A midlife crisis to go with my midlife ovaries

These last couple of weeks I’ve found myself just going through the motions of life and feeling unsatisfied. Up until the last couple of weeks, there has always been something to do—putting away wedding and Christmas things, preparing for visitors, then the accident and all the paperwork, dealing with insurance, etc. It felt never-ending but then, it did. And I thought it would be great because now I would have the time to spend on myself and my needs. Can you guess what happened? That’s right. I got what I wished for but I found I really didn’t want all that time for contemplation. I began looking for things that needed my immediate attention so I can avoid facing myself and my feelings. Deep down, I know it will help me to sit and be quiet and listen to myself, but I don’t want to. I’m not really sure what I’m afraid of. Am I afraid of what I’ll hear myself saying? I don’t know. I just know that avoiding it is making me miserable, but I can’t seem to get myself not to avoid it.

I’ve been in this place before, years ago when I was depressed and trying to fight my way out of it. I went to therapy and that helped some but it was a long process. I also had Mr. Warrior reminding me that the truth was my friend and that no matter how painful the truth may be, in the end it was better to know the truth and let it help me, than to push it away.

I don’t know exactly the nature of the truth I should be searching for within myself. Certainly this struggle with infertility is causing pain and anguish, but I’m also reaching the end of my graduate school career and I know that this is also causing stress and anxiety. It’s an ending that is not unwelcome, but at the same time I don’t know what I will do with myself once it happens. I have some ideas, but can’t get myself to act on anything. When I first made the decision to go back to school after having spent 6 years out of it, I was motivated by how I saw myself 10 years down the road. I thought it was a means to a more fulfilling work life and I imagined myself happily working during the weekday and being mother and wife the rest of the time. Now, I can’t imagine what my personal life or work life will be like 5 or 10 years down the road. These last years in graduate school have sucked my love of work out of me and infertility has vanquished my mommy dreams to some distant land that I’m afraid I will never be able to go to. I have to give up the future I had written but I don’t know how to re-write a new one.

For a moment

I was driving a company car a few days ago. Had just finished a left turn into the median, checked the lanes to see if there was traffic (none) and began merging into the lane. I hear my co-worker beside me say something frantic. As I’m trying figure out what she is trying to tell me, a truck crashes into the side of the car. This time I felt clear headed and collected. Perhaps I had already expended all my frustration at the near hit last week when Mr. Warrior was driving. Perhaps my reaction last time was due to my volatile premenstrual hormones and now I was floating in my post AF calm. Perhaps it’s because I have finally realized that there are many things in life I can’t control. After all, relative to miscarriage and infertility, this was small in comparison. The people involved were mostly ok and it was 90% certain the other driver was at fault. Really, this was just a small glitch in the overall arc of my life. This accident was just one bad moment.

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When I was pregnant, there was one morning when I was only the one working in an office annex. The radio was on and 100 Years by Five for Fighting came on. As I listened to the song, I began crying silently. They were tears of pure joy. Listening to this song and being pregnant, I felt so connected to the world, to life. And I felt lucky and grateful to have what I had. I felt like for once I finally got something I deeply wanted without having to work and plan and struggle for it.

Since then, I’ve only heard this song a few times by chance on the radio and on TV, as I never owned a copy of this song. Each of those times, as I listen to the song, I cry silently and

I'm 33 for a moment
Still the man, but you see I'm a they
A kid on the way
A family on my mind

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Tonight, I sat down to finish a knitting project and decided to use this downtime to listen to all the songs on my iPod for the first time. My brother had given it to me as a belated birthday gift and part wedding gift. The wedding gift part was to load it up with songs. 100 Years was one of the songs. As I listen to it tonight, the familiar sadness, the silent tears and the aching surfaces for a moment. Subsides. Then surfaces again.

Tonight I realized that these moments will always be a part of my life. But, maybe I am learning to live with these moments. You see, that knitting project? It’s a baby toy for a pregnant friend due in May. If I can feel these moments of aching and sadness while knitting a baby toy and just feel those moments without directing anger and hate towards my pregnant friend and pregnant women everywhere, well, then maybe I have the wherewhithal to make it through whatever is in store for me.

