As time has moved on in this journey, so have I emotionally.
The fervor and passion has died down in me significantly as other life concerns mount themselves in the way of my infertility.
Back in the private sector on poverty wages, my bills don’t seem to add up to my dreams anymore. I work three jobs, two of which are on the low wage end and it is devastating how poor I am now compared to the prosperity I had at the one job that wrongfully terminated me. I do wish feverishly to have that security back in funds if nothing else but I absolutely do NOT miss the stress of that place. But having these financial issues is so new and unsettling for me it has taken my focus off of trying to get pregnant.
I do work at Starbucks now and have logged about 4 shifts so far, most of which have been training. I have my practice shift tomorrow and I am already considering how I can get more hours so I can speed up the insurance process and probably the few extra dollars it will bring will be good as well but it really does not pay much. The time I an investing is for the ultimate goal of having children. But I must figure out how to survive this realistic low wage existence that I have now. I also have a job in the banking industry that is part time that I hope to turn into a career. I will have to invest time in order to get that to happen I know but I am willing. If I can even get to part time in that area that would help tremendously. Right now being underemployed and underpaid is very scary.
Infertility was once my worst fear and now it has been replaced in line. Don’t get me wrong I am still invested. I did some ritualistic things this cycle and tomorrow I have my IUI which I am nervous about. Everything so far has failed it is hard to hope that this will work. And because money is tight we don’t have much to try it more than once or twice. Probably once. I don’t know if I can handle anymore heartbreak. If from there it doesn’t work then I will make getting the insurance at Starbucks my focus so that we can try IVF this year. That’s all the options I have and that we can likely afford at this point. That is our reality. This is something we are really relying on to work.
I had two 20 CM follicles and I triggered last night. We did have sex and it was a lot of work cuz I was so tired and had to get up at 4:15am to get ready for Starbucks even. But we always give it our best shot. We have for months now. At some point all of this does have to pay off. Somehow.
I am 7 DPO in my two week wait and on Prometrium which is a brand of progesterone and that has been an experience to say the least. Mostly it has been being clammy at night and crazy dreams that are sexual and bizarre in every way. It’s awkward because I have to vaginally insert them and I had no real side effects beyond those first two until today where I became really crampy. But other than that I remain kind of meh about if I am pregnant or not. It remains a long journey and I am just used to disappointment.
The easy week of the Two Week Wait is over now and I will again enter into the crazy spell where I will have mood swings every day up until I test about if I am pregnant or not. This I can’t seem to help and it always comes with the second week. Maybe the hormone shifts make the experience more intense. Can’t say for sure but I know it is coming like clock work.
And because I am on progesterone inserts I have to test before my period is to come so I can quit them two days before and allow it to come. I am certainly not looking forward to that as I am an absolute wreck when I take those tests and get BFNs. But I have to bear it all in this quest to be a mother.
Time is truly rolling on. In a couple days it will be the anniversary of my chemical pregnancy. I remember that like it was yesterday getting that super faint positive and thinking this was it and then taking another test a couple days later and there was nothing and then getting my period. One of the most concussing and devastating experiences of my life and I believe it kicked off my hormonal imbalance that has finally been righted by my doctors. The weight is falling off of me now and my skin and hair look amazing. If nothing this journey has gotten me back to a physically healthy place where I belong I believe. For that I am certainly grateful.
The other day I decided to work on painting the room our eventual baby will be in after putting it off for over a year and a half since we first thought of the idea that we wanted to try to have children. I thought it would jinx us but life sort of did that anyway so why not? I chose a vibrant yellow and honestly it will take a few coats to get this blue in here covered. I should have painted it white first but I didn’t think of that. It hasn’t been as fun to do as I anticipated. I always think painting will be fun for some reason then the real work of it sets in and I’m like whhaattt was I thinking? Today I’m at that stage and about out of paint with about 1/3 of the room left. I’ll grab another gallon next week and finish it. For now I am going to go have lunch and then maybe take a nap before I move on to cleaning the bathroom.
I’m going to enjoy this last relaxing day before the crazy week starts
I don’t know how I have survived any of this past almost year and a half of constant and monthly disappointment.
