I had to share this

...although I'm probably being way over-sensitive. My brother did warn me an invite was coming. He gets points for that. Ultrasound pic on the invite? I could have used some warning for that, too. He knew I wasn't planning to go. I wouldn't have looked at all. (By the end of the last 10 days, ultrasounds came to represent the most difficult decisions we had to make. Though I don't know if he knew that.)

But, really? Is this what baby shower invitations look like now? I guess it's been a while since I've seen one.

*****
I'm all over the place these days. Thanks for abiding the silence.

going away

Need some quiet for a little bit.

Packing

C has a new post up. I'll probably have stuff to say on the subject soon, too. In the meantime, here it is.

Okay

Who's tired of hearing me bitch and moan? Who's tired of me ignoring all the good things I have in my life, like an amazing husband, a roof over my head, good friends, and food in my stomach?

Yeah, I know.

I"m in a place I never thought I'd be. But one I always feared I'd be.

Well, let me be clear. There was a long time I thought I'd be alone forever. That I would, literally, die alone.

Then, it seemed, there was hope for more, and even more...

As an infertile, I looked around, and *forgive me,* I thought to myself, please don't let that be me. Never getting pregnant. Or, then, pregnant and losing it. Late. And then never getting pregnant again.

Well, guess what.

I know, it's not generous. I know. I'm a bitch, and let me tell you, I often feel like I'm being punished for it.

I started reading Alexa over at Flotsam, the book she wrote. She's the one who had the IF, lost one of her twins and got a living, healthy child out of it. And she wrote a book. Good, so far, too. But it rips me apart, too. My doppleganger* got the baby I didn't.

More alone.

I'm great at feeling sorry for myself. Lord knows. Everyone knows.

I'm trying though. I really am.

But I keep getting flooded with other stuff. Like panic. Like overwhelming sadness. Grief. Guilt. Hopelessness.

Paralysis.

Which of course frustrates the shit out of everyone I know.

I keep trying and i keep getting knocked down.

Yeah, I know, courage (or something like it) is getting up again.

It's really hard. Really, really hard. And I keep getting blindsided.

And I want to feel normal and healthy and hopeful. Because when I am, well, look out.

Be it chemical or physical or emotional, it's feeling kind of out of control lately.

and last night I came to the overwhelming realization that I am letting it win.

And I hate that. I don't want that.

And I am so gripped by the sadness and the grief and the guilt, and now the shame of letting all of this take over my life. I have become one of those people I feared I would. One of those people I looked at and said, wow. Hope that's not me.

Guess what.

I've never felt a depth and such overwhelming...feeling as I have when I was pregnant (joy, anticipation, connection), when we lost them, everything associated with all of this. Grief, sadness, anger, isolation, alienation, envy.

Maybe it is that I don't want to let go of them altogether. Maybe it's all I have.

Maybe I don't want to let go of the dream I had for myself. That I finally let myself have when we finally got pregnant.

Whatever.

I have and am pushing away everyone. I am asking for failure. I am asking for punishment and isolation.

I'm so tired of all this.



*We got pregnant with twins the same week. Due the same day. Lost one twin, but she wound up delivering the remaining, living one, at almost 26 weeks. I had been following her blog from before we got pregnant.

...

I'm so fucking tired of this.

All of it.

Shouldn't I be done with this by now?

This week starts 3 years since the cycle that worked.

I went to the hospital to deliver my sons and all I got was a lousy teddy bear

Well, two teddy bears.

And a uterine infection.

And a touch of ptsd.

*****
Dr. Shrink reduced the new med and I'm feeling all kinds of things. All kinds of things that suck.

Wishing we had waited. Tried to wait to deliver. Wondering what life would be like now.

Wishing I had at least gotten to hold him.

I know, I likely spared him painful procedures.

I know, I could have held him after he was gone. Cold.

I couldn't. Not cold.

*****
I know that others have held their child as he or she passed away.

I am envious.

*****
The other day I was at school for a meeting with my adviser and, on my way into the bathroom, almost ran smack into a gorgeous pregnant woman. She was pulling the door open as I was pushing it open. The wife of a colleague. She is about 39 weeks.

They had a loss at 13 or 14 weeks. He says she is still anxious about losing this baby, despite the fact that things are going smoothly. I told him it's not unreasonable. He said there are members of her family who had stillbirth(s).

He couldn't wait to get away from me. When I left, I was ripped apart.

*****
Trying to get used to the idea of adoption. Elizabeth Sw1re Fa1ker has a book about it, I think. It was too perky for me. Yet, anyway.

Really feeling the end of this. No chance of pregnancy. Never being that woman.

Never holding my baby. Never holding a baby I'd carried.

*****
There is a package, a cartridge of the remnants of the fo11istim we used when I got pg with the boys. And from our last attempt. There are unopened packages of syringes. A bag from cvs with 1oven0x in it. The brave11e donated by a friend, just in case we decided on another cycle. I don't know when it expires, but kind of soon, I think.

I should donate the donation, but I can't seem to go back to my RE's office. I know too much about him via FB, among other things. But I know how grateful I was to get donated drugs. It's not his patient's fault the RE seems to be having a mid-life crisis. If it's not expired yet. Like me.

(Or is that ungenerous of me?)

*****
A good friend, S, is in transition. She and her family are moving across the country. Her husband and kids are on their way, she will follow in a week or two. She misses them. A hole in her chest, she said on FB. Her dog is being clingy. Dogs, I told her yesterday, are good at filling holes. She knew what I meant.

Stella climbed on my lap today, when I got home from errands. My 30-pound lap dog. It was good. But still.

*****
I fell apart in the car today, on the way home from errands. 1ngrid michae1son singing "Fools Rush In." I started thinking of my niece, but all I could see was me holding a baby. My baby. A baby that would be mine.

Or Maybe

Maybe I just need to suck it up.

Watching one of those ER reality shows (instead of sleeping) and they show this woman with stage IV colon cancer. End stage.

She's 25.

And she's pretty philosophical about it. And religious.

*****
My friend B says, "it can always get worse.". She's had a hell of a few years. Or five.

Hm.