lord of the flies

This has never happened to me before.

We put up the Christmas tree fairly early this year, for us - about December 4th. I'm usually more of a second-weekend-of-December kind of tree-putter-upper, but this year we had a party to get ready for, and the tree went up shortly after Thanksgiving.

It's a gorgeous tree. Probably one of the best we've ever had, apart from the weird left-leaning branch on top which makes the angel look like she's about to take off into the wall above the fireplace. Otherwise, it's perfect: lovely shape, nice green branches, very little needle loss, drinks water like a champ.

And chock full o' flies.

Has this ever happened to you? Because it's DISGUSTING. It started a few days after we put the tree up, when I found a strange number of flies in the living room. "Huh," I thought. "They must have come in while the door was open when we were getting the tree in here." I killed them with a flyswatter.

Then, the next day, there were about 10 flies in the front window. "Huh," I thought. "I didn't think the door was open that long." I killed them with a flyswatter, and then I had to clean the window because it looked like Fly Killing Field. Not very Christmas-y.

Then, the next day, there were easily 15 flies in the living room. "WHAT THE HELL?" I wondered, as I abandoned the flyswatter and went for the vacuum cleaner instead. I felt guilty about sucking them into the hose. I even turned off the vacuum cleaner and put my ear up to the bag, wondering if they were buzzing around in there. My mom taught me that, if you are going to kill a bug, you have to kill it DEAD so it's not suffering. I have a bit of a complex about this.

But I got over said complex within the next week, while I sucked about 50 flies into the vacuum cleaner. I kid you not.

Remember, we were having a party. "Festive holiday gathering," my ass. "Festering," more like it. A house full of flies does not exactly inspire confidence in the cleaning abilities of the host(ess). Which irritates me, because I actually have a ridiculously clean house.

Last night, my husband and I were chasing flies in the kitchen with the flyswatter and the vacuum. Oddly entertaining, actually. He sat all evening in his recliner with the flyswatter at the ready. We must have rid the world of at least 10 more flies last night.

Usually, I'm sad to take down the tree. This year, it will be a relief.

Happy holidays to you. Hope they are fly-free.

grab your bags: it's on.

All kinds of good things today:

• The Shared Risk people called - we're in! Woo hoo! (As an aside, they and the mail-order pharmacy I work with are all East Coast people, and I love their accents. It's like getting phone calls from the Sopranos. Only less scary.)

• I talked with my nurse, and we set the dates - the calendar arrived via email this afternoon, and Day One? It's on my birthday. Sweet. Hopefully the beginning of the best birthday present ever. (Edited to add: I'm doing the Luteal Antagonist Protocol. Anyone have experience with this? Please share!)

• The Kin.kos lady relented and figured out how to print my chosen hymn verse on the green cards I had bought. Apparently this is much more complicated than I thought. But it was nice of her to figure it out. Now, of course, this means I actually have to assemble these Christmas cards and send them out, which sounded like a GREAT idea about two months ago.

• Also, there was no traffic on the way to said Kin.kos today, which is unusual.

• And I have no evening meetings tonight, which means I may actually get to have a decent conversation with my husband before we both fall asleep at, oh, about 8:00pm. Because evidently, we are in the third grade.

• My husband's not-so-good basketball team (he coaches the 7th graders at his school) actually beat their generally-much-better cross-town rivals last night. In overtime.

• Good day all around, really. Hope you had a good one too.

pieces of a week

Because I'm up to my eyeballs in writing at the moment, a bulleted list will have to do here:

• After hearing nothing from the Shared Risk program for two weeks (as opposed to last time, when they emailed me within 48 hours), I called my clinic to discover that, oops! They forgot to submit the application. Not a big deal, really. They faxed it in yesterday and we should hear back in 3-5 business days. I'm trying to remain zen about this, as we have two more tries funded either way. It would take some of the pressure off, though.
  

