Tag: #ivfjourney

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Grief is the great separator

After I vent my many giant fears to my trusted few my words are free to roam…. if anyone knew how much work even a post takes…. but oh so worth it. Oxygen

I’ve been in contemplation. Another pupa stage. Each time I wonder how there is another. Haven’t I arrived yet? What the fuck self-actualization, isn’t there an end point? Resoundingly no, there is not.

There also isn’t a limit to the amount of love our hearts can hold, or pain. I thought I knew that before this year, and now I know….

respectfully, I didn’t know shit.

Why do we cuss a lot when feeling strong emotions ? Emphasis I suppose. Ever the analytical mind. What of it. This is me bitches ?! Wow I am unknown even to myself so much of the time. That truth creates insecurity and uncertainty. The two things we are always trying to lock down most.

I want to hurt and to bleed so I can physically feel what just happened to us. A tattoo might not cut it this time. We need a third bird on our wrists. Go deep this time. We have earned it. You’d have to cover my entire body. It’s eviscerating every single time. Doesn’t matter if you’re new or old to the process.

Today we walked into the clinic. The fertility clinic. It’s like going into battle Lord of the Rings style, nothing prepares you for it. We have walked the walk in so many different states. And each time I see a couple I wonder if theirs is joy and victory or hurt and loss? I want to know their story too. What would it mean to know their story too? Why is it that my energy is always shared experience?

It would mean we could be less alone. We all want to be less alone all the time. Prisoners in self created purgatories born out of our own templates of how the world works. Some innate. Some inherited. All, our own personal Mount Everests to scale.

How can a heart even hold this much feeling?

To feel like this all the time and to be so much of me, it’s a delicious torture. To be this alive, this awake. You wonder if you can burn at this frequency and not disintegrate, into only a memory in the lives of our loved ones. Which is all we are anyway.

I don’t die. I just get stronger and wiser. I thought it would kill me. But instead I just go under and come back out someone else, every single time.

I can’t even create a story that backs my suffering any longer. That’s a boring small life. I’m not meant for that. We only think our limitations, we are truly not any of them.

Speaking of that… all the ways “they” (the mystical they), tells you how to handle this. Don’t spread your pain to others, don’t do this, don’t do that. You know what when someone is suffering just be fucking kind. That’s all you need to do. It isn’t as hard as we make it. Be kind damnit. Let their tears fall. Let them take up space. See how I slip out of personalization, because this much pain is unthinkable.

Is it a thing you think that losing a possibility is as hard as losing what’s concretely there ? Why do we measure the validity of our suffering and stack them up next to others to see if our experience is ok? Why do we do that?!

Why can’t everyone’s own pain just be their own pain and we can hold it? It’s not complicated but the rules of society make it so. Grief and love are natural states, in allowance they are gorgeous pieces of humanity. In resistance we become tortured and can torture.

Is a 5 week miscarriage “worse” than never being able to conceive? Is losing a baby at the end harder than watching a child suffer through cancer? A true game of would you rather that no one wants to sit and play. Is it better to have loved and lost ? A beloved client of mine and I play this game all the time. Along with “I win” and a deliciously necessary level of dark humor and sarcasm that are sometimes the only way a human can cope. And have a seat at the table too.

Do you want to know the truth?! We don’t ever know. We don’t ever know. Let that rattle your cage. Let that wake you up to your own desires you have been putting on the back burner for the if and when of it all.

If there was an answer, versus many, it would be compassion. Be compassionate and open and warm and kind. Create space rather than closing it off with your own judgment, critic, and self-righteousness. Hold someone else’s experience as tenderly as you wish you could your own.

Level up! We need to be together when we grieve and to be allowed to share our experiences. Not silenced or shamed!!

You don’t need the answer…. only an open heart. An open heart can grieve and love as much as it needs to. I’ll always write my way to my most profound truths. And always hold myself accountable to my own integrity.

Always …..

Ps. If you pray, chant, walk, meditate, or whatever it is you do keep us in your thoughts. We keep getting knocked to the ground, and our people always help us get back up. That’s why we are meant to connect in this life. Thank you for loving us so well.

