Infertile Me

More Than a Woman?

Tired. That’s how I’ve felt this past week­end. I think the 10-​​hour days are catch­ing up with me and I’m not look­ing for­ward to Mon­day when it will start all over again.

I think it’s time to take some time off. Maybe a sched­uled men­tal health day to regroup myself. On a Mon­day. Or a Fri­day. So I can extend my week­end by an extra day.

Oh, who am I kid­ding? I’m still going to spend the day before return­ing to work wor­ry­ing about what I need to do the day I actu­ally return to work. 

I worry too much. Not a sur­prise for peo­ple that know me very well. To oth­ers though, espe­cially at work, I guess I put off this vibe that every­thing is going to be okay. But inter­nally, I’m a ner­vous wreck.

Why is that?

Hubby seems to think I put too much pres­sure on myself, that I should learn to ease up on myself. That I should learn to break down projects into man­age­able tasks. And he’s right, the smart man that I married.

I do put a lot of pres­sure on myself to be as best that I can be. I guess it goes back to that thought that if I try hard enough, I’ll suc­ceed in any­thing I do.

And we all know that Infer­til­ity taught me that that state­ment is not always rel­e­vant to everything. 

So why am I still liv­ing my life like that? I guess I do it in the hopes of being a bet­ter per­son than would be if I had kids. That some­how, I need to make up for being more of a woman because I don’t have kids. 

Does that sound ridiculous? 

I know it does. There are lots of women liv­ing child-​​free by choice that can attest to this. Heck, there are women that have gone through infer­til­ity and are now liv­ing child-​​free that can say that they still feel like a whole woman. 

Right now, I’m not one of those women. Which is why I worry too much. And expect more out of myself. And I wish there was a way that I could just be happy with who I am. 

 

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. 

 

Failure = Success?

I’ve been think­ing a lot about the post I wrote last week and how fail­ure has shaped my life over the past decade or so. Then my Hubby sent this arti­cle to me that talks about how fail­ure can actu­ally turn into success.

I’m not sure how I feel about the arti­cle. I mean, I get what the mes­sage is; that in order to suc­ceed you have to allow fail­ure into your life. That we can learn from our failures. 

So what have I learned from my fail­ures? Los­ing a job taught me that noth­ing in life is ever “sta­ble.” Mov­ing back to Detroit from Chicago after my Dad passed away taught me that guilt is a strong enough moti­va­tor. Infer­til­ity taught me that not every­thing that you give 100% into will result in success.

Not nec­es­sar­ily happy things, right? Truth is, fail­ure has taught me to be more wary of peo­ple, of sit­u­a­tions. The once con­fi­dent woman that I was in my twen­ties, has mor­phed into a 40-​​year old woman with more self-​​esteem issues than a teenager. 

What I need to do, as Hubby keeps telling me, is real­ize that I should let go of these fail­ures and move on. And I need to real­ize that every­thing I do won’t nec­es­sar­ily fail; that even lit­tle things in life (and work) can be a success. 

I need to believe in myself.

Dark Spaces and Other Things

I went to a dark space this past week. I went back to the land of long­ing for a child of my own.

That’s a place, while always in the back of my mind, that I haven’t been to in a long time.

It started when I found out that a newer co-​​worker of mine had triplets. So nat­u­rally I asked if this was a sur­prise to her when she found out she was hav­ing triplets. That’s when I found out that she and her hus­band had done IVF and had suc­ceeded with preg­nancy after their sec­ond try; a frozen cycle from the remain­ing embryos from her first try.

D*mn it. I was jealous.

So jeal­ous that I thought of our one failed IVF cycle and the failed abil­ity to even have tried a frozen cycle. Which then had me think­ing that if we did suc­ceed with our cycle, our child/​children would be 9 years old.

Nine. Years. Old. What a dif­fer­ent per­son I might have become if we were successful.

Maybe I wouldn’t be such a sad per­son inside. Maybe I wouldn’t feel so anx­ious all the time. Maybe I wouldn’t be so afraid of fail­ure like I am about every­thing in my life.

I know. I’m real­is­tic enough to know I could still be the same per­son I am today, with or with­out kids. How­ever, I do know that my fear of fail­ure stems from the belief that I grew up with: If you try hard at any­thing, you will succeed.

Except as hard as Hubby & I tried to con­ceive, we did not succeed.

Fail­ing at try­ing to pro­cre­ate was the first time I ever had to ques­tion that belief. The cor­re­spond­ing dark­ness that fol­lowed our failed IVF only allowed me more time to ques­tion whether any­thing I do would only result in failure.

So the dark place I was at this week? It all boiled down to my fear of fail­ure in EVERYTHING I do. From feel­ing like I’m a fail­ure at work, to feel­ing like I’m a fail­ure in my per­sonal life.

