La-la-la-di-da

From: Gertiecanker's Weblog

...in case you have any doubt, that is the Fat Lady singing. Yup, it's true, we've failed again.  I hate saying that: failure.  But that's the way I feel, like my body is failing me - and I'm not alone in this anymore.  Freddie also is feeling the failure and wondering if maybe the cold he had was the cause this time or the fact that he was exhausted that week.  We both are feeling like failures, like we can't achieve the simplest and most natural thing - have a baby.  


I realize that we are not alone in our 'unexplained infertility' journey, but it is frustrating as I'm constantly reminded of that commercial where the song talks about reproduction and the fact that birds do it, bees do it, even plants do it.  Everyone and everything...except us.


We are living in a world of tracking:  tracking my temp, tracking my blood hormones, tracking my follicles, tracking my uterine wall, tracking our intercourse, tracking, tracking, tracking... all with no effect.  For all the technology and knowledge, we still can't get pregnant.  I mean, I know, almost down to the hour when I ovulate, not that it makes a difference.


So today marks Day 3 of our third Clomid cycle.  We've decided to do another month on our own and then reevaluate things from there.  We are starting to lean towards trying IUI with our 4th Clomid cycle, as we are both aware that we only have 6 Clomid cycles before the jig is up.  We're both trying to keep our heads positive, but this has been a VERY trying weekend.


Father's Day was on Sunday and we both were pretty sure that we'd have something to celebrate this Father's Day.  I did a pregnancy test in the morning as I had hoped that I could include it in Freddie's card, but it was negative...again.  So I placed the Father's Day card on Freddie's pillow while he was in the shower.  When he opened the card, I was so shocked to see him break down, crumple into a ball and cry.  I wiped the huge, warm tears that were spilling down his face and my heart was breaking.  We held each other for a long time and both cried, thinking of our sweet baby.  I know that I had mentioned before that sometimes I felt alone in my grief and that it seemed that Freddie sometimes forgot - I don't believe that anymore.  I now realize that he feels the loss of our child and the same frustrations with this fertility situation as deeply as I do - he may just put on a much better face than I can ever muster.  Honestly, the reason that I got him the card was to make sure that he didn't feel forgotten on his first Father's Day...


The sense of loss and grief is so profound and it seems to hit me in various ways.  I find it hard to deal with friends or relatives who are expecting.  On the weekend, we drove by the rest stop where I discovered that I was spotting and eventually losing our child and it hit me that we had not driven by that location for 10 months now.  There are so very many 'what if's' running through my mind - what if our baby was here?  What if we hadn't done this or that?  What would our life be like if we had our baby with us?


Then to top it off, my father in law made a big deal of announcing to the whole family that his niece was expecting a baby in September.  The reason this was a shock is that she has been divorced from her husband for the last 3 years.  They have a gorgeous little boy who is about 6 and apparently now she wanted another child so desperately that her ex-husband obliged and she is now 2 months away from delivery.  You already know how I feel about a woman purposefully choosing to get pregnant and have a baby who is destined to grow up with one or possibly 2 single parents, but this is also the relative who hosted last year's family reunion to which we had driven for 2 hours and it was on the return trip that we realized that I was spotting and would lose our baby within the next 24 hours.  Logically I know the drive didn't cause our miscarriage, but there is that nagging 'what if we hadn't gone'?  I had contemplated offering to host this year's family reunion as I didn't think that I could make that same drive and sit at the same table where I had sat last year, pregnant, happy and full of optimism.  Now, knowing that there is a baby coming within weeks, I don't think I could host the reunion and have a heavily pregnant woman in my home - I realize that I may be over reacting here, but this is how I feel.  Getting back to the story, my father in law kept going on and on and on about this.  Freddie had his sunglasses on and I had to lower my shades as well as the tears were welling up.  After a good 5-7 minutes the conversation finally drifted to another topic.  I realize that my father in law is in his 70's and doesn't always think, but it didn't make it hurt any less.


So here we are, coming up on the one year anniversary of our baby's death and we are still dealing with meds, ultrasounds, blood work and no results.  I've prayed so hard and so much - Sunday night was the first time that I had a bit of anger at God.  I had trouble saying my evening prayers as I just kept thinking 'You could make this happen - you can make anything happen in my life.  I get the lesson - I know the value of children and family.  Why did we fail again???'  I did manage to Thank God for the blessings that I do have that night, but I won't say that it was easy.  I had no anger or rage at God after our baby's death, so this feeling of anger and frustration was a surprise to me.


If you have any words of encouragement or advice, I'd love to hear them.  I really feel like I'm about to lose my mind - I mean how long will I be dealing with all this?  How many more procedures will I endure?  How many more tears will I have to cry? Or is this God's way of saying 'save your breath, it ain't going to happen'?  I wish I knew that all this pain and suffering would be worth it in the end, but I'm so scared of going through all this and still coming out on the other end with empty arms...