MY CURRENT REALITY

Our daughter, Elin, was born April 25, 2015. We ended up with two viable embryos, transferred one on July 30 (our nine-year wedding anniversary), and received the joyous news that the transfer was successful two weeks later. I wrote a blog entry about finding out all of our dreams were coming true, but I never posted it; the survivor's guilt was just too much. I didn't know how to share that I had been chosen for Team Motherhood when so many of my friends, virtual and otherwise, still hadn't.

Also, I had a really rough pregnancy. There were thankfully no medical complications, but I suffered from all kinds of pains and discomforts, from vomiting my way through the first 14 weeks to gaining 60+ pounds and swelling up like a balloon early on. I didn't enjoy the experience at all, which only compounded my guilt. I wanted to write about the challenges of pregnancy, but again felt that my readers who were still in the trenches would be offended and hurt by me complaining about something they longed for with such aching intensity.

Now, I find myself again struggling ... this time with parenthood. Elin is five weeks old, and while she's a healthy, growing baby, I am crying nearly every day over the challenges of caring for her. Getting her to sleep at night is a battle, especially when Philip and I are so sleep-deprived and my body is still healing from the birth. She often cries for hours in the evening, driving us to the brink of insanity as we run out of soothing measures to try. And acclimating to this new infant-centric life has been a major adjustment. Philip and I were married nine years before she joined our family, so we were very set in our ways, used to having the freedom to do as we pleased. Having to sacrifice our former priorities, including our physical and emotional intimacy with each other, has led to more than a few ugly arguments.

But by far breastfeeding has been the biggest hurdle. At first Elin couldn't latch effectively thanks to her "tongue-tie" condition; then she completely refused the left side. Now, with a diagnosis of reflux, we're dealing with her crying at my breast, choking, hunching and often projectile vomiting. I've seen three different lactation consultants and still feel like I'm floundering. Nursing is the most basic, natural, and important task I have as a mother, and I can't seem to get it down.

Of course, I'm constantly asking Dr. Google for advice, which only yields trite, useless tips (and often conflicting: Aim for shorter, more frequent feeds! Make sure she drains both breasts at a feeding!) and confidence-deflating photos of women looking tenderly down at their peacefully nursing newborns. I'm constantly bombarded with the romanticized idea that breastfeeding is supposed to be this intimate bonding experience that baby and I will both enjoy. My baby is supposed to find comfort, security and pleasure at my bosom, and instead, she's screaming her head off in pain and frustration.

Still, I have to persevere, because she has to eat. So we fight our way through feedings every two hours, which isolates me endlessly in the house. I'm fearful to go out because I don't want to have a breastfeeding battle in public, and if people come over, I hide out in the bedroom to nurse, every muscle tense, praying to God she doesn't cry and give away my ineptitude. My muscles ache from the stress and effort of it all.

And then there are the times when I totally lose my patience with her, cursing out loud, being too rough, shoving my nipple into her mouth while she shrieks, which later makes me feel like a monster.

It all leaves me feeling like a failure, and it makes me so sad and brokenhearted. Once again, I feel like my body is failing me. Infertility was hard, pregnancy was hard, and now motherhood is hard. Am I just one of those people who will never be satisfied, who looks at the downside of everything? And the deeper, darker questions ... Was I never meant to be a mother in the first place? Were my infertility and subsequent unpleasant pregnancy signs that I wasn't cut out for this? Did I "play God" by doing IVF and conceiving "unnaturally," and now I'm left with a child that I don't have the ability to care for?

I've found that I do need an outlet for these feelings, as hard as they may be to read for someone still longing for a child. I want to be able to verbally process the victories and the defeats. I understand if anyone no longer wants to follow along. But I hope to visit this space more regularly to document these days, my current reality - totally in love with this child yet bumbling and weeping my way through her first weeks of life.

THE NIGHT BEFORE

I work till 7 the night before the transfer, which is scheduled to take place on our nine-year wedding anniversary. I don’t plan to stay that late, but that’s what happens. Philip’s been working late basically every night, so I still beat him home. He’s just had a stressful conversation over the phone with his mom. Between that and work confrontations, he is totally out of emotional gas. But I don’t know any of that, and we do the nightly progesterone shot.

After, we talk about our plan for the evening, for the next day. I have two acupuncture appointments scheduled for FET day: one immediately before and one immediately after the transfer. “Two acupuncture treatments, huh?” Philip says. “Doesn’t that seem excessive?”

I bristle, answer probably too defensively. “No. I told you about the studies that have been done, that show acupuncture makes the most difference when it’s done both before and after—”

“Yeah, you told me,” he interrupts. So that’s when it starts, roughly speaking.

