Did he finally ‘get it’?

My SIL is pregnant (dh’s sister) and she is due on January 3.  I’ve  been really nervous about the upcoming holidays (yes, I know Halloween hasn’t even arrived yet and I’m worried about Christmas), but I just don’t know how I’ll be able to mentally get through the holidays with my SIL being 9 months pregnant.  I’ve given up caring about enjoying the holidays, I just mearly want to survive them.  So, as per our therapists suggestion, we decided that we needed to talk to my MIL about our very fragile mental state. Our therapist made this suggestion several months ago, and dh has not done anything or said anything, but recent conversations about Thanksgiving have prompted him to take charge.  He actually called his mom to tell her how difficult things have been.  I was shocked.  He told her that we may or may not be participating in upcoming family events.  We cannot and will not commit in advance to any events because it will depend on how I’m feeling emotionally.  I’m still in awe.  Does he finally understand that this pain is greater than my strength at times?  That this is real and I can’t simply forget about it?  That this is lifechanging for both of us even if we never agree to accept it.  We don’t get a vote.  God didn’t ask my permission before he took my uterus.  

I wish I could be beaming with excitement that our battle (between in eachother) is over.  But I’m not quite there yet.  I’m scared, I’m scared to trust that he will always get it.  I feel he will revert back to his own ways on random occasions, and maybe he will, and I need to be prepared for that.  So, for now, I’m not pubically (or privately for that matter) rejoicing.  However, I hope to rejoice one day.  I hope to finally let go of the pain that is held between my husband and I.  I know there will always be pain, saddness, and grief over the loss of the baby I will never carry, but I would like to elliminate the pain between my husband and I.  I would like us to battle this together to triumph over the war of infertility together.  I will always be infertile but I don’t always have to be at war with my infertility.  I’d like to end the war; first with my husband and then with infertility.

 

We’re going to Disneyworld, why aren’t you happy?

My childhood dream has come true.  My mom just bought a home in Disneyworld.  Well, Cinderella doesn’t exactly allow for someone to purchase a home too near to her castle, so it’s not exactly in Disneyworld, but 2.8 miles from the maingates.  Amazing place, 3 bedroom, 3 bath, fully furnished, with a private splash pool.  Being the Disney addict that I am, this is truely a magical dream come true.  She closes on it in a few weeks and dh & I will be going down there to be sure that everything is in order and the house is suitable for renters.  She’ll be renting it out, it’s in a very desirable community to rent if you are visiting The World.  Dh suggested tonight that we plan our trip in just a few weeks, make some dining reservations.  Normally, the thought of planning for a WDW vacation provides me with enough happiness to medicate thousands of unhappy people.  Not today.  Today I’m wishing I was making WDW dining reservations for a party of “3″, and “yes, I do have a child in our party”.  I made the reservations and we have an entire itinerary planned for our brief 5 day stay, in which we will be seeing for the first time, the new home that we’ll have in WDW!  I should be filled with magical-pixy-dust-happiness but I’m not.

We recently began getting the newspaper at our home.  Not for the purpose of reading the newspaper but for the ads.  I’m trying to get on board with shopping with coupons, and using the protocol of a lady recently featured on Oprah (learn more at www.couponmom.com).  Anyway, today there was a coupon at Kmart (which I typically hate that store), for 50% any designated Disney toy.  Our nieces (of the evil SIL) love Hannah Montana & High School Musical, so off to Kmart I go….  I found another toy while I was there, the Disney (of course!) V-tech Create-a-Story book.  It’s a laptop type toy in which the child selects a character (all Disney of course) and selects elements of the story and then the story is replicated with words and actions on the laptop screen.  It’s seriously the cutest toy ever!  Anyway, I bought 3.  One for one of our nieces, one for my godchild, and one for my mom because she will need a gift for her neighbor kid.  I was happy I was saving money, happy I got such a steal ($50 toy for only $25), happy that the kids will love their gift (I’m generally thrilled anytime I get a chance to interject a bit of Disney into a child’s life).  But I was so sad.  Part of me wanted to buy a fourth and keep it for the next decade or so until we have our own baby.  I wanted to be like all the other mom’s in the toy isle, shopping for special early Christmas gifts for their own children.  I want a baby to spoil and take to Disneyworld and buy Christmas presents for.  To make matters worse, this stupid coupon clipping trend I’m trying to start makes me feel even more like a alien on this planet.  Newlywed married women don’t clip coupons, do they?  No, mom’s clip coupons!  Mom’s with so many mouths to feed that they need to save every penny!  Sure, we could/should save every penny too….but, shouldn’t we be drinking fancy wine and staying up too late and being so grateful that we don’t have to wake up to the sound of a crying baby?  I think that represents the recently married cult of women much better than a coupon clipping chic.  Oh, and I spent all day cooking…like a mom would.  I even baked peanut butter-chocolate bars for my dh to take to work with him….all the while I couldn’t help but think it resembled baking treats for my child to take to school.  I’m performing the part and I think I have it managed….clip coupons, save money, make homemade dinners, bake dessert, go to Disneyworld.  I’m just missing the kid!

