CF Living after IF

Mixed Feelings

Hubby: “You make sure you wake me up before you take the test, okay?”
Me: “Okay, I’ll tell you when I have to go.”
Hubby: “No. Wake me up and tell me you’re going to take the test.”

So that’s what I did this morn­ing at 6:30 am. Woke Hubby up to tell him I couldn’t hold it any longer. That I had to take the test now.

2 min­utes later it was all over. We hugged each other and then crawled back into bed.

Hubby: “You okay?”
Me: (pauses) “Yes.”
Hubby: “You sure?”
Me: (pauses again) “Sure.”

But really I wasn’t. Even­tu­ally,  I told Hubby the truth. And the truth was that I had mixed feel­ings about the preg­nancy test that I took this morning. 

It was neg­a­tive. And I had mixed feel­ings about it being negative.

I was sad, that’s for sure. You see, I’m late with my period by over two weeks and there’s the part of me that was hope­ful for a pos­i­tive test after all these years. 

I won’t lie … I was already plan­ning ahead; think­ing about set­ting up a doctor’s appoint­ment if the test came back pos­i­tive. I had in my mind when the “maybe baby” would be due. And was decid­ing if Hubby and I would want to know the sex of the “maybe baby” or let it be a surprise. 

I was feel­ing hopeful.

Now that we know for sure that I’m not preg­nant, I’m dis­ap­pointed … but on the other hand, I’m also relieved. 

Relieved because I know that I’m 40 and I don’t know if I have the capac­ity to be a good “older” par­ent. Let’s face it, we’d be closer to 60 by the time our child would grad­u­ate from high school. If we were lucky, in our 70’s by the time our child mar­ried. And if we were really lucky, we’d have time to enjoy grandchildren. 

Oh, I know it’s no longer uncom­mon for women to get preg­nant in their 40’s. How­ever, 40 wasn’t the age I was plan­ning to have chil­dren. I wanted them more than 15 years ago.

Besides, I’ve been com­ing to terms with liv­ing child-​​free after infer­til­ity. I’ve started to think of Hubby & me liv­ing our lives as a Fam­ily of Two. What would hav­ing a child now do to this new path in life?

I’m feel­ing other emo­tions (like good old Catholic guilt), but sad­ness and relief are the pre­dom­i­nant ones. I’m sure that these feel­ings will fade with time, as every­thing even­tu­ally does. But for now, since it’s still fresh … I’m just going to let me feel what I feel. 

 

Thirty Day of Thanks, Day Seventeen

You know what I like? Going to the movies. So today Hubby & I took the after­noon off to catch a film.

Orig­i­nally, we were sup­posed to see Lin­coln, but was sur­prised to find out it was all sold out. So instead, we went to see Break­ing Dawn. 

Yes, I know … but what can I say? I enjoyed read­ing the Twi­light books, so I had to see the movies. And since this was the last movie of the series, I just had to wrap it up. That, and see Tay­lor Lautner’s abs for one last time.

But I digress.

What I’m thank­ful for today is that Hubby & I get the oppor­tu­nity to watch movies when we want to. That’s one thing I know that most fam­i­lies with kids can’t typ­i­cally do on a whim.

Guess that’s another bonus for liv­ing child-​​free.

Thirty Days of Thanks, Day Twelve

Great Ital­ian Food

Din­ner (mostly) by candlelight

Won­der­ful conversation

Thank­ful for a roman­tic din­ner with Hubby

And thank­ful we can do this “spur of the moment.”

Forty

I’m turn­ing 40 tomorrow.

Yep, it’s a mile­stone birth­day; one that makes you pon­der what I’ve done for the past decade. And while I might not have done every­thing I thought I would in the past 10 years (you know get preg­nant and start our fam­ily and all …), I know that I’ve done enough to make my 30’s a mem­o­rable decade.

Turn­ing 40 seems like I should be turn­ing over a new leaf. I should eat bet­ter, exer­cise more, be more finan­cially respon­si­ble. It’s like New Year’s Res­o­lu­tions, except in July. And I don’t know about you … but I tend to fall off the “Res­o­lu­tions wagon” mid­way into the sec­ond month.

At least I get a whole decade to turn over this leaf.

Seri­ously though, I hope that my 40’s is a lot less drama and a lot more fun. I hope that Hubby and I con­tinue to find new and excit­ing ways to live our child-​​free lives fully and not in the shadow of liv­ing child­less. (I see travel in our near future!) So that’ll be what I aim for over the next 10 years.

