Where Do I Fit In?

There’s a thought that everyone has had at some point, or many different points, or constantly, at all points.

Where do I fit in?

Maybe you were an only child, but all your childhood friends had siblings.

Maybe your high school didn’t offer electives that were your cup of tea.

Maybe you chose an unpopular major in college.

Maybe you were overqualified for your job.

Maybe everyone around you was having babies, and you weren’t.

Maybe everyone around you wasn’t having babies, and you were.

I don’t know where I fit in.

Jjiraffe posted a few weeks ago about expiration dates on infertility blogs, which led Elphaba to wonder what’s in an infertility blog, and to discuss a parenting after infertility and loss network.

For, well, years, actually, I’ve been asking that question. It’s mostly been just the small kernel of doubt and fear at the back of my mind, but since jjiraffe’s post, it started growing and demanding more and more of my attention. With Elphaba’s posts, it’s become this gnawing beast that won’t leave me alone.

Where do I fit in?

I asked myself so many times when I first started this blog, because I’ve never been pregnant, I’ve never started the adoption process, but somehow, here I am parenting. Is it fair that I’m trying so hard when we already have a child? No, she isn’t mine biologically or even legally, but she’s mine. Does that make any sense?

Everyone goes through their own struggles and deals with them in their own way, but I haven’t found someone who has gone through my struggles, no matter how they’re dealing with them.

I do feel better writing about how I feel and sharing it with you, but amidst all the ‘that sucks’ and ‘I’m sorry’ it would be nice to find a ‘me too.’

I never considered starting a ‘marriage after infidelity’ blog, because there’s no way I would have been able to connect with anyone else the way I have with infertility bloggers. Reading those stories would only have made me feel worse, but reading these stories, even the ones without happy endings, makes me feel like I do fit in somewhere, even if I still ask myself if that’s really true.

I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to stop asking, but for now, I have to keep whittling, and maybe one day I can make my square peg fit a round hole.

Getting to Know You

If it weren’t for Kathy’s Time Warp Tuesday, I wouldn’t have posted anything the past couple weeks. I’ve just kind of snuck back into my lurking hidey-hole lately. But Emily @ a blanket 2 keep has teased me back out with a ‘getting to know you’ tag. It’s time to warm up with some lighthearted stuff before getting into the heavy stuff that’s been running around in my head.

Here are the rules:
1 – Post the rules
2 – Answer the 11 questions from the person who tagged you.
3 – Create 11 new questions for the people you tag.
4 – Tag people and link them to your post.
5 – Let them know that you tagged them.

My answers to Emily’s questions:

1. What was your favorite book when you were a kid? Wow, this is a toughie. I think I’d have to say Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling. I love all the stories, but the ones about Taffimai inventing writing and the alphabet were my favorites.

2. What is your favorite card or board game? I love games too! My favorite card game is Fluxx. My sister introduced me to it years ago, and it’s just a blast to play! We have original, zombie, and Monty Python Fluxx, and it’s even more fun when you mix the different ones together. I highly recommend it!!

3. What food do you absolutely refuse to eat? Brussels sprouts. Yuck!!

4. Where did you go on your last vacation? We just got home Wednesday night from almost a week at my mom and stepdad’s in south Louisiana for Mardi Gras. We also had a family memorial service for my Aunt Morna and planted a rosebush over her ashes.

5. Do you have any siblings? Tell me about them. I’m the oldest of four, at 33. My sister is 30, she has a PhD and is a math professor in Virginia. She hopes to come back to Louisiana to teach one day. She doesn’t want marriage or kids, but she’s really supportive and understanding of what I’m going through. My first brother is 19. He wants to be a video game developer, plays the tuba, and taught himself Japanese for his high school senior project. My youngest brother turns 15 in a month, and I’ve written about him a few times. He’s currently in rehab for his…agricultural and pharmacological ventures, shall we say. Once he gets interested in something, he pursues it with a vengeance. He’s good at skateboarding, bowling, and anything outdoorsy.

