Isn't it funny how our emotions can manifest in unexpected ways? I've made no secret of the fact that I've been having the crappiest time in the past few weeks, but really since the surgery and probably as far back as when that bombshell was dropped on us last October.
When Gordon was checking my pulses last Friday, he commented that my lungs were weak and it was really jumping out at him. That didn't really surprise me as I'd been on antibiotics for a chest infection two weeks ago and while I had felt that it had cleared up, I had been feeling kinda miserable since the previous Wednesday. I was feeling kinda flu-ey, with a sore throat and had developed an annoying cough. I hadn't really thought much of it as there are so many illnesses and viruses going around at the minute... and with a compromised immune system, along with working with children... I do tend to pick up absolutely everything that is going around.
Gordon used some lung points, and they really hurt... not only while he was inserting the needles, but for quite a few minutes after they had been inserted. He said that they were hurting because there is a lot of grief in my body. I didn't really pay any attention to that comment at the time, but it has turned out to be quite a relevant and interesting observation.
So... I had a really miserable weekend, both emotionally miserable and physically miserable. I woke up at 3am this morning and was spiking a temperature of 39.6, was struggling to catch my breath and then started coughing up green, bloody mucus (TMI sorry). Time for a trip to the Caredoc. I'm always concerned when I see anything green coming from a person because it usually indicates an infection of some sort. Luckily enough there was a Dr. in Cashel and she was able to see me right away. After a fairly detailed examination, she diagnosed a bronchial infection and a sinus infection, put me on a nebuliser for a bit and prescribed a course of steroids and antibiotics for a week.
I emailed Gordon this morning to update him on what was going on and also to let him know that he was spot-on about my lungs being weak. He responded by telling me that when there is lingering grief in the body, it affects the lungs. Huge amounts of grief tends to overwhelm the lungs and manifest itself in the form of illnesses like bronchitis or even pneumonia. It was only then that I recalled the comment he had made on Friday about my lungs being weak and there being a lot of grief in my body. I began to think about my medical history and I realised that up until about 3 years ago, I had never ever suffered with any problems with my chest. In the past three years, I have had bronchitis twice, I've suffered huge issues with my chest after having operations, and I've had about 3 chest infections every year. Just some food for thought really, but something that has really made me think. Sometimes it is hard to imagine that our emotions can affect our physical well-being to such an extent, but I guess the evidence speaks for itself.
As I sat in Gordon's waiting room on Friday, feeling probably the most unsettled that I have felt in a long time, freaking out because I was forced to park my car in a way that meant I was taking up two spaces, because the two cars on either side of me had each taken up two spaces and that was the only available space. I found myself looking through the albums that Gordon has sitting on the table in his waiting room. There are three albums full of Thank You cards and pictures of the new babies that Gordon has played some part in bringing into the world. In the midst of all of those cards and beautiful pictures... I spotted a card that I had sent to Gordon (I think in 2011). It was a CHRISTMAS CARD...!!! and simply read 'Thanks for everything, have a great Christmas'. I have to say I was surprised (and that's putting it mildly). With the mindset that I was in... I found it quite difficult to see a Christmas card from me among all of those Thank You cards and new baby pictures. My initial thought was that my card doesn't belong in there.... I don't belong in there....
And... of course... me being me... I had to mention this to Gordon... (after I had managed to move my car into just one space of course, to relieve my OCD, so I could actually think about something apart from the fact that I was taking up two parking spaces...!!!) I told Gordon that it really sucks to see a Christmas card from me in there, when it should be a Thank You card with a new baby picture. Looking back now, I regret even mentioning it to him. I should have trusted him and just known that he would have put that card in there for a reason and I could have just hugged him when he told me what that reason was. He said 'Anne-Marie, that card is in there because that is your space, and that space is just waiting and ready for the day that you send me a picture of your new baby and then I will replace your Christmas card with that picture.'
It's funny how I had initially seen it so differently, it had seemed to me that it was just a huge reminder of how I just don't fit in there, when the biggest contribution I can make to an album of new babies is a Christmas card. Instead, Gordon was making sure that I truly would 'fit in'. He was making sure that there would always be a place for my baby in that album - whenever he/she finally arrives. Gordon is so certain and assured that I will have my own baby some day, and that Christmas card will be replaced with a picture of my new baby. When I think about it now (with a much clearer head), I am almost embarrassed at how it had initially seemed to me, but I can truly see now that it really is just a way of reassuring me that I will never be overlooked, and my space will be there for as long as I need it to be.... Gordon will be there on this journey with us for as long as we are on this journey.... and the day that he can replace that Christmas card with a photo of our new baby... that will be the day that I stop being concerned about 'fitting in' or being left behind... because not only will that album be 'complete'... but my world will be 'complete' too.
Monday, March 31, 2014
Sunday, March 30, 2014
This House Is Too Quiet.......