We walk out to the car to go to Target to buy me some fun socks for the procedure. This is a genius idea Philip had days ago to mark the significance of the day and give me a small treat, something to smile about.

Philip heads for the passenger seat, which irks me. I, with my sore ass, have to drive apparently.

He tells me he’s made an appointment to have my car serviced the day following the FET, so we have to figure out when to go drop it off. We could take it over after the transfer, or after our anniversary dinner, or early the next morning before work. None of these seem like agreeable options to me.

“Remember I want to plant roses after the transfer?” I say with strained politeness. This is a genius idea I had several days ago, to commemorate both our anniversary and the seed that would hopefully begin to grow in me.

His face hardens. “Yes, I remember. But we’ve already let the car go too long, and I don’t want to drive it all the way to the beach this weekend without it being serviced first.”

From there, the conversation gets more and more heated, and I am becoming manic, convinced he doesn’t care about my meaningful, romantic rose-planting vision — certain the car and work and everything else is more important to him than all the things I have been prioritizing: perfect Zen calmness, emotional intimacy as a couple, and absolute physical health, to make this body of mine a ready and waiting vessel.

In the parking lot of Target, I whip the car around. “I don’t want to buy these socks anymore!” I wail.

“Stop driving like a crazy person!” Philip snaps.

“This was supposed to be a special thing, and now it’s RUINED,” I howl. “We have spent so much money, and effort, and time, on this, and now here we are — FUCKING it all up with stress and fighting!”

A beat. My foot is on the brake, but we’re not in a parking spot. My heart is racing.

“Come on,” Philip says after a moment. “Park. I’ll figure out the timing of getting the car serviced.”

So I do, and we go inside. But I am still completely raging in my mind. I cannot believe he has sabotaged the incredible bonding experience of buying these socks. We stare at the sock selection glumly, and I grab the first cute pair I see: hedgehogs.

We go to pick up some Advil for him, and I make the mistake of looking at his face as we walk to the register. It is the face of a victim: sour mouth, dead eyes, defeated by his lunatic wife. And again a surge of fury courses through my bloodstream. I toss the socks aside, on a display of lotions or candles or something, in a passive-aggressive move that he totally misses.

When we get to the register, the cashier takes the Advil and says, “Is that it?”

I say “yes,” and Philip whips around and says to me, “What?! Where are the socks?”

“I set them down,” I say like a child. “I don’t want them to trigger this horrible memory.”

Completely exasperated, he forces me back to get the socks. “Where are they?” he demands. I point and mumble. He grabs them and barks, “Go sit in the car.”

“Gladly!” I say with Hollywood drama. I go sit in the passenger seat. I am so miserable I can’t even think straight. All my efforts to stay calm, all of my lofty sock-buying dreams, dashed.

We go to Tijiana Flats for some dinner. By now it must be almost 10 at night. We are hangry, and the wait is long. Fucking Taco Tuesday. We sit in tense silence. Once the food comes, we try to eat, but the site of my injection is throbbing, and I am still so upset and disappointed. Tears start to noiselessly stream down my cheeks as I take pitiful bites of my chicken flautas.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Philip says. “Stop crying.”

“I can’t help it,” I say, which is true. I have lost all control over my mind and emotions.

He rises from the table in a huff to get some takeout boxes. We ride home in silence, and somehow, in the comfort of our living room with some food in our stomachs, the fight fizzles out. We’ve both surrendered.

My mom texts me to say I probably won’t be able to sleep very well, but not to beat myself up about it. She’s right. I’m wide awake at 5 a.m., but I just accept it. I lay looking up at the ceiling, as excited as a kid on Christmas morning. It’s our anniversary; it’s FET day, a day we’ve been working toward since I took my first birth-control pill on March 25 in preparation for our egg retrieval. The sun starts to come up, and I’m thankful for the newness of every morning.

UN-SHRIVELING ONE MEDITATION AT A TIME

One thing I really wanted to try as part of Operation Un-Shrivel My Heart was guided meditation and visualization. There are lots of these programs for sale on the Internets, but I wasn't ready to shell out $20 or more before I even knew if I could sit still for that long.

Finally, I found a free download from a San Diego-based fertility acupuncturist named Heidi Brockmyre. So one morning, a few days before the transfer, I sat down to try it for the first time. (First, I did a 15-minute relaxation yoga session using an app called Yoga Studio, which is $4 and worth every fucking penny.)

I swung open the doors of our guest room/would-be nursery, opened the blinds and spread a blanket over the bed for the cats. Then I sat down at the big white desk, lit a candle and pressed play.

I quickly found that I was comfortable with the exercise. It was like yoga for the mind. Her voice and tone sounded like a yoga instructor's, and the meditation even started out with a focus on the breathing. I just had to concentrate and follow the prompts.

