Do you have any kids?

Who among us hasn't been asked that question? After our first few losses, I would get a shocked look on my face. Stammer. And eventually land on a no, if someone I was with didn't get there for me first (and believe me, my mom and mother-in-law have both done it). I was always so ashamed of that answer, not because it was true but because it wasn't. I had children. Their death didn't make them any less real, and I worried that I did them a great disservice by denying their existence. I was ashamed that I chose to lie in the interest of keeping a conversation from becoming awkward or revealing too much information to someone I didn't know well.

Elizabeth changed things a little. For one, her passing was more public knowledge than our first trimester losses. For another thing, like it or not (and my vote is definitely not), it feels more socially acceptable to mourn her loss. Those things in mind, I decided a few months ago that my answer would now be "none living". I may not be able to talk as openly about our other babies, but surely no one would begrudge me talking about our Lizzie.

This afternoon, I had just finished an eye exam and picked out new frames and was sitting with the eye-distance measurer/insurance guru (apparently my left eye is closer to my nose than my right) when he asked me an infertile's favorite question. I may have decided on my answer months ago, but this was the first opportunity I had to use it. Apparently, I don't get out and meet new people often. I told him I had no living children and he said "what?" and I repeated myself. Then he looked down and said "Me too. My son died in a car crash last year. Never the same again, are we? How old was your child?".

That is what a pastor I know would call a holy hook-up. We talked for a little bit, but things got a little awkward when all my paperwork was filled out and there was no legitimate reason for me to be sitting there anymore. Before I left, though, he told me he had been thinking about the biblical harvest and how when you plant a seed, you expect a harvest and each variety of seed has a different sow-to-reap time (modern companies even print them on their packets) (in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me when as yet there were none of them psalm 139:16). That we all die, and God being the best of all gardeners picks us from this life when we are at our peak ripeness, at our best. it's an interesting thought for me, something to mull over. I guess I always saw our little ones as barely sprouted... So very far from ripe. To think that, half formed as they seemed in our human estimation, they were just right in god's eyes. I guess it's just as reasonable as people eating bean sprouts.

The Black Hole, pt 2

Tired of living with a gaping hole in our lives, and our options before us, we have decided to at least start looking into adoption.  There are a ton of obstacles in our way, financing, namely... but I kinda feel like things aren't gonna turn around for us if we're just sitting around waiting for things to change, instead of acting to change them.   We're going to an informational meeting tonight.  Here goes nothing...

Merry Christmas Darling

 

The lights on my tree 

I wish you could see 

I wish it every day 

Logs on the fire 

Fill me with desire 

To see you and to say 

That I wish you Merry Christmas 

Happy New Year, too 

I've just one wish 

On this Christmas Eve 

I wish I were with you 

The Black Hole, pt 1

I can't say that all my life, I have wanted nothing more than to be a mother.  What kid doesn't have big, if not unrealistic, dreams?  I can say, though, that even through all of my other dreams, I just assumed I would be a mother.  It wasn't just a dream; some dreams come true, some dreams don't.  Motherhood was an expectation, as though my life owed me something or was subordinate to me and this was what I expected of it.  

I was, of course, no fool though.  I had to meet it halfway.  I met and married an incredible man with similar expectations of life who loves me dearly and has the potential to support any family we create.  We got respectable jobs with sufficient income.  We bought a house with *significant* room to grow our family.  We settled into respectable adult bed times and extra curricular activities.  I never worked more than temporary or part-time jobs, leaving plenty of time for housewifery and, eventually, to take care of our children.  We had loving, well-timed, married baby-making sex.  Lots of it.  It was time for life to life to fulfill it's end of the bargain, so we waited.  When we realized there were some fertility issues that needed taken care of, we were nothing if not proactive.  And yet here we wait.  

One could argue that we were being responsible adults, planning and preparing for a future we had no idea might not be ours.  One could also argue that it was foolish of us to build our lives around an assumption.  Either way, it amounts to the same thing: we built our lives around a hole that might never be filled.  

I can't say that's a new realization for me, but I've been thinking about it a lot lately because sometimes it feels more like a black hole, sucking everything else in with it, and I'm just not sure how much longer I can live like that.  As such, we've started  considering our other options.

