My friend Phoebe at work is pregnant with her second child. Her daughter was conceived naturally but this baby is the result of IVF and is due in December. I'm very happy for Phoebe as she desperately wanted another child and had been TTC for 2 years.
Phoebe knows my history, she knows about both previous pregnancies and that we are trying again. She even knows I had my second IUI, which is why she stopped by my office today to ask how I was doing.
"Fine!" I said chirpily. "Just waiting to POAS but am feeling very good about it all." She asked how Significant Other is doing and I said again, smiling, "oh fine, anxious about the result but feeling positive".
"You've been so strong these past 18 months," Phoebe said. "I really admire how you've managed to stay so sane. I would have lost it completely by now."
You would think hearing those words would make me feel good, yes? No. I feel a fraud, and a liar and that I have stolen her admiration.
Because I'm a mess.
I miss my babies every day. I hate myself every day for not holding on to those pregnancies. I blame myself every day for letting my babies die inside me when I should have protected them and kept them safe and warm. It's the one place, isn't it? The one place in the world where you should be safe, inside your mother who loves you so much already.
I don't feel positive about this IUI. I know it's crazy but I also know I'm not alone in putting every single symptom, real or imagined, present or absent, under the microscope. I'm not feeling PMT-ish - is that good or bad. I'm going to the loo more - is that beta-HCG building up or did I just drink a lot today. Does my skin look different or is it the light.
Significant Other is also not feeling positive. We were working out the bill for this recent round, he said "how about I pay for this and you pay for the next?"
I keep looking at him and wondering - when is he going to leave me? Will he really wait for another cycle if this one fails? When will he say "enough" if we go on to IVF and that fails? If I get pregnant and lose it again, how long will he stay afterwards? I know that I have to have a healthy baby to keep this relationship together and the pressure is making me crazy.
Now I second-guess everything. At the weekend he got impatient with me because I asked him to get something down from the top of the wardrobe (I'm 5-foot nothing) and said "what would you do if I wasn't here?" - does that mean he's planning on not being here? He said he had to work after dinner this evening and went to the other room but when I went past he was looking at pictures of him and an ex-girlfriend - is he thinking of getting back together with her?
See? Not strong, not sane. Crazy.
"A Place of Greater Safety" by Hilary Mantel
18 hours ago
I find I hate it when people say 'oh, you're so strong, I couldn't manage if I were in your shoes'. I find myself thinking, bitterly, yeah, well, you've never had to try, so how do you know? How do you know this is me managing, for that matter? Where were you when I sat in the (empty) bath and cried for an hour the first time I got my period after my miscarriage?
ReplyDeleteI'm so sorry you're going through this. I'm so sorry it's affecting your relationship with your Significant Other.
I'll be thinking of you for the rest of this week and next, and keeping my fingers very tightly crossed.
I find myself blaming myself all the time for my previous losses and wondering why it keeps happening to me. I am so sorry that you are going through that blame game too. We just have to have faith that we WILL be moms as soon as the time is right.
ReplyDeleteI don't mind it when people tell me I'm strong--if there's anything this IF nightmare has taught me it's that I am. But I HATE it when they say "I could never do what you're doing." Because the truth is, I'm just doing what I have to. And they could probably do it too if they had to. (But no, life just handed them a quick-and-easy pregnancy and now they have two kids even though I started TTC before they even thought of it. Grrr...)
ReplyDeleteAnd I really hate it when they tell me how well I'm handling it. Because while I AM still functional--I haven't lost my job or been institutionalized--a lot of the time I am not actually coping all that well. Like you said, it's all a lie.
Your post troubles me, though, because I can't help but think you're laying more on yourself than you have to. I know we can't actually control our rampant thoughts (that's part of the whole IF crazy), but I think you might be better off if you tried to squash a few of the more upsetting ones. For example, I don't think there's anything wrong with feeling negative about a cycle--I'm not a big believer in "just think positive and soon you'll be pregnant." But if there's any way you can remind yourself that, in the real world (as opposed to world-in-your-head), the m/c's aren't in any way your fault, it might make you feel like you can cope with what you're dealing with now. After all, the most likely explanation for losing a pregnancy is that the embryo/fetus didn't develop right. That's not your fault, it's just crappy odds. You kept that baby as safe as possible, but sometimes they die anyway. It isn't your fault, honey, and I think you should at least try to remind yourself of that, even if you can't make yourself believe it.
And is it REALLY true that your man will leave you if you don't produce a bio-child ASAP? Have you talked to him about this? Because what a horrible thing to have to think while you're also having to deal with your own hopes and dreams about having a child. I can't imagine the pressure!
Anyway, I'm sorry if this sounds preachy (esp. from someone who's on your blog for the first time). But you sound kind of freaked out, and I think you might be able to alleviate at least some of that by excusing yourself from some of the pressure you're feeling.