Envy is a slippery slope, filled with unenlightened commentary

The word "barren" seems really inappropriate when one of you is fertile, but the other not.  It feels unbalanced.  Perhaps referring to this situation as "unfairly lacking in sufficient sperm product", but this doesn't roll off the tongue in any way other than clumsily.  Also, people don't care to hear the word "sperm".  They way the look at you is like you'd exposed your private parts to them while smiling.

Ping ponging between feeling desperate to fill the empty wasteland of my weeping womb, and arguing with my spouse about whether or not another child is in our families dynamic is as well balanced at the tides that come in and out of the shores.  I spend countless hours remembering what it was like to hold my now-5 year old kindergarten aged son in my arms as a caterwauling infant and chiding myself that I wasn't more appreciative of his newness, his baby smell, the privilege that I might never have again to feel him at my breast.  All the mundane things I took for granted as I didn't worship and revere them as they happened. 

The mind takes you places you don't realize it will when a desperation sets in.  As my ovaries cast out a new ovum with every passing month, I feel a new surge or urgency in myself that comes with each  of these passing moons, and in that brief and fleeting window I indulge in the darkest of fantasies on begetting a baby.  I languish in these ideas, and I cringe at what the definition of them really and actually turns out to be.  The weight of the hard fact bears down in my mind only after the curtain of ecstasy subsides. 

I have spun myself many webs of possibility in search of this magnum opus, and learned that despite the passion to pursue them, the oceans of children already born into this world will have no love of a mother to call their own, and to sew the seeds within them that blossom into that unconditional bond.   I cannot give a child the warmth and kindness, gentle touches and togetherness.  It is a damning hatred that grows in you when you see how the politics of countries punish the innocent and blameless to lives grown with the starvation of love, and to be cared for by strangers. 

Confined in a windowed prison of waiting, I am watching each week and month go by, passing beside me, as with each moment I am closer to failing at this endeavor.  It is a malignancy that comes with a bitterness that I have no care for.  The complacency and acceptance feels like I have resigned myself to yet another shortcoming in my life, the last in a very long list. 

To use the phrase "between a rock and a hard place" would be like putting a band aid over a bullet wound. 

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.

Anything worth fighting for

The inability to concieve a child naturally takes a toll on a couple.  Making love for years and never getting pregnant.  Some months when you're busy living life without worrying about a new baby it's not something you think about, and others you feel a dull and constant ache through every fiber in your mind that just causes you to yearn for it.  

You see around you people making joyous announcements with large smiles and hands all over beautiful bellies, and people surrounding them with happiness.  And you feel empty, and guilty for it.  Why shouldn't you feel blessed enough with what you already have.  "You already have G, why do you need anything else?"  He asks me.   For the last two years he's slowly turned the tide on the plans to have another baby and pushed continuously to leave those plans behind and just live our lives without one. 

I always had this dramatically romantic idea that the ultimate celebration of love and togetherness was to have (or want to have) a child. 

That ache is mine, and mine only.  It's not a pain I share with him.  It's only mine. 

I'll turn 33 this year.  Not hardly old enough to be watching the grains of time slipping faster and faster, but old enough where I'm seeing more gray hairs moving in, and I've noticed deeper lines where I smile and squint.   Times not going backwards, that's a definite. 

There's a reality that I've been tonging around in my mouth and haven't dared spoken to many, but it's that if I stay where I am, I will be fighting alone to have a child with someone who doesn't want one himself. 

"The Greatness of Forgiveness"

I can't take and credit for this; it showed up in my daily emails subscribed from Dr Andrew Weil.  Nevertheless, it was worth sharing as a way to remind myself of why forgiveness is important.  Even if it is only forgiving yourself........


Forgiveness is beneficial not only mentally but physically as well. People who forgive tend to be less angry, depressed, stressed-out and anxious, and have lower blood pressure and heart rates than those who hold grudges. If you tend to have a hard time letting go of a grievance, consider that forgiveness does not mean you have to forget an incident, but rather that you can place a limit on how it affects you and your relationships.

You will benefit from the process of forgiveness as much, and perhaps more, as the person with whom you have the disagreement. This holiday season, take a step back and think about who you would like to forgive, and let it happen.

Much love to everyone. 

