"Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life" Proverbs 13:12




Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Lost

One of the things that is really difficult about this year (one of the things, there are many) is that at the end of this year I am going to be moving interstate and leaving my job. And I don't know what I am doing with my life.

Some women have a job that they do before they have kids, and it will be the job they do after they have kids. Some women struggle with the choice of career verses kids. Some women long to have kids, but have a job they are doing which provides comfort and purpose. That is me now. But that job will be gone soon.

I know what I like to do, but for various reasons it's not really an option next year. Which means I have no idea what I am going to do next year for work. And it's particularly hard because of what I really long for. I want to be at home looking after my kids. But I don't have any living here on earth, so I can't.

I'm too old to live in this limbo state of nothingness.
But here I am.
LG

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Counting down

Well, we are now in the last month before Thumper was due. On Saturday we went to a wedding and there was a girl there due in August. Her stomach was so big and beautiful. And then I realised, I would have been futher along than her if Thumper had survived. It was not a good day after that.

We had a lovely time away, so lovely and warm and special. So great to be with family, and also great to be with Earl.

Aunty Flo came and ruined one day, but the rest were special. My parents pulled me aside to ask how things were going. I told them we were unsure about Accupuncture because of the cost. They, as I knew they would, said they would pay. "Never let money be an issue to stop you doing anything" said Dad, "We are here". It's strange, once they offered to pay, I realise that I was happy to pay myself. Once money was no longer a concern I realised I wanted to pay myself. My strange pride, as I decide I want to spend my own money on IVF. One day we might end up leaning on them to do this. But not today. If I can't make a baby on my own, I at least want to pay for it while I can. Strange pride.

But when I rang up to book for accupuncture I realised I get a discount because we are low income earners. Yay!

It's hard, I don' want to hope to much, don't want to assume that this is the miracle cure that we have been waiting for. I told my parents "don't get your hopes up". Dad hugged me and Mum cried and they said "Don't think about us. We don't think about us. We care only about you".
Oh Thumper, why did you have to go?
LG

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Where we are at?

Aunty Flo is due sometime next week.

I am praying for a miracle, and I am alot more hopeful than I've been for a while on a ordinary-persons cycle, but I am still planning for the AF future.

The difficult thing is that in the middle of July I have probably the biggest event of the year for work. I am running and coordinating a Kids program with 22 volunteers (including lots of teenagers we are training up), and 65 kids for three days. While everything else I can delegate or put off for a transfer, this just isn't one of them. So when AF does make her appearance I have to do a big calculation and think as to whether there is any chance of transfer having at the same time as the kids program. Because if there is, I will really have to wait another cycle before trying our last little Embie.

I'm hoping to do acupuncture too, particularly in the lead up to the tranfer. But I found out that my private health insurance doesn't cover it, and it is quite expensive. So Earl and I are still in discussions about it. I think we will still go ahead, but it won't be able to be too regular a thing, maybe just around the actual transfers.

Earl's struggling. I feel like I've had time to recover from our conversation on the weekend. Earl hasn't. He is feeling very raw and weak, and I don't always know how to encourage him (though he says I'm doing a good job- yay!). He said to me, "If only we got pregnant and had a kid it would all be okay".

I know what he means. I think that all the time. It would be a huge answer to the millions of questions we are dealing with at the moment. But at the same time, one of the biggest things that came to me as we talked as this: "God is still God even if we never get pregnant". It's hard to hold onto, when we want something so desperately, but it's true. It will be okay, because God is still with us, whatever happens.

Please pray for us and please pray for Earl.
LG

Monday, June 13, 2011

Like pressing a bruise

This weekend I felt like a bruise was being pressed.

As I've said previously, Earl and I live away from home. We go and visit our families fairly regularly and this previous weekend was one of those trips. I'm still a bit shocked that I will be moving back permanently next year.

But it was a really, really hard IF weekend.

Firstly, the strange little hard thing was seeing Earl's brother and sister and their spouses.

I absolutely love Earls' family. They are friendly and funny and some of the best company I know. I don't know if I can tell you of people I would rather spend an evening with. I love my family, but I love the intimacy. But with two parents and six kids/spouses in Earl's side it is just loads of fun.

It is particularly special because with Earl's brother getting married their was a sense of the family being finished. Not that people have to get married, but we knew that these were the six people we could be holidaying with and Christmasing with until at least our Grandkids came along.

But I think because of that, because of that sense of the future that I get with these gorgeous brothers/sister, I can't help thinking about if that future will involve kids, or if I will just be Aunty LG and that's all.

The other hard thing was a conversation we had with some friends.

Earl and I have some exciting plans for next year. But two very good, older friends were concerned. Could we haddle doing our big plans if we don't end up with kids? They had seen us last summer so fragile (duh- we had lost Thumper a week before!!!) and they were worried that we weren't going to cope if we remain childless and attempted this project.

It was wise, helpful advice, and it was good to get us to think. But that conversation, on top of an already emotional weekend, has left me feeling so raw. I did not expect to be put on the spot, to have to face discussions of permenant infertility in a cafe overlooking a car-park, with no time to talk to Earl and no time to process before our next meeting with friends.

Sometimes it's only when I feel terrible like this that I realise that most of the time I feel okay. But IF is like a bruise that get pressed regularly with no notice. And it hurts.
LG

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Bubble breaks

Great mood has gone down the toilet due to a stressful day at work.

SIGH

It is amazing how every hard thing I go through flips back to Infertility. I can't help it. Even things that aren't related really end up landing back in it.

Examples of my thinking:
Work stressful: If I was pregnant still or if I already had a baby I wouldn't have this job or at least I would be about to finish.