 

Sometimes I want to quit

I guess it’s more than sometimes, it’s actually quite often that I feel like quitting.  I want to quit blogging (because, do normal, mentally healthy people blog?  I think quite less than those of us who feel we have something to blog about, something to work through.  The only normal people that blog are those that blog about their kids-and they piss me off because they have kids and I don’t, so I don’t count them today.  Maybe one day they will count.), I want to quit therapy, I want to quit “working on it”, I want to quit emotion.  Somedays I feel like it would be really nice to quit working on it-whatever that means.  My whole marriage has been “working on it”, as if being a permanently barren woman is something that can be worked on.  What exactly am I working on?  Acceptance?  Will I really ever accept it?  I wonder.  Sometimes I feel positive and strong.  I brainwash myself with every self-help book on Barnes & Noble’s shelves, I tell myself that great Men & Women have triumphed over much more than this.  I just can’t have a baby-is it really that bad?  Then, other times, I remember…Yes, it really is that bad. 

I’ve noticed a pattern happening lately, well the problem has been happening all along, but I just recently noticed the pattern.  I’m allowing my emotional state to somehow become linked (I hesitate to say dependent, but I do feel there is a strong connection) to other’s decisions, stupidity, ignorance, etc.  For example, I had a pretty good week (relatively speaking of course).  I didn’t have any major emotional crisis, I didn’t see an excessive amount of babies or pregnant women, no baby shower invitations arrived in the mail, so that all equates to a relatively descent week.  Christmas is coming up in a few months and I’m so saddened by the huge amounts of saddness and financial ruin that people are going through.  I had discussed with my husband that I would like our families to “adopt a family” this year for christmas.  If both of our immediate families want to join with us, we’d be able to adopt a larger family and/or provide more for the family that we’ve adopted.  Every single person in our families is employed, blessed with their own health, etc.  No reason why they all shouldn’t jump on board.  I sent an email out, asking everyone to join us in doing this.  His stupid, ignorant, pregnant sister replied back-she’s the only one who isn’t on board.  A little background on his sister-first, she’s a terrible mother.  She really is.  Not in the way that I think almost every woman who has a kid when I don’t is a terrible mother, but she really is.  She has no concept of discipline, she feeds her kids fast food all the time (a huge problem for me!), she yells all the time, never has time to “read” to them, allows them to live in a dirty house and draw all over the walls and….ok, I’ll stop giving examples.  Anyway, she has 2 kids and they can’t afford the 2 kids that they have.  They are always whining about money, etc.  Well, in April they decided to go off birth control and TRY for another child they can’t afford.  Of course, they were immediately pregnant.  So, she’s knocked up intentionally with baby-I-can’t-afford-number-three.  Oh, and I almost forgot to mention this small tiny detail-her youngest is 4 and because she’s whining about not being able to afford this baby-her mother (my dh’s mom) is throwing her another baby shower!!!  WHAT???  Seriously-that’s how showers work?  So, does that mean every married couple that needs stuff but can’t afford it can have another wedding shower?  I can’t wait to have my second, third, and maybe fourth wedding showers!  So, my MIL told me about this baby shower (on the day dh & I returned from vacation as she picked us up from the airport).  I polietly replied that I probably wouldn’t be attending, which shouldn’t have been a suprise for her since we were jointly invited to several other showers earlier in the year and I explained to her at that time that baby showers were extremely difficult and I wouldn’t be attending any until I attend my own.  As I politely declined attending my SIL baby shower, my MIL tried to guilt me into going, “You will want people to be happy for you!  This will be YOUR little niece or nephew!”.  Whatever.  So, back to the story about Christmas & adopting a family.  My SIL replied to my email:

