifts to four women, this year...it was the best I could do and was happy that I managed that. It was hard to walk past those of mother themed cards and images, but I did and came out with something for them. It hurt, but was manageable and I was able to pack it away into a box that I can address in smaller pieces as time passes.

We mostly stayed home, my hubby made us homemade waffles and we ate them causally and together.

We stayed inside and watched movies and in the afternoon attended an art event I was showing in.

The venue was filled with costumed children who shuttled about here and there squealing and laughing.

We heard a lot of people wishing each other a happy mothers day and I was silent...I tried to keep conversations on work and subject.

I felt mostly numb, mostly, sometimes it felt more like floating.
Like in a dream when you look in on yourself.

 

When I did feel, it was the deep deep sorrow that surrounds you like a bath.

Round and round

I began to shake, deep shaking and then the cramping....in fact I am still shaking...

I rushed to see...what I had feared.

 Blood lots of blood and tissue lots and lots of tissue.

I can not share this with anyone...I didn't get a postive pee test...I was late and thought nothing of it.

In many ways I am glad I didn't see the lines, only to find myself days later, here.

I am spun

saddened and spun

Infertility Awareness Week

What IF? A Portrait of Infertility from Keiko Zoll on Vimeo.

Visitor

I went in for my annual, I was kind of afraid, I was afraid of what might be found and what might get said.

I searched for a while when we had a choice of doctors, I wanted a real feeling of having a doctor that remembered me and cared about my health.

I think that time has past.

My blood pressure was elevated, to a point of concern.

(it reminded me of one doctor saying to me: "I am surprised you even go to a doctor anymore after all you have gone through")

My current doc did my pelvic exam and felt my lymph nodes, but was ready to leave after that.

It was then that I pulled out my list of questions and requested follow-up exams.

I need to schedule this and that and I would like...this is my yearly physical after all.

I was far more prepared then her.

She asked if I had any pregnancies and I told her about my miscarrages. She said they were not real pregnancies, that real ones have a postive pee test. I sank...I am a fake.

She told me at this point of the game, I could have a referral to a fertility specialist or have a hysterectomy.

I told her that those were not options for me.

We chose many years ago to not have assistance to get pregnant.

She followed up this with, "...then now would also be a good time to start the adoption process"

I told her that was not an option either.

I got my blood taken, peed in a cup and have slips for future ultrasounds and mammograms.

I have found the end of the road.

there is just barreness ahead of me.......no sign "thank you for visiting" or a pretty patch of wildflowers.

Just the end of the known road.

Really, you're not pregnant

My period arrived, a week and a half late.
One moment I was icky feeling and the next the back pain started and I was bleeding.
That quick, no gradual arrival...just a slam dunk.

I was afraid to look every time I went to the bathroom, I was afraid that there would be more evidence of another loss...another momentary motherhood.

Instead, I simply had a, "really you are not pregnant" kind of period.

Waiting at an empty station

My period has yet to arrive.
I was due to get it last week, Wednesday night is when it normally arrives...but it didn't.
Nor, did it appear, Thursday or Friday.
By Friday night I peed on a "You're not pregnant stick".
Then Saturday and Sunday passed with still no sign or even spotting.

I peed on another stick Sunday night..."You're still not pregnant"

I have only missed my period one other time, I was high, high up in the mountains of Nepal, and had been hiking for 10+ hours a day. I missed my period then and that was over 10 years ago. It was memorable then as it is now.

Except now, I am dealing with the mind-fuck that is infertility and the wake of two miscarriages.
Should I still pee on sticks to look for a faint, almost non-existent line, or continue to check the pee sticks I have already thrown into the trash because "maybe now that some real time has passed, it was really a positive and I just couldn't see it."

When should I stop wondering about this month, and have a glass of wine or stop wondering if that aspirin I just took was a good idea. When will I understand that the train is late, and might not stop at this station this month after all.

I wish I could have known you

It appears I lost another early pregnancy.

I am in total shock and wonder what I did to have this repeatedly happen to us.

I sat in the bath this time and watched the blood dissipate in the water...pieces of tissue floated and danced in the liquid. I thought of what might have been and how this was my only time with it before it all flowed away, down the drain.

I held the tissue in my hands and sang to it.

Over time, the pieces fell apart and became smaller and smaller until I was in a tub filled with slightly tinted water and tiny pieces of tissue.

I opened the plug and said goodbye, sitting and watching it all be pulled away and down into the darkness.

Goodbye sweet little something, I will never forget you.

Saturating

"I couldn't tell what was rain and what were tears"

I told my parents about our miscarriage today, I told them before I realized what words were falling out of my mouth. It surprised me and I could see the wind being knocked out of them.

My mother in her "way" told me that she thought I was pregnant and that she and my father were waiting for me to tell them.
She cried when I told her that it was gone, confirmed and gone. My father was silent and could not look at me for a long while. I don't think he knew what to say...or how to say what he wanted to say.

I told them I am racing the clock on the growing fibroids and that this was checkered flag...the last loss I could endure.

