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.