Shock and Awe

I feel like I am floating still....swaying between being awake or asleep, focused or unsure.

I am past my two big openings and I have several pages of kind words about the show.

The newspaper article came out in today's paper.

It was very strange to see my words printed...very strange to realize that someone heard what I was saying. So much of this has been me talking here or in my head...or whispered to hubby at night while lying in bed.

I think I am in a little bit of shock.
I outed myself to my entire community

I stopped by the gallery early this morning to water the plants and check on the work.

I had dreams all night that the gallery owner had sold the walls that my work is on and forgotten that I had my work was still on it.

It was a night of feeling so unsure, so frightened, so unseen or unheard.

Turns out the owner of a local contemporary gallery came by before me this morning and pounded on the doors to see the show as he had read the article in today's paper.

He left his name in the guestbook with the words " Great Art/ Great use of the art process"

He took several cards and told the gallery owner that he knows other people that need to see this show.

I know I am in shock now, as I am not sure how to react to this or how I even feel about it.

Thick of it

I went and sat at the gallery today for a couple hours. In that time three people wandered in to see the show.

Two were college students and one a painter.

The college students wandered in, as the local photography teacher made an assignment of my show (kind of neat) and in doing so has gotten many of his students to the gallery. Both asked me questions, about the work and its meaning. I think they felt a little disconnected from the subject, and after asking questions, felt a better sense of what was going on. Both left kind comments in the guest book about how it helped them think differently.

The painter was moved to tears, she sobbed and said "you really convey loss", she told me she wanted to share something with me, but struggled to get words out....she finally let them tumble out of her

 " I lost my husband less then 6 months ago.

I am a painter and I have a show coming up and I am not sure I can get a show together"

She allowed me to hug her and offer condolences. I was broken hearted for her as well.

She asked how long it took to put this show together and we talked shop about making and gathering work.

She left after sharing many more personal stories with me and crying some more.

I was thankful that she trusted me enough to share her loss and thoughts, and hopefully I showed her that you can still create in the sea that loss creates.

letters....

" Four and Twenty Blackbirds"
Photopolymer etching

I am totally overwhelmed with little letters that are arriving in my inbox....

I am simply a pool of tears by the stories the I am trusted enough to witness.

I am so thankful to know such amazing women

My parents had their private view of the show this evening....both were moved to tears, my father fell silent and had a hard time looking into my eyes, but simply hugged me and told me he loved me. My mother wept openly and loudly, and kept saying I am so sorry. It took my husband off guard, and he became weepy too.

I feel very raw, very soft and slightly afraid.

I am gonna need some waterproof mascara tomorrow night.

All Quiet Tonight...

marquee wall

I spent the day hanging the show in the gallery....totally absorbed and distracted from the emotion.

It was a blessing, as now I am simply tired and numb...

like I need a long soak in the tub but it will never be hot enough, sweet enough or long enough.

I was assisted by a dear new friend whose husband has terminal cancer, she knew this show was emotional for me, but insisted on helping anyways...her heart monitor beeping every now and then.

It served as a reminder for me to simply breathe and be present.

She told me after it was all up that it was a lovely show.

It went quickly, like a wedding after months of preparations.

The I was simply left in the gallery with my work, still cloaked in the plastic covers to protect the plexi from smudges and dirt.

Another new friend arrived and helped me lay the letters on the marquee wall

and

that is when it seemed so much more real.

Now instead of having this in a safe cloistered place, I have neatly framed, hung and lit the moment.

I have displayed it in a room for people to look at and possibly judge, but what I really hope is that I might have also helped someone understand what it means to be infertile.

How it has ruined the party, left a stain on the floor and dented the car.

All evidence that it is there and you can now see it.

Ask questions if you want, I will only give you the truth.

I wanted to make more comments on IComIleave week, so sorry ladies

I confess

I think I made a terrible mistake tonight....I was out to dinner with hubby and was trying really hard to simply relax, as my lack of sleep this last week has left me running on empty.

I am thrilled to have the whole show ready for the gallery but the stress will escalate Sunday and all of next week...so tonight was a "break" a date and a little relaxing.