Ironically, my husband told someone today too, the first person he has shared it with and when I asked how he felt about sharing it he said "it made me really really sad, but I just told him..."
this is a really big thing for him...In someways I am very proud of him in others I am familiar with what he means and is possibly feeling.

Now I just have to fight feelings of imagining what it would have been and what it would have looked like and what we would have named it.

same news...different year

Well my desire to outwit and out hope my body have begun to be foiled yet again.
The results are back and were delivered by such a warm and kind person this time that the pain of its reality was almost unfelt.
I am growing again...and this time the ping pong game is back on about the shape of my uterus.
It appears that I might have calcified the older fibroids and grown a couple of new ones.
Only one appeared at the begining of the year and two plus some calciumed ones are there now. Plus my ovaries are making cysts and I have one folicle in one of my ovaries.
That one folicle will most likely become a cyst too....

It appears that my desire to grow is all about growing the wrong things or the right things for short periods of time.
Like an oyster, I have taken that speck of sand and coated it with hope apon hope untill I create a perfect orb that people will want to take from me.
Except my orb is not pretty and shiny, but intead hell-bent on taking me with it.

I planted seeds in my garden, at least I can watch that grown into something beautiful and right.

The results will be in shortly

I went to the ultrasound people yesterday....this after a very hard session with my therapist who insisted that I tell someone that I lost a pregnancy. So I am telling you....I lost a pregnancy and I am really not ok with it.
There.

In the real world, I told a long time friend, who repsonded in a surprising manner, thank goodness and was the perfect ear to tell it to. I also told my brother, who was quite shocked that I had lost a pregnancy.

So back to the probes...I went to the clinic and had the 417th ultrasound done, far less in real life...and was greeted with a tech who was all about me "keep trying" and how she lost one and that now she has a baby and that her sister had IVF because she wanted a boy and they spun the sperm to get one....argh
enough, oh and the URBAN myth of a woman here in my town who has two prgnancies in her bicornate uterus and they are two months apart...etc wtc WTF

She thinks I have a bicornate uterus, this can mean one of two things, I really do...or my fibroids are begining to rearrange things again.
then she saw two fibroids...only one was noted at the begining of the year. Then there was question if I had a calcuim fibroid...an oldie but a goodie.
But none were in my my uterus so I am fine to have a kid...go for it. Well, try and fail at it and then try not to slit your wrists from the pain of failure.
Oh and you have like a million follicles too....your ovaries are crazy.

I should hear all this and more next week when my results will be officially in.

So I left there, with a patch of missed ultrasound jelly in my crotch and a new sense of broken.
" Hello yes, I am the Barreness I will be your server for this meal of humble pie"

Sorrow

Something has shifted...I am starting to experiece sensations that I have in the past.
Aching in my bladder, a plucking cramp that flows along my lower abdomen...signs that things are shifting.
I have been off of birth control for about 9months now...ironic I know....that was not lost on me.
I have a dear friend that is expecting next month, we started trying at the same time....she got lucky, I got a whole lot of "hahah you're not pregnant" pregnancy tests.

I went to the doctor yesterday and had some things confirmed....no infections (damn I wanted a quick fix)
My uterus is enlarged and now tilted...that is a new one.
and yes, it sounds like I had another miscarrage.

Saying those words aloud hurt...I almost whispered it to the doctor. It seemed that saying it to someone other then myself or my husband made it really really real.
It seems pathectic that, at this junction, when things are shifting, I was pregnant for a small small time... and things have begun to go haywire again....meaning that I might be going back onto the pill to reset my uterus again, but this time until menapause. sigh

This was the last road, this was the last try...this was it.
I pulled the short straw, I lost.

Gone

My love had been planning a getaway for us for our anniversary....it was a wonderful break from his normal way of doing things. He kept it a secret and until the day before, I was not aware where we were going.
My period was late again but I thought nothing of it until it arrived. When it did, things were not the same ol' same 'ol.....in fact they were strangely familar to actions of the past.
I began to bleed very heavily and felt quite woozy, then came the signs that something was lost.
I think I lost another very early pregnancy.

This was something that I had seen before...and it didn't really hit me until months later...this time, it hit me like a sponge and I was left wet. I carried the quiet knowledge with me this time and let it slowly dry in small bits. I had gained another year of marriage but possibly lost being a mother again.

We drove many many miles and saw many beautiful things and were reminded why we love each other.
I was strangely calm all weekend...I think I was simply just quiet.
We both were.

Hot cocoa

I am propably the last person to see Angels in Ameria...it was great, well the parts I saw as I came in on the last third I think.
I was able to see the final scene with Harper and her final journey into Antartica...telling Mr Lies about her life with the eskimo...it made me cry. Knowing that she was not pregnant but had this lovely and quirky fantasy about the baby and her:
something like : Maybe it will be born with white fur covering its whole body, and it will never be cold and my breasts will be filled with hot cocoa to feed it with and we will live here and be happy....