I woke up at 6 this morning and my first thought was 'Yaaayyyyy, time to get ready for work' (yep, I'm really sad like that - I LOVE Monday mornings), within a split second I had realised 'Oh, its still Sunday, Yaaayyyy for that' and then..... 'Oh, its THAT Sunday!'
Mother's Day - we meet again... my arch nemesis, that has the ability to render me emotionally incapacitated, simply by just existing. On this day six years ago, I was the Mother without her baby. As the years went on... 'baby' quickly became 'babies' and I find myself laying in bed thinking about the hustle and bustle that should be going on downstairs. This house is too quiet.
Social Media is awash with Mother's Day posts, people honouring their mothers and partners honouring their children's mother... and rightly so, Mothers are amazing. I have seen a lot of posts from people sending thoughts to those who's Mothers are no longer with them, and I can only imagine that to be as painful as what I am feeling today. Being a parent is the hardest, but most rewarding job in the world... and in reality, one day isn't really enough.
(I think Lulu just picked up on my thoughts about the house being too quiet... coz she just ran downstairs and set off the burglar alarm...!!!)
I know I am not alone in my dislike of this day. I know that anybody who has lost a child will be feeling that today. Even those who have other children that will make a fuss of them today... there is always that feeling of 'but XXX should be here too'. The thing is though..... I really want to love this day. I so badly want to be part of the 'Mammy Club' that I hear so many of my friends talk about. I so badly just want to hold my baby in my arms and know that nothing else in this world matters. I want to know why that has been taken from me time and time again. Ten times I have had a baby growing inside me. I've done the morning sickness and the weird cravings, I've heard the heartbeats, I've had countless scans, I've endured more than one hundred hours of active labour.... Ten times I've done this... why do I not even get to have one baby...???
I think what makes today so difficult is that I actually don't know what to do with today. I don't want to go anywhere because I don't want to put myself in a position where I am surrounded by what I am trying to avoid. Every year I tell myself that I want to change my associations with this day. I don't want to be a miserable ball of uselessness.
When I was with Gordon on Friday, he told me 'Anne-Marie, I think maybe you just need to cry'... I think maybe he was right, because the floodgates opened before I started writing this post, and they are still flowing good and strong. Maybe this is the day that I do just get to cry... for the reasons that we all know... but also, maybe just because I need to. This is the day that I can cry my heart out and nobody will ask 'what's up?'... because everyone already knows. I don't have to explain why I'm sad today... It's just... 'because'.......
I do hope that all of the Mothers out there do have a very special day today, and I hope that all of the people who are missing their Mother today, and all of the Mothers who are missing their babies today... can find some way to just get through the day.
For everyone that smiles today, there is somebody who is shedding a tear (or ten thousand tears, like me), Maybe some day we too will smile on Mother's day, and through our smiles - just shed one tear (or ten).
I keep reminding myself that it is just one day, and the alarm clock will go off at 6am tomorrow morning and it will be Monday morning and it will be time to get up for work.... Yaaaayyyyyyy...!!!
Mother's Day - we meet again... my arch nemesis, that has the ability to render me emotionally incapacitated, simply by just existing. On this day six years ago, I was the Mother without her baby. As the years went on... 'baby' quickly became 'babies' and I find myself laying in bed thinking about the hustle and bustle that should be going on downstairs. This house is too quiet.
Social Media is awash with Mother's Day posts, people honouring their mothers and partners honouring their children's mother... and rightly so, Mothers are amazing. I have seen a lot of posts from people sending thoughts to those who's Mothers are no longer with them, and I can only imagine that to be as painful as what I am feeling today. Being a parent is the hardest, but most rewarding job in the world... and in reality, one day isn't really enough.
(I think Lulu just picked up on my thoughts about the house being too quiet... coz she just ran downstairs and set off the burglar alarm...!!!)
I know I am not alone in my dislike of this day. I know that anybody who has lost a child will be feeling that today. Even those who have other children that will make a fuss of them today... there is always that feeling of 'but XXX should be here too'. The thing is though..... I really want to love this day. I so badly want to be part of the 'Mammy Club' that I hear so many of my friends talk about. I so badly just want to hold my baby in my arms and know that nothing else in this world matters. I want to know why that has been taken from me time and time again. Ten times I have had a baby growing inside me. I've done the morning sickness and the weird cravings, I've heard the heartbeats, I've had countless scans, I've endured more than one hundred hours of active labour.... Ten times I've done this... why do I not even get to have one baby...???
I think what makes today so difficult is that I actually don't know what to do with today. I don't want to go anywhere because I don't want to put myself in a position where I am surrounded by what I am trying to avoid. Every year I tell myself that I want to change my associations with this day. I don't want to be a miserable ball of uselessness.
