Last night, we were spending time with a group of friends when one couple started playing a video.  This couple makes funny videos fairly regularly, so this wasn’t odd.  (Though I’m sure anyone reading this can see what’s coming).  Sure enough, the climax/surprise of the video was that our friends are expecting a baby, due in October 2010.  A beat, then squeals of excitement, hugs, and congratulations filled the room over the triumphant music coming from the the TV speakers.     

This is a great couple.  They are going to be wonderful, fantastic parents.  Their announcement was nothing but pure and completely good news.  I wanted to be happy for them.  I should be happy for them.  But I wasn’t.  I felt sick inside.  I put on my best smile and said “that’s awesome” and “congratulations,” as well as asking some appropriate questions.  But I did not feel happy for my friends.  At all.  Instead, I felt a clenching tightness in my upper torso, a real physical sensation of…well, at first I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was, exactly.  Not sadness.  Not anger, or resentment.  Not annoyance.  Then it struck me: it’s jealousy.  Pure and simple.  And I felt it — felt it physically — in a different way than I can recall feeling any other emotion.  A hollow knot was growing in my chest.  In my throat.  And it felt awful.

As I sat there, smiling and doing my best to appear excited and happy, I began to feel sadness.  And this is important: my sadness was not over the fact that my friends are pregnant with their first child, and I am not.  I was sad because I had no happiness for my friends in this wonderful moment.  None.  I was devoid of one shred of a joyful thought for these truly good people, who had something truly good happen to them.

I will not let infertility do this to me.  This is not who I am going to be.  Though I may be walking in this “weirdly inverted world where an unwed teenage mother [is] envied,”  I will not become someone who is dominated by jealousy, such that I cannot muster up happiness when good things happen to people I love. 

I want to call this out for what it is: Envy.  It is not anger at injustice (which would perhaps be a more apt description of the unwed teenage mother example).  It’s not a righteous indignation that something good has happened to someone undeserving, or who doesn’t want it, or who won’t appreciate it.   Thomas Aquinas described Envy as a kind of sorrow: “sorrow for another’s good.”  That’s precisely what I felt.  And I think that whoever wrote the above Proverb (Solomon, perhaps?) was wise to say that this feeling will rot the bones.  It is the opposite of a heart at peace.

Writing this all down has already helped me.  I actually just started feeling a bit of joy creep in, thinking about my friends’ pregnancy, and I am thanking God for that.  It is a beautiful thing to feel true happiness for another person.  Perhaps even more beautiful when it is coupled with one’s own unfulfilled desires for that same good news that has not yet come.       

 **as an aside, if you haven’t read the Modern Love article I linked above, please do.  It is truly excellent, and a beautiful example of a marriage strengthened by infertility. 

——————–

I had a laparoscopy this week.  The doctor found mild endometriosis: one spot on an ovary and a couple of spots on the uterosacral ligaments, all of which were burned away during the procedure.  I’m still quite bloated, but otherwise am feeling pretty good.  I have pictures of my insides, with the areas of endometriosis circled, which is a bit surreal. 

The doctor told me that these spots are about the size of the tip of a pen.  It’s hard to believe that something as small as those tiny dots could have been impacting my fertility, but I guess there’s no way to know for certain.  I’m hopeful that once I have healed from the surgery, that we’ll be able to get pregnant naturally.  But even if that’s not the case, it still feels good to have taken this step, and have more information about what may be going on.  