• Last Tuesday night I went downtown to the kids' hospital to visit a family whose 3-month old foster daughter was having surgery. Keeping the details confidential, it wasn't a life-threatening situation, by any means, but surgery for your child is scary no matter how low the risk level is. I heard the parents' story: how long they tried to have children, how many surgeries the mom had for endometriosis, how they took home one foster child only to have her removed by the state a few weeks later, and then how they received their older foster daughter, now thirteen months old, a short time later. And then how, ten months later, the state contacted them to say that the biological mom had another child (small aside: can you imagine? Giving birth to 2 children, 10 months apart? My hoo-ha hurts just thinking about it) - and that, if they weren't willing to take this second child, the first might be removed in favor of a home which would house both children. So, naturally, they said yes, and now they have 2 foster daughters whom they are in the process of adopting, and who are only 10 months apart. I thought about the biological mom, who is homeless. And I didn't think about how unfair it is that some people can have more children than they want: I thought about how profoundly complicated fertility is, both on the in-fertile and the over-fertile sides. "Too many" unwanted children is just as tragic as the ones you want desperately but can't have. And I thanked God for foster families.

• That was not really a short bullet, was it?

• But this one will be even longer. I also spent some hours this week with a couple in the midst of their second stillbirth. There are no words for this, except to say that it was a very holy encounter. They lost a child several years ago at 20 weeks, and this one at nearly the same time - and although they have a lovely, healthy, and delightful daughter, we all know that nothing can fix the grief of these deaths. I asked them how it felt this time, and the mom said quickly that it was easier for her, this second time, and when I asked why, she said plainly, "Because this time I know that it won't actually kill me," which opened a huge window into the depth of her pain at the first loss. I thought about the phone call from the nurse to tell me that my beta number was not as it should be, and I remember thinking, "maybe my heart will stop in the middle of her talking and I won't have to stand up and live through this." We talked a long time about prayer and God, and whether anyone is really listening to us, and they both said that the only thing anyone can really say now is something like, "this sucks, and I'm sorry," and that there just isn't much more that makes any sense. And I thought about how, when I posted the news of our bad beta, the only thing I could stand to read in the comments was, "I'm sorry," and absolutely nothing more, and how when people said, "I know how you feel," I wanted to reach through the computer and rip out their throats. I said almost nothing for an hour, because sometimes there isn't much to say. I would not have really known that two years ago.

• On Sunday morning, a mom asked me why we had mentioned the couple above in the prayers, and I shared their news, which they had given permission for us to do. She shook her head and tears welled up in her eyes, and within a few seconds, she had said something which most people might not recognize, but which tweaked my infertility radar - and when I said, "I know what that is like," we realized that we are on a similar road. I would not have said that a year ago.

• Sometimes, oddly enough, I am grateful for infertility. Because, in spite of all its attendant shitty-ness, it has broken my heart open enough to listen more carefully to the losses experienced by other people.
  

• I wish there had been another way to learn that.
  

13 days away

Today I realized that, if our pregnancy had been viable, my due date would be 13 days away.

Sometimes I forget that I was actually pregnant.

Both of these things seem unbearably strange to me.

adoption heartbreak

If you are a regular reader of Stirrup Queens, and especially of the LFCA, you may have seen this news today - that i can haz bebe, who was adopting a baby boy, had a terrible loss. The biological mother changed her mind at the last minute, and now the to-be-adoptive-parents are heartbroken.

Comments are turned off at the blog itself, but you can go to the LFCA post for today and leave a word of support. Please, no tidy cliches, no cheap promises, and no false hopes today - just a word to let her know that they are not alone, that even strangers out here in blogland are thinking of them.

Loss comes in so many forms. Too many forms. Too much loss.

sucker punch

This is a thing I learned about grief when I was taking counseling classes: that it sneaks up on you, so that you think you're doing fine and then you hear a certain voice, or a certain word, or you smell a certain scent, or you pass a certain intersection, and the grief comes sneaking up on you like a knife in the back. And there you are, flat on the ground (metaphorically, anyway). Breathless. Again.

This is a thing I have learned about grief the hard way: that the paragraph above is really, really true and really, really inadequate. And that experience hurts more than can be described.