6. What house hold chore do you hate the most? Since we have a dishwasher, it’s vacuuming. I’ve never liked it. We have a really low pile carpet, so I’d much rather sweep up the cat fur and Cheerios than break out the vacuum.

7. Cake or Pie? Almost always pie. I’ve been craving Key Lime pie for probably a month now. I did have an awesome Key Lime cupcake two weeks ago that sated me for a few days.

8. If you could go to any country all expenses paid for 2 weeks where would you go? Such good questions, Emily! Indonesia. Especially Bali. I love the ocean, and tropical beachy islands.

9. If you could have any animal as a pet what would it be? A donkey. I’ve always loved donkeys.

10. If you were a pirate and had to have one, which would you choose, a peg leg or a hook for a hand? A peg leg. A hook would make it way too hard to blog on my iPhone!

11. If you could have a super power what would you choose? This is the hardest question ever! I’ve had many, many discussions about this with my nerd friends and my nerd husband. I actually lean toward invisibility most often. I guess that’s the natural choice for someone who’s shy and depressed, with low self esteem, someone who already feels invisible much of the time anyway. I could just sneak out of those awkward moments when I have to interact with *gulp* other people. But I do have a disclaimer: if I could be any superhero, I’d be Batman. Yes, I know he’s not a superhero, he doesn’t have any special powers, he’s just this guy, you know? That’s his appeal to me. He has resources. He has brains and dedication. Anybody can be Batman. That’s just awesome. You can’t beat that.

Phew! Okay, here are my questions:

1. What was your favorite subject in school?
2. Do you believe in ghosts?
3. What was your first kiss like?
4. What’s one movie that you could watch every single day, and why do you like it so much?
5. What gift did you always ask for as a child, but never received?
6. What relative do you have most in common with?
7. What do you like for breakfast?
8. Do you still talk to your very first friend?
9. What mythological creature should be real?
10. Where was your secret hiding place as a kid? Did anyone ever find you?
11. Would you live on the moon if there were a colony there?

And I tag Ian and Sarah.

Thanks again, Emily!

Time Warp Tuesday: Blog Beginnings

This week for Time Warp Tuesday we’re exploring Blog Beginnings. Keiko suggests that we ‘dig up and dust off’ one of our very first posts and discuss what has changed, or hasn’t changed, since then.

This was my very first post. Come back to the present after you’ve read it, and I’ll share a thing or two with you.

Ready?

I started Where Do We Go From Here? in, well, an angsty fit of pique.

Maybe I should back up a little. We started trying to conceive almost exactly six years ago. Five and a half years ago, I was diagnosed with PCOS. Almost two years ago, we moved on to a reproductive endocrinologist. All through this, I never sought out any support.

I didn’t tell friends, I didn’t tell family, I wasn’t even seeing a much-needed therapist. Even though I’d had a talk with my best friend about my wildly ticking biological clock, even though I’d read everything I could find about PCOS, there was never any urgency. There was never any doubt that it would happen.

Everything changed when my husband knocked his girlfriend up. Nothing was sure anymore. Nothing was special. Nothing was safe. And nothing was secret.

We all worked for the same company, although I worked at a different location, and every single person I worked with knew what had happened. People I didn’t even know knew what had happened. People in another state knew what had happened. I left that job six months later.

But then I met someone who was going through the same thing. She had PCOS, she was taking metformin, she was struggling to get pregnant. I hadn’t realized how alone I felt until then. I couldn’t talk to anyone about the affair, but I knew there were support groups I could join for PCOS and infertility.

I started tweeting, and I found RESOLVE. I found other people who were going through the same thing, who knew how hard it was. And it was amazing.

It’s a funny coincidence Keiko suggested this week’s topic, because hers was the first infertility blog I ever read. I started tentatively poking around just in time for her letter to PETA.

I posted some infertility-related updates to Facebook for NIAW, but they didn’t seem to garner much attention, so I threw myself more into the online support community I’d found. I told my stories, I made some friends, I started making myself a place there.

