I've found myself fighting tears a lot lately. We've been doing some redecorating at work, starting with our Baby Room, and it was 'time' for me to do something I felt like I needed to do a long time ago, and tried several times... but I could never bring myself to actually do it..... Until now...
This is one of the walls in the newly redecorated Baby Room, and the question I have been asked so many times in the past two weeks is 'Where did you get that border, it's beautiful?' It is beautiful and it is perfect and it is more special to me than anyone could ever even imagine.
You see.... I found that border in a magazine and I spent days trying of find somewhere in the country that stocked it. I came up blank, but I did find a shop that would order it in especially for me... and so that's what we did. That border was ordered back in the Summer of 2010, right before we started our first IVF cycle.... and it has sat in a drawer in the kitchen ever since.
To me, that border was the epitome of perfection, it was exactly what I wanted in the nursery for my son or daughter that was sure to arrive nine months after we started that first cycle... What could possibly go wrong...???
I suppose a more accurate question would be 'What wouldn't go wrong?'... and we all know that the answer to that is 'Absolutely Nothing'. Anything that could go wrong, did go wrong and here I stood 4 years, 7 pregnancies and 10 angel babies later... looking at that border every time I opened that drawer in the kitchen and every time I did, that knife twisted in my heart and I realised that I am no longer that enthusiastic 26 year old, I am no longer that woman who has suffered a miscarriage and an ectopic pregnancy, but was willing to place herself in the hands of the Fertility Doctors... because they assured her that they could help her to get pregnant and stay pregnant, they could make sure that there was a beautiful baby to place in that beautiful nursery room with that perfect border. I am no longer that person who can remove myself from my body and stand by and watch as I push myself further and further into the oblivion that is Fertility Treatment, completely regardless of what it was doing to me.... I was only the vessel.... the carrier... it was my future baby that was the only important person, and it didn't matter what I had to go through for that baby, I would do it.... and it didn't matter what anyone said to me... it didn't matter that my oldest brother pleaded to me down the phone after yet another surgery, to 'please stop this, this is going to kill you', It didn't matter that Patrick told me of his concerns that 'maybe someday you won't wake up from an operation', it didn't matter that my friends asked me 'what is it going to take to get you to stop this?', To which I always responded 'I will have a baby, or die trying'..... None of this mattered to me.... the only thing that mattered was the future baby that I would have to place in that beautiful nursery with the perfect border... nothing else mattered... I didn't matter.
And so... I finally discovered the strength to part with that notion of my beautiful nursery with the perfect border, and instead decided that maybe I could share that idea with all of the fantastic people who place their babies in my care every single day.
That border has been up in the Baby Room for about two weeks now and I find myself going in there and feeling very comforted. Everyone comments that it is 'just perfect' and that it is now a 'beautiful nursery'... and it is, it is a beautiful nursery room with a perfect border and the only difference is that it can now be enjoyed by lots of different babies, instead of just one.
I spent the past 3 days in the UK for some University things, and I got to spend some time with some very special friends. While I was over there, even though I was on a fairly tight schedule - I realised that I was having a really good time, I was having fun, I was enjoying myself, I wasn't stressed... (well, apart from a minor meltdown because I couldn't figure out the underground system on my own). While I was there, I was just 'Anne-Marie', and I was happy to just be 'Anne-Marie'. I didn't have the daily reminders of everything that I have been through and everything that I have lost.
On Friday evening after dinner, I had a bit of a heart-to-heart with one of my friends about this and what surprises me is that I could open up and talk about it, I could vocalise what has been going on in my head for months but what I haven't wanted to say out loud because it scared me too much to hear it. For the first time, I could hear how ridiculous it sounds to go to the Czech Republic and put myself through absolute hell all over again... based on the hope of a 1% chance that my embryos might be viable enough to get past the first trimester. 1% - that's what we're talking about here.... 1%.
For the first time, I could see what I've put myself through... I could see what I was and what this has done to me. Being removed from my 'situation' with a little distance, I could see what everyone else sees... and for the first time ever, I could talk about this without breaking down in floods of tears. This friend who I adore and for whom I have so much respect, took my hand and said' Anne-Marie, maybe it's time you started to live your life', and as I sit here and type this blog post, fighting to see the keys through floods of tears... I have to admit that maybe I agree.
Patrick and I had a long conversation about this, this morning, and I could see as I spoke to him about what I was feeling that I was just reiterating to him what he had been feeling all along, but needed me to come to that realisation for myself. Maybe it's time that we stop putting our lives on hold for this anymore, maybe it's time that we start making plans for more than 3 months into the future, instead of being afraid to do that in case that is the time that we are ready to go ahead with more treatment. Maybe it's time that we start to do the things that we have always wanted to do, but haven't 'just in case', maybe it's time when it's ok for me to decide I want to drink coffee (I haven't had coffee in years), or I want to go out and get hammered with my friends every so often, maybe it's time for me to let my hair down and have some fun and not be afraid that everything I do is going to have some adverse effect on my future pregnancy. Maybe it's time for me to start running again, dancing again, singing again.....
Maybe it's time for me to just be 'Anne-Marie' again.......
