Work is not getting any better. Sometimes I feel like my head is about to burst if I don’t jump to my feet and shriek. It’s not that they are bad conversations, it’s just that I don’t want to listen to them all day. I want to work. I want to distract myself, not spend 4 hours straight getting angrier and angrier at the universe that my baby is dead and I can’t seem to get pregnant again. I am fine as long as I am not constantly reminded over and over again. I also got a couple little flashbacks – mostly flashbacks of memories that never were, pictures I cherished in my head for so long and have been diligently working to put out of my mind, like that of bringing home a newborn in a carseat, or listening to their first babble back at mama. It hurts to think about what I am missing, and here I am, listening to a dozen reminders day after day. I think I am going a little crazy.

And no, there is nothing I can do about it. I considered mentioning how hard this is to co-workers, but they can’t help what customers say, and the last thing I want is people shooting me sidelong glances all day and speaking in hushed voices, tiptoeing around me.

At one point I thought to myself, I have to quit this job, I’m going to go nuts! But then I immediately realized, idiot, I can’t quit until I get pregnant – I need the IVF coverage. And once I get pregnant it won’t hurt quite this goddamn much. Once I’m pregnant again I’ll begin to start appreciating thinking about babies a bit, thinking about the one that is coming. But right now I have nothing.

::

One of the ways in which I knew I was starting to heal was that I stopped getting sick every few weeks. I’ve always had a strong immune system, I would just rarely get sick (although when I did it tended to be a whopper, like full strep throat or a horrific flu that lasted for 2 weeks). Even when pregnant I only succumbed after a full day’s flight crammed in an aircraft with many snotty-nosed patrons.

After Devin died I was a mess. It felt like a I had colds all summer. Some of that turned out to be mild allergies (which is why I felt like it never quite fully went away), but far from all of it. I caught whatever was going around.

I braced myself for this winter, since I am now working with a lot of people, and I’m working with money. Let’s face it: money is gross and germy. My co-workers all got quite sick back in December, one a time. It skipped me. Right now a cold is going around – I can feel something trying to start. Just a little gross feeling in my throat. So I’m just waiting to see what will come of it.

I’ll tell you one thing, though: I’ve completely sworn off milk, something I never ever thought I could or would do. Stupid goddamn allergies. I of course experimented, but it’s plain as day: I drink milk, or even have cereal with milk, and my throat feels like sludge all day. Pretty clear cause-and-effect. After a moment of weakness (oh the yummy goodness) I have to suffer through several days of horrible, horrible cravings. But once I’m clean for a week or so then I just sort of get used to drinking water with everything and it’s not so bad. Seriously people, I think I am addicted to milk, no shit. Is that even possible?

Actually, when I think about it, this icky feeling in my throat could just be my allergies acting up. Maybe it’s time to thoroughly clean the bedroom again.

This allergy thing is bullshit! (And yes, I do take stuff when I feel I need to – the Zyrtec seems to do nothing, the Claritin did help a little. I need to get more.)

I am feeling very edgy lately. Part of it, of course, is my co-worker coming back from maternity leave. Me dealing with her being pregnant was surprizingly easier to handle than I anticipated; dealing with her after the fact not so much. It is not painful in the way that incapacitates me, but it’s more like a dull throb that gets prodded all day long. Every time a customer remarks that she is back and asks about the baby and chats, it’s like blowing the hot embers in my heart. Of course all is well. Of course he’s a gorgeous baby. Of course it’s wonderful. For her. I know this stage will not last forever – it is a novelty still, and will take a few weeks at least to settle down. But oh does it hurt. (No one asks how my baby is, how my labor went. No photos adorn my desk. He is dead. Few people know – and if they do, there is nothing more to say.)

::

And then there is my freelance work, which is always there to work on in my free time. I sit down to write contracts and emails and wonder how I find the time and energy, I am so busy. And then I wonder how I never found the time before. How is it that I am more productive now that I am working full-time on other things than I was when I worked on nothing at all? My motivation has changed, I suppose. Before I did it because I wanted to succeed. Now I do it because I want to survive. I used to design the grand plan in my head and then figure out what I neede to do to get there. (It usually failed.) Now I just do what I need to do today to get me to the next step. I’m not concerned with where it’s taking me. There is… not a dispassionate, but a step back. And in this I think it is working to my benefit. I am not over-thinking it quite so much anymore, so I stay focussed and moving forward instead of hung up on the little things.