The sweet sweet idea of what life could be like with the baby she will never have, or wishes she had.
I was in tears...taken quite off guard by it, but so comforted by it.

There is a similar scene in Casa De Los Babies, when Susan Lynch was telling her dream to the woman making her bed, about the snowy morning that she goes and wakes up the warm little wrapped lump in the bed and has a play day with them. Another beautiful dream of a child.

It is these dreams that I am soaking in...at times it feels as though I am drowning overflowing with imagined children, trips, conversations and hopes.

I am fighting, almost daily, from being broken by them.
I feel weaker at times and fear I will simply crumble...other times I have a lot of duct tape.

Autumn

It has been a while

I haven't written in a while, as I was trying to distract myself with living.

I have had a lot of other events to play with and so this constant undercurrent has been mutable.

In the last week it has been churning, maybe because I have begun to loose focus, the battle to remain in check has been just that, a battle.

I have felt so overwhelmingly lonely as of late that it makes me feel even smaller.

I tried to clean, thinking that what I needed was to simply find order again and then all those trains can run on all their own tracks and I could jump from train to train depending on my mood.

My trains keep finding junctions, forks, meeting points.

I keep having this feeling like I am forgetting something and simply whittling away my days. Thinking tomorrow I will do more, tomorrow I will be more, tomorrow will be better.

When will today be that tomorrow?

I often find myself looking in circles, staring at walls or going to my pacifier the TV to make me forget that all is not running smoothly. I am unfocused and afraid that I have really blown it.

I really want to start living, but I don't know how...

I am in fear of slipping back into a deep depression, falling behind on my hopes for my art...the trains all colliding and exploding, leaving nothing recoverable behind for me to find.

How will I find my way out of this dark, moody place I am in...

A call for empathy

my response to a beautiful call for empathy:

"So wonderfully written, I am overwhelmed with its bare honesty, and beauty.
I am still working on finding my path of peace, where the deep deep pain can be a lessened. I still try to not to cry when nieces and nephews have birthdays, and many times fall on days when I get my period. All those times I had hoped for...all those days they can not share with a cousin.
Friends still offer suggestions for fertility, and although I know it is coming from a place of love...it feels insulting. Don't you think I have tried all I could think of?
Empathy is not a word I think many consider with us, but instead sympathy. "

It's that time again....

This struck me as funny, and seeing that the moon is full and my womb is not...I thought it was only fair to post something that made me laugh for a change:
Pregnant Women Are Smug by Garfunkel and Oats

Big kisses to these ladies!!

End of the line...

With this most recent cycle, I have had mini panic attacks.
I am fine one moment then in an instant I am not...I start to have a hard time breathing, I am spinning and then sobbing.

I am the end of the line....this train is going to sit in the station.
No packages to deliver, no news to send forth...no passengers to carry.

It was a photo of my great great grandparents that triggered it for me.
My great great grandmother had 11children, all lived. My maternal great grandmother, died a week after giving birth to my grandmother....I thought for years that that would be my fate too.
I would have a close call or die after giving birth to my own child.
Little did I realize, it would have been by my own doing, instead of the entrance of a child it was the loss of what can not be.

I have started photographing my family pictures, the old ones, the ones over 50years old and making CD's of the images to be passed onto others as years pass and generations become that. I am trying in some way I guess, to make a legacy of my own. I am trying to make some sort of mark in the face of all this.
For when I am gone, it will be only my photos that live on...maybe.

For now I am doing this for my niece and nephew...to let them know I was here and I cared enough about them and all who came before us.

Nothingness

I don't feel like doing anything, nothing.
I have tried, in fact most of this week, has involved me trying. Pushing forward and moving...slowly but moving none the less.

I think the level of loneliness has started to pile up on me.
I feel very alone.

A friend mentioned that they were going to gather pine cones for me. Apparently they are a symbol of fertility. I told her I couldn't do this any longer, I wanted off the roller coaster, I wanted to gain back the life lost in waiting and hoping. I told her this months ago, I think she is still hoping for me. She and I had started to try at the same time, and now she is 13 weeks pregnant and I am waiting for my late period to begin.
I know it is late, as I took another pregnancy test this morning and was greeted with another "not pregnant" on the stick.

It is only a matter of time, before she begins to realize that I am not a fertile womb. Heck it is only now that I am really coming to terms with the idea that I am not going to be a mother.

So I continue to bob in the vast ocean of this reality. My arms and legs numb, my back sore...my desire to eat ice cream on a stick- strong.

Summer is here and I am flooded with images of idyllic childhoods, and times gone by....and I feel nothing when I am not crying.

Numb all over

As I wonder into the new unknown, I find myself numb.
Numb from tip to toe...and the efforts to make myself happy are becoming harder and harder to muster.
It is an effort...I find times in the day when I am berating myself for not doing more or simply sitting and zoning out.
I have been told I have insomnia, but I have found myself sleeping better the last few nights since the news. Yesterday I could barely move my neck and today it is fine.
I am given days when all seems to fall apart and others when it is all reset again.