But there was this underlying attitude of superiority tainting the ‘support’ given. There was apparently only one ‘acceptable’ way to resolve infertility, with certain steps to follow in a certain order, and if someone decided to try this drug without trying that drug, or pursue adoption without trying IVF, or live child free without considering adoption, they unfailingly received tons of negative criticism.

There were also apparent limits to personal expression. One example in particular sticks in my mind: a friend of mine lamented that there was no way to screen out certain kinds of posts, like the public discussion a woman started in which she complained that she would have to miss her first child’s first day of school because she had an RE appointment. My friend wrote how this upset her in her own publicly viewable personal journal, and she was mobbed. She received dozens of hate comments.

I wrote a post about why I was not considering IVF at the time, and the same thing happened. I think just about everyone who was online at the time I posted it who had undergone IVF took great offense and let me know. I said it was wrong for me at that point, but they all seemed to think I said that was wrong for everyone, no matter that I explicitly said ‘just for me, not for everyone.’

My first post here was my last post there. And even that post, just asking people to be nice for a change, was taken as me saying ‘you’re all stupid bitches.’

But you know what I can say now? Most of them were. And I never looked back. I have met so many more understanding, articulate people here in the blogosphere than I ever thought I would. I’m glad I went there, because it led me here. And here is where I really belong.

My blog began with an end, but it was the end of the beginning.

The Year of the Free Care

Happy Valentine’s Day!My husband surprised me with this balloon last night. Belle, he does love me whole bunches! And if you look closely, perhaps you can identify Taking Charge of Your Fertility and Making a Baby on the bookshelf. I didn’t realize that until uploading the picture.

As the title may have clued you in, the hospital finally approved my free care application! And backdated it to my first appointment this year. Yay!

And we have a complete about face. The only good thing I have to share is that my ovaries look completely normal!! I’ll have to come back later to tell you about the asshole I saw instead of my doctor.

Questions

I hate them.

All the nagging little ‘are you sures’ and ‘whys’ and ‘what ifs.’ The tiny doubts that always manage to find a way in. The second-guessing that only serves to make me crazier. The fears.

And the shame.

When something bad happens, we all ask ourselves the same question at one point.

What did I do to deserve this?

If you ask that question enough, you’re bound to come up with answers. Maybe it’s something silly or trivial, maybe it’s something serious. Maybe it’s true, maybe it’s not. The more you ask, the more answers you can think up.

I thought I’d finished asking that. I thought I’d come to terms with what has gone wrong in my life. I thought I understood that it’s not my fault.

I didn’t force someone to do something if I didn’t know about it. I didn’t do something stupid to cause my ovaries to be cyst factories. I can tell myself that, but it doesn’t mean I always believe it.

So many questions. What if I’m not strong enough, or smart enough, or pretty enough? What if I’m not good enough? And then the question I despise myself for asking: what if I’m not the one who isn’t good enough?

But what makes that question so much worse than the others? Why can I put myself down all I want, but if I dare to question someone else’s suitability, I’m a terrible person?

Because I’m stuck with me, no matter what. I’ll always be here. I can’t escape myself. Because if it isn’t me, that means I made crappy decisions.

If I’d just stop beating around the bush and spit it out, I’d admit that there’s really only one question, did I make the right choice? And then I’d have to admit that there comes a point when it doesn’t matter anymore.

I have to stand behind my decisions, because a valid reason is a valid reason. Because the same things make sense to me now that made sense to me five years ago, or ten years ago. More things make sense, not fewer.

Maybe I can start asking myself not if I made the right choice, but if I made the right choice at the time. For the most part, I think I did.

I hope I can learn to have more faith in myself.

The New and Improved Plan

While it seems that we all agree that when a doctor says ‘come back in three months’ that in no way means sixteen months, my former clinic tends to differ.

Yes, former. Screw that place, I’m not going back unless they start handing out free kids. I don’t think I need to worry about that happening any time soon.

So we have a new plan: make this cycle count.

Okay, that’d be pretty nice, but since we can’t guarantee that, if this one doesn’t work I’ll do a couple months of letrozole and then some tamoxifen.