I’m still a lit­tle frag­ile from this past week … prob­a­bly will be for a while, if I’m being hon­est with myself … but I’m try­ing to be bet­ter. Try­ing to real­ize that some­times fail­ures can be oppor­tu­ni­ties for improve­ment. And try­ing to remem­ber that mis­takes are really just mis-​​takes. 

Thirty Days of Thanks, Day Twenty

Spent part of my day out­side today. That is, after spend­ing most of it indoors at work. But at least I got to leave in the early afternoon.

My Mom and I went to place a grave blan­ket on my Dad’s grave this after­noon. We bought a bare blan­ket and spent some time dec­o­rat­ing it with rib­bons and bows. This is the first time we decided to dec­o­rate it our­selves and we actu­ally had a fun time doing it. We did a fine job, if I do say so myself!

After­wards, we went out for an early din­ner and had some nice con­ver­sa­tion. Over­all, it was a great afternoon.

*******

So I’m think­ing that Mom & I should make it an annual thing … some­thing we can do together. Because there’s not much we do together.

It’s not that we don’t get along … it’s just that we don’t share a lot of the same inter­ests or find a lot of things in common.

I wish we could … find things more in com­mon. Which is strange to say, since she is my mother. We should have tons of things in com­mon. But we don’t.

It’s one of those things that I shouldn’t do … but I blame part of it on the fact that I don’t have children.

(Yes, I’m bring­ing out the “Infer­til­ity Card.”)

We’ve never really had much in com­mon, even grow­ing up. But I always thought that once I had a baby, I’d be able to turn to my Mom for some “I don’t know what the h*ll I’m doing”-bonding.

And even if we didn’t always see eye to eye, I would put our dif­fer­ences aside if my kids wanted to spend time with their “Lola.”

But since the kids/​grandkids thing isn’t going to hap­pen, I want to find some way to bond with my Mom; to con­nect with her.

So maybe it won’t be bond­ing over what lat­est funny thing “Johnny” just did. Maybe it’ll have to be bond­ing over what we’ve lost together … her, a hus­band; me, a dad.

What am I grate­ful for today? The time spent with Mom, bond­ing over my Dad.

Purpose

 

Hugo: Did you ever notice that all machines are made for some rea­son? They are built to make you laugh, or tell the time, or to fill you with won­der. Maybe that’s why a bro­ken machine always makes me a lit­tle sad, because it isn’t able to do what it was meant to do.

Maybe it’s the same with peo­ple. If you lose your pur­pose … it’s like you’re broken.

Isabelle: Like Papa Georges?

Hugo: Maybe … maybe we can fix him.

Isabelle: So is that your pur­pose? Fix­ing things?

Hugo: I don’t know. Maybe.

Isabelle: Then what’s my pur­pose?

Hugo: I don’t know.

Hugo: I like to imag­ine that the world is one big machine. You know machines never have any extra parts. They have the exact num­ber and type of parts they need.

So I fig­ure if the entire world is big machine, I have to be here for some rea­son. And that means you have to be here for some rea­son, too.

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!

 

Go Fourth … And Be Happy

First of all, Happy Birth­day, USA !!!

And sec­ond … Really? It’s July 4th already? When did half the year slip away? It’s been a crazy cou­ple of months here in Apron­Strings­Land. Busy with work, busy with trav­el­ing. And — I’m not gonna deny it — busy in the emo­tional end of things.

Yes­ter­day marked 7 months since my Dad unex­pect­edly passed away; a feel­ing I’m still try­ing to come to grips with. Every­body has said that it will get bet­ter as time passes, but it seems to me that I feel more emo­tion­ally drained as the days go by.

This past week, Dr. Bro came into town. Amidst the hec­tic sched­ule I’ve had for work, plus the added pres­sure of being at a local onsite hos­pi­tal this past week … I had been just a leee­tle stressed.

Okay. A lot stressed. Espe­cially given that I knew this was loom­ing over my head this past Tuesday.

But the real rea­son Dr. Bro came into town was to sur­prise the “lit­tle” cousins (who aren’t so lit­tle any more … they made me a mar­garita, for Pete’s sake!) who had orga­nized a pre-​​4th cel­e­bra­tion to coin­cide with the local city’s fire­works. He wanted to be here to be with Dad’s side of the fam­ily; to spend time with us, because — if he’s feel­ing any­thing like I am — he wanted to feel closer to Dad. Unfor­tu­nately, he could only stay for two nights; and the sec­ond night had been for the party.

It was a glo­ri­ous night; spent bar­be­cue­ing at my Aunts’ back­yard … which just hap­pens to be next to a lake.  Oh, and did I men­tion that they just hap­pen to be located behind the park where the fire­works are held every year? Need­less to say, we had the best seat in the city! The fam­ily had a blast, espe­cially the cousins who were able to eat (and — ahem — drink) to our hearts’ content.