As the first period after my "safety time" is approaching I am not sure what lies ahead, I have a new doctor on the horizon and we have no history or knowledge of one another. Where would I go if things go wrong?

I am lost, so very lost.

Slam Bam

I have been slammed again, this time overnight.
I went to bed with the aid of a sleeping pill last night in hopes to sleep thru any changes.

I awoke to back pain once again.
I tried to do some work today, so that I didn't get pulled onto the couch for the whole day but, as the day progressed I was feeling less and less ok. It was more of a struggle to get stuff done and by 5:30 I was laid out on the couch. Slam, and bam onto my ass.

Now I have a blank mind, simply wondering what the future really holds for me. Now that I will have my period every month again, now that new friends will have babies around me as the months pass. I wonder where I will fit in this all.

I am still an oddity of sorts, a woman who stopped the process.
I still have the little voices wondering what if we tried a different way, or went further...but even still we didn't get pregnant.

I am feeling quite lonely recently...a lost sense of me in this world.
I am simply letting it all come as it does and process it at a pace that seems real and complete.
I am doing this alone now, maybe that is why I feel so lonely.
I miss having friends that call and chat, I miss hanging out with people. I can still do that, but I have to call the people or go out and find the event.
My art is helping me with some of that....
My art is slowly saving me.

Wondering while Wandering

So now that I am continuing to swallow the reality of our childless womb, and with another cycle coming to an end, it simply leaves me wondering or Wandering...
Who can I really relate to, where are my people?
I search often for other infertility stories, online, on television...in life.
I found a treasure trove of blogs today...I have linked them here.
I felt a little less alone, a little more "normal", maybe just little.

I have a different story then others.
I have chosen to stop the insanity before I am committed, I have chosen to retain a healthy marriage, I have chosen to not allow science into my womb any longer.
I was reading a blog today that addressed the loss of modesty in the process of fact finding. I was ripped back to my own experiences and trying to keep a stiff upper lip when new and different people came into rooms to probe my misshaped womb. "Hi there I am attached to the uterus you are looking at"
Only sometimes did this work...and I got a response.

I wander daily in my mind, when I see something that I would have shared.
Sometimes get lost for hours, sometimes only minutes but regardless I get lost in the seduction.

It is only when I catch myself do I actively reel myself in again.
The fact that I reel myself back is a new advancement.

For far too long I was seduced by that dark deep pool, wondering how far down does this go, why fight the weight of the water.

I am still seduced by the sounds of the sirens; The Barreness and her sweet quiet songs.
I still allow myself to stare into the pool once a month, and mourn what I had hoped for.
What will never be.

In my well planned and imagined conversations in my head, while on the seductive wanderings, I heard myself say:
"You came to me from a dream, you are a dream come true."

New Wave

The wake of this past cycle has left me wondering when my daydreams of a child will be quelled. We have tried, in the book smart way...ovulation sticks and temperatures and counting and having sex around the clock; and found ourselves in the hospital with ovarian cysts and pain that made me blind.

We took a "break" and I went back onto the pill for a few years...

Then we re-visited it again this year...but this time tried by not trying. Our results are the same.
Given that my best chances were in the first 6weeks...and we are into the 4th cycle...it is not a good sign.

I count days and wonder, did we make a baby this time? I survey my body, wanting to feel the very moment that I become pregnant, but these have fallen short too.

Hope is the sweetest seduction.
It is hard to reel it back in once it has been cast so far out.

I feel like I have been watching that plastic little buoy for years, bobbing on the surface of the water, waiting patiently for the fish to bite.
My worm has fallen off , and only a bare hook remains...that is not very attractive to any fish.

Waves lap at the shore, pulling all else towards me, while the little plastic buoy floats on the waters surface farther and farther away.

Happy Mothers Day...everyone else

This is what I was greeted with....yesterday morning.
I got my period later in the day.
I like to think that I have developed the ability to take a good kick in the gut.

Today I decided to stay in and watch crappy TV all day.
Happy Mother's Day, everyone else.

oh my aching back

I don't notice it all the time, but mostly when I sit still.
I have been off the pill for three months now...this is when I wanted to check in with myself and see how I was feeling.
Well I am three months out and have found that what I experienced the last time I went off the pill to not be the same this time out.
I still have handfuls of hair falling out of my head.
I still seem to be holding onto the extra weight from the pill
I still seem to have zero sex drive
I still am not pregnant.

What I am noticing is that I am developing month after month a lingering ache in my lower back...sometimes higher...but lingering ache.
The ache was the first thing I remember mentioning to the doctor when things started spiraling last time.
I am due to get my period this week, so i expected some additional ache...but the ache seems to be present before and after.

Maybe it is from the ache of all that I have been carrying...all this information, all this disappointment.

All is quiet

All is quiet...my period arrived and with it a slamming backache.
I guess I am going to experience the classic low back pain of endometriosis with my cycles.