As we were leaving I saw a woman who I know thru other people and her hubby. She smiled and started a conversation, "are you ready for the show?" I said I was closer and happy to have it open this next week. She said that they were coming to the show as they are personally familiar with infertility too. I said " I had heard, us infertiles seem to know one another" at this I saw the look of confusion and a little shock, then they were told that their table was ready...it was awkward and we said good night quickly and left.

I felt horrible...I have spent the last two days talking almost nonstop to people from news papers and online magazines about my infertility and I guess my sense of social graces has dropped. I need to honor her and realize that she doesn't talk about her infertility or refer to herself in the same way.

We raced home and sent an apology to her:

"Dear sweet lady whom I just barely know,

I realized as we were walking away from our short and very sweet conversation that I might have hurt your feelings...I am sorry.

I should have said "I am sorry that we are in the same crappy sorority". I am sorry that you and your hubby have also not gotten the results you had hoped for.

I have been speaking a lot about my own struggles with infertility,

that I guess some of my filters have dropped and I did not mean to make you or your hubby feel uncomfortable or angry.

Please forgive my misstep in words or actions,

I do hope that you still come to see the show, as hopefully my work will speak better then I did for myself.

The Barreness"

I have made a promise to myself that I will be

far far far better at being present and conscience in my words.

I hope she can forgive me...

Thanks friend

I saw these thanks to "This is more Personal"

they are so bittersweet...although they are funny, they are so right on.

Thinly Coated

My Grandmothers Hands

I am feeling so very raw.

Like I have the thinnest protection and yet I am walking thru a knife shop.

I am proud of my work, I do think it really speaks to the pain and loss both emotionally and physically that infertility makes.

As I look again at the work as I tuck it into their frames and mats...I am moved again.

Frightened and moved.

I simply feel like I need to be touched...that sense that you are not alone,

the quiet comfort, that someone else is there.

I am missing my grandmothers dearly and keep calling to them.

In moments of panic I find myself looking at pictures of them to soothe me.

My grandmothers are both gone from this world.

One a little over 4years, the other just shy of 2 years.

I had very different relationships with each, but both were close ones.

I was terrified when I told them about our childless future.

One simply wept...openly and deeply.

Then never mentioned it again, but asked once if I was still in pain.

The other wanted to make it all better,

she hugged me and sent me a card with money in it

suggesting I go buy myself something bright to wear.

I want to share this show with them...but I can't.

I have already decided to wear something to the show opening that reminds me of them,

a quiet personal reminder that they would be there if they could.

At least that is what I am telling myself

Awakened

I am feeling tired...stressed and tired, but there is still a lot of work ahead of me over the next week or so.

I feel asleep on the couch again watching cartoon, I watch cartoons in order to free my mind before bed and not think of the news or my body or anything.

My night was filled with dreams of testing, medical tests...reliving some and creating new ones.

Running from an ultrasound machine and looking for a bathroom, thru long corridors of mazed rooms. All while finding people I haven't seen since high school and trying to be polite but still needing to pee and all the while knowing that I only had five minutes to get back to the ultrasound room to finish the exam.

While naming my work yesterday, I dove back into the meaning of the piece; the inspiration, the element that drove me to make it. I know that a lot of my dream is about that.

My therapist use to joke that I had the thinest veil between worlds. I am thankful for that...but sometimes it just doesn't give me a break from myself.

I was feeling quite overwhelmed with emotions yesterday, but had no outlets for them. For some reason I wanted to carry them in my hands like a fluffy baby bird, peeking every once in a while at them from between my fingers. Never really opening my hands and letting it see the big sky. I never cried yesterday...but I feel a long soak coming around the corner.

I have awakened all the emotions, fears, troubles and pains from this road.

I know how deep into the woods that road goes.

The Barreness is standing at the entrance, she has candy and stiff drinks to tempt me.

I think I might make a signpost for myself, as I know how seductive that path is...

I do not want to get lost again.

Pick me up

show card

I picked up my prints from the photo lab yesterday.

I had to flip thru the images, to make sure they looked as I had intended.

The first image on the stack is that of a baby stroller, on seeing this, the photo tech said:

 "oh how cute is that!"

this made me cringe a little inside.

As I continued to flip thru the images her conversation turned to how they are the lab that processes the pictures for the crime scene investigators.

 (I thought that was a more appropriate response to images of loss)

She went into gruesome details of what they have seen and processed recently...it left me feeling weak and sad. As I had gone there excited to finally see the work printed.