“We are watching every penny right now with the baby and maternity leave we just don’t have a spare dime to our name right now.  Hope you understand”

First, no.  I don’t understand.  Secondly, are you kidding me?  You are having a baby shower thrown as a pity party (literally) for you because you can’t afford this kid you intentionally got pregnant with, you and your husband are both employed right now with health insurance, maternity leave, vacation time, paid holidays, 401K contributions, flex spending care remibursement, etc.  That is so much more than what a lot of people have right now!  Unlikely that they are all throwing themselves pity-party-baby-showers!  So, you can’t reply with one of the many alternatives, such as: We can’t afford to buy anything new, but we’ll gladly go through all our used baby/kid stuff that we don’t intend on using because we’re forcing our friends and family to attend another shower to buy us all brand new stuff, and we’ll donate some of our used items.  Or, we’d be happy to donate one of the items that is given to us at our pathetic-give-me-presents-because-i’m-a-spoiled-bitch-baby-shower.  Why couldn’t either of those things been an option?  Oh, and by the way, are you really watching every penny?  Cause, you have a brand new plasma TV in your newly remodeled basement.

So, stuff like this makes me sad all over again.  It makes me want a baby more.  Why?  What is going on? 

 

 

Working Toward Acceptance: 2011

What a productive week of therapy it has been.  I’ve been feeling particularly frustrated that our “2011″ start date for our adoption process isn’t making my dh jump with joy.  He’s the one who wants to wait and waiting until 2011 is a huge sacrifice and feeling like an impossible feat at times, so I should expect that when I agree to wait until 2011 I should be showered with enthusiasm from my dh.  Or not.  Dh doesn’t scream with excitement, he doesn’t kiss me and thank me and smile like I just announced that the Detroit Lions won the superbowl.  No, he just says “I’m glad we can wait”.  It was apparent that his less-than-enthusiastic response was not sufficient for me.  I’m not putting myself through the hell and agony of pregnant women, babies, and childless holidays for my dh to simply be “glad”.  Glad isn’t good enough, not when I’m trying to find my way out of hell.  I love him.  I really do.  But my pain is not worth his ‘glad’.  I’ve actually having a tough time that my pain is worth his ‘anything’, because I’m convinced that there is not a polar opposite feeling that he will experience to my grief.  If we wait until 2011 and I endure many more friends & families pregnancies, adorable little babies that are born that I don’t get to take home forever, waking up Christmas morning without a child to shower with presents, another Halloween without an all-day costume shopping event….if I endure all of that, what could he possible experience that is so euphoric that it has been worth my pain?  I’m not sure that type of happiness is possible (without, of course, a baby…of which, all happiness is possible).  So, clearly his ‘glad’ reaction is not sufficient for me. 

We discussed this very issue with our therapist on Tuesday.  I was so relieved to here her response.  Through an hours session she devoted her time to explaining to me that my dh does not have passionate feelings the way I do.  He will probably never be more than ‘glad’ to start the process at any particular time, because he is so flexible with it.  We could start January 2011 and he’d be glad or we could start February 2011 and he’d be equally glad.  There isn’t a “perfect” time in his mind so there is not a time in which I’ll get the euphoric screams and unending smile when I suggest a date.  While this may seem like such a simple reality that I should have understood about my dh long ago, I didn’t realize it, and understanding it brough to me a peace beyond explaination.  I was so afraid that I was making this enormous sacrifice to accomodate my dh’s desire to enjoy some time in our marriage alone and that he was not satisfied with my sacrifice.  I wasn’t sure I could make the 2011 sacrifice, I often feel that it is too much for me to handle, so the thought that it wasn’t ‘good enough’ for him was devestating to me.  I am able to breathe a bit easier this week knowing that my sacrifice is ‘good enough’ for my dh.  I now need to find away for it to be good enough for me too.

