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08/10/2004
The wall
If you're lucky, you never hit it. You get pregnant on your first or second cycle. Or you're stubborn enough, and your results encouraging enough, that you persist until you do.
If you're unlucky, you slam into it headfirst, unexpectedly, with enough force to shake every conviction you have. It's the kind of crash to jar a marriage loose, to dislocate even the firmest faith, to tear your self-love loose clean off its moorings. A cancellation, a miscarriage, nothing to transfer, another fucking negative. Bam.
Some people see it coming. They know that an upcoming cycle is their last. It could be money, age, or the toll on relationships telling them to stop. But often it's as simple, sure, and heartbreaking as the knowledge that I can't stand what it's doing to me.
I'm thinking about the last year and a half. When I look back, I honestly can't believe I kept going. When I think about the accumulated hurts, I cry more now than I did when they were incurred. I can't understand what made me so obstinate. I can only conclude that I just hadn't hit that wall.
I was lucky. Not only did I never hit it, I never even really saw it. Was it too far down the road for me to see? Or was I just too busy turning up the radio, singing, "LA LA LA!" at the top of my lungs, to know it was right in front of me?
I'm thinking of my friends today. Karen, who's moving ahead with her heart in her throat. Jo, who's put her foot down. Danae, who is having embryos returned to her body today for what may be the last time.
And of Mollie, who said no to ART, and adopted a fine and lovely son whom she'd never have known otherwise. And Dawn, who went only so far before saying, "Enough," rewarded at last with a daughter.
They hit it. They've sustained varying degrees of injury, these remarkable women. I know because they've been generous enough and brave enough to tell us what it's like. If there's any hope to be found, it's in the knowledge that some of them have turned defeat into a beautiful, astonishing victory.
And the rest of them surely will.
Good luck today, Danae.
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I remember believing I had hit the wall. My husband and I had never reached a point where we were both in the same place with wanting to go on. When one of us wanted to stop, the other would want to continue. This time we were both ready to give up after 3 years of drugs and IUI's and nasty ultra sound technicians and sitting in the dark eating cheescake when nothing was working ,so I packed up all of the baby stuff from the miracle that "shouldn't have worked" and took them all to my sister's for her to give to her BIL for his new one. She never said a word, but took all of my carefully packed totes and put them in her basement. About 3 months later, her and her husband told us that we were all in this together and if we would let them have a vote, they weren't ready for us to give up. The boxes were all still in the basement ready for us. Sure enough, we started again, new doctor, new outlook, new motivation. New success.
I just stumbled upon this site and my heart aches. Aches because I am instantly in your shoes. Instantly I feel that old itchy pain under my skin...not ever going to happen...this just isn't going to happen. I would put on my walkman and crank up the music until it hurt... to try to drown out the heat of the tears behind my eyes.
We tried for years...at first it was fun and there was love and it should just happen and there should have been that day were I peer over at my husband lovingly and say, "Honey, guess what! You're going to be a daddy!" But instead there were tests and tests and poking and prodding and things I never even knew that could be problematic... It seemed to go on forever but looking back it wasn't forever once the drugs worked. And then we were given the gift. I was so overjoyed that I couldn't even enjoy it in fear that the gift would be taken away like so many doctors warned..."Oh this is just your first pregnancy...and with all the problems..just don't be surprised if...you know some things just aren't meant to be..." But they were wrong and she grew inside me and she came out perfect (huge! but perfect! 10lbs.)
We discussed having another but I couldn't do it again...the pregnancy and birth were flawless but I just couldn't bear the road before it. We decided that my daughter would be an "only" and we felt perfect.
And then..
and then..
and then...
it happend.
We don't know how (ok , we know HOW but you know what I mean). I was sick. Sicker than a dog. Cold? Flu? I feel like hell. Finally head to a doctor. I just didn't believe what she had to say. I was pregnant. I was pregnant. I WAS PREGNANT. Just like that. JUST PREGNANT. No drugs. What? This is how the regular people do it! How easy! How flawless! How simple! I felt absolute joy and absolute jealousy at the same time. Joyful to be pregnant and jealous of all those regular folks...
But enough about those folks. I can't change anything anyway.
