Almost another year has come and gone and some things are different and some have stayed the same.

I’m in a much better place both mentally and physically. I am just 7lbs shy from the weight I was when we first began this process almost 6 years ago. I’ve lost the 55lbs that I had gained somewhere between multiple miscarriages and depression over the years. I feel better in a hundred different ways! I mean, I’m still technically overweight and I’d like to continue this weight loss but now some things are changing slightly in my life, so we’ll see if i’ll be able to mentally handle the pressure.

We are still childless, and while the thought of that is upsetting and frustrating to me, I feel like I’ve come a ways out of my grieving dark hole since our losses. While we haven’t guarded against it, we haven’t been pregnant in a couple years, or experienced a loss. I think that has helped given me some space and distance to fully feel them, and begin to put myself back together. I haven’t felt so much like myself in five years. I’ve been enjoying life, and experiences and I needed this break.

I was reluctant to rejoin the child seeking masses and schedule an appointment at a specialty center at the beginning of the year. I was afraid of the procedures, medicines, diagnostics, and insanity of it weighing on my mind incessantly. We started the process early this spring and it was slow going at first. A lot of weeks in between appointments and follow ups. Suffice it to say, everything about me and my partner is normal, and working perfectly … I mean, except for the part about why the heck we cant get pregnant or stay pregnant. No one has answers for that, yet. I’m wondering if mentally or physically my body has had enough with losses and let down and has built a little wall inside my body. “None shall pass.”

Now comes the not so fun parts.  We’ve started the process to have an IUI this month. First, this feels like it’s happening fast because all of our previous appointments were weeks apart and we just decided this last week, and tonight I will be starting meds. I honestly hate taking any medicine. The plan is to do a few cycles, try to get pregnant again, and see if I can keep it this time. Because it’s been so long since our last pregnancy/loss I think the new clinic wants to see if anything has changed as far as, hey, maybe I can actually sustain life now, or maybe they can figure out what’s going on if I lose this one. Either way, it seems like no big deal to everyone there. Like, “Hey, just do a little IUI, get pregnant and see what happens.” Like it’s really so easy to 1. take meds and deal with side effects. 2. get pregnant. 3. stay pregnant. 4. have a miscarriage 5. deal with said miscarriage with Rhogam/DNC/grief whatever.  Oh yeah, and update all kinds of doctors and nurses on that process as I go. Yeah, totally easy. Nope.  BUT, I’m pulling out the big girl panties again and going for it, and trying not dwell on what I cant control, which is pretty much everything.

I have felt an old familiar anger and frustration and self pity bubble up recently. I thought I had dealt with these emotions, but apparently they were just out of sight, out of mind. I’m frustrated that I have to let everyone and their sister know about my period, my cycle, my losses, make phone calls and appointments, deal with insurance, and payments and schedules for me and my husband. And, it doesn’t help that the doctor is almost an hour away from my home, and about an hour and a half from my husband’s work. Not the simplest task to coordinate. It’s all completely inconvenient and it sucks. It really sucks. I think about how awful it must be to be ill, and to feel ill and to have to go to treatments and make appointments and how terrible that must feel. That would be an actual nightmare.  Then I feel even more awful about having these feelings. But truth is, this does suck, and it is inconvenient, and I do feel like I’m living in a nightmare sometimes.

This was the rabbit hole I was trying to avoid, but there is no way out but down. I’ve got to go down.

 

Honestly if it were up to just me I probably would have tried to foster or adopt by now. I just want a child and genetic connection doesn’t feel as important to me as the pain and drain of the past 5 years and a potential childless future. BUT marriages and partnerships are about compromise, so here we are.