A tale of two playgroups

I'm the kind of person who really likes my own company and can be a bit of a loner by nature, but I think when you're trying to integrate into a new cultural space, it's do or die. I've moved to enough new and strange cities in my time to have a keenly developed survival instinct telling me to get out there and vigorously mix, integrate, interact. Volunteer opportunity at the local homeless shelter? Sign me up! H's second cousin wants to meet for coffee and practice her English? Yes please! Plus, there is the small detail of my small daughter now spurning me on; she has a couple cousins here but both are school age and if I don't want Girl Wonder to become a little hermit baby I'd better mom up and make an effort.

So we've been checking out playgroups. However - leaving aside the strangeness that is my new social role as a mom - my German is still wobbly enough that I'm not confident just waltzing into a local group to make my own way in a language which still feels foreign to me. So we went for 'special interest' groups as a first step.

First up: there is a very active, city-wide, English-language playgroup that exists for the many foreigners who call this place home. A good place to start, right? Well, sort of; we might have had language in common, and even the experience of being newcomers, but to be honest? (Of course I'm painting with broad strokes here, I only dipped my toes in, after all), that might be where the commonalities end.

Because this city hosts the headquarters of a number of international organisations, expats here tend to be of the well-travelled and well-heeled variety. While we may be the former, we are certainly not the latter. Our home isn't big enough that we can play host to fourteen (fourteen!) sets of moms and babies, as others in the group have recently done. And while we move in some pretty interesting circles, we can't tell you about our last visit to the ambassador's residence for a semi-formal buffet dinner.

So there was already a certain socioeconomic divide, although that wasn't really the thing that singled me out and made everything seem awkward. Nope, our family history took care of that. Since my own brush with terminal illness in my teens, which left me with a pronounced limp, I am accustomed to answering intrusive curious questions about 'what's wrong with your leg?' my complicated medical history. When I know the intentions are good, it doesn't really bother me and I'm happy to oblige. Though I'm finding that things get a bit more sticky when it's your child(ren) concerned, I'm also someone who wants to contribute to the destigmatization of topics like infertility, disability, unconventional family building, etc. and so I generally try to be open and matter-of-fact. Our stories, all too often shunted to the margins for the comfort of a complacent society, should be part of the conversation too. Also, I (naively?) like to think that if I share my experiences in a way that shows they're not a life-defining tragedy for me, it might demystify some of the fear and pity for others as well.

Uh, except...maybe, on some occasions, this is more than a room full of terrified, pregnant fertiles most people can handle. So when stories were being exchanged about birth experiences and starting solids and yadda, yadda, yadda and, rather than come off like a wallflower, I honestly contributed...'born six weeks early by cesearean'...'intra-uterine-growth-restriction'...'Down syndrome'...'we're starting solids later because of her surgery at 36 hours old and feeding tube for first nine weeks'... Well, I'm sure you see where this is going...

I wasn't just the lead balloon in the room; I quickly became the bogey man, the personification of everyone's darkest dreams. You guys, that was before we even got to the infertility and loss stuff. People just looked at me. And despite the fact that my life may be dreamy these days and is certainly a long way from dark, it wasn't the most comfortable experience to see myself through other eyes.

I felt isolated. Like a fake, a freak. And though I know it wasn't intentional, that no one had set out to ostracize me, I couldn't help but feel like the awkward new girl at school facing The Plastics. (And if you haven't seen Mean Girls, go check it out; I'll wait. Tina Fey and Lyndsey Lohan in a previous incarnation. Love.)

(As another aside, I'm not really sure why people think 'I can't possibly imagine what you're going through' is in any way a good thing to say to someone facing life challenges. In my experience this only underscores otherness, leading to the person feeling all the more isolated and lonely. Also - while the subtly but crucially different 'I won't pretend to know what you're experiencing' is honest and direct, which I appreciate - in saying that you simply can't even imagine, you're pretty much saying that you lack the compassion or humanistic imagination for any kind of empathy. Way to go. But I digress...and that is deserving of a whole post of its own, really.)

So where was I? Ah yes, back to the playgroups.

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Luckily, that finely honed survival instinct of the expat prevented me from throwing in the towel after my initial difficult attempt. The following week, there was a playgroup put on by and for the local parent's network for families of kids with Down syndrome. (Again, at the risk of generalising,) I've said it before and I'll say it again: I like how people from this 'community' think and approach life.

There was the kind of shorthand that groups who have found themselves on the margins tend to share, and none of the awkward horror at all our baggage: was she born early? Did we get a birth or prenatal diagnosis? Did she have any medical anomalies? What is she doing with her early intervention therapist?

In a few brief conversations, I also learned that two of the babes in the group close in age to Girl Wonder were the product of fertility treatment. Do I think that there's a relationship between this extra challenge in family building and potential parents' attitudes towards chromosomal anomalies? Probably, yes.

