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06/05/2004
Still
I'm here, but I'm quiet. I've gone overnight from a woman who can't stop talking to one who can't stop shutting up.
Part of it is that I don't know what to say.
This pregnancy is new enough and precarious enough that it isn't funny yet. I hardly dare to think about it yet, much less make fun of it. I do think about it, in an unintentional daydreamy way, but when I realize I'm doing it I feel a surge of panic, as if suddenly realizing I've done something wrong. (See also: Leaving Chinese porno on my mother's kitchen counter overnight. But I swear there was a perfectly good explanation. It wasn't mine. I swear.)
While I don't have much to laugh about, I know I also have nothing to complain about. When articulate bitching is your stock in trade, what's there to say once you get what you want? Not much. You just sit still, biding your time, afraid to accept your good fortune but not so foolhardy as to question it aloud.
Another part of why I'm quiet is that I don't know how I feel.
It feels churlish to admit this even to myself. I almost can't believe I'm confessing it here, in the face of my friends who would be only too thrilled to be in my position. I'm ashamed of what looks a lot like ingratitude. But the truth, which I occasionally try to tell, is this: I am not as happy as I expected to be.
I've worked and waited. I've wanted this for so long. (It's the baby I truly want, but I am told by reliable sources that those are usually preceded by a pregnancy, so, sure, we'll say I wanted that, too.) So why can't I get happy?
It's the wearing nature of anxiety, which exists at such a constant level that it mutes all other emotions. It's not just the fear of another loss, although that looms large and frequently spikes to stratospheric heights. There's also the deeply ingrained mistrust of my body that doesn't quite allow me to believe I'll manage pregnancy and delivery without mishap. There's the apprehension inherent in facing something new — I don't even know how to be pregnant, to say nothing of how to raise a child into a likeable, happy person who's kind to weaker creatures and votes against the Republican party. And there's the chilling awareness that our lives may soon change dramatically, forever, in the good ways we've hoped for but also in bad ways we can't foresee.
Oh, yeah, hey, have I mentioned the ambivalence?
Those feelings are background, a constant white noise that becomes so familiar it starts to feel like stillness. Beneath it all I know I am happy, somewhere; I know this because I do catch myself dreaming now and then. I just can't easily access the joy I expected to bubble up unbidden.
Finally, I'm quiet because I don't know where I belong.
Since I started treatment I've been that oxymoronic anomaly, a fertile infertile. I've gotten pregnant now after three out of four IVFs. Without a baby to show for it, though, I could still commiserate with women who'd racked up negative after negative; although I hadn't had their kind of disappointments, I'd had my own, and I felt we understood each other.
At the moment I'm uncomfortably aware that a pregnancy sets me apart from the people I care about. I feel your pain because I love you, and because until, oh, two weeks ago, it's been my pain, too, the same agony I've felt for the better part of three years of treatment. But I've been granted a reprieve from the sadness that many of you still face on a relentless daily basis. It's a welcome reprieve, to be sure, but one that makes me uneasy, too. How can I sympathize now without awkwardness? How can I tell my infertile friends, "I know what it's like and I'm sorry," when you could fairly answer, "What you know isn't true anymore"?
I feel out of step with most of my friends. I want to be clear about this: I don't feel guilty, and I don't feel unworthy. But I do feel lonely (excellent company notwithstanding). I've gotten such comfort and pleasure out of experiencing infertility with you that I desperately wish we could all be simultaneously going through the resolution to it together, too.
So if I'm not in synch with my barren pals, where do I fit? I'm pregnant enough to feel like a sudden outsider among the infertile. But I'm also experienced enough to feel deeply reluctant to join a cheerful group of optimists at a similar stage, comparing symptoms and ultrasound measurements.
I am somewhere in between. I'm quiet. I'm still. But still here.
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Don't worry. With all you've been through it's normal to feel the way you do. We've all been rooting for you all along, and are happy for you. Please enjoy this wonderful gift.
As a barren pal wannabe, I'm rooting for you. Be somewhere in between for as long as you want, I'll still love the read.
Hey - we're still here too. You have this place to talk, we come to this place to listen, and regardless of your outcome we'll still be here. You didn't get to to where you are easily, and you know others have hard roads too, but they'll get there ... it's just like climbing a hill now: you're all climbing, you're just not all on the same rock at the same time.
We still want you to be with us, Julie. You will always be one of us, and always welcome among us, whether or not this one turns out to be a success.