I don’t know how much it has changed me and probably not for the better. I feel perpetually depressed around the same place in my cycle every month and I cannot escape the pain. There are no tricks
My husband got angry with me this morning because I told him I couldn’t eat for 30 minutes after taking my Levothyroxine. He claims I snapped at him and then when I asked him if he was okay he told me smartly he’d tell me in 30 minutes. That hurt and felt so unnecessary. I asked him why he was acting like that and tried to blame it on me and said I am always turning stuff around on him. That morning before I came downstairs I had already witnessed my temperature drop on my Ava so I was already feeling low. So I cried on the way to work because my husband is a mean person is what I was feeling. If he feels like someone is being mean to him, he hits back. He doesn’t try to find out what’s going on with the person or understand where they are coming from…he just hits back. And I didn’t need to be hit today. I actually never do. And I started believing again that the reason I can’t get pregnant is that we are not meant to be anyone’s parents because we do not have enough trust and compatibility to get along. I don’t know if these are poisonous thoughts of a person struggling with infertility of the thoughts of a wife who is fed up of fighting about nothing period. Anyway I cried all the way to work…
When I arrived I managed to pull myself together enough for working with the kids. Recess was indoors that day and I was able to read some 0f the nice projects kids made for their families hanging on the wall. One project was pots of gold that were hanging up on the wall and the kids wrote who were worth more than gold to them. Many said their teachers or their parents and it made me tear up reading about how much these kids loved these people.
At lunch my back was aching because I will probably get my period today or tomorrow. I was back and forth to different tables and sitting down in between because of the ache. It didn’t stop all day and one of the other supervisors who was working came over and demanded to know why I was sitting down. Now I never knew sitting down was an issue as each time I sat down it was at a table with some of the kids anyway and just for a couple of minutes. She told me they were not paying me to sit down and I needed to be walking around the tables. I told her my back hurt and she told me if I have a disability I need to let someone know. It was so cold and thoughtless and after my highly unnecessary row with my husband I felt like I was being picked on today. I kept my mouth shut afterwards and decided I was not talking to that lady every again. I was wondering if I got another job offer if I would take it because I do love working with the kids though it doesn’t pay much. But after that incident of nastiness I think that I would. There wasn’t any warmth towards me or what I was expressing was going on towards me.
Warmth and understanding would go so far. When I got home I took my test because I had thought it over and I knew with the medication having arrived I was best to get my mind fixed on if I was gonna be a pin cushion or not.
And pin cushion it is.
I was going to add in the negative test but there are enough of those through the blogs. From then on I cried and cried and cried until I could just see enough to write this post. I am in a dark place. I am always in a dark place in this time and I feel so very alone. I do not feel like I have anyone I can lean on in support really and I’m sick of telling everybody about it and getting useless words of comfort. Even on the Facebook groups. I’m sick of it.
I just want to be pregnant and I don’t want to have to keep going through all of this stuff over and over and over again. And I have seen so many people who are posting birth and pregnancy announcements and me I am posting nothing but more money and doctors bills and more hurt. HURT HURT HURT.
BEING INFERTILE FUCKING HURTS. I just wish my writing were good enough to let you know how it feels to have your heart ripped out once a month over and over again and have no one treat you kindly while you’re struggling with the absolute worst struggle. To have your husband turn on you because you rejected his offer of cereal and to have a person who isn’t even your boss basically tell you you’re being lazy on the job because you sat down at a table with some kids because your back hurt.
If I could make you guys understand how painful and useless I feel with everything that has happened to me in the past few months I would maybe see a bright side to any of this.
But I can’t. I have to run this race again. I have to. And right now I don’t even know if I really want anymore. I don’t know if the universe is ever going to allow me to have a baby. I’m 34. And my husband and I aren’t getting along anyway. Do I even deserve a baby? Is that it? Is that why I can’t fall pregnant?
I feel I will never know the answer. So I will just cry.
Hell I have had to learn to accept it. And part of that journey is me freaking out over every symptom quietly during the last week of my cycle hoping to be pregnant but afraid to…ya know…REALLY HOPE that I am pregnant. It is the hardest part of this whole journey besides CD1.
You did the work.
You took the medications.
