Purgatory

When I stopped trying to get pregnant, and when, in fact, my husband said he didn't want to have any more kids in any way shape or form, I tried to move away from talking about infertility on this blog. I tried to expand my horizons. And yet, after all this time, I still find that the majority of my posts relate to infertility or adoption in some way.

I don't write as often. And I certainly talk about that part of my life much less in my daily life. But the after effects of infertility, and the desire to have another child through adoption are still the issues that I most often need to get off my chest. And sometimes I hate that. I hate that it is still on my chest like a big, black bowling ball. A weight that I can't quite get out from under. Most of the time I have adapted to the extra weight, but every once in a while I feel like it sucks the breath right out of me again; constricting my lungs and chest and making me feel panicky.

I hate that of the twenty or thirty blogs that I read regularly when I started writing my own, are mostly blogs that now contain babies. I hated being in the less than 3% of women under forty that have had three or more miscarriages in a row. But even then, I never thought I would be in the minority of infertiles that do not go to having a child after infertility, either by birth or adoption. Lest anyone misunderstand, I do not hate those women in the tiniest bit, I still read many of their blogs. I just hate being a poster child for the not so happy ending. Or at least the ending that is wrapped up in a neat little story line.

Get up Grrrl, Julie, Tertia, Brooklyn Girl, Bindweed Heights, Cecily, Lost and Finding, Beaver Girl, Dead Bug, Menita, Barely Tenured, Horkin Ramblings, the Rabbit Lived, Missed Conceptions, Bermuda Triangle of Embryos, Marla, Just another Jen, Fertility Now!, the Infertile Gourmet, Uterine Wars (Soper), Pazel and of course Karen at the Naked Ovary are all new or not so new mothers. These are all blogs that I started reading a little over three years ago, or in several cases, some time later. (For fuck's sake, when I write it all out like that, it makes me feel even more pathetic.) There are several more bloggers that are currently pregnant, even some hard timers whom I shall not name so as to not call attention to them (and therefore affect their luck?), but they know who they are. Only Danae, Emily, Barren Mare, Donna and Julianna come to mind as co-bloggers that I read regularly that have not had a child since I've been around. Danae and Emily weren't really interested in being on the sad side of the statistics any more, and left the blog world, or at least this little corner of the blog world.

There is one thing that separates me from the latter women. I am a mother. And don't think there is a day that goes by that I am grateful for that. There is one other detail that separates me from a couple of them: It was not my choice to stop. (Barren Mare had similar but different issues.) I could have kept trying to get pregnant. It doesn't mean I ever would have carried a goddamn pregnancy to term, but maybe. Right? In my case, it was as a part of marital negotiations that I agreed to stop. I know many of you felt that was unfair. I certainly did at the time. How dare he?

But here's the thing about my husband: I knew when I met him that he was not going to bend to my will. He is independent. He does not like to be manipulated. He is opinionated. He is strong-willed. I made an intentional decision to not marry someone who would let me control him. I do not buy his clothes, I do not arrange our social agenda. I do not clean up after him (most of the time.) I am not his "mommy," in any way, shape or form. While there is lots of upside to that kind of personality, The downside is that I don't always get what I want, no matter how badly I want it.

And think about reversing the situation. If I had said to my husband, after the fourth (possibly fifth) miscarriage, "I cannot take this anymore, I'm tired, I'm depressed, I am insane, I do not want to try anymore," would anyone have judged me? One can always say, "Well the woman is the one that needs to deal with the pregnancy." Well, yeah...physically, that's true. But anyone that thinks that men don't get beaten up mentally by miscarriage and infertility are just plain fooling themselves. Yes, my husband didn't experience the losses in the same; he was not as attached. He doesn't remember any of their due dates. But trying so many times and failing again and again was inexpressibly taxing for him. He is a "can do" kind of guy. After the first miscarriage he got right back on the frequent fornication babymaking bandwagon. He thought he could fix it. If you can get pregnant, you can have a baby, right? The other thing that was even worse for him is that he lost his wife. Where did she go? Even though I experienced it, I can't even describe it, In my mind, It is just a black place, and it sucked the life blood out of me and anyone else that joined me there. It was filled with mean nurses, disappointing ultrasounds, condescending advice, and very, very dark moods. I didn't really have the stamina for infertility, and my husband even less so.

I don't really know where I am going with this post. I wanted to say that I feel like a loser sometimes. I wanted to say that I understand more every day where my husband was coming from. And I also wanted to say something else that I can't put my finger on. Maybe it's that something has to give here. I've got to be okay with one kid, or move towards "getting" another one. I can't seem to accomplish either task.

