Dangerous Hope

I've been trying to keep myself so busy.  It's in the silence and the stillness that I find myself unable to catch my breath.  When I allow myself time to think and dwell I do.  I've worn myself out.  A dear friend recently got a new house and while my husband was away on business I was often working at her new place.  She is my friend with the newborn close to the age of what my second child would have been, so I really worked myself hard there, but every night I came home to empty house and was hit with the pain of being childless.

I wonder if I'll ever have a child and I wonder if I'll have get over the pain of being childless?  I don't want to down play my life.  I am extremely blessed.  I have some pretty amazing friends and a husband who is so much more than I deserve. Those things alone are enough to make me happy and I know I could have a very happy life, even if I never have a child.  What I wonder is when it won't hurt when I watch a mother pick up her baby to feed her.  Will my heart always race when I pick up a child parented by somebody else?

I've been thinking about more than the loss of this last child, I'm struggling to accept this is all God's plan.  I know I'm suppose to just blindly accept it.  If he chooses for me not to be a mother, I'm suppose to be okay with that, but I don't know how to be.  After 3 losses and after spending a bunch of money and many invasive doctor appointments I'm finally facing the reality of giving up on this dream forever.   It may seem crazy, but the thought of giving up this dream forever is killing me.  The pain from this choice is worse than any other pain I've ever had.  It's not just losing a child, it's never having a chance to create a child again.  Why is that so hard?  That doesn't close to door for motherhood, it just closes the door for biological children.  Yet, every day I look at our history and our future chance I keep coming to the conclusion that trying again would be a disaster and I think we should decide to not try again.  The first time my husband and I finally voiced that as a real option was at our WTF appointment.  Once we said those words to Dr. S "We don't think we will try again" it was as if the world had stopped and suddenly I had an elephant sitting on my chest.  Dr. S was great, as he always has been.  He told us there was no pressure to start again.  The only thing he said was that I needed to keep my ovaries stimulated while we wait, so that the decision is not forced on us.

Once again I'm stabbing my stomach with needles daily and unsure of what the future will hold, but I'm too afraid to face the reality that we may never have a child.  I have a fear of losing another, but more than that I have a fear of never having one again.  I still hold onto the small ounce of hope that maybe one day we could have one, and giving that hope up is the hardest thing I've ever had to do.

Sunday I went with a friend to watch The Hunger Games.  I was excited to be getting out of the house and to have something to keep my mind busy from this world of infertility and loss.  However, there was a moment in the film that made my heart ache with understanding.  There was a quote that President Snow speaks.  It was meant as a way to explain to the gamekeeper why they keep up the hunger games.  They choose the allow the games with the hope of 1 winner, instead of just killing off the complete 24.  Hope being the key.  What he says about hope stood out to me, while hope for a child is not the same as hope of living, the definition of hope that he uses is the same for all types of hope.

"Hope, it is the only thing stronger than fear.  A little hope is effective, a lot of hope is dangerous.  A spark is fine - as long as it's contained." President Snow The Hunger Games.  

I'm Moving On

I'm moving on and life is beginning to have a routine again.  I appear to be moving through life as normal once again, but I'm not.  It's like I'm moving through some sort of mist.   I know I have to go buy groceries, but I don't even remember what I get half the time.  I clean house and I go through the motions, but at the end of the day when I'm laying in bed with a heating bad I can't seem to remember anything from the day and have no idea why I'm in so much pain.

I go out with my friends, but the friends I have around all have kids.  Even these moments are surrounded by a fog.  I'm acting the part of a friend, I'm listening, I'm chatting, and I'm interacting with the children, but it's an act.  It's an act to appear complete and whole.  An act to be normal and an act to tell everybody that I'm okay and I'm moving on.  It's just an act though.  I'm broken.  I'm hurting and I have no idea how to really move on.  I hear all the time how "strong" I am, but I don't understand why people think this zombie of a human is considered strong.  I'm strong because I'm able to act fine?  I'm strong because I have no idea how to breath again.  How does that make me strong?

How am I suppose to move on?   How am I suppose to be okay with being the mother of dead babies only?  How am I suppose to hang out with friends and their young children, that only serve to remind me at how much I've failed?

I wish I knew what the next step was.  I wish the options didn't hurt so much.  If we try again and we lose another, I'm not sure I'll even be able to act normal.  If we give up and never have a biological child I'm not sure I can ever get over that sadness.  I wish I could have peace in the fact that adoption would be enough for this aching heart.  I worry my husband, as well, will always have the same sadness of never having a biological child.  I watch him interact with children and my heart breaks all over again.  I want to give him one.  I would love to have those 9 months of bonding, and the time of breast feeding, but most of all I want to give my husband a child.  I want to see him be a father, a father of a child he helped create.

He's gone through so many test and he's all good to go. We know medically and physically our problem is with me.  We've only managed our miracles because of him.  I know I shouldn't feel this way, but knowing the problem is within me, it makes it so hard not to worry.  I worry daily he's going to wake up and realize he choose a dud of a wife.  He choose a loser.  I worry that one day he'll walk away because he realizes I can't get better.  I can't satisfy his desire to father, and so much more.  I don't doubt his love, I just doubt the dream.

My husband always knows when these doubts take over and he is so patient and so kind.  He always tells me that when it comes to our infertility, it is ours, not mine.  It is our hardship to handle together, it isn't mine to travel alone.  I know he'll always be by my side and I know he'll always tackle this, not as my failure, but as our journey to parenthood. I know all this, and I don't doubt it.  Yet, I can't help but have those moments where I feel like a failure of a wife and I wonder when love will not be enough to hide my failure.  

From 40 weeks to Grief

February 21 marks a reminder I wish I could forgot.  I should have been giving birth, or at least completely uncomfortable waiting for labor.  Instead I'm a little over a week from when my last and final beta finally started to go down.  I'm losing another child when I should have been giving birth.  I can't even understand how this is even possible.  I can't understand.

I can't even express myself in this moment.  I feel so lost, broken, and defeated.  I'm still fighting to keep going on.  I didn't even realize I had this song on my phone, but it played today when it was on shuffle.  It's amazing how songs can say everything I can't.  I heard this song today and I broke down.  It's exactly what I'm feeling.  I was going to try to attempt to write out all my feelings today, but this day has defeated me, so I will let the song speak for me.  "Broken" by Lifehouse will now forever be the song for my lost children.