A while ago a friend talked about writing a will in her FB page. She and her DH has an adopted child (mind you, she can't have her own children due to hysterectomy and for a long time Indo people and her relatives thought that she would never get married 'coz they thought that no Indo man would want a woman who couldn't bear children - and no, the hubby isn't Indonesian). Anyway, she said that she had written a will on what to do if she and her DH died for some reason. She wants to make sure that the relatives would know their wish concerning their child.
The discussion tugged some strings in my heart. Before TTC, even before we were planning to have kids, I had wanted to give away some family heirlooms to our children later on in the future. Once the TTC dream ended, though, I didn't really think about the heirlooms anymore.
The discussion triggered some soft spots in my heart, so I wrote in her FB page that if I died first, I would love for hubby to be able to give the family heirlooms to my brother so that he can pass on the family "inheritance" so to speak. I don't care what happens to my other belongings on earth or even my money if I should die first, but the jewelleries...They're not particularly expensive, but I know that my Mom had kept them safe for years and years and years because of their sentimental value. I still remember playing dress-up in my parents' bedroom and putting them on when I was a child.
Infertility is a very tricky thing. There are so many unexpected things that can turn my focus from someone else's life towards my grief, my infertility, the things that IF has robbed from me, the holes in my heart. And every time I experience that, I have to learn to forgive myself for doing that ...but I hope that by learning to forgive myself, I can learn to forgive others even better...and I sure do hope everybody along the way who's seen the ugly side effects of IF on myself would forgive me, too.
Note to self: What my other friend experienced that I wrote in the previous post (miscarriage) made me sentimental also because it reminded me of the days when we were still so hopeful, when we would do whatever it took to be able to get pregnant, when I was still paying so much attention to my body and my cycle and my fertile day, when every month I felt "This is the month!!!", when I let myself think about how the baby would look like, etc. etc. etc. It's bittersweet to look back on those days...because I know where we are now - happy and empty-armed.
I'm having PMS and today I heard bad news from a close friend who miscarried (the first ultrasound confirmed that).
Her news made me feel sentimental to say the least...making me turn around and look back on all the things that IF has robbed from us...and I found this lovely song online and I just thought this is appropriate for today's mood...
The meeting I mentioned in my previous post went fine due to several reasons. One reason was that my period had started already last Saturday and my mood went considerably more stable after that ha ha...Secondly, there was already another friend before my preggy friend came and even after that we talked about many different topics, especially after the other two friends came. Thirdly, the preggy friend also showed interest in my life. :-)
Funny thing was that when I was talking to the first friend who was there already when I arrived, she (a mother of three boys - two of whom are already adults) said to me when I asked about her kids, "Kids are overrated." She didn't say it in a negative way, though. She just stated it in a matter-of-fact manner he he...
I know she loves her boys so much 'coz she's been a single mother ever since her husband died years ago, but at least she doesn't sugarcoat mommyhood. She has to survive in a new country and support her kids and now two of them are already independent young men. Now that's what I call a fighter! :-D
But the sentence that she said definitely helped me get in a good moodha ha ha ha...And nobody asked about kids concerning us, so it was all good. It was just a tad sad 'coz one friend is moving away from this place in a few months', so we were also sort of saying goodbye to her, though we hope we can still have time to meet her again before she finally leaves us. It's sad not only because she's our friend, but because there aren't too many foreigners living in this small village of Sodankylä, so when one foreigner leaves, it's a HUGE lossfor the rest of us.
However, I hope she'll have a good life in the city! :-) And it means that I have a new reason to visit the city later on he he he...
P.S. Read a blog post on "seasons of a marriage" and I realized that for us, it's as though we jumped from the fourth year straight into"the empty nest period"(when we let go of our dream to have kids) even though we don't necessarily experience all the ups and downs of parenting, but I do think about our older years and we do redirectour focus from that dream towards "fun/memorable things to do together". Isn't that what older couples do as well when the kids have left the nest?
I'm meeting some friends next week and I'm a bit worried actually. I'm having my PMS and I don't really know exactly when my period will start, so I hope that my hormones won't be too crazy during the D-day.