Some general observations from the surgery (mostly to help me remember, but also for anyone who may be considering a laparoscopy): The bloating caused by the CO2 gas takes awhile to go away.  I actually look like I’m about 2-3 months pregnant due to all of the extra gas.  Strangely, I also weigh about 6-7 pounds more than I did on the morning of the surgery.  I am guessing this is due to water retention.  Most of the pain I feel is in my abdomen, and around the incision areas (the doctor made four incisions total).  It feels like bad gas pain, with some bruising.  I have had some shoulder pain, and having my shoulders rubbed has helped.  The post-op papers I received stated that the shoulder pain should subside in 24 hours, but that has not been the case for me, as my shoulders are still aching two days later.  My throat is sore from the tube and my voice sounds a little strange and hoarse.  One side of my lower lip is sore, with a dark broken blood vessel on the inside of my lip, which I am guessing is from extubation.  I took some of the prescription pain medicine the evening after the surgery, and the next morning, but haven’t needed any since then.  I haven’t had any trouble walking around, and in fact, should probably be walking around more to try to get more of the gas out.  I’m not sure when I’ll be back to running, but the doctor did say that I could do that whenever I felt comfortable enough.  I took a total of three days off work, including the day of the surgery.  I probably could have gone back into the office today (the third day), but because I’m still so bloated I decided not to, and will be doing some work from home.     

Overall, not a bad experience at all.  And now we have a bit more information as to what our problem may be, which is a good thing.  It feels good to have taken this active (albeit small) step towards resolving our infertility, after years of trying without success to conceive.  I’m hopeful.

My other friend went into early labor last week and gave birth to her baby girl at 24 weeks.  Now her baby girl is fighting for her life in the NICU.  She seems to be doing well, but she has a long road ahead of her. 

I know the readers of this blog do not know these people personally, but if you are a praying person, please pray for them. 

Life and health are precious, and our bodies are so frail.  The night before they amputated my friend’s legs, I went to yoga class.  I don’t think I have ever truly appreciated my feet.  Holding me up, walking me around, moving to stretch my calves, balancing me as I stand, the great sensation of wiggling my toes.  As I felt the bed sheets touching my ankles this morning, I was so thankful.  I’m staring at my feet now, and I am grateful.  I want to be grateful for these blessings I have, not just for their own sake, but for the sake of my friend who is now lying on a hospital bed, forever crippled, with an increasingly uncertain prognosis.  I want to be grateful – and I am — but mostly I am just sick about this random and devastating situation now threatening my friend’s life.  

I have been praying so very hard in the last two weeks for these friends.  Harder than I have ever prayed for myself, or for this comparatively insignificant problem of infertility.  My struggles seem so very small right now.

Let’s see — the life updates since I last posted are as follows:

• We left our church.  This development is probably worthy of several blog posts on its own, but long story short: M worked as a minister at a church for several years, he resigned last Spring, and while we continued attending through the Summer and Fall, that became increasingly difficult.  We finally left late last year, and doing so has been very freeing.  I may write more on this at some point, but for now, I can’t really overstate the peace we have been experiencing since walking away from what was a very unhealthy situation.
• We met with a new RE and got a second opinion on our options.  He agreed that an IUI cycle with injectables is an extreme first step that doesn’t make a lot of sense considering what we know so far.  We liked this doctor much more, which is a great start.  We’re now considering whether it makes sense to proceed with a natural cycle IUI (unlikely to work, but minimally invasive) or a laparascopy to check for mild endometriosis (fairly invasive procedure, but if mild endo is present and removed, could improve our chances for getting pregnant naturally).   We’re not in a rush to decide at this point, but will probably proceed with a Plan in the coming months.
• I’m still loving my new job.  M is officially “all but dissertation” and teaching classes, which he loves.
• I’m running more, and training for a ten-mile race in April. 
• I’ve been reading a lot, and thinking a lot about our situation.  Now I just have to record it so I don’t lose these thoughts.  But the general theme would be ”Not Obsessing” or maybe “Hey, Some People have Real Problems.”  Not to minimize infertility…but to try to be better at contextualizing what this struggle means for me and for my general life and worth as a person.  I believe this is a good thing, but something I still need to sort out. 

I’m thankful, once again, for this space and for those of you who read my ramblings.