You charted your life away.
And maybe you’ll be pregnant finally and maybe you’ll be disappointed all over again. You only want the pregnancy outcome, of course. But you don’t want to not be emotionally prepared for the disappointment.
I mean there’s really no way to know you are pregnant and at this point I have given up with knowing. I try not to symptom spot and I don’t take any of them seriously but I do get nervous if say my breasts aren’t a certain level of sore or my temperature isn’t that high. I don’t know why because none of it really means anything but I guess when you want something this bad you are going to obsess over it some what logic be damned.
Every other week there is something to do. Especially if you are on a medicated cycle. And by the first week you are happy for a break from the timed sex etc so that time doesn’t seem so daunting I believe.
But this week when you are waiting to take a test…so close to finding out if you are maybe pregnant…this is the hardest week and I just dread having to experience it month after month after month.
I saw another pregnancy announcement today on Facebook and I thought…Stupid Stork…when is it going to be MY turn? How much more will I have to invest and put into this process to get my baby? How many more races will I have to run?
That’s how it feels. There is no exact number of times I will have to try this before I am successful. There is no exact number of two week waits last weeks that I will have to survive. I know I will survive them though but I don’t know how much longer I have to go on. And that in itself can be such a despairing experience.
I hope for this every cycle…you can read back if you don’t believe me. But I hope this is it. I hope I am finally pregnant. I hope I will not become a complete nut the rest of this week emotionally. I can’t guarantee it but I hope.
I don’t think I will test this cycle despite what my RE wants. I think I will wait until my period comes and then schedule my appointments. When I call with the negative test anyway all they tell me is to call back when my period starts so it seems like a waste no matter which way you slice it. It may be better for my sanity that way. So no one lined window for me this cycle either way it goes.
Let’s just hope I can make it through this week in peace.
I’m on the Clomid again and boy does the Clomid suck. My husband and I are getting along better but not by as much as I would like. Our time in marriage counseling though I think helped some things along for us and I am hoping that with all the challenges ahead we are not going to fold like an umbrella to the pressures of the world. My husband is a good but flawed person. Honestly if he would only get his act together with money then I could probably endure the rest as he is a really good partner otherwise except for a short temper and his believe that people are out to get him even when they wish him well.
But who among the trying to conceive is perfect? I have been a crying and anxious mess on Clomid and I can barely stand myself. Luckily my husband works a lot but unfortunately for me there is no vacation from the madness and many of my coping mechanisms are out the window.
Still jobless I can no longer afford Fit Body Boot Camp and this week thanks to Clomid (which I am gonna call CloMAD from now on because I hate it that much) I haven’t even gone the last few days I could go. I just couldn’t make myself leave the house. The disappointment of all the rejection emails from trying to get a job just has me in a place where I don’t want to be bothered. But the reality is I NEED to be bothered. Being alone all the time with everything I am dealing with just isn’t good for me.
And for a while I was doing well. I was even cooking again and pretty active about taking care of myself but with CloMAD the good days come and go just like the bad ones. I am trying very hard to be patient and positive with myself even though it feels like every little thing in my life is going wrong.
I have had some wild dreams on CloMAD and I dreamed the other day of breastfeeding a beautiful baby girl. I want children so very badly and as the time and the medications tick on I am starting to lose hope. I even had a bracelet that said hope on it that I lost just this week. So that bummed me out even more.
I just want a baby and I’m tired of all the hard work in life with no rewards. Filling out job applications and constantly being rejected. Struggling with weight loss. The Golden State Warriors struggling after the All Star Break (ok that is not that important but today it feels important) and my husband and I humping our lives away and dealing with my mood swings on medications and having no baby to show for it. All of it is just beyond overwhelming at this point.
Where is our win? And when is it coming?
Tomorrow I have my ultrasound appointment and I hope I have some follicles that are close to mature. I hope I have 60 of them. I don’t care if they say there are too many we will still have sex and try to get pregnant. I just don’t care anymore. It doesn’t seem to matter even when we do have them we do not get pregnant. I hope this time is different but it’s hard to have faith when you keep getting the same negative results as time goes on.