When I was with Gordon on Friday, he told me 'Anne-Marie, I think maybe you just need to cry'... I think maybe he was right, because the floodgates opened before I started writing this post, and they are still flowing good and strong. Maybe this is the day that I do just get to cry... for the reasons that we all know... but also, maybe just because I need to. This is the day that I can cry my heart out and nobody will ask 'what's up?'... because everyone already knows. I don't have to explain why I'm sad today... It's just... 'because'.......
I do hope that all of the Mothers out there do have a very special day today, and I hope that all of the people who are missing their Mother today, and all of the Mothers who are missing their babies today... can find some way to just get through the day.
For everyone that smiles today, there is somebody who is shedding a tear (or ten thousand tears, like me), Maybe some day we too will smile on Mother's day, and through our smiles - just shed one tear (or ten).
I keep reminding myself that it is just one day, and the alarm clock will go off at 6am tomorrow morning and it will be Monday morning and it will be time to get up for work.... Yaaaayyyyyyy...!!!
Saturday, March 29, 2014
Fertility Olympics
I currently find myself in a mindset where I really do not want to write, but if history has taught me anything..... it's that when I find myself not wanting to write - that really is the time that I most need to write. Similarly, when I find myself not 'wanting' to go to Cork to have a session with Gordon - that is the time when I most need to go to Cork. I had an appointment with Gordon yesterday, and I found myself very reluctantly travelling to Cork. It wasn't that I didn't want to see Gordon, or that I didn't want to have acupuncture - it was that my head was in such a messed up place that I felt like I didn't want to burden him with it. Gordon always tells me that it is the day that I do not show up for an appointment, the day that I do not have the strength to meet with him, even to just talk about what is going on..... that is the day that he will worry about me.
So... what is going on...??? The truthful answer is that I really don't know. I am still in a lot of pain. I am pretty much going from being premenstrual, to menstruating, to ovulating and back to being premenstrual again. I am having about four days a month where I am just uncomfortable and not in really bad pain. I feel like I am just not getting a break from it and it is seriously messing with my head. My GP is referring me to a pain specialist to see if we can find a way to manage this pain until it settles down.... in about 6 to 8 cycles...!!!
The most accurate way to describe how I am currently feeling, would be 'fed up'. I'm fed up with being in pain, I'm fed up of feeling crap, I'm fed up of pregnancy announcements, I'm fed up of feeling like I'm being left behind, I'm fed up of not knowing where this journey is going to take me, I'm fed up of not being in control. I'm finding myself wanting to scream at the world... to just STOP! I want the world to stop moving forward without me. I want the whole world to stop getting pregnant until I do. (I never said my feelings were reasonable - just honest). Mostly though, I'm fed up of being fed up.
This weekend is especially difficult for me and I so wish it wasn't, as it was my beautiful bichon, Lulu's third birthday yesterday and we got a new bichon puppy (Penny) so she will have some company. I should be loving this, it should be such an exciting time - just like when we got Lulu first, but instead I am reminded that I missed Lulu's first birthday 2 years ago because I was having surgery for yet another ectopic pregnancy, yet another baby that should be here... just... lost. Also, I'm dealing with the torture that is tomorrow. 'Mother's Day' is always horrific for me. It is the one day every year when I really just want to climb under a rock and wait for it to just pass me by. I know I have lots of predetermined 'bad days' throughout the year... days that would have been my due dates, days that I lost my babies, days when bad things happened..... but 'Mother's Day' is just a culmination of all of those 'bad days'. It is the day when all of the things that I should have, but don't have, hit me with the power of an arctic truck filled with grief and sadness and just... well... missing my babies.
Here is a pic of our new puppy...
I spoke with Gordon for quite a long time yesterday, and the one comment he kept making was that 'there is just no spark anymore'. He kept telling me that I need to find something, anything to relight that spark in my life. Everything I have been through has completely drained me of any spark of happiness and he said that I need to make it my mission to find some way to see the positives in things. He also told me that we need to find that spark long before we even consider going to the Czech Republic for more treatment.
Gordon did give me some amazing advice yesterday. He told me that I need to stop looking at the processes that I need to go through on this journey, as a group of individual battles that I must fight with everything that I have to conquer each one as I encounter them. He told me that I need to look at this whole journey as my 'Fertility Olympics', and I need to view the entire process in the same manner that an athlete views the actual Olympics. It is not just about putting everything into the four weeks that you are actually 'competing', it is more about the build-up, the preparations, the four years immediately previous to the Olympics, and all of the minor 'competitions' that you must conquer on the road to the Olympics.
My 'Fertility Olympics' will take place in the Czech Republic in 2015, so I need to put everything that I have into making sure that I am in the best place possible within myself, and that my body is in the best condition possible to give our last chance at this, the best chance possible at being successful.