Being hurt by someone: Why does God give them a kid when they are so mean and I don't get any children

I bump my head: Oh, my head hurts and I don't have a baby

The last one shows the arbitrariness of the whole thing. It isn't that things relate to my infertility, it's more just that it is always there, and when I get sad, it is my go-to backup reason for my bad mood!

But one thing that has been lovely for this last week (and so far hasn't gone away yet despite my many temper tantrums) is a renewed joy in Thumper. Every time I see his beautiful little ultra-sound I feel filled with love, and I remember that he is my little baby still, and that for 9 weeks I had a baby in my tummy. And that is a joyful thing not just a hard thing. Thumper seems like my tangible bit of proof that I can actually get pregnant, that carrying a baby is possible.
And that's what keeps me going on a terrible day.
LG

Sunday, June 5, 2011

A babbling post

I haven't written for a few days, even though I have started numerous posts.

I keep not being sure of what exactly to write, how exactly to explain what kind of week I have had.

It's been wonderful.

Wonderfully, Wonderful.

The reason?

Nothing in particular. No sudden phone call to say- "actually, you were pregnant, we made a mistake". No amazing insight into something we can do to help. Nothing.

Basically the only thing that has happened is that I have become suddenly convinced that we are going to have a baby. Absolutely convinced. And soon.

I'm not sure if its just a coping mechanism by my slightly mysterious brain. I've always been someone who can't handle being sad for very long, usually something comes along to perk me up, just because I think my brain is on the search for it and will take what it can get to feel better. But this is on another level.

Part of what is happened is that over this next month or two where we are not doing our next FET, we are trying to get pregnant anyway.

It might sound like a strange thing to say, but it has been over a year since I have bothered to "try" naturally. Not that we haven't "you know'd" but it hasn't been about having a baby. I have had 10 frozen transfers, with two miscarriages as the only result. And they were GOOD embryos. That's what the doctors always say when we ask, what can we do? They just shrug and say "You make good embryos" as if their job is done and the rest is up to my crazy uterus.

And so the idea that I can make an embryo on it's own, and that it might stick without Clexane has always seemed like a joke.

But God could heal me.

Now one of the reasons I've found it hard to write this post is because I have alot of hang-ups about "healing". I've heard too many times people being blamed for their sickness because "They don't have enough faith". I've seen my dear friend with Bi-polar celebrating each time she hits a "maniac" stage that God has healed her, only to be disappointed when the depression comes again. I've seen my Grandmother given three months to live from her cancer, and yet can still go to see her at her house five years later- so I've seen healing happen. But I've read things on-line that have implied that my infertility is only there because I don't have faith, and if I just had faith Thumper might have lived. And cried all day because of them.

I believe that God can heal. But I don't believe that healing is dependant on some super duper faith leap (after all, Jesus said faith as small as a mustard seed was enough). I don't believe that God will always heal- just because we believe hard enough that he can. I don't have any promises from God or the Bible that I won't struggle with infertility for the rest of my life. Sometimes God miraculously heals people- I see that as I read many wonderful IF blogs. Sometimes God gives people a baby through medical intervention- and I see that as a miracle too. But I know of some very dear Christian people whose prayers were never answered, and who never got their longed for baby. That doesn't mean that God doesn't love them, or their faith wasn't good enough. It's a sick sad world, and infertility is just part of it. We all know there will always be people who never have their child, we just hope those people won't be us.

So even though I've prayed for healing, even though I know that God can, I've always just assumed that any miracle I get will be medical.

But this week that changed. I don't know why. But I think it hit me that anything is possible with God. That doesn't mean that I will be healed. But it means that I might. And so I will try this month. And any other month that I can.

One day I will sit down and write a detailed series of posts on God and infertility. I have thought so much about it. But not today. Today is a day to just enjoy a rare, precious, happy week.
LG
PS (I realise that not everyone who reads this blog will have the same thoughts on God and healing, or that you all even believe in God. I hope you don't mind occasional posts like this, this is part of who I am and a big part of the journey and it's helpful for me to share it. Thanks for your patients!)

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

That's just grief

I got home from work yesterday just feeling like i couldn't take anything anymore. The problem was, neither could Earl! He had spent the last week comforting me during the day from the phone, comforting me when I got home, comforting me before I went to bed. He said, I'm sorry but I'm really tired. I need to share the load of comforting you with someone else.

At first I was hurt and upset. But after I time I understood. My counsellor had even said that this would happen at times, and that when I realised this I should give her a call. But unfortunately she is away on holidays at the moment.

So I decided to share with my Bible study how I was really feeling.

Sometimes I feel overwhelmed with my lot, particularly the fact that I seem to be caring for and helping so many people and yet what I'm going through is so hard. But one thing I do have is lots of people who love me and support me. Some of the women in my Bible study I have only really known this year. But they are amazing.

I was talking with two of them after the study, after I shared. One is expecting a baby 8 days before Thumpers due date. I should hate her but i just can't. She is just so lovely and real and does an amazing job of being a human being and not just a pregnant women! She told me that she had a misscarriage too and that she hated the world. She and the other girl said they were amazed how joyful and unbitter I was.

I protested, "I'm so angry so much of the time". My pregnant friend said "That's just grief".

"That's just grief". Two little words but how they change my perspective. They remind me of what I've been through. They remind me that when someone has been trying for four years, and then has a miscarriage- it's kind of normal to hate the world. Especially after a BFN.

I still think, despite my sharing, that they haven't seen how angry and bitter I have been. Maybe those who read this blog and Earl are the only ones who really know. But knowing this is "just grief", knowing this is part of the package and knowing that this feeling might pass, is really starting to make me feel better.
LG