Ahhh.....

The other day somebody commented, "You two look happy."

I smiled and said, "Thank you." 

Then she asked, "Are you having a baby? You look like you've gained weight lately."

I chuckled and said, "No, no, no baby. I look bigger also because I'm wearing my back warmer." (lifting up my jacket to show it)

FYI: It's true that I've gained some weight ever since I started working 2 years ago.

Then she said again, "But I meant what I said. You two DO look happy."

We just smiled and said nothing in return and the topic quickly changed.

Mind you, I have nothing against her because I know that she isn't being nosy. She genuinely would love to see our child. At one point in time in the beginning of our TTC journey she had said in a very excited tone of voice that she would even knit something for our child. And no, the person isn't my MIL. She knows better not to ask such a thing from us. However, she's not that close, either, so we're not divulging more details.

I must admit it felt a bit ironic when we had just finished the conversation. Ironic because it crossed her mind that the thing that made us look happy was probably related to pregnancy. What I decided to do, though, after the short conversation was to bask in her words on our happiness as a couple instead on dwelling too much on the irony. :-) 

Life isn't perfect and each of us has our own scars and problems to deal with, but we just have to make the best of it.


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Lack of Closure?

I've been wondering about something ever since I heard that one friend of mine had a miscarriage. I can't help reliving my IF journey or moments whenever she shared some things that resonate with my IF losses (or moments of losses) and I have to really stop myself from getting "sentimental on my behalf" on my emails to her. I've been bothered by this 'coz I wonder why on earth I feel this huge force to "relive" the moments whenever I read about her emotions concerning this current experience of hers. I felt "selfish" for having averted focus on HER grief and instead turning inward towards my own, even though my loss did help me understand her grief, too.

Last night I was browsing online for grief and I found this blog post entitled "Is This My Grief or Yours?". This is the paragraph that hit me the most and made me nod in agreement.

When I first began to do my inner work with my own grief it was “an unknown” part of me – it was in my shadow. Other people’s grief, if it was resonating at the same frequency as my own unconscious grief, would trigger my grief. Kind of like tuning forks on the same pitch setting each other to humming, only in this case, we are speaking about emotional resonance rather than pitch resonance.

So that's it! :-)

Then I started thinking about how many times I "relived" my own happy moments when I saw other people's wedding pictures 'coz it reminded me of my own wedding day. I guess my friend's grief has the same sort of effect on me, except that the emotions it brings out are the direct opposite of such a happy memory. It's not that I cried over my own loss, though. I cried for her loss, but at the same time her loss made me remember the hollow part in myself that will never ever go away. If I have to describe the feeling, it's probably like hearing a low thud or echo on the hollow part. I'm not in pain, but there's this uncomfortable feeling of being reminded that it's there.

Then I started thinking about losses in general. What about my IF loss that is different than other losses? If I compare it to my Dad's death in the beginning of this year...if I hear about someone's dad's death, I think I won't really feel as "hollow". But why? Why is that so? Probably because with my dad's death, I have had closure. Even though I wasn't able to attend his funeral, but I'd had the best kind of closure ever. Not long prior to his death, I called him on his birthday and I could tell him verbally how much I appreciated him as a dad. And Mom told me that the morning before his sudden death, he had told Mom that he was satisfied with his life and he was happy to have kids like us. I couldn't have asked for a better closure.

When it comes to my IF loss, I'm unable to say (at least yet) that I've had closure, even though we've decided to surrender to life without kids. One big reason is probably 'coz we've never really had a chance to "say goodbye" properly. There had never been a positive HPT. No due date. No anniversary date of the loss. NOT that I want to experience a real loss of a baby/fetus. It's not that. I suppose her loss just reminded me of how "hollow" mine sounds and that makes me feel sentimental. I suppose her loss made me realize even more than ever how "disenfranchised" my grief is. 

*** Additional note (22.10.2012): One possible reason for the sentimentality factor was that I felt I had been robbed of the opportunity of showing hubby a positive HPT, of being able to see the joy in his eyes. 

I've also been wondering why her grief has a different impact on me than others, 'coz there are others who've told me about their miscarriages as well over the past year (thankfully, though, they've gone on to conceive again and they seem to be doing OK now). I think one reason is because this friend is a very close one and we've been sharing our lives in details with each other whereas with the others, I'm not that close.

Anyway, it's nice to sort through some jumbled mess in my head that's been bugging me for a while. :-)

Will

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.


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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.

Sentimental Feeling

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...

After The Meeting

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 mood ha 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 loss for 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 redirect our 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?

Anticipating

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

Random Thoughts...Hmmmhhh...

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. :-)


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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. 


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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!