The Eternal Guest Room

I feel so discouraged.

So everybody knows about Facebook – the social website designed solely for the purpose of announcing your pregnancy, giving constant updates on your pregnancy, commenting on other people’s pregnancies, and then posting constant photos of your child once it’s born.

Wait, that’s not what it’s for?

I’m being facetious of course. Obviously that’s not what it’s for – but to me, it feels like it sometimes. Of course, in my Facebook feed, nobody is pregnant or has small children. Discovering the “hide” feature was one of the best days of my life. I’m not even sure who I’m friends with sometimes because I haven’t seen their updates in years. Unfortunately “friends'” comments to hidden “friends” still pop up, as do other things.

It probably sounds really immature but I tend to get really upset when certain things show up. So I do my best to stay away from Facebook. There’s no need to torture myself more than I already do. But I do break down on occasion and go back there. Always at the worst time – like the day when yet another newlywed makes their announcement or the day maternity photos are posted or some other depressing thing.

I’ve considered deleting my account, and one of these days it might come to that point. I’ve considered de-friending people, but I don’t want to be totally rude. For now, I just try to stay away.

I’ve already made some decisions for the future, if I ever have the chance to implement them. I will never use an ultrasound photo for my profile picture – Lame! I will never complain about the inconveniences of being pregnant – Annoying! I will not post offensive things such as “having children is the only reason to live” or “you can’t know real love until you have a child” or similar such things – Rude!

You might be thinking: “Yeah, you say that now, but you’ll change your mind.” I won’t. After 3+ years of this, I’m hypersensitive in a crazy way, not only to my feelings but to others’ as well, and that isn’t just going to melt away anytime soon.

I’m having a bad week and feeling extra grumpy today. Can you tell?

We often feel stuck. It’s really hard to make plans or set goals. Even though we’ve been through a lot, it feels like we’re right where we started. I thought that these last 3 years would be full of change, but the truth is that almost nothing has changed.

It’s hard to make plans for the future; we don’t really know how to plan. Things get pushed back, first in months and then in years. We play around with the idea of moving, but when we thought we really had a chance at having kids last year Darek found a new job in Plano, instead of trying to move to another state.

We bought our 3 bedroom house partly because we thought there’d be a kid or two to use the 3rd room. We haven’t really decorated or finished it as a guest room, because we keep hoping that it might be getting changed into a nursery. So it just collects junk and boxes and random stuff, and when people visit us we rearrange and move all the boxes so it’s habitable for them.

All around me, people are moving forward. Getting new jobs, starting families, adding to families, moving to new places. And I’m in the same place I was 3 years ago, and not by choice. I feel utterly and completely stuck. Darek has fortunately found a new and much better job, so at least there’s that, but as for me…

I’ve worked at the library for 6 years; I never intended to be there more than three. As for the photo business, I only have 3 weddings booked for the whole year. That seems to be stuck, too. I consider moving more into children’s portraits because I really enjoy them, but it’s hard to really put my heart into that. I can hardly think about maternity pictures.

So I’m just here, stuck, and not really sure what to do. It’s paralyzing. We’re so, so ready to move forward. This is getting so old.

Sometimes I feel like a big baby (no pun intended (that one’s for you, AJ)). Shouldn’t I just get over it, suck it up, be happy, and tell myself that when the time is right, it will happen? I’m sure that’s what some people think (probably not most people who read this, or they wouldn’t bother reading it). Compared to other things though – terminal illness, the death of someone close, etc. – it probably doesn’t seem like that big of a deal.

But I recently came across this, from Harvard Medical School, and thought it was interesting:

“One study of 200 couples seen consecutively at a fertility clinic, for example, found that half of the women and 15% of the men said that infertility was the most upsetting experience of their lives. Another study of 488 American women who filled out a standard psychological questionnaire before undergoing a stress reduction program concluded that women with infertility felt as anxious or depressed as those diagnosed with cancer, hypertension, or recovering from a heart attack.”

