The blessing after the disappointment

Ok, so I figured I needed to post the good news on this blog along with the bad, just to add some much needed balance.  Dan and I bought our first home this weekend!  It's a great townhouse in South Seattle that we both just adore.  We can't wait to move in, in fact I've been jonesing all weekend to pack up the entire house and just get it done!  But due to the lack of boxes, Dan is saved from living in our apartment with floor to ceiling boxes for the next few weeks. We close on September 16th and will be moving in that weekend.  I can't believe it, our first home!  Our house, where we can hang curtains and paint and all that great homeowner type stuff.

This place is perfect, I knew it from the moment I walked through the door and I feel blessed, we both do.  It's so easy sometimes to get caught up in the bad, the hurt and the pain of our lives, the things we don't understand. And it's equally easy to forget those times when the next wonderful thing comes to us.  I think we still feel the sting of not having a child yet (though as always we are now playing the waiting game with my cycle...anyone know how I can get off this crazy merry-go-round?),  but the feeling like nothing is working out in our lives, like we just can't catch a break is lessened considerably by this news.  And I'm grateful for that.  So, I thank God for the perfect house...and what's cliche and funny is that I felt so slighted and neglected when we didn't get the other place, but this house is better than that one and I have to think that the waiting we are doing for our baby is a similar thing.  A blessing in disguise somehow.  It's the way God works, and the great thing?  He doesn't hold it against us when we yell and cry and jab our fist at him in frustration, He hugs us and tells us it will get better, and then He keeps his promise.  It may sound easy to be this way now, when we have a house, but I still struggle with this, because I want to trust when things aren't good and rosy. I think I do, and I probably trust more than I think I do, but the fact is I want to get better.  I feel like I freak out and get discouraged so easily now, and I've never been like that.  Perhaps it's the wear how long this has been going on, I don't know. I'm trying not to worry about it because frankly I don't want one more thing to worry about!

So, here we go on this next leg of our adventure. I know it sounds weird, but laying in bed the other night I couldn't help feeling like a part of our lives was closing and a new chapter lay ahead of us.  I know that sounds silly in regard to a house, but it's what I felt; and maybe it was a portent of something more, who knows?

Pricked

Sunshine outside, heat and beautiful weather, the kind that makes you want to go on a picnic. I woke up in a fairly decent mood today.  But with one sentence I'm not anymore.   

I don't want to become a bitter woman, someone who is fourty or fifty and can't walk into a mall without glaring at the happy new mothers with their baby strollers and gerber babies.  I'm scared I am turning into this woman. I am afraid sometimes she is sneaking up on me and I don't even know it.  I spend so much energy sometimes keeping myself from that place, trying to sound and think brave and positive, and one small thing will send me reeling, send me into the orbit of Planet Bitter.

I feel like I've read so many websites, books, pamphlets on how to survive this, and for a few months the advice works, but then out of the blue BAM!!! I'm flat on my back and crying once again.  I know inside that this is life.  We spend some time in a peaceful place and then we move on, not expecting fear, pain and sadness to be around the corner. And when we run smack into the unholy trio, we wonder if that peaceful place was real, were we kidding ourselves?  No, I don't think so; I think it's just life; and it sucks.

I have come to the conclusion, right or wrong, that I think there are only two things that will stop this madness for me:  having a baby or coming to the place where I can walk away from it for good.

My God, I ache with sharp pains through my whole body to think of the second and my soul aches for the first.  I suppose this pain is the seed of great poetry, songs and literature; but frankly I could give a damn.

I can't walk away, so I keep hurting.   I do think, however, that there are temporary fixes. As much as I get frustrated that nothing seems to help for the long term, I think there are benefits to what I have been doing, just because I've gone all depressive housewife this month doesn't mean my Qi Gong is a wash.  It means I have to work harder to do it, it means I should look for ways to do it more maybe.  It was a help, it still is. The peace I find from it lasts a few hours, but it's more than I had before.

We're going to go to counseling. Dan is hopeful that it will be something more long term, I want to be, but I'm not which is creating some tension; the first I can remember of it's kind since this started two years ago.  I suppose that means we've done pretty well all things considered, most couples need counseling long before this and some have serious problems because of the process. The fact that we haven't I feel means that we had an incredibly solid relation before this all began. I'm grateful for that, I couldn't handle problems with Dan on top of all this too.  

We couldn't get the people who owned the house we fell in love with to lower their price so we had to walk away last week.  So, let's just say that last week was a supremely shitty week.  It's adding to everything though.  Not getting a house that we could look at and say "We can see ourselves with a kid here" made me feel like maybe it was a message; maybe we were also hearing that we weren't going to have children.  I know that's bogus, inside I do. But sometimes things like that carry a weight that is hard to shake. I still think about it sometimes. But it's not true, not at all. why do I think that it could be?  Maybe my fundamentalist upbringing that teaches signs in every little thing (but sees fortune telling as a sin...sometimes I think this is a contradiction, but whatever).   But God isn't like that.  He would tell us if he wanted us to move on, to change direction. We've asked him often enough to do just that!  

Now we're looking again...we've seen about 40 places...and I'm sick of looking. I'm at the point where it's like "Let's just buy a place! Forget loving it, liking it is good enough!"

