Damn. Tomorrow is my birthday, and I'm totally dreading it.
Hubby and I are at odds right now. It always seems to happen when I'm on a down swing - he has empathy and compassion for a good long while, and then, he's had enough and all my sadness does is piss him off. I never feel quite right when we're at odds - it feels like I'm trying to make my way through the day with only one contact lens, or something like that. Eventually, we'll talk through it and be fine. In the meantime, though, I flounder, because......
I have no fucking friends. Seriously. The five years that I've been in hell have completely isolated me from any friends I had before (even the 20 year friendships that I thought could survive anything). And somehow, the person I used to be - the girl who could make friends with anyone, anytime - has disappeared. I don't even know how to make a new friend anymore, how to connect with someone over anything other than loss. Truthfully, I'm not even sure that I want to. I don't know how to explain my craziness to an outsider. All of our couple friends are really Hubby's friends and couldn't care less about me. All of it makes me kind of mad - when shit started to go wrong in my life, people stopped calling, stopped wanting to do things. My core group of friends from NY are all still pretty tight with each other, and wouldn't you know, these are all girls who have had good happy things in their lives over the last few years. I can't remember the last time I heard from one of them. They know of our trials and have cut us out of their lives as if my RPL is some kind of tumor that could spread to them. And so, the reality is, when Hubby and I are off, I have no one to go grab a bite to eat with, or to gab on the phone with, or whatever the fuck it is that girls do with their friends.
I did try to reach out to the new girl at work, who just moved here from another state. I sent her a message inviting her to brunch (I knew her husband was out of town). I felt all nervous while I was doing it, and I checked all day for a response that never came. REJECTED! Of course, I found out a few days later that she's knocked up so it's probably better off that way.
Speaking of New Girl, her belly has popped. I am back to having a sky high anxiety level at work despite my wonderful boss. I just don't think I can sit next to her, listen to her talk about her body changing and the stresses of pregnancy, see her growing belly, and not imagine that that should be my life.
I called off all birthday celebrations this year in an email to Hubby's parents:
Hi guys,
Hope you had a great trip!
I just wanted to let you know that we will not be celebrating my birthday this year. Let me explain: My first pregnancy happened at 27 years old. I will be turning 33 this year, and, obviously, we are still childless. Each year, I have stood by and watched as everyone around me has baby after baby, growing their families. Each year, I feel like I have failed, and this year my birthday is especially depressing. I have no desire to celebrate the passing of another year, and the fact that it is less and less likely that we will ever be parents to a live child.
I know you cannot imagine what this is like, but it breaks my heart that I cannot have the children your son deserves and desires to father.
Please understand that I love you all and while it means a lot to me that you want to make my birthday special, I just can't put on a happy face and pretend this year. I just can't.
I hope you can understand, or at the very least, respect, this.
I don't know what I expected from them, but a response - something - would have been nice. Instead, they called Hubby to talk about it. Every time I reach out, I get slapped down. My MIL talks about how she wants to feel close to me, but clearly that's not true. Oh well. Why should she care about me when her other daughter-in-law is about to give birth?
Another year. Another fucking year.I just want to wake up tomorrow and be someone else. Please, please, someone make that happen.
Showing posts with label aging is a bitch. Show all posts
Showing posts with label aging is a bitch. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
ego stroking
On the eve of my birthday, while I dwell on the fact that I had my first miscarriage at age 27, and am now about to turn 32, I thought I'd distract myself from the self-pitying tone this blog often takes and celebrate myself (or at least the things in my life that DON'T suck) on the advice of the naturopath I saw last week.
I hope that all of you find something to celebrate today!
- I love tattoos, and am planning my next piece (with the help of a former student of mine, which is slightly weird but not really!)
- My Hubby is great, and always amusing. He talks in his sleep sometimes, which will always make me chuckle for hours. His latest bout of gabbiness involved lamenting over the "retarded spiders" (apparently, they were everywhere!).
