Still Passing Open Windows ....

Comparing

On this day last year H and a friend went to a local wine show. I stayed home. I can't remember what I did but I remember going downstairs afterwards to see all the boxes of wine they had bought piled up in the car. I remember walking with H as he carried the boxes from the car into our cellar. For once I didn't mind staying behind. I was pregnant with our daughter.

This year I went to the wine show. I wandered around, feeling woozy after only 4 tastings, looking for food. The wine show takes place in one of the local halls and it is just trestle tables manned (on the whole) by men in faintly grubby jeans and faded t-shirts. It is funny to think that some really good wine is being sold in this church bazaar manner. On my food hunt I bought cassoulet, moutarde au cognac, vinaigre au framboises and a little tin of foie gras. Then H and friend joined me and added 3 little tins of terrine to the bags. I decided I was going to try and learn to cook in a more French style. I have no idea what to do with moutarde au cognac but apparently it's very good with white meat and useful for deglazing a pan after cooking a side of beef (not that I have ever cooked a side of beef). Vinaigre au framboises is supposed to be good in a vinaigrette for a salad with hot chèvre chaud and that I do make. I have a very stinky goats cheese in the fridge which smells like a fart every time you open the fridge door.

The point of this all is that last year I was home pregnant, this year I went to the wine show. Neither situation is better than the other. It is just my life.

Going to the market this morning to buy a roast chicken, however, was a whole different story. Everywhere I looked there were kids and babies in prams. Everywhere I looked I saw the father's sharp nose and pinched face repeated in his son or a mother's wild black hair reproduced in each one of her three children or a beautiful little girl with her mother's colour eyes. And each child I saw was like a knife as I thought that I might very easily never share that link with my kids, if I even get there. It was good to go to the wine show where it just felt normal and I could think of last year without a twinge.

Dates

I stand in the dark on the balcony, picking basil leaves from the plants on the kitchen window sill. We have a unexpectedly amazing flush of basil leaves this year. H is talking about buying white wine last year to my brother-in-law at a wine show. I remember going downstairs and saying goodbye to the friend he went with, seeing the two men flushed with wine and a good afternoon spent talking white wines and buying nice bottles, standards slipping steadily as the tasting continued. I didn't go. I was pregnant. And I think as I hold the basil leaves in my hand, "She should be with us. We should have our daughter here, smiling and starting to interact with us." So strange to imagine us with a little baby.

I am sort of in no-mans-land. I read blogs and check up on blog friends I care about but I haven't commented in a long time. A very, very long time. I am just living. Sort of hoping we do this IVF as I take DHEA and L-arginine and Maca. Sort of getting used to having no children. Sort of thinking of adopting. Sort of thinking that if I am going down that route, I might as well use donor eggs. Mainly ignoring it all and diving into the chilly but refreshing water and thinking summer is all about swimming and I really have to sit-ups.

On certain days I have some form of peace about the whole reproduction thing. On certain days I am relieved not to be monitoring my cycle, not to be planning acupuncturist's appointments, not to be trying to avoid coffee or eat raw food or take spirulina or whatever that month's magic pill was supposed to be. There is even a part of me that feels lighter and that skips from time to time with joy at the thought of being able to release everything that trying to fall pregnant and trying to stay pregnant involves in my life, of just being able to let go and live without worrying or thinking 700 times about everything I do.

Then this month my period was a little late. A very little late. My cycles are usually 24 days, this month it stretched to 27 days. Despite myself, despite everything that has happened and the probable end of another pregnancy, I felt that happiness that being newly pregnant after wanting it for so long brings. The world looked like a beautiful place. I felt special, happy with my secret. I even entertained thoughts of how I would have to cancel next week's trip, not go away for Easter either and how I wouldn't tell anyone, not even my doctor until 3 months. I felt that if this pregnancy had arrived miraculously without any intervention on my part that it would run a smooth course, even though Meg has walked that road and found it not to be the case. So not the case.