I have been thinking a lot about my future – not my future in terms of family, for that is a mire I don’t wish to step foot in at the moment, but my future career path. I have done so many things in my life. I don’t regret it, I have enjoyed different aspects of every thing that I’ve done. I’ve been: a writer, a teacher, a photographer, a designer, an assistant manager of a non-profit, and now a bank teller. I’ve always gotten the feeling that if I wanted to I could excel at any of those things. But I never have, because I have never risked it all – I have never fully committed. I’ve never done full-time at anything. Some were just to get through college, some were hobbies, some I just fell into. I enjoy the diversity. I love being able to follow my passions, which ever way they lead, and not being stuck in any one thing.

But what am I giving up? I look at what people can accomplish in their careers – not just financially, though that is a big part of the picture. I see myself dipping my fingers in, but never fully taking part. I want to know what it’s like to really excel at something. There is a drive in me that is unsatisfied with doing “Okay.” I have ignored it for a long time, but it is there.

I have a degree in computer programming. Not web graphics, what I am doing, what many others do – but programming. And I loved it. I was good at it. I love the challenge, I love the code. I heard what comes out of my mouth every time someone asks me why I didn’t get a job doing that, but more and more I realize they are excuses. Fear. I never even tried, because I was scared.

Maybe someday – not right now, as I have what I want and need for the moment – but someday, 5 years from now, 8 years from now, I will stop making excuses and find out what I can really accomplish.

The ground is blanketed with white. The air is silent but for snow slipping off tree branches in little powdery clouds, landing softly with a sigh. Only faint sounds drift through our woods. So peaceful. Sunlight sparkles through the snowdust, like a thousand little diamonds dancing in the air. It mesmerizes me for a moment.

Crossing the path is a single trail of bunny prints, left behind by little bunny paws. It is there now, so crisp and obvious, pointing the way. Tomorrow a new coat of snow will fall, blurring the edges, filling the holes. Tomorrow it will look familiar, but unsure – was it bunny prints, or maybe just my imagination? The truth will hide and fade away, as it aways does with time.

Eventually my feet get cold and wet, reminding me that that my boots need replacing. I head inside to the warmth, to the noise… to reality.

1 | Welcome to 2009. What have you left behind in the year just past? What do you hope to find in the year to come?

I left behind most of my hope, my dreams, my sense of safety and sanity. I hope to re-discover most of it – except a sense of safety. I know that is gone forever.

2 | We’ve just come through the season in which our culture touts cheer and peace and family togetherness rather relentlessly. How did your child’s death impact your experience of the “holiday” season, personally or culturally?

It didn’t feel like Christmas to me. It all felt like… not a sham so much as a dream-like version of Christmas. It wasn’t real. I didn’t really feel it in my heart. We went about the steps, everyone else seemed to participate, but I was somewhere else.

3 | If you celebrate in any way through December, are there ways you include or acknowledge your lost baby/babies?

Many. I went to a Candlelight vigil in December at the Angel of Hope statue. I bought him a gift (for me). I hung an ornament with his name and the year on our tree. Our christmas cards (which we forgot to send, of course) had his name on it. Everything I did for Christmas was a way for me to celebrate my baby.

4 | Through the year are there any holidays, seasons, or parts of what were once cherished rituals that have changed for you because of your child’s death?

Christmas Morning. It used to hold such hope and promise, such excitement. No matter where I was, Canada or here in the US, I always insisted on celebrating the morning with great joy. This year… I slept in. It would have been for him. But he is gone, so what was the point? Nothing.

5 | Do you do anything to remember your baby/babies’ birth and/or death day? Or will you?

I still have no idea what I want to do on his birthday. I know I want to do something… I’m just not sure what.

6 | Is there anything about the winter season (for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere right now) that lifts your spirits? Is there anything that especially brings them down?

The snow. I love the snow. Nothing particularly that brings me down.

7 | During your hardest times, how have you found your way forward?

By allowing myself to grieve. I write, I cry, I speak… I feel so deeply, so completely, that I fear I must break underneath it all. But it’s the only way out, the only way through. I take it all in, and let it seep out.

I am kicking myself for the time I wasted. I was pregnant for 8 months out of a total now of 38 months since we started trying to have a baby – that’s a lot more time being not-pregnant than actually pregnant. But I have lived those entire 38 months as if I was pregnant, or could be at any given month. I put off a lot of things, or just didn’t think of planning them in the first place. I mean, I was going to be pregnant, right?