• We could do nothing.  We could technically keep things exactly like they are.  Keep living around our hole, keep trying desperately to fill it as"naturally" as we are able. 
• We could change the way our life is.  We could quit living around the hole.  Create a life for ourselves that doesn't assume we'll have children.  That doesn't mean we quit trying, but it does mean we quit waiting.  We move on, and we create a more healthy routine.  
• We could adopt or find a surrogate.  We could quit waiting for life or fate or God to hand us what we want ad go get it on our own.  It wouldn't be the same and I'm not sure I'm ready to quit trying yet, but that doesn't mean we have to live with the hole in the mean time.  

More to come on this later...

Breaking Dawn

I got a new iPhone this past week.  My PrePlus was dying a slow, painful death and I can't afford to have my only real phone be in that kind of condition.  I've never had an iPod or real mp3 player before (tho i guess my other smart phones have had the capability) so it's a pretty novel thing for me.  A few years ago, a friend put her twilight audio books on my computer and it'd been a while since I'd had an opportunity to listen to them (especially a portable one).

Twilight is one of the series' that I re-read almost every summer (my peak reading time) but I didn't this year.  I had a reason at the time, but it didn't occur to me... until I got closer to Breaking Dawn.  Bella's unexpected, supposedly impossible honeymoon pregnancy is an infertile's nightmare in it's own right, but her uber short high-risk bed-ridden pregnancy that ends in a traumatic birth and, unlike in reality, a healthy mother (if you count vampirism as healthy) and baby.

I'm still not to the birth part yet, and I'm not sure how I'm gonna handle it but like everything else that has made me shy away, I'm trying to push through it, get back on the horse.

This morning, I heard two passages that got me thinking:

"From that first little touch, the whole world had shifted.  Where before there was just one thing  I could not live without, now there were two.  There was no division - my love was not split between them now, it wasn't like that.  It was more like my heart had grown, swollen up to twice its size in that moment.  All that extra space, already filled.  The increase was almost dizzying."

"When you loved the one who was killing you, it left you no options.  How could you run, how could you fight, when doing so would hurt that beloved one?  If your life was all you had to give your beloved, how could you not give it?  If it was someone you truly loved?"

Maybe the first one just made me remember that joy and miss it... and hate the brokenness that love gave me when my "little nudgers" (as Bella would have called them) were taken from me.

But the latter one... *sigh*
When my water broke and we knew there was no way we could save Elizabeth, we chose to induce.  The reasons were twofold: Staying that way was pretty dangerous for me and I hoped in vain that if Elizabeth was born quickly enough, she might survive it well enough for us to have a few seconds with her before she passed.  They had been trying to talk me in to inducing for two days before then, but if there was any way we could have saved Elizabeth, I really didn't care if it was risky for me.  Before they induced, they did another ultrasound.  Because her heart was still beating, I had to sign abortion paperwork.  Because it was considered a risk to me, we were able to forgo the 24 hour waiting period.  I can't tell you how it pained me to sign paperwork that I'd marched on DC year after year to abolish.  Most abortions in this country are by choice, not medical necessity, but I'll admit: I always considered the "risk to the mother's health" part to be a bit of a cop-out.  As a mother, I could never imagine choosing to save myself if there was any way to save my child.  I sympathized with Bella.  But that option never existed for me.  No one ever asked me to die for my daughter or tried to talk me out of it.  My baby was going to die whether I chose to act for my safety or not.  I know it's silly, but I can't help but be jealous of a fictional character and her happily ever after this morning.

Happy Due Date, Sweet Elizabeth

You know, it's strange.  All of our other angel's due dates have been spent thinking about how my day could have gone, should have gone.  Of course, few babies are actually born on their due dates, but it represents something so absolutely vital to having a living, breathing little human being to hold in your arms.

But Elizabeth was born.  Less than a month before she would have reached viability.  Today doesn't represent her birthday because she has a birthday.  Today represents my failure, the enormous gap between when she would have been ready to be born and when she was born.  ... and I have no idea  how to mark this shitty, shitty occasion.

Nightmare

I had a dream last night.  I'm inclined to call it a nightmare, and the fact that I woke up crying certainly would confirm that, but it's content isn't what you'd expect of a nightmare.  There were no monsters in the classical sense (unless you count me), no vast expanses or horrific scenes.

Last week my mom, out of concern for my grandpap, told me about a dream he had had that must have been so real that he thought it was real when he woke up.  He dreamed that my little brother had gotten his new girlfriend pregnant.  (The good news is my mom straightened him out before he did or said anything too bad).

