Finding my blessings

So much about my life is revolving around getting pregnant right now, that a great deal of what I should be doing is following to the wayside.  Like, my human development class for example.  I haven't logged in to work on that all week, and my unit is due Sunday.

However, I should confess, between now and then is actually plenty of time for me to write a blog, a journal, read 3 chapters and take a test.  The procrastinator in me has already worked that out, so I have about zero stress over it. 

If there's not a pressing need to get this stuff done over a long period of time, frankly I don't want to spend every night with this one class.  I've got kid-cuddling to do. Probably 26 other things as well, but when faced with a toasty flannel-encased bed with your adoringly snuggly 6 year old, that other shit can wait. 

I've started reading the Little House on The Prairie books to G.  He L.O.V.E.S. them, and I will ask him to practice his reading with me while I read some parts.  I'm so pleased that he's getting into them, and how much he absorbs from them.  We talk about the social issues of that era, and how that compares to our more modern times.  At 6 years old, he's already begun to see the world as a far more overly-complicated place than it ought to be, which is tremendous to see him do.

I really need to start shopping for some good wool fleece.  I have a friend with a local farm that I haven't been able to come visit (mostly schedule issues), but she's been saving a few nice fleeces from this spring for me, and I'd really love to hunker down this winter with some non-strenuous projects seeing as how we're still trying to conceive. 

It should be said that beginning this whole "make a baby" parade shouldn't have been crusaded until after we finished remodeling the master bedroom (by ourselves no less, so it would cost $200, and not $2k) was true stupidity on our parts. I'm fairly sure our child now knows the word "cocksucker" as a result of both the steet rock hanging, and spraying texture.  

It should be noted that I am a crappy drywaller.  Do not hire me if you don't want your seams showing.  Painting, however, is where my talents can really shine.  Not shocking.  Way to go me for putting my fancy art degree to use, finally.  Thanks mom! 

 

Husband calls me every day while I'm at work and asks me how pregnant I feel.  I love that he asks. 


So here's the grit for today: My progesterone test came back at 4.6. A good level would be more like 5-10 to support implantation of a fertilized egg.  So, my OB will have me on clomid this cycle to push my ovaries a little harder to bring that up.  While my cycle isn't expected for another few days (I am not out of the game until she shows up), that 4.6 is a hauntingly low number, so I really wouldn't be pregnant.

After that I'll do an ultrasound to see what my eggs are doing, then somewhere in there when I ovulate we'll shoot up some more donor semen and do another 2 weeks of tedious, tearful, terrible, glorious and boring waiting.

I have a peak window left in later November, which will put me in August/September (which we were going to "tr" to avoid because our anniversary is in September), but I'm going to steam roll this whole thing on through until I've got a bun in my basket.

If this get's any closer to conception in December, I"m going to end up with an October baby, and that's going to suck.  Hubby's, (step)daughters AND baby's birthdays all in the same month. 

Fuck it though.  Baby's going to come when baby comes, and we can just suck it the fuck up.

Zing, and Zing!!!

Everything good

Today I exchanged a cup of coffee for a cup of tea.  On the end of the string of by bag, the tag reads "patience pays". 

Amid the hurrying to get one place, or another, and planning one thing or another, this helped me so tremendously today. 

I am grateful for subtle reminders.  I feel very lucky to have everything that I do. 

There is no way but forward

In the face of losing something we love and care about we find ourselves desperate to make amends and plead for more chances to make the wrongs right again, and smoothe over everything that's become broken. 

We hold within ourselves an immense capacity to love and radiate warmth and joyousness.  I feel that every time I think about where my life will go from here, and how beautiful it will be again.   

Yet I digress that I am so very fearful right now, knowing that this joy and love is waiting for me again.  The crossing into the unknown abyss to where I've never ventured scares me in a way I cannot explain.  A great deal of hurt is going to come, for all of us, and I question how I will withstand it, and protect the ones I love in any way I can.   Yet knowing that this certainty looms before me, I cannot bear to stay where I am.  I am lost in uncertainty about whom I have chosen to spend my life, and I cannot answer the questions of whether or not I want to stay with him. 

Sensing this, he's changed the game and announced that he wants a vasectomy reversal, so we can have a child together. No more donors and doctors and ovulation schedules.  In the corners of my mind where there is the tiniest cleft of love remaining, the shreds I tucked away that will stay with me and haven't been mired in the years of unhappiness and neverending fights and harms, it feels the ache of joy I so badly wanted those few years ago.  Every time he postponed and reasoned how we should wait another 6 months, another year, another few months again, just this little bit longer.  Always pushing it farther away from me and never wanting to talk about what would happen, how we would get through it.  Never making it a reality for me, only a desire just out of reach. 

It's been so long since I've dared to hope that this would be a REAL decision, or a real conversation, I've had to quiet my heart and keep from bubbling up with tears and sobs.  I've had to force myself to keep from feeling attachment to this, almost to the point where, when I think about a baby,  I don't feel happy anymore.  I feel a cavernous sadness inside me where the dark is waiting for me to venture to it, so it can take me and never let me go. 

The sharp pain of longing no longer exists, I just have to accept that in this moment, in this life, this is what I will have, and the yearning must be quelled in order for me to survive.  It pulled at me so hard and for so long, that it feels like I've lost something so important that I can barely take time to really mourn its loss. 

My journey will continue, and I will have to mourn when I'm ready.  Life must continue and I must find happiness within it.  Life is suffering and yet there's no other way to overcome what's needed.

Letting Go

There are many things I need to catch up here about our ongoing journey, but instead I'd like to write a little something contextual.  It's something we need in everyday life, and to be near us on our journeys, and it's been a topic which, as fertility-challeneged/differently abled will know, can cause more hurdles to overcome than just that of the fertility. 

You hear this phrase “letting go” a lot in meditation circles. It’s easy to say, and pretty easy to explain as well: don’t cling to the past, don’t get absorbed in plans for the future, don’t let fear, worry or anger get a hold of you in the present.

But try telling someone who is fearful or angry – in this present moment – to “let go” and you may get your ears boxed. And it won’t do anything to help them to let go either.

Actually letting go doesn’t come about by doing anything. Letting go isn’t something you do – it’s more like something that happens, almost by itself.

The conditions have to be right, of course. You must be able to let go – often you must have the courage and openness to accept whatever life has to offer – to not resist what might be unpleasant. And meditative exercises help too, of course: focusing your attention on the here and now creates the discipline of mind to not be carried away by anticipations of the future or memories of the past.
But being fully at ease with whatever is present in your experience is hard. It requires an attitude of welcoming to whatever this moment has to offer – an act of faith in the unknown of the future. But such an attitude cannot be brought about by doing anything. It’s more in the act of non-doing and just witnessing.

This is what meditation is about, really. Stopping. Not doing and just being and being aware. Dwelling in awareness is how this total relaxation can happen. And when you are totally relaxed – at ease with everything – there is no clinging and no grasping. ”Letting go” has happened.

Something different

There are a few new tags that I'm adding in light of the sudden fervor that I've observed in my own writing concerning our path to conception.  I would like to take today to have a meditative but momentary pause in something that brings me peace.

“If you love a flower, don’t pick it up.
Because if you pick it up it dies and it ceases to be what you love.
So if you love a flower, let it be.
Love is not about possession.
Love is about appreciation.”

― Osho