“Individuals who learn they are infertile often experience the normal but nevertheless distressing emotions common to those who are grieving any significant loss — in this case the ability to procreate. Typical reactions include shock, grief, depression, anger, and frustration, as well as loss of self-esteem, self-confidence, and a sense of control over one’s destiny.”

“Relationships may suffer — not only the primary relationship with a spouse or partner, but also those with friends and family members who may inadvertently cause pain by offering well-meaning but misguided opinions and advice. Couples dealing with infertility may avoid social interaction with friends who are pregnant and families who have children.”

It turns out my feelings are completely normal. I’ve learned a lot over the last couple of months through therapy and from reading several books. I’ve felt guilty or petty for a lot of the feelings I’ve had, but I know I shouldn’t be so hard on myself.

I shouldn’t have to feel guilty for avoiding people who are pregnant. I shouldn’t feel bad about not wanting to go to baby showers, yet, at the same time, it’s acceptable for me to be upset if I’ve not invited to them. It’s not stupid that I’m still upset that, as the oldest, I didn’t have the first grandchild – that’s a grievable loss that I have permission to mourn. I shouldn’t have to feel guilty if I’m not up to looking at the most recent pictures of my neice on Thanksgiving Day. It’s OK if I avoid people or situations that really hurt to be around or a part of, because I have to take care of myself first. I shouldn’t feel the need to always protect other peoples’ feelings at the cost of my own.

I’m not saying that any of this gives me the right to be flat-out rude or anything, but I don’t have to beat myself up for feeling the way I do.

I carry a lot of burdens and self-imposed guilt. I’m learning that my feelings are justified, and normal, and some of the load gets lifted off my shoulders.

I realized yesterday that we hadn’t updated in awhile. Nothing’s really going on right now – we’re still in the 3 month “waiting period.”

Honestly, I feel like I’m just saying the same thing over and over again; I worry that people will get tired of me whining.

Time is passing, quickly and slowly at the same time, and the days go on.

That’s about it.

Today we did something we haven’t done in a really long time: we went to church. We pretty much stopped going a year ago, after 2 years of sporadic attendance. We’ve been back one time since then, and it was a disaster.

It’s so hard to be in the midst of all of the young couples at church – they are all in the process of starting or building their families. Being surrounded by them makes all the positivity I struggle to maintain melt away. I think “why is it so easy for them, and so hard for us?” We don’t fit in. The longer this goes on, the less we get invited to. We’re the odd ones. I would come home and be depressed for the rest of the day. Eventually it wasn’t worth the pain.

But we want to start going to church again, so we went today. It took a week to psych ourselves up. I spent the morning mentally preparing.

Within 5 minutes of being in the building, we saw 3 very pregnant women – like 8 months pregnant. They all looked very happy. The service opened with a baby dedication for a couple my age who have just had their third kid. I didn’t look up. I didn’t trust myself to watch. I spent several minutes writing our names in the attendance book. When I was finished, it looked like a 5-year old had written it. I concentrated on breathing. I repeated a mantra to myself. I did not cry.

The baby dedication was followed by a boy scouts thing. Then the guy who did communion gave a shout-out to his grandson. The service ended with the announcement of the “parents’ lunch” after church.

I continued my concentrated breathing.

Going to church is painful. Where other people may feel peace and comfort, I feel exactly the opposite. It brings into sharper focus what we don’t have. It reminds me that we are being left behind. People always say that things will happen when they are meant to happen. But people who say this already have children. So it doesn’t make us feel better; it feels more like our pain isn’t being taken seriously.

I have more to say on that subject, but I’ll save it for another post.

We’ve told a few people at church what we’re going through, and they’ve all been very supportive. No one pressured us to go back to church; they actually said “That’s tough; that’s understandable. We will pray for you.” And that was comforting. No one minimized our feelings. That’s the only reason we’re giving it another try.