Today I had an office hysteroscopy, which is a fancy phrase for sticking a camera into your uterus. (I'm not sure why they need to add 'office' to this description. Where the hell else would you do this? It's not like there's a 'home' hysteroscopy, or 'workplace' hysteroscopy. Or 'shopping mall' hysteroscopy either, which would be, like, the worst Black Friday marketing ploy ever.)

Anyway - it went just fine. It's one of the last few tests I need updated so that I can apply for the shared risk program at my RE's office - the whole, 'buy two, get one free' IVF program. I had my bloodwork updated last week. My husband will be - you know, getting analyzed - tomorrow. It's all nice and neatly checked off my list of things to do, albeit a rather strange list for this time of year. "Christmas presents? Check. Turkey purchased? Check. Camera up hoo-ha and Male Donation to Small Plastic Cup? Check."

I felt good today. I felt like we're making progress again, like we're really heading someplace this time. I don't feel scared anymore of all the tests and the hoo-ha cameras and the needle pricks; we've done it before, and we can do it again. I was even getting excited.

You know where this is going, don't you? Right. So I got home and there was a card from my brother, the one who just told us a few months ago that they had been trying to get pregnant for a year. I love my brother. And his wife. Here is part of what they wrote:

"A few weeks ago we found out some amazing news. S is pregnant and will be 8 weeks on Thanksgiving...we know that you are completely happy for us and we also know that you both might have other feelings too and we wanted to give you a chance to process those before we see you on Sunday."

Sucker punch. Right to the gut.

Let me say, on the off chance that they ever find this blog (and for the sake of truth even if they don't) that I really, really appreciate the card. It really does help to have time to process. It was tremendously thoughtful of them and indeed, by the time I see them on Sunday, I will have worked through the following immediate reaction:

FUCK YOU, BOTH OF YOU AND YOUR IDIOT COMPLAINING ABOUT ONE GODDAMN YEAR OF TRYING TO GET PREGNANT, WHICH IS BARELY EVEN REAL INFERTILITY AND HOW DARE YOU THINK THAT YOU HAVE ANY FUCKING IDEA WHAT IT HAS BEEN LIKE TO BE DEALING WITH THIS FOR FOUR FUCKING YEARS AND, IN FACT, I AM NOT "COMPLETELY HAPPY FOR YOU,"I AM THE OPPOSITE AND I HATE YOU RIGHT NOW. SERIOUSLY.

Sorry about the yelling there.

I thought I was past this, this visceral hatred of hearing about other people's pregnancies. It's such a random thing: I can go months without having this reaction, hearing numerous pregnancy announcements and barely blinking an eye. I might succumb to the occasional inward eye-roll - another one bites the dust - but I'm fine. Most of the time. Really.

And then...I don't know what happens. Because I do love them. And I absolutely adore my niece, my other brother's child, and I know I will adore this child as well. Eventually.

I think maybe it's the - I don't know, the pretense that my sister-in-law was so angry and frustrated about their so-called 'infertility.' Let me say this: I get how hard it is not to be pregnant. I remember how frustrated I was that first year. In some ways, it was the hardest year, because I really did have hope every month, and so the crash each time was much, much more painful than it is now.

But we sort of bonded when they told us, over semen analysis tests and RE appointments and basal body temperature thermometers, and all the hysteria over getting your period again, and now I feel like that was just a cruel joke. Like I told all my secrets to someone who turned out to be a spy for the other side. An enemy, just pretending to be like me, just acting like they knew my pain, and then darting over the border to safety, leaving me behind.

I started out the day being hopeful that maybe, just maybe, we would really have a baby this time. And now I feel like I used to long ago - that it will never happen, that we'll be left behind in the dust of other people's strollers. Like we're alone. Again.

I hate this. I hate being here. I hate the fact that I hate my brother right now. I hate the fact that I have to lead a Thanksgiving Eve worship service tomorrow night, when 'thankful' is about the last fucking emotion I have right now.