The second wonderful realization that therapy brought to me this week is that I don’t have to forget about my baby until 2011.  I cannot explain why I’ve thought this way, but I have felt that by my dh asking that we wait until 2011 to adopt a baby because he wants to enjoy our time ‘now’, that I should somehow forget about my baby until 2011.  Thank God, I don’t have to do this!  I can plan all I want!  I can research adoption agencies (although, I’m not sure there are many in states I want to consider that I have not researched), plan my nursery, prepare our home, and talk about the baby we will adopt all I want!  Ahhh….another bit of relief for me this week!  I’ve equated waiting until 2011 with waiting to think, dream, or plan about my baby.  Now that I know I’m free to continue thinking, dreaming, and planning for my baby; I know I can at least get part of my baby hunger fulfilled by my mental ramblings.

 

I don’t want to be angry anymore

I told my therapist on Friday, I just want this over, I don’t want to be angry anymore.  I’m angry all the time.  Not necessarily at something in particular, I’m just angry that God made me this way.  He made me barren and I’m pissed at him.  Being angry at God all day long inevitably leads to being pissed off at everyone else.  If I can’t find peace with the Creator of the universe, how the hell am I supposed to like that pregnant friend of mine? 

We discussed the reasons for my anger, many of them justified, we both agreed.  However, through our dicussions I was able to understand why I can’t seem to let go of this anger about infertility. 

The first reason, in no particular order, is that there are so many people who say “oh, at least you can adopt”, “just adopt”, “when are you adopting”, etc.  They just blow off the reality that I’m living in infertile misery and adoption is the solution to becoming a parent but it is not the solution to becoming fertile or accepting one’s infertility.  I feel like by accepting my infertility and releasing my anger, I’m just as naive as all of those people.  I can’t NOT be angry about being infertile! 

The second reason I continue to harbor my anger is because my dh doesn’t understand.  I somehow feel I have to hold onto this anger until he “gets it”.  I feel that he’s just waiting for me to say “I’m all better, no more anger, I’m healed!”  When (if) I get to that point to declare my anger-free status, it will only be because of extensive and heart wrenching work on my part.  I feel I want him to understand how hard it is to try and come to acceptance of my life’s position.  Until he understands, I’m tempted to hold onto this anger so that when I’m ready to release it, he takes it seriously that I’ve come a long way. 

The third, and probably most influential reason why I can’t let go of my anger is because I think it deserves anger!  A childhood of hormones, surgeries, horrible periods, ER visits, procedures, all to be infertile and in surgical menopause DESERVES anger!  If this isn’t going to make me angry, then what will?  This is worth being angry for!  I somehow equate acceptance with agreement.  My therapist clarified that acceptance means an understanding that this is a position I cannot change and I have accepted my inability to change it and have learned to live with that understanding.  I think that is still a big step.  I think we aren’t angry enough in this world.  George W gets to bomb Iraq and kill innocent lives to fulfill his personal agenda…we should be angry about that!  Bad things happen when we sit by, complacently, and watch the world crumble apart.  Anger is an excellent catalyst for change!  I understand my anger will not change my infertility but I somehow feel I owe it to my infertility to be filled with emotion.  It’s not fair!  Yes, yes, I know, life is not fair, but this is in the purest form of unfairness.  We, as infertile people, are robbed of our basic role in life.  In America, if millions of people were robbed of their constitutional rights every day, there would be angry mobs protesting for a change!  Change would happen!  More money would be spent on woman’s health care, IF treaments would be covered by insurance, uterus transplants would become as common and available as other organs (yes, still not as available as it should be).  At the minimum, surrogacy would be affordable, as would adoption.  If we, as infertile women, allow ourselves to not be angry, our daughters could very well not have any more options to cure their infertility than we do.  How sad is that!  What are we going to do about it?

 

Ramblings of IF, my planning obsession, and therapy

I’m trying hard to figure out this thing called life.  Its purpose, its intentions, benefits.  I know too much about its challenges, heartaches, difficulties, roadblocks, and unfairness.  I’m trying to believe that there is a purpose greater than my ability to understand right now.  I should have written on Friday, after my therapy appointment, but my head was spinning and I’m not exactly sure I could articulate my thoughts.  I’m not sure I can right now either, but I need to try. 