I also have a step 3 hearing for my case of wrongful termination at work tomorrow. I don’t expect it to be overturned or anything but it’s another step in the direction of getting me my job back and that matters a great deal to me that I may finally have my name cleared of this wrongful termination that has haunted me.
I don’t know where our win is coming from. But I am ready for it. That much I do know. And for the Warriors to start winning again.
We are still doing Sperm Meets Egg like previously explained so wish us the best. No baby dust. That shit does not work.
Posted at 5:12 pm by amayr1984, on February 14, 2019
There is my chart and there is my screaming Big Fat Negative. Perhaps my 10th one or so while trying to conceive as some cycles I did not even test because I got so sick of seeing them. My Reproductive Endocrinologist makes me test now though so I can’t hide from the hurt of the one line staring back at me from that window.
The stark whiteness haunts you when you want that other pink line so badly you dream about it night after night before your test day. You want to be positive but this is where being positive hurts. Because you feel like well maybe you wouldn’t be so sad if you didn’t tell yourself “this could be my month!” even if it was quietly in the back of your mind that you told yourself.
Maybe you would feel less ridiculous if you hadn’t dared to dream about giving your husband a great surprise on Valentine’s Day of a positive pregnancy test since you guys are so broke now thanks to your unexpected job loss that you can’t get each other real gifts. So broke when you were bringing in comfortable incomes and even that job loss feels like an injustice in itself.
What a cruel word we live in where women who want babies wake up on Valentine’s Day to an empty uterus, one line peering back from that white window and the heartache of inadequacy and the fear of how you are going to survive these next months and continue trying to get pregnant.
The one thing that has continued to seem so utterly impossible. The race is almost over again and I don’t see my baby, our baby, at the finish line just as I haven’t months and months before. And I do wonder why that is that I can dream of this baby and these two pink lines but they are never truly there no matter what my husband and I do.
We are both sad today. Sad about so much. The way our lives are changing financially and now the loss yet again of what we both wanted. So sad.
I wish I could say just hang in there and your dreams will come true today. I can’t say that because even though I will hang in there I can’t help feeling that is a lie. I can’t help feeling like I’ve been hanging in here and all I got was a faint line in April 2018 to show for it for all of my hanging. I have way more hurt.
So the race will reset here in the next couple of days and we will try yet again. We will get injectables. I will take new medications and have new side effects and I will hope again no matter the fact that I am hurting so today.
Posted at 6:10 am by amayr1984, on February 5, 2019
If you have read any of my previous posts from the cycles before you will realize that one of my great struggles with infertility (besides of course the whole not getting pregnant thing) is wrestling with the dreaded Two Week Wait.
The Two Week Wait is a time of such anxiety for many women who are trying to get pregnant so this isn’t something unique to me and for most of it, typically I am fine. The last week of it I become a monster of mood swings and anxiety before crying my eyes out because of my negative test or getting my period and then quiet acceptance of the fact that I live to try to get pregnant another month.
I make it through though it is an annoying and hellacious rollercoaster ride. In talking with my husband tonight I realized that some of the worst feelings during this time is the anxiety of did we really do everything we possibly could to get pregnant?
And there really isn’t a hell of a lot you can do except try to have sex on the right days and take your prenatal and not smoke or drink too much and hope for the best. There is so little control in all of this that the lack of control itself can become a source of anxiety because we know we can’t do much about it but we know it just happens to so many people do why isn’t it just happening to us?
Often times my husband and I struggle to get to or stick to a plan that is consistent with Trying to Conceive because it is work. The sex isn’t extremely romantic and sometimes you really don’t feel like having sex at all. It’s a grind at 15 months and we have tweaked and then not gone through with the tweaking because someone didn’t want to do it that much or couldn’t or whatever.
And then when you are in the Two Week Wait you just sit there and you think bitterly “well what if we had done it that one more day!” Those nagging doubts sit on your mind as you wait. You look at your calendar repeatedly and gauge your chances, check your basal body temperature chart and obsess over your Ava data all that week hanging on to hope while sanity slips away.
And this is where Sperm Meets Egg came in and has been a centering force for me. Having a plan, and sticking to the plan and executing it makes you feel like no matter what we gave it our best shot. And knowing that provides some kind of peace because as I said you can’t control much of anything about getting pregnant anyway. But the sex schedule, well that you can control. And Sperm Meets Egg makes a LOT of sense.
