I’ve been on the edge of tears all day. I was supposed to have my appointment with my therapist yesterday, but due to the heavy snowstorm it was cancelled – thankfully she had the presence of mind to reschedule for this afternoon, because I really really needed it. I walked in, said a few words to catch her up, then just started crying about work and the negative pregancy tests and all of it. She doesn’t even do or say much… just lets me get it all off my chest. I somehow walk out feeling a little better, a little more clear. Not a lot – but a little.

Still very emotional today. I’m quite nervous for the rest of this work… I have to work at the bank for the next four days and I really do not know how that is going to work out. Every time I feel like I have half a grip on this pregnancy/no pregnancy thing I start thinking about Devin’s birthday and get choked up all over again. So how the hell am I going to function and not make mistakes every. single. day? Again. My therapist asked if there’s any way I can take some time off. My initial reaction was, “No,” but the more I thought about it, the more I’m thinking that if I’m that much of a mess at work they might want me to just go home and stop screwing everything up. It would have to be unpaid leave, but honestly that’s not a concern for me at all. I’m more worried about having to take time off and how that looks to my boss – I came into this telling them and myself that I was not going to need much, you know? Just a day or two off for the surgeries, that’s all. But then, here I am, on the eve of two of the biggest dates of the year, and I feel like I’m losing it one little piece at a time. So I’m going to go in tomorrow and just see how it goes. Maybe work will be a welcome distraction from everything. Maybe I’ll be a crying mess. No mascara tomorrow, just in case.

One of my favorite little sayings happens to be a religious one, but the meaning still holds even if you take the god out of it:

I think part of the TTCer’s paranoia stems from the belief that you can change it – that what you eat, what you say, what you think will somehow influence the outcome of the cycle. Trust me when I say, it’s easy to get caught up in it, even if you’re not the least bit superstitious. I find myself asking myself, “Should I buy this? Did I buy this last time? If I buy this, that is admitting that I think this is going to work, which means it won’t work…” Round and round you go, losing your mind and sanity. But it’s a fallacy. It’s all in your head. I can’t change this. Whether or not I test with the blue stick or the pink stick, whether I get up at 5am or 7am, whether I wait for the beta or not, the answer will be the same.

And whatever the answer is, I will deal with it, I will get through to the other side. If the answer is no it may take some work. It may take some grief. I will cry heavily… and then I will start to feel better. I will pick myself up and keep on walking. We are far from done.

I don’t remember feeling this lost in the wait for my beta, but maybe time dims some of it. But I think back… my first cycle I knew it had worked, so I was anxious, but at that point I really had no idea that things didn’t always work out. My second cycle I knew it hadn’t worked, so even though I was testing, it was just to prove that I was right and I wasn’t pregnant (which is now quite ironic). Last cycle we didn’t test at all, because it had gone so badly. We had hope, sure, but not a whole lot of it and I didn’t want to see any negatives. It was Christmas. I wanted my Christmas miracle.

This time… this time, I admit, everything went so damn well, beyond all expectations, that there is/was a part of me that really believed that this had to have worked. And I guess there is still a chance. I get that, cerebrally. I understand what people are saying to me. But my heart? My heart doesn’t care. It is so wrapped up with fear, so aware of how things can look absolutely perfect and still not work that it takes these early negatives as a warning sign, a sign to prepare for the worst. So that’s what I’m doing, emotionally: I’m preparing.

Maybe I’m wrong, maybe I’m right. But it doesn’t matter, does it. In the end the only reality is the one I’m handed. Maybe preparing myself will make it hurt less. Maybe it’s just prolonging it.

I can’t change this. I can only weather the storm.