It’s really not about E.
At least, I don’t think it is.
It’s more about all the emotions it stirs up in me, how similar they are to the ones I’m feeling today. Inadequate. Broken. Unsure how, or if, things can be fixed.
Because let’s face it, that is what all of this is really about. The obsessing over the past, wallowing in what-if’s, spending so much time inside my own head. It’s all an elaborate cover up orchestrated by my own mind to trick myself into believing that these issues I really have already dealt with are what’s causing this complete and utter emotional devastation I’ve been feeling.
I think I did really believe at this time last year that I could be pregnant today.
Today? I’m not so sure about next year. Or ever. I don’t whole-heartedly believe I can do this anymore, no matter how desparately I want to. When you lose a boyfriend, your heart (and the 12 year old in you) may tell you you’ll NEVER find anyone else, but (as long as you are not actually 12) your brain usually reasons that you will. I think knowing that your brain does not agree with your heart, when your heart is broken, helps a lot. It kind of gives you hope. So what do you have when your brain is the one driving the “IT WON’T WORK” train?
I think the closest I’ve even come to working through all of this before now was back in February when I had the initial bad blood test. I look back on what I wrote then and am shocked at how similar it is to the things I’ve been posting as of late. And then the retest came back surprisingly normal and I thought everything was back on track only to discover a few short months later that not only was I having a flare, I was having a pretty nasty one.
For some reason I couldn’t get myself to really accept it again. I was kind of hopeful that in a few weeks I’d retest and everything would be fine again.
Obviously that didn’t happen.
I did try to process it.
I just haven’t known how to. I don’t know what to do with the fact that I only half believe there is a way for me to get off these meds. That I only half believe I will ever be able to carry a child inside me and know that I nurtured a precious tiny life.
My memory about the things I write here is clearly terrible (as my recent forays into the archives have shown me), but I don’t think I’ve spoken about this before. Maybe not even to Paul. The hardest thing about all of this is that I still carry this horrible guilt inside me.
I’m afraid that I somehow caused this disease.
That all the self-loathing I felt for all those years finally manifested itself in the form of my own body attempting to slowly murder itself.
And that, that is the reason I can’t get pregnant.
I know I shouldn’t feel that way, it’s unproductive after all. But I think that’s part of the reason I haven’t really been dealing with this very well. I’ve been so hesitant to let myself feel what I feel and grieve. Because even though I am very lucky in so many ways, I’ve also been very unlucky too.
I hate that it will never be easy for me. That even if I am able to get off the meds and get pregnant, it will be a high-risk pregnancy and I will be afraid the whole time.
I hate that I will never have one of those carefree, innocent pregnancies where you can’t even imagine that something could go wrong.
I hate how scared I am that if I ever do get pregnant something will go wrong, my body will freak out and that will be the end of that. There are only so many more years left for this to happen right?
I think that we will be parents, we both want to adopt regardless of what happens. The problem is, I don’t think adopting can truly “heal” the disappointment you feel in yourself when you fail to achieve your main biological purpose in life. I don’t think anything can. I will love my children with the same intensity no matter how they join my family, I will love however the miracle unfolds if God brings me a child through adoption. But I don’t think an adoption experience, no matter how beautiful and even more unique than a pregnancy/birth story (as this blogger, whose archives I recently browsed through, so eloquently put it), can replace the experience of having a life grow inside you, of knowing that your body safely cared for a little miracle. How do you REPLACE the feeling of your baby kicking inside you? I don’t think there’s an apples to apples comparison to make there…
Adoption is great. Giving birth is great. Are they equally great? In my opinion, yes. Do they equal each other? No.
I wish people wouldn’t equate adoption to some sort of salve for infertility. Or whatever this is considered. Not to mention, you can’t “just adopt” but I think I will leave that for another time.
Sometimes I read the infertility blogs and I’m stung by the fact that they can do fertility treatments. They take medicines that hopefully help them have babies, while mine are the reason I can’t. If I find out later that there’s also some other reason? I won’t be able to do anything about it because fertility treatments will most likely only do serious harm to my health anyway due to the hormones. So if this chronic disease, which no one knows the cause of decides to go away with only minimal medical intervention, and I can then quickly get pregnant before it changes its mind, I’ll be ok. If not? I’m basically screwed with no options.
Wow. Don’t think I’ve laid it out for myself quite like that before.
And on that note…
Usually I try to end these really long, rambling, depressing posts with something positive. Just because I hate to leave a sad overtone on this blog (although, who am I kidding these days?). I think today I’m just going to let myself feel like this fucking sucks. And not be grateful for anything.
Don’t worry, I will try to put my big-girl pants on tomorrow. I will look for the bright side and when I feel myself slipping into that quiet desperation? I will remind myself how good my life is.
But today, I am going to let myself be broken.