The Right One

A good friend of mine got married this weekend.

Without getting into too much detail about her personal life (because that’s her story to tell, not mine), as I said to her once “you’ve been through a lot of crap to get to this point”. But through all of the crap she found her happy ending, and in the time she has been with this man she’s been the happiest I’ve seen her.

As someone who sometimes lacks the ability to be truly happy for another person while wrapped up in this infertility misery (and I don’t mean that I am not happy for them, I’m talking about the “I think I’m more excited about this than you are” kind of happy), her celebration and my self imposed break from stressing came at the right time.

She tripped over many relationship rocks, but always managed to steady herself, and at the end she found the person she tripped over all of those rocks for. The one that made the wait worthwhile. I felt lucky to be able to be a part of this journey, and of course the wedding was fabulous.

Ready to be a maid of the bride

Rockin out the pockets

Oh there was a wedding? I came for the cake

Sharing some of the love

Bryan and I had a blast dancing like maniacs and our silliness carried over to the car ride home where we made up fake lyrics to real songs.  The backstory on this one was that we passed a couple of girls eating Frostie’s on the way home.

To the Tune of “Total Eclipse of the Heart”

Once upon a time I had a frosty in here

And now its just a straw in a cup

Dunno what I did

I must have just sucked it all up

I was warned to give credit where credit is due : Bryan made up the second line.

And in response to a “DUI Crackdown” sign on the freeway – to the tune of “The Final Countdown”

It’s a DUI Crackdown

Wee ooo Wee oooo

Wee ooo Weee ooo Weee

(like police sirens)

We are 29 and 35 with a combined age of 12.

Anyway, what prompted me to write this post was at one point during the reception, I overheard a family member say that my friend had said something to the effect of (I’m paraphrasing here) “I’ve been in love with him my whole life, I just had to wait for him”. While it was a rocky road to get there, he was worth the wait.

It dawned on me then that this is much like what the infertility journey is about. It’s a long, drawn out, rocky and painful wait. Like failed relationships you get your hopes up that this is the one and when it isn’t it’s a hard thing to recover from. Sometimes you feel like giving up. Sometimes you wonder if it’s meant to be at all. She watched friends marry just as I have watched friends have children wondering if your number will ever be pulled, if you will be the last one in your circle, trying to fit awkwardly into the conversations about relationships and children. It’s a lonely feeling.

But she waited, and she found him. He was the right one.

My biggest congratulations, my friend. You deserve it. And I couldn’t be happier for you.

I still hope to not have to the be the last, awkward one trying to voice my opinions about things I haven’t yet experienced regarding child rearing, but I know that one day it will be my turn. Many people say that the child chooses us.

It will be worth the wait.

It will be the right one.

Show me a Sign

I think we all look for signs.

That’s not what I meant (pinterest.com)

I think regardless of religious beliefs, when we are faced with a tough decision or a fork in the road, we look for signs on which direction to choose. Do I turn left, or right? Do I go back to school at 35 and change careers, or stay where I am? Do I buy a house or keep renting? Do I take job A or job B? At some point you prayed or otherwise asked the universe for a sign.

That’s not quite it either (pinterest.com)

A week has gone by since Bryan dropped his “my endo thinks this is going to work” bomb. This decision is proving more difficult to make than how to pay for the IVF, because at least the financial part could be figured out with a plan. Part of my brain screams why NOT try to see if you can save the money and get pregnant naturally? And part of my brain (the negative, though I like to refer to it as realistic) screams stick with the original plan because statistically your chances aren’t great and IVF gives you the best possible chance.

Sigh.

I’m not going to lie, I’m not typically a big pray-er (i.e. the act of praying, not to be confused with prayer), but my issues lately have been the opposite of concrete and logical (and impossible to solve with a spreadsheet) and more along the lines of flipping a coin or playing rock, paper, scissors. I’m having to do things like trust my instincts, have faith, and believe in things I can’t necessarily prove. (HA!) It’s messing with my usual order of things and it’s messing with my plans.

I mentioned this in my Valentines post briefly, so if you’ve read it already, sorry but you get to read it again (the option of skipping ahead is also feasible). Bryan cooked dinner for me and we had planned to eat outside on the patio and enjoy the nice weather. We don’t make a habit of praying at meals.  We talk about finding a church but continue to sleep in on Sunday mornings (well, he sleeps, I run). Our efforts have been lackluster. But for whatever reason Bryan starts praying before we eat. When he’s finished, I throw in my own “please help guide me in this decision” (he’s left it up to me). Bryan cheesily goes “send us a sign!”. I laugh at him, thinking I’m pretty sure that’s not the way it works. I get up to get salt and come back out. Not two seconds later, it starts to rain.

Ever since then I’ve been trying to figure out if that was some sort of sign. I’ve admittedly googled “rain and fertility” and “rain and signs from God” and have kind of fallen short. Some sites say rain is a sign of fertility. But I’m still not sure what that would mean in terms of our situation. Does that mean we are becoming fertile on our own? Or that IVF will increase fertility? Part of the problem with “signs” is that you can find ones for almost every situation and twist them to what you want them to mean. I’m trying to not do that. Heck, it simply could have meant “the earth is thirsty”, or “maybe you should drink more water”, or “you might want to go inside and eat instead”.

It could have meant nothing. Could be completely coincidental.

Truthfully, after the week has gone by I have the feeling more and more that I’m going to cave and agree to wait it out, with a time limit, and probably a relatively short one. A friend of mine asked me recently if I get a pang in my heart every time I see a pregnant woman.