Yeah, I know. Catholics used to call this state limbo (now it's just good old-fashioned pergatory.)I no longer attended my infertility support group, while quitely lurking on the preggo boards.
I'll confess (sticking with the Catholic theme) that after just having my 4th m/c, I'm a bit envious-- but in a good way (I think that's possible). I so hope that this happens for you, while still feeling a bit sorry for myself. They're not conflicting, just seperate.
Keep everything crossed for you (really, it's an amazing yoga position!)
To respond to the first part: think ambivalence is a completely normal and rational response, esp. given your history and knowledge. FWIW, I got pg. after an IVF cycle, and I also expected to feel unalloyed bliss. I did for I'd say a couple of hours--maybe part of an evening (I am one happy, optimistic woman). And then 1) I didn't want to get too far ahead of myself 2) I had something new to worry about--which contradicts 1, but I am large, I contain multitudes.
Happiness comes in small doses... a chocolate chip cookie, a brief kiss in the rain, a glass of wine and a hot bath. Sometimes it's hard to recognize until you're already past it. My friend calls it her Mutant Worrybrain - it's hard to enjoy what you've got because you're too busy worrying about the what next.
I felt pretty ambivelent about my own pregnancy. After so many m/c's, I was terrified to hope. I wanted to just go about my life and pretend nothing was happening at all. But as a gestational diabetic, I couldn't. Every time I ate or took blood sugar or injected insulin, I had to think about what was going on. Was at the doctor's twice a week for over an hour every time...
Even after my daughter was finally born, I felt a little ambivelent. Here was this tiny thing that depended totally on me. On me? The lady who doesn't always remember to get dressed before 5pm? The one who gets unbelievably bitchy if she's missing her morning cup of cofee? Somehow, I began wondering if this had been a good plan at all...
But it is worth it, for those chocolate chip cookie moments. And then life goes back to being life...
If it were me saying all this, what would you say to me?
I'm reasonably certain you'd reassure me that such a thing was completely, stunningly, astonishingly NORMAL. And I think you might say that it's a continuum, this infertility and resolution, and there are more ways out than there are ways in, even, and that we are no less together now than we were two weeks ago.
You belong wherever you are, no less with us now for your good fortune. You still know what it's like to be infertile; now you'll know what it's like to be tentatively growing into your pregnancy; someday, Lord willing and the creek don't rise, you'll know what it's like to be a mother with a new baby. A toddler. Five-year-old. Imagining that, my heart bursts with joy for you, because I trust that you'll find your way through all those stages with as much grace and strength as you've shown here. I don't know about God, but I sure as hell believe in Julie.
Change is discomfiting, and just as you adjust, things are different all over again. But that doesn't change where you've been. Maybe it changes who you are, but I think it just deepens the grooves you had before: you get to be yet more compassionate, yet more richly aware of the complexity and sadness and beauty and heartbreaking everything of living in the world.
Maybe it's just me, but I feel more in synch with you than ever.
While I am quite the jealous person... (jealous of anyone who can say "I'm pregnant").. I know that you've been thru it ALL. And I also know that there is no one more deserving of being a mother than you.
and Julie. Julie Julie Julie... you KNOW there will be at least one mishap during this whole thing. It'll probably just be that you'll poop yourself in the delivery room.. but beautiful you will still be.... poop and all.
You will always be able to relate to your friends that are having fertility problems because you too have been there. Now that you are finnaly getting past it doesnt mean that it has dissapeared, its a part of your life and your past so its something you will always have. I dont blame you for not being overjoyed right now it makes sence you dont want to deal with another dissapointment. And because thats been the trend for you its something that you somewhat come to expect in a shitty way. I know that feeling as well. After all the goal is to have a baby so this actually is the next step. Good Luck to you. I think in a few more weeks you will be much happier.
D
Sweet Julie, I was just telling my husband last night that, for the first time in years, I'm truly happy as hell to hear about someone else's pregnancy.
I've been thinking about all four of you ladies each day and although I'm definitely celebrating for you, I'm also assuming you're experiencing an entirely different level of anxiety; one that I can only imagine. And I can only imagine how that must suck. I wish you could simply be blissfully pregnant. But, I guess the heartache of infertility has probably robbed you of that possibility.
I'm wishing with all my heart that your dream comes true and brings you all the joy that you have ever hoped for.