- Jeremiah Weed sweet tea vodka. Yum. Nuff said.
- Unexpected friendship blessings, both in real life and on the internets.
- I'm glad that I have figured out how to ward off some of the sadness by working out. Exercise endorphins = cheaper than therapy.
- My supportive family - I've always felt like somewhat of an outsider (I'm the youngest of all the cousins, after all), so I never really knew how supportive they all could be until we started opening up about our fertility struggles.
- My wonderful pets. They're fun and cuddly and keep me grounded (even if they sometimes drive me insane).
- My kindle. Best. Gift. Ever.
- I finally got back into road racing, and finished a 20k earlier this year. I'm planning on running it again this year, and adding some other races to my schedule (unless, of course, I get pregnant, in which case I'd be more than willing to adjust my schedule!).
- I love my house. It's not nearly "done" or decorated as I'd like it to be, and it's always a drain on our money and time, but it's in a great area to raise a family. Or, at the very least - if that whole family thing doesn't work out for us - to stumble home from the bars without having to pay for cab fare.
I hope that all of you find something to celebrate today!
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
the birthday blahs
My 32nd birthday is exactly one week from today. Often, in real life, I have a difficult time articulating why and how my birthdays have morphed from a cause for celebration to a cause for depression (and usually, heavy drinking, if I'm being totally honest).
I blame infertility and loss.
It's not as if I haven't had plenty of other disappointments in my adult life: I've had difficulty finding a career that feels fulfilling, I'm not in the place I want to be financially, I don't have as many friends as I'd like.
It's just that all of those issues, and so many more, are compounded by infertility and loss. I know (hope? dream?) that I'd bounce right back from the normal disappointments in life if my soul hadn't been so ravaged. In my weakened state, though, things seem magnified. Normal disappointments loom like giant monsters. And each birthday I've had since we started trying to have a family drives me deeper and deeper into a hole.
Facing the fact that I am another year older also means facing the fact that my eggs are deteriorating, that my overall fertility is declining, and that our chances of achieving successful pregnancy are dwindling. Age is forcing my hand with family building decisions too. If we save for the next couple of years for adoption, IVF is pretty much out of the picture, because I'd be pretty. darn. old. by the time we could recover financially enough to afford it. I just don't know.
I also have to deal with my lack of friends (aside from the previously mentioned Terrible, of course!). Back home, in NY, I had a pretty tight group of girl friends. Birthdays were always a cause for celebration, and a party. But that was then, and this is now. Those girls, they have disappointed me. I know I live pretty darned far away, and they aren't available to celebrate with... but they just haven't been there, you know? And the group of guitar strumming hippies haven't been much better. I know that I have had a difficult time opening up to people since the pregnancy loss brigade has started. I have mostly myself to blame, I know. But they've disappointed as well.
A couple of years ago, a day before my birthday, we were at a bar for some groundhog day thingy. The hippies were there. And one of the girls insisted that we should celebrate my birthday that evening, that I should be glad to have friends who wanted an excuse to share a few drinks with us. so I acquiesced, thinking maybe this could be fun, maybe it would be a chance for me to start to develop some deep friendships here. Hubby and I went home, cleaned the house, prepared for twenty or so people to show up, shopped for refreshments.
And only one couple came. (Not, by the way, the chick who initially pressed the idea on me. Who also happens to be pregnant-to-the-point-of-bursting right now. Oh yeah, and it was an oops.)
I felt like such a loser. It was a really awkward evening, and the couple who showed up left pretty quickly. I guess the sight of party goods for twenty was pretty depressing for them too. I'm not an ogre, I swear. I can actually be funny (when I'm not crying!!) and nice and interesting. I need eHarmony for friend making, but only with other infertiles.
And then, the birthday depression factor is complicated by the fact that every time I have a birthday, I think of my seven dead babies, and the fact that they will never get to celebrate a birthday - not even one. Ugh.