I know this is amazing advice and I know that I will so embrace that and take that completely onboard, as soon as my head is in a better place. In order to help to get my head in a better place, Gordon has asked me to do one thing - He said that because having a baby is my ultimate goal in life, and that is not an option in the immediate future - he has asked me to find something in life that I want to do... something that is just for me, not for Patrick, or for work, or for my family or friends, or for Lulu, or for anybody.... something that is just for me.
To be completely honest..... my response was: "I don't think there is anything", but I will certainly make a genuine attempt at finding something.
Right now, all I want to do is curl up and get through this weekend.......
So... what is going on...??? The truthful answer is that I really don't know. I am still in a lot of pain. I am pretty much going from being premenstrual, to menstruating, to ovulating and back to being premenstrual again. I am having about four days a month where I am just uncomfortable and not in really bad pain. I feel like I am just not getting a break from it and it is seriously messing with my head. My GP is referring me to a pain specialist to see if we can find a way to manage this pain until it settles down.... in about 6 to 8 cycles...!!!
The most accurate way to describe how I am currently feeling, would be 'fed up'. I'm fed up with being in pain, I'm fed up of feeling crap, I'm fed up of pregnancy announcements, I'm fed up of feeling like I'm being left behind, I'm fed up of not knowing where this journey is going to take me, I'm fed up of not being in control. I'm finding myself wanting to scream at the world... to just STOP! I want the world to stop moving forward without me. I want the whole world to stop getting pregnant until I do. (I never said my feelings were reasonable - just honest). Mostly though, I'm fed up of being fed up.
This weekend is especially difficult for me and I so wish it wasn't, as it was my beautiful bichon, Lulu's third birthday yesterday and we got a new bichon puppy (Penny) so she will have some company. I should be loving this, it should be such an exciting time - just like when we got Lulu first, but instead I am reminded that I missed Lulu's first birthday 2 years ago because I was having surgery for yet another ectopic pregnancy, yet another baby that should be here... just... lost. Also, I'm dealing with the torture that is tomorrow. 'Mother's Day' is always horrific for me. It is the one day every year when I really just want to climb under a rock and wait for it to just pass me by. I know I have lots of predetermined 'bad days' throughout the year... days that would have been my due dates, days that I lost my babies, days when bad things happened..... but 'Mother's Day' is just a culmination of all of those 'bad days'. It is the day when all of the things that I should have, but don't have, hit me with the power of an arctic truck filled with grief and sadness and just... well... missing my babies.
Here is a pic of our new puppy...
I spoke with Gordon for quite a long time yesterday, and the one comment he kept making was that 'there is just no spark anymore'. He kept telling me that I need to find something, anything to relight that spark in my life. Everything I have been through has completely drained me of any spark of happiness and he said that I need to make it my mission to find some way to see the positives in things. He also told me that we need to find that spark long before we even consider going to the Czech Republic for more treatment.
Gordon did give me some amazing advice yesterday. He told me that I need to stop looking at the processes that I need to go through on this journey, as a group of individual battles that I must fight with everything that I have to conquer each one as I encounter them. He told me that I need to look at this whole journey as my 'Fertility Olympics', and I need to view the entire process in the same manner that an athlete views the actual Olympics. It is not just about putting everything into the four weeks that you are actually 'competing', it is more about the build-up, the preparations, the four years immediately previous to the Olympics, and all of the minor 'competitions' that you must conquer on the road to the Olympics.
My 'Fertility Olympics' will take place in the Czech Republic in 2015, so I need to put everything that I have into making sure that I am in the best place possible within myself, and that my body is in the best condition possible to give our last chance at this, the best chance possible at being successful.
I know this is amazing advice and I know that I will so embrace that and take that completely onboard, as soon as my head is in a better place. In order to help to get my head in a better place, Gordon has asked me to do one thing - He said that because having a baby is my ultimate goal in life, and that is not an option in the immediate future - he has asked me to find something in life that I want to do... something that is just for me, not for Patrick, or for work, or for my family or friends, or for Lulu, or for anybody.... something that is just for me.
To be completely honest..... my response was: "I don't think there is anything", but I will certainly make a genuine attempt at finding something.
Right now, all I want to do is curl up and get through this weekend.......
Sunday, March 9, 2014
Happiness Is...
It's unusual for me to draft a blog post. I usually just start writing and see what comes out.
Recently (ever since my last post), I've been thinking a lot about 'happiness' and what it would take to just be happy. I found myself making notes of the different thoughts that I was having, with a view to writing about them.
I drafted that post over a few days, was happy with how it was looking and then... then I decided not to post it. I had logged on to Gordon's website and saw that his latest post was entitled 'Fertility and Happiness', and to his credit - this is the most amazing post he has ever written. This post made me stop and think. I felt that he had put things so clearly and so beautifully, and while there were quite a few similarities between that and what I had drafted, his words were flowing in a way that mine weren't. His writing carried you along on a weightless wave of pursuit until you can find a way to arrive at the destination that is 'Happiness'. That was very calming and settling for me to read and I genuinely felt that the topic had been accomplished and anything else that could be said about it would only serve to take from the beauty of Gordon's post.