Right away I got a message that I was in the right place. "You are safe. It is safe to open your heart to love," she intoned. Remember what I was saying in my last post about not feeling safe? About my heart being clenched shut? Yeah. Tears sprung to my eyes at how specifically the meditation spoke to me within minutes.

She walked me through the colors of the chakras as I visualized these radiating lights healing, opening, relaxing and protecting my womb, heart and mind. I could feel my heart rate slowing and my thoughts stop spinning.

She prompted me to send my future child a message, to consider what my baby needs to come to me. As I pondered this, trying to keep my mind receptive and open to a divine message, the cats started acting up. One of them began pawing at the closed closet door. I snapped my fingers at her. The the other started pawing. "Stop it!" I barked. Then one jumped up on the desk, weaving between my iPad and the lit candle. I tossed him onto the floor. Then the girl cat hopped up.

Angrily I jumped up from my seat and grabbed them both at once, pitching them into the hall and slamming the door. Resuming my meditation, I tried again to tap into the question about what my baby needs. I thought about how angry I was with my fur babies, who were just being curious cats, exploring a room that is normally off-limits and wondering what Mom was up to with this mannequin-level stillness and the candle and everything. And I felt like a shithead.

What my child needs, I thought, is the opposite of anger. So what is that? I had to look up antonyms at thesaurus.com: Contentment. Joy. Peace. Definitely not qualities I've been modeling over the last months and years ...

I thought about that Bible verse: The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Even thinking about the verse made me feel calmer, like I was a step closer to truth and goodness.

I looked up forbearance on dictionary.com: Patient enduring. I looked up endure: to suffer without yielding. Yield: to surrender, admit defeat, back down, give in, throw in the towel.

Could this stuff BE speaking to my situation any more directly?! I walked away from the experience feeling enlightened, centered, renewed. I felt grateful for my upbringing -- all the many verses and songs I was forced to learn as part of Sunday school and Bible class and youth group. I felt appreciative of spiritual mentors like Anne Lamott who showed that Eastern religious practices and Christianity aren't mutually exclusive (and can be, in fact, very complementary). And I felt thankful for technology -- for dictionary.com and the Bible app and Heidi Brockmyre's free download*.

I have done the same 15-minute guided meditation almost every day for more than a week, and every single time I do it, I hear a different message, a new word. Vessel: Remove the waste product from the silver, and a silversmith can produce a vessel. Healing: God heals the broken-hearted and bandages their wounds. Trust: Trust in God; wait in silence for him. Help: God is my refuge, strength, fortress and ever-present help. Love: God is love; anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister. Forgiveness: Forgive us for the ways we have wronged you, just as we also forgive those who have wronged us. And more: I am fearfully and wonderfully made. You will protect me from trouble. Be still and know that I am God. And just today: The desert becomes a fertile field.

There is a lot of really weird, confusing, upsetting stuff in the Bible, but I've been overwhelmed with the words of hope and encouragement that I've stumbled across as I've made space for silence, let words and thoughts materialize and marinate, and done simple keyword searches. I have no idea if I'm doing my "devotions" right or reading things in context, but I just don't really think God cares. I'm coming to him as I am and doing my best and trying to hear from him. He must like that, I have to think.

The meditation thing hasn't saved me from all stress and conflict. Philip and I have fought. Confrontations at work have bent me all out of whack. I still wake up nearly every day with a nervous pit in my stomach. I get overwhelmed with fear that this transfer may not work, and what then? And I've felt like a failure every time I flounder at being fully zenned out.

But overall, it's helping. I feel better. I feel like I've got a few more tools in my mental tool belt as I face each day. My heart isn't a full size bigger, but at least it's not a total raisin anymore.

*The one complaint I have about the guided meditation is the way she pronounces abdomen: abdamum. Every time she says abdamum, like three or four times over the course of the 15 minutes, I cringe. And now I've done it enough to know when it's coming, so I also pre-cringe. But the editor self in me just has to suck it up and deal, because it's free, and because it's so beneficial.

OUT OF HIDING

Since the roller coaster of our retrieval back in May, I’ve been all over the place, both physically and emotionally. Our protocol called for banking all (two) of our embryos, and our RE suggested taking a month off before starting the protocol for a frozen embryo transfer (FET).

My ovulation went MIA during our month off; by day 23 of that cycle, there was still no sign of it. I went for an acupuncture treatment and asked my acupuncturist to make me ovulate. No joke, the next day I got a positive on the ovulation-predictor kit.

All told, the cycle dragged on for 37 days, and after that, I had to endure a month on birth control. I threw myself into any distraction that would help me not think about the endless weeks stretching ahead of me before we could put an embryo to use.