And now I think AF has arrived. It's good, I tell myself. I can carry out my fitness programme (ha ha ha) and continue trying to lose weight instead of spending 5 months wondering will it/won't it work this time. I can go to Paris and drink like a fish with an old university friend without worrying if the trip has damaged some fragile blood vessel which will bring the whole bang shoot to an end. I can go away for Easter and enjoy it with H and not sit at home trying to will the pregnancy to a successful end. Yes, this is much better.

But a part of me would still like to be pregnant. I was reading my journal from December when I wrote that sometimes it felt my grip on life was so tenuous, I felt it would almost be easier to drift away and that feeling of being on the edge of the void terrified me. I think surviving another loss would be horrendous, would possibly dip me into the void which I teeter on at times. And yet still some part of me would be so happy to be pregnant. It has to be something in my genes because all logic goes against it. It is possibly a bloody good thing that I don't fall pregnant naturally.

Missing

I miss being pregnant. I cannot help thinking that I should be around 7 months now. I know it doesn't help, I know I should avoid these thoughts but it keeps on coming back: I should still be pregnant. I miss the feeling of being special that I had when I was pregnant. I miss knowing that there was a child growing inside. I miss that feeling of hope. I miss thinking that I could just be a normal person with a child. I miss that.

Of course there was all the anxiety and fear that something could go wrong, but there was also so much hope.

We are working on other plans to have children but unless I am actively speaking to an agency, I feel that this is the end, that I will never have children, that I will always endure women's conversation as they discuss schools and childfriendly holidays, that I will always be the outsider. I feel that this is my life and one of the scary effects of this is that I pull away from H. This just feels like my pain and my issue. He could have children. He could move on and recover while I seem to be stuck. He seems to be doing ok. His job is going well and he is involved in exciting stuff. I am just in the swamps of self pity and despair and negativity. This just seems to be pulling us apart and I feel our connection growing weaker and weaker and weaker.

I am hoping this is just Valentine's Day fall out. All those happy, brightly coloured couples gazing into each other's eyes, reinforcing my view of stereotyped relationships where you get married and buy a house and have 2.3 children as the only way to live happily ever after.

How do you draw closer in bad times? How do you live happily ever after when your story is not the traditional one you grew up believing in?

Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day everyone, I hope it is a happy one.

I said to H I didn't want to celebrate it but today I feel strange not marking the day. I know, I know, I'm a marketing victim. It's a difficult day to celebrate. How do I celebrate it without looking at where we are and where we have come from? How do I sit down with H and not remember our years together and everything we have gone through which I never ever expected to experience and which have devastated us? How do I not remember our children who are not here?

Here's to a year when I can celebrate anniversaries without feeling sad, when I can just be happy that we are where are and not think of what might have been. Here's to a year when we can all celebrate that. (I'm half a bottle of wine down, can you tell?)

I wish you all an easy day, a good day with chocolate and red wine and love.

The dentist

Me: Good morning, I was wondering if I could get an appointment with the dentist this week. I've got toothache.

Dental assistant: Can I have your name?

Me: Carlynn H

Dental Assistant: And what do you have exactly?

Me: Really bad toothache actually, I'm taking pain killers every 4 hours.

Dental Assistant: Oh yes, I remember. You came to see me when you were pregnant and you had a cavity. I told you to call when you had given birth and make an appointment immediately! (said accusingly). The dentist is extremely busy.

Me: Yes, well, I lost the pregnancy and um, well, I was not really in any sort of state to ...

Dental Assistant: Oh. I'm so sorry.

Me: ... to make an appointment but now it's really sore so I was wondering if I could see him.

Dental Assistant: Would tomorrow morning at 9 a.m. suit you?

I guess that is what one would call the upside of losing a pregnancy; instant availability of the dentist.

Moving on

When I broke up with my first serious boyfriend I was so angry and sad that I got rid of everything that reminded me of him and our almost two years together. I changed perfumes. I changed my wardrobe and I took pride in getting dressed in clothes that I hadn't owned when we were going out. I even changed some of my habits that reminded me too much of him. I changed the guys I noticed. Gone were the quiet, cappucino-drinking, computer types. If a guy ordered a cappucino or said he worked in IT, it was the kiss of death and I moved on faster than you could say, "Bad memories."

