Aha Moments

Here are my "aha" moments today:

1. I never thought that "hope" could be such a "dangerous", "painful", and "tricky" thing to have until I was face-to-face with IF. This "hope for a baby" is such a tricky thing. I remember reaching my peak of hope for a baby when hubby and I went back to Indo in 2008 (it was our 5th month of TTC). 

Back then we were both "relaxing" (on a holiday) and we had frequent sex (almost every day) and I did try the trick of "holding up my legs" for as long as I could after we made love and then lying down for 30 minutes to "keep the sperms" inside me. I remember thinking very clearly and hoping very joyfully, "This is it! This is the month when I'd get pregnant."

That month was over a year ago. Nowadays after my fertile day passes by, my brain's still automatically "counting down" to the day when AF (Aunt Flo = menstruation) comes. I still have that flicker of hope that AF will not show up, but that flicker of hope is getting dimmer and dimmer as time goes by - the good news is that as my disappointment gets smaller and smaller in proportion when AF does come. Again. And again. And again.

I think the dip in hoping for a baby came right after our 12th month of trying, the day when AF came and I realized that we were then officially reproductively challenged. On the 12th month, I still had a bigger amount of hope, thinking that one close friend got pregnant then, so maybe - just maybe - I could also be pregnant then. However, this lessened hope doesn't make it less painful.

2. I learnt more about grief through this article: Grief - Wandering Through the Maze. In it it's said that grief is a journey/process unlike a race where there's a clear start and finish and you just need to keep on running from that one point called the "start" until you reach the finish line.

Let me just quote the paragraphs that give me enlightenment: 

Nowadays, counselors more accurately describe the grief process as a journey where we move in and out, back and forth, across and over these phases as we work our way toward a new emotional balance. Each phase is not characterized by a clear beginning and ending, but rather a blending from one to another, overlapping and intertwining along the way.

The journey may have a specific beginning, such as a miscarriage or a specific test result, but the grief of infertility doesn’t have a specific ending. The loss of a child, a pregnancy, or the loss of your dreams is something that you weather and survive, but it’s not something you forget and never revisit. It’s a part of what defines your life story.

That means I'm NOT crazy whenever I feel like I "should be over it" but then again WHAM SLAM BANG!!! Grief strikes me at the most unexpected hour, making me bleeding raw again from the core. It's perfectly NORMAL to experience that. YES!!!

3. While combating IF, I've been over-sensitive towards what other people say, including what other people say to other couples whom I know have had trouble getting pregnant. I've also been interpreting other people's words the wrong way or taking them too seriously or taking them as a personal "attack" or "intrusion". I've felt "so rotten" whenever I become over-sensitive like this, especially when I make people who are dear to me (even sometimes those who are not so dear to me) feel that nothing they said would be "acceptable".

One thing I've done lately is to let people know how I want to be supported and what kind of words would be the best ones to say to me so that they won't - so to speak - "rub me the wrong way". 

However, there are also other people who don't know what to say when they face someone like me and I still don't know what to do when I'm so sensitive and then they speak of words that rub me the wrong way. May heaven help me when/if those occasions happen!