So here I sit, 3 years and 2 months later, wondering why we never went skiing, or bought season passes to Six Flags. And yet I fall into the same problem, don’t I. I could be pregnant in March.

But I am not pregnant now. I have decided to stop living for the future quite so much. I want to do all those things I never got around to doing.

Today at work some girls were talking about horse riding. I asked some questions and found out the stable offers horse riding lessons for not that much money. I sat and pondered for a little bit, then said, “I want to go horse riding.” So it’s only January and fucking cold out – I want to ride a horse. So I’m going to.

Next week we plan on going skiing. I love to ski, my dad, brother and I used to go quite often when I was in highschool. But in college we went less and less often, and now it’s been probably 5 years since I have gone skiing at all. I miss it. I’m terribly excited about getting to go with my husband – we’ve never skiied together before. It will be a fabulous escape for a day.

And if spring comes before I get pregnant we will be going to Six Flags.

I’m tired of waiting. It’s time to live.

I started the birth control pills again on monday evening, since the nurse told me to. My period had never really got going full-fledged, but it was tapering off so I was fine with that. Wednesday I had a tiny bit of spotting during the day. Today there is nothing. YAY. I feel like doing a little dance because I am not wearing a pad or panty liner or any other contraption of itchiness and stickiness. I am free! There is much rejoycing.

Time is passing quickly. I am constantly getting confused about how long it’s been between events, every time I turn around it’s a new month. I am really glad it’s moving like that right now. I am taking a 2-week vacation to visit my parents in late March, and then I will basically be working until a baby is born. And I want that time to go fast. Fast fast fast until that baby is on my chest, in my arms – and then I want it to stop for a very long time. I will be a stay-at-home-mom, and everyone knows it. After all this time, all these plans, all these trials… when that time finally comes there is no way I will be spending time at a job instead of home with my child.

So until then I fill my days and keep pushing forward to the next thing.

I am obsessed with my house plans. Every spare minute that I have I am thinking about my future bathroom, or kitchen, or front door. I recognize this obsession, and accept it for what it is: a diversion.

Oh, sure, part of it is simply that I love doing this stuff. I have gone through many periods in my life when I became obsessed with sketching out floor plans and imagining what will go where. It’s an obsession that gives me headaches, but at the same time it’s very soothing to me.

But right now I know that a big part of what I am doing is avoiding. Every cycle I obsess about the dates, the plans, the everything. I spend a lot of time daydreaming about how it will end.

Not this time. I want nothing to do with it all. That’s not to say that I don’t have it all plotted out – I do. But I mapped out my next two months and then I put it away. Now I am planning the house, a skiing excursion, a trip to my parents. All things that are planned with the knowledge that a pregnancy is possible, but not dependent on it.

I just don’t want my heart to get broken again. I know damn well that my chances remain at around 50-50. Part of my brain says, last cycle failed, so that means this one should work! But I know statistics. I know that what happened before changes nothing. It’s still 50-50. And what do I do if this is the wrong 50 again?

So, as frustrating as house designing with a husband can be, it’s far better than the alternative.

This is a half-assed period, but I called the clinic to say, “Hey, I’m bleeding-like. Guess I’ll call Saturday the start of the slightly-heaver-than-spotting bleeding.”

I got a call back asking if I’d started the pills up yet, which I have not, an I explained the whole having to go off the pill to bleed more in order to stop bleeding sort of thing. Okay, no, I didn’t really explain it – it’s just confusing. But in any case, my last pill was Wednesday, so I start again tonight. It appears they are considering today, the first pill, as CD1. That’s confusing, too. I didn’t ask for an explanation from them – I figure we’re all evenly clueless.

In any case, a day or two won’t matter. It goes as thus:
January 12 (today!) – Start BCP
January 29 – Start Lupron
February 1 – Last BCP
February 6 – Expect AF, then go in for baseline and start stims
Retrieval and Transfer will be during the week of February 15-21
Beta will be somewhere right around March 4.

I’ll point out that Devin’s birthday is March 6. Goddamnit. Not this again. Bad news right before an important date is not my idea of a fun time.

I think I’ll be scheduling vacation for the end of March/beginning of April to go visit my parents. I just need something good to look forward to… something that I’m not gambling on. I just want to go home, sleep in my old bed, play with my dog and my brother’s pup, and forget about all this shit. I can’t wait.

On Saturday I thought for sure my period had started in full. I could feel it. I had just gotten off work and was driving to my other job and I just had this very bad feeling that I was going to be having an emergency very soon – I wasn’t wearing a very thick pad. I ended up pulling in to a Dunkin Donuts to use their restroom and to grab lunch.