Last night, my sub-conscious followed that line of thought to it's "logical" (or as logical as a dream can be) conclusion, complete with making me sit through their ultrasound and  and a combination wedding reception/baby shower, with me running around throwing things, screaming about a bastard child and basically having a nervous breakdown.

This morning, I'm not sure what has me more upset; feeling like a monster that I could react like that to my brother's happiness, or realizing that it's not entirely impossible for my brother to have kids before we do (as if my cousins doing so wasn't hard enough).

The good news is that "new girlfriend" is already gone and my brother just left for 6 months of military training.    So he's not in a relationship at all, and he'll be surrounded by mostly guys for the next 6 months.  Also, he's really not at a settling down point and (as far as I know, not that he'd prolly tell me) he doesn't generally (or prolly ever) sleep with his girlfriends.  Still, at the rate we're going, it's not impossible...and its kinda terrifying.

A Pain Like No Other

We've all heard the pithy little saying about how we have words for all different kinds of grief, but none for when a parent looses a child, because it's "A Pain Like No Other" or "Goes against the natural order.  While I wouldn't disagree with any of those things,  I can't help but see it as an excuse made by society so they don't have to deal any further with our pain or it's implications.

My boss' father passed away today.  It's a terrible thing, that I couldn't imagine enduring.  My father and I have always been close.  As soon as they heard about her loss, the board of directors of our library started grouping together to see where they could send donations or flowers to.  They recognize the significance of the loss and they reached out to her.

These same people did nothing, sent nothing, and said nothing when we lost our daughter.  They chose not to acnowledge our loss, because for any number of reasons, it was easier for them.  That is the real reason there is no word for people like me and no acepted way to act towards us.

I am a grieving mother, but sometimes I feel more like a leper.

On the Sidelines

It's no secret that, as we grow and change, our group of friends change with us.  We often choose people in our stage of life, with our values and ideals.  When I went to college and moved to Ohio and then to a new part of Pennsylvania I had to learn to make new friends.  A simple task, but a difficult one to grasp for someone who had lived in the same place and among the same people their entire life, made all the worse by the fact that most of those places were temporary stops.  

But now, I've lived in the same county for almost 4 years (same town for 3) and plan to continue living here for some time (home ownership will do that).  We started TTC when we got here, so it's been a long 4 years and I've no doubt been a shitty friend at times.  The people we gravitated toward the most were either young parents or married couples who were ready to settle down.  In that time, they have all had children and we're still sitting on the sidelines.  They go out together on "play dates" and have "moms nights out" and I'm never invited.  Of course, I don't have anyone to take on the play date and my being a mother too, is either something they prefer not to think about or they don't think it counts.  Either way, it makes me odd man out.  

We've tried hanging out with singles and couples who don't want kids yet, but lifestyle-wise, we have nothing in common with them.  We live the life of people with kids, without the kids.  I guess it's kind of a sad existence.  Me home all day(baking and cleaning and canning and tending the chickens), our free evenings, our 4 BR house with a big yard and an empty nursery.  

And so we exist in no-man's land, and let me tell you: It's a lonely place to be.

Pulling Flowers

Mr. Fix-it and I went to the cemetery on Saturday.  Elizabeth is buried next to my great-grandpap (in the slot that was reserved for my great-grandma who is still alive and kicking, but wants to be buried with her second husband) in the cemetery where all of my family is, in my hometown.   We live about an hour from there, so we don't get to visit often enough (if you ask me) but I couldn't think of anywhere else I would rather have her, than surrounded by family.  It's probably best for me too: there's no way I could dwell to the point of practically living in the cemetery.  Unfortunately, Mr. Fix-It kinda freaks out when I declare that we should visit the cemetery while we're there...so I don't mention it 'til I have to.  We haven't ever not stopped when we've been in the area tho, so eventually he's gonna catch on.  It's not that he doesn't want to go, but rather that he doesn't know what to do with his emotions, having followed a long line of males down the glorious road of emotional constipation.

The cemetery game plan was to rip out the flowers we had planted in the summer and put in a fall wreath.  When we got there, someone had already ripped out the flowers.  It was probably best.  Over the summer, they grew to be rather bushy but we left them because they were still so pretty.  But I was really hurt by it.  Not because the flowers were gone, but because I felt like someone else had said to me with their actions that I wasn't taking good enough care of my daughter's grave.  It'd only been 2 1/2 weeks since we'd been out there,and while we were on a tight enough schedule that we didn't have time to garden last time, the were still in full bloom so I didn't feel the need to pull them yet.