"Things you can't learn in a counseling class? Check."

'tis the season

This weekend I'm taking 15 junior high kids and 5 adults on a retreat. (Good times.) We're visiting other faith communities: worshipping at a local synagogue and talking with the cantor tonight, visiting a mosque tomorrow and then Catholic mass in the evening, and wrapping it up at a Greek Orthodox church on Sunday morning. This is a WHOLE LOTTA church for junior high kids, so we'll see how it goes.

I've been getting ready for some teaching time on Saturday morning - the world's briefest (and probably least accurate) introduction to four major religions. Which meant I had to type up an introduction sheet to Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, and Hinduism. I did okay on Islam and Judaism. I was more familiar with Buddhism than I thought. But let me tell you what: I sucked at knowing anything reasonably detailed about Hinduism. Which, by the way, is fascinating but esoteric enough that it's going to be hard to explain to a group of 13-year olds (although, when you think about it, the idea that some guy from Nazareth who lived 2000 years ago and was executed by the state was, in fact, the incarnation of the God of the universe is not terribly plausible either).

In my quick research, I found a reminder of something I'd read about a few years ago: that both Buddhism and Hinduism teach about mindfulness - the idea of paying close attention to your life, and to the world, as it is now. This is also something at which, let's face it, I suck.

Part of me wants to blame this on eons of Christian theology which has, for the most part, taught its followers to focus less on the world as it is now and more on the world as God wants it to be, or perhaps on the heaven you're waiting for when you die. I don't put much stock in that particular theology, but it's hard to get away from if you read theology for a living. Sadly, this kind of mindset has allowed Christians to excuse really bad environmental policies, slavery, and all kinds of other evils under the assumption that "it will all work out when God comes again, and this world will be destroyed at that point anyhow, so why does it really matter? Bring on the Arctic Oil Drills!"

Of course, some of that it's-all-about-heaven mindset came from the people who were being oppressed by Christians in the first place. If you were a slave, for instance, you might not want to spend a lot of time on mindfulness about your current life; you might really find hope and healing in the promise that life after death was going to be much, much better than the suffering you were enduring right now. We got a lot of really amazing spirituals this way, songs about the life to come, about God taking us out of the trouble we've seen, or giving us real life in the by-and-by.

But let's face it: I'm not being oppressed by anyone, except perhaps by the Demon of Chocolate, which doesn't really count. There's no need for me to look away from my life as it is now, or from the world as it is now. But that's what I do, a lot of, much of the time. Especially this time of year. Especially about our infertility.

The days from Thanksgiving to Christmas are, for me, the hardest time of the year to be infertile. Yes, you can be smacked in the face with other people's pregnancy announcements any day of the year, and you can find yourself tearing up when you see a baby in the shopping cart at Target no matter what day it is, but there's no time more kid-focused than the month of December. You hear it everywhere: Christmas is all about children, they say.

This year is the fifth Thanksgiving, the fifth Christmas, the fifth Advent season for us without the child we hoped for when we started trying to conceive. You'd think we would be better at coping; doesn't practice make perfect?

In some ways, we do handle it better. I don't tear up at every commercial showing a cute boy in footie pajamas running down the stairs to open his presents from Santa. I don't nearly have a meltdown every time I have to walk through the toy section. I (usually) don't cry when I get yet another Shiny Happy Family photo card in the mail.

On the other hand...five years. We'd have a preschooler by now.

One way to deal with this season is to put my fingers in my ears, shut my eyes, and spin through it as quickly as possible, pretending it's not happening and wishing as hard as possible for January to get here with merciful speed. Just get it over with. I've done this. It doesn't help.

Maybe it's because we're heading into another IVF cycle that I don't feel as anxious this year about facing the holidays. Maybe it's because we've done this so many times that it's not as terrifying as it used to be. Maybe you just can't sustain that level of grief for five years without losing your mind.

I'm not sure what mindfulness would look like for me this month. All I know is that avoidance doesn't work either. Maybe I can live someplace inbetween.