The sublime ridiculousness of well-meant advice

I had to laugh today. And I am sharing it with you because I don't get to laugh so often these days.  I am laughing at how ridiculous all the well-meaning advice I have been told becomes when it is put together.  Quite simply: You are contradicting yourselves.

Now I don't want the purveyors of such advice to be offended by what follows, I appreciate the sentiment with which the advice is given. But please, come on, have a read, and laugh with me. Because then I won't feel quite so crazy for a while.


Sooooooo....

Apparantly I am to think positive whilst not being too hopeful; to keep my eyes on the prize whilst not thinking about it all the time; to FACE MY FEARS, but avoid STRESS; Not think too many steps ahead...but tell you what happens next if this treatment fails; reeeEEEEEELAXXxxxxxx !; Think of how much worse it could be......but listen to you tell me about so and so who conceived quintuplets naturally after 10 failed IVF cycles; count my blessings! whilst somehow avoiding thinking about what is missing.....

need I go on?

If anybody really wants to know how to help, properly, there is some very good advice here.  

Otherwise, please just know and accept, as I must, that you cannot fix this.  You cannot make my pain go away....but you can listen, and you can, I hope, offer sympathy, and an attempt at understanding- without feeling so uncomfortable that you feel you have to try and find a solution.  TALK about it. I sure do!! And your silence bothers me more than anything.  Don't be afraid to get it wrong, just don't dole out cliches.  Just listen, nod, and say you're sorry for my pain.  And I will cry tears of relief that finally. Somebody gets it.

No more silent screams

This morning, in the car, I screamed. Properly. Loudly. WHY WHY WHY??? Why am I being so tormented? Punished? Why am I being denied my chance at motherhood? Why are my earnest prayers going unanswered, again and again and again? I JUST DON'T GET IT!!!

Then I cried, the whole journey to work. And tried not to have an accident.

Do I feel any better? No.  But it does beat holding it in.

This month's failure has hit me particularly hard.  This time I followed everybody's heartfelt advice and "thought positive". I relaxed, as far as is possible, and just hoped beyond hope that it was going to work. Afterall, the evil drugs are working in my body now, so we actually felt like there was a chance. So the crash down has been, and continues to be, terrible.

There are many positives. The drugs are working. We are so much closer than we were....close, but no cigar! It simply isn't enough. Not good enough. This isn't just something I want/wish for/hope for. I'm not a newly wed trying for a baby for say 3 months and getting frustrated. This is something I NEED. I have a physical need to be a mother again. I am supposed to be one, let's not forget.   And that boy, my boy, who is mine but not mine- he turns 2 in September. And my arms are still empty.

Time is not making this easier. It's making it worse.  And I don't know what to do. I am scared stiff I'm heading for a nervous breakdown.  I have tried everything there is to "relax" and "take my mind off it" and now we're starting again on the same things, becuase we've tried them all.  Acupuncture, relaxation MP3s, holiday booked for my birthday/his birthday week- did that last year and here we are again! We adopted our cat, becuase I was at my wits' end and desparate. She's been with us 7 months now. How is it I'm still standing?

What is it I am meant to do now?

People say I am so strong, and handling my situation with grace.  I am not. I am slowly going crazy inside my head, one negative test at a time.

Panic.

Yesterday I experienced the second most frightening thing that has ever happened to me. I had a panic attack, alone in a train carriage.  For those who have never experienced one, you may think "so what?". Trust me, it's scary.

So now I am left to process, "why did that happen?" And looking back I realize I should not be suprised. My anxiety has been building for a while now.  I am terrified. Terrified of what the future holds, or doesn't hold.   I thought that finally getting some help with fertility treatment would help me. It hasn't- quite the opposite. There's now so much riding on each month. Will it work this time? Will I have to move on to more aggressive treatments/how long is it all going to take?.....