Then we pull out the big guns.

Next week we’re going to visit my family for Mardi Gras, and on the way down we’re stopping at a fertility clinic about two hours away to have a little chat. We may or may not have all the paperwork we need for them by then, but it won’t hurt to check them out.

And of course, hopefully we’ll never need to go there for care, but we can’t let all this research my husband has been doing go to waste, now, can we?

It’s just…I’m tired of preparing for failure. I’m ready to prepare for success.

October

I just got an email with the rescheduling of my RE appointment that was cancelled December 12th, that was rescheduled from September 6th.

It is October fucking 12th.

Is that, or is that not, the biggest load of bullshit ever?

Or should I just be grateful that it’s this year?

I am absolutely frustrated right now. I know I don’t need to be. I know I’ll be cycling (or pregnant!) until then anyway. I know I have two more drugs to try before I need to go back.

But damn.

I go back go family practice next Tuesday. Maybe my awesome doctor can do something if my phone call tomorrow is futile.

Time Warp Tuesday: Comments Please

It’s Time Warp Tuesday again! I haven’t participated in a few weeks, but Kathy oh-so-subtly reminded me via Twitter yesterday, so here I am. This week, the subject is Comments Please, suggested by Deborah. The concept is to choose one of your favorite posts that received little to no feedback. I’m pretty amused that ‘validation’ is mentioned twice in the summary on Kathy’s blog, because that’s the post(s) I chose.

Last October, I wrote a three part post entitled Validation. Part one talks about my relationship with my mother, part two my relationship with my husband, and part three my relationship with you, my readers. Okay, that’s got to be cheating somehow, picking three posts, but they’re all the same story from different aspects. If I had to pick just one, I’d ask you to read part two, because my relationship with my husband is what will affect me every single day for the rest of our lives.

But I’ll discuss all three.

In part one, I write:

Rachel talks about feeling guilty to complain, ‘because I’m not realizing that my own pain is real and important, too.’ I so identify with this. And it isn’t that I don’t think my pain is real or important, it’s that I’m afraid it’s not. I’m afraid no one else will take me seriously. Because it feels like everyone’s always been trying to fix me, without trying to understand how I’m broken.

The funny thing is, all my life I was trying to do the same thing. I tried and tried to fix myself without facing many of my feelings. It’s only very recently that I’ve learned I don’t have to constantly focus on one thing to make it better. I can let it go without completely giving up. And sometimes, it doesn’t even have to be fixed for me to be able to move past it. Dwelling on the same things doesn’t change them. Letting go isn’t the same as forgetting. And that’s okay.

Then in part two, I tried to explain what I wanted, what I needed:

I just want to be able to say that I feel bad, and this is why. And have that be the end of the conversation. I need to be reassured that it’s okay to feel this way. I need to be validated. Especially by my husband. Because I can’t just do it for myself yet.

There’s been a incredible sea change since I wrote this. I can validate myself now. It’s amazing. But that doesn’t mean I don’t still want the outside reassurance, even if I may not absolutely need it. Because I am recognizing that my pain is real and okay, the reassurance is more welcome, not less. It’s a reinforcement of what I’m telling myself. It’s encouragement that what I’m doing is not just good for me, but also for everyone I come in contact with.

More welcome, but less necessary. The better I get at validating myself, the more I am able to trust myself and my feelings. And the more I’m able to trust myself, the more I’m able to trust others, which, let’s face it, is a huge issue for me. Everything builds on everything else. The more I trust, the less I stress about not trusting.

And the more I talk about this, the more I want to laugh at myself for sounding like a motivational speaker. Ha!

But it’s all true. And with how I feel now, it’s hard to imagine how horrible I felt then. I remember, but it seems so much farther away than three months ago. I love it.

And in part three, I talk about my fear and insecurity:

But I’m still afraid. So many of you have told me to feel free to email you if I need anything, if there’s anything you can do, if I just need someone to talk to. And believe me, sometimes I want to, so badly. But I’m still afraid.