These tears I’ve cried

I’ve cried 1000 oceans

And if it seems I’m floating

In the darkness

Well I can’t believe that I would keep

Keep you from flying

And I would cry 1000 more if that’s

What it takes to sail you home

Sail you home sail you home

--Tori Amos

Lucky but Mad

Mr. Warrior was driving me to work this morning. We were in the right-most lane of a large street that has two lanes of traffic going in both directions. We came upon a T-intersection with a one-way stop. The traffic going in our direction and the oncoming traffic do not stop. A car that had been stopped at the stop sign in the T-intersection began pulling out, not realizing we were headed towards them. Mr. Warrior immediately started to hit the brakes and pull to the left lane to avoid being hit. The other car then slowed down. I thought to myself, Oh good, she saw us and now she’s attempting to stop. But, her car kept pulling out, albeit much slower than she had been traveling before. At this point, Mr. Warrior floored the brakes and swerved into the left turn lane for the traffic in the other direction where we were able to stop completely. We must have sat there with our car facing the wrong direction, stunned and shocked for about a minute, probably a minute and a half before the world seemed normal again. We were lucky there were no other cars near us in any direction when it all happened. I looked around to see where the other driver was. I turned around and saw the car through our back window. The car had just completed finishing the left turn and the driver was casually driving away. As if nothing ever happened.

It has taken me all morning to calm down from the shock and the anger of it all. I can understand a mistake. You pull out not realizing there is a car coming, you try to stop and hope the other driver is also maneuvering to avoid being hit. Maybe you avoid an accident, maybe you don’t. But how do you pull out into the street, see that the other car is almost right in front of you and not try to stop? Ok, let’s give you the benefit of the doubt. Maybe you are shook up, too and are not reacting in the best manner. Maybe you are a mother who didn’t sleep all night because your kid was sick. Maybe you are full of hormones because you’re infertile and have been trying for 5 years to have a baby and this is your 6^th and final IVF because you can’t afford it anymore financially or emotionally. Given all that, if you see that the car you almost got into an accident with, the car you forced into a lane for oncoming traffic, even if there was no oncoming traffic at that moment, wouldn’t you get out of the car and see if the people in the other car were ok? I suppose she could have just assumed we were not damaged because our car was not damaged, but it seems like an awfully callous assumption to make. Was it too much to ask for her to stick her head out the window and ask if everyone is ok? Maybe my expectations of total strangers are too high, but it’s maddening that someone could have acted in such an indifferent manner.

Whiny

Been feeling sorry for myself these last few days. Hormones (whatever I have left of them) is playing some part as I’m about to get my period any day now. Unless my body has decided to go into full on ovarian failure, that is. In which case, this annoying spotting, stop, spotting, stop, spotting may be all I get this month. And if my ovaries don’t completely fail today, it will one day soon, maybe before I reach 35 and most likely before I hit 40. It’s ironic. One year ago, I would have been excited that I might not be getting my period. Now, I not only hope for a period, but for a lot of good bleeding because that would mean my body is capable of being normal. I don’t remember the last time I was scared I might soak through a pad or had flow overnight. And to top it all off, I get to go through this even more frequently now because I go through a cycle about once every 24 days! That’s every 3 weeks and 3 days. Every 3 weeks and 3 days I get a lovely reminder of how pathetic my body has become.

Life feels very unfair right now. I turned 33 less than 4 months ago. I shouldn’t have to be worrying about whether this is the end of my reproductive life. I shouldn’t have to wonder whether I should be taking some kind of hormone replacement because I’m starting to get night sweats. I shouldn’t have to wonder how much money I will have to spend in order to have a family.

Logically, I know that my condition could be a lot worse. My ovaries could have failed years ago or I could never have had any functioning ovaries. I could have cancer instead of ovarian failure. Logically, I know my life is generally a good one. But today, I feel like my whole body not just my ovaries have failed me. And life feels incredibly unfair.

Wavering Worrier

So the wedding is over, the new year has begun and it’s time to go full guns on this IVF thing, right? Except, every time I think I’m ready to call up a clinic to make an appointment I start second guessing myself. What if this isn’t the best clinic for me and our issues? What if I haven’t done enough research on other clinics and I really should be going with another one? What if they push me to DE (even though I’m ready to go that route) and I still have a chance with my own eggs? What if they push me to try with my own eggs, I get pregnant and miscarry again because my eggs are shit and I should have just gone to DE? What if I have a whole slew of other problems that will affect my IVF outcome, but they overlook it or don’t test for it because I’m “young” or have gotten pregnant before or because the sun always rises in the east?

As more time passes, I get worse and worse and I have been wavering like this for at least the last week or so. I finally realized that a large part of it is that I’m terrified that going to the Dr’s will mean more bad news. Since my pregnancy in 2004, it seems like 3/4’s of the time I’ve gone to see a doctor or gotten tested it’s ended in bad news. And I’m tired of feeling hopeless after an appointment. Right now, I’ve got this Pavlovian response to seeing Dr’s about my infertility and I’ve got to get over it. How, I don’t know, but I can’t keep wavering. I felt best when I was moving forward and right now I’m stuck just sliding side to side. Stuck gets me nowhere near having a baby and a family. Stuck just ain’t going to cut it.

I guess the good little warrior got too much attention these last months and the worrier wants some attention, now.