When I lost my son I was simply staggering. Getting through the days took everything. Now losing my daughter I am angry again and I am going through a similar purging process as when I broke up. It is less extreme but bagloads of stuff go out the door to the charity shop - bags of wool containing entire knitting projects I was working on during the 5 months of my pregnancy, all my pregnancy clothes, the jersey I wore almost every day, the pregnancy books I bought in eager expectation that this time it would work - and I don't look at any photos from that time. I just can't. If I could I would erase those five months totally from my history. It just seems like such a waste; a waste of H and my time and energy, a terrible, tragic waste of a little life, just a waste of hoping.

"You seem bitter," says a friend. Mmm, you don't say.

Cynical Thought for Today

When people say, "I don't know how you can deal with this," I just answer, "You have no choice. Life goes on." I wake up and I have to go to the bathroom and then I shower and speak to H and go to work and get hungry and eat something and drive home and watch TV. Life doesn't just stop because you're sad.

So my cynical thought for today is 'Of course I will make it through. What's going to happen? It's highly unlikely that a car will fall on my head.' I'll still be here tomorrow. And tomorrow. And tomorrow.

And what is your cynical thought for the day?

Comfort

Things fall in two categories at the moment; incredibly comforting or nothing. I feel like I am more sensitive than usual to some things. I climbed into bed with a book yesterday and it felt wonderful; the bed was perfect and I felt safe and loved, it was the perfect combination of factors for that moment. Then at other times I lie on the couch in my dressing gown and feel nothing. I want to do nothing. I want to eat nothing. I could stare at television and not care what was on. I could be in a crowded room or a nightclub and it would make no difference. Whatever.

All I can do at the moment is what I must do. I must get up. I must get dressed and have breakfast. I must go to the supermarket with relatives. If you asked me what I wanted to do, I have no idea. There is just this emptiness, this nothing, no desire, no likes or dislikes, just a vague feeling of nothing matters.

And the only thing that interests me is related to falling pregnant and bearing a healthy child. I skimmed the entire USA Today looking for articles on new research on infertility treatments. There is a part of me that has so much hope that the next pregnancy will be ok and then another part of me that is so scared that something will go wrong at the last minute again and that the floor will disappear under our feet again, no matter what we try.

Shopping therapy

I flew back today and came through Heathrow. 'I'm depressed,' I thought, 'Let me buy a nice handbag,' and I strolled in to Mulberry and looked at the price tag of a cute bag. £646. 'Well,' I thought, walking out of Mulberry, 'Maybe I'm not that depressed after all.'  I think even after all this, having £646 on my credit card would still be more depressing.

I bought an inspirational Chr1stian book at a book shop (I am desperate at this point for anything that can point me in the right direction and modern medecine seems to be failing me). The first chapter is about building a positive self image and they tell the story of Leah from the Old Test@ment. Jacob works for Leah's father for seven years so he can marry Rachel, Leah's sister. Leah's father wants to marry Leah off first, as she is the older sister, so he tricks Jacob who first marries Leah and then has to work another seven years to marry Rachel who he really loves. The story says that the L*rd saw that Leah was despised and so he blessed her womb and she bore seven children, the six boys becoming the fathers of six of the tribes of Israel, the point being that Leah's life does have meaning despite her not having the traditional trappings of success i.e. a husband who loves you. Rachel, however, has a husband who adores her but she was always barren.

'Super,' I thought, 'So it's a choice between being loved by your husband or having children? Very inspirational. Not.' I then considered changing my name by deed poll to Rachel, as it seems fitting, but knowing my luck lately, the day the deed poll came into effect, H would meet a stunning, uberfertile colleague and run off with her and I would be left, Rachel the Barren and now Rachel the Barren and Unloved.

So all in all my shopping therapy at the airport was not very successful. I did enjoy the Cadburys chocolate bar though, it was very good.