And now I’m not as afraid, but I’ve resolved so much on my own that I don’t feel so much urgency anymore. I don’t need another therapist as much as I just need a friend. It’s a completely new experience for me. I never had time or energy for friends, because I spent so much on my pain. I talked myself into believing that I didn’t need anyone else, but now I’m not so sure.

So maybe I’ll get better at reaching out one day. Maybe once I’ve got the hang of cultivating my relationship with myself and my husband, I’ll get around to cultivating my relationships with other people.

A lot has changed in the few months since I wrote these posts, but most of it has only changed in the past week. I do have to wonder what post I would have chosen had I written this a week ago. But I have to appreciate that I’ll never know, and I’m a better person for that.

I’m looking forward to the next installment of Time Warp Tuesday!

New Habits and Apple Pie

Today was another good day! Out of curiosity, I googled how long it takes to develop a habit. The answer, at 66 days, actually came as a surprise to me. I seem to remember reading something along the lines of 2-3 weeks, but this article explained that the ‘three week rule’ is probably only based on one doctor’s observations of single limb amputees, and this study shows that on average, it takes about two months to develop a habit enough that it feels automatic.

I can’t help but think about how, just a few days ago, two whole months would have seemed like an eternity, a completely unattainable goal. I thought I was doing everything I could do by living one day at a time, but now I realize I never did that. I tried to live the rest of my life at once. I spent so much time worrying about what was going wrong, what could possibly go wrong, how any of it would ever get fixed, and what horrible thing could happen next. Even if I did miraculously manage to only worry about one day, it was never today, it was always some day in the distant future, years from now.

Do I sound like a broken record here, just repeating how good I feel? I can’t help it. It sounds terrible to me, but I don’t remember feeling this good for three whole days ever. And it feels sustainable. That’s the part I marvel at so much. For once, I don’t feel like I’m pretending to enjoy a brief interlude of quietude when I’m really just waiting for the other shoe to drop. I am enjoying, and I’m not waiting.

It’s like discovering that a food I always thought I’d never like is actually the most delicious food there ever was.

Which brings me to this:

At my husband’s request, I got into the frozen cinnamon rolls this morning.

They were just as good as the fresh ones!

And then today I made an apple pie.

It’s in the oven now.

What’s your favorite kind of pie? What do you think I should bake tomorrow?

Still Charlie Sheen

Day two of relaxing, and I think I’m doing pretty well. I’m not worrying about anything, and I even feel valuable as a person. I don’t feel the overwhelming pressure to do something all the time, but I have more inclination to do so.

Yesterday I made cinnamon rolls. I highly recommend this recipe for the dough, but I filled them with 1/2 cup of butter, 1 cup of brown sugar, and 1 tsp cinnamon, and just thinned some canned vanilla frosting for the tops. I baked half and froze half, and we ate all the ones I baked between dessert last night and breakfast this morning. They were so good!

Today I made a chicken pot pie for dinner, and tomorrow I plan on baking an apple pie. Or maybe oatmeal cookies. Maybe both? We’ll see.

This was truly amazing though: last night the dishwasher needed loading, and instead of forcing myself to do it when I didn’t really want to, I went and read a book for a while. You’ll never guess what happened when those dishes didn’t get loaded ASAP…absolutely nothing. The world did not end. The kitchen did not spontaneously combust. My husband did not leave me. And after reading for an hour or so, I wanted to take care of that, so I did. It isn’t that I’m so proud of myself for doing the dishes, it’s that it wasn’t a big deal not to do it right away.

I haven’t been writing or painting to keep myself busy, I’ve been productively cooking and cleaning and organizing. I don’t know if that’s because I feel so good or if I feel so good because that’s what I’ve been doing, but it doesn’t matter. The important thing is that I feel good, so why question it? So I’m not.

My hot flashes haven’t been too bad, and the only time I’ve cried so far has been when the homeless guy died in Groundhog Day. I’m back down to three blood pressure pills a day. I hope I can keep this up when I’m two week waiting. I think I can.

Yay!