Yes, They Were

I sometimes go "delurking" on others blogs. I find myself feeding one of the twins and just reading random blogs. A few weeks ago I came across a family who had quadruplets seven months ago after only one round of clomid. Then I came across a blog of a lady who was going through IVF and was in the two week wait, waiting for the blood tests to confirm whether or not she was expecting. I've been hooked and have checked periodically to see if she was pregnant. She is, after their first round, indeed pregnant.

Reading some of these peoples stories I think it would have been nice to have a sounding board such as a blog during the six years we tried for a child. As many of you know, it was at the end of the road for us when we finally managed success. And what a success it was! I kept journals, lots of them, full of self-pity and denial. Full of sadness and despair. I always felt like I was being a Debbie Downer when I discussed our struggles with those around us. There wasn't much any one could say or do, most things people say to infertile couples aren't helpful anyways ("My husband just looks at me and I get pregnant.", "Relax, it will happen if you just don't think about it." "Have you tried using a turkey baster?"). Most of the time though I just wanted to talk, to vent, to unload. I didn't need people to feel sorry for me, I just needed them to listen. The road of infertility is hard and you can't, like most tragedies, really know what it is like for someone else. Even if you've been down that road, your experience was probably unique.

I consider myself fortunate. I cannot express enough, or in any words in my vocabulary how overjoyed, enraptured, I am by my children's simple existence. Their existence is a medical masterpiece. A year ago I was wallowing in self-pity, spending hours a day researching cures on-line, trying silly solutions. In six years I took so many drugs that my face puffed up, but I wouldn't stop. I ate buckwheat pancakes every morning for months, hoping the d-chiroinositol would make my poor reproductive system ovulate, it didn't. I took kelp, yams, and other foods I'd never eat in the form of capsules. I was ridiculous is my point, but I wouldn't, I couldn't put it behind me. I have a bit of an obsessive streak, and where my infertility was concerned it was in overdrive. I prayed about it. I read about it. I dreamed about it. Poor Ward, he wanted a child as bad as I did, but he was fueled above all else by his desire to make me happy. The things I asked of him, the things he agreed so willing to do.

And yet I couldn't and still can't quite put it all down, the way in which I felt. I am not sure a word exists that explains the emotion, the obsession, the hurt, the wonder that I felt.

Christmas 2006. We had a nice holiday, which is a struggle that only the childless who are yearning for a family can truly understand. We had been through alot of failures at this point and yet I still wouldn't, couldn't let it go. I was taking the tree down. We hadn't decided whether to give it one more shot or not. I desperately felt that I needed that one last shot. Ward was frustrated and losing hope. He was on the landing and he said "If you really want to we can try once more in the spring." Of course I really wanted to. It had become sort of an addiction, trying. I was overjoyed and scared to death. We would give it one more try but if it didn't work I had agreed to let the idea go.

I spent months preparing my body and my mind. My body for the procedure that was to come, my mind for the reality of what proabably wouldn't. I lost hours of sleep and filled many pages supposedly convincing myself that whatever happened we would be OK.

There is nothing like the two week wait for someone in our predicament. Because at that point it is over. It will either be or it won't be and there is really nothing you can do. But I lied in bed for two weeks anyways, just to be sure, just to be safe from second guessing my choices later.

Those two weeks I didn't sleep much at all. I wasn't expending much energy just sitting in bed but it was more than just that. I would lie in bed watching the clock tick, trying to convince myself that everything really would be OK, no matter the outcome. I worried (because I am best at this) that I wouldn't be OK, despite my promise to Ward that I would be, and believe me I really wanted this to be true. As I have said, if I could have made that feeling go away, if I could have taken a little blue pill, I would have. It wasn't depression, it was a hurting like no other. The day of the test I came home and tried to reason with myself that I would be starting over when Ward called with the results. I was either going to become a parent or I was going to get over myself and move on. I spent all morning thinking of all the things people with children couldn't do or couldn't do on a whim easily. I planned out what I would do that afternoon. A very hot bath. Alcohol perhaps. Weight lifting and running to make up for all the weight I had put on after two lazy weeks in bed. There were other things to I had a whole afternoon of things planned out. I was almost to the point of looking forward to my afternoon when Ward called.

The last few days as I have been reading this ladies blog I have been thinking about that phone call. It was momentous. I can still remember everything Ward said, I can remember the way my body felt, like it was much heavier and yet like a great weight had just been lifted all at the same time. I had been expecting bad news, bad news was all I had ever gotten. Silly how something like a number can be so impacting.

But in the end. As others predicted. It all worked out. The waiting was harder than anything else I have ever experiened, mainly because I didn't know the outcome. But Trauma and Trouble, they were worth it all. Would I trade what I went through for an easier time, what do you think I am an idiot? Of course, I would love to be a fertile myrtle, to get pregnant with a look. But during the wait I was able to thoroughly examine my motivations to have a family and now I can tell my children that in my opinion there was never on this Earth children that were more wanted.

The wait was hard, and difficult and complicated. But it was worth it.

-As if you hadn't already guessed, June