Trying to live scared

A couple of people left comments to my This is Only a Test post. I have wanted to thank them since the comments were left, but found myself unable to. Not that I don’t appreciate the sentiments, I do. But it’s been hard to let myself think about the recent news too much. I’m afraid I will feed hope and hope will grow and I’ll start dreaming and planning the next year based on what if. I have been down that road too many times these last two years. I was deeply afraid that even acknowledging people’s good wishes would start me on that road again. It would mean admitting to myself that maybe the something I have wanted so much might just be attainable and that would be enough to start a hope avalanche I would be powerless to survive. Yes, I know this sounds all oblique and abstract. But really, that’s the crux of it. As long as this all stays somewhat abstract then I can keep the hope tucked away and at bay.

Life, the universe and everything, however, seem to have other plans.

Last night as I was drifting off to sleep, I found myself thinking about how my life would be impacted the rest of this year should the unthinkable happen. What things I might have to do differently, how I would handle things. I felt a little scared that I was letting myself go there and wondered if I was starting to nurture hope.

Two years ago, in the aftermath of my miscarriage, I had a vivid nightmare. I was at work and a coworker announced she was pregnant. In my dream and in those hazy moments afterwards upon waking, I felt an immense ache. Like a thousand stab wounds plus the weight of a thousand mastodons upon my chest. The pain and weight of it all left me breathless and unable to cry.

This morning, the same coworker that I dreamt about told me there was some news she wanted to tell me. I knew what was coming and felt my emotions disengage. As she was talking, I assessed if I needed to keep the conversation short so I can bolt as soon as it was over or if I could feed my need to know how far along she was and other torturous details. I was able to (nicely, I think) congratulate her and talk to her a bit. After the conversation was over, it was difficult to concentrate. For a few hours, all I could do was think about how quickly they had gotten pregnant (married first week of January, now 12 weeks along, must have happened on their first or second try) and the fact that she is married to my boss, so I would have to at least have another conversation about this when I congratulated him. I felt worn out and on the verge of a breakdown. I wondered if I was going to be able to get through the day or whether I should just give into the unfairness of it all and go home. I wondered when I would ever learn that hope would always lead to despair and berated myself for being weak last night and letting hope in. I knew for sure at that point the Clomid cycle I would start this month would be a dismal failure. Either I would get no response or the IUI would fail. It dawned on me that whether it was my eggs or donor eggs or adoption, I may never become a mother. I seriously considered, for the first time, living without children. And I realized, that these last few months I have had quite long periods of happiness and contentment even amidst the struggles I have had dealing with friends and families getting pregnant and having babies. That I do not hate the life I have now, even though it is a life without children. It is difficult and it is hard and I still desparately want children, but I can see that it is possible to live without them and still find some happiness. I will always be around people who will get pregnant easily and end up with a baby 40 weeks later. I realized how exhausted I am to have to feel so miserable and defeated each time I hear other people’s happy pregnancy/baby news and I am tired of feeling that way. Miscarriage and infertility have taken enough from me. They have changed me enough. I don’t want it to have that kind of control over me anymore. There are too many things in life I can’t control to let the things I can control have free reign over me. I can’t control the things that happen to me, but I can control how I respond. I don’t want to respond anymore with fear to pregnancy news or to news that I may be able to get pregnant with my own eggs.

I know that I will continue to react to news of pregnancies and babies with tears and heartbreak. I can accept that and embrace it, even. I have already learned to let myself grieve when I hear these things and learned to give myself permission to feel hateful without berating myself. Now, I want to work on my response after I have let myself react. I want to be able to face the truth of the situation instead of hiding away like a half-dead animal unable to live or die.

So, Carrie P and SusanG, thank you for your good wishes to my post. I hope, yes hope, it is a door to more good news, but if it’s only a window I can gaze at for a little while then I will accept that, too. But, I have to tell you I am scared that this Clomid cycle will tell me something good and I am scared that this Clomid cycle will tell me something bad. I am scared that I won’t get as far as an IUI and scared that if I do, I will ride the hope rollercoaster of doom only to find a negative at the end of the ride or another anembryonic pregnancy. I am scared, but I don’t want to live in fear.