Am I saying that if you've experienced hardship you're inevitably going to be more empathetic and have your priorities worked out? Not at all (and Loribeth wrote a great post recently about how people who do experience adversity in life are expected, often for the benefit of everyone but themselves, to fit a certain redemptive cultural narrative).

But I do think that once you've been through some of life's nastier shit storms there is at least the opportunity to gain some perspective; some gratitude. Not to get hung up on life's little 'problems'. So many of you have shown me that, with grace and humour and generosity of spirit. And while this ALI club is certainly not one that any of us would have voluntarily joined, I think the higher-than-average levels of compassion and determination not to sweat the small stuff are a significant silver lining that make me glad to have you all for company. But again, I digress...

The gist of my second attempt was this: I felt accepted. Embraced. And - perhaps ironically, given that shared language was not the common denominator here - understood. It was such a good feeling, and one that made me think I'll do fine as we move forward, even juggling as I am a new hometown and my new role as a mom and my newbie status in the world of Down syndrome.

I'm not saying that difficulty is something to be lauded. But maybe difference is, or should be.

With our unorthodox background stories, our transnational lives, our off-the-curve road to reaching a family, our high risk pregnancy, and a host of other variables, ours was never going to be the typical, 'normal' story. And as much as others may have a hard time with that, I'm ok with it; better than ok. I'm grateful for and sensitive to complicated, less-than-'perfect' realities. I'm happy. My life is full of love.

Leaving that playgroup, I found myself, not for the first time, feeling like we've landed on a really good side of 'normal', and oh so happy to be here.

And we don't even own a dryer! Source.

Five weeks, four days and a whole new level of crazy

What was all that blissed out zen crap I said last week? Yeah, I'm pretty sure I lied.

This past weekend involved several mini breakdowns, a patiently handled 'emergency' telephone consult with the lovely Dr. B (whose assurances that all those cramps were 'good news if anything, evidence that your uterus is preparing in all the ways it should right now', were only partly comforting in a long series of moments when my body's mimetic ability to feign PMS symptoms really convinced me my next period was impending, those second lines really just another cruel joke), and nearly a full day of lying curled up in the fetal position, all mucous and red, raw skin and ugly crying.

I'm having nightmares and not managing to sleep very well some nights. And then freaking out because it occurs to me that my lack of proper rest and the overstimulation of my adrenal-cortical system is probably harming the fetus trying to grow.

And symptoms? Much as I've had quite a few, ill-conceived pause for thought don'tthinkdon'tthink! led me to wonder: what if I just dreamed all those too? Because, just as with every two week wait I've experienced until now, I want to feel pregnant and so I do? Because ya know, when your uterus has done such a spectacular job of not sustaining the life you created, it's hard to place even the teeniest amount of trust in your body or any of what it's experiencing.

This is the nasty progression of infertility schizophrenia to the nth degree.With the after-effects of recurrent loss thrown in just for measure. Because if some seriously bipolar tendencies weren't enough, I also have some major PTSD sensations around ultrasounds themselves. They're a huge grief trigger. I'm afraid that the healthy form of grieving that I've carefully, painfully built over the past years, all the ways in which I've managed to incorporate and honour my losses without allowing them to overtake me entirely, will all crumble should the u/s screen reveal what I dread it will: just deep, still blackness.

Ultrasounds are not harbingers of good news for us. We've been here, hoping and waiting, three times before. And three times those hopes have been dashed. And in each case the u/s machine was the instrument of torture delivering those blows. The ultrasound terrifies me.

On the one hand, I don't see how this could possibly end happily for us; it feels like that's something that happens for other people; the preserve of those blessed masses among whom I don't belong, but never for us. At the same time, there's a still-resentful and resilient part of me that's thinking: If it's happening for everyone else, don't we get one shot?

I'm not always this bad, every second. I have a lot of hope for this pregnancy to turn itself into the wonderful culmination of all that love and desire we've been nurturing for so long, in the absence of more practical acts of nurturing. The rapid succession of emotions on that crazy hopeterrorhope continuum does not make it easy though. 

I guess for now, I have to hang on to that resentful and resilient little voice which keeps me going. I always feel like when I reach that Fuck You place in my emotional arc, there's a lot of good momentum to pull me forward into a place of greater optimism and fight. (Though obviously, let's be honest: we all know that the real remedy for this particular malaise is just one, and that's to hear a happy, beating little heart next week.)

Also, as crazy and obnoxious as I know I sound right now, it helps just writing it out. Phew. Slightly better now. Yeah, let's go with that.

A special kind of crazy. Source

Endangered

Okay, so I have a crazy thing for anthropomorphizing animals and projecting my own skewed-by-loss maternal yearnings onto their behaviours. (This is just one of the many and obscure ways in which my brain has become its own peculiar version of twisted as a result of loss and trying and infertility and loss. What does animal reproduction and parenting have to do with my own experience? How do I manage to take the most random scenarios and find in them a reminder of what my body can't do, or do only badly? How can I feel I understand anything of their animal experiences of death or grieving or maternity? Crazy talk.)