I emailed Gordon to congratulate him on a fantastic blogpost and to let him know that I was so proud of what he had written that I would not be posting about the same topic. He responded telling me that he feels that it is important for me to post my thoughts on 'happiness', and he thinks it would be quite interesting to actually look at 'happiness and fertility' from two different angles.... so here goes...
Over the past 5 years there have been many times of uncertainty, many times where I have felt completely in Limbo, not knowing what path I was going to take or even what step to take next.
I remember emailing Gordon (yes, I email him a lot!) during one of those times. It was just after we had gotten Patrick's sperm re-analysed and had been told that he has 100% anti-sperm antibodies. I was going through a really bad time with all of this and even though we still had 2 embryos from the original cycle in cyropreservation, I wasn't in a place where I could even think about going back to the fertility clinic for yet another cycle. (To give you some perspective... the cycle immediately previous to this one - resulted in the whole Ectopic Pregnancy - Emergency Surgery - Chemotherapy situation) I was going back and forth in my head for weeks, I could not make a decision. I would think that I wanted to go back for another cycle and then I would be struck by the paralysing fear of something similar happening again. This went on for weeks and weeks and eventually I emailed Gordon on a Friday to tell him that I was taking the whole weekend to figure this all out and I would force myself to have a decision made by the following Monday. I received an email from Gordon that Monday, simply asking 'Decision Made?'. I responded with ' I don't know what I am going to do, but I have decided that I just want to be happy'. He asked what is it going to take to make me happy?, to which I responded 'having a healthy baby' and therein the decision was made and it was an easy decision to make. When you can see the finish line and the prize that lies immediately beyond that line... the process to get there doesn't seem so daunting. I went through that process, I went through that whole cycle... knowing that even though I was really struggling from day to day, every day was one day closer to achieving 'happiness'. Unfortunately, that didn't quite work out as planned and what has transpired since then has made the achievement of 'happiness' seem almost unattainable.
I've been thinking lately about how much our fertility journey has impacted on our whole lives, and really, I suppose - how we haven't really had 'lives' since this journey started. It completely takes over. When I think back to when Patrick and I first got together. I was still at University and gosh, did we have a lot of fun. My friends from University still talk about the crazy nights out we all had (almost every week) and how I was so vibrant, so much fun, a party animal of sorts and the things we got up to... well.... lets just say there were many, many memories made :-) Patrick and I got engaged when I was still at University and married the following year. I had always known that I wanted to get married and start a family while I was still young, and in my head.... I had it all. By the time I was 25, I was married, we'd had our house built and had moved in, I had opened my own business which is running successfully to this day, We still met regularly with my friends from University and continued to make fun memories.... Life was as close to perfect as I thought it ever could be... so it was the perfect time to start a family..... and that is where life stopped for us.
Life became so meticulously timetabled, there was no room for spontaneity - no room for fun and definitely no happiness. Everything became about my cycles and what was to be expected on each day of each cycle. It became about a lot of worrying and anxiety if things didn't fully go as scheduled. Everything became about being home at a certain time to take injections. We couldn't make plans. Nights out have been pretty non-existent, even the consumption of alcohol has pretty much become a bi-annual thing. (Yes... I am having alcohol pretty much just twice a year since this began).
My friends from University will call every so often to try and arrange for us all to get together and nine times out of ten, I have had to say 'I'm sorry, I can't go'. I'll either be having some surgery or procedure of some kind, or recovering from that... or taking hormones that are making me too ill, or in too much pain to travel, or just so fed up with my own pathetic existence that I don't feel like being around people.
We have been on some pretty fantastic holidays in the past few years, but even those have not been to enjoy ourselves.... they have been to get away... they have been because I couldn't stand to be at home on the dates that my babies would have been due... and while it doesn't make the dates any less significant... I wanted to create good memories to have of those days to go along with the otherwise heartbreaking associations.
I remember on my very first visit to Gordon's clinic, he told me of the importance of having fun, of enjoying myself. He said just one hour of real fun and enjoyment per week is enough to make a huge difference. That sounded like such an easy task at the time.... surely everybody manages at least an hour of fun every week..... but even that became too much to ask. While you are going through an IVF cycle, you are afraid to do anything, because you are afraid that anything that you do will affect the outcome of the cycle. You constantly question and second-guess yourself. I didn't allow myself to drink coffee, or eat chocolate, or run, or dance, or walk too fast. It even affected the clothes that I wore... because what if the waistband of that skirt or trousers might be a tad tight and might cause the embryos not to attach. I remember suffering with migraines for weeks and weeks and just putting up with them because I was too afraid to even take paracetamol. You live in fear.... and in turn... when things inevitably did go wrong, It was so easy to look back and think 'Oh, I shouldn't have run to answer the phone that time..... Or I should have drank more water... or maybe it was the time I was a minute and a half late taking that hormone injection'.