The basic break down of the plan is that you start having sex every other day from Cycle Day 8 on. You take ovulation predictor kits and when you get a positive you have sex those next three days in a row, skip a day and have sex one more time. This, to me is great because it allows you to cover a wide span of your calendar without making your partner stay on top of you every other day all cycle as some other plans suggest. Perhaps for those in their 20s that is sustainable but I am 34 and my husband is 40 and we just don’t have the stamina for that much robotic sex. That also leaves us some time at the end of the month to have actual lust based sex which I think makes my husband happy.
Today we completed the Sperm Meets Egg plan. I am pretty sure I ovulated two days ago but we had sex on that day and yesterday was our break and today was our last day. As I spoke with my husband I realized that I was at peace because I know we researched a plan (ok I researched it) we executed it and now we gave the best shot we could towards pregnancy. The rest is up to nature, my body and whatever magic the universe has that is involved with this. But I did my part. There are no regrets on my end and no doubts.
And losing that anxiety means the world. Have you tried this plan? Do you have another plan? Feel free to talk to me!
Posted at 5:32 am by amayr1984, on February 3, 2019
Well according to Glow my Two Week Wait started yesterday…BUT since Ava was more accurate last cycle I used Ava as my guide for when the Two Week Wait starts
Today. So today the rollercoaster begins. And as the hearts indicate my husband and I gave it a pretty good go. Waiting for my temperature to spike to confirm ovulation which I hope happens tonight going into tomorrow. I am very excited and hopeful right now…but I remain realistic. This is my third round of Letrozole and we did have some decent follicles showing so I am just allowing myself the space to accept that we gave it our best shot and what will be will be. We really couldn’t have done much different. The past two days my husband had some difficulty because his stomach was bothering him so we used a menstrual cup as a way to sort of inseminate and I put my legs in the air while I did my meditation. I am hopeful that will be good enough for those days but we have had quite a bit of sex and have stayed hydrated and so I am not sure what more we could have done at all.
This is the tricky part. You can do everything right and still come up short. So you have to try to focus and stay positive because honestly there is no way to predict success with this.
You just have to…wait. For Two Weeks. So I will check in periodically and blog about my emotions like I normally do. I will be testing this cycle on the 15th with first morning urine. And I will go in hopeful that I won’t become a complete emotional wreck like I usually do. And that my husband and I don’t get into any fights and that we remain peaceful. That’s what I want is lots and lots of peace.
I cooked today which was huge for me and I talked to my brother on FaceTime which was very necessary because the Polar Vortex had me going stir crazy. I may make my way to the gym tomorrow. The weather has broken and it is much warmer. I am ready to get out of the house for a bit. It will do wonders for my depression. That much I know.
Anyone else going through the Two Week Wait with my I wish you lots of peace and lots of luck. I hope this is our time.
Posted at 10:05 pm by amayr1984, on January 18, 2019
I am so happy to have my period.
It is painful, and exhausting and as much as I wanted to workout today the Midol is not taking the edge off enough for me to hope to make it to boot camp so it is a wrap on that. I will be staying home with heat on my stomach and hydrating my life away.
And making plans for this next cycle. The next race is upon me and my energy is back mentally. The rollercoaster is all set up again for the ups and downs to come.
I called my reproductive endocrinologist nurse’s desk today and I have to get scheduled for an Ultrasound on Monday to make sure my follicles retreated since I had some really big ones (though of course the big ones didn’t yield me the baby I want). before I can start my Letrozole again at 7.5 MG. Because of this I will be starting it later than Cycle Day 3 so this may mess up my timing on predicting my ovulation. I am not sure. I just hope it isn’t a cyst on my ovaries which is a possibility the nurse wanted to check for. I don’t need any extra hurtles on this journey.