When I read that Washington Zoo's panda Mei Xiang gave birth this week to a surprise, stillborn twin to her healthy delivery, it hurt my heart a little. And when I read that she groomed her dead baby for 17 minutes before relinquishing it to keepers for an autopsy, not only did I cry; I felt I got it, a little.

Mei Xiang, who was impregnated via insemination, gave birth to another baby last year that lived for six days. This was her second loss.

Giant pandas are an endangered species, so that's a big deal.

Sometimes - back in the world of human reproduction - knowing all the stories I do and all the things that can go wrong, I wonder how healthy pregnancies ever progress, how babies ever get born and grow into children. It's inexplicable to me. They all seem like endangered species.

Parallels. Source

I'll never be able to imagine what that feels like

(WARNING: This post is pretty much unadulterated bitterness and bile, prompted by a rather self-absorbed meltdown today [in turn prompted by an innocent-enough email exchange], and hammered out here in the blogoverse on the basis of the better-out-than-in principle. If you've passed by today in search of more beautiful holiday snaps, or a nice, wholesome recipe or something, well...I apologize. If, on the other hand, like me you're having a particularly bitter infertile kind of day, stuck alone with your darkest, ugliest thoughts... well, far be it from me to offer any kind of validation, but feel free to stay and read on. I'm mixing the stiff drinks right now.)

Something I think will never stop stinging, whenever I encounter it: the way everyone else is so damned exuberantly confident as they face down pregnancy and parenthood...

'We are eight weeks pregnant!' 'We are expecting our first child in February!'

(Eight weeks?? I'd be terrified to ever again announce a pregnancy until...well, essentially the child is here and screaming. We don't ever indulge in any sense of expectancy anymore, except perhaps as it pertains to heartache and disappointment).

I wish they wouldn't be quite so cavalier, especially when they are aware of our own history. And yet here's the thing: other peoples' assured sense that everything is simple and easy and a pregnancy unequivocally results in a healthy-baby-nine-months-later is almost always rewarded with the very scenario their casual confidence imagines. I have to keep reminding myself that we fall on the distant margins of the statistics, the dark side of the moon.

('Less than 5 percent of women have two consecutive miscarriages, and only 1 percent have three or more consecutive miscarriages'. Thank you, Mayo Clinic, for using my miserable stats to reassure other parents about their odds, thereby pointing out to me what a freak I actually am. [I am the 1%. So special.] Actually, I guess the world does a pretty good job of reminding me just how not normal we are, with painful frequency. On my better days I probably just do an okay job of blocking that out. Lalalala I can't hear you!)

And then most of all, it stings that anyone else's justified joyful excitement over something so pure and beautiful is a source of pain and rage and just-please-shut-the-fuck-up-about-your-eight-week-pregnancy-and-plans-for-the-nursery mindset for me.

(Though at this point, I'm not sure what's worse: all that confident, babyiscoming! bravado, or the avoidant, furtive, whispered, poor-woman-I-don't-know-how-I'd-cope pity.)

I hate it that all this has turned me into such a shit head.

I hate it that one of the first things I think when I hear these kinds of happy announcements is:
Don't you know how long and hard some people have to struggle to get there?

I hate it that one of the second things I scream internally think is:
Don't you know that unborn babies die?!

In these misanthropic moments of self-pity, I kind of hate everyone, but I think I hate myself most of all.

Just...fuck.

Among the less commonly discussed side effects.  Source

When the sun came out, so did they (along with an onslaught of self-pity)

I'd forgotten how sheltering the icy embrace of winter could feel. We had a long, cold, and in many ways miserable winter this year; which meant that except for the intrepid dog walkers in our neighbourhood, everyone pretty much stayed indoors.

But this last week has been beautiful, sunshiny, balmy.

And with that lovely weather, an army of happy young families have emerged from hibernation. Beautiful little children squeal as they learn to ride their bikes. Soft, mewling, wide-eyed infants discover the world outside as they are wheeled past in strollers pushed by laughing moms. Heavy winter coats are discarded to reveal swollen, mesmerising pregnant bellies.

And here we sit. Watching it all go by.

Spring is in full swing and today I am feeling further than ever from our hoped-for changes in 2013. I'm tired. Isn't spring supposed to be rejuvenating?

S's anniversary is fast approaching, and as with previous years, I suspect the anticipation will be worse than the actual day itself ( the 17th, when we always try to find something special and peaceful to do). Still, the grief is weighing heavy on me right now. It's hard not to take stock, look back over the last three years, and wonder what they have brought. Some things are better, clearer, but mostly we have the same uncertainties as before. The same feeling of being stalled while everyone else goes on with their lives. I'm fairly certain that, as far as S goes, we are amongst the only ones who even remember anymore.