I threw an elaborate bridal shower for my sister in Illinois. I spoke at a wedding conference in Colorado and extended the trip to do some hiking and exploring with my hubby. I went on a press trip to Anguilla. I closed another issue of the magazine at work (always a crazy whirlwind with late nights at the office). And then Philip and I were back in Illinois for my sister’s Fourth of July wedding weekend, complete with a bachelorette party, a family barbecue, two fireworks displays, a rehearsal dinner and the big event.

I was having a blast — and completely throwing my routine or any concerns about diet out the window. I consumed carbs and sweets like no one’s business. I had Starbucks mochas for meals. I drank like a fish at the bachelorette party. I felt high-strung and sleep-deprived, but I was basically too busy to think about how I was feeling. (In the midst of all the craziness, our evening young-adult church service closed, but we barely had time to process our disappointment.)

As soon as the big wedding weekend was over, I tumbled into depression. There were no more wedding-related parties that demanded hand-made banners. There were no more trips on the calendar. Work became a manageable 9-5 affair. And I was back in the stirrups at the fertility clinic, faced head-on again with this miserable struggle of infertility.

In concert with my change of pace from manic to sober, pregnancy announcements — from fellow infertiles — flooded in. A good friend who has been on this journey for three years with me finally conceived, and all three of my favorite fertility bloggers were either expecting or welcoming their new little one. Another good friend also announced her pregnancy, and while this couple didn’t go through infertility, they had been one of our few childfree friends left to call up on a Saturday night.

I can’t describe HOW ALONE this makes me feel. Or, as strange as it may sound, how unsafe. I had carved out all these little safe places for myself where I wouldn’t be faced with the heartache of seeing pregnant bellies and newborn babies and happy, rambunctious families — desires impossibly out of my reach. Work had been safe; church had been safe; family had been safe; my infertility community had been safe. Now nowhere feels safe. Pregnancies and children are invading everything, and it feels like I’ll forever be locked out. No promise of a future family. Nowhere to fit in.

I have to admit that it seems like God, or the universe, or whatever, is forcing me out of seclusion back into community. I can’t hide away anymore; I have to face my fears and pain. I have to just FEEL my pain. I do a million things to try to cover it, force it away, distract myself from it, numb it. But now I have no choice but to be with it and acknowledge it and let it just sit on my heart like a heavy, aching stone.

The timing also seems significant, with our impending FET. It’s hard to know how to think about it. Everyone encourages me to be hopeful, optimistic. But my tender, wounded heart has so many walls around it, such a history of disappointment and despair, that when hope comes knocking, there’s no way the drawbridge is coming down. The “realistic” side of me tries to hedge my bets and brace for bad news.

But I’ve been challenged by the story of one of the fertility bloggers I mentioned above — one who never gave up hoping, one who pressed on with natural remedies even after five years of trying and multiple failed medical treatments. Finally, she conceived naturally, after eight long months of persevering with acupuncture and clean eating — both things I’ve tried for a month or two at a time, but never stuck with that long. She also changed her mindset — she stopped avoiding baby showers; she started a fertility support group. She made a conscious decision to open her heart and focus on others, rather than hide away licking her own wounds, as I have done.

So my first step has been to change my diet. I’ve been eating whole foods only — fruits and vegetables, lean meats, nuts, eggs. I’ve cut out coffee, soda, alcohol, simple carbohydrates and refined sugar (except for the occasional serving of dark-chocolate-covered almonds). It’s only been a week, but I feel empowered already by the healthy choices I’ve made — and I think it has helped improve my mood too.

The mind/emotional aspect is harder though. My acupuncturist says to envision myself eight months pregnant — huge belly, swollen ankles I can’t even see. She says to go in the room that would be our nursery, the one where the door always stays shut to close out another painful reminder of what we don’t have. She says to bring my energy in there, to bring life and activity into the room. She said to bring in a plant. And then a massage therapist, who knows nothing about my story, recently told me to get some white roses (a Google search revealed that white roses are traditionally associated with new beginnings, and a bouquet communicates, “I’m thinking of you.”)

So I am working up my courage to try these things. I’m researching visualization. I’m trying to be more disciplined in my speech when I feel inclined to be negative. I read through an issue of Fit Pregnancy, which took immense bravery. And I started a secret Pinterest nursery board, which even as I type it makes me feel ashamed, as though I’m an imposter, or am setting myself up for greater disappointment and loss.

But I am attempting to get myself into that mommy headspace — and trying to open up my shriveled, clenched heart. (I even thought about buying a pregnancy gift for my sister-in-law and inviting them over to dinner, though I am FAR from being ready to activate that plan!)

So for now, it’s one step, one hour, one injection at a time, being kind to myself but also trying to push a little more in a positive direction each day.