Am I There Yet?

Just wanted to announce, if only to myself, that after an uncomplicated, full-term pregnancy, I gave birth to a healthy baby boy on July 25, 2007. He is the most beautiful, amazing creature. Now almost six months old, I still cannot stop thanking God daily for the miracle of his existence.

Well, I think this is it for this blog. I haven't posted in a long time for many reasons. But mostly, it's because I associate this blog with heartache and pain and one of the darkest, bleakest periods of my life. Every time I read it, I feel myself falling into the pit all over again. There was the infertility, of course, but there was also the sense of not knowing what to do with my life, which would have remained even if I had been able to conceive.

Happily, there is a light at the end of the tunnel -- for both problems. No, I am not pregnant. My 2nd IVF in November was a horrible experience on many levels, and was, unsurprisingly, a complete failure. No need to rehash the experience here. I will *never* forget it, much as I may hope to. But these days, I am truly not worried about having a child. I know that I may not have a child in the way that I dreamed, but I know that I will have the child of my dreams. Adoption, donor eggs, or -who knows - maybe there's a child within me yet. God will provide, and I know He'll do so in a way that will turn out to be absolutely right for me and Dawg.

What makes me feel this way? When did I get so calm? I don't know. Well, yes I do. It's because I'm writing. Really writing. I've written several articles since I last posted here, and to my delight and surprise, even sold a few. I love it. When I write and complete an article, I feel so...whole. And believe me, as an infertile, that's a feeling that has been sorely lacking for the past three years. I feel whole; I feel real; I feel happy. I wake up in the morning and jump out of bed, looking forward to whatever work I've planned for myself for the day. I sleep all night long. And if I happen to wake up in the night, I do not lie there in an unhappy fog, sometimes crying myself back to sleep. I just breathe deeply and tell myself to wait -- I'll fall asleep again eventually. And I do.

There are bad moments, of course. We were at a restaurant the other night, and I heard a very young baby crying. The sound cut into my heart. But it didn't send me spiraling into my usual darkness, where I stop hearing the conversation at the table, and can only focus on the child that isn't mine. And pregnancy announcements still hurt. A lot. But now I am depressed only for a day or even a few hours, instead of days and days and days.

I know there will be more bad days. But there will also be good ones. Great ones. Fabulous ones, where the memories I'm talking about now will seem like some awful, distant nightmare. I'm really looking forward to those. I know they're coming - I feel it all falling into place. But for now, I'm just happy to live in the present, and enjoy the fact that I'm doing something that I love, which is an underrated privilege. Kind of like parenthood.

I'm thinking of starting a new blog. A more positive one that befits my new positive outlook on life. I'm thinking about framing it as an ongoing letter to my future child(ren). No matter how they come about, there may come a time when they want to know who they are, and why we made the decisions we did, and what they mean to us. This journal will tell them, if they want to know.

But then again, maybe I won't. I won't do anything that risk pushing me back into that dark place again. And if I make infertility and having children the whole focus of my life again, I will certain end up there.

Anyway, Lola has stopped running, even though she's not there yet. Now, she's just walking sedately along with the rest of the world, smelling the roses, feeling the thorns, and accepting that one day she'll be a mother.

Yesterday's call from the hospital diluted a very good thing that happened: Yesterday, Dawg and I became the very proud owners of our dream house.

Okay, it's a dream house without electricity, plumbing, heating, etc., but we still love it as much as when we first saw in back in February.

I am delighted to have this house project. Feels great to work on something that we have control over.

Today I was scheduled to have a FET. But yesterday, we got the call from the hospital telling me that the embryos did not survive the unthawing. While I am not in the least surprised, I am still disappointed. Or I would be disappointed if I did not feel so numb. I feel as if I am endlessly slogging through chest-high water.

What bugs me the most is that my doctor knew that these embryos were poor quality, and yet I was not informed of this before I was asked if I wanted to freeze them. In the U.S., clinics will only freeze embryos that having continued to grow in the petri dish for 5 days. Those have the best chance of surviving freezing and unthawing -- and even under those conditions, only 50% survive after thawing. At my clinic, they freeze at Day 2, no matter the quality of the embryo. OK, fine. Maybe it works sometimes. But under French law, you cannot do a fresh cycle unless you first use your frozen embryos. Had I known about this law, and that my embryos were poor quality, I would never have frozen them. Now, we've wasted 4 cycles, trying to do this FET, knowing all the while that the embryos were unlikely to survive the unthawing. I am pissed. But next month I am switching to a more savvy doctor; one who is more in-line with the U.S. approach to IVF. At least there is that.

I have mostly been able to stick to my promise to be positive. But it has not been easy. In fact, I'm surviving by closing myself off from everyone. I have no desire to speak to anyone: pregnant friends, friends with children, or even -- and this is new -- friends that do not yet have kids. None of them truly understand how much their casual words about existing or future children feels like a stab in the heart. I am fiercely jealous; I am sad; I am utterly bereft. But only Dawg and T know this. I can't reveal to anyone else the ugly swirl of emotion that is inside me. It would make them start treating me like a head case, and as much as I hate having to endure pregnancy or baby talk, a careful avoidance of the topic would make me feel worse.

I wish I could skip to the end of this story. I cannot believe that there will not be happy ending. I just can't believe it.

T is not pregnant.

I get these feeling sometimes. And for the past several days I have felt, strongly, that my infertile friend T is pregnant. She has her blood test today.

