Category: Infertility and Time

My Dicey Relationship with Goals

Infertility Honesty

Musings on infertility’s psychological aftermath

In the aftermath of infertility, on the heels of the numbness and avalanche of grief that follows, there is a lot of sorting to do.

For me, it conjures the image of a once complete home now in shreds of rubble and shrapnel post tornado. Some of the pieces are just missing. Some still present are unrecognizable. Most noticeable is that the pieces no longer fit together into a form that shouts sense, direction and continuity.

And so in my mind, I have piles. Read more →

Heartbeat

Infertility Honesty

I was missing you on the day things crumbled. My cart seemed so bare two days before Christmas as I struggled to procure the few things your Dad and I needed, trying to make the best of our holiday for two we felt no urge to celebrate.

I didn’t know then why Fairway Market was spinning and going black or why my heart was flailing about or why the vision of the woman cuddling her toddler in the cheese line suddenly felt no less barbaric than the act of trying to exist.

All I knew then was that I missed you. What I know now is that the towering experience of missing you was layered with a malfunctioning nervous system and I think back on that space in time with sorrow. And with a pointed acknowledgement of human fallibility. That space in time when I sat in my car and in my body spinning out of control trying to fathom your absence. An impossible feat under normal circumstances, an utterly defeating experience in the presence of unregulated blood pressure and minimal blood flow to the brain.

I dialed 911 as my heart relentlessly beat out of my chest. Read more →

WHERE AM I??

Infertility Honesty

The movie Cast Away sheds some light

Things have felt……peculiar lately.

I’ve been feeling that half here, half not here feeling.  But not the pulverized half here half not here feeling of a year ago, this one is different.  I’ve been feeling unsettled.  A bit disconnected.  Pain, my long time reliable compass, no longer rules my existence. Read more →

Sweet Words

Infertility Honesty

A doctor finally gets it right

I have two major biochemical imbalances that caused chronic and sometimes suicidal depression between the ages of 17 – 29.  They were finally diagnosed and pretty well treated by the Pfeiffer Health Research Institute via a prescribed nutrient therapy program.  While I should normally get re-tested every year or two, for me, this was just one more thing that got pushed to the side during fertility treatments and the subsequent loss of our children.

I think most if not all of us have situations where our infertility collides with challenges and crisis we faced prior.  Those experiences can be internal, or more external, as it was when I was driving to my first Pfeiffer appointment in four years about a month ago.  I was pondering how I was going to explain the infertility/childlessness trauma/PTSD amid grief symptoms amid symptoms of my biochemical imbalances with a dash of peri-menopause thrown in while marinating in that all too familiar not knowing if I was going to be seen, heard and taken seriously. Read more →

The Paradox of June

Infertility Honesty

An infertility survivor’s early summer musings

I had gotten through Father’s Day without much flinching.  These milestones, or non-milestones, depending upon how you look at it seem to, in me lately, provoke the question:  Does it get easier, or am I getting stronger?  Read more →

The Illusion of Back to Normal

Infertility Honesty

“I only sobbed for a couple of hours.  And then I laughed because it was just so absurd.”

“Holy crap”  I said.  My friend who was unexpectedly and tragically widowed four years ago was in LA filming a movie this year in mid-February.  She got through the whole of Valentine’s Day without a trigger, and it seemed her chosen tactic of ignoring the day had triumphed as she was driven back to her hotel.  Looking forward to chilling out after an intense week of work, she arrived at the hotel only to find a Valentine’s extravaganza of sorts in the banquet room in proximity to hers.  She was greeted at the hotel by dressed up ladies in the arms of their dates and “relaxed” in her hotel room to love ballads galore and amorous prompts filtering through the walls from the over eager MC across the hall.

Kind of like unintentionally stumbling upon a church service or a restaurant on Mother’s Day in our world.  Triggering times a million?  Oh, I think so. Read more →

JOY

Infertility Honesty

The Trauma and Loss Survivor Version

“I know, I get it……Just one more thing infertility ruined.”

This simple yet all – encompassing phrase came from a support group member back when I was TTC (trying to conceive). She lived in the same town where my husband’s restaurant had just finished the construction on its expansion. And I, in the meager 6 weeks between IVF #’s 2 and 3, having just learned that our medical obstacles extended well beyond endometriosis and age, had not been in to see the outcome. Cannon balling my way into what was my most fragile, devastated time, I didn’t want to see people in my husband’s restaurant world. Read more →