The thing that makes me a bit worried is the fact that one of the friends is currently preggy. She got married "rather late" and she was worried her eggs would be too old already, but to her surprise she got preggy in 6 months. However, when she tried to have a second one, she experienced several RPLs and she had actually thought that her family wouldn't grow any bigger. She's 41 y.o. and by the time this second baby is born, she'll be almost 42.
My concern is my own focus shift and its subsequent effects. I've managed to shift the focus from the "hole" (or crushed dream) in our reality pretty well so far, but I haven't been around any friend who's pregnant either, so that must've helped. Some friends of mine are pregnant, but they're far far away from me, so I count that as a whole different thing, but with this particular friend I'll still be meeting her every now and then.
I don't really want to feel that crushing grief anymore. Grief in itself is OK, but grief followed by all the other stuff that makes me feel like I have hidden bombs in many different places inside me that are ready to crush me into little pieces...that's what worries me. It's TOUGH WORK to collect all the tiny pieces of myself and start healing all over again...
But anyway, I'm trying to hold on to the mantra "Be kind to myself, be kind to myself, be kind to myself"...We shall see what happens then when the time comes. So I'm crossing my own fingers!!! May heaven help me!!! Que sera sera...whatever will be, will be...
Update: I actually feel MUCH better now after writing this post here. :-D Giving a voice to your thoughts is really cathartic! :-D
1. Had a Skype convo with Mom today and again she "mentioned in passing" about this woman who had told her about some kind of herbs that had helped some other people to get preggy. I think many people know that we haven't had kids, so they volunteered in telling her things that they had heard may work. I have no trouble with that.
But today I finally told my Mom again that it was OK for us not to have kids and that we were becoming older and older anyway and she said she understood. I hope that would stop her from telling this kind of story to me anymore. :-)
2. Speaking of IF, lately I've been wondering about a cousin of mine who's never had kids. She's much older than me (at least 15 years older) and I can't imagine how it must have been like for her and hubby during those days - before she finally reached menopause. It must've taken a lot of patience to handle all the well-meaning words of other people. At least I'm SO far away from all the nosy Indo people, but she's always lived there all her life.
And I'm also wondering about another couple that I know (again a much older couple) that have never had kids. From what the guy's mother had told my Mom, it seemed as though they kept on trying to have a child, but now I don't know anymore if it's more HER wish rather than their wishes.
3. I feel REALLY THANKFUL for having experienced IF when I found out how much it's helped me connect with another friend of mine who's struggling with her little boy. How much she's misunderstood, unsupported, judged and how often other people offer "unsolicited assvice" to her. How much those unsolicited words can sting like hell when given at the wrong time...
It's interesting how much connection we can feel despite the obvious contrast between us. :-)
That's why today I am CELEBRATING my infertility because even if the only purpose of this is to be able to connect with her and be able to make her feel not alone, then it's WORTH IT!!! :-D
I'm an IF SURVIVOR and I'm gonna use this experience as best as I can!!! That's my promise to myself!
We've just got back from our holiday in Keszthely, Hungary. Lots of wonderful memories, though there were a bit of frustrating parts, too, but never mind that he he...
Just want to write down a lovely short convo with hubby just now.
Me: "Dang, honey, you're rich! Look at all these coins!" (Some Hungarian and Euro coins were scattered on his computer table) R2: "Of course I'm rich. I have you." (grinning like a madman with his 3D glasses on 'coz he's playing a 3D computer game - actually I love it when he puts on those 3D glasses 'coz it makes him look like an MI agent or something ha hahhh...)
Anyway, I am happy to inform that nobody asked about kids at all to us during our holiday, but that was also probably because the people in Keszthely preferred speaking more German than English. That was one source of the bits of frustration that I felt. Maybe that means I'm a spoilt traveller ha ha ha ha ha...ahem...
We also had fun going up on an air balloon ride. I don't think hubby even thought about going on such a ride before I mentioned it to him. This is one of the lifelong dreams that I have on my dream list that I wrote down years and years ago. I'm not really that ambitious about fulfilling all those things on the list, though, but it's just that while browsing about Keszthely on the net, I found the air balloon ride possibility in Balaton area, so I said to hubby that even though it was rather pricey, we'd better try it! :-D
It wasn't what I had expected, but it made me understand more that dreams can be different from reality/the experience. Dreams are made of all the sweet, tasty, nicely-smelling, soft-as-a-cotton-ball, gorgeous idealism in my head without knowing what it's really all about. It may be sweet, but there may be a slight tangy taste as well. Or it may be nicely-smelling, but it's a bit rough on the touch. It may even be bitter with a slight sweet taste only and mostly rough and not smelling like anything at all. It sure opened up my view, though.