It isn't just that. I know it seems from my posts lately that all I am thinking of now is trying for another baby. It's true, that is pretty all-consuming. (show me a woman who's been trying this long for whom it isn't, and I will salute her) But that doesn't mean I have forgotten Bertie, or that I'm done with my grief. He is still my first and last thought. And several in between. I still stand at his grave, looking at his name and thinking "how can this have happened" whilst silent tears run down my face until I can't read the words anymore through the waterfall.   I am still transported back to that day, watching strangers lower my son into the ground. I am throwing the first handful of soil, I am wishing I could get in there with him.  

It's a delicate balance, the two major players in the game of my mind. Grief and infertility.  No wonder I had a meltdown. But how can I change it? Reminders are everywhere I go, everywhere I look. I can't "put it to the back of my mind" since I can't escape from things that bring one or the other back to the front.

Walking through town. At work. With my friends. On social media. Babies. Pregnant women. Happy families with toddlers Bertie's age and another on the way.  All reminding me both of what I lost, and what I still don't have, 22 months on. I may not run away now, but it still hurts just as much.  It still gives me the same, now familiar stab in the gut.

Chester mystery plays are being held this week. It's quite a production. Written to bring bible stories to the people, they are put on every five years. This year they told the whole bible from Genesis to Revelations in one hit. And hit it did.  During the incredible crucifixion scenes, I was not watching Jesus. I was transfixed on Mary. The actress portrayed the mother's grief so strongly, I couldn't take my eyes off her.  I cried with her.  I remembered my own pain, my constant companion.

And yes, I am afraid. I am so afraid. Of two possible outcomes. That I won't ever get pregnant again,  or that I will, but I will lose the baby again.   These fears are so ingrained that as I sat, literally paralysed in two hands and one foot during my panic attack, my first thought was "what's happening to me, am I having a fit?"....and the second: "Oh God, will this mean I can't have another baby". 

I simply can't convey to you in words how much it means to me to be a mother.  I simply cannot make you understand how worthless my life feels without it.

Child of mine

Child of my heart
Perfect, precious, tiny
You took my breath away
Those precious hours then
          gone too soon.

Memories of that moment
Our first embrace and our last
Mine to hold but not to have
In too short a time
          your last breath

Gone forever but always here
Your whispers in the trees, chimes
At your forever bed.
Silent tears as I remember
          That day.

Child of my heart
My beautiful son
Never ending yearning
          To hold you again

Child of my dreams
Will you come true?
Will I hold you and sing "at last"?
Your song I already know
          I'll whisper the words to you.

Will I watch you grow, and play?
More than just dreams
Not just wild imaginings
Can my heart be healed by your laughter?
          "Mummy" the sweetest sound.

Child of my heart
And child of my dreams
Both to hold my love, only one to hold my hand
I pray,
          Let it be.

One day a mother?
Already a mother at heart
In love.

Still searching for the answers

Since losing Robert, I have developed my relationship with God. Weird I know, but, I have.  I guess I took my faith for granted all these years and finally it has been challenged. Shattered, changed, developed....choose your own adjective.   I've had to grow up and make a decision. Do I give up on God? or do I become a "proper Christian". I chose the second path.  That doesn't mean it comes easy though. Far from it. Very far from it.  It also does not mean that Bertie's death was "for a higher cause".  It means that God has used this tragedy to develop me. So be it. I'd still rather have my son and my naivety.

I question my faith on a daily basis.   Some things I am totally stalwart in.  I believe in heaven, and I believe my son is there. I am grateful for that belief, because without it I don't know how I would have coped up 'til now.  I believe I will meet him there one day. I believe he is happy, becuase I believe there is no sadness in that other place.  I believe he doesn't miss me, because I believe he watches me. Oh but how I wish I could watch him too...

I do not believe in "God's plan".  I cannot believe that my son's death was a part of some devine plan, I don't believe my God is like that. (I also don't believe that anyone who has been through an experience anything close to this would say it is)  I do believe, however, He knew it was coming. And that He chose not to prevent it.....which kinda makes Him responsible anyway no?  And so, I question. Why? why, why, WHY?