Dh and I were in the kitchen today, it was about 10:45 a.m., the first Sunday of the Pro football season.  We love football.  Our Detroit Lions are terrible, as evidenced by today’s losing score, but we watch is nonetheless.  We woke up about 9:00 a.m., watched a recent Bill Maher rerun that dh recorded, and both made our way to the kitchen.  I began preparing ‘football snacks’, a variety of munchie foods for us to enjoy during the football game.  Dh began to prepare breakfast.  I realized we hadn’t eaten yet this morning, and I was hungry, and apparently so was he.  I had to pause for a moment and realize that this moment in the kitchen is representative of so much of our lives, it tells the story of us, and in so many ways, explains so many of our problems (and, if I look hard enough, offers a solution too).  Dh, a proud and avid procrastinator, rarely prepares for the future.  He rarely thinks ahead enough to do so.  I, on the other hand, am some what obsessed with thinking ahead.  At 10:30 in the morning, without a bit of food yet that morning, I am thinking ahead to our 1:00 p.m. snacks and preparing them, without giving any thought to what I’m going to eat at the moment.  Dh, on the other hand, seems somewhat surprised that I’d be putting my energy into lunch when I haven’t even considered what we’re doing for breakfast.  This is us.  This is our lives.  I’m failing to live in the moment.  I’m letting my life pass me by on the “what if’s” and preparations of the future as I neglect my needs of the moment.  I believe I put more effort into thinking about how we can be the best prepared to adopt as possible than I do into thinking about how to handle the moment I have right now.  I’m a planner, I always have been.  Often times, the planning and anticipation before my annual Disneyworld trip is almost as much fun as Disneyworld.  No, not true, Disneyworld is a bad example because nothing compares to my happiness when I’m in that magical world.  But, an average vacation, I would say the planning stages are almost as fun as the actual vacation.  I love to plan.  I love to think through every detail, write it all down, make reservations, buy advanced tickets, etc.  I love to sit back and analyze my plan and consider what should be changed, how to maximize my vacation time, what activities will dh love most.  I love to have hidden surprises in my plans for my dh.  I love to surprise him.  Dh, who happens to be an Excel god, creates a countdown spreadsheet for me before each major event.  When I open the spreadsheet, it says “101 days until Walt Disney World”.  I love it!  I usually open it every day.  I don’t have a spreadsheet to open right now.  Dh and I are probably done vacationing for the year.  We had an amazing 10 day vacation to Disney in May and then returned to Sarasota, Fl in July for a week.  We’re not really planning any vacations at the moment either (although I of course am always planning to plan).  I somehow see myself creating a countdown spreadsheet of “XXX days until life begins”.  The interesting part is, I have no idea how many days until I think that should happen.  I don’t want life to begin when I finally hold a baby of my own in my arms.  I want it to begin now.  I want to have an amazing, happy, and memorable life BEFORE our baby.  The grief, pain, depression, and sadness seems to tell me I should be waiting.  How can I possibly love the moment I’m in now when it’s filled with so much pain?  The most precious gift of life has been stolen from me and I’m supposed to just wait and enjoy life the way it is now, without searching for my child, without working toward that goal?  This is it?  The way it is, right now, in this very moment, this is the life that I should be overjoyed to have?

There’s something about trying to be “ok” that is difficult for me.  Yesterday, dh and I had a great day.  We were gone all day at my brother’s football game, on the road with my mom all day.  It was a gorgeous day for football and we hadn’t fought in a few days, so we were both generally pleased to spend the day together.  Since we were with my mom all day, we didn’t discuss depression, adoption, babies, fertility, or any other equally depressing subject.  For a few moments, I felt normal.  It was as if I forgot about the babies, adoption, infertility, menopause, etc.  But then when the reminder would pop back into my head about what I’ll never have (usually prompted by a giant hot flash that consumed my body), I would feel sad.  It’s like the moments of ‘peace’ are so difficult when you are hit with the letdown that the peace is not genuine.  It is not true, it is simply a facade.  I’m constantly bouncing between the imagined un-real peace and the reality of my life.  Sometimes, I wish I could stay in the imaginary world for longer, but once I realize that I would eventually have to come back to reality, I decide I don’t want to feel what normal feels like for too long for the fear that reality may be too difficult to come back to. 

As I mentioned, I had therapy on Friday.  My head was spinning, it still is.  I know there is something there, she stirred something, but I just can’t point my finger on it yet.  There are two points from therapy that I think are crucial. 