I left in search of a pick me up...

I stopped by my garden and watered the sad, confused summer veggies and picked a couple baseball bat sized squash.

Then I went back to work and continued dropping off gallery cards to local venues.

When I made my last stop and placed my cards on the podium with the others,

the gallery sitter looked at me and said "I've seen this"

She was excited and frankly it was a great pat on the back!

all that postage and emailing was not in vain

She started telling me about her losses and what people said to her.

The good the bad and the simply mean.

Then she looked at me and said:

 "This is really important and it is a wonderful thing"

I didn't cry until I got back to the car.

Imagine

I am sitting here, trying to figure out details for my show...and trying to ignore the laughter and squeals from little people outside. Enjoying the last days of summer.

Alas, I could bare it no longer and had to see what was making them so so happy. Maybe in an attempt to feel that way too...

I saw a group of girls, all under 12 wearing bathing suits and taking turns running into a fountain of water that is spraying a slip and slide.

They are all so beautiful and unaware of their bodies, simply laughing and playing.

I stood there for a moment and tried to imagine that I was simply looking in on them, checking to make sure all were playing nicely. Sharing and taking turns...

After simply a moment, I felt the warm tears running down my face.

The idea was so so big, like when you realize how big the universe really is.

It was too much, all I could do was simply cry in awe of it.

Nerves

It feels as though every nerve in my body has been touched to a point of fraying.

Like a crazy old wire from a cloth covered cord in the 40's.

I have been bathing heavily in my history for weeks now and although it has been wonderful for my artmaking, it is starting to enter other aspects of my life again...the lack of sleep, the joy that doesn't linger too long, loss of hunger and loss of clarity.

I was talking with hubby and it seems that we are both nervous about the same thing. Watching the reactions of our family to the show. Watching them cry or tighten up and not speak to us again. Well, we know they will talk to us, but making them have to process their grief and loss in a more steadfast manner. My mother already cried at just the image from the gallery card. Hell, how will she or my father react when they see the far more personal work. I am nervous for them as well.

The one year anniversary of my first of three miscarriages is right around the corner and I am feeling the heaviness in my heart.

As I am trying to plan past my show to the next project/art idea, I am thinking about my Dia De Los Muertos altar. I wasn't able to make one last year, but this year I am.

Shortly after loosing the being...I found myself in a shop purchasing a little mexican folk art piece of a skeleton woman holding a baby. It seemed to comfort me, acknowledging our loss to myself. No one wanted to talk to me about it or their feelings. 

With my most recent recollections, I found myself seeking comfort again. My hubby told me that he feels it was and will be again, in some way, some where.  

I stumbled apon the Mizuko Jizo, a Japanese Bodhisattva.

"Jizo is the protector of children, expectant mothers, firemen, and travelers. Most of all, he is the protector of deceased children, including miscarried, aborted or stillborn infants. In Japanese folklore, Jizo hides the children in his robes to protect them from demons and guide them to salvation."

I am not a religious person(that is a whole other story), and finding this information brought me to tears.

I bought the snake oil and I now have a statue and it will be included in this years altar.

Hell, it made me feel better and that is all I was looking for.

I am coming out of the closet,slowly, but going public with our infertility on my other blog and social media sites. I hope it will mean something to someone other then myself. 

Listen & Feel

I live in a very fertile neighborhood....the place spills children out its pores around 5pm.

They run around in circles in the courtyards. I can hear them playing made up games and squeeling with joy at being chased.

I can hear childhood.

I remember mine and remember that I wanted to share it with my own child.

Chase an ice cream truck, walk barefoot when it rained, eat cereal out of a huge bowl in front of the TV on a Saturday morning.

What I hear now, is all those things not happening.

What I feel now is sad and lonely.

Slowly

I still haven't made up my mind about going back onto the pill...so I guess that really means I am waiting until I can wait no more.

I have been sending out press releases to my show since Sunday evening, and building one of the last pieces for it, slowly but surely.

 It is a nest...and I really like how it looks. the display of it is where I am stuck. My brother has offered to help make a stand for it...but did ask what it meant.