And what about project sibling? Well, we are (finally) really happy with our current care, and have pretty much decided that we'll move forward with this clinic. Obviously that's a good thing in and of itself, but it also means that we'll be left in limbo with everything else that much longer. H can't actively pursue any of the job leads he's been feeling out, each of which which would surely involve a big move (out of region, or even out of country). Not that there are so many leads to be had these days. We don't seem to have much luck in that department either. That likely means that come September, we'll have to take whatever jobs come our way and put the career advancement, (not to say the putting down roots somewhere), on hold indefinitely. 

Something funny also happened to me psychologically once we got on the ART train: I think I gave up any hope (illusion?) I had previously held that our bodies might ever do this on their own. Even though accepting a doctor's advice - starting with medicated cycles and then moving straight to IVF - has in no way altered the brute biology that we've been dealing with all along, I feel like in acknowledging the situation, my very organs have closed shop and left the building. (Perhaps now is the time to find reassurance in the doctor's oh-so-heartening opinion of my multiple conceptions/losses?). Totally, wildly irrational, I know. But there you have it. Though on the plus side, I'm not even thinking in terms of a two week wait anymore, and there is a certain liberation in that I guess.

So. yeah. Everyone seems to be thrilled that this fine weather has at last arrived. I don't blame them, I just don't much feel a part of their forward looking ebullience right now.

I am well aware of the narcissistic depths of my self-pity here, but....When  is anything good going to happen for us? Don't we get a turn? It just feels like no matter how hard we work to make things better, no matter how much we try to go on being optimistic and hoping our big break is around the next corner (a pregnancy to hope for, a career break, the resolution of our immigration issues) nothing much changes.

I'm sorry I'm being such a Debbie Downer. I know it's just a bad week day (please let it only be a day). It'll pass and I'll be back to my usual sass, finding something to be excited and hopeful about. 

But now? As the sun shines, I'll be wearing my sunglasses. Not just to keep out the glare of the sun, (or to disguise the rogue crying jags that seem to strike from nowhere), but also that of all those shiny happy people who seem to have come out of the woodwork.

Spring is in the air, if not in my step.

Prescription: a long and winding road

That kind of sums up how I feel about our appointment at the subfertility clinic yesterday.

Starting off with the good stuff, I liked the feel of this clinic very much. When we were called in to see the doctor, having hardly waited at all, she had all the relevant information (including my misplaced bloodwork) to hand. She has already been in contact with the lovely OB/GYN regarding his investigations, and they appear to be genuinely well coordinated and organised here (unlike the nightmare that is my GP's office, and I am oh-so-relieved to not have to get further investigations handled there but at the subfetility clinic itself). Unlike our horrible experience with the last subfertility clinic we consulted, these guys will continue to monitor me closely with each new cycle, and develop a protocol accordingly. All good.

It's the current protocol they're suggesting that leaves me feeling a little deflated. In sum, she believes that my odd pre-menstrual spotting and general weirdness these past few cycles may indicate they have been anovulatory. On the one hand, I'm glad someone is finally paying attention to my concerns over this (shocker: I may know my own body as well as any doctor!), rather than fobbing me off with the usual 'these things can happen' auto response. But this also means that she wants me to complete two cycles with closely monitored bloodwork to first decide if I'm ovulating at all. If, from my progesterone levels, it appears as though I may not be, she then wants me to start three rounds of clomid. And then if, after three cycles, we haven't yet conceived, she'll refer us on for IVF. Once that referral is made, they promise a maximum wait of 18 weeks before an actual IVF cycle would go ahead.

This feels like a long and circuitous route to what I increasingly fear will be our only shot at a biological child. With this protocol, we're looking at four + cycles before even getting on the wait list. That means I'll be approaching my 39th birthday before we can even think about moving forward with IVF.

And then there's the rationale for this course of action: You've had three pregnancies, so you can actually conceive quite easily. (Easy obviously being very much in the eye of the beholder here).

I know it's terribly sulky and irrational, but right now it's hard not to feel like we're being penalized for having had three losses. Although I do realize that we're lucky to be able to conceive, to even ever have the chance to try on our own, (and although I know some women who have never had the experience of seeing a positive pregnancy test may find it difficult to relate), I would hardly call three miscarriages a spate of good fortune; yet, in terms of assisted reproduction, that's how the medical profession sees it. In terms of making babies that are too fragile or poorly built to even survive in the comfort of my perhaps openly hostile and not at all comfortable womb, as we all know, I am actually quite talented.

