First, the gritty details: I have 3 more days of my birth control pills (the nausea I’ve been experiencing from them the past 13 days has subsided, mostly) and then I begin a steroid pill and my injections for our egg retrieval. I will be giving myself a subcutaneous shot in the stomach (Menopur) and one in the evening (Gonal F and some Follistim) and then Cetrotide will be added in eventually. And then I will have a ‘trigger’ shot that is intramuscular (that means, in the butt) 36 hours before the retrieval. I will be in our clinic 8-9 times over the next 13 days. Each time giving blood and having an ultrasound done. To say that I am overwhelmed and scared is an understatement. I will post a picture of my medication once I actually have it all under one roof. The last injection arrives today.
I asked my husband last night if I was this scared before delivering our daughter almost 4 years ago. He thought about it and replied, ‘Yes, at times you were.’ Oddly, that brought me some comfort. Maybe that’s not odd. It means that I have been in front of this mountain before and I have climbed it and lived to survive.
Also, it made me feel less alone. Meaning that everyone feels terrified at one time or another and we usually survive. We mostly survive and live to tell about how we were shaking in our boots, but we took a step and then another…and then another. And somehow we made it. Infertility is awful and yet it is not the only kind of awful out there. It is MY awful right now. It will be until we have resolution. My heart hopes beyond hope that it will end with a healthy baby. I do know that is not a guarantee.
As we navigated through this tearful conversation last night, we were hit with some more awful. My husband’s elderly mother was hit by a car outside of her church. It was a hit and run incident and she was transported to a hospital within city limits where my husband, several of his siblings, and friends of hers gathered to be with her as she learned about her injuries. She was and is in pain and she will require surgery. My heart aches for my husband as I watch him try to put these pieces together. He is furious at the thought of someone hurting her so badly and leaving her. It is heartbreaking. This is another kind of awful.
My heart is twisted around the news that flooded into our home and hearts last night. My relationship with my mother-in-law is and has always been complicated by our competing belief systems. I have always felt a strong desire to protect myself from hers. And she has felt similarly, I imagine. It keeps us at a distance and that is something I’ve never easily grown accustomed to. But the thought of her so fragile and…human…makes me feel greater empathy for her than ever.
Life is not full of awful, I really believe that. But the awful comes up now and again. Sometimes it is a slow burn, like that of our infertility story. And sometimes it is a small fiery explosion. Like a call in the night informing you that your mother-in-law has been hit by a car and that the driver fled the scene. Awful.
*Gratitude
I’d like to make it a practice that each time I write, I make space for some gratitude. I came across an article recently that discusses the science behind gratitude and it really is one of our most powerful tools for happiness and resilience – attempting to search for things to be grateful for promotes happiness and it is literally scientifically proven! See this article for more amazing information (it’s also posted under ‘Wisdom’ on my website):
http://theweek.com/articles/601157/neuroscience-reveals-4-rituals-that-make-happy
I am extremely grateful for my health. I am grateful that I can walk, practice yoga, cook, sleep, play with my daughter, nestle into my husband’s shoulder, and sit in front of a computer to type this. Hearing about my mother-in-law’s injuries and the pain she is in makes me doubly grateful just to be sitting here. A total stranger took her ability to sit free of pain away from her last night and that easily could happen to any one of us. I am grateful for my relative physical health and strength.