Sometimes I wonder if I am just innately an dissatisfied person. If one child is "not enough," will anything ever be enough? Will I always think that the grass is greener? But I don't think the question is whether it's enough. I hover between the two worlds of accepting one child and the desire to adopt because my heart was so clearly broken by infertility. That broken heart is having a really, really extended and arduous recovery period. I never knew that healing could take so long.

Comments

[Wavery]

It does take a long time to heal, longer than where I am anyhow, happily sitting with a newborn and still furious at some stupid fertile tv celebrity and scared of what the future holds. I'm sorry it's such a long haul. I'm sorry all your losses have had such a dark impact on you. I'm sorry all over. Infertility is so damn expensive.

[Julianna]

I just love you.

I have so much to say and despise that part of myself that tends to hog blog comments. Should I? Oh, what the hell....

Many things struck a cord with me.

I have been reading your blog since I first learned of blogs and I feel that I know you. I cannot imagine you being an "innately dissatisfied person" - no way, no how. Having the desire for children and enduring the heartbreak does not take away from the gratefullness that I have heard/read that you have for your amazing son. Him not having siblings or nieces or nephews or the capacity to be a big brother to anyone is a big deal. It matters. Shit, if I had a child, I would still be heartbroken I didn't have more because I never just wanted one. You are a wonderful woman, and an even more amazing mother - it IS a loss that you may not be able to mother more children.

I never imagined that I wouldn't succeed. I struggle more with the "try hard and you will succeed"; "don't give up"; "if you have a desire, and you try hard enough, you WILL succeed" BULLSHIT phrases that always served me well. Fuck, I almost killed myself in the process.

I feel a connection with you because like you, my husband stops the adoption option for me. Granted, when an amazing opportunity arose to adopt a baby, he was surprisingly all for it. So, pathetically, I hang onto that and hope he will keep coming 'round the bend with me. He was disappointed when the adoption fell through....so, I've spent the afternoon researching adoption online and contacted an attorney in another state - after much ado and re-write after re-write, I submitted the email and figured I'd take things into my own hands and inform my husband of my findings.....the email bounced back and said "undeliverable"...is that a sign? shit

I think that this is a loss like any other that we will have to deal with for the rest of our lives. Even if we do get a miracle like most of the people who tried so very hard, it will still leave us with scars.

Okay, I should shut up now.

I just love you and wish it was different.

From another loser,

[Leggy]

Like Julianna, I love what you write. I don't think you a generally dissatisfied person- with a blog named "Laughter & Forgetting"- how could you be?

"Maybe it's that something has to give here. I've got to be okay with one kid, or move towards "getting" another one. I can't seem to accomplish either task."

Yes, yes, yes. Let me know if you discover how to do it. Cause I can't figure it out either.

[Julie]

It is hard to move forward when the giving up part is really a step back. My husband wants me back, to be us again, and to just forge ahead with what we have and whatever might be awaiting us down the road. I'm still stuck in neutral.
Thanks for this post, it speaks of how I often feel.

[Casey]

I'm at a loss for words. You are going through so much...it sounds like you feel stuck. But, maybe that's just where you are. (Notice, I did not say, "where you are meant to be." There's no justification for it, no higher purpose, but it's still okay to simply be stuck.)

Go easy on yourself. Hold on to yourself. That's all you can do. I wish there was another way through it...

[millie]

Like Julianna I love you and wish it were different. I've only been around for 2+ years but lurked for quite a while longer. I think this has changed me forever and can't imagine a life without infertility, no matter how many children I end up with. Is that sick? The cost is very high, indeed. I do feel like I've lost myself at times in that darkest of places.

I think we're all used to being able to fix things or control things. We good girls study hard and apply ourselves and we're supposed to reap the rewards, right? And when it's the one the we want the most it is so freakin' unfair.

Purgatory is the worst place to be.

[Donna]

Being a member of the Losers Club is not where I thought I would end, not by a long shot. My husband doesn't want to adopt either, and a big part of why we stopped when we did was because that was the deal we made up front: no IVF. So sometimes I hate him and sometimes I hate myself, but the pure truth is there is noone to blame and that's perhaps the hardest part. I had a meltdown over the weekend; I don't think I will ever truly heal from this.

[art-sweet]

There's nothing easy about any of this. Giving up on dreams hurts, no matter what the dream is. Be gentle with yourself and feel what you need to feel.

[Jenny]

I may be de-lurking here, but have been following your blog for awhile -- and really related to this post.