Not "why me" per se...but why anybody?   I have spent so much time searching for an answer that actually makes sense.  And I keep coming up empty.  Because there isn't one?  Christian writers, speakers and bloggers generally avoid this subject. It's isn't neat and tidy. It isn't comforting, it isn't a nice little story where as Rob Bell triumphantly puts it "everybody gets saved."   I am learning lots, in my quest. I am partway there. I get the argument that some bad things happen, sometimes we suffer, because we chose independence from God, and He's let us have it.  Lots of terrible, tragic things happen through people's choices, and yep, to prevent them, to force a perfect world where nothing bad happened, would be to remove that choice, that free will.  Forced love isn't real love.  Even if that means allowing murder, cancer as a result of lifestyle choices, and accidents because somebody decided to take that journey on that day.  I can give you that. I can understand that, yep, ok.  But. What about tsunamis, earthquakes and volcanoes? What about the child with leukemia? What about world famine? What about the woman who does everything right in pregnancy, but still loses her baby? What about my baby's death?

None of those things are caused by anybody's choice.  Ok, maybe we could really stretch it and say because we choose not to take care of the planet, tsunamis are caused by global warming...but come on. I dare you to find a choice that causes the others.  I spent a whole lot of time and mental effort getting out of the mindset that Bertie's early birth, and therefore, death were caused by something I had done....my choice, directly or indirectly.  I don't want to go back there, thankyou very much.  I hold enough guilt in my heart. So why?

I am going to disappoint you. I don't know either.  But the difference between me, and a lot of the other writers out there, I won't just put the question on the shelf for later because it's too difficult. I won't tell you I am not going to address that question but look at X, Y or Z instead.

 I will never stop asking.

Did you intend for this to happen?

Was it always part of your plan?

Did you know I was to lose my son

Before his life ever really began?

Is this a lesson that I needed to learn?

Had my life been too easy, was it just my turn,

For sorrow, for heartbreak, for confusion, for doubt?

Did you want me to question you,  do you want me to shout?

Because I will, I do, because I don’t understand

Why this had to happen to my little man!

I try to see the good things that may be yet to come

But I can’t see what they could be, I’ve been struck dumb.

I know that I must trust that in time I will see

Your footprints in the sand, that you’re carrying me

Ever forward on my journey, the reason I’m still here

Despite the madness, despite all the fear

I am grateful for that, that you love me enough,

To keep me believing, though the journey has been rough

I will continue on with faithfulness, and wait for hope to restart

But my hallelujah is broken, just like my heart.

midnight terrors from The Pit

What if.....what if i am one of those women who just cannot carry to term? What if God is preventing me from conceiving again in order to spare me the agony of losing another one? What if this is it, that's how my prayers are answered? What if i don't get to be a mum? That thought is agony of its own.

Have I survived this?

"If I can survive this, I can survive anything" Something I have said often in the last 21 months, but at what point can I say I have actually survived?  Ok, I am physically alive, I am here, I am functioning.  But, the woman I was....she hasn't survived.  I'd like to say that I'm like a phoenix rising from the ashes with new life and new hope....but I am not.  I am spiritually and emotionally, broken.  I am living a half-life.  I am not fulfilled, I am not happy.  I often wonder, will I yet die young, of a broken heart?  I often wonder, is this it? Because this life is not worth living.  Don't worry, I am not in the dark place I was, and would not act on these thoughts, but I have to acknowledge that they are still there.

So, how can I claim to have survived? Does anybody really survive this? Or do we all just plough on and make the best of what is left to us?  My grandma died young, before I was born.  Medically, because of cancer....but she lost her eldest daughter.....my mum tells me grandma never got over it, and believes she in a sense died of a broken heart.  I can believe that.  I am not sure that I would fight actually, to stay here.  I am not sure that I would cling desperately to life...to this life.  I truly hope that when, if, I am blessed with a family again, I will feel differently. That I will have a drive for life again, and will start to really enjoy being alive.  Maybe then I will truly say "I survived".