I saw a naturopath today who told me that I need to celebrate myself. Lately I just don't feel like there's much about me to celebrate. I'll try to change my thinking, though, and change my perception of the birthday experience in general.
Okay, pity party over. It's time to workout and get some endorphins going.
ETA: I read this over after my workout, with the endorphins flowing, and it sounds really sad and pathetic. I'm really not like that all of the time, and I'm definitely not fishing for compliments! :) But that's how I was feeling at the time, and how I generally feel when I think about birthdays, so I guess I'll leave it up.
I blame infertility and loss.
It's not as if I haven't had plenty of other disappointments in my adult life: I've had difficulty finding a career that feels fulfilling, I'm not in the place I want to be financially, I don't have as many friends as I'd like.
It's just that all of those issues, and so many more, are compounded by infertility and loss. I know (hope? dream?) that I'd bounce right back from the normal disappointments in life if my soul hadn't been so ravaged. In my weakened state, though, things seem magnified. Normal disappointments loom like giant monsters. And each birthday I've had since we started trying to have a family drives me deeper and deeper into a hole.
Facing the fact that I am another year older also means facing the fact that my eggs are deteriorating, that my overall fertility is declining, and that our chances of achieving successful pregnancy are dwindling. Age is forcing my hand with family building decisions too. If we save for the next couple of years for adoption, IVF is pretty much out of the picture, because I'd be pretty. darn. old. by the time we could recover financially enough to afford it. I just don't know.
I also have to deal with my lack of friends (aside from the previously mentioned Terrible, of course!). Back home, in NY, I had a pretty tight group of girl friends. Birthdays were always a cause for celebration, and a party. But that was then, and this is now. Those girls, they have disappointed me. I know I live pretty darned far away, and they aren't available to celebrate with... but they just haven't been there, you know? And the group of guitar strumming hippies haven't been much better. I know that I have had a difficult time opening up to people since the pregnancy loss brigade has started. I have mostly myself to blame, I know. But they've disappointed as well.
A couple of years ago, a day before my birthday, we were at a bar for some groundhog day thingy. The hippies were there. And one of the girls insisted that we should celebrate my birthday that evening, that I should be glad to have friends who wanted an excuse to share a few drinks with us. so I acquiesced, thinking maybe this could be fun, maybe it would be a chance for me to start to develop some deep friendships here. Hubby and I went home, cleaned the house, prepared for twenty or so people to show up, shopped for refreshments.
And only one couple came. (Not, by the way, the chick who initially pressed the idea on me. Who also happens to be pregnant-to-the-point-of-bursting right now. Oh yeah, and it was an oops.)
I felt like such a loser. It was a really awkward evening, and the couple who showed up left pretty quickly. I guess the sight of party goods for twenty was pretty depressing for them too. I'm not an ogre, I swear. I can actually be funny (when I'm not crying!!) and nice and interesting. I need eHarmony for friend making, but only with other infertiles.
And then, the birthday depression factor is complicated by the fact that every time I have a birthday, I think of my seven dead babies, and the fact that they will never get to celebrate a birthday - not even one. Ugh.
I saw a naturopath today who told me that I need to celebrate myself. Lately I just don't feel like there's much about me to celebrate. I'll try to change my thinking, though, and change my perception of the birthday experience in general.
Okay, pity party over. It's time to workout and get some endorphins going.
ETA: I read this over after my workout, with the endorphins flowing, and it sounds really sad and pathetic. I'm really not like that all of the time, and I'm definitely not fishing for compliments! :) But that's how I was feeling at the time, and how I generally feel when I think about birthdays, so I guess I'll leave it up.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
on the dangers of bright lighting
I just caught a glimpse of myself in our downstairs bathroom, which, for the first time since Hubby and I bought the house, has light bulbs in all eight sockets. That's right. Eight bright, harsh compact fluorescent bulbs in a space barely bigger than a coffin. I do not advise close inspection of one's skin under such conditions. It's bad for the soul.