#1:  dh & I constantly fight about attending events that involve kids, babies, and/or pregnant women.  (btw-this also includes people that have formerly been pregnant, may become pregnant or may know someone who is pregnant).  I feel like to go or not to go is always the question and either decision ends in turmoil.  This is how it always works out:

If “we go”:

I’m miserable in anticipation of the event.  He thinks because I’ve put on a happy face during the event that I am doing ok, so therefore, he will leave and go in the other room (leaving me with the baby, preganant woman, etc.), and then as we leave the event he says “seems like you had fun”, or something like that.  The entire time, I’ve felt like I’m dying inside and he thinks we had fun.  Worse, he actually did have fun.  How can he have that much fun when I’m dying?  I then get angry because it makes me realize how I’m going through this all alone.  How could 2 people have such different experiences at the very same event?  How can my husband enjoy himself when his wife is drowning in saddness and grief?  Why isn’t he supporting me?  I get angry, he gets angry at me, and then we fight.

If “we don’t go”

He is pissed because I don’t want to go and don’t watn him to go without me.  I think it’s very rude and insensative for him to attend an event that is too painful for his wife to go to.  So, we don’t go and he is mad.  I get mad that he’s so insensative to my feelings that we can’t skip just one event to spare my feelings  He returns the anger.

So, our therapist suggested that if an event is an emotional “10″ (as in, a scale from 1-10), then I need to ask dh if he is prepared to provide support on the level of a “10″.  Any event that is an emotional 10, needs to be followed up with support that equates to a 10 (we obviously need to decided what that means together-I’m not quite sure what amount of support makes it ok for me to go somewhere with a new baby or pregnant woman).  Esentially, the decision of if we go or not depends on his ability to support me.  I think this is an excellent plan!  I’m excited to try it.  We go back to the therapist on Tuesday together and I intend on discussing it with her.  The only problem I forsee, dh doesn’t want to deal with my pain, period.  He gets mad just because babies make me sad.  He’s going to have to find a way to deal with that because I don’t think that is changing.  I will have, for the forseable future, an imense amount of pain and grief that is associated with babies and pregnant.  He needs to accept that.

#2:  Dh avoids conflict at all costs.  As a result, when there is a conflict (i.e., I’m sad because I just received a baby shower invite in the mail), he tries to distance himself by changing the topic, offering me ice cream (I hate to admit, but sometimes this does provide temporary relief), or saying “don’t worry about it”, or something equally as useless.  I feel that this is a moment when I need him most….yet, this is the moment he wants to escape the most.  Obviously, we need to figure out a compromise.

 

Active Listening

Dh and I had therapy Thursday night.  We discussed a mutal frustration in our marriage when scenarios play out like this:

Something happens that upsets me (the latest was my pregnant friend wanting to go to Starbucks together!  She should not be drinking starbucks!!!).  I tell dh about it, through tears and anger.  He says “I’m sorry” and that’s it.  While I appreciate a man that is able to apologize, frequent “I’m sorry’s” become meaningless when they are misused.  I continue to tell him about the story and my feelings and he has nothing to say.  I then become so angry at him because I’m in so much pain and he can’t think of a single thing to say.  Sometimes, I ask him ‘don’t you have something to say?’, and then he replies, “what do you want me to say?”.  UGH!  I hate that!  It immediately pisses me off because I feel not only am I the one in pain right now….but now I need to figure out how to fix my own saddness by giving you some scripted line to reciet to me.  Nothing is worse than looking to your partner for support and them expecting you can support yourself so they look to you to support yourself. 

So, our therapist suggested we practice active listening.  I say “I’m really upset that pregnant friend wants to go to Starbucks together.  I’ll never be able to sit there while she fills the baby’s body with toxins and caffiene”. 

He replies:  “So, you’re really upset that pregnant friend wants to go to Starbucks and you don’t think you can sit through it.” 

He’s saying SOMETHING, which is better than the NOTHING I’ve been getting.  It’s a little annoying to speak like this, but I know there are futher steps to active listening that we will try once we master this first step.

Dh told the therapist that I’m too controlling.  Well, he didn’t say those exact words, but, that’s the summary of what he said.  I think he was afraid of getting ‘in trouble’ if he said “she’s too controlling”.  So, I apparently need to work on my control issues.  Although, he doesn’t seem to mind my control issues when I’m handling everything: bills, work, (future) kids, doctor’s appointments, presscription refills, etc.  I’m also confident that he won’t mind my control issues when we start teh adoption process and I’m doing all the paperwork.  I’m sure he’ll thank me for my control issues then.  I feel like he can’t have the best of both worlds all the time.  Regardless, i will try to give him more freedom and try to control less of his life. 