Everything that we have been through has sucked the fun and enjoyment from our lives. I don't know what it is to be 'happy' anymore. Sure, we have many fleeting moments of contentment, but that is not enough. I guess I thought that we would be able to inject some 'happiness' into our lives during our current 'break from all things fertility' and perhaps we will be able to, but I am still suffering so bad from my last surgery. I am uncomfortable all the time, the really bad intense pain does not occur as often as it was doing, but while I thought I would be pain free by this stage... its looking like a long road ahead to getting to that point, if I ever get to a point of being pain free.
Sure, we have plans. We are going to Dublin for a weekend in the coming weeks, something we have had booked since last October... and while I am so looking forward to it, even a weekend away comes with an arm-long list of restrictions. I can't do this, I can't do that, that will be too far to walk, I won't be able to spend that long sitting down... etc... etc...
Gosh, how I wish I was able to just let my hair down, to have a good time and not have to worry about the damage I am doing to myself or how it will affect things in the future. How I wish I could just be ME.
When I think of who 'ME' is.... I think of the vibrant, sparkly, feisty young woman who was forever on the stage, always singing and dancing, always involved in productions, always doing 'something'. I think of the young woman bouncing around, exuding 'happiness', so bubbly that she gives everyone she meets an emotional 'lift' with no effort, just by being herself. I think of the young woman who would always be the life and soul of any party.... and now, I think of what I have become.
Certainly, I can be any one or all of those things.... but only with effort... only by consciously suppressing how I am really feeling and putting that front up to the world.
I don't know if I will ever return to that version of 'ME', but perhaps there is a way to figure out who the current 'ME' is and to come to terms with that in a way that is acceptable to me. Unfortunately, the quest for the achievement of 'happiness' is still one that eludes me, as I genuinely believe that I will never truly be happy until I am holding my baby in my arms... the likelihood of that actually happening is anybody's guess right now and therefore I feel that I must stop trying to find 'happiness' for now, but more find a way to accept myself in the place that I currently find myself.
One thing I am happy about though is that I am finding myself no longer trying to sugar-coat how I am feeling. I feel that even my writing has changed and I am a lot more candid and true to how I am really feeling now. This journey was never going to be all rainbows and butterflies, but instead of some rainbows and butterflies... well, we are left with no rainbows or butterflies... and in many ways I have come to terms with the fact that there are lots of things that are going to upset me or that will bring to mind upsetting memories, and while I do not want anyone to feel like they have to walk on eggshells around me for fear of upsetting me, I have to accept that all of these things are part of me and part of who I am.
Sometimes it strikes me as quite strange at how raw things can feel to me, even though this has been going on for so many years. I wanted to share a story with you about something that happened yesterday. I was chatting online with some of my closest friends from the UK, it was quite a lighthearted conversation with lots of joking and laughing going on. I was vaguely conscious all the time that yesterday was one of those 'significant dates' for me, but felt like I was doing pretty well and was managing not to dwell on it. The conversation somehow came around to the subject of 'ugly babies' (looking back, it was a humorous conversation... kinda like the Father Ted 'Hairy Baby' skit). The three other members of the conversation all seemed to be finding this quite funny, but it sent me into total meltdown. With the mindset that I was in, I just could not see how they could think that it could ever be okay to call any baby 'ugly', nor could I understand how they could ever think that this could be funny. In my head, all I could think of was about the babies that I have lost and how every baby I see is the most beautiful baby that I have ever seen. I found myself thinking 'How dare they say that about anybody's baby, they don't know what that person might have gone through to have that baby and they think it is ok to say that the child is 'ugly' '. I got soooooo mad with them. (Anybody who knows me knows that I do not get mad very often, but gosh... when I do... its best to run fast and run far coz it ain't gona be pretty). At that point, I was completely beyond any reasonable level of communication or comprehension that they were in fact just kidding around and would never actually refer to or even think of any baby as being 'ugly'. I spent about 30 minutes being mad... and about 4 hours feeling embarrassed at how I had reacted. I am thankful that these people are actually friends of mine and have some understanding of why I reacted in the way that I did, but it just drives the point home to me that I am still very unsettled and not at all 'myself'... and still very much 'recovering'.
So..... Happiness is..... well, I have absolutely no idea..... but I know this is not it...!!!
Recently (ever since my last post), I've been thinking a lot about 'happiness' and what it would take to just be happy. I found myself making notes of the different thoughts that I was having, with a view to writing about them.