The fact of the matter is, most of my family is buried in that area and my great-grandpap (who has 50+ descendants at this point) shares her "gardening space".  Any one of a dozen people could have been up there and saw they needed pulled and acted, meaning nothing but good by their actions.

But here's the thing:  keeping her gravesite orderly is the only means I have left to nurture my daughter.  And today I feel like it's yet another example of my extreme failure as a parent.

How We Remember

CD28, 14DPO

Well, here I sit waiting for the red lady...who I presume is coming.  This morning's FRER was assembled incorrectly and I had to take it apart and interpret the results but I THINK it was negative (and that folks is why I consider Clearblue Digial to be the rolls royce of HPTs, but the store was out of 'em).  Still not the slightest sign of spotting, tho the headaches I've had the last few days suggest she is coming as well.

Anyways, today is Pregnancy & Infant Loss Rememberance Day.  Everyone remembers their little angels in different ways.  I'm gonna share some of the things we and other folks have done to remember our little angels, but I'd really love to hear what you have done also.

• Currently, there are 2 weeping cherry trees in our yard, which we planted after our first two losses.  I do plan on either planting 2 more or one more and putting in a bench.  
• When our church got new hymnals last year, I donated 3 in memory of our 3 (at the time) angels.  
• My car has a pink & blue ribbon magnet.  I couldn't find anywhere that had discrete (aka: text-free) ones, so I made and ordered one at supportourribbons.com.  

And then, there's Elizabeth.  Part of me feels sort of terrible singling her out.  I hate that the rest of our angels didn't get names, but years later it feels wrong to just assign them names and I guess it didn't occur to me at the time.  But now I feel like I've done them a disservice, because I assure you they were no less real and certainly no less human to me just because I never go to hold them or know their gender and 2 of them I never even got to see on an ultrasound machine.  I wish I could turn back the clock and give them names when it was apropriate to do so, or that it didn't feel like too little too late now.  But at the same time, Elizabeth was different.  Not because she was more precious, but because she was more known.  

She was more known to me, who carried her for more than 19 weeks.  I like to think she liked bananas and plain spaghetti with marinara sauce, cuz those were the only things she would let me eat.  She fluttered at the silliest times, but especially when her daddy was around.  She's my little Lizzie who I learned was in danger the second I finally learned what to call her.  Who I spent 3 days comforting and begging forgiveness of because there was nothing I could do to save her, while her movements got fewer and fewer.  She was the only child I ever got to hold in my arms, even if it was just her still, limp body.  

She's also the only one who was really known to the public, especially at the end when I was finally starting to get that bump.  Because she was more substantial, and because she was more known to the public, we were given almost normal room to bury her and grieve for her.  That has also given us more space to memorialize her, and others who wished to do so.

• Elizabeth was cremated and buried with a small graveside service with some extended family.  In a box with her urn (which was about the size of a pill bottle), we put a blanket someone had knitted in anticipation of her arrival, the tiniest teddy bear we could find (so it wouldn't be too big for her) which, fittingly, said Jesus Loves Me, and a note I had written her.  Just a little over a week ago, her headstone finally made it into place. 
• The hospital gave us a memorial box with the tiniest footprints on one panel of the lid, and a little card declaring that she weighed 9.5oz on the other.  We put all of her ultrasound pics, the pics the hospital staff took for us (I wish there were more), and my hospital bracelets in a little album in it.  In the back we put the ultrasound pics and bracelets from our other angels.  The box also contains the teacup the held the water she was baptized with, the blanket she was wrapped in, the knitted dress donated by a group at the hospital that she was too small to wear and a couple other similar nick-nacks.  It lives on our dresser so we can look at it whenever we want. 
• The staff at my mom's office pitched in and bought a leaf for the National Tree of Hope Monument in her honor.  I've never been to see the tree, but I hope to some day.  In the mean time, we were sent a replica of her brass leaf, a Christmas ornament, and 2 keychains. 
• One of Mr. Fix-It's Aunts paid for the National Arbor Day foundation to plant 10 trees in her honor. 
• I haven't yet, but I'm seriously thinking about getting a memorial tattoo.  I do agree with my mom tho, when she says I should give it a little more time.  Tattoos are forever. 

