the Robin

My honey and I moved into the house we are in on January 2. I desperately wanted to buy a house following the failure of our fertility treatments. I couldn't get my mind off it. I couldn't have a kid, well then, I at least wanted a house. I recognize it was with a sense of (desperate) grasping that I wanted a house. Then, it didn't seem possible, so I put it out of my mind, so-to-speak, until we had enough money to even consider it. A week later, we got wind that this couple we knew through friends were moving to Australia and wanted to rent their house. It took less than a week, and we had decided to come and live here.

It is nice to experience the house in Spring. There are lovely flowers that previous dwellers planted coming up all around the front and backyards. In the front of the house, there is also a porch with ceiling. On one of the ceiling posts, there is a robin that made a nest and she has been sitting on her eggs valiantly. On Friday, I felt truly angry at her, poor mama bird. What does there need to be a bird at my front door reminding me EVERY DAY of what my body cannot do and what I cannot have. Not enough that so many women around me are pregnant, that babies are being born to friends or colleagues weekly? Not enough that it's mother's day and that makes me sad? A mother bird had to come and sit on her eggs in my face!

Thankfully, that phase passed. I'm not angry anymore, as Ani would say. Today, I saw the baby robins for the first time. Two little heads with wide eyes, keeping watch for their mom. It's a miracle that they made it through the very cold and windy weather we had over the weekend. But there they are; healthy and happy. It's a miracle, and I can choose to see it or I can choose to be angry at it.

I guess that's a choice in a much larger sense. Do we let experiences close our hearts or do we allow our hearts to stay open despite the anguish of a broken heart. It feels like a hard waged battle in my case not to let my heart close up. I just know that if I do, I won't really be living anymore.

foul weather friend

I've got a long way to go to be a good blogger. I feel like I am treating this blog as a foul weather friend. I write when I feel so far down the end of the barrel that I need it to float me up a bit. At least the blog doesn't have feelings that I can hurt. But with my inclination to anthropomorphize just about anything, I do feel like I'm letting it down. But really, Augusta, you can't have a reciprocal relationship with a URL. Really.

So the wedding is done, the honeymoon is over, the thank you cards will be on their way out to the mail soon. It was a bit of a high for a while, this whole wedding business, a welcome reprieve from this really awful time I've been having since October. I think I was really enjoying the reprieve, basking in it really. I didn't have to interact with pregnant ladies on the honeymoon.

But then a few weekends ago we had Soup Sunday, where our friends get together and eat soup at someone's house. I was happy to see everyone, but then it all turned to pregnancies and babies. Two pregnant friends are in that group and I've only managed to tell one of them about our situation. So it was all about ultrasounds and due dates and such. It's really wonderful for them. And it hits me like a punch in the chest every time.

So the weather has been foul, in the chambers of my heart, and perhaps that is when you do need a friend. I am fortunate to have good friends who want to hear how I am doing and let me talk. Perhaps I can also just accept that the blog is a foul weather friend for now. It may be transformed into something else someday (adoption blog comes to mind) or I may abandon it altogether. But it seems like I need it for now. So I'll keep writing.

My 'ology

I saw this on PCOS chick's blog "His & Hers Infertility, Just like the towels" and decided to give it a go. Just as a way to ease back into blogging here.

FOODOLOGY:
What is your salad dressing of choice? Goddess or my own balsamic
What is your favorite sit-down restuarant? There are so many....Bollywood Bistro, Cornerstone, La Cucina, Luna 61,
What is your favorite fast food restaurant? Don't like fast food, but I'll eat at Tim Horton's in a pinch
What food could you eat every day for two weeks and not get sick of? salad, salad, salas
What are your pizza toppings of choice? broccoli, artichoke hearts, sundried tomatoes and goat cheese

BIOLOGY:
Are you right-handed or left-handed? Right
Have you ever had anything removed from your body? part of my cervix, a few teeth
What is the last heavy item you lifted? my backpack
Have you ever been knocked unconscious? No, thank God.
Have you ever fainted? No

BULLCRAPOLOGY:
If it were possible, would you want to know the day you were going to die? Absolutely not!
If you could change your name, what would you change it to? No, I really like my name.
How many pairs of flip flops do you own? None, but I have great chacos
Last person you talked to? My husband

FAVORITOLOGY:
Season? winter, summer, spring and fall
Holiday? labor day
Day of the week? Saturday because it's market day
Month? august
Color? steel blue
Drink? soda water
Alcoholic? red wine

CURRENTOLOGY:
Missing someone?
What are you listening to? Nothing at the moment, but I was watching Grey's Anatomy just a few minutes ago
What are you watching? my computer screen
Worrying about? everything
What’s the last movie you saw? Mickey Blue Eyes
Do you smile often? Yes
If you could change your eye color what would it be? I'm fine with my brown eyes
What’s on your wish list for your birthday? finish my dissertation
Can you do a chin-up? as if
Does the future make you more nervous or excited? both
Have you been in a car wreck? a tiny one
Have you caused a car wreck? a lady rear ended me
Do you have an accent? But of course! I'm French
Last time you cried? This morning in therapy
Plans tonight? Going to bed promptly. I'm sick and really tired
Have you ever felt like you hit rock bottom? yes
Name three things you bought yesterday? diesel fuel for Neko, coffee, and nothing else
Have you met someone who changed your life? Yes, I have met many amazing people who have changed my life. I'm truly blessed
For the better or worse? For the better.
How did you bring in the New Year? I stayed home while my husband went to a cottage. I needed some alone time. I journalled, watched a movie and went to bed. It was lovely.
Would you go back in time if you were given the chance? No thank you.
What songs do you sing in the shower? No singing in the shower, but I sing along in the car
Have you held hands with someone today? yes, with my husband
Who was the last person you took a picture of? My husband on our honeymoon last week
Are most of the friends in your life new or old? They are young, but I've had them as friends for a while and with some, we've connected more recently.
Do you like pulpy orange juice? Oh yes.
Last time you ate peanut butter and jelly? A few days ago. But I had peanut butter an hour ago. I have it twice a day, at least
What were you doing at 12 a.m. last night? coughing up a lung and trying to sleep.
What was the first thing you thought of when you woke up? Ok, the night time cold remedy has not worn off yet and I have to stand up. Shit.
How many televisions are in your house? 0
What color cell phone do you have? What cell phone?