Logically, I know this makes some sense, this wait-and-see approach. (Doesn't it? Feel free to jump in if you have other ideas; I'd actually be grateful for the insight.) But there are so many things for us to have to process with this. I'm worried terrified about my age being an increasing factor with each passing cycle, so there's that. H's 'good' sperm analysis results have always been borderline good, so we know we don't have ideal conditions in any case. I admit that I continue to have substantial reservations about crazy juice medicated cycles; about the havoc they could wreak on my already wonky system, about their sperm killing properties (c'mon, we all know Yahoo answers is a perfectly reliable source of medical information). Also, seriously...we've been trying for three years. There comes a point when no amount of humour or prosecco can sustain a truly fulfilling sex life - or our sanity - through an indefinite period of super sexy no pressure let's have fun! timed intercourse. Our marriage, our emotional wellbeing and our psychological integrity need a break already. Please?

H and I are still thinking through how we feel about this, and whether we want to take any further steps in another direction; we have the time to contemplate these possibilities, it would seem. I also think this doctor is quite cautious in terms of wanting to go the least invasive route, which I can understand. However, with our history I don't think we really feel in a position to err on the side of caution with our timelines. Is it totally insane that my brain already calculates that, even should a pregnancy occur for us, we'd also have to factor in the time for another loss and the recovery that would entail? Well, yes it is insane, clearly; but there you have it. A serious mindf*ck

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I thought of using this picture to illustrate (all too literally because I'm lazy and uncreative with my metaphors) what it feels like - today at least - to be looking into our baby-making future:

It was taken several years ago on a summer hiking holiday we took in one of our favorite corners of Austria, a small town on a crystalline alpine lake, nestled in the countryside between Salzburg and Innsbruck. The area is home to an infamous stretch of circuitous, thrill-and-vertigo-inducing alpine road. The road is winding and you never know when the next curve will fly at you, seemingly out of nowhere, so you've gotta keep your whits about you. You're way high up, it's scary, and occasionally nausea inducing. Frankly, it's sometimes downright dangerous. Apropos, no?

Well anyway, then in the course of sifting through folders of old holiday albums on my laptop to get to this, I was reminded that about thirty minutes after the photo of the road was taken, as we reached our destination, there was another image. This is the view that greeted us:

Will the view at the end of the road make it all worthwhile?

OK, I'll give you a moment to groan inwardly at the schmaltzy, juvenile sentiment of this photo montage. Just go with it people; I'm trying hard to look on the bright side right now. I need to keep nurturing my invincible spring. Or, uhhm...maybe move to the Alps? I'll figure it out and get back to you.

What the body remembers

When I was doing my post-doc and began working with trauma patients, I came across a book that I found particularly compelling, in a professional sense. It was about the important relationship between psychotherapy and neurobiology, and its basic premise was that even when there are things that your brain or your psyche can't compute - because maybe they're simply too devastating - your body holds on to those memories. The author argued for a therapeutic process which gave voice to the body, suggesting that this reconnection could aid in healing.

It's true; the body holds onto a lot of stuff that the brain, because of its protective capacities, simply can't deal with. I've always been a firm believer in the mind/body connection, but I got to experience it firsthand, in an embodied way, when I was forced to grieve the loss of my son, and subsequently all the secondary losses that came with that.

When I began to frequent babyloss blogs, I would hear parents speak of this phenomenon again and again: your consciousness might forget the weight of a particular date, as your brain allowed it to become just another number on your calendar. Then maybe, seemingly out of the blue, you'd get sick or just not be particularly good at coping any more, when you'd otherwise felt you were making 'progress'. That's your body remembering.

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I meant for April to be the continuation of the mindset I managed to embrace in the latter half of March; hopeful, irreverent, happy. I survived another birthday (and another two week wait) without too major a meltdown. H and I made progress on the medical front, and found a really great doctor. We are making plans for exciting summer travels. Here in blogland, I wrote a series of silly, carefree posts that reflected the mood I held for many days in a row. I planned to write a post about spring, such as it is finally here; to enumerate all the ways I feel blessed, all the things I have to look forward to. They are, after all, many.

But then.

Then I ended up here. For the past two days, I've felt indeterminately melancholic. My brain is fuzzy and can't seem to concentrate. I'm irritable with H and work and life in general. I lack my usual energy, but I also feel restless a lot of the time. In light of all the loveliness of the past weeks and my comparatively positive mood, I struggled to think of why this might be.

And then I remembered: this month marks three years since the beginning of our journey to parenthood. (How has it been been three whole years already? How has it been only three years?)

In April of 2010, after we decided to take the plunge - less than a year into being together; but we both knew what we wanted and weren't getting any younger - I had been to see my oncologist in Canada to discuss how my disease and treatment history might effect this journey, and was told not to expect too much too quickly. We were initially cautious. Three weeks later, while we were visiting H's parents in Germany, we learned that we had conceived S; in our first month, before we were even really actively trying. (And little did we know just how active, and just how trying, the whole thing could become, back in those halcyon days). We were scared and elated and filled with wonder. This season is so evocative for me. For seventeen and a half weeks in the spring and summer of 2010, S was here with us, and it was like magic.