I drafted that post over a few days, was happy with how it was looking and then... then I decided not to post it. I had logged on to Gordon's website and saw that his latest post was entitled 'Fertility and Happiness', and to his credit - this is the most amazing post he has ever written. This post made me stop and think. I felt that he had put things so clearly and so beautifully, and while there were quite a few similarities between that and what I had drafted, his words were flowing in a way that mine weren't. His writing carried you along on a weightless wave of pursuit until you can find a way to arrive at the destination that is 'Happiness'. That was very calming and settling for me to read and I genuinely felt that the topic had been accomplished and anything else that could be said about it would only serve to take from the beauty of Gordon's post.
I emailed Gordon to congratulate him on a fantastic blogpost and to let him know that I was so proud of what he had written that I would not be posting about the same topic. He responded telling me that he feels that it is important for me to post my thoughts on 'happiness', and he thinks it would be quite interesting to actually look at 'happiness and fertility' from two different angles.... so here goes...
Over the past 5 years there have been many times of uncertainty, many times where I have felt completely in Limbo, not knowing what path I was going to take or even what step to take next.
I remember emailing Gordon (yes, I email him a lot!) during one of those times. It was just after we had gotten Patrick's sperm re-analysed and had been told that he has 100% anti-sperm antibodies. I was going through a really bad time with all of this and even though we still had 2 embryos from the original cycle in cyropreservation, I wasn't in a place where I could even think about going back to the fertility clinic for yet another cycle. (To give you some perspective... the cycle immediately previous to this one - resulted in the whole Ectopic Pregnancy - Emergency Surgery - Chemotherapy situation) I was going back and forth in my head for weeks, I could not make a decision. I would think that I wanted to go back for another cycle and then I would be struck by the paralysing fear of something similar happening again. This went on for weeks and weeks and eventually I emailed Gordon on a Friday to tell him that I was taking the whole weekend to figure this all out and I would force myself to have a decision made by the following Monday. I received an email from Gordon that Monday, simply asking 'Decision Made?'. I responded with ' I don't know what I am going to do, but I have decided that I just want to be happy'. He asked what is it going to take to make me happy?, to which I responded 'having a healthy baby' and therein the decision was made and it was an easy decision to make. When you can see the finish line and the prize that lies immediately beyond that line... the process to get there doesn't seem so daunting. I went through that process, I went through that whole cycle... knowing that even though I was really struggling from day to day, every day was one day closer to achieving 'happiness'. Unfortunately, that didn't quite work out as planned and what has transpired since then has made the achievement of 'happiness' seem almost unattainable.
I've been thinking lately about how much our fertility journey has impacted on our whole lives, and really, I suppose - how we haven't really had 'lives' since this journey started. It completely takes over. When I think back to when Patrick and I first got together. I was still at University and gosh, did we have a lot of fun. My friends from University still talk about the crazy nights out we all had (almost every week) and how I was so vibrant, so much fun, a party animal of sorts and the things we got up to... well.... lets just say there were many, many memories made :-) Patrick and I got engaged when I was still at University and married the following year. I had always known that I wanted to get married and start a family while I was still young, and in my head.... I had it all. By the time I was 25, I was married, we'd had our house built and had moved in, I had opened my own business which is running successfully to this day, We still met regularly with my friends from University and continued to make fun memories.... Life was as close to perfect as I thought it ever could be... so it was the perfect time to start a family..... and that is where life stopped for us.
Life became so meticulously timetabled, there was no room for spontaneity - no room for fun and definitely no happiness. Everything became about my cycles and what was to be expected on each day of each cycle. It became about a lot of worrying and anxiety if things didn't fully go as scheduled. Everything became about being home at a certain time to take injections. We couldn't make plans. Nights out have been pretty non-existent, even the consumption of alcohol has pretty much become a bi-annual thing. (Yes... I am having alcohol pretty much just twice a year since this began).
My friends from University will call every so often to try and arrange for us all to get together and nine times out of ten, I have had to say 'I'm sorry, I can't go'. I'll either be having some surgery or procedure of some kind, or recovering from that... or taking hormones that are making me too ill, or in too much pain to travel, or just so fed up with my own pathetic existence that I don't feel like being around people.
We have been on some pretty fantastic holidays in the past few years, but even those have not been to enjoy ourselves.... they have been to get away... they have been because I couldn't stand to be at home on the dates that my babies would have been due... and while it doesn't make the dates any less significant... I wanted to create good memories to have of those days to go along with the otherwise heartbreaking associations.