It’s like we don’t even like eachother right now.  We’re just going through the motions of marriage.  We try to do/say the right things and be sweet-but it’s mostly done to prevent a fight.  There is no “spark” between us lately, we’ve each filled eachother with so many negative emotions that I’m unsure if we’ll ever recover.

 

Peace anyone?

I had therapy again today with Susan.  Dh and I go together tomorrow. 

I discussed with her my theory of coping strategies.  She agreed that he may be avoiding adopting as part of his coping strategy, but she quickly noted that he has good reason for waiting (being married longer, finances to adopt, etc.).  So, I’m not sure how much validity my theory had.  We discussed dh’s avoidance (which in turn leads to procrastination).  I think this is a topic we’ll need to explore in much greater detail, as his procrastination and my insane sense of urgency (to say the least) causes more than the occasional rift in our marriage. 

I told her I can hardly handle the reality of my life.  That is a scary thought, one that is still new to my being.  I expressed my self-hatred for all the feelings of jealousy, envy, hatred I harbor within myself.  Those too are unfamiliar feelings.  She seemed to have a peaceful confidence in knowing that we will prevail through these impossible times.  I appreciated her peace and I expressed my own desire for peace & contentment.  Assumingly, that is the search we will continue…my search for peace.

 

…and I didn’t die after all

I thought for sure, if I have to sit through an entire dinner (voluntarily) with my pregnant friend as her belly stares back at me, I will surely die.  I sat through dinner last night with her, and I’m still here this morning.  I suppose that means I didn’t die, although I still wonder if my heart is in tact.  My body survived, I am alive, but the verdict is still out on the longstanding damage inflicted upon my heart.  Surely, it was worsened by the pregnant hostess and pregnant waitress.  I couldn’t even believe that all three people around me, all night long, were pregnant.  Thankfully, my friend was not showing yet, but the waitress and hostess were ready to deliver that night, it was almost as if I could see the actually baby through their belly.  As the 9-month pregnant waitress asked for our drink orders I could feel my body tensing up, as if to prepare for a crash.  I wasn’t sure how I would respond if my pregnant friend ordered a coke.  I couldn’t even imagine, if I was blessed with a baby growing inside my body, subjecting that little life to high fructose corn syrup and unnecessary liquid calories.  Thankfully, she ordered water.  I did too.  As we prepared to order our entrees, I braced myself again, although this time is wasn’t as severe.  I’m not sure what on the menu I thought was “bad” to have while pregnant.  Since I’ve never been pregnant and never will be, I’m not exactly the expert on baby-friendly foods.  The soda is an obvious one: high fructose corn syrup is horrible for adults so it definately cannot be beneficial for a growing baby, but the menu items I was less certain of.  She ordered steak, medium well.  I’m a vegetarian and I’ve never paid attention to how she normally orders her steak.  I wondered if the “well” after the “medium” was her personal preference or an attempt to fill her body with more throughly cooked meat.  I’m still uncertain.  We ate, we talked, I never brought up the pregnancy or asked how she was doing.  I feel badly that I couldn’t express concern for her current expecting state but I wasn’t sure if I could withstand the answer.  If she didn’t beam with perfection with the thought of her own self being pregnant I’m not sure how I would have responded so I ignored the topic.  We left at 9:00 p.m., we spent exactly 2 hours together.  And I didn’t die after all.

 

Coping Skills

I had therapy this morning, and I’m going to try to write after each therapy appointment so I can have a written record of our sessions.  Therapy is so useful and beneficial and I want all of her thoughts to be recorded so I can re-read and re-analyze them. 