My brain, apparently, has not caught up with reality. In my brain, I am a cute, young looking chick. In reality, age is grabbing hold of my face. I saw wrinkles around my eyes, on my forehead. Life scars, writing my history all across my face. I saw age spots forming. I saw the emerging face of a woman, not a girl or a chick. I'm not ready. I'm not sure if its just the normal fear of aging/mortality, or the fact that these wrinkles are visual proof of my declining semi-fertility. In many ways, at 31, I still feel like a kid. I still have no idea what I want to be when I grow up. I'm still not a mom, except in my heart.
Hubby's gonna be unscrewing some of those bad boys, stat.
Oh, and once again, I'm writing instead of packing. Those wrinkles really threw me off course. I have to go to work shortly, and then this afternoon/evening (depending on what time Hubby can get away from the office) we'll be packing up the car and the dogs and heading to the NYC for the weekend. It'll be 18-20 hours in the car, and we plan to drive straight through, attend some family events, hang with friends, and head back Monday night. I think I might be crazy, because I'm looking forward to the drive. Hubby and I have driven all over the country, and we always have a great time chatting, listening to tunes, eating crap food. I think a big part of the appeal of road trips is that he's captive. I can talk and talk, and he really can't do much but listen, and comment occasionally.
I'm a little apprehensive about the social aspect, though. I'm not sure how the people who know what happened with our Cletus are going to react. If I see pity on their faces, I might puke. I always imagine these things to be worse than they are (except for when dealing with Hubby's parents. They manage to horrify me every time!) so I'm sure I'll survive, and allow everyone to go unpuked upon.
Okay, I still have a ton to do. Must. Get. Packing. And then feed animals, clean the kitchen, get ready for work, go to work, shop for snacks/roadtrip necessities, clean out the car, pack up the car, get an oil change (not sure how hubby thinks that's going to happen. This is Iowa. Shit closes early during the week) and drive across half the country. Wish me luck.
My brain, apparently, has not caught up with reality. In my brain, I am a cute, young looking chick. In reality, age is grabbing hold of my face. I saw wrinkles around my eyes, on my forehead. Life scars, writing my history all across my face. I saw age spots forming. I saw the emerging face of a woman, not a girl or a chick. I'm not ready. I'm not sure if its just the normal fear of aging/mortality, or the fact that these wrinkles are visual proof of my declining semi-fertility. In many ways, at 31, I still feel like a kid. I still have no idea what I want to be when I grow up. I'm still not a mom, except in my heart.
Hubby's gonna be unscrewing some of those bad boys, stat.
Oh, and once again, I'm writing instead of packing. Those wrinkles really threw me off course. I have to go to work shortly, and then this afternoon/evening (depending on what time Hubby can get away from the office) we'll be packing up the car and the dogs and heading to the NYC for the weekend. It'll be 18-20 hours in the car, and we plan to drive straight through, attend some family events, hang with friends, and head back Monday night. I think I might be crazy, because I'm looking forward to the drive. Hubby and I have driven all over the country, and we always have a great time chatting, listening to tunes, eating crap food. I think a big part of the appeal of road trips is that he's captive. I can talk and talk, and he really can't do much but listen, and comment occasionally.
I'm a little apprehensive about the social aspect, though. I'm not sure how the people who know what happened with our Cletus are going to react. If I see pity on their faces, I might puke. I always imagine these things to be worse than they are (except for when dealing with Hubby's parents. They manage to horrify me every time!) so I'm sure I'll survive, and allow everyone to go unpuked upon.
Okay, I still have a ton to do. Must. Get. Packing. And then feed animals, clean the kitchen, get ready for work, go to work, shop for snacks/roadtrip necessities, clean out the car, pack up the car, get an oil change (not sure how hubby thinks that's going to happen. This is Iowa. Shit closes early during the week) and drive across half the country. Wish me luck.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)