Until it wasn't. And I was broken. I was shocked by the depth of my own grief. I gained new understanding of that trite, rom-com notion of the broken heart. Mine was shattered in a million pieces, and every day for many months on end I could feel it, actually feel the shards piercing me. I often had a searing pain and a weight on my chest that made it hard to breath. And while the shards eventually melted, my heart developed new scar tissue to protect itself, and the pain slowly dissipated to something much gentler, the sense that there was no way to possibly ever understand - on a cognitive level - how we had got from there to here remained. How had this become my life?

I don't often spend time thinking those thoughts these days. I'm better than I was. I'm healing. I laugh a lot. I enjoy the little things again. But as I look down the long stretch of time and failure and loss that has carried us away from that magical time, a feeling that anything was still possible, my body and my brain seem to have momentarily reconnected: I'm missing those days in the spring of 2010.

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I miss the innocent and hopeful me I was in the 'before'.

I miss my belief in a 'logical' course of events: you pee on a stick. You see two lines. You cry and rejoice. You have a baby that outlives you by many decades. You walk away, happily ever after, into the sunset.

I miss the (stupid, vain) certainty I had of H and I as a dynamic, confident, always ebullient pair who were blessed, who always had good things coming to us. 

I miss the carefree way I used to be able to interact with friends and family and the world at large, before I crawled inside this protective, fearful carapace which so often walls me off from those around me. From their normality, their joys, their forward moving lives.

I miss the unwavering support and understanding that I used to think they'd be able to provide, before I realised, looking backward, that we were on a completely different path from virtually all of those people, and that this path was diverging into an ever widening gap of experience which they would be hard pressed to even grasp, never mind support.

I miss the version of myself that would have been able to see my two subsequent pregnancies - even for the brief time they were with us - as babies I might look forward to meeting, instead of the dread and diminished self-worth that accompanied those interrupted journeys.

Most of all, I miss my boy. I miss feeling him in my burgeoning belly. I miss the chance of knowing the person he would have become. He'd be two years old now, a chubby toddler. If he took after either of his bookish, nerdy parents, he'd already be showing an abiding interest in the written word. Maybe he'd have his father's flair for the dramatic. Maybe he'd be rambunctious and naughty, having inherited my curious, restless spirit and intellectual ADD. Our lives would be different now in ways I am still not able to fathom.

It doesn't often happen. Three years on, some supposedly significant dates - a loss, a due date, the date I got a positive pregnancy test - may come and go without my even realising it. These random down days may not come forever, I don't know. (Though my mother says that she still has these vaguely depressed anniversary days more than ten years after my grandmother died). And though I feel S is present in some way in our lives, I don't often indulge in the 'what ifs', partly because they're just too painful. My brain is protective.

I tell myself that it does no good missing any of these things, because they're gone and won't return. (With the exception of S, who is a different matter entirely). Things are what they are, and no amount of lamenting will bring them back. It was a realization I finally had months before starting this blog, and most days this knowledge allows me a kind of freedom, so that I am able to embrace the now. I am finding contentment in things again, in my life, with all its uncertainties. And although I am no longer (and probably never will be again) any of those things listed above, there are new, and better things that have replaced them; I am more compassionate, more patient, and I'd like to think more gracious with others. I feel acutely aware of all I have to be thankful for. I begin to believe in myself, to trust myself again. I don't want it to appear that I'm sliding backward, or that I'm ungrateful for all the wonderful things I have. I'm happy.

But there are days like today when I guess my body insists I stop, let down my carapace, and grieve. Be gentle with yourself, my body whispers to my brain, in an inversion of the logic we have learned from neurobiology, with the brain sending out missives that allow the body to function.Today, my body is calling the shots, and it has very clear ideas of what should take precedence.

Remember. Love. Grieve. Hope. Heal.

The thing about these embodied memories, as that book also pointed out, is that they aren't only a repository of your traumas; they are also a testament to your strength, to the way in which the mind and body can collaborate in positive ways to strengthen people.

Spring is here, it's come one way or another. Each day follows the last. We are moving forward.  I've learned that even while it retains this memory, my body keeps going, keeps fighting to be a part of the world, to make sure I'm really in it, that I'm happy.

So for now at least, my brain will listen, because that is also part of the trust I am regaining in myself and my body. I know it won't forget, but it won't quit either.

Putting myself back together. Again.

We can now continue with our regularly scheduled programming

Well, I cajoled and pleaded with my uterus to just hurry up and bleed already so that the procedure to remove that polyp would not have to be postponed; and for once, a rant about my disobedient body would be totally unjustified. I'm feeling rather pleased with my uterus for her cooperation, as well as with the overall outcome of yesterday's visit to the hospital.

