I wrote an angry post yesterday. It was hateful and bitter and… angry. I had it all set to publish, but when I glanced at it again I realized that it wasn’t me. I don’t know who the words came from, but they didn’t come from me.
I hit delete.
There were moments today when I felt myself crumbling. Seconds in time when I felt myself thinking "I am not going to be OK". Periods where I actually started to cry at my desk.
For reasons I can’t even explain, I felt worse today than I did yesterday. More raw. Less stable.
How does that work? I thought when something tragic happened, you were supposed to get better every day; not the other way around.
I’ve been thinking about that angry post and realizing that while the tone wasn’t me, the thoughts were. From the beginning of this I have told myself that I don’t want to ever become an angry, bitter woman. I don’t want to be someone who begrudges anyone else their happiness, and I don’t want to become a woman who has lost all hope of happiness for herself.
But that post was angry and bitter. Every last word of it.
And I wrote it.
I don’t want to be that woman, and I don’t want to allow my anger to fuel me, but I’m realizing that there are a few things that have to be said.
I know women in my own life who take for granted the gift they have been given in motherhood. Women who use their children as pawns in ugly divorces. Women who blame their kids for the loss of their party days. Women who neglect and ignore. Women who simply walk away, because parenting isn’t what they thought it would be.
I can’t help but wonder why these women can have children and I can’t. Why some of these women got pregnant when they were actively trying not to, and I can’t get pregnant when they take a healthy embryo and actually set it right in my uterus.
It has to be said that people have babies every day. People who don’t even know what to do with them. People who don’t even want them. It just happens, because that is how the body is made. That is how it’s supposed to work. We are made to procreate.
It isn’t supposed to be this difficult.
It has to be said that there is part of me that wonders if this not working doesn't mean something more than it just not working. There is part of me that wonders if there is more that's wrong with me than I or the doctors realize.
Something about me that just won't get pregnant... ever.
Because all I keep thinking is that I did everything right. I took care of myself, I followed the rules, and I stayed positive. I was Suzie Freaking Sunshine I was so positive.
I did everything I was supposed to do.
This whole time I thought that I was just being challenged, but that as long as I stayed strong and fought through the hurdles; I would get my baby.
Because people DO have babies every day, so how could I not have thought that if I did everything right I would be one of them.
I did do everything. Literally everything that can be done, I did. The most extreme measures were taken. And it didn’t matter. It didn’t work.
And it has to be said that I just don’t understand.
All I can think about is how hard I tried, how much I sacrificed, and how little it mattered. I am up to my ears in debt now. I borrowed so much money from my grandmother; money that it will take me years to pay her back. So not only did I put myself out for this, I put out someone I love. And for what?
I have nothing to show for it.
I have more moments in the day of complete numbness than I do of pain. Most people would probably look at me right now and assume that I’m doing OK. I am slapping a smile on my face and having conversations. I am comforting those close to me and reassuring them that I will be OK. I am doing my best to pretend, because I really do believe that you can choose how you react to the circumstances life hands you.
Except that right now, I’m not so sure my fake it to make it attitude is working.
Because I feel so broken, that I’m not sure there is any fixing it.
This isn’t me. When do I get to feel like me again?
ADSPACE
