Is it All Worth It?

I keep hearing my mother-in-law's voice in my head from a few weeks ago when she told me that all of this IS worth it. It's so worth it to have that baby, she said to me.

And, it just didn't resonate with me... anymore.

It's been a very painful 3 years. With 3 fertility treatments. With 3 miscarriages. And surgery. And even before the 3rd pregnancy and miscarriage, I began a downward spiral. A spiral so bad that I understood for the first time in my life why people would want to end their lives. Why the day in, day out misery has to end.

I never actually contemplated ending my life, but I understood it better. Better than I ever had. I finally understood how a friend of mine did it to his life years ago.

So, when I look back on the last 3 years, I see losing myself. I see putting my life on hold. I see extreme measures to get something I was having a hard time getting. I see darkness. I see misery. I see gloom.

And I think - that can't be what life is supposed to be like. It just can't be. As my friend, The Infertile Mind, reminds me - I used to be a happy person before all of this.

I just want peace. I want to be happy again. I want to be ME again. I want to find that passion in life again.

And I can only do that if I let go of this want so badly. And letting go of it for me hasn't meant "we'll just see what happens". It's meant "I don't know if I actually want this anymore".

So... no, I don't think it's worth it. Not when I can look ahead and see sunshine and color and my heart singing again. Having children is NOT worth that misery again. I just can't do it. I won't do it.

I've got plenty of people whodo exist that I can love. With my whole heart. I have children in my life that I can influence, that I can spend time with, and that I can support and care about. That may be enough for me. That may be more than enough for me.

I'm also not ready to say this is it, I'm done. Not yet. This journey has been a long one and I know I need to sit with this idea for awhile longer. But right now, right this second, I can say wholeheartedly that it's not worth it. There's more to life than this one thing. There's so much more.

Relating IF to TV and Movies

In the last couple of weeks, I've seen 3 instances in tv and movies where IF/loss were addressed in ways that completely resonated with me:

1. Gre.y's Ana.tomy. Last week Meredith broke down admitting that she was jealous of Callie's baby shower.
2. Parent.hood. Julia and her husband have been trying to get pregnant for a few months and the show started out with her negative pregnancy test once again. The show ends with her describing uterine scarring which will likely prevent a pregnancy from happening.
3. Rab.bit Ho.le. This movie, starring Ni.cole Kid.man and Aa.ron Eck.hart, is about how they deal with the grief of losing their 4 year old. What got me was the relationship between the wife and her mother. It was so tenuous, with the mother clearly sometimes saying the wrong things (by mistake) and sometimes being helpful. At one point, the mother says 'sometimes I don't know your rules'.

While I don't love that infertility and loss continue to exist, it does make me feel better knowing it's at least getting 'out' there. And while it is still characters playing these roles, it makes me feel like I'm not crazy to have similar thoughts and reactions.

I also like that making these issues more prevalent may help others understand what it's like to go through infertility and loss.

I'm glad to see tv and movies helping us to feel less alone.
And that completely resonated with me.

Back to Counseling

I've gone back to counseling. I can't seem to figure out how to best deal with disappointments I have with my family members AND I want to further explore what could be our next step.

Disappointment of Family Members:

• MIL: I'm terribly upset with my mother-in-law and how insensitive she can be toward me. From going on and on about ultrasound pictures of my sister-in-law to me to not acknowledging my pain and hurt over our dog dying, she just doesn't get how to empathize and be sensitive. The way she is with me when I'm going through something painful makes me feel ignored.
• My mom: She just sometimes doesn't have a filter. So, while most of the time we can have a fine conversation, I never know what she'll say related to fertility and it can catch me off guard. She also just doesn't know how to listen and really be there for me, which has left me feeling like I just don't have a mom when I need one the most.
• The rest of my family (dad, brother, sister-in-law and father-in-law, brother-in-law and sister-in-law): They are just utterly SILENT. They don't really ask about how I am and acknowledge how painful this must be.

All of this makes me feel alone (though thank goodness for my husband, best friend, close friend and pastor!). It also  makes me question what family really means. People always say that family is there when you really need them, but I haven't felt that to be so in my case.

Next Steps:

I've been thinking a lot about being childfree and really feel being pulled in this direction. To me, trying to conceive and build our family has been nearly nothing but a painful road for us. It seems natural that after 3 years, fertility treatments, 3 miscarriages and surgery I'd say 'no way' to that anymore.

When I look back at trying to build our family, it's a dark and sad time in my life. When I look toward the future without any of that, I can see rays of sunshine.

I've had to accept and embrace the things are are in my life and stop focusing on what isn't.  In doing that, I've been able to really feel happy about my life and take advantage of what life without children brings to me.

BUT I also know that not being a mother is something I never envisioned for myself. And I know that my husband still wants us to keep trying, so my immediate next step is counseling.  I want to try and see if I can sort out this pain enough to potentially feel like wanting children again or if my husband and I have further discussions ahead on trying to deal now with different wants.

I'll keep you posted on how it goes!

Mourning the Loss of Our Precious Dog

His name was Profit. Though we had a million names for him. One of my favorites is Precious P.

He was a Chesapeake Bay Retriever. He lived 14 years and 4 months. He had a really, really good and active life - was totally a fetching and swimming dog. Old age just got the better of him.

It was so hard when he leg finally gave out on him last Friday night and we knew we'd have to take him into the vet to put him down.