On the supplement forefront I have added iron in to my list of supplements to try to help me get pregnant. I also ordered some Evening Prim Rose Oil to take the first half of the cycle up to ovulation to help with my cervical mucus since I did not notice much last cycle. I will also take Mucinex the week we are trying as well. One of my theories is perhaps my cervical mucus is a little hostile to my husband’s sperm and that is causing some issues. I am hoping by creating a more lubricated environment it will help the sperm get to where they need to get. I also added Flax Seed Oil because I just can’t stand the gummy fish oil. They are very gross and I have not taken them for a long while. So my current supplement list and medication list this cycle will be (bold were my RE’s additions. Not bold were my own):
Letrozole 7.5 MG (3 tablets a day for 5 days) Iron Flaxseed Oil Evening Prim Rose Oil ( week before and of ovulation ONLY) Folic Acid 1Mg Levothyroxcine Metformin CoQ10 Mucinex (fertile week only) Sugar Bear Hair Vitamins (First Two Weeks Only) One A Day Prenatal (Last Two Weeks) PreMama Drink Mix (Last Week of Two Week Wait until test or period)
I have also encouraged my husband to drink more water so that we can make sure his semen also can further support the sperm motility. He had a great semen analysis and I have had 2-4 dominant follicles every time I go to get the ultra sound down on Letrozole so we have the ingredients certainly but we seem to not be able to get the sperm where it needs to go. My uterine lining is always good and thick and last cycle my progesterone is good. Of course even in optimal conditions there is only a 25% chance but the best thing we can do is try to have 4 or 5 months where we are getting the whole 25 percent. Ovulation was our initial hurtle and now I think if we can keep everything else right (good cervical mucus, good semen, timed intercourse and decent diet) we can at least optimize our chances.
I am considering going to IUI route once I get back to work and can borrow a little change from my 401K if we don’t get pregnant in the next cycle. I am willing to wait another cycle if necessary but I really am hopeful we can make this happen before I return to work and both or our schedules become busy again.
Another thing I am going to incorporate this go round is the meditation feature on the Glow App for Premium users. I paid for the premium membership on the app because they had a sale for New Years and I do use it primarily.
And I am committed to attending yoga on Thursdays. I was supposed to go yesterday but went to a social gathering that ran long so I missed it. And the food was nasty at the gathering however I think for my mental health talking to others I had not seen in forever was extremely good for me.
The main goal of this cycle for me is I want to come back and read this post when I am in the two week wait and center myself some more.
It is important for me to remember that I am not a failure. This is a process. It is not the race I envision. Baby Mayr is not always at the end of the finish line. Sometimes the race has no winner and I will never know which race is the one that does. I just have to keep running. It is ok to want to be a mother. It is ok to spend the time and money and effort and energy on this journey and even if I do not get pregnant, I can know I did my best and just keep trying to focus on getting there.
I am healthy. I just need some help getting pregnant. And it may take time. My husband and I deserve this though and eventually we will be rewarded. In the mean time I am going to continue to work on my mood, my finances and getting my home the way I want it so that when the time comes I can welcome my pregnancy and eventually my baby in the most peaceful environment possible.
Posted at 9:25 pm by amayr1984, on January 14, 2019
I actually didn’t cry so very much this time. The saddest part is you get used to the pain. A callous forms and you can still feel it but less and less as time goes on. Over a year and you cannot help but harden to the constant disappointment. You cannot help but have the most agonizing negative thoughts after you have faced your dragon and been burned yet again. You cannot help but resent you body, and the people who get pregnant without trying and brag about it, and the people who will inevitably get pregnant before you do in the journey moving forward. Mostly you will resent those who will try in futility to comfort you when they know all you want is a baby, your own baby and not their meaningless words of “rah rah rah! You’ll get em next time Tiger!” Say do you know how many next times I have been through? Even the words lose their impact as the pain creates the callous. They hit the same hard spot and bounce right back off.
So no I didn’t cry so much this time. I woke up at 4:30 am after having gotten a fairly decent night’s sleep (which should have also been a warning sign because I sleep terribly during the Two Week Wait when my temperatures are up). I checked my Ava against my better judgment and there was another temperature drop. It was still above the cover line but low enough that I knew that it wasn’t a promising sign. I lay there wondering should I just take the test now or would I even be able to fall back asleep with that looming over my head. After a while of laying there I decided to get it out of the way.