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Heart on display

Today is for homemade chicken soup, snuggly bulldogs, and heavy contemplation. It’s for music, blankets, kisses, and decorating. For acquainting ourselves to a novel corner of our new domain. Creating a new feel to the already existing landscape.

Today is the brink of another brave journey down the IVF road. We are embarking upon try number five, and I’m scared like hell. And you aren’t allowed to say that. Because you’re supposed to say how positive and excited you are. I am those things too, but if you haven’t experienced the searing pain of disappointment in this arena you don’t get to tell me how to conduct myself. All you need to do is listen and be kind to me, that’s all.

I’m not afraid I won’t be ok. Or that I am not loved and have a great support system. My heart isn’t thin glass. It’s incredibly resilient. This isn’t fear or a lack, its raw. It’s naked in Times Square. It’s holding nothing back.

It’s as if I’ve pulled my heart out of my chest, holding it carefully, and have placed it on the counter. It’s just sitting there outside my body. Anything can happen to it at any moment. It’s sitting next to the ten thousand syringes and needles of various sizes and alcohol wipes. It’s out in the open and I have no idea what will happen. I’m just standing here marveling at it. How beautiful and strong. It never was the dangerous thing I always feared.

We are becoming friends, my heart and I.

I have woken up out of a nightmare and into a fairytale. Knowing that in real life fairytales there is still pain. I’m still here regardless of outcome. It will only add another layer of depth to my soul. But these layers aren’t cheap.

The Halloween decorations are down, the Thanksgiving / Christmas ones will go up. Our first Christmas tree in this home. The first of so many, if we are blessed. This home will house laughter, and a thousand possibilities for a secure space full of traditions and love. What life is this? How can it possibly be mine? I just keep pinching myself.

This is nothing I have ever known.

Hyper vigilance gives way to peacefulness. Anxiety is replaced with security. The neural pathways laid down attempt to derail progress, the progress is too consistent and too great. I’ll lay down an entire new railroad if it means I can love and be loved.

A life once only dreamed of comes clearer into view. I’m no longer naive enough to think I’ll be happy if or when…. something always comes along. Life changes on a dime. Be happy now, exactly as is. Your perspective and circumstances can change in an instant, then life will change you.

When I no longer live inside my head anymore, what will my writing be like then? I’m changing more quickly than I can keep up with. Am I ready to pour this molten heart into children who desperately need love, and to be seen, as I did? Am I ready? What is ready? They weren’t ready for their circumstances.

So if they have to be brave, so will I. If they can be brave and open, amidst crushing disappointment then I will too.

It’s just the unknown, which has as good of chance of turning out beyond our wildest dreams as it does bad. Our biological wiring is made to detect threat rather than possibility.

I’ve spent a lifetime surviving. Now I’m ready to live.

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A Self on Ice

In my morning pages today I found myself pondering whether I like my new tattoo or not. I’ve posted it here, 2 birds in flight, it matches with my wife. It represents our identical twin pregnancy flying away, a dream removed without warning or time to prepare. A major disappointment. An earth shattering grief. The pain can be recalled at any second, but as we humans are wired for resilience we are back up and running and re-shaping our plans.

We got the tattoo on a moments notice in downtown Ansonia. I had just cut off all my hair, and my head was freezing, and my identity shaky. Who was I now? I went from the girl next door with her long hair that often hinged on the, “but you don’t look gay”, and “you’re so pretty” compliments for shelter, to someone I didn’t recognize in the mirror. Shocking.

I was suddenly transported back to childhood when I would stare long hours in the mirror wondering if the soul that was housed within, was the same as the body without.

Could anybody see me really.?

I’m still looking in the mirror and wondering. Waiting for evidence this way or that. If suddenly a client leaves then it must be my radical new appearance, analyzing everything. A disease really. Could the tattoo on my wrist so unlike my conservative self that was deeply forged in childhood, the one taught to constantly be observant for shame, signal something about me I don’t want?

Will someone think I’ve been to jail? I look at it and sometimes identify myself with some of the judgments people make about tattoos and that helps me connect to compassion for all misunderstandings we have about ourselves and others in this world.

My mind expands and so does my heart.