I speedwalked to the bathrooms and tried the women’s door. Locked. Shit. So I stood by and waited. And waited. Finally I heard water running inside the little bathroom and then… nothing. Nothing. More nothing. I started envisioning what this could turn into: Woman freaks out in DD, screaming incoherently about emergencies and bathroom hogs. It was to the point where I could feel things going on down below and I was getting really really antsy – and still the effing door did not open. I could hear someone in there, too, so I knew it wasn’t locked by accident. I just wanted to bang on the door and yell, “EXCUSE me, there are other people on this planet! What the fuck is taking so long?!”

Finally I said, “Screw this!” and used the men’s bathroom. Whatever.

Sadly, however, it was not full on period… it just felt like it was. I really don’t know if I can or should classify this as a period. I’ve been spotting very heavy for over a week now. More than spotting, less than a full blown period.

At some point I may just need to make a decision about what I would consider CD1 and call to let the clinic know. Not that it really matters if I’m off by a few days, this is just another BCP cycle. All it affects is me and my precious little calendar.

Failure doesn’t just bring disappointment and sadness. It brings anger. I can feel it seething again in my head. The hope and possibility during the cycle really had helped damp it down… but it is back.

I have to be careful at work. Mostly I’m just quiet. I recognize the anger for what it is: bitterness, jealousy. I overhear coworkers talking to others about new babies, about pregnancy, and I just feel this nauseous pit in my stomach. It’s what I don’t have. How dare other people go on with their lives? How dare they have happy pregnancies and happy little babies, and never stumble?

Once in a while I’ll smile at a child – a genuine smile, forgetting my own life for a brief moment. But most of the time I try to just ignore them and do my work. I am not rude – at least, I hope not. I just politely speak with the adult and do what I am being paid to do.

I just want to be happy again. That is not to say I am not happy now – I am happy curled up with my husband watching a movie; I am happy watching my dog try to kill a toy in her inherently hilarious way. But it’s not the same kind of happy, is it. It’s not the kind that fills you up from the inside, that makes you glow. The kind that doesn’t leave you.

IVF will work, at some point… but who knows when. Time moves forward quickly, and I lose track. Yesterday I mentioned how last summer I got lost on foot in a neighboring city, finally calling my husband to come rescue me from wandering the streets. But then I realized, no, it was the summer I got pregnant. That was two summers ago. Last summer I was mourning. Last summer I can’t even remember.

And I can’t. I know in August I was hired by the bank, and I can remember training and creating this new life that I am now living. But before then? I don’t remember much. I worked a little. I slept a lot. I scrapbooked and wrote and cried. The whole chunk of the year, from March to August, is just a hazy mass. I feel like I missed a year of my life. 2008 will always be the year that wasn’t.

I always think about time: time to my next cycle, time to my next possible due date, time since Devin, time since we started. I’m obsessed with time. We have one more cycle before Devin’s birthday, since it will be a year past. A year of nothing, a year between pregnancies. And if this one doesn’t work the next cycle will probably be a February due date. Of 2010. Nearly 2 years since Devin was born. 2 years! That’s the spacing we wanted between living children. The spacing that would have been perfect, had Devin been born alive. But he wasn’t.

I think about me, how I’ll be 27 at least when the next child is born. Not old, by any stretch… but it’s certainly not what I imagined. I was 23 when we started, hoping for a baby born before I turned 24. I was so young, so naive. It would have been so different.

I can’t get away from the tree of life, the path that time takes. When we lost Devin I – like many others after a loss – would sit and trace back time. Was that the decision that led to the end? Was that? All these little, seemingly insignificant choices I made along the way. All the little twists and turns that life throws at you. So now I sit looking in the opposite direction, looking at what could be. That’s what infertility is, in a way. Every month, staring at several paths and wondering which one you’re going to go down this time. Will it be a pregancy or no? Will it be miscarriage or no? Twins or singleton? Girl or boy? Infinite possibilities.

And this is why I get scared. Why doing things like making a choice, a simple choice, can be so overwhelming. Take another pill, or stop? Yesterday, when forced to make that choice, I stared at all my medications, frozen for a second, wondering how this choice will change my path. It is not a matter of if, but how. In a way I am choosing my due date. October baby, or November? Maybe it wouldn’t matter either way. But maybe it will.

My life is a track of dominos. But I can never see how moving one will affect how they all fall.