Coming out of lurkdom to say that everything you're feeling is normal. I got pregnant on IVF#3 - after a miscarriage on #1 and a BFN on #2, and MANY years of unassisted trying. I was happy, and completely freaked out: what if there's another miscarriage, what if the baby has a genetic problem, what if, what if, what if. She's 6+ months old now, and I still haven't stopped being a little freaked out: is she going to be smart? how will we pay for college? will she be a horrible teenager? And the infertility thing: I still feel like an infertile woman - I am extremely unlikely to get pregnant again without ART - therefore I'm still infertile. Okay, I'm rambling now - I really just wanted to wish you the best and offer a cyberhug from a stranger. Good luck!
I completely understand this. It's why there are so many pregnancy after infertility boards/lists/etc.
I know that I've felt left behind sometimes once Madison showed up. I saw that I got moved on Getupgrrls links and it felt strange somehow. I thought, "But wait! I..." What? I what?
And frankly, the ambivalence, well, it's always a part of motherhood. Even when the baby/babies is/are in arms. I think it's just part of a deal but we feel it more profoundly because there's more guilt to it. All that money! All that effort! Couldn't we be jumping around with joy just a wee bit more? (Never mind that recurrent miscarriers are afraid to jump during pregnancy in case we might lodge the little fella.)
Pregnancy after miscarriage is just plain freakin' hard. It's hard to fall in love with the embryo and then again it's hard not to. I spent my pregnancy with Noah somewhere between nirvana and hell. I was lightly psychotic for the whole thing and some months afterward. I feel the same way now with poor Madison who didn't ask for a lunactic mother. Ahh well. It'll give the kids a selling hook when they decide to write their memoirs.
"I was a post-infertility child and this is my story!"
Julie,
I didn't want to be a bloghog so I wrote you a letter on my own site.
I will say here, though, that no matter what you've been through before, pregnancy is a bit of a mind-fuck. Except for those, as my husband would say, who are "dead from the neck up."
Motherhood, too, if you want the honest truth. You still have bad days with all of it even if you had to go through herculean effort to get there.
I was wondering about you, whether you were feeling like you were "odd woman out" now. It is a bit lonely, and confusing, where you are. Seems bizarre but it is. I know it is.
Anyway, I love you.
I don't think anyone ever truly gets over years of struggling with infertility, even after a normal pregnancy or whatever. I've often thought of how I will feel if I ever do get pregnant; how I could possibly not carry this weight of sadness with me anymore. Even though of course I am envious of you, I just told my husband the other day that when I see someone who has been dealing with this as long as I have get pregnant, it really does give me hope. Take each day one by one and try to enjoy your pregnancy, Julie. You deserve this happiness and try not to let your past negatively impact something so positive (no pun intended). xoxoxo
"There's also the deeply ingrained mistrust of my body that doesn't quite allow me to believe I'll manage pregnancy and delivery without mishap."
Don't give your body performance anxiety. Expect some kind of mishap, even just a little one. Here's a good example to keep in mind: When my sister's mom was pg with her she (for some odd reason) decided to try to ride a bike around our yard. She fell off the damn the thing, landed on her butt and laughed so hard she left a huge wet spot where she had landed. 13 years later my sister is a perfectly healthy little teenage brat :o) So without some mishaps, what's life worth living? Anyway, there is no one who reads this blog who would begrudge you or even be suprised by your feelings. Every one of us will feel the same basic way. Oh, 1:52 pm PDT I just heard Ronald Reagan died. I am not republican but he's the first president I remember. Rest in peace, Ronald.
Julie, my friend, your battle scars show the road map of where you started, where you're going, and you here, now, in the middle.
And we're all trudging along side you, creating our own scars along the way, and each of us trying to help the others out with their own.
And truthfully? Seeing a positive outcome for you? Renews my own hope in myself.
I love you Julie.
We are all just so happy that you are pregnant. Enjoy it.. you deserve it woman!
Love,Cyn
Welcome to pregnancy after infertility! It's what I've been trying to explain for the last two years. It's a whole different world and sadly enough, should this pregnancy bring you that much wanted and expected baby, you'll find that it also brings up a barrier between you and your infertile friends. Sad, but true. And while you want it to be the same as it always was, it never will be until those same friends, join you in pregnancy or into parenthood through adoption.