After­wards, on the drive home I sud­denly felt this wave of sad­ness take over. The best way I can describe it is the melan­choly I would feel in my youth (and even to this day) when­ever I had to say good-​​bye to out-​​of-​​town fam­ily after spend­ing a won­der­ful amount of time (a week­end or even an entire vaca­tion) with them. I’d sud­denly feel lonely and wish we could stay together forever.

I chalked most it up to the fact that I got to spend such lit­tle time with Dr. Bro this time around. He spent his one full day help­ing Mom search for a new car, while I had to work at an onsite loca­tion the entire day. And since I had to work again the next day, we would have no chance to spend any quiet time alone.

The other part I chalked up to miss­ing my Dad. After all, I think he would have totally got­ten a kick out of the “cousins” doing the cook­ing and the serv­ing; would have loved to see us kick back and have such relax­ing fun together. Which, of course, had me spilling some tears for a bit.

Flash for­ward to yes­ter­day … Mom, Hubby & I went to church and then to the ceme­tery to bring some flow­ers and visit Dad. I knew that Dr. Bro had vis­ited him the day after our party; which I can only imag­ine was a toughy. (At least I live closer and can visit Dad more often.)

What I hadn’t expected was to see pic­tures of my niece, Emilia Grace, taped to my Dad’s grave­stone. And the minute I saw the pic­ture of my Dad hold­ing his grand­daugh­ter, I fell to tears. I knew how much my Dad loved kids, so see­ing that pic­ture broke my heart; espe­cially since we all knew that he’d never be able to phys­i­cally hold his grand­child and play with her.

And, although these days I try very hard to let my Infer­til­ity get the best of me … see­ing that pic­ture also reminded me that I was never was able to give him the grand­kids that both my par­ents deserved. And if I did have any kids, he would have had at least a good 13 years to spend with them before he died. But instead, he only got to see and hold his one grand­child a few days after her birth … and then three weeks later, he was gone.

I know that a lot of these emo­tions are stem­ming from the fact that my birth­day is com­ing up. And that it fol­lows an unful­filled wed­ding anniver­sary date and yet another major hol­i­day. But really … when does this get bet­ter? When can I finally see more bits of hap­pi­ness than shades of blue?

My Favorite Song This Time Last Year

Day Thirty – My Favorite Song This Time Last Year:

Wow. I can’t believe it’s been 30 days of post­ing songs and videos on my blog. Okay … so I’ve inter­spersed a few posts in between the 30-​​Day Song Chal­lenge, but they were for good rea­sons. At least I think they were.

Regard­less, this now means I get to post another NaBloPoMo badge on my “Badges of Honor” page. Woo-frickin’-hoo!

Any­way, I hope you enjoyed fol­low­ing along with my music posts. As you can prob­a­bly gather by now, music has always played a big part in my life. Some­how, I can’t see my life being com­plete with­out hav­ing a song in my head and in my heart.

But today, really is about the last song I need to name. I have a hard time remem­ber­ing what I ate last night, let alone try­ing to remem­ber what song I liked this time last year. I mean, give me a break … I’m get­ting senile in my older years. Espe­cially since I have a birth­day com­ing up this week.

So instead, I’m post­ing my favorite song once again. Except this time, I actu­ally had time to put a video together for myself. So enjoy the slideshow below … as the descrip­tion I added on YouTube says, this video is:

A pho­to­graphic tale of my per­sonal rela­tion­ship with Hubby & with kids … and the fact that we can’t have any of our own. Resolv­ing that part has been hard on us, but now we know … “Apron Strings can be used for other things than what they’re meant for.” But I would like to think that other per­sons (whether they’re kids or not … ) can still be hap­pily “wrapped in my Apron Strings.”

~~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~~

What is with this 30-​​day song chal­lenge?

What was yes­ter­day’s song?

 

NIAW 2011">Infertility Myth: NIAW 2011

Since 2009, the last week of April has been des­ig­nated as National Infer­til­ity Aware­ness Week (NIAW).** That means that yes­ter­day, on Easter Sun­day, marked the begin­ning of a week ded­i­cated to bring­ing atten­tion and pro­vid­ing much-​​needed edu­ca­tion about the dis­ease of infertility.

My blog has pri­mar­ily been about my jour­ney through infer­til­ity (and now the child-​​free life I’m liv­ing after infer­til­ity). Every year dur­ing NIAW, I have always found a way to ded­i­cate at least one blog post to help edu­cate my fam­ily and friends. Two years ago, it started as one long post that ended up being divided into six daily posts (yes, it was that long).

And last year, RESOLVE part­nered with long-​​time IF blog­ger, Mel to come up with an over­all theme for NIAW. What resulted was Project IF which chal­lenged those IF blog­gers to answer the ques­tion, “What IF?” My post for 2010, if you’re inter­ested can be found here.

For NIAW 2011, RESOLVE issued another “Call To Action” for IF blog­gers. This year, we’ve been asked to prop­erly “Bust an Infer­til­ity Myth.” So that’s what I’ll be doing today.

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