I started my new job this week, and so far I love it.  The people are really nice and down to earth.  The women are smart, capable and confident, yet wear comfortable shoes (my kind of gals).  So I’m very optimistic that this will be a good fit for me.  I still can’t believe I got this job.  Sometimes I think I need to pinch myself.

I’m turning to a new goal, now that pregnancy is on the back-burner: I want to get out of debt.  We have a lot, and we spend frivolously to compound the problem.  It would be wonderful if we could get out of debt in 2010.  I actually said that about 2009 too, but I’m not letting that discourage me from really trying to make it happen in the upcoming year.  I’ve taken a major salary cut with the new job, which strangely makes me feel better about our prospects because I think we’ll be watching our money much more closely.  Plus, I did a LOT of “therapy shopping” in my old job.  I would spend so much time working, sitting in front of my computer into the late hours, feeling like I had no life (because I didn’t) that I would just buy things online as a way to make myself feel better about it all.  Not a good habit, but it was a way of trying to justify the sacrifices I was making for the pay.  Now, making a lot less, but getting home at a sufficiently decent hour to have a life, I don’t think that the therapy shopping should be as much of an issue.  But I do still love and regularly stalk Anthropologie.  Don’t you just love this cozy sweater?

Perhaps it shall be mine when it goes on sale. 

Anyway, I digress.  Bottom line: life is good, and for the next few months we’re going to try to forget about the fact that we can’t seem to get pregnant.

I had a lovely thought last week.  It was about 11:00 in the morning and I decided to go for a long run.  While I was running, I thought to myself what wonderful freedom I have, that I wouldn’t have if we already had a child.  This doesn’t take away from my longing for a child in any way, but it just helps me to be more thankful for the present moment; the gift and beauty that is there now in our current situation.  And in our present circumstances, I can leave the house without telling anyone, and go for an hour-long run without having to worry about someone watching my child.  That’s pretty nice.  I am thankful.  I don’t want it to stay this way, but I want to recognize the bits of grace that are sprinkled through my days as a childless woman.

I think, slowly but surely, I am getting some peace.

Anyway, I had planned to take a few weeks off, and now, I’ll be taking more time off than I planned.  No Big Deal.  Sure, I’ll go without a paycheck for longer than we expected, but we will manage.  Oh, and we won’t have health insurance for another couple of weeks, but again, not a big deal because I can backdate COBRA in the event something catastrophic were to occur (God forbid).  So please tell me why, when I received the call today about my start date being pushed back, I hung up the phone and sobbed like a child.  I called M and sobbed to him as well, saying “I’m so upset about this.  I can’t believe I was so stupid to delay in sending in my paperwork.  I can’t believe this is happening.” 

To put it mildly, my response was not appropriate for the situation I was facing.  In a time like this, when many fantastic and capable people are out of work, I simply had my start date delayed.  By two weeks.  Some attorneys that are lucky enough to have job offers have been delayed for a year or more in this economy. 

I hung up quickly with M, frustrated with him for not being more encouraging.  I wanted him to tell me that this was no big deal; probably because deep down I myself knew this was no big deal, even though it felt like something terrible had happened.  I went for a run, hoping to clear my head.  The thoughts that came to me as I ran I am still sorting through, but they can be summed up as follows:

I am not the person I want to be. 

Not because I’m not yet a mother.  Not because our attempts to become pregnant have failed for over two years.  Not because I’m in debt.  Not because I’m a few pounds heavier than I’d like to be.  Not for any of the many reasons that I am found lacking in a “keeping up with the Joneses” kind of way.

I am thirty years old, a bona fide adult woman, who is so emotionally fragile that when a small plan goes awry, doesn’t have the strength to…well, to act like a mature, wise, adult woman.  Instead I act like a spoiled child who hasn’t gotten her way.  And I’m not entirely sure why this feels especially significant to me now that I am thirty; really this behavior shouldn’t be excused for a woman in her late twenties either.  But thirty.  Three decades.  And when tested, it is fragility, rather than strength that is exposed.  (note: I use the word “tested” lightly here.  Can you imagine how I would handle a true test?  A true challenge?  I shudder to think). 