Gotta run. Baby boy is crying...just up from his nap. Going to be six months old next week! My 2 year old daughter is visiting her grandma and I need to pick her up soon.
miracles. i can't stop thinking it was a miracle.
Julie, this really struck a cord with me. For the past month DH and I have been gearing up to start again. We are closing in on 6 years of IF. Four failed IUI's. And for the first four years we were unexplained. Last year they figured out it was PCOS (don't get me started). And after scrimping and saving we decided this fall we would begin again. I started some need meds and I was signed up for a class at the Center to go through the new med protocols. All ducks in a row. Then they called last week to say that the doc neds to speak to us about DH's analysis. I know what they are going to say. I know it will be IVF and not IUI. And ICSI. But financially and emotionally right now that is not possible. So we have hit our wall again. And I have to say my head hurts.
Did you ever see teh Gary Larson "Far Side" where the guy is trying to push the door that says Pull and he is going into the Midvale School for the Gifted. That's how I feel about infertility.
This really struck a cord with me, too. People will describe me as strong, I guess because I'm still in the race, yet to hit my wall.
Using the marathon metaphor, while training the "wall" was a big deal. A group of us trained together and yet the wall was different for all of us. Some never hit it, while others hit it at mile 20 (close to the end), and yet others hit it early on. Again, we all started out together, so the wall variable was often unpredictable... which echos emotional wall of infertility.
Currently, I'm at mile 20, close to hitting my wall. This I know: I've come a long, long way and there isn't much left to go.
From where I am standing, I can't even see the wall. But I can imagine what it looks like. Like the one that we hit, that summer on the way home, when someone struck us on the right, and the car spun out of control. And I thought for one minute, we are going to die, this is it, we are going to die. Well, clearly we didn't, but I've never quite gotten over it. I sometimes think that wall still wants me. How very "Final Destination" of me.
Walls need not be permanent fixtures -- just temporary stumbling blocks. In ART like in re-modeling there is a way around everything sooner or later.
S.
Thank you, Julie. I'm hoping to bust through that wall this month. I'm really, really hoping.
Ah, so that would explain why I have brick dust in my hair and a bloody great bruise on my soul. I wasn't even looking at the wall when I hit it.
But I'm resisting the urge to call the egg donor and book her in. I know that however I feel this week, in ten years time I will wish I tried a couple more times.
But oh, god it hurts. It hurts so bad.
I don't know that we actually hit the wall. We saw the wall, we said "That wall looks nasty. We don't want anything to do with that wall." And we went around it. And I'm so happy we did.
But do you know when you've hit it? I feel all smashed up.... its the day after yet another failed IVF. That bitch the acupuncturist told me there was 'no sign' of my period and so I allowed Hope in - and now its the very next day and I'm drowning in a sea of tears and I've come to the horrible realisation that, amongst other things, I feel ashamed, or maybe its embarrassment. Whatever it is I don't think its right that I'm feeling it. And in between sobs I phoned up and booked myself in to start another cycle in eighteen days time. The nurse co-ordinator being compassionate was enough to start up a fresh stream. I can't have anyone being nice to me when I'm in this state, it just makes me feel even more pathetic. Whats with that? I just hope I'm paying attention when that wall is looming up.
I wonder when I'll hit the wall. I think that every cycle will be my last yet somehow manage to suck it up and go again. How sick do I feel when I wish that at least I'd have a miscarriage? Then I'd at least know I can get pregnant. I can't believe how discouraged I feel when within 48-72 hours after every transfer I feel the Pre-menstrual symptoms start up. I've never even made it to the Beta test date without already knowing that it'll be negative yet cry uncontrollably when I get the confirmation. Yet I go again. I guess as much as we don't want to admit it, we still have some hope.
The wall, ouch, it does hurt.
Still with my heart in my throat, but moving forward, trying to pick myself up.
Thanks, my friend.
Oh what a lovely post and tribute to your blog friends -- I was one of those lucky ones who never hit it. But I have supported many women in their TTC journies over the past two years and in a few small ways, I have learned a sliver of what it feels like to *slam.* I wish your friend luck, (all the women trying!) as well as Karen, a personal friend of mine, too ;)