Forever Infertile
Forever is a really long time. It's hard to fathom. Well, i guess, technically, it's not forever, really, it's only until i die. Oh joy.
I'm up way too late tonight. Can't sleep. Haven't really slept well since we found out over a week ago that we can never have biological children of our own. After 15 years of trying and nearly 30 years of wanting (i've wanted to be a mother ever since i was a kid), it's over. It's like i'm at the end of a computer game i lost. Game over. Fertility over. It's over. Gone. Done. The reality of it is hard to imagine. It's much easier going on as i have been, living month to month on the hope that my period would be late for good reason. That's the reality that i know, painful as it was, as all women who are trying to conceive know and are instead visited by aunt flo. I hate aunts. Aunt flo is the only aunt who visits me regularly.
I was at work when i got the news. It was right before this past Labor Day weekend. Dh told me. We knew that there was a chance that the news would not be good. It went from bad to worse in seconds. I started crying right away at my desk. I knew it was over. The trying was over.
I cried all night and well into the next day. I told my sister. She said, "I can understand how that might be distressing."
I went to work. I had to. But i hardly got anything done. I was so glad to go home. But that weekend, i woke up one night unable to move my left side. It had gone completely numb, arm and leg. I thought that my body had fallen asleep. I searched for my left arm with my right hand. I thought it was under me or DH. I had no feeling for it and no idea where it was. Eventually the sensation came back. Nyeh, i thought, and went back to bed.
I told my husband in the morning. He thought i should call the doctor. The doctor told me to go to the ER asap. It turns out that i might have had a mini stroke. The er doctor said if i were younger, he'd thought i had a stroke. But i'm only 32.
I still dont know what happened. I know i'm still in shock over being infertile. I went for an MRI and now i need an EEG. But in the meantime, i have these wonderful throbbing headaches that keep me up at night and make me wonder if i'll lose sensation again or just lose it all together. I told my husband that if it happens again (which is possible in the first 90 days after having the first one) that i'll raise my index finger as a signal to call 911. Do you think that will work?
Somehow staying awake, keeping watch over the left side of my body, is working better.
But i digress. I guess that's the thing about grieving. No one likes to stay on topic. No one likes to remember that the one thing they've ever wanted all of their lives will never ever be. The one thing they've hoped for, dreamt about, and tried for will not happen. I don't know how to go on from here. I don't know how else to be. Wanting to be a mother is what i've always wanted to be.
In the meantime, i've been so many other things. I've been a playwright, an actor, a producer, a director, a writer, a teacher, a guidance counselor, a wife, a student, a friend, and a lawyer. But none of those were anything i wanted so much as being a mother. It's very strange, and probably wrong on some level. But the wish to be a mother was born in my childhood, and i've never been forced to revisit that wish or dream until now.
Thank God for all things.
Jude
I'm up way too late tonight. Can't sleep. Haven't really slept well since we found out over a week ago that we can never have biological children of our own. After 15 years of trying and nearly 30 years of wanting (i've wanted to be a mother ever since i was a kid), it's over. It's like i'm at the end of a computer game i lost. Game over. Fertility over. It's over. Gone. Done. The reality of it is hard to imagine. It's much easier going on as i have been, living month to month on the hope that my period would be late for good reason. That's the reality that i know, painful as it was, as all women who are trying to conceive know and are instead visited by aunt flo. I hate aunts. Aunt flo is the only aunt who visits me regularly.
I was at work when i got the news. It was right before this past Labor Day weekend. Dh told me. We knew that there was a chance that the news would not be good. It went from bad to worse in seconds. I started crying right away at my desk. I knew it was over. The trying was over.
I cried all night and well into the next day. I told my sister. She said, "I can understand how that might be distressing."
I went to work. I had to. But i hardly got anything done. I was so glad to go home. But that weekend, i woke up one night unable to move my left side. It had gone completely numb, arm and leg. I thought that my body had fallen asleep. I searched for my left arm with my right hand. I thought it was under me or DH. I had no feeling for it and no idea where it was. Eventually the sensation came back. Nyeh, i thought, and went back to bed.
I told my husband in the morning. He thought i should call the doctor. The doctor told me to go to the ER asap. It turns out that i might have had a mini stroke. The er doctor said if i were younger, he'd thought i had a stroke. But i'm only 32.
I still dont know what happened. I know i'm still in shock over being infertile. I went for an MRI and now i need an EEG. But in the meantime, i have these wonderful throbbing headaches that keep me up at night and make me wonder if i'll lose sensation again or just lose it all together. I told my husband that if it happens again (which is possible in the first 90 days after having the first one) that i'll raise my index finger as a signal to call 911. Do you think that will work?
Somehow staying awake, keeping watch over the left side of my body, is working better.
But i digress. I guess that's the thing about grieving. No one likes to stay on topic. No one likes to remember that the one thing they've ever wanted all of their lives will never ever be. The one thing they've hoped for, dreamt about, and tried for will not happen. I don't know how to go on from here. I don't know how else to be. Wanting to be a mother is what i've always wanted to be.
In the meantime, i've been so many other things. I've been a playwright, an actor, a producer, a director, a writer, a teacher, a guidance counselor, a wife, a student, a friend, and a lawyer. But none of those were anything i wanted so much as being a mother. It's very strange, and probably wrong on some level. But the wish to be a mother was born in my childhood, and i've never been forced to revisit that wish or dream until now.
Thank God for all things.
Jude
posted by Fertile Soul at
1:56 AM
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