I was moody and exhausted, but spent time in my studio trying to forget that I will not be a mother in this life. I was trying to compensate for my lack of fertility with another outlet of creative making, my art or gardening.
I get joy, (a feeling I am re-introducing myself to, as the feeling has been absent from my knowledge base for some time) from creating something tangible. My art is real, my food is real.

I catch myself breathing deeply while working on a new project, reminding myself to be in the moment, be present. This simple act seems difficult at times, but one I am working with...as my daydreams lead me down dark paths of things to never be and times I will never have.

My hopes for divine intervention from relatives gone before me, has left me feeling alone and forgotten, and absolutely lost.
What happened to wishes from heaven, miracles or magic....

I can only believe in nature now...Mother Nature and The Barreness, these are the only real things I know now.

Awaiting the disapointment

As time continues to tick away, I have found myself thinking less and less about the idea of a baby.
I think I am in a new part of my personal grief about the loss. I still can not really wrap my mind around many facts, but mostly I am sad.

I have no clue when my period will arrive, it is on a schedule I am not familiar with or aware of.
It arrived late last month, so I am not sure what to expect this time as well. It should be here this week, but has yet to arrive.
I sometimes freak out that I have grown another HUGE cyst and that I am a ticking bomb. My cyst waiting for our insurance to run out, so that it would happen when it would cost the most damage physically and financially.
or
I have grown nothing and that all of my past pains are a thing of the past and now I get to simply have the loss instead.
Sometimes that pain justified it all to me, made the loss more real, more understandable and more angry.
With no pain and no anomalies, I am simply left with the loss and a surreal sense of undone. How pathetic and sad.

Branded and cast out of the village.
Barren.

Come and Gone

6 weeks has come and gone and I feel a strange sense of empty.

Mind you, I am familiar with the empty of not having kids, but this seems different.
I feel like I have started mourning all over again. I am retracing my former steps again.
I have become aware that my drive to "try one more time" seems like beating a dead horse.

I have lost my chance to be a mother, I think the idea of riding that roller coaster all over again has come and gone. I am a solo rider...I am on this road with my husband and if we are lucky we can have a few young people close to us.

For now, I simply am going to introduce myself to The Barreness and tell her how I am going to play this game.

Day by day for now.

Same stick different day

In the face of all the risks and low chances....we went for it, taking the best chances of getting pregnant in the first 6weeks as a sign, I had lots of eggs ready to release, we had sex (unknown to us) during my most fertile time in the cycle) and I had loaded up on prenatal vitamins for a few weeks...we were relaxed and not thinking about anything but having sex and fun.

We jumped off the cliff without a parachute...not knowing fully what we were going to face.

So we decided to try and not try....I am on no birth control and neither is he.
We had a lot of fun and now my period is not here, not even in the late version.

We were terrified, and excited....but mostly SCARED beyond words...
Does this mean we really don't want to be parents after all? Does it means that we are selfish to want to just settle into our lives and not have kids after all this?
The dreams of and about children the last few night lead us to believe otherwise.
But aside from the fear we were ready to face, head on all the challenges and risks in the face of all the terror and fear.

I peed on the stick and began to cry, and left the stick in the bathroom... I was sure we were pregnant.



Turns out we weren't.
again

and so we begin again...

After days of tears and another meeting with the doctor to ask questions ....which seemed to confuse her.
I took a prenatal vitamin tonight.
I am not even sure I want a kid, in fact at times I know I don't have it in me....but there are other times when I think I might.
It seems like I want to be in this group of women and at other times I don't want to be.

My automatic response is aversion...but I think that is learned.
If I think about it, it is not that bad.
And sometimes it is.

I am still not sure where I stand...all I know is that I have decided to not take the pill for a cycle of three months to start with and see how things go from there.
I dream of loosing weight and my hair looking normal and staying in my head and sleeping a real sleep and wanting to have sex all the time.
I almost assume that I will not get pregnant, in some ways it is a comforting feeling. I know I can check that box off in my head again and for good.
Then the idea that I might get pregnant enters my head and I freak out and wonder...about way too many things.
all that can go wrong mostly...I don't immediately see all that can go right....but what I will endure and survive (hopefully) thru.
I want so badly to speak to a friend about this, and my doubts and feelings...but I seem to come up short.
I still feel so alone in this process....
I have a "baseline" ultrasound on Monday to see how big and where my fibroids are.
I am anxious...and will most likely go alone.
I have a blood test too...I will likely go alone.

I am alone in a lot of this....and hopeful that my husband will find a job soon.
Please let him find a job...

Happy Anniversary

It has almost been 4 years since the announcement of my faulty uterus and ovaries and the medical industries desire to remove it.

I know this, as not only do I carry it every day, but it is marked by the birth of my goddaughter.

I was in pain the night she was born but refused to leave my friends side while she labored to have her. Three days later I was in the ER with a nearly exploding ovary, and a doctor telling me that I should just have my ovaries removed. A week following that, I was taking pictures of another friends wedding who was full with baby.

Over these last years I have:

* Been working on resetting my body and fighting off knives and suggested surgeries.

