Wondering while Wandering

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

New Wave

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy Mothers Day...everyone else

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

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

oh my aching back

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

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

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

All is quiet

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

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

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

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

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

Awaiting the disapointment

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

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

Branded and cast out of the village.
Barren.

Come and Gone

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

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

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

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

Day by day for now.

Same stick different day

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

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

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

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

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



Turns out we weren't.
again

and so we begin again...

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

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

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

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

Happy Anniversary

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

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

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

Over these last years I have:

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

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

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

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

* I have locked away my dreams of a child

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

" I think you should try again if you want"

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

But

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

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

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

Opening Pandora's box....

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's been a while

It has been a while since I written.

I have been working on my management skills...

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

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

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

*How to not be bitter

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

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

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

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

Below is the first image in the series:

Pieces of my heart

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

20 years later

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

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

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

Mother F***'s Day

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

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

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

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

Upcoming Birthday Mantras

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

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

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

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

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

What was that?

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

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

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

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

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

Deaf ears are a true friend to The Barreness.

It's lonely out here

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

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

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

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

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

Comedy of tragedy

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

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

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

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

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

Are you sure now?

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

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

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

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

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

I felt completely broken when I left.

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

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

Sometimes it is almost too much.