Wedding in 2 days!

Dear reader, I'm not sure if you're out there, but at the frequency with which I post, I don't blame you ;-)

Ok, I just wanted to say a little something about Saturday. My honey and I are tying the knot. I have been utterly unexcited for this all along, even dreading it. Last weekend, we came pretty close to calling it off.

Yes, it was in large part the infertility driving a wedge between us. And then my whale-like grief about it that feels like it tries to swallow me. And then our avoidant style. There you have it. A disaster one week before the wedding.

Luckily, we have good skills to use in processing such things, and even better friends to help and support us. We got through it, and we feel like we can go ahead.

This is why until now I had not felt very excited about it. But now I'm starting to feel excited, and I'm glad. I think it will be hard to see all my pregnant friends, and perhaps face the insinuations about when the two of us will "get busy". But I'll get through it.

That's all. I won't write for a more than a week because I'll be on my honeymoon.

infertility sucks

And for so many reasons (and yes, I do hope this blog reaches the season of not talking about what sucks all the time).

I just found out that a dear friend is pregnant through reading her husband's facebook status update.

Infertility really sucks. It's the reason she hasn't told me herself.

soggy mess

Oh that was me yesterday. A wet napkin. A hectic 3 days at work, a mere 3 weeks before our wedding, many interrupted nights of sleep by the meowing cat, and add a visit to the Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility doctor, and you have a soggy mess.

As I drove into the city where the clinic is, Neko Case's tornado whirled in my ears; it was just playing on CBC radio 2's morning show. The tears started then and unfortunately, it was a little bit like a garden hose that doesn't readily shut off.

Quite frankly, I didn't feel like going back to the clinic. Just didn't feel like it one bit. But I had to go for a follow-up appointment to monitor my uterine lining on the estrace/prometrium combo. I started crying again in the bathroom when I arrived and cried in the consultation room and then decided to go through the capitals. I started with Canada, since they are more familiar to me. Once I got through all of them, I moved south to the US and started trying to name those. I got stuck on Maine. Probably because it's my pen name, but I just couldn't think of it and it frustrated the heck out of me. My mind kept coming back to Augusta and I kept saying to myself "NO! That's in GEORGIA!" Boston is the capital of Massachusetts, Albany is the capital of New York, I have no idea what the capital of Rhode Island or Connecticut is, I think the capital of New Hampshire is Portland (No, it's Concord), and on and on. That made the tears stop.

Tears stopped until the doctor walked in and asked me how I was doing. Isn't that the killer question when you're right on the edge!! And then he wanted to see if the reduction in overall estrogen had had an effect on my mood, specifically if it had lowered my overall mood. Um...with all due respect, I wanted to say, I'm not sure it's the estrogen as much as the unequivocal denial of a biological child. I didn't say it like that. It was choppy and not at all clear or eloquent.

Going back to the infertility clinic was difficult on many levels. The environmental cues were overwhelming. The setting is the one where we would bring all our hopes for having a baby. In the past, going there meant working toward getting pregnant and having our baby. Yesterday, I sat in the waiting room with hopeful couples like we once were and I found that excruciatingly painful. I couldn't look at them (not that anyone looks at anyone in the waiting room at the fertility clinic) and I didn't want them to look at me. I didn't want to recognize their hope, even if I could smell it from 20 paces away, and I didn't want them to see that this hope can be shredded.

In other news I took my wedding dress home yesterday. I think it will do. I hope.

then and now

I often hear people who have children talk about how becoming parents has given them a different glance on their childhood. It has helped them see their own parents in a new light and understand their decisions with a new, much more forgiving appreciation than they had before. As a budding psychologist, this one is interesting to me for obvious reasons: the dynamic nature of family relationships, the change that occurs from an internal shift in perception brought on by new experiences, idealizing youth versus middle aged realism.

Infertility has thrown an interesting twist in that particular narrative for me. Years of therapy and maturing into my thirties have helped me a great deal to be more forgiving towards those folks who raised me. Still, I mean, it did take a LOT of therapy to get here. In terms of raising a family, I was pretty much banking on doing it better than they did. Not that it's a competition. But in a way maybe it was a bit of point of pride for me. In their ignorance and self-preoccupation, those two had limited understanding of child development and parenthood. And it appears in my efforts to right the wrongs of the past, I wanted to raise children in a way that was healthy. I armed myself with quite a lot of knowledge in this pursuit. I'm almost a child psychologist, for crying out loud.

But it doesn't work like that (and yes, I AM admonishing myself here). Having my own children was not ever going to fix what happened then. Sadly, nothing can.

I am left however, with a sense of great emptiness with regards to this particular question. Of course failed infertility treatments leave one with a sense of great emptiness regardless, but with regards to moving beyond my own childhood, I always thought having my children would be a critical piece. I don't necessarily think I was planning on using my children to heal from childhood experiences, just that parenthood would be healing in and of itself.

But parenthood has not been ruled out, even if biological children have been.

And maybe the wrongs don't get righted, but a new understanding and deeper forgiveness for one's parents comes with parenthood. I don't know that yet, but I hope so.