* I have been taking birth control pills and praying that I got a dummy pack and would amazingly still get pregnant.

* I have been suppressing the anger from a misdiagnosed ultrasound that changed my whole world.

* I have been in grief counseling to help me come to terms with the loss of what was taken away

* I have locked away my dreams of a child

* I have worked on not being cynical, but have not been successful

* I have tried to convince myself that being a woman without baring children still makes me whole, when knowing it is me simply ignoring a huge hole within myself

* Tried to believe that the universe is really not out to get me for things I have done in my life

* Worked on understanding that I did not will this on myself

* Stated to myself that my husband got shortchanged, duped, or "the rug pulled out" from him

I had my annual with my doctor this last month, it is one of the worse experiences for me as I am often in the office with a woman who is about to burst-babies. This year it was simply me...refreshing and a sign of what was going to be different.

My doctor had written last year that "I didn't want" children and I was set to get this information straight this year.

I came out of the gates on fire the minute she walked into the door...and explained that I would always want children, but did not want assistance to create them...

I knew that after so long and false test results I was past the prime to have them now...

She examined me and stated something I had not heard to date...

" I think you should try again if you want"

I have a 40% chance that something would go wrong...and not have a "perfect" child at my age.

But

that means that there is a 60% that all will be fine.

I have high risks of long bed rest and gestational diabetes, c-sections and extreme pain from the 2nd trimester until birth (because of the possibility of my fibroids dying from lack of blood)

All these things are to be weighed in our thoughts about trying again....trying again

Opening Pandora's box....

Semen sample in my cleavage....turns out his sperm is perfect....it is all me.

It is now that the we wait, and see if we want to have a baby...reopening that door is dangerous. I was hit when twisting the knob to the door, I was overtaken with all my boxed away hopes and dreams...I was smothered with desires and visions of a small person all our own.

I have taken on the name and proudly (if not quietly) held the title The Barreness for so many years. Would I be the person that I despised, the person who finally got pregnant after years of not getting pregnant...or will I return to my lair after weeks of new physical and emotional pain.

Once I step into this pool, it is hard to get back out if things go wrong....

It has been a while...maybe some things just will never change

It has been a while since I have posted my feelings.
My emotions are raw right now...a few things have collided at the same time again for me.
Things often seem to happen in groups in my life...a constant overlay of feelings...so I spend days, weeks or months trying to unpeel one from another as others stack anew on top of them.

I was working hard this December, trying to make all my other ventures succeed, when I got a call that my Grandmother was about to die. I rushed off to see her one final time and ended up lost in a week...then another and here I am three weeks out, still trying to get back on my bike of life and get pedaling again.
In the meantime, Christmas and Solstice and Hanukkah have all appeared and so have the children, as a seeming mocking reminder.
A visit with my husbands lifelong friend started in a park, filled with children at play...most of which (at least 6 of them) followed us back to the parents home while another 7 or so went to another home. Then the hours of visiting consisting of watching and cooing over the children followed. Conversations about how all his friends have kids...and be careful you might want some of your own too...
SERIOUSLY HAVE THEY ALL FORGOTTEN! DO WE NEED TO SEND BI-ANNUAL REMINDERS OUT!
I spent that visit quiet and vacant in my mind, though, I think I was able to pull off the "Mona Lisa" smile for most of it.

This visit was followed up with a house call to my parents, to simply check in on them. A few more emotional hours followed that.

I had a visit from a friend, wanted to spend some time with me, all while escaping from her 3 year old, husband and mother-in-law for the night. We heard a lot of stories of how she is being tested and how trying it is raising this 3 year old has become. We did our best to sympathize all while making sure she did not think we were judging her. We weren't, we were simply jealous of every trail and task that she is facing. Even the "grass is always greener" theory didn't stick for long.

All the while I am mourning my grandmothers loss....she and I had a unique relationship. I was the first grandchild and the first girl in I don't really know how many generations...so my birth was special and my development was watched and critiqued. Sometimes quite harshly.
I was terrified to tell my grandmothers of my loss, my, our inability to have a child. I am the last one in my family to carry on our faith, my husband is the last of his namesake...so it was a big deal.
My grandmother had also started stepping deeper into dementia and Alzheimer's so I was afraid of the constant repeated questions. When I told her, she simply cried. No words...just tears. She never mentioned it again, except to ask if I was still in pain. That amazed me. I think under all that loss she understood I was lost too.
I watched her take her last breath, and I watched my father cry a deep wailing cry.

One friend called me after her death to see how I was. I called all of them, let them know and all the details of the funeral and all....the same friend that called sent a card a week later...but that was it. I feel run over, I feel lost...and confused and alone.

Someone at the gallery said "oh I am sure your grandmother would be proud"...it set off a series of questions in my mind. All of which made me wonder whether she would be or not. She didn't really understand why I chose the Arts for a life long vocation...and made her displeasure of it clearly known. So I am not sure...still.