I do.

That pang is what keeps me from making the commitment. Though logically I can explain to myself that it’s only for a couple more months and that it doesn’t mean IVF is off the table. Those extra couple months might actually put us in a better financial situation with hubby becoming self employed. And in fact, while doing the original research on the FSH, I found a study where it didn’t help sperm count, but DID result in a higher pregnancy rate for those pursuing IVF. Bryan’s next analysis on the FSH is scheduled for April 1 – about 6 weeks from now.

I have one more week to decide.

I still don’t know if that rain was a sign, but I think it was. I think it means something, I’m just not sure what. If I think about it, I remember connecting rain to fertility. And I found some evidence of the belief that rain is a sign of fertility. Maybe not on our own. Maybe the FSH will merely assist in the success of the IVF at a later date. I guess in a time of needing to trust my instincts, instead of researching and analyzing, I should go with my first feeling in response to the rain:

Rain is a sign of fertility. I feel like I’m being told to wait.

I’d be lying if I said that didn’t make me sad. At first, it broke my heart a little. I was starting to see pregnant women and NOT feel the pang, knowing we would be en route soon. Since this latest issue, it’s returned.

The logic part of me is screaming at me right now. The part that knows the statistics and the studies. The part that thinks about the 65% chance vs who knows what chance. I’m testing my read of my own instincts here, because logic won’t work. I suppose that in the grand scheme of things, evidence for or against that doesn’t matter. Googling for hours isn’t going to answer my questions of what the rain means. Researching IVF success rates isn’t going to make it work.

What matters is what the rain means to me.

I still have a week left, but I think I know what I’m going to decide.

I will probably keep looking out for signs

P1nt3r35t.com 

Have You Seen My Brain to Mouth Filter?

Have you ever noticed that sometimes, the things that annoy you most about other people are things you do yourself?

I tend to say what’s on my mind. I’m honest. Do your jeans make you look fat? I’ll tell you. Did you say something stupid? I’ll tell you.

This particular quirk can be good. It can also cause trouble.

I like to say that I lack the filter that most people have that keeps their mouth from saying exactly what the brain thinks without first reviewing the consequences. A friend of mine says she can usually tell when I start a sentence with something like “I don’t mean to be rude, but…”

Case in point:

Recently, a coworker said a family member wanted to move. Since the economy is not in the best place, it was asked what she would do with her house should she move. Apparently she paid cash for her current home, so selling would not be as much of an issue for her as it might be for others.

I? Opened my mouth and said: “Must be nice” (thinking it must be nice to have cash to pay for a house!)

To which she replied: “Not really, it was from a life insurance policy from when her husband died”

                                                                      *facepalm*

(I totally need this necklace….Pinterest said it came from etsy.com but I couldn’t find it)

Yeah that was not one of my finer moments. In my defense, my brain didn’t put the connection together. I forgot about the death in the family and I wrongly assumed that meant they were just well off. Then I felt like a real @$$hole.

Interestingly, I often get annoyed by comments that are made to me regarding our trying to have children. My personal favorites are: “Why don’t you just adopt?” Why don’t you just do IVF?” and “Just relax and it’ll happen”. I’ve vented to fellow infertiles about the crassness of such comments and wondered (mostly in the beginning when I was nothing but bitter) why people don’t think before they talk. I feel stupid even writing this because sometimes I can be the worst offender.

A pregnant friend of mine recently told me that someone at a store said to her recently “you look like you could go any day!” to which she thought to herself “man some people really have diarrhea of the mouth”

Ugh.  I? have totally said something like that before. Because I don’t know what it’s like to be or feel pregnant and so the response to me is totally innocent. To me, a pregnant woman looking like she’s ready to give birth soon just means “hey a baby is coming soon”, and not “you look horribly big oh my gosh how do you stand up straight?” I honestly think that the bigger the belly is, the cuter it is. It never occurred to me that the comment might be slightly offensive.

*light bulb!* Perhaps that’s how others’ feel about my situation? I’m sure that in my non trying to conceive days, I’ve suggested options like the ones that so annoy me now. Because at the time, I had no idea what that really meant. At the time, I was just trying to be helpful. The only thing I knew about those options was that they were available. I had no way of knowing of the emotional connection, heartache and stress that surrounded them.

So sometimes when I get annoyed now, I feel hypocritical.

I generally feel as though people have good intentions. You can’t possibly filter everything for fear of offending someone or we’d all be silent monks, but there has to be some ground rule for knowing what to say when you have no idea what to say.

(I <3 you humor section of pinterest)

I haven’t figured it out yet. From experience, I can say that it can really kinda depend on the day. If I’m in a good mood, suggesting adoption or IVF isn’t a big deal. Other days its more upsetting.

Not much help, is it?

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve installed a brain to mouth filter that does work on occasion.(I’m still working the kinks out) When I don’t know what to say, my first route is to try to say something funny (see above rabbit picture). If that’s not appropriate or would just sound crass, I try to stick with something like “that really sucks” and offer to help if I can. Because you know what? It does suck. Or offer the person an ear, because sometimes that’s more helpful than you’d think. Plus then you can get an idea of what’s really going on before making comments. Note to self.

I still get annoyed sometimes when someone tells me to relax (seriously? the plumbing has to be working…relaxing is not going to make that happen). I still roll my eyes sometimes. I’m sure there will be vent posts that sound completely contradictory to all of this. I’m sure I’ll still mutter to myself “must be nice” when someone exclaims “we weren’t even trying!” I’m not perfect, but I understand a little better.

I’m still learning.