vacantuterus

Dear Parents~

The library is not the place to practice Cry It Out.

Your for a better world through the liberal application of common sense~

The Grumpy Librarian

Big fat lot of nothin'

For the past week my head has been full of things to blog about but I haven't had the time to sit and write.  Now my house is perfectly quiet and I can't think of a single thing to say.

Mothers

Check out this great story on the origins of Mother's Day over at Are We There Yet?  It made me feel better about the whole thing, anyway.

Speaking of moms, mine called a few weeks ago to announce that she needed to have (drum roll please) a sonohystogram!  "Heh" I replied.  "I can tell you ALL about that!" 

"I know" she said.  "That's why I'm calling."

So she had it done and lucky her, she has a normal cervix and they didn't have any trouble getting the catheter in at all.  So much for my expert advice.  ("Tell them to bend it like a hockey stick!")  And because the doctor (!) did her procedure, she got her results right away.  She has two polyps.  She needs to have hysteroscopy.

So now we know where THAT came from.

She laughed when she told me about the diagnosis.  "I can't make any of this (meaning infertility) easier for you, baby.  But I can know a little of what you're going through!" she said.  I told her she was the coolest IVF mom around and that I hoped she didn't get an infection or become allergic to her antibiotics. 

Honestly, I'm not glad my mom has polyps and has to have surgery.  But it makes me want to cry in the very best way that she's so excited to be going through all this testing and yuck just to be able to empathize with me more.  I know she'd have a baby for me tomorrow if she could.  She'd do IVF for me in a heartbeat.  The fact that she can't breaks her heart.  But she can do this and has to anyway.  She's making everything better just by being in that space with me.  If you have to do something scary, it's always good to have your mom along for the ride.   

Running toward home.

My dad's CT scan came back, in his words, "negatory."  Apparently whatever they saw on the x-ray disappeared in the two weeks it took for him to get the CT scan.  I feel like I can breathe again.

**************

I dreamt that I was running through the woods.  Everything around me was incredibly dark, in a way that ordinary night is not.  The pine trees were tall and menacing; I could feel their ill will.  Eyes peered out at me from the darkness, bears and wolves lurked in the shadows, ready to eat me.  I stuck to the winding dirt path I was running along.  Oddly enough, I wasn't frightened.  I was only five years old, my wispy golden pigtails bouncing with each step.  I was wearing my red rain boots, an item I own now as adult, the ones stamped all over with moose that come up the middle of my shins.  I had on a yellow rain coat and I was dragging a pine tree by its top, holding it like a jacket slung over my shoulder.  It was heavy and I was tired of carrying it but I couldn't put it down.  In spite of the dark, scary forest and the heavy pine tree, I was happy.  I was almost home.

The trees widened and I saw a row of tall pews, like you'd see in church.  They were dark and empty, surrounded by the trees.  At the end of the empty aisle, if I turned left, was a door.  It was the back door to my grandmother's house, leading into her sunny, bright green stairway.  All I had to do was get up the aisle and into that door and I'd be home and the forest would be gone like smoke.  I'd never have to worry about it again.  Best of all, my dad was there.  I started running. 

I was just beginning to notice that the aisle was getting longer or that I wasn't going anywhere and that the pine tree was really cutting into my shoulder when the door banged open.  My father came out, shrugging on an identical yellow rain slicker, carrying a flashlight.  He came striding down the aisle, calling my name.  The aisle stopped misbehaving and the wolves and bears, which had been creeping up, retreated back to the forest.  "Daddy!" I shouted happily.  As I ran to close the few steps between us, my father knelt down and opened his arms to embrace me.  I barreled into him, dropping the heavy pine tree, and I knew I was safe.  He'd carry me back to the house; I didn't have to fight the forest on my own any more.

I woke up on my side, curled around my pillow, one arm still tucked over my shoulder as though I had just dropped the tree.

This is really getting on my nerves.

Anyone have any theories about why TypePad won't let me post pictures anymore?  Other bloggers with TypePad are posting pictures just fine, so I don't think it's the service.  The little window still comes up and I can still choose the picture I want and click to add it...it just does nothing.  I can click that button all day and get nada. 