And honestly, I feel angry that I'm at that place. Aren't we good enough, loved enough to have something we love? To have the fulfillment of dreams and desires!  Don't we, just maybe because we are loved by God, deserve such things; and I know that's a dangerous word for many Christ followers but....Seriously. Why do we have to settle? Why don't we get a place we love, a child to love, WHY?

I'm at the end of myself I feel right now. End of my patience, end of my tolerance, end of my ability to smile and say "Well, it will all turn out for the best".  I don't know if I can do it anymore.  

Getting through the day has been easier the last few days, and then BAM! I feel like I've been shot.  But...this is life, I guess. Like I'm the only one who feels this way, please!  We all do, don't we? It's just that we don't say it, we hide our pain because it's embarassing, because people don't know how to handle it. And I know there are times and places for this.  But I'm talking about how we are as a society.  Few people can simply cry with some without trying to make it better...if you can, you have a gift. If you can't, let me encourage you to learn.  We all need that. Shakespeare had it right "Prick us, do we not bleed?"  All of us bleed, cry and wail, we just do it alone most of the time I think. 

What next?  Well, I'll grit my teeth and pull myself out of the gravitational pull of Planet Bitter, it may take several tries, and I may be pulled back many times, but I don't want to stay there. So I'll keep fighting, even though I'm so tired of it all that I feel like I can barely lift my head.

The world doesn't end...but my heart sure breaks

I've decided that when we find out that I am pregnant I am going to take the damned basal thermomater and back our car over it. I am so sick and tired of taking my temperture, I can't even tell you.
Nope, not this month. that was the verdict this morning. And truth to tell, I had great hopes for this last cycle. Great hopes.
Dashed now. Dashed, killed, maimed, and bloodied.
That's how I felt today. At least when I let myself feel it I was. And then I couldn't stop the tears. I know that God is not being mean or anything, but I couldn't help asking today "What do you want from us?!" Is it that He wants us bereft and drained of all hope, of all joyful expectation, that we must be ground in the dirt and broken before He will deign to grant this one desire?
I could understand it if it was something that I could look at and truly doubt the goodness of, if it was something that I could say "Well, maybe it's not for the best that we have this." But I can't....Or when I do, I wonder then why give us the desire at all? Why the torture? Why can't I be like one of the my best friends, Amy, who doesn't want children? It feels cold, and brutal, cruel and so...indescribable actually to be put through this. And for what?
We are buying a townhouse. A nice place, with a yard and a second bedroom. And one of the huge reasons we are buying this particular house is because we could see ourselves with a child in it. But, what if that doesn't happen? What if we're stuck with our dreams for a child in that place and no child?
I don't know if I want to go through another Christmas decorating a tree, hanging stockings and having no child, nothing growing inside of me. Feeling like there is no hope.
Oh, I know, according to my last post life is now. It is, it still is even though I can only feel this right now. I wish I could give up. I wish I could walk away...even though it could give grounds for people to smile smugly and say "See, you just had to give up and it would happen."
And no offense to those who have related such stories to me, but I foreworn you that if you say that to me, you better have money saved up to repair your nose, because my fist will break it.
And what does that actually look like anyway, this whole "giving up" thing? What was it like for those people? To come to that place of throwing up your hands, tossing down your dreams and walking away. Was the desire gone too, buried with those dreams? I wish I didn't want this. I don't want to want this!!!
I want to wake up tomorrow and not care. I want the sight of my nieces and nephews to not rile up a longing sometimes too acute for me to stand. I want to not want this anymore. I want all we have to be enough, all we are building to be enough for me. Why can't it?
Why....is such a dangerous question. Anyone who has gone through or is going through this will tell you that. It is the question that will keep you in the cul-de-sac of despair and depression. Because there is no answer for it.
This time is hard. Today I feel like I've been ripped apart and I dont' understand God! I dont' understand why He's doing this! Why this isn't happening. I want to shake my little fist at him and scream and yell, and ask Him if he cares that I hurt, that I'm in such pain and despair! DO YOU CARE!!!!!!!!!!!
Behind the pain and disappointment and fear I know He does, I believe He does. He understands, it's just....If He did, why won't he make it better? I know it sounds childish, but right now I want him to kiss this huge gouge inside of me and make it better...and I dont' want to have to have him kiss it every month...I just want our baby.
It's so easy for some people....and it hurts so bad that it's not us it's easy for. Why aren't we worthy of a child?
I just want it to go away. I just don't want to want this anymore.
Two years of fearful hope followed by painful disappointment. It will make anyone gunshy. Has it made me stronger? Probably. I know that there is value here, shining inside of all this, but there are times, like today and tonight that I don't care.
But I will get up tomorrow, and I'll eat breakfast and pick up work to do, and buy groceries. I'll be alternately excited and nervous with Dan about our new home, I'll probably start the third draft of my novel too. I'll get on with life, and try to ignore or at least handle the sharp pain in my chest when I see a baby or a pregnant woman. In a few days, or weeks, I'll even feel ok with talking about "When we have our baby..." And I'll hold my breath as the end of this cycle nears and tell myself it's not the end of the world....maybe I'll be a little bit better at believing it.