Today, to honor Pregnancy & Infant loss Rememberance day, the organizers ask that we all light a candle at 7pm, your own time zone, thus creating a "wave of light".  They're forecasting pretty heavy winds tonight here, so I might have to use flashlights or oil lamps or something. 

What have you all done to remember your precious angels?

The Pee Stick Controversy

CD25, 12 DPO

I have not peed on a stick yet.  For an average person, not peeing on sticks probably seems like normal behavior, but for an infertile like me?  Its practically unheard of.  But, here's the thing:  I live probably 17 miles from the nearest hpt vendor and I work close enough to home to walk.  That leaves me with two options: Have Mr. Fix-It get some for me on his way home from work or wait until I have legitimate errands to run.

Unfortunately, I haven't left my home/work/post office radius of a couple hundred yards since Sunday and don't have any legitimate reason to drive that far until tomorrow night at the earliest.  Living in the country has many perks.  This is not one of them.

Why not ask my darling husband to get one for me, then?  Well, Mr. Fix-It refuses to buy hpts unless I'm already late.  There are two reasons for this:

1. He doesn't want me losing my head over every little chemical pregnancy, I'm crazy enough and he figures what I don't know can't hurt me.  Of course, reminding him that, while the first might have come close, I have never had a pregnancy so short that I wouldn't have noticed being late (it's a side-effect of being hopelessly regular) doesn't help. 
2. Having sent him for a few hots anyways has shown him how much they cost...and the price difference between the ones I like, and the dollar store ones.  His theory is, if they cost so much and your body already gives you a heads up why not just buy one and save it as a confirmation?

Of course, saving one is totally out of the question.  If you let me, I'd go through them like mad.  When you combine that with the fact that I've never seen a multi-pack with more than 4 you quickly see that stockpiling is out of the question.  

And so I sit, 12 DPO  with no hopes of peeing on something for more than 36 hours.  Who invented this cruel game, anyways?

Infertility & Sin Nature

CD 24, 11 DPO

I'm a horrible, horrible person.  Inside, where no one sees.  On the outside, I'm far from perfect but I certainly seem to have it together in a social and moral sense.  College grad, virgin bride, devoted wife, home owner, librarian, (less than)urban homesteader, upstanding citizen, regular church goer.  I even sing in the choir.

But today, I wished something on a friend (or maybe more accurately, frenemy) that the normal, rational part of me would never wish on a soul, not even Mr. Adolf Hitler himself.  I had better start from the beginning:

This morning, I woke up to an old friend's copious newborn pictures plastering facebook.  Her tagging and commenting showed that she had found a vigor for facebook that I've never known her to have in the past.  Her baby was due less than a month before Elizabeth and it would be an understatement to say that those pictures stung, particularly in comparison to the picture I posted last week of my daughter's headstone.

To say that this friend had been lest than chaste (despite putting up her perfect Christian front), would be quite the understatement.  By the time her little oops happened though, she had at least found a serious relationship with her man and they rushed up a wedding and off they marched merrily into the sunset.  She announced her pregnancy right away, never having to fear that things might not go according to plan (or un-plan, in her case).  When Elizabeth passed, she never so much as called or emailed despite the fact that just a few weeks before we had been swapping stories from the trenches.  My guess is she was just so glad it wasn't her and that she had just crossed that precious line of viability.  Then this morning, she (who updated her status barely once a month) was on facebook for over an hour, making sure that no one could possibly miss her pictures and her joy.

Something inside me snapped.  I wanted to know why such an incredible gift had been given to her, who had done positively everything out of order while I, who have worked my ass off to keep my life in line, have had so very much taken from me in the last few years.  Part of me was waiting for God to wake up and declare that He had made a terrible mistake and given her what He had intended for me, and visa versa.  Then my (self-) righteous anger kicked in and in the back of my head i began to fester and part of me honestly wished, not only for what she had, but for her to know the intense pain and suffering of what has been taken from me.

And that, ladies and gents is sin at work.  I felt better than someone else, and in doing so became worse than her.  Grace is not given out only to the worthy and we should be thanking our lucky stars it isn't, because none of us have earned it.  I sure as hell didn't today.

It is also infertility at work.  Rational, caring me would never have thought something like that.  But infertility often stifles that part of me and sometimes I swear it's taken part of my soul.  I know it's taken big chunks out of my heart.

Here I am, messed up, outside and in.