I can say that I'm happy for her and know that somewhere inside me, I am. But my overwhelming feeling is despair for myself. Disgusting, selfish, and hateful, I know. I don't want T not to be pregnant; I'm just afraid of being left all alone in this nightmare.

I am embarrassed to write any of this. But in order to change, I have to be honest. I really hate how infertility has brought out my true, selfish colors -- that my own happiness or unhappiness is paramount, even over those I care for. No matter what happens in the future, I do not want to be a bitter woman that cannot be happy for her friends. It galls me that I can have even the slightest hesitation to happy for T, who is a kind, caring person, and has been suffering for so long.

In light of this, I have decided something. I will be strong for 6 months. From now until February 3 (might as well make it until the day after Dawg's b-day), I will have faith, and positivity and courage about this baby issue, no matter what happens. No matter what information I receive -- a billion pregnancies, bad news from doctors -- I will stand firm in belief and faith that I can and will get pregnant.

When things are status quo, and yet I feel rocked, I will borrow a phrase from that tower of strength, GetupGrrl, and repeat to myself: Nothing Bad Has Happened Yet. Nothing Bad Has Happened Yet.

And if things do get rocky, I will repeat to myself these two biblical phrases:
(1) Psalms 27: 14-- "Trust in the Lord/Have Faith, do not despair/Trust in the Lord"; and (2) Psalms 31:24 "Be strong, be courageous, all you that hope in the Lord."

I'm too tired of moping and unhappiness. I simply must believe that it will all be okay. That I will get pregnant. That I will have a healthy child.

For 6 months, I will believe in miracles.

I was trying to think up a new positive, new title for this blog, and typed in "realizing your goals" into google. And what were the first two links to come up? "Realizing your adoption goals." Is this a sign? I'm beginning to think so.

A few weeks ago, I thought I received another sign. I woke up extremely depressed (surprise, surprise) one morning and went to the Tuilieries to feed the baby ducks. When I got there, the usual family of ducks was there - mom duck, dad duck, and four ducklings - but there were also two tiny, tiny ducklings that were all alone. They were so small, they looked like little yellow-brown cottonballs floating on the water. They kept very close together and never went anywhere near the family of ducks. Once, when they paddled too close to one of the bigger ducklings, the bigger ducklings chased them away. I stayed there watching them for an hour and a half, and no grown-up ducks came back to the little ones. They were on their own. My heart broke for these poor little things with no mama duck to take care of them. I felt very strongly that it was a sign. I called Dawg from the pool to tell him about the little ducks, and at first he was like - oh poor things. But then, he realized the symbolism and quickly changed the subject.

I am loathe to think that I cannot get pregnant. I have wanted to feel a baby kicking inside of me all of my life. I have always known that it was a miracle, and wanted so badly to have it happen to me. Everything I have done has been with an eye toward how this or that would affect my children. With each of my boyfriends, no matter how brief, I have tried to envision what kind of child the two of us would make. And now that I'm with Dawg, my husband, I want so badly to see the twinkle in his eyes in the eyes of our child. I want to look down at our baby and think - he and I made this beautiful person, together. I don't know if it'll ever happen. When I pray to God for a pregnancy, all I get back is stone-cold silence. But now, I'm wondering if He is beginning to speak. As it often is with God, He's saying something different from what I want to hear, but there have been many times in my life where I thought He had failed me, but it turned out He did the best thing possible.

Is this what is going on? Or I am just creating my own failure?

Today is one of those days where I can't stop crying.

Since writing positive things guarantees that they won't come true, and writing negative things guarantees that they will come true, then I might as well write what's in my heart:

I'm never going to be pregnant.

I'm never going to write this book.

I'm never going to feel like anything other than an utter and complete failure.

Why do I even bother to try?

When I started this blog, I called it: "Lola, Running: A Memoir of One Woman's Journey to...um...Something."

I liked this subtitle since it very accurately reflected how uncertain I felt about my future after quitting my job and embarking on two huge projects: the book project and the baby project. (Not to mention the learning French and German projects). I felt certain that, eventually, something positive and definitive would happen; that there would be a moment where I'd go - aha! This is the brilliant thing that I've been running toward all along! Fabulous! And then, I could stop running.

Sad to say, almost two years later, and I am still stumbling running headlong into blackness, and don't see any lights on the horizon. I am so tired, but don't see anywhere to rest. Every drop of my energy is devoted to picking myself up after getting bitch-slapped down by my period or other reproductive bad news. I am not in a good place. At all. I never would have dreamed that I'd be here -- nowhere's land, childless, purposeless -- for so long.

Yesterday, I made a decision. I'm putting the book aside for the moment. I realize that, right now, I am not emotionally strong enough to handle two overwhelming, lonely and frustrating projects. If I'm not upset about one, I'm upset about the other. Since the clock ticks on the baby project, it is the book that must step aside for the time being. The decision was hard and it makes me feel like a quitter, but I simply cannot self-motivate on two levels right now. Instead, I will concentrate on my short stories and essays. To write stories is almost instinctive for me. I'm hoping that now that I'm giving myself free reign to do it full-time, it will bring positive balance into my life.

Also, I've decided to that the title of this blog does not invite good karma. All this blind running. True, I do not know what the future holds, but I know what I want out of it. So here is my New Title: Am I there yet? My long, hard march to motherhood.

Note the definite destination.

So now, just so it's clear for anyone making decision-making powers in the universe out there, my goal is to become a mother. One way or another.