What is the drive? Wouldn't life be simpler if I didn't feel so compelled to take care of little creatures, see them grow, love each other, love me, love C. To see what will happen next.
Why do such things fill my heart?
When I was pregnant and exhausted and puking and sick of being nauseous, and crying that i just wanted to eat something and enjoy it...I joked that I understood my mother's expression "I'd rather be 40 than pregnant." I was so happy, silly infertile that I was, to be having twins. My children would each have a sib, I wouldn't feel the need to try to get pregnant again. Secondary infertility wouldn't be a worry. We would be done. I even said it out loud, "it's a good thing it's twins because I'm never going through this again." Or something like that. And I laughed. But really, I was relieved that I wouldn't have to worry about being pg again -- because it would be so hard to get there, so hard to go through it again.
What the fuck was I thinking??
All my life I made jokes about tempting fate. Or, not really jokes, because I sort of half believed it. Before I started spotting, just a teeny bit at 18 weeks, I actually said it out loud: I'm so happy, and things are going so well, like I always wanted. Marriage, career, kids.
Why did I say it out loud? Did the "fates" come strike me down? Did I jinx myself? Did I count my chickens before they were hatched (ugh). Did the universe punish me for asking for too much?
Feels like it. I know, I know. I've discussed this before, this magical thinking. It's not realistic, it's not healthy. If I start to believe that, I start to believe that things happen to people for a reason, that some deserve children and others don't, some deserve pain, some people can "handle" more than others. That there is some force in the universe deciding who gets their wishes fulfilled and who does not.
I am not perfect. I am basically a good person. Usually, I try to be a good person. But I don't deserve this. None of you deserve it. Honestly, I can't think of something a person could do that would make them deserve this pain, and this struggle.
To want this. To have to fight so hard for it. Over and over again. And have it ripped away.
And I want this. Despite all the nausea and all the heartache. Some switch got flipped again, and I want to do this again. I don't think I'm ready. And that pisses me off. But there was something about being pregnant. That is something I want. At the very core of my being.
But I don't trust that I can have it. I don't trust that I can achieve it. I don't trust that I can bring a living child (or two) into the world. And do right by them.
I want to parent. I want to bring a child into the world. And it makes me weep because I want to so badly. And I'm so angry that I got denied this. I'm so angry that on top of infertility, I got denied the pleasure of ever simply trusting in a pregnancy, of trusting a doctor. Of learning to trust my body and my own instincts to take care of myself and my children.
I'm so angry that my children were taken away from me. I'm so angry that I loved them so much and have suffered so much for it. That I let myself love them. And I want to feel that love again. I want the joy of pregnancy. I want another chance.
I'm so angry that I may never get this. And I'm so afraid. Of all of it. What if I never get pg again. What if I do and we lose another child? I honestly don't think I could get through that again.
The sadness and the anger and the pain. Deepest sorrow. The rage. RAGE. (This word can only be in capital letters.) At the loss and the injustice and the struggle. And the pain.
10 comments:
Hang in there STE...and no, nope none of this is fair. And no off handed comment or fate-tempting caused this or could have changed it. It just sucks.
RAGE is exactly right. None of it is ok, and none of it makes sense. I hope with all of my heart that you get to be pg again and that you get your live baby at the end of the journey. I so get the fear, I live with it everyday. What I told myself when we decided to scream at the fates one more time was that I would rather stare my fears in the face, risk and all, than look back later in life with any regrets that I didn't at least try.
I hope the pain lessens and the struggle gets at least a little easier, for both of you.
I trust that you can do this, because you want it so badly. When we want something so badly, our hearts cry out.
I understand the rage. It's normal. But hard to live with.
yes, a thousand times yes.
Anger and rage really sum me up lately.
If saying something like that really jinxed us, think of all the stupid ass other things you have said...
I know exactly what you mean -- the irrational feeling that I must have somehow jinxed myself by being too happy, too hopeful.
I understand this completely. I have such rage too. And I want the same thing, but am so fearful of it happening again. It's just not fair for any of us.
I hope you get another chance, STE. I don't know if you even want to read my comments because infertility is not something I've ever known. I am so sorry that you have to deal with this in addition to losing your boys. It's just so unfair and wrong.
I said a lot of anvil-like comments when I was pregnant, and I can't decide what about that hurts exactly -- that I somehow jinxed it? Or that I should've known?
And I've said it before, but infertility and babyloss are two really ugly vines when they get twisted together inseparably like this. I'm not really sure what I want, anymore.
Hi, you don't know me. I found your blog indirectly through glow in the woods. I too lost twins after going through years of infertility. I could have written this post myself. Children dying is unfair no matter who it happens to...but it feels even more unfair when it happens to us, when we had to go through so much to get those children. I don't really believe in "tempting fate" but I have thought to myself how fascinating it is that I was supposed to be ~done~ after this pregnancy...and now I'm back where I started, only much, much sadder.
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