I came across a quote the other day that is very true and fairly relevant:

“When someone having a great day says, ‘Trust God,’ to someone in pain, it sounds like a heartless accusation. It also robs the suffering believer of the opportunity to testify about God’s grace. It’s the comforter’s job to weep; it’s the hurting person’s job, when he or she is ready, to tell others about God’s sufficiency.  Too often it happens the other way around. Would-be comforters leave people weeping after ‘bearing witness’ to them that God is sufficient.”
-from The Infertility Companion

So.

I’m not doing so good.

Or well. Or whatever.

For awhile I was on something of a high – “yay, we found the problem, we fixed the problem, we’re solving the problem, we get a fresh start and a clean slate, now we just wait for babies!” But then reality kicked in, we had an unbelievably crappy month, and my optimism sank. It sank quickly, and it sank dramatically.

More confessions: I started going to therapy about a week before Christmas. I finally reached my breaking point, and I knew it. It was something I had debated about for a long time, and I finally decided it was time. It’s not something I’m particularly excited about, and it’s not really even something that we can afford, but we feel that it’s something absolutely worth trying.

I’ve debated about posting about this, because it’s something that is so, so personal to me. But the truth is, that after nearly 3 years, this is something that I just can’t handle on my own. Darek is awesome, but he can’t bear the burden alone. I don’t have any friends or family members who really understand what I’m going through. So it seems relevant to post here.

I don’t really have anything interesting to say, I guess. I just thought maybe…I don’t know. It’s hard to say. We tend to post the more positive things here (I’m sure that seems hard to believe, but trust me, it’s true) and keep the more negative to ourselves. But the truth is that it is so hard. And some days, I just don’t know what to do.

This thing is cruel.

Calling it “infertility” seems almost hollow. There’s so much more involved.

I sometimes feel I’m walking a thin line between trying to help people understand, trying to express my feelings, and not getting more personal than I want to be. I don’t know how much of myself to put out there sometimes.

Some days I feel OK, I truly do. Some days I’m hopeful and excited and “just know” that it’s right around the corner, whether that corner might be 2 months or 6. (Never just one month though, because that’s just way to much to hope for.) I don’t want other people to tell me it will happen, because it hurts and doesn’t help, but I have to tell myself that it will.

And then other days…

Oh, the other days. Those are the days that feel like they’ll never end. It’s hard to think of anything else. And everything else seems more monumental than it should be.

On these days I feel like we’ll never emerge from this. Even if/when we do, it won’t be unscathed. This will always be with us. I envy those who have no idea what this is like. I realize more and more that it will always be there. If it had just been a year, or a year and half maybe, I think it would be easier to bounce back. But this has forever changed who I am and how I view the world. I will never be the same.

And maybe there’s some good in that. That’s what keeps me going. Because I know that at the end of this, when we have a child, we will appreciate them so much more than we ever could have without this struggle. Sometimes I see other people and know that they have no idea what blessings have been bestowed upon them. They have no idea how lucky they are. We will always know how much we wanted this child, and we will know how much it cost us.

It’s just that sometimes, it’s hard to get through the day.

We just wanted to take a minute to say thank you to all of you that take the time to read this blog. These past 3 years have been filled with grief and heartache and we’ve mostly gone through it all on our own. It means a lot that you care enough to keep up with our struggle. We know that to a lot of people, this doesn’t seem like all that big of a deal – there’s no visible loss, there’s nothing solid to hold on to, our life from the outside seems to just go on like normal – but your acknowledgment that it is a big deal is a tremendous relief.

We also can’t tell you how much it means to get comments here. Every time a comment shows up, we feel a little less alone. It gives us a little more strength to make it through another day. Even the shortest, simplest comments remind us that you care, and that you’re there for us, and this helps in such a huge way that I’m not even sure how I can describe it. It might seem like a small thing to you, but those comments remind us that we do have support and love, and that we’re not going through this completely alone, and it means more than we can put into words.

I know it sounds kind of cheesy, but it’s so, so true.

So, thank you.