It was strange and almost embarrassing to explain it to him, but realized that I might have to do that over and over again. He has no reference point....I embrace his openness when he talks about his children and his life as a father. I in some ways try to image what it would be like to have a similar story to share with him. So and So did this and can you believe they said that, but I draw a blank and stories of the cats' adventures are a pale comparison to my niece and nephews' antics.

At the same time I have been stewing in the emotions of being childless, barren and suffering from an empty womb. I know now, that it is just my hubby and I forever. We need to make new adventures and have new dreams. I have found myself waking up in the middle of the night, just to hear him breathe, so I can have that forever in my mind and feel it in my heart. I can not image a life without him.

We have gone thru battle, we are still walking in that gear, billyclubs in hand, to beat away anything that might challenge that desire.

In many ways I can see my emptiness as temporary, as I have him to walk with. In other ways I see it as vast as the ocean, as it is just him and me.

Rounding the corner

So I realized today that my show falls just about one year from the first of my three miscarriages.

So if the first had taken I would have been holding my own child at the opening.

Instead, this show has become my child, my mission, my distraction.

I am overwhelmed with fears and anxiety about it finally being seen. Will my voice be strong enough?

I have shown the images to my art advisor/mentor and they were very well received. In fact she thinks that it could be a traveling show. In many ways that is wonderful, in other ways it scares me to death! I doubt my own abilities, I question my drive, and I wonder if I have what it takes to make this happen.

I have worked my gut into a frenzy and am on a doctors ordered bland diet and medicine for the rest of the month. I am so bored with food that now I am not eating much at all.

I am happy with the work and making it distracts me from new decisions that I need to make. When I saw the doctor for my gut, she saw the last ultrasound and said we need a follow up ASAP...as the "complex" cyst is something that can be pre-cancerous or nothing at all...like I need to add that to my plate of options right now! Also if it continues to grow poses a risk of fallopian tube torsion. Something that no one had mentioned to me before. I figured it was pretty well set in there and that a cyst would grow....I never thought of it as a dangerous stacking game.

So I have a prescription for pills...and I haven't taken it to the pharmacy or anything...I am just waiting still, I guess. Waiting for the very last minute...waiting until it is glaringly obvious to me that I need to take them again. I am really wanting to avoid that....really wanting to.

I think I am simply afraid.

Hubby and I spoke and we are both in agreement that we passed teh time to get pregnant. It is a sad reality for us both. The dream is really a ghost, we can see it, interact with it but it is not something we can touch.

It marks yet another milestone we do not get to experience.

In the middle of it ALL

The couple from Montreal

I am in the middle of putting the images for my solo show together. I have been having panic attacks and nightmares about this show....fear nightmares mostly.

I am terrified that no one will show, that I will miss a step....I feel totally propelled to make make make....I am reliving my years of infertility while ignoring my most recent need to make a decision about my body again.

~

Turns out the nurse didn't give me all the information about my results, so I am thankful that I asked for a copy of the results again. Turns out I have cysts on both my ovaries and numerous fibroids, the amount was not even mentioned. I feel full of rocks.

~

So I am diving head first back into the grief of all this and making the art I have dreamed of making about my infertility. It is shaping up well and varies from literal to symbolic. I think that it speaks to the many faces of my situation. I have chosen to avoid the easy images, distraught woman or "boo boo" faces.

I have been revisiting all my fears, my deep deep sadness and awareness of the long term reality. My husband is feeling it too....we have a piece that we are working on together and it is bringing up many hard and painful realities for him too, I am thankful that he is talking to me about it.

I don't want him to feel alone about any of this.

After a day of printing images and being covered with ink, I made dinner and settled into a movie. I chose Away We Go, I knew it was about pregnancy and babies and family...and although it was hard to watch, I felt I could process it. Until they met the couple from Montreal....I knew something was amuck...it wasn't until the club, when I knew what was really up and it hit me like a ton of brinks...

I wept openly and deeply and had another panic attack afterwards.

Watching the grief dance and the husband frozen and sad made it all hit home.

Made me feel the sadness of my losses so heavily.

I finished the film and quickly put it into the sleeve, never to watch it again. In a strange way, I don't even want to see Montreal. I am such a perfect movie go-er, personalizing all I see.

Today I am printing some more and starting a new work for another project I am working on, about fading memories.

I am in the middle of it all...in the thick of it, pulling my legs slowly thru the waters of this emotion.