In brief: I am polyp-free. The procedure itself was slightly more eye wateringly scream worthy unpleasant than I could have imagined - especially since I wasn't advised to take a preemptive pain killer as is usually done with an HSG or whatever - but the pain was short lived. And this whole little debacle can now be relegated to the dustbin of my reproductive organ history (surreal and unfortunate mental image).*

But it gets better. We were actually called into the exam room by the very doctor who I was waiting to be referred to for further investigations on the recurrent pregnancy loss front. (In my experience with such procedures in the UK you don't get anywhere near a doctor, so I was pleasantly surprised off the bat). So far, I have to say I like this doctor very much. He asked us if we wanted to begin with that consultation for RPL as well, since we were already there 'and it saves you a trip'. He then spent the better part of an hour with us, going over our history, the risk factors we might be looking for, what procedures they will undertake to investigate those, and answering all our accumulated neurotic and random questions. He is a high risk OB/GYN, and he thinks our case is best dealt with by their clinic, but he also made a referral to their partners in the sub-fertility clinic 'just to rule everything out and put your mind at ease'. How lovely is that? He had a very calm, clinical approach, but he referred to all my pregnancies as involving babies, and not 'products of conception' or 'tissue'. According to him, since my progesterone levels are consistently strong, there is no reason for worry as yet about my LH levels this past cycle, and said that 38 is still a 'very healthy, perfect age' for having a baby. When our consultation was over and he had removed the polyp, he personally walked us all the way to the phlebotomy lab where we had our blood drawn. This guy gets lots of points for approach and effort and awareness so far. H and I both felt listened to, reassured and genuinely cared for, and that makes all the difference in our feelings of optimism for this road we're walking. 

We both left with a renewed sense of direction and calm, and for however long that lasts (see all the previous posts I've ever written on that likelihood), we'll take it. I said as much to H, that - based on what the doctor had said - I feel renewed in my determination to carry on carrying on for now and try to see no reason why things might not, for once, swing our way after all this time. H pointed out that this had been his message all along and that he was glad I was at least willing to listen to someone. Well yes, while I appreciate - indeed, crave - his optimism and certainty, it is also nice to hear those messages of reassurance from someone with training in something other than, er...political science.  

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And just like that, my birthday is around the corner. Last year, we were still living in Portugal, and we celebrated here, eating freshly caught fish al fresco and swimming outdoors. In March. (I really miss that place).

Of course I had no idea then that a whole year would pass and we'd be...I am tempted to say 'no closer to where we want to get', but when I think about it, there are so many ways in which that's not true. No, we still aren't parents to a living baby. But we're more solid in our determination as a couple to achieve that goal than we have ever been. We both know where we want to go, even if we're not there yet. And maybe, medically speaking, we're even going to get some of the support we need.

So for now at least, my duvet diving days are on hold, not least because we have more than a week of travels and visits and lovely cultural enjoyments to take in. This evening my mother arrives to join us for a celebration of my actual birthday, which will be spent here enjoying four days of long coastal walks, windswept beaches, fresh seafood, exploring castle ruins, and dinner in a real treehouse. After that, we're home for scarcely a day before heading out once again, just the two of us, to partake of some more urbane pleasures, the details of which remain a carefully guarded mystery to me, but which will involve three nights in London, likely visits to galleries, probably (if I have anything to do with it), a stroll through one of my favourite places to hang out in the whole city, and certainly prosecco.

H's penchant for meticulously planned decadent surprises remains unstoppable. When, post-freak out last week, I told him I didn't want to celebrate my birthday this year, as I was starting to see it as nothing more than a cruel reminder of what we haven't managed to achieve, he replied that we don't need to make it about birthdays or the progression of time at all, but that he wants the opportunity to stop the clocks, be in the present, and celebrate me. 

And if I intend to stick with the attitude I embraced post-hospital yesterday, I suppose there is nothing wrong with the enjoyment of some very grown-up pleasures and moments of joy (I have to work harder to stay true to the header of this blog), especially as jungle time will definitely fall in this period, and there's always the hope that such grown-up jaunts may become a thing of the past for us in the not-too-distant future.

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Friends, thank you for all your kind words and thoughts through this tough past week. Your lovely, warm messages of camaraderie and understanding allowed me to feel very much buoyed, and a little bit less crazy in my moments of melodrama. I hope that whatever you have planned this weekend, it includes brief moments of joy, opportunities to stop the clock and celebrate you. Because I think you're pretty awesome.

* I am sure you'll think I'm ridiculously melodramatic for spending as much time in print as I have on this topic. You'd be right, but in the absence of anything resembling even the hint of the promise of a future baby on what might otherwise be considered a ttc blog, perhaps I felt obliged to discuss lady parts. I know that a lot of you lament the lack of education we otherwise highly educated women have about our own bodies, but I for one really really wish I wasn't this interested in my own cervix. Just saying.