As I was writing my morning pages I wanted to share an excerpt because this is trauma and what it does. It may not go across as meaningful as I experienced it. But what I can tell you is that the words cascaded onto the page almost as if someone else wrote them and they evoked emotion.

That has to be the real magic they talk about of writing. It happens through us. It isn’t thinking, its feeling set to open space and room for what arises without judgment. That last part is the toughie. Without judgment, how does one do that amongst so much?

Loving myself better, for the right reasons, and thoroughly inside and out has been a life long pursuit for me. I’ve been fortunate enough to navigate myself into a position to teach others what I have learned about this journey through my counseling practice, and really through the way I live my life personally. And there’s still much work to be done. A lot of thinking this morning on how I want to be in my loving, when to be soft, when to be strong, when to bend so nothing breaks and knowing the boundaries on what is my part of the work, and when it’s outside of my control and something laid down long before I stepped on the scene.

Loving myself with my analytical nature, loving myself for my quirks, loving myself when I’m making mistakes, and being gentle, as I navigate this I’ll be better at doing the same for others.

This journey is not for the faint of heart.

So I was writing about my battle between nice girl next door who is nervous about what everyone thinks of her, and rebel without a cause who gives 0 fucks. I try to make my way toward the second, but my body even defies this option. I will always care more than I want to about everything it seems….

“A self on ice”

(A depersonalization separation disassociation until reunification)

A rebel whose stomach quivers

At the slightest disturbance,

I am a fraud my harpy critic shrieks.

All these selves will give way to

A little girl huddled down for safety

Holding her nighty night blanket

Sucking her thumb.

Where is she?

Give her back to me, I need her.

I left her.

When I am cold and hard,

I’ve left my child

And I’m guilty for it.

I stumble forward numb

Hoping to feel any connection

Scrambling for it.

That smile she had,

It was beautiful,

She lit up a room with her enthusiasm.

She’s died

A thousand times I’ve mourned her.

Each self built she went further

Underground

Until I stopped to dig and find her.

These years of doing that have

Been the hardest and the best.

I knew to love as you all deserve

I had to look at her,

See her suffering,

And not turn away in shame.

I had to hold her,

And I keep having to do so,

And it’s changed my whole world.

Fierce drive no longer cuts it,

Stopping to think how I feel,

And others as well,

Beats cold stubborn drive any day.

Now it does anyway,

But in the world of the trauma

Survivor

It’s one minute to the next,

Frantically meet that need at all costs

Zoom zoom

Leave all feeling behind

Assess situation,

find safety,

seek comfort

Run fast

No where in that is

Stop to feel

Be at peace

Love yourself

Rest

Now I am here

Seeking

Balance

No one told me

That thawing out

Could be this hard

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Suffering and Parenting Consciously

Anyone who reads this without a transcription has the patience of a God, lol. But somehow it seems more authentic.

Sometimes I think who writes like this to their kids. And the shame gremlins chime in about how perhaps “children” (though they are not anymore) should maybe not be meant to understand such adult matters. Others two cents have stated that they would have given anything to know what was going through a parent’s mind. There’s a lot of different ways to do things out there. That is for sure.

Given that we lost identical twins and my wife had a D and C five days before Christmas and two before my birthday, the year is off to a slow start enthusiasm wise. We are just navigating this perilous terrain of grief, and I wanted to share something I just realized.

A day deep in grief can seem as endless as a lifetime. Each one day spent seems like a year. Time stands still as if the beating of our hearts just stopped as well…. as if they couldn’t go on. Then for awhile your hollow chest realizes the thump is still there, and the rest of you will have to acquiesce eventually. You know you’re alive, but you can’t feel things the same way.

Everything is different and you never even gave permission for that to be so.

So here we are at the beginning of week two of 2019. Wandering numbly through the mine fields of the memories of our whole experience thus far trying to conceive. Who would ever go back for a second tour I think. But then one day I imagine we will find ourselves smiling at tiny new babies again and our dreams will re-shape themselves from the nightmares they became.

Moments of relief are where we are at now, peppered with lots and lots of sadness shrapnel. As we figure out our new expectations of ourselves, each other, and even consider a plan to move forward.