Here’s to jump­ing feet first into my 40’s!

 

Boulevard of Broken Dreams

The irony doesn’t escape me. It’s 5:15 am and –thanks to our dog — who refuses to sleep, I’m wide awake.

It’s not as if I’ve had a dif­fi­cult time falling asleep … it’s more that I can’t seem to stay asleep. If any­thing, all I want to do is climb under the cov­ers and fall into a deep, deep sleep. Depres­sion can obvi­ously do that.

And with me, depres­sion can cause waves and waves of anx­i­ety, which only add fuel to the insomnia-​​fire.

Recently Hubby and I had one of our long dis­cus­sions (one of many we’ve been hav­ing lately). This one hap­pened to start off with an inno­cent com­ment our 15-​​year old nephew had said last Sun­day when we met them for lunch.

“Aun­tie,” he told me, “you look sad” . And I couldn’t tell him any dif­fer­ently, other than to say that I’d been tired a lot lately.

My hus­band brought that up dur­ing our dis­cus­sion as a means to show me how even a 15-​​year old could see my depres­sion. And if he could see it, how many other peo­ple would see it as well?

All I know is that over the years, I have changed. Oh … I think the heart of me — my cen­ter — will never change, but the way I’ve looked at things or approach things have def­i­nitely been altered from my life experiences.

I know these thoughts are no dif­fer­ent than any other per­son in their late 30’s/early 40’s. After all, isn’t this when we begin to look back at our lives to where we were and com­pare them to where we are now? Isn’t this where we reflect back on those dreams we had in our early 20’s and think about whether we’ve achieved them or not?

You see, as I approach 40 this year, this is one of the anxiety-​​ridden things I think about fre­quently. I think about our early post-​​college years where then-​​fiancé and I would dream about our future together. We’d dream about our mar­ried life together; of kids and the large house in the sub­urbs. We’d talk about how our kids would be into sports or some sort of activ­i­ties where we would be the proud par­ents who’d show up with video cams in hand to record such moments. We talked about vaca­tions as families.

And, of course, I also had my dream of want­ing to be a Stay-​​At-​​Home-​​Mom for a spell, while wait­ing for our four (yes, four) kids to all be old enough to go to school. I also dreamt about mak­ing friends with other Mom’s; friends of our kids, where we could hang out and com­mis­er­ate about daily life with kids. I dreamed of arrang­ing play­dates and birth­day par­ties and all these won­der­ful things I could do when I became a mother.

But we all know where those dreams went. Our best laid plans … right down the potty.

While mak­ing the deci­sion to live child-​​free has less­ened the “blow” to my need to mater­nal­ize (is that even a word?), it hasn’t taken away the fact that I have had to face the “Boule­vard of Bro­ken Dreams” when com­ing to terms with my infertility.

In other words, in order to fig­ure out what our next step in child-​​rearing would be … Hubby & I had to walk that “boule­vard” alone. Together, yes def­i­nitely … but alone.

So now that the we’ve passed that boule­vard … and even though it’s been almost two years now … what do we do now? What’s our next step? What’s our goal? I know that chil­dren aren’t in our future, but so what is our new future?

It’s all of those wor­ries that keep me from hav­ing a full night’s sleep. It’s what causes me anx­i­ety in the mid­dle of the night.

Which direc­tion in life do we need to be head­ing? What we can do with our lives now that we’re clos­ing in on 40 … the decade where we should feel more “set­tled” in our lives?

It has all the mak­ings of a dream­less night. A night where I’m not sure what our new dream is going to be.

Which, again. The irony doesn’t escape me.

How Winter Kills

Like the snow in Metro Detroit, I’ve been in and out of every­day life. And like the snow, my mind should be ever present dur­ing this par­tic­u­lar month, since it’s sup­posed to be the month of new begin­nings; of mak­ing res­o­lu­tions to change things.

But like the snow, I’ve only sur­faced in bits in pieces when­ever life seems to be most inconvenient.

This depres­sion sucks.

No. I mean lit­er­ally. It sucks the life and energy out of me. And throw in a (un)healthy dose of anx­i­ety with it … well it just makes life all the more interesting.

I’m try­ing my best to move past this depres­sion; doing all that I can phys­i­cally and clin­i­cally do, but the weight of this sad­ness seems to be omnipresent.