On the long, but actually ridiculously short walk to the master bathroom I lived a thousand different moments of pregnancy test anxiety and reflection. I thought about all the times I had come to this same bathroom to get my heartbroken repeatedly this entire year and a couple of months now. I thought about the one chemical I had and how it had later been undone in that same bathroom hours later. I still hoped, because you always hope.
When you grasp that package of First Response Early Response and you begin unwrapping it you can’t help but to hope. You want someone, anyone, or in this case anything to tell you that what you have already told yourself will be is wrong. You deserve that. I mean haven’t you suffered enough? You pull the stick out and pop the pink plastic top off and you think for a moment that there are so many people in the world who don’t even WANT those two pink lines who are going to get them this morning. There are so many people who are in the middle about what they want who will get them. Then there are those who absolutely are dying to get them like you this morning. Who have put on hold drinking, and coffee, and trips to Zika islands and have taken pills and vitamins and their entire sex lives have become timed intercourse…the fertility soldiers. We have put in work for it. And you pee on the stick and you dream that no matter what your temperature and your body is telling you…this time you are going to get what you deserve.
This time you will get those two pink lines. You recap the test.
You watch it develop. You watch as the moisture slides into the window and across that oval and you wait for that second line to fill in. You wait and you think of the look on your partner’s face when you tell him or her. You think of the joy you will feel and the time you will spend decorating the nursery as the moisture reaches the end of the window. You think of the baby shower and the surprised looks from friends and family when you tell them. And you think of the Facebook announcement and how you will recount your success, finally, to all the people in all those trying to conceive groups and message boards you are on. You remind yourself you will be sensitive that other people are trying so you will never start out bragging about how simple it was or it only happened in one cycle! Not you. You will remember that you were once them and you will write the most thoughtful recap of how YOU got YOUR very own…
Big Fat Negative.
And excuse me because I don’t know how to flip it around. That second line never colored. The last line, it always does. So you stare at it some more and you think maybe you see something. You trick yourself that those moments are still so very possible.
You don’t see anything. Because there is nothing to see. There is nothing in your uterus. There will be nothing in your nursery. There will be no Facebook announcement.
You hold the test up to the light to make sure you don’t see anything.
Then you throw it in the trash because you want to get far away from it. Months previous you might have dug it out to just make sure there was nothing on it. But YOU, you are a veteran of infertility now. You know looking 6 more times won’t change anything. Besides you have to wash the deep conditioner out of your head that you wore over night so you can get back to your bed and have the good cry that is always in order and terrorize yourself with anger, self doubt and resentment.
I texted my husband soon after. He called me from work and he is sick. I feel bad for him because I know he cannot help me and yet he wants to help me. I know he doesn’t even think about how not being pregnant is effecting him at all. But I wish he would. I wish he would say he is so disappointed too and thought we really did everything right and he will just be miserable if we don’t get pregnant some time soon as well. He doesn’t. He feels he has to be strong for me and listen to my feelings. But my feelings about my infertility have eaten our relationship whole. I don’t even know that he really likes me anymore because I am just so miserable all the time, who could? But that’s just me taking this out on myself isn’t it?
It’s not my fault I am not pregnant. Logically I know this. I lay in the bed for a couple of hours after talking to my husband and I just go over in my mind all the what ifs and scenarios that would somehow make me even more miserable. If his brother and sister in law got pregnant before us after being married for a much shorter time. If we don’t get pregnant in the next 6 months. If we never get pregnant.
What if I never get to be a mother? Why I won’t be happy. I won’t. I don’t know if I will never be happy because I can’t be if I do not become a mother or if I won’t allow that for myself because I keep repurposing this struggle into a personal failure?
When I do finally wake up again it is 1:33pm and I cannot believe I slept so late. I had nightmares I can’t recall but none of them are as scary as the reality I face. Another month ahead.
Another race. Will I ever catch Baby Mayr? Will it ever not hurt to get a negative pregnancy test.
Will I ever smile and think…”well we got this next month!”
I don’t know. I just know I don’t like riding this ride or running this race much at all. I don’t like knowing the hurt over and over and over again. I want to know victory.
And why for me, potential victory means so much suffering.
Chasing Baby Mayr 