Anyone?

Grace, the definition of

Today I was chatting with Beth online.  She told me that she went back to the very beginning of my archives in order to read through my whole journey.  I only gave her the blog address about six months ago, so much of what I've written has gone largely unread by her.  When she told me she was reading it all, I cringed.  As quickly as I could I typed: "I'm so sorry for all the bitter entries early on.  I was in a different place then."  I really meant it; I am sorry for those things and I've been meaning to delete or edit those entries for a while.  I haven't because I've felt like changing them after the fact is dishonest.  But I still regret some of my words.

"Oh, you mean the part where you wished I'd never lose the pregnancy weight?" she typed back.  "I laughed about that.  It's really okay.  I understand.  And I would wish you colic.  :-P"

I laughed out loud at the screen and then the conversation went on to other things.  But later on as I drove to work, I thought about the definition of grace: unmerited favor.  I thought about the fact that one of Beth's screen names is Grayce and the way she shows unmerited favor to me by forgiving my past petty spitefulness and loving me anyway.  I thought about what kind of heart it takes to do that.  I thought about my pregnant friend extending me grace by breaking her news through email.  I thought about my upcoming Goodbye Jimmy Hoffa surgery party.  I don't deserve to be loved as well as I am by all these people.  Infertility has made me thorny and impossible to get along with at times and even though I am growing out of that more these days, I still have my moments of complete unloveablity.  But then always, when I least expect it, better than hope, there is grace.

it is tempting for me to believe that God is not here during the absolute blackness that is infertility.  I am sure most days that my cries for a child fall on deaf ears, or hit the ceiling and bounce off.  This week though, disproves that to me.  I am still shattered into a thousand tiny pieces by my body's brokenness but God is amidst those shards, sending so many people to be His hands and feet to me.  You are surrounding me and comforting me and loving me and forgiving me.  All of you are part of that grace, that unmerited favor in my life.  You are helping me make a beautiful mosaic out of something broken.

Opposite Day

First, I ate sushi. 

Then I went to DSW and didn't buy any shoes.

I don't even know who I am anymore.

God has a plan!

I've been wanting to write about God having a plan for a while.  I know we've all had this phrase tossed at us at least once in our infertility journey and personally, it always makes me feel like crap.  In the beginning I was never really quite sure why.  I am a true believer after all, I really DO think God has a plan.  Why should hearing a reaffirmation of that from someone else's mouth make me so upset?  Why is it comforting when I think it to myself but not when I hear it from another person?  It took me a while to realize that very few people say this phrase genuinely.  Check out my handy translation guide:

                         GOD HAS A PLAN!  (But is that what your friend is really saying?)

"God has a plan!" Said condeceningly.  Translation: "I am more spiritually mature than you and I can see the Big Picture in your life.  If you had more faith, you'd be able to see that this is for your own good.  Lucky for you, I am here to show you all the ways you are going wrong so you can fix them."  Often accompanied by a long lecture and feelings of acute worthlessness.

"Well, I'm sure God has a plan!" Said brightly.  Translation: "Please go away.  I am tired of hearing about all of your issues.  Being friends with you is just too much work.  I don't have the energy or desire to invest any more emotion into our friendship."  Speaker often develops a pressing need to be elsewhere shortly after reassuring you about God's big plan for your life.

"God has a plan."  Said with a tight face.  Translation: "Suck it up, already!  Quit your whining.  At least you aren't starving in Africa."  Speaker's arms are crossed and lips are pursed.

"God has a plan." said with shifty eyes.  Translation: "I have no idea what to say.  I am so uncomfortable just being around you right now.  How soon can I get away?"  You will never hear from this person again.

"I think God has a plan." Said with a deep look.  Translation: "Your dead babies are incidental.   When you adopt/get your repalcement babies, you'll forget all about them.  I am free to think so because I am totally out of touch with the reality of your grief and couldn't care less about connecting with you where you are.  I like my worldview and this is the only way I can make what is happening to you fit into it.  Stop making me think things that disrupt my rose-tinged paradigm."  Often accompanied by the phrase: "You were meant to adopt."