Thank God for an under­stand­ing Hus­band; one who has stood by me through thick and thin. He’s been there through the low-​​hanging, non-​​anxiety moments and all the way through the high-​​octane drama-​​fueled moments. Some­times I won­der – scratch that – I always won­der how I’ve man­aged to find my soul­mate and my best friend who still loves me despite all the bag­gage I carry.

If any­thing, Hubby (and the furkids – although the fur-​​dog has been on my last nerve lately … ) is the rea­son why I keep get­ting out of bed every morning.

Even though I’ve writ­ten the occa­sional post about the grief I’ve been expe­ri­enc­ing, I know I’m not usu­ally so out­right with my depres­sion. But it has been sug­gested to me that I start writ­ing more about it, because this seems to be the only out­let where I can openly talk about my struggles.

And although this blog is (and always will be) about liv­ing child-​​free after infer­til­ity, I thought that this was my lit­tle cor­ner of the uni­verse where I can tell you about my life, both good and bad. So here’s where I lay it out on the line:

  • I’m still griev­ing over the death of my father. Between my two par­ents, it’s become appar­ent to me over the past year and a half that I truly was a “Daddy’s Girl.” I thrived in the moments when my Dad would play around with me and tease me. And there were the silly jokes the two of us would play on each other that only the two of us would get. And I miss those things horribly.

 

  • In the same aspect, I real­ize how much dif­fer­ent my rela­tion­ship with my Mom has always been; par­tic­u­larly now that my Dad had passed. I’ve always known that we never had that “Mother-​​Daughter” bond that is con­stantly seen in movies and TV shows; we’re just two very dif­fer­ent peo­ple. And with­out Dad being there as a buffer, this rela­tion­ship has only inten­si­fied … and not always in a pos­i­tive way.

 

  • Even though it’s been over a year since decid­ing to move back to Detroit, not a day goes by that I don’t miss liv­ing in Chicago. I miss the city and the atmos­phere. I miss the late night trips to Dim Sum or Korean BBQ with my cousins. I miss walking.

 

  • But what I miss the most is that Chicago rep­re­sented a new life for me. A life where Hubby & I carved out a place for our­selves; where the two of us really started focus­ing on us as a “Fam­ily of Two.” And while I love my home­town and take pride in telling peo­ple that I’m from Detroit, I miss that part of our lives where we were just far enough from “home” where Hubby & I could be our own family.

 

  • And finally … even though Hubby & I have decided that child-​​free liv­ing after infer­til­ity is our life, there are still those days where I worry about our future and what other things in our lives we can con­tribute to the greater good of our world. Will all I have to show at the end of my life is that I’ve worked hard for a liv­ing? That I loved my fam­ily and friends to the best capac­ity that I could? What about my legacy? What will I leave behind? And will I have made a dif­fer­ence in someone’s life? I know now that hav­ing kids won’t nec­es­sar­ily “sat­isfy” or pro­vide answers to all of those ques­tions, but hav­ing lost my Dad … and know­ing the per­son he was … this is some­thing that weighs heav­ily on mind.

 

I could prob­a­bly go on with more “issues” that seem to run end­lessly through my anxiety-​​ridden head, but these are the ones that are con­stantly in my stream of con­scious­ness. These are the things that keep me from doing the things I would nor­mally enjoy doing.

Like read­ing.

Or knit­ting.

Or tak­ing pictures.

Or writ­ing.

Or sim­ply watch­ing TV.

But I’m try­ing … at least I’ll try to work on the writ­ing bit.

And maybe Mother Nature will be kind enough to work on a mild win­ter for the rest of us.

Up and Away …

Thanks-​​IF-​​ing

Going through Infer­til­ity has brought me many things in my life; both good and bad. But see­ing that today is Thanks­giv­ing, I thought I’d share with you what I’m actu­ally thank­ful that Infer­til­ity has given me. So here’s my list:

