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.

It is a very common question to ask women if they have children, a casual question, almost like an ice breaker.
What people do not expect is when a woman answers that she doesn't have a child. The next question is why...almost involuntary, but just as causally.
Why is this ok? Do people really want to hear the answer?
They are never prepared for the answer.
I use to think to not answer, but the questions makes me uncomfortable; I pulls me back into the pain, the sorrow and the dispair. So in my own defense I turn it back onto them and answer frankly, with that, they are driven into a very intimate realm that they are not prepared for and silenced.
That is my justice.

I have taken the title of "The Barreness" in order to empower the word, reclaim it as mine and not be ashamed. There are many of us out there, we are a tribe of forgotten women.

After years of protecting myself from unwanted pregnancy, I have found that there was no need. I am barren.

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