Saturday morning was bittersweet. We got to spend some great quality time with him, petting him lots and giving him tons of love. I'd never been through something like this before so being with him as he passed was such a privilege but also just so, so hard.

And yet, the grief I felt was just too familiar. Grieving 3 miscarriages in a year on top of infertility for 3 years... and then to lose our dog. It feels like too much.

He really was our baby - we always called him that.

And it just feels so empty and quiet now without him.

We love you Preciousness!

Reflecting on Turning 36 & Children's Educations

Happy birthay to me! :)

When does middle age start? I kinda feel like now-ish. 35 seems to feel like an end to something. And I keep asking myself - how is it that I'm 36?

I guess I'll be of the mindset that age is only a number. It's how you feel. And what you do with your life that can make you feel any age.

And yet I'm reminded by someone's recent post who watched her neighbor grow up into a young woman who is now married and pregnant - and this someone posting said she was old enough to be this person's mother. And I thought I'm old enough to be an 18 year old's mother! Yikes.

Yikes for me, but not for a lot. Some of us looking into adoption are potentially looking at babies of mothers around that age.

I was with my brother and sister-in-law this weekend, away from my parents, so I got to see another side of them, perhaps the truer side of them. Her 7 year old is in a read-a-thon at school which involves him reading at least 15 minutes a day. I was very interested in this as I love books and for almost every occasion I get my nephews books, knowing full well that I may be one of the main people exposing them to books in their lives (my dad may be the other).

She explained the program to me and said sometimes I just let him think that it's been 15 minutes because I can't take spending that much time reading with him.

Yes, that's right - she can't spend 15 minutes reading with him. How is that possible??? I said bring him over anytime, I'll spend 2 hours reading with him!

It made me so upset that I talked about it for the rest of the weekend, with my husband, with my friends. It was so incredulous to me. Maybe I'm not being fair. Maybe I don't know what it's really like to read books over and over and over again...

And then she talked about how her mother used to get on her about how much she drank and whether she was able to take care of her kid (at the time). And she boasted that she feels she can drink and take care of her children. Like that was a big feat.

Yet, I'm reminded that my brother's wife had her first child at 19 and then the next one by accident as well 4 years later. These were both unplanned children. And that's not to say that they aren't good parents or can't put in the effort now.

But I couldn't help but feel like these kids are somehow potentially doomed. Or will most likely have a pre-determined route based on what they're exposed to, or rather not exposed to. And I mentioned to B that maybe we shouldn't put as much in their 529 colleage savings plans... I can't help but feel like how can they say school's important but then get annoyed at reading with their kids? Or maybe education isn't the only thing that predicts making it...

My husband just said that this is all the more reason we need to keep up their 529s, to give them incentive and encourage their educations.

I will do whatever I can to expose them to books, reading, education. In fact, I walked into a bookstore that's closing yesterday and bought several books for them... for Christmas already!

And, I plan to spend part of my birthay reading. :)

Preparing for SIL Baby Shower in May

How do I muster up the... the what? courage? emotional stamina? for my sister-in-law's baby shower in May? This is for B's side of the family...

I've got some time to prepare but I'm sure that if I don't do the work now, that date will soon be upon me and I will be unprepared.

I could always not go, but I'd rather try to prepare and think I can deal with it.

It's going to be a big ordeal and I'm actually surprised that it will be a big ordeal. And I don't know if I can handle a big ordeal.

It's mostly my mother-in-law, though. I think she's the one I have to prepare for the most. She will likely say 20 things that will bother me and I need to figure out if I can let it just roll off or what.

In thinking this through, wespent Saturday with my side of the family and micraculously without any references to pregnancy. In fact, after awhile, I was the one who asked my (other) sister-in-law about her best friend who just had a baby and her sister-in-law who is expecting in April. It actually felt good to be able to talk about it all and feel normal about it.

I really do just want to be normal. But I also know that what we're faced with isn't normal, so trying to create normalcy is challenging.

And in the meantime, I have to contend with our church's focus right now on our toddlers and babies, and it can sometimes get to me. Not as much as it used to but still... The good news is, I spent time with my nephews and my best friend's kid this weekend and loved every second of it!

Seven weeks till this big baby shower. I can do it! :)

Happy For Them, But...

I feel like nobody in my real life really understands how I'm feeling right now. And I don't know what I would do without this community and without my monthly support group. Thank you for your supportive comments this past week.

And I feel like I'm being whiny about this and really want that to stop.

But: my brother- and sister-in-law posted their ultrasound pictures to fb yesterday. And while I'm happy for them, this really caused a stir in me. And I don't like that it did.

Why can't I just be plain and simple happy for them? Why does seeing their ultrasound pictures have to create mixed emotions for me?

And now I'm wondering if this really does mean that I want to start trying again. So much in me is saying no way. I'm not ready and don't know if I ever will be again.

This time last year, I was still grieving our first miscarriage (I keep calling them miscarriages but I know they were only biochemical pregnancies since I never make it to week 6, so not sure what it is but it still feels like a loss). It took me a long while to get over that. And it wasn't until April when my best friend told me she was newly pregnant with #2 and after I cried and cried over our sadness still, that same weekend I decided I was ready again.

So, I'm wondering if that's happening now. I don't think so but I don't understand why this is making me so upset when I'm generally happy with our lives and with our decision right now, and I am happy for them...