  1. The Weight: With all those pills and shots taken over the years, I can thank IF for all that added weight gain. Of course, it’s also my un-​​doing that I refuse to eat any health­ier or exer­cise any more than needed to get rid of my “not-​​so-​​pregnant” belly! On an upswing? Big­ger boobs. :-P
  2. Speak­ing of shots … oh, those won­der­ful shots! I can thank IF for all the bruised areas on my thighs and abdomen I had when going through those med­icated cycles. It’s not so much that I don’t know how to give a shot — I *am* a Reg­is­tered Nut — I mean Nurse. It’s more the fact that I can proudly poke myself like a human pin cush­ion and not be scared about it any­more. In fact, if I had to do it again … Nah, nevermind.
  3. Speak­ing of nee­dles … I’d like to thank my body for pro­duc­ing enough blood so that those vam­pires — I mean Phle­botomists — can take all the vials of blood they need to run their tests. But I also want to thank those blood-​​suckers — I mean Phle­botomists — for being so kind and patients; espe­cially when I was hav­ing a par­tic­u­larly rough day.
  4. In fact, I’m thank­ful for all those health care work­ers (from the nurses, to the recep­tion­ist … even the Ultra­sound tech) for being so won­der­ful. In the throes of IF, I may have shot imag­i­nary dag­gers at your back or given you dirty looks when you weren’t look­ing … but reflect­ing back on those moments, you have all been so kind to me.
  5. In fact, there have been lots of kind folks out there that I should be thank­ful for. Many of them are you, as read­ers of my hum­ble blog. I’ve “met” the most com­pas­sion­ate women out in the blo­gos­phere that “get me” some­times more than the peo­ple I know IRL (in real life). So to you … my read­ers and com­menters, both past, present and future … I’m grate­ful that you’ve graced my life.
  6. For those folks that I know IRL that have been will­ing to lis­ten to my sto­ries of Infer­til­ity … I can’t begin to tell you how much it means to me. For so long, I did not have any­body (but Hubby, of course) to lis­ten to our “War Sto­ries” … so for any­one IRL that has lent me their ears or pro­vided me with the empa­thy I so des­per­ately needed, I am for­ever in you debt.
  7. I’m also indebted to Infer­til­ity for giv­ing me back the gift of writ­ing. It’s some­thing I’ve always loved to do as a young kid, but some­thing that I could never take on as a “career.” So I’m thank­ful for my tiny space in the Cyber­world where I can con­tinue to write (as often or as sel­dom as I’d like) about my world; about my feel­ings. And about my thoughts, as crazy as they can be.
  8. And to be hon­est, if it wasn’t for writ­ing about my Infer­til­ity, I wouldn’t have been able to come to some sort of clo­sure with my Infer­til­ity jour­ney … even if it wasn’t the out­come I expected. So there. I’m thank­ful that writ­ing about IF has opened up a new path to my “new” future.
  9. Not only am I thank­ful for my blog and the abil­ity to write … I will always be thank­ful for those IRL fam­ily and friends that read and acknowl­edge my blog. For the longest time, this blog was the only way that I could tell peo­ple about my Infer­til­ity so that I could “save face” in my cul­ture. Know­ing that I could still tell my story and yet not feel ostra­cized in the pres­ence of my fam­ily and those Fil­ipino fam­ily friends has been an absolute God­send. It has given me strength in the midst of adver­sity.
  10. But the most impor­tant thing I’m grate­ful that Infer­til­ity gave me is my rela­tion­ship with my hus­band. Noth­ing more has tested our wed­ding vows more than Infer­til­ity has. It brings new mean­ing to the words “In sick­ness and in health” and “For bet­ter or worse.” I know many cou­ples that can say the same thing and have gone through adver­si­ties (even those who had gone through other crises other than Infer­til­ity) that know exactly what I mean. My mar­riage is stronger because of Infer­til­ity and my love for Hubby has grown deeper than I ever thought it would. It’s thanks to Infer­til­ity that I know the mean­ing of uncon­di­tional love; one that will last through the test of time … with or with­out chil­dren in our lives.

So those are the things that I’m grate­ful that Infer­til­ity has given me. I’m sure I can come up with more things to be thank­ful about … and not nec­es­sar­ily good things, but I’m try­ing to stay  on the pos­i­tive side these days. So I think I’ll leave those parts out.

How about you, oh IF inter­net peeps? What are you thank­ful that Infer­til­ity has given you?

And for those non-​​IF folks … it is Thanks­giv­ing, after all. Tell me what you’re thank­ful for.

Happy Thanks­giv­ing to All!

 

One Year Old

A year ago today, I was trav­el­ing from Chicago to to have a “Wicked” cousin week­end. The three US cousins joined up with the three Cana­dian cousins on my Dad’s side to watch the musi­cal “Wicked” at the Canon The­atre in Down­town Toronto.

While on the stretch of 401 that con­nects Wind­sor to Toronto, I received a phone call from Dr. Bro. “We’re in L&D,” he told me. “Dr. SIL will be deliv­er­ing Baby Em tonight.”