I have dinner tonight with my pregnant friend.  I’m uncertain whether I should go or not, as it is so uncomfortable and painful for me to even see a pregnant woman, let alone speak to one.  Susan feels that going tonight will not hinder nor help my coping ability with my own infertility.  She feels I should determine, based upon the circumstances, if this is something I feel I should do.  I’m afraid to not go, I’m afraid if I say to my friend that her pregnancy is too much for me to handle, that we will no longer be friends.  I wouldn’t blame her if that happened, I wouldn’t wnat to be friends with someone who wasn’t completely estatic about my kid either!  However, I’m afraid to keep being her friend because her pregnancy causes me so much pain.  Regardless, I am going tonight.  Susan asked me what I will tell myself tonight as I sit there and struggle with the event…I started to tear up, because every thought that ran through my head at that moment was negated by the fact that she is pregnant and I never will be.  I don’t care that I have more childfree time in my marriage, that we have more money, that we own a home and she doesn’t, that we are finished with our formal education and they are trying to balance finishing their bachelor’s degree while raising a baby, that she had 1 failed marriage already, that she struggled with her ex-husband’s infidelity.  She is pregnant and I will never be.  That single thought is what dominated my mind as Susan was expecting a response.  I simply said “I don’t know”.  I don’t know, I don’t know how I will think or what I will do to stop the tears from falling.  I don’t know how I will look into her eyes when she speaks and not at her baby-filled belly.  I don’t know how I will ever get the image of my pregnant friend out of my head.  I wonder….10 years from now, will I look back and see my friend’s pregnancy as a blessing?  Will I see it as the means by which I healed?  Will I thank her for being in a position that challenged my strength and encouraged me to face my enemy?

As all those thoughts were flooding my mind, Susan spoke.  She said I should think about me….about how I didn’t choose the easy way out (by staying at home and cancelling dinner) and how I should be proud of myself for being strong when I feel the temptation to be weak.  Actually, that provided me relief.  I should be proud for being the strong one (although, sometimes I really want to say-I’m done being the strong one, I don’t want to be strong anymore if this is what being strong feels like.  I want to be the weak one.  I want to be the woman without an opinion who stays at home with her 5 kids -all conceived naturally, by the way, and scheduled each to all be exactly 365 days apart.  I want to surrender my strength, forego the tough times, and just be a weak little woman who is free of the pains of infertility).  But, I know that is not possible.  That is the tricky thing with personal strength…you can’t really get rid of it once you have it.  Sure, I could choose to stay at home and make the ‘weaker’ choice….but then I wouldn’t be happy with myself, thus, the strength never goes away forever.  It just hides every once in a while.

So, back to therapy.  Susan remarked that she felt if I pushed my dh hard enough, he’d eventually give in and say we could adopt (she was not suggesting I do this, it was just a comment in the midst of the conversation).  I told her that I tried, I pushed as hard as I could.  Sidebar:  A week or so before we started therapy, I received a phone call from an adoption agency in TX.  I had requested information on them several months earlier and spoke with one of the social workers at the agency.  They were calling because they have a birthmom who was asking the agency to select the family and her only requirements were that the adoptive parents be married without any kids and live out of the state of TX.  Since this agency is very small, they did not have any out of state couples that met that requirement, so she was asking if we would be interested.  Basically-here’s your baby…  Well, dh said no.  He wasn’t ready to adopt and when I pushed as hard as I could….he said if I wanted a baby right now, he wanted a divorce.  So, I told Susan about this.  I told her that I feel I’m back into a corner (no baby corner) and I’m not asking for divorce…I’m trying to struggle through it adn work on my marriage and emerge as a stronger couple, but when my dh was backed into a similar corner, he was too weak to work through it, he just wanted out.  She noted (and this was a big aha moment for me), that I’ve had all of my usual coping skills taken away from me.  In any event in my life, when I’ve been presented with an obstacle, I make a plan and then put that plan into action.  That is how I cope.  I had never considered it a coping skill before but I now understand that is exactly what it is.  In this situation, I do not have that option.  I’m infertile.  There is not a plan I could devise that will make me pregnant.  So, I moved to plan B, adoption.  Dh stopped plan B.  Now, I dont’ know what to do with myself.  My options have been stripped away and I’m just supposed to live?  How?  I don’t know how to go through each and every day, partially because I’m overcome with grief, anger, and saddness related to my infertility and (now as I understand it), because I do not how to cope without creating a plan and putting it into action.  No wonder life is so easy for dh, he has his coping skills everyday: PROCRASTINATION!  Dh is a huge procrastinator.  I’ve always considered it a characteristic trait, not a coping skill, but now I understand it to be both.  When he has uncertinity, he procrastinates.  He’s uncertain about being a parent right now, so he’s employing his coping skill.  And when he was presented with uncertinity and I was asking him to face the uncertinity without his coping skill, he wanted out!  I’m angry at him for that.  He’s not going through the grief and depression of infertility…of all times, this is the time I should be granted my coping skill!  Why does he get to retain his and I don’t mine?