Really confusing

I'm deep in the middle of a "what the hell" moment, and this might very well be totally TMI for anyone reading, but since I'm going to throw my personal filter out the door here.....

My stress is positively through the roof at this particular intersection of time.  We've had some seriously challenging issues with the step-daughter than led her dad to kick her out of the house, and for her to get rolling down the same roller coaster path of her trying to leave the state (she's under 18) with people who don't know she's under 18.  Total chaos.

This is also the holiday season.  'Tis the season to be overly stressed out, I guess.  I've also been drinking a little more than I do normally, and probably not sleeping well.  Or at all.  This has always been an issue for me however; too many distractions to sleep.  If I give my body the leeway, it will sleep just fine, but I'm an asshole to myself and I decide to watch late-night movies and play solitaire, or knit. 

Also, also; marital strain.  Oy vey.  Those two words are rife with deeper implications.  I've written several-page blogs about them and saved them as drafts for fear of speaking aloud any of my woes. 

This would be the worst time possible to try to conceive a baby.  My body would be a terrible place to try to grow a person right now, which is comforting since we haven't discussed any baby-making in months.  Long months.  This doesn't mean I'm not staying up on tracking my cycles, ovulation and everything else that I'll need to keep track of to make sure that when (ahem *if) we get back to a good enough place to try to conceive, I won't have to work harder than I would anyway.  

This being said, I should be smack dab in the middle of ovulation.  But, surprise for me; I've started a little mini-period instead.  I literally had to look up if this was normal, and guess what causes outside of hormonal issues, PCOS and menopause cause irregular periods?  Stress.

As I've gotten older I've lost the ability to just shrug off problems like they're nothing.  Possibly because the repercussions for failing have such higher stakes than they ever have, and those consequences scare the shit out of me, to the point where I might be too freaked out to sleep well.  It's definitely happened before. 

I bulked up on more Holy Basil, and a friend made a recommendation for Tulsi tea with Gotu Kola, which was kind & appreciated.  I even emailed my doctor with a witty little "wth is going on with my uterus" message. 

So in short; I'm a varitable mess right now.   It's a really disconcerting situation to feel totally out of touch with what your body is doing, which is how I feel right now.  I'm usually very tuned into what is going on with myself, and it feels almost like a betrayal.  I realize that this is really stupid to say, because it's only a perception of my own emotions, and in fact, if anything is going to be considered a "betrayal", it ought to be ME to blame for being an insensitive shit-face and not taking more care of myself.  My body only reacts to what I'm doing, and going through; it's not on auto-pilot and decides randomly to crash itself for no goddamn reason. 

All of this being said;  I'm going to go make myself another cup of tea, and take another Holy Basil.  Later I'm going to take some time at lunch to go take myself for a walk, and get out of my tiny little work-box for a half hour, after that I'm going to take a run at the gym until I'm about to collapse. 

You'd think at 32 years old, and able to care aptly for my children and my family that I would be able to remember to take care of myself.  Apparently I forgot to write myself a note in my calendar, because I can't remember the last time I took any time for myself to do basically any kind of regular activity or effort that would be just for me. 

Time to set up the necessary changes, and make it happen.  Holding my breath isn't going to help.

Allowances

Last night while I was drifting off to sleep, my mind was marinated with a conversation I'd had with my mother about happiness, about protecting my child, and what challenges we were going through in our home during these times.

I am marinating presently on what it really means to be able to let it all go, and go without resentment and fear.  To make changes in my life which are absolutely terrifying and life-altering, while being able to take actual breaths while I'm doing it.

I'm a little scared right now.  To return to the fray was not what I'd thought would happen, but in my heart I realize that it's the only way I'm going to make it out of this ocean of poison.  I've worked so very hard for change, and not seen any fruit borne out of those labors.  How much longer I'll have to continue to labor is a question I already have an idea how to answer; indefinitely. 

The dreams I've made for myself will have to be put on hold; I know that now. I accept that I can wait, even though it's tremendously dissapointing.  I am willing to have this happen, because I will be moving forward. 

Forward, forward, always onward. 

The breaths I take are not just to feel the healing begin in me, they're to remember that this is all just a passing phase, and it will all be over soon, and that I'll be able to find my laughter and smiles when it's all over.