It was a shock for every­one, since Baby Em was tech­ni­cally not due for another week. But due to pre-​​eclampsia, Baby Em would be born that night. So shortly before mid­night, a year ago today, Emilia Grace … my first blood-​​related niece … was born.

Today, my Mom and I are in Dal­las, cel­e­brat­ing Emilia’s first birth­day. It’s been a won­der­ful day filled with love and laugh­ter, and sounds of children’s excited lit­tle voices. We’ve also heard the sounds of Emilia’s lit­tle feet as she crosses the room, walk­ing on her own for only the 6th day of her life.

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I’ve had the chance to watch her “blow out” her can­dles and devour her birth­day cake with such “finesse.” I’ve even had the chance to watch her “open” her gifts and be sur­prised with what she found. And it has been an absolute joy to be around her; sur­rounded by those who adore her unabashedly.

As the night winded down, Emilia’s fam­ily — her Mom & Dad, her Grammy & Great-​​Grammy, and her Lola & Aun­tie Em — found them­selves around the cof­fee table, feet up and relax­ing after such an activity-​​filled day. At one moment, we all sat qui­etly, rel­ish­ing the seren­ity that descended unto the house. I, myself, felt con­tent with the world; happy in the moment.

It was at that moment I knew that Lolo Medi had come to wish Emilia a Happy Birthday.

Happy 1st Birth­day, Emilia Grace. You are loved and cher­ished by those who sur­round you.

Yada Yada … and Then Some

See? I don’t think my niece, Kairi is ready for Fall either!

Sad but true … tonight was the first night I stepped out­side my house since Labor Day.

It’s a good thing Hubby made it a Din­ner & A Movie kind of night, oth­er­wise I would have likely stayed at home in my paja­mas as I had done all week long.

What can I say? I love work­ing from home … well, at least when I’m not trav­el­ing for my job. And see­ing that I’ve spent the past few months “grounded” at home, doing all web-​​based “vir­tual train­ing” all day in my home office … some­times I see no rea­son to step out of the house.

I guess it’s also a good thing it was a short week.

But see­ing that the weather in Metro-​​Detroit has been pretty much crappy since Mon­day, it’s prob­a­bly best I stayed away from the annoy­ing dri­vers who can’t seem to fig­ure out how to drive in the rain.

I mean … really, peo­ple. We live in the Motor City, we should all know how to drive like mail car­ri­ers: Nei­ther rain, nor snow, nor sleet — yada yada …

As if I don’t have enough to whinge about, here’s my biggest gripe for the day: Today I put on a pair of jeans for the first time since May. Although I was (very) grate­ful that they still fit (whew!), I was more upset that this meant we were one step fur­ther away from summer.

Can you tell I don’t want the warm weather to disappear?

I don’t know why I’ve been feel­ing like this lately. I mean I truly love Autumn and every­thing that sur­rounds the beau­ti­ful sea­son … but it’s almost as if this year I’m dread­ing it.

I’m begin­ning to think that it’s not that I no longer like the com­ing sea­son, but rather I don’t like think­ing about what comes after the leaves fall from the trees and the bit­ter cold starts to set­tle in. After all, I’ve never been much of a Win­ter person.

Maybe it’s because Autumn means I’m one step closer to Thanks­giv­ing … to the week­end when my beloved Rain passed away. To when my Dad first entered the hos­pi­tal that first week in Decem­ber. To when he passed away.

It doesn’t seem pos­si­ble that it’ll be a year very soon. Yet it almost seems a life­time apart. There are some days I’m per­fectly okay with things; okay with get­ting on with my life.

But then there are those other days … days like this past week … where the emo­tions are still so raw; so painful to even think about. And although those moments don’t hap­pen as fre­quently any more … when they do, they seem so much more intense.

In any case, I know that time doesn’t stop for grief. If there is any­thing that deal­ing with the emo­tions of Infer­til­ity has taught me is that life keeps mov­ing on despite the all hurt and pain.

Too bad it only took me ten years to dis­cover this. <smirk>

So here’s what I plan to do to keep mov­ing on: Tomor­row I’m gonna enjoy going to the Big House for the first night-​​time Michi­gan Foot­ball game. (Woo-​​hoo! Go Blue!) And Sun­day we’ll go watch Hubby’s younger cousin peform with his HS March­ing Band at one of the small-​​town parades. And Mon­day? I go for my first gui­tar lessons.

So yeah … maybe get­ting myself (and keep­ing myself out of the house) will do me some good.

In the mean time … maybe this video will inspire me to embrace Autumn in Ann Arbor …

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