Musings-

The other day I snapped this picture, and only later really looked at it. It's V with Sebastian's tree. Both are growing so much. The tree has already reached maximum height, but each year its trunk grows thicker and its branches fuller. It flowers and bears more fruit, which never gets harvested; not  by us anyway.

Some thoughts have been percolating and I've been processing them.

You know, the same: I'm afraid of getting pregnant, and I'm afraid of not. I'm afraid of losing again. And I'm afraid that whatever went right with V won't ever be repeated.

My urge to try again both grows more resolved and more lenient. The urgency has died down since we started our break. Part of me is still anxious to come back in October, while part of me argues, "What's the rush? March is as good a time as any." Financially it would be easier to wait until then, but I've been preparing myself (physically and emotionally) for October. We could try in November, maybe. Or December, January, even February... sure. But I hate driving two hours round trip in the snow; it makes me anxious.

I just want another baby. I don't want to try, or go through hell again. I'd be happy if I could just know that somewhere down the road it will happen. Who am I  kidding? I'd be happy if I could know that it won't too, because then I could start processing the inevitability. Not that it would make it easier, but it would give me more time.

Part of me looks at this string of bad luck, and wonders if I should take it as a sign. That I should cool my heels and wait for things to find their balance again. But that argument is illogical; I have no faith in signs. Pfft. If signs held true, then our other pregnancies would have made it. Things would have been easier when I was pregnant with V. Life would have taken a very different path a long time ago.

I have no control. I want to take the reigns and drive my own path. I have no clear direction, only a feeling of where I need to go.

We're on a break, but at the same time we're not. I'm crunching the numbers and throwing everything back that I can. I'm taking pills and preparing my reserves. Saying I'm on a break feels like a misnomer. The pressure is off in some ways, but it's crushing in others. And yet, we aren't trying right now. We're trying to try.

And these same thoughts, this same trying to try feeling, has already been hashed out. I guess I'm still hashing it out. I'm stuck in limbo. Forgive me; there isn't much else I can do but twiddle my thumbs and wait for the next day, then the next month, and so on. I feel very idle, like I'm not doing anything. I mean, I am... in  way... but I'm not.

My brother's baby was due a couple days ago (on the same day I was due with Little Bit) and they're still waiting for him to arrive. The waiting feels heavy to me, like there's weight added to my own brevity of fertility, and my failure at sustaining life. Little Bit was never very real to me, I lost it so fast. I barely got to say hello, before I said good bye. I felt, before I even took the test, that it wasn't going to last. I tried, I did what we could with the information available, but it wasn't enough. What was it my doctor said at the time... probably implantation failure. Not really much comfort in that.

I never really blamed myself for my losses though. I blamed our lack of knowledge. I blamed my womb of doom (and the evil ovary duo). But never myself. Could I have switched doctors sooner, or demanded more testing... maybe. It won't change the fact that they're gone though. Time can't be rewritten, it can only be used to shape the future. We did the best that we could with the information available. We used what we learned to successfully bring V into the world.

And we'll never know what went right. I mean, what precisely went right. Was it just him? Was it one factor, or the sum of all the parts? Who knows.

Little Bit is still an obscure concept to me. I lost him quickly. I kept my distance, hardened my heart and put up my shields. I loved him, and I mourned him, but by that point I didn't have much left to give. I was so spent. My soul was battered, my heart shattered under the blow of so many hammers: infertility, loss, loss, invasive treatments, financial strain, and insurmountable uncertainty.

I want to say that our parallel pregnancies are nothing alike, but I daren't jinx them. Things can go wrong, my sister and I are proof enough of that, though our families never acknowledge it. I wish them the best, them and their shadow baby, really I do.

I just wish I didn't feel so bitter at times.

(Don't you know, as soon as I posted this her water broke.)