This wasn’t supposed to be a post beating myself up.  But what happened today was eye-opening for me.  I mean, I just finished reading “The Year of Magical Thinking,” for heaven’s sake.  You would think I would have some perspective. 

A passing thought: what if I’m so sensitive, so emotionally fragile when things don’t go according to plan because of this struggle with infertility?  The big plan not being realized for so long now is making me extra sensitive to little plans not happening?  Frankly, I don’t buy that.  I actually think that this is me — really me — just more exposed because of the infertility and the emotions that always rear their head during this phase of my cycle.  So I’m not willing to write this off to pesky female hormones, even if they are exacerbating the situation a bit.  Nor am I chalking this up to the infertility I’m walking through now — there are women who have been struggling much, much longer and had a much harder time than me, who I know would show more strength and maturity in response to a minor inconvenience.

Anyway, moving on to my thoughts and plans for the future: namely, how to be the type of person I want to be.  Someone who is filled with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, goodness and temperance.  I need to be grounded.  I need to write more here — about a lot of things other than infertility.  I need to read more scripture, more biographies of people like Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi, Mother Theresa.  I need to keep some perspective.  I need to think of others before thinking of myself. 

Maybe this two weeks extra will help me get started.

Thanks to any of you who are reading — I know I’ve been absent for awhile now.  On the TTC front, we are pretty much the same, but I’m feeling okay — even good — about the way things are now.  I’m feeling very thankful.  Life is good. 

To be continued.

– Vacation: beach, reading, no plans, sand, running.  Gained five pounds (but I’m telling myself that it’s mostly bloating/water weight, since my cycle began while we were away, rather than the multiple pina coladas I was drinking each day.  Seems reasonable.)

–  Had a two-hour long conversation about infertility with M while in the car in the parking lot at Whole Foods.  Many tears on both sides.  We were there so long that several people arrived and left while we were still hashing some things out.  I think most people that saw us probably thought we were breaking up.  It is hard, and unfortunately M and I don’t see eye-to-eye on the treatment options we are willing to pursue, but at the same time, I am so grateful to have a partner in this struggle.

– I’m going to change to a different RE.  Had a bloodwork appointment (everything is normal) and, while I’m sure he’s a great doctor, he and I are not on the same page, and due to some complications with mine and M’s views regarding treatments, I think we’re going to need someone a bit more compassionate and willing to work with us where we are right now.  For instance, current RE suggests as our FIRST treatment doing IUI with injectables.  Does this seem a bit extreme to anyone else?  I just find it confusing, particularly since back in October this same doctor told us to wait and see, that we may get pregnant on our own, and reminded us that there is no ”minor” infertility treatment.  I had prepared myself to go ahead and start trying Clomid sometime soon, but when he jumped straight to IUI/injectables he lost me.  I’m not ready for that yet.   

– I struggle to pray for a baby.  I pray for a lot of things.  But asking God for a biological child is just…right now not really possible for me.  I’m trying to figure out why.    It just seems shallow, self-absorbed, like treating God like a Santa Claus or something.  I don’t know why I feel this way about this request, rather than other things that I pray for, which are too many to name.  Why is it that I have no problem praying for God to intervene for others or myself, with requests like a healthy pregnancy for someone already pregnant, to be healed of a disease, to be comforted, to have peace, to be safe when traveling, to perform well on a test…but I can’t ask God to make me pregnant, and give me a healthy biological child?  I do not know. 

That’s all, mostly because of what time it is, and because the next two weeks are going to be nuts between work and personal life commitments.  Hopefully by the time I post next my thoughts will be more coherent.  Until then, thanks for bearing with me. 

*I also should add that I am shamefully behind on reading your blogs, but should be catching up slowly but surely.  As always, I am thankful for each of you.