Only a handful of people in my life have ever been able to tell me that God has a plan without coming off as sanctimonious or judgemental.  Real Live Infertile is one of them.  I won't lie, I think authenticity helps.  I know she's walked a mile in my shoes and has felt every feeling I've felt.  When she tells me something, I listen because I know she knows.  There have been a few others and they've all come from a place of humility.  If I had to translate it would look like this:

                                        GOD HAS A PLAN: THE GENUINE ARTICLE

"God has a plan." said with a sigh, as the person holds my hand.  Translation: "I am so sorry your heart is broken.  I am standing here on this windswept plain, crying with you.  I don't think your heartbreak will be for nothing, though.  I think it will have meaning and purpose.   I am a witness to your pain and I hold it my heart.  I will not forget your children.  I will not forget your journey.  I will rejoice with you when this is over.  I will walk with you until it is done."

If you can say it like that, then yes, I think God has a plan.  And I embrace that plan and the friend who reminds me.

 

Heh.

Last night as I was laying in bed it occured to me that all those years my high school gym teacher told me that getting up and running around would ease my cramps, she was dead wrong because she didn't take this septum (and, for all we know, the fibroid) into account.  Eleven years later, I can finally prove that I was right.  Humph.  Take that, Miss Tombs.

Losses and adjustments

Thank you for all your supportive comments and emails in response to my last post.  I want to be clear in saying that I know a septum is not the end of the road, reproductively speaking.  It's not an insurmountable obstacle.  Neither is the fibroid, which to my mind is actually kind of negligible outside of the period pain it gives me.

I think my reaction on Tuesday stems from two things.  The first is that my adrenal glads have only two ways of being these days: calm and ALARMALARMALARM.  Way back, say, oh, five years ago, about when I got married, they coped with stress like any normal person's adrenal glands.  Minor stress meant minor surges and major stress meant major surges and my responses were appropriate.  But the shocks came fast and heavy after we got married between Sarge's illness, his suicide attempt and then all the various and sundry blows that infertility brings.  And now I feel sort of stuck.  My body doesn't respond properly, even when my head knows that things are bad but going to be okay in the long run.  I feel an instant surge of adrenaline followed by a sick stomach and shaky hands and I can feel the whoosh of a migraine up the back of my neck as it clobbers me into nonfunctionality.  Once the migraine hits, I am out for the count.  I can only hear about a third of what is being said to me; the rest of my resources are being spent on trying to remain upright and semi-normal-looking.  At 11 AM Tuesday morning I may as well have just gone back to bed and scrapped the rest of the day; that's about how useful I was to anyone.

I think the second reason I reacted so badly was my complete and total lack of preparedness for bad news.  Normally I spend my life braced for bad news.  I'm pretty accurate at predicting it actually, which is not a gift I relish having.  But this time I was basing my hopes on the HSG, which I assumed to be accurate.  My hopes were really high that everything leading up to the FET would go quickly and we'd reach transfer by March or April.  Unrealistic, I know.  I just couldn't shake it. 

My clinic is located in a large hospital complex and I have to drive past a number of buildings to get to it.  One of those buildings is a Loved One Memorial Cancer Center.  I felt so joyful as I drove past that building.  I am not here for cancer treatments! I thought to myself.  Those days are done for me.  I am well and I am healthy and I am whole.  I am going for a procedure that brings life, not death.  I am going for something that brings hope, not despair.  It was rainy and grey outside but the picture of me in my garden was so strong.  And then the ultrasound of my uterus came and I felt so foolish, like I had tempted fate by feeling so hopeful.  Like a tendril of malevolence from the cancer center had reached out to caress me saying, you're not done with death yet. 

What I'm feeling has very little to do with the septum them found, or with the reality of the situation.  It's more a compendium of losses and my body's response thereunto.  I will be okay in a few days, once I've had time to adjust to this new thing.  That is the flip side of a magnified grief response; the ability to circumnaviagte it in a shorter-than-average amount of time, too.  I just need a little time to adjust my expectations.  And my garden picture.