I didn't think it would be THAT tough to prepare for an air balloon ride nor would it be that tough to land. After the balloon was almost ready for take off, the wind suddenly changed direction and the people preparing for the ride had to really act quickly to turn it all around and they had to do it all over again - they had to deflate the balloon in order to reposition it and then inflate it again before we were finally ready to take off.
The take off itself went very quickly and excellently, though. It didn't feel like anything at all. I have motion and sea sickness, so I was a bit afraid that I'd feel dizzy or something, but I didn't feel it at all. In fact, the take off was MUCH better than a plane's take off. The only difference was that we both felt HOT!!! The heat of the burners above us was rather uncomfortable, though it got better once we got high enough and the air temperature dropped down. The burners were also so noisy, so it was hard to talk.
But we could see a gorgeous sunset that took place slowly from high up there as well as the bird-eye-view around the area. Despite the heat, the rather tight space in the basket that made it impossible to move around too much and the noisy burners (and a rather rough landing which I'd tell soon), it was worth it. After taking plenty of pics and videos (I had to hold on to my camera so tightly for fear that it would drop down ha ha...), we looked into each other's eyes and we both had that certain look that said, "Hey, it's kinda cool up here. I'm SO glad we can experience this together! Marvellous view!" :-D
Anyway, the wind picked up when we were preparing for landing, so the pilot told us to hold on with both hands to the ropes that were conveniently hung around the basket. The pilot became so very busy then because he had to use the walkie-talkie to tell the others where his location was so that they could prepare themselves down there as well as checking the wind speed and then he had to pull one of the ropes connected to the balloon so that we didn't graze on a tree that we almost ran into. Apparently by pulling the rope, the balloon then swerved a little bit to the left side of the tree. Phew!
Then we heard a low thud when we landed on a 45 degree angle and then one guy grabbed on to the basket to get it back straight up whereas the other had to grab onto one of the other rope so that the wind didn't blow the balloon back up. Then after securing the basket and the balloon, the pilot told R2 to get out of the basket, then he himself get out of there after a while and finally in the end I was told to get out of the basket. Then they had to pack everything before we could leave. Phew! Quite an adventure! :-D
Anyway, here are some photos that I took...
The process of inflating the balloon. This was before the wind toppled it over to the other side (diagonally across it).
The noisy burners.
The view of Balaton lake. On the left side of the photo you can see one of the dangling ropes that the pilot can pull if needed to "steer" the balloon (I think):
The gorgeous sunset...it took a while before it finally went down, so we had plenty of time to enjoy it:
The landing place. The pilot wanted to land on a grassy field, but alas the wind blew us to this place instead.
How can you stop people who knew you were trying to have kids before to stop infusing you with hope? With success stories? With random pregnancy miracle stories?
Because even though we've told some people that we've surrendered to life without kids, every now and then they still try to infuse us with hope by telling those kinds of stories. GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!
And I'm not even having PMS now, but I'm REALLY TRULY bothered with it. I talked about it with hubby and he shook his head in disbelief. Then we started talking about different responses that would just shut people up. What would that be?
To new people that we meet along the way, I thought of saying this, "My eggs are rotten, so the doctors say I can't have kids."
Hubby said, "Nah, just tell them that your hubby has no balls." LOL LOL LOL!!!
Then he suggested saying, "Just tell them we don't want kids."
Yeah, next time I'll do that, but what about those people who knew we wanted kids so badly at one point in time? They're the ones that have trouble erasing the dream image of us with kids, even though we've buried that dream already and we've moved on. I find it FRUSTRATINGthat it's SO hard to make them understand that we DO NOT want to dig up the grave of our dream and live with an empty casket in our household.
P.S. Just heard that a friend is pregnant again with her second child after several RPLs, so I'm HAPPY for her 'coz she's not that young anymore (41 y.o.), but on the other hand I feel frustrated 'coz this kind of story can be used "against me" - like if that happens for her at that age, then it can happen to me, too. Ugh.