I am also a part of the loser club. I totally understand the feeling of being left behind -- my "real-life" fertility support group is now largely populated by women with babies who are beginning to try for their 2nd children. But not us -- after four failed IVFs, we moved onto adoption & and are still trying to begin our family. It's funny, because we were given really fantastic odds at the clinic -- they gave us an 85% success rate over four IVFs. Lucky us, we were in the "surprise" 15%. The thing that always gets me is that after being given such great odds, we wound up being the most infertile of the infertiles.

I also really felt for your husband trying to "fix" things -- that sounds very familiar, too. Like if we have sex exactly the right way, suddenly we'll prove all those doctors wrong.

The good news is -- there is hope. After several years of this fight, and of both of us battling the depression that came with it -- we are finally starting to feel like we've turned a corner. I'm not sure what the trigger was, but I think it was a decision to just regain control over our lives. Yes, we are still waiting for a baby. But we are less and less willing to put everything else on hold while waiting, and to let that fact control our every emotion. It doesn't make the past less painful, but it does make the present a little better, and the future a little more hopeful. I hope you, too, will start to find this new beginning. I promise you it's out there, as elusive as it is.

[Jody]

I'm so sorry. I wish it didn't have to be this way, and it sucks that it does.

I never thought you were wrong to make the choices you had to make. I just wish you didn't have to make them.

[Lesley]

I am so sorry....Thanks for your thoughts. I can relate and my mr ug sounds a lot like your husband and you put into words some of what i am feeling and dealing with right now.

Thank you.

[Lut C.]

With many of your posts I think, this will be me in a year or two.

[thalia]

I remember the post where you said you were stopping because your husband had put a stop to it. I felt outraged on your behalf, but your post made me see how critical it was to think about this from both sides of the partnership. It must be incredibly hard, but I'm sure it's right.

I feel like I'm rapidly heading to the same place, but I'm sure I have no idea what it feels like to be there already, to have lived there for a year. I'm sure that this sense of loss will never go away completely - it's a huge loss, how could it? But I'm also sure that over time one gets better at coping with it. I hope that's true.

[lurker]

I've been reading your blog for a long time but this one is bringing me out of lurkdom. You wrote that the downside of being married to your husband is: "I don't always get what I want, no matter how badly I want it."

Despite your pain, you understand that manipulation, deception or coercion means that although you'll win the battle, you'll lose the war.

It's called respecting your spouse and it's the only way to have a sane relationship. A spouse deserves to be one half of the decision making process. I hope your husband realizes what a gem you are and he proves it to you every day.

But you'd be surprised how many women don't think their husbands or SOs deserve this basic dignity when it comes to reproduction. There are fertiles out there that unilaterally decide to stop birth control and not tell their spouse or SO. My SIL did this to my brother while her white trash family urged her on. She told him after the fact that she "forgot" to renew her birth control pills. When he asked how she could have forgot something that important, she admitted SHE didn't feel like waiting any more. My brother wanted kids, just not right after marriage and while he's an intern, which is surely a reasonable request.

She can't understand why he's pissed about it and I suspect their marriage is doomed. Not today or tomorrow because my brother is one of the good guys, but how can he trust her now?

[Emily]

I'm still around, still lurking and still checking in on your just to see how you are.

If you ever want to just have a cup of coffee with someone who truly 'get's it, I'm around :)

Take care.

[Ashley]

Okay, now I feel like a real a$$. I didn't realize (or maybe my tiredness missed it) that you and your husband and agreed on not ttc anymore. I had just written in your last post that "I hope you come to a decision", not realizing it was so much more complex than that with your husband. Please forgive me for my ignorance.

[Sami]

I dread the day when my husband throws his hands up in the air and says "enough of trying" I'll respect his wishes, but boy will it be tough and reading your words reminds me of why I have to look at not only what I want but also what he wants. Thank you for making me think.

[Anna H.]

Thank you for talking about what all of this has meant for both you and your husband. I think that this whole 'journey' has been harder on my husband than me; all of the losses of IF have taken their toll on his heart and mind and he's only now beginning to recover from all of it.

And thank you for talking about what it means to force the issue with our partners. I've had several friends say that I should just go ahead with treatment or adoption during those times when my husband couldn't imagine facing those things -- this is what they did and they have their children now, but the kind of strain that that puts on a partnership is hard to ignore.

Most of all, I'm so grateful that you talk about the kinds of effects that IF has on our relationships -- it seems as if very few bloggers are willing to talk this issue (I guess it's the dirty little secret of the IF blogging world -- every community has one!), especially when it affects so many of us.

Thank you, Patricia.