Self Preservation.
This Holiday season is going to be the worst one yet. I just want to survive it, I'm not even going to be so naive as to want to enjoy it. All I want is to make it through the New Year in one piece.
The closer January 3rd gets (my would be due date,) the more I want to hike up my skirts and run in the opposite direction. The closer each Holiday gets I want to flee that much farther. My belly should be swollen, even now. I should be obviously pregnant, I should be huge this Christmas. Instead, I still wear that empty damning womb. My ovaries are still limp, useless, ornaments. My life is still very much incomplete.
I should be giving birth late December, or early January, instead I will be going back to classes. My birthday will be on January 30th, and it will pass unacknowledged. I will be 24. I started trying to have a child when I was 22, with the goal of having a child sometime while I was 23. I guess, in a way, I have one. He's just not here with me.
The days seem to be dragging out. The days seem long, languid, lifeless. Yet they keep passing me by. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, May, June, July, August, September. Each day I hold my feet back, I try to grow roots into yesterday, I try to ground myself. I try to resist time itself, but the days keep dragging me on. I keep getting closer, and closer, to those days that should hold happiness for me.
This Christmas not only will I not be bursting with child, I will also not be seeing my grandparents. All of them are gone now. With my grandmother's passing in May (two weeks after my baby), it signaled the end of that era. I will never again visit my grandmother for Christmas, unless I venture out into the day and visit her grave. All of their graves.
This season seems so bittersweet.
So...
I'm checking out this Holiday season. I'm throwing in the towel. I won't be decorating the house this year, I won't be going to the in-laws homes (where insensitive comments, and snide criticisms await) I decided that self preservation is the only way to go this season.
However, as I have a weak disposition, giving in easily for the good of everyone else and never for myself (stupid me for being the martyr type.)... I had to make a solid excuse, something even I couldn't weasel out of. How did I do that? I volunteered to work this Thanksgiving. Who would argue with that? I'm working at a domestic violence shelter, someone has to be there 24/7... why not me? I will get paid double time as well. So, I'll be there for the residents, I'll be getting paid double, I will be self preserving myself... It seems like the perfect plan. Perhaps it may seem extreme, but I really don't think I could hold it together this season.
November, it was a year ago, I got my confirmation of anovulation. I started down the slope of infertility. This November I should be that much closer to a resolution, but I'm not. I'm not even close. And everyday I still think about what I've lost.
This pain, most family are oblivious to it. Some know about the infertility, some don't... but all know about the miscarriage. And no one seems to care. And that's fine, they didn't go through it, they're not still going through it. I don't want pity, but damn it, is understanding so much to ask for?
I just can't take it this season, I feel so raw. Rug burns on my heart, open burn wounds on my soul. I can't let my baby go, and I can't seem to beat infertility. It's a double whammy. My baby is gone, and I don't know if I'll ever get a chance to be a mother again. I keep wondering, what if that baby, my Sebastian... what if he was my only chance?
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I go in Monday for my ultrasound to check for follicles.
I'm not feeling it.
My ovaries hurt for a week before ovulation last time. I can't even feel them now, let alone feel them hurting. It's a bit disheartening. But we'll see, I'll know for sure this time. I can take comfort in that, being removed from all the guesswork this cycle. But still, I'm scared. What if this doesn't work? What if Clomid is a dud, even at 150mg? I'll have to take a break to save up for injectables, I don't want to stop treatments. Not yet, not now.
Fingers crossed for my ultrasound on Monday.
2 comments:
Everything is harder when you]re "supposed" to be happy. Even without officially believing in karma, I think it's always nice to spread the good intentions around, and if working through Thanksgiving makes a real difference to someone else, surely you will earn some kind of brownie points in the great scheme of things...
Good luck Monday!
I hope you can cocoon yourself as much as possible this season. It's so much to deal with on top of the holidays. I think your family would understand.
I hope the follicle check went well.
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