Now We're Getting Somewhere

If you've been following along in the incipient stage of this blog and reading my rants and raves, you'll already know that I attribute all of my misfortunes to the NHS rather than my own dysfunctional lady parts. Well ok, not really. But truth be told, I haven't often felt very cared for, or my medical or emotional concerns very attended to in my recent dealings with them. But today, I am here somewhat sheepishly but delighted to (semi)retract my statements of discontent.

This morning we had to make a visit to our GP office to sign paperwork for the referral to a specialist (other than the one I'll finally see in a few weeks to discuss my polyp). We also had to schedule updated CD3 and CD 21 bloodwork, so that's happening.

The appointment didn't start so well. I have been peeved with this process, with the accumulation of too many months of inaction and too many disinterested medical practitioners, and so I think my default mode has recently been one of snarkiness in these situations. So when we sat down with the nurse practitioner to complete the intake questions, and her first one was 'Do you have any children?', my response in the negative - 'That's why we're here'. (Duh.) - might have been a little too far on the brittle crackly side of dry. H silently implored me from over the unsuspecting nurse's head to behave myself if we want to move forward with what we want to move forward with. (He has this whole crazy philosophy of not pissing people off if you want something from them...I know, right?).

OK, so we went through all the questions, reviewed my paltry history - 3 pregnancies, 0 live births - we scheduled the bloodwork. The nurse practitioner was a bit brusque in her manner, but I'm ok with that as long as we get something done. And then while she was sitting there appraising the situation, things started to shift, almost imperceptibly. She said she wondered why we were actually being referred for infertility rather than recurrent loss, because although there are clearly subfertility issues that are preventing us from moving forward, most of these seem to relate to the viability of our pregnancies and not, well, complete lack of conception. Good god, someone who not only actually took the time to read and think through our entire medical history, but who saw fit to analyse it and prescribe accordingly!*  Bells started going off in my brain. We told her that those were in fact our sentiments exactly, but that in our previous location no specialist support had been offered for RPL, and thus we'd been referred for fertility.

(A little background is probably in order here. On our last and only visit with a fertility specialist last autumn, we were told that our problem was not really one of fertility; that in fact we both looked fine in that department and clearly could conceive, and that our real issue was sustaining a healthy embryo/pregnancy. Then this advice was given: the doctor told us that we should keep trying naturally for 6-8 months and if we conceive in that time we should call right away so that we could be provided extra monitoring and support and that they might be able to get to the bottom of why I keep losing babies. Oh no wait that's my best-case-scenario brain talking! What they actually said was if, after a conception, I end up miscarrying again (reassurance and optimism incarnate, they were), we should 'save the tissue in a pot in the freezer so you can bring it in for testing at your next appointment'. Eight months later. Yep. Also, they said that after those 6-8 months - and remember they had just said conceiving isn't the issue for us - we should consider moving straight on to IVF. Whaa? Huh? Anyway, the overall impression was one of a conveyor belt, one-size-fits-all treatment regime. Not reassuring. And clearly not very compassionate.)  

In contrast, the nurse today said that she wanted to make sure we got the appropriate care, and not send us on a wild goose chase. She said to leave it with her and she'd make the right enquiries about where to start. This is, in a word, huge. At that point, as we were getting up to leave, I could already have hugged her. But as we were tripping over ourselves thanking her - you become so grateful of the simplest human gestures in these moments - she said, almost as an afterthought: 'I've been through IVF myself, so I know how important these things are'. She understands! I love this nurse, brusque manner and all. For this one appointment, the first time anyone has paid us and our concerns and our medical issues enough attention to really get things done, I love her. I would book all my future appointments according to her work schedule if I could.

So now we're awaiting a referral that might actually bring us towards some of the answers we need, and more important, a game plan for the future. I don't kid myself; this is still the NHS and that means a big waiting game for now, but to at least be heading in the right direction feels like a watershed. I'll nag about what's happening with the referral when I go for my CD21 bloodwork on Thursday and then, hope that we're on the road. After all this waiting! After so many months of feeling like we're stuck in a pinball machine, being randomly zinged from pillar to post! This could mean more coordinated care with, for example, the specialist I'll see for my polyp removal/investigation, as they're all located in the same women's hospital and often work together. If we do ultimately need to go down the IVF route - realistically, we may still be looking at this later in the year, considering how ancient we are - again, all the care would be coordinated. And the best thing is, with this arrangement, if we were lucky enough to get pregnant on our own, according to my new favourite person, there would be early and extra monitoring available. (First trimester care generally suuucks here, in my experience). Seriously, this is crucial for my emotional health, if not my physical.

After so long kinda spinning our wheels, I'm a little bit hopeful and so heartened by such a simple exchange. This feels like progress. This feels like a beginning...of something.

Fingers crossed. Source.

* Is it just me, or is it often the less acknowledged, more poorly paid professional who steps up on these occassions?