Daunting or exciting ? Do the emotions set that tone based on where we are at on our grief terrain? Or do we decide we want to be excited, AND accept the moments of suffering that just can’t be avoided as a human being?

We can only outrun or block out the inherent being of suffering for so long, it will get all of us eventually.

A dear friend is reading Eckhart Tolle’s, A New Earth. She shared with me a passage about suffering consciously. Sitting with the feelings and learning from them. That this is the only solace and way to transcend the pits of despair as it were. And even then I shall say from this experience when you’re IN suffering it seems like you’ll never get out. But somehow the resilience of the human spirit can’t help but cut through the dark. We are just made like that.

As a lighter side emerges that Chumba Wumba song, I get knocked down, but I get up again comes to mind… and all it’s silly lines.

I’m just here trying to figure it out. Trying to catch the next wave of joy, even as it seems we are swimming with sharks right now. I refuse to get out of the ocean even if I could get eaten. It’s a strange and marvelous thing this humanity.

I think of Elizabeth Gilbert often. She doesn’t even know who I am, but to me she’s a mother I never had, a best friend, a kindred spirit. I think of her grief of the loss of her partner Reyya. The other day she posted her delight at her Uber driver on the way to the airport, and that you can find joy anywhere. She is so right!

Speaking of her being a mother I never had. It’s funny how she never had children, and that was such a big deal to her at one point, other’s judgments and opinions and her own of that process. And yet I wonder how many spiritual children she has. I am certainly one. She has been a teacher, a warm shelter in the storm, and a friend in times of need. All through her beautiful words she is these. What is a parent if not these things?

Perhaps she chose to sacrifice certain aspects of individual meaning for the whole good of humanity? I wonder if she ever looked at it like that? Rather than selfish …. etc…?

Anyway yesterday my wife and I were in the car and trying to count how long it had been since surgery. We both literally estimated a month or more. We were shocked to find only a little over two weeks. I’m still thinking about this.

Time is irrelevant when it comes to the matters of the heart. I have always believed this to be true.

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There is no recipe for this

I’m all thrown out of whack, and I am trying to figure out what to do. I used to thrive on chaos so well. I used to separate myself from my feelings in order to survive and it became a way of living that served me for so long. I am finding through this that I’m not wired like that anymore and it has me completely thrown off. My heart is all thawed out which means that currently I am immobilized by grief in so many moments. And when I am not I am helping my wife who is having her moments.

Even when I am numb it is because my heart feels it almost can’t feel such suffering for one more second, it is no longer a disconnected numb. It’s a feeling numb, a raw one.

I was off to such a great start with working for Vivint and now I feel like I’ve lost my mojo. I was enthusiastic and excited and a self that loves to talk to people and right now I am just raw hamburger. I think if I see a baby right now I will just crumble into tears, if it catches me at the right moment and outside of my careful boundaries as a counselor.

I think I feel worried that I didn’t know how much I cared about this whole thing, not really fully knowing, until this happened and now it hurts. Hurting is an easier model for me than safely having faith everything will turn out ok. Or maybe I did have faith because if I didn’t I wouldn’t have been so on top of the world with excitement, an energy that seeped into everything that I did. Now I just have sad energy. And that doesn’t mean I’m not hopeful about the future, but right now I am just neck deep in these feelings and I can’t do anything to speed up this process or control it in any way.

There it is, the problem right there. The truth. I can’t just work hard and make this different. I even convinced myself that it was my steel mind that prevented me from losing my twins all those times I almost did. I’ve been in control of my own destiny for so long I’ve been living under the illusion that I have more control over things than I really do.

I couldn’t stop this.

And the tears come.

I couldn’t stop the bleeding or the things my wife is feeling right now. I just have to sit here and feel things and wait. So many fears are biting at my ankles like many a rabid dog, tearing at the corners of my mind. I can’t stop the war between feeling and knowing we already have so much to be grateful for, and truly acknowledging how this feels in its entirety for us right now. The desire to minimize and just keep moving foward quickly as a means to avoid suffering. It’s what I have always done.

I can’t outrun things anymore. No amount of staying busy will fix this. No amount of financial success etc. No cottage or new thing, or any other kind of comfort. There is nothing to do but just feel the feelings