I have an appointment for an annual this week...I dread them; not for the normal fingers in all orifices reasons, but the questions that are required.
I am dead set in letting her know that her statement at last years meeting " so you don't want children" is not true...but instead that the correct answer is, " I will always want children, but assistance to make them is where we have drawn the line"
I go over that conversation in my head, over and over again, and it always feels like I am being attacked and need to defend myself.
I don't like that feeling.

So here I sit at some random hour of the day or tomorrow or whenever.
I feel lost, alone, afraid and sad all at the same time.
I just want to feel something lighter this year...happier, and fulfilled.
I don't want to carry The Barreness around all year with me. I want to turn her on her ear and make her squirm.

I went to the garden this morning to water and check the veggies, and I started to ask my husband to take a picture of me...I often took pictures of my food or me in the garden and sent them to my grandmother to enjoy. I stopped in my tracks today and simply cried and felt silly.
I took a picture...but I can not send it. I simply have it as a reminder of where I am today and all the layers of feelings and thoughts I am under.

It's been a while

It has been a while since I written.

I have been working on my management skills...

* Managing how to live every day with out breaking down while walking past a field of kids playing.

*How to not yell at a mother who is acting out at her frustrated kid

*How to not cry at every commercial that has a parent and a child.

*How to not be bitter

I am an artist, a maker of things and ideas.

The inability to make a child was a blow to my creative self...to my soul.

I have been squirrelling away ideas and images of my infertility and have decided that it is time to start working with them "out loud".

I am a print maker and have started a series of my infertility images, ones that have deep resonance for me.

Below is the first image in the series:

Pieces of my heart

I have just returned from a vacation with my husband and our friends. We traveled with a family of four, to a resort that was VERY family oriented. I never thought about that as we booked the trip or were getting ready. If I did think of it, it was in passing.

I was slammed head-on when the time came, well, when we sat down for our 5 hour plane trip.
We were on a plane filled with families; parents, babies and toddlers.
It was like being on a school bus for a field trip.

I put in my earplugs and worked on my management mantras. I thought I was doing well until I spied a little boy with bright red hair.
The color I imagined our child would have had.
He was beautiful and quiet and perfect.
I could feel my tears welling up...my heart breaking just a little, yearning to hold him in my lap and smell his soft bright hair.
As I closed my eyes, my husband caught sight of me and whispered " I'm sorry"

I was lost for a while after that, at some point I got myself to fall asleep for a little bit. When I woke, he was playing with my goddaughter, closer to me even still. I was lost again in the daydream of a child.

We spent 7days at a family resort, trying to avoid child based activities and places, to no real avail. We spent a lot of time watching our friends play with their children on the beach and hear the girls argue and make up tales from their imagination.

Some days left us running for the quiet of our room, other days just left us quiet.

In the end, we decided that we had fun for the most part, but would want to go to an adult only place next time, or simply on our own.

The Barreness was in my backpack, showing me all I have lost and all I never got the chance to have.

20 years later

As I near what will be a 20 year marker, I am faced with words I have chosen to not mutter except amongst very close friends or family.
I am going to be asked over and over and over again if I have kids.
I have tried to take the title of The Barreness by the reins and ride the wave high and openly in order to answer this question with ease.

I am trying to integrate into everyday language that I am not able to have babies...I can not make them or grow them. I did not choose this, nor did anything to make this happen. My infertility is something that was done to me, chosen for me and must be carried by me.

I read a great article in BITCH Magazine(issue 40) and found some vindication in it and it's powerful need to bring us infertile ones out into the light.
It is with this article that I have found a revival in my need to take the title again, but this time truly try and wear the crown with grace and pose.

Mother F***'s Day

I know that the holiday was created by the card industry, but it doesn't change the fact that I wish I could avoid it all together and let it be just a normal Sunday.
I still have to honor my Mother and mother in law and so on...I have made the obligatory gifts for the reproducers that will be attending my Aunt's soiree this weekend.
She has decided to now call the day "woman's day" in feel in a vain attempt to try and rectify what she has blown apart with me.
Changing the name does not change the feelings that I have about the day or the life long herstory of what the day means to me.
I watched for years as these women were honored at a Sunday brunch and doted on with ooooh and awww's and little gifts were bestowed to them and I watched thinking that one day, I would be in the circle of honored women.
When I found out that I was not going to be in that circle I stopped going to the "production" but instead opted to simply have a quiet celebration with my mother. My Aunt does not truly understand what a HORRIBLE day it is for me. It is a grief day for me. I grieve that I will not be a mother, I will not be in that inner circle of women. I am hard to relate to because of it.

This year, she has re-named the day.
I am fuming, as my mother is going to this event and that seems to be the only real way I can spend a little of the day with her. I will drag my ass to a home I wish to not be in, be subject to questions I don't want to answer kindly, be around people that will wonder about me and my reproductive system and witness this ritual of doting again. I will be miserable.
No amount of alcohol can change this.