Most likely you won't thoroughly enjoy this pregnancy for a while, especially with your background, but I hope for you with all my heart that this one is the one to make you a mom! I think I spent my whole first pregnancy in fear and disbelief!
I wish you all the best and am so glad for you that you are pregnant!!!!! The "infertiles" needed some good news and another success story!
You've just articulated perfectly how I felt when I miraculously got pregnant 26 weeks ago after a year of grueling, depressing infertility treatments. I felt awkward talking about the pregnancy to those friends and acquaintances who were still going through treatments, afraid they'd start to resent me (one of my favorite quotes is "anecdotes of air in dungeons sometimes proves deadly sweet").
At the same time, I find that I'm still locked into an infertile mindset. Last week I read an article about day 3 FSH levels that sent me into a panic, completely forgetting that I don't have to care about that anymore because this will be my last child. I think I'll always be a little bit infertile on the inside.
I've had major feelings of ambivalence with each ongoing pregnancy. I think motherhood is such a religion in our family-centered culture that I felt I was supposed to walk around with a perpetual glow and feel somehow transformed. But the truth is that pregnancy is just a physical condition with lots of bizarre symptoms which, if all goes well, eventually results in a healthy child.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I can relate to that feeling of being in limbo and I understand where the ambivalence comes from, too. I have 1.67 kids and sometimes I'm still ambivalent about motherhood (but mostly happy about it). I hope you'll be able to take your feelings in stride and not worry about them. They sound pretty normal to me.
I, for one, cannot imagine not coming here every single day looking for updates. We are all wildly happy for you because you give us hope, and we love you, Julie!
Once you have been through it you always know how the infertile part feels. You will always be a part of this group - no matter how many wonderful kids you have! :-) You can't unlearn what you have learned, any more than I can.
I am so very very happy for you. I don't comment much, but I read daily. And I haven't been this happy for anyone I know IRL who has announced their pregnancy.
Good luck, best wishes, and keep writing. YOu are a source of hope, inspiration and drive to this gal who has never seen a + pregnancy test. {{{hugs}}}
(wow, must be PMS - that was mushy. lol )
Julie, you explained it all perfectly. After 5 mcs in 6 iuis & 6 IVFs, I felt the same way. This is what many of us pg vets have experienced. The ambivalence, fear, being lost in between... You're not one of them, but you're not one of THEM either. Consider it a transition... you will not be in this weird place for too long. Hoping things continue to progress well for you.
Janet
Julie, you remind me of one of those Olympic athletes who spend their entire child- and adolescenthoods training for the Olympics. They don't have time or energy to think about anything but the goal of getting to the Olympics, so once that happens they're at loose ends. You've been spending so much energy and time and money getting to a pregnancy that looks this good that now that it's happened you don't know what to do. How else could you possibly feel?
Please, please don't berate yourself for not being ecstatically happy about this. A lot could still suck--stretch marks, incontinence, nausea, loss of sense of humor. Oh, and pooping yourself, as BrendaS said.
Julie, you are an inspiration for everyone going through it -- you know what I've been through, and seeing it work for you made me feel so excited/happy/jumping-for-joy because I know that it can work even if it didn't for me! (Does that make sense?)
This is exactly how I feel. I wrote something v similar a few days back. Decided to post it today.
Girl, you can't get out of being one of us just by getting PREGNANT, for god's sake! You think it's that easy to escape our clutches?
Please. As if. Once a member, always a member. Just try to get away.
Being pregnant is full of emotions and second guessing for anyone...after what you've been through I'd be surprised if you weren't shocked into silence.
Sweet, have a look around you. You are in no way alone. Look at all the wonderful, wild, strong women surrounding you...
every step of the way
I would think your gang of gals would be HAPPY and encouraged for you and your pregnancy. Next pregnancy could be theirs, know what I mean? Found your blog and am completely hooked. Never dealt with infertility but for some reason drawn to your blog. Must be your 'real'ness' and witty writing :)
I just found your blog. I know exactly how you are feeling because I am feeling the exact same way too. It's suprising isn't it--to feel this way? I wonder how long it lasts?
I followed this journal for a bit, around the time you were pregnant with Charlie, until his birth, while I was going through the aftermath of my last miscarriage, and starting fertility treatements.
I haven't been around, but something made me check in to see how you were doing. I'm pregnant again - about 8 weeks this time, and this post and the couple before it really describe what I am feeling right now. I just wanted to say thank you for putting this out there and sharing.