I remember on my very first visit to Gordon's clinic, he told me of the importance of having fun, of enjoying myself. He said just one hour of real fun and enjoyment per week is enough to make a huge difference. That sounded like such an easy task at the time.... surely everybody manages at least an hour of fun every week..... but even that became too much to ask. While you are going through an IVF cycle, you are afraid to do anything, because you are afraid that anything that you do will affect the outcome of the cycle. You constantly question and second-guess yourself. I didn't allow myself to drink coffee, or eat chocolate, or run, or dance, or walk too fast. It even affected the clothes that I wore... because what if the waistband of that skirt or trousers might be a tad tight and might cause the embryos not to attach. I remember suffering with migraines for weeks and weeks and just putting up with them because I was too afraid to even take paracetamol. You live in fear.... and in turn... when things inevitably did go wrong, It was so easy to look back and think 'Oh, I shouldn't have run to answer the phone that time..... Or I should have drank more water... or maybe it was the time I was a minute and a half late taking that hormone injection'.
Everything that we have been through has sucked the fun and enjoyment from our lives. I don't know what it is to be 'happy' anymore. Sure, we have many fleeting moments of contentment, but that is not enough. I guess I thought that we would be able to inject some 'happiness' into our lives during our current 'break from all things fertility' and perhaps we will be able to, but I am still suffering so bad from my last surgery. I am uncomfortable all the time, the really bad intense pain does not occur as often as it was doing, but while I thought I would be pain free by this stage... its looking like a long road ahead to getting to that point, if I ever get to a point of being pain free.
Sure, we have plans. We are going to Dublin for a weekend in the coming weeks, something we have had booked since last October... and while I am so looking forward to it, even a weekend away comes with an arm-long list of restrictions. I can't do this, I can't do that, that will be too far to walk, I won't be able to spend that long sitting down... etc... etc...
Gosh, how I wish I was able to just let my hair down, to have a good time and not have to worry about the damage I am doing to myself or how it will affect things in the future. How I wish I could just be ME.
When I think of who 'ME' is.... I think of the vibrant, sparkly, feisty young woman who was forever on the stage, always singing and dancing, always involved in productions, always doing 'something'. I think of the young woman bouncing around, exuding 'happiness', so bubbly that she gives everyone she meets an emotional 'lift' with no effort, just by being herself. I think of the young woman who would always be the life and soul of any party.... and now, I think of what I have become.
Certainly, I can be any one or all of those things.... but only with effort... only by consciously suppressing how I am really feeling and putting that front up to the world.
I don't know if I will ever return to that version of 'ME', but perhaps there is a way to figure out who the current 'ME' is and to come to terms with that in a way that is acceptable to me. Unfortunately, the quest for the achievement of 'happiness' is still one that eludes me, as I genuinely believe that I will never truly be happy until I am holding my baby in my arms... the likelihood of that actually happening is anybody's guess right now and therefore I feel that I must stop trying to find 'happiness' for now, but more find a way to accept myself in the place that I currently find myself.
One thing I am happy about though is that I am finding myself no longer trying to sugar-coat how I am feeling. I feel that even my writing has changed and I am a lot more candid and true to how I am really feeling now. This journey was never going to be all rainbows and butterflies, but instead of some rainbows and butterflies... well, we are left with no rainbows or butterflies... and in many ways I have come to terms with the fact that there are lots of things that are going to upset me or that will bring to mind upsetting memories, and while I do not want anyone to feel like they have to walk on eggshells around me for fear of upsetting me, I have to accept that all of these things are part of me and part of who I am.
Sometimes it strikes me as quite strange at how raw things can feel to me, even though this has been going on for so many years. I wanted to share a story with you about something that happened yesterday. I was chatting online with some of my closest friends from the UK, it was quite a lighthearted conversation with lots of joking and laughing going on. I was vaguely conscious all the time that yesterday was one of those 'significant dates' for me, but felt like I was doing pretty well and was managing not to dwell on it. The conversation somehow came around to the subject of 'ugly babies' (looking back, it was a humorous conversation... kinda like the Father Ted 'Hairy Baby' skit). The three other members of the conversation all seemed to be finding this quite funny, but it sent me into total meltdown. With the mindset that I was in, I just could not see how they could think that it could ever be okay to call any baby 'ugly', nor could I understand how they could ever think that this could be funny. In my head, all I could think of was about the babies that I have lost and how every baby I see is the most beautiful baby that I have ever seen. I found myself thinking 'How dare they say that about anybody's baby, they don't know what that person might have gone through to have that baby and they think it is ok to say that the child is 'ugly' '. I got soooooo mad with them. (Anybody who knows me knows that I do not get mad very often, but gosh... when I do... its best to run fast and run far coz it ain't gona be pretty). At that point, I was completely beyond any reasonable level of communication or comprehension that they were in fact just kidding around and would never actually refer to or even think of any baby as being 'ugly'. I spent about 30 minutes being mad... and about 4 hours feeling embarrassed at how I had reacted. I am thankful that these people are actually friends of mine and have some understanding of why I reacted in the way that I did, but it just drives the point home to me that I am still very unsettled and not at all 'myself'... and still very much 'recovering'.
So..... Happiness is..... well, I have absolutely no idea..... but I know this is not it...!!!
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