I feel like I am carrying a heavy load, so I move even slower.

Why do I even bother

Waiting

I had my latest Ultrasound today. I drank 45 minutes before the exam and only drank 75% of what I was asked to. I have been on this ride before and I have made a fool of myself too many times before. So I am taking hold of my dignity and making the rules now.

The tech was running late (hence my master plan had already paid off) and I was still uncomfortable but able to talk and move without thinking I was going to loose it.

I made my appointment with a lady and doing so had me wait an extra few days...as there is only a female tech for half the week and a male tech the other half.

The tech was kind and spoke softly and used my name over and over, made me feel like I was more then an uterus and bladder. She pointed things out things of interest along the trip and took a fair bit of time looking around. In her previous career she was a midwife that specialized in high risk pregnancy and was kind and kept saying she was sorry. It made the experience softer, more honest.

She said she had to leave that job because it was so heartbreaking.

" It is always the nicest people it happens to"

At one point on the exam, she turned on the sound and I heard a heartbeat....I wondered what it was like to hear a second heartbeat...beating even faster then your own.

She looked at me and said softly and kindly..."that is your heart."

It made me stop, it made me feel that deep deep hole in my heart.

It made me ache.

The results are already in and the call from the nurse was sweet.

My doctor had already lost the notes on me...and had already suggested I see OB/GYN for further "assistance in getting pregnant"

I swear I need a new doc, bedside manner of a dinner plate.

I spent at least a half of an hour telling her exactly what I wanted noted on my chart.

So as to avoid this situation, this exact situation!

I still have a cyst on my left ovary, but its presence needs to be watched as it has been camped out there for several months and its size and contents have a risk of rupture.

My uterus is enlarged and my there are several fibroids noted of various degrees.

My shape might be bicornate, but it is hard to tell because of the locations of the fibroids.

So now I am here again...40 and looking at the risks and benefits of going back on the pill.

I need to close the salad bar, no more midnight snacking kids.

No kids

Repeating my fears

Maybe it is the upcoming ultrasound, maybe it is leftover fear...

regardless my dreams last night were somewhat comforting, but mostly heartbreaking.

I was on the beach participating in a silent protest, were were all wrapped in wool blankets and had buried ourselves in the sand so we looked like freshly dug graves. Dirt piled mounds.

I was peeking out of my blanket to see if others were doing the same...and after a period of time we all began to sit up.

Someone behind me asked if I had my period...I wasn't sure how long I had been laying with everyone but for some time...and I said "no, why?" and then she said "Oh My God!"

I reached behind myself and felt wet, I pulled my hand up and saw blood; a handful of blood and tissue.

I realized I was having another miscarriage and wrapped myself up in my blanket to walk away...

When I got up I was dizzy and it was then that I realized I was still bleeding.

I wandered looking for someone to help me... I remember my brother picking me up and carrying me somewhere as I was blacking out and hearing peoples voices say she has lost so much blood.

~

At some point I came to a room and my grandmothers were there.

They told me that they would take care of it....

I was in some sort of portal between worlds.

My grandmothers had come to take the lost baby away to live with them.

It was then, that I knew that they were aware of this loss and that they were trying to help me.

Something in the dream told me that there was more then one child they were watching and I began to weep and sway. I passed out in my dream...and awoke.

Quiet

"many choices"

I have been quiet...and I think I am simply processing.

I have graduated from therapy and have been shifted to "call if needed" status.

This is a big deal for me. I think in many ways I am still adjusting.

 When I started therapy 5 years ago I had given up on myself and my hopes,

 I didn't care if I slept days away on pain pills or if I didn't eat.

I was a shell of a person and terrified that if I went into therapy

 I would not retain the very last bits of self that I had left.

I was gladly wrong.

I think I came out of the whole thing with myself, intact and recharged.

Over the last 5 years I learned to manage my grief, my dark depression, my infertility much much better.

I wanted to learn how to not be bitter.

I still struggle daily at times with sadness and anger, but I have the skills to find new ways to deal with it.

I speak a lot more openly about our infertility, and in fact will be having a solo art show that in centered around my personal experience with it.

I have stopped trying to push The Barreness away and instead strapped on the baby Bjorn.

I will always have her on my back; sometimes she will be asleep sometimes screaming demands.

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