To top this lovely sundae off we are also celebrating my father's 60th birthday that day, as he feels that "everyone will be there,so it will be easy"

I hope to have some time to simply cry and grieve for what was taken from me.
I am The Barreness.

Upcoming Birthday Mantras

With my birthday in just a few days, I am experiencing what I do every year. The questions we all ask ourselves from time to time. It just seems that my daily desire to find an answer to this question is dialed up even more in the days just shy of my birth.
What the hell have I done with this life of mine?!

When I was small my birthday was a HUGE deal, I was the first grandchild and to boot the first girl in several generations to be born on my father's side. I was my parents first kid, and the first niece and I was one of the first kids to be born in my parents circle of friends. When I was born, I was blue and not breathing, I was given CPR twice to bring me back. It was considered a big deal by my parents and doctors. Sometimes that scenario goes through my head when I think of my Barreness, maybe I was suppose to be "weeded out". Darwin's theory, survival of the fittest; or in this case the fertile.

As I aged, my birthday was celebrated highly and I began to get use to a party and a big "ta do" about it. But when 30 hit, it all started to quiet down, I had aged, aged to a point where big parties are not a big thing; unless they were landmark years. I have been learning and embracing the simpler birthday's these last few years. Last year my husband and I simply went to dinner, no balloons, no flood of cards. I am looking at it as a practice in humility.

It was when asking what I wanted to do this birthday that I realized something.
Most of my older family is no longer around, I have left my job and a lot of socializing behind.
There really are not a lot of people in my life anymore.
Maybe I have started walking that path of humility, making my life simpler and quieter.
Parties are meant for big reasons....me gaining another year of life, simply isn't that big of a deal.
Right?

I am still looking for the smoothest road to walk on that one.
I keep finding a lot of rocks in my way.

What was that?

I have officially left my job. It feels more and more wonderful as time passes.

My plan is to re-connect with my creative side, make as much as I can for as long as I can.
My husband feels this is what I am suppose to REALLY be doing.
I have given up fighting it anymore and have just welcomed the chance to be creative again.

I have been sewing non-stop for three weeks now; making the clothes I had started making for my nieces and nephews and expanded the line to other things as well. I am hoping to add more as time passes.

I sold some items to a family friend and they were asking if I was trying to get a line of clothes made. I expressed that I make everything myself and like the one-of -a- kindness of the clothes. That seemed strange to them; but what was even more odd was the fact that I might just stop one day. As I explained that it is a very emotional process for me, making clothes for other peoples children.

This was lost on them and was simply followed with the question" why don't you make more?"

Deaf ears are a true friend to The Barreness.

It's lonely out here

So I have been released from my job.
Well, technically, I took a leave of absence for 8 weeks.
According to my doctors and my husband, I was/am in need of some serious downtime.
To avoid being sent to the sea or a sanatorium I took the time off; though the idea of being filled with drugs and weeks of sleep are appealing....I opted for the more grassroots version.

I am amazing how my mental health can be so easily brushed aside by me.
Even after seeing a show by Doctor Oz on what stress does to your body and how no matter how you manage it, it still takes a physical toll.
I got scared, and cried a lot and then forgot all about it.
It was when I woke up in the middle of the night to find myself half way across my bedroom looking for an incoming fax...we do not have a fax machine.
It was after that, that I gave work the information.
" I am being encouraged to take time off, to at the very least, get some sleep"
I haven't had a real night of sleep in a LONG time.

I had to stop being so naive, stop ignoring the exhaustion and try and find some sense of happy again. I love my husband too much to check out early over a STUPID job.

Now, now I have so much time, I can sit for hours contemplating all the things that have gone wrong in my life over the last few years while I was distracted by this job.
All that I have lost and not become.
Time sometimes wounds all heals....or at least rips off all those carefully laid band-aids.

I am the Barreness, I shall bear no children.
I am lonely.

Comedy of tragedy

I was flipping through some of my favorite blogs and found a link to a movie that is coming out:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0871426/

I am all for laughing in the face of pain....in fact I will most likely see this.
What freaks me out, is the number of movies that are now "making light" infertility.

I saw JUNO and felt honored and happy that Jennifer Garner portrayed that silent pain of shattered hopes in such a beautiful way.

I am just afraid that every Hollywood studio will now find this theme something to "throw into " new movies.

It hurts and isn't always funny, even when I laugh at it.

Are you sure now?

I went to another doctor, to have another set of eyes look at me and my situation.

This answer was the hardest to swallow; in fact it took weeks to recover from.
The doctor told it to me strait, leaving out no detail or risk.
The route she outlined involved:

• more tests
• surgery
• blood transfusions
• weeks of recovery
• chance of recurrence
• chance of miscarriages
• high risk pregnancy
• surgical delivery
• hysterectomy

She asked me the question that sent it all over the edge:

" So you have decided that you do not want to have a child"

I felt completely broken when I left.

I will always want a child, I feel that the fact that I need to make a choice between my desire to have a child and self preservation is not a fair question.

The struggle to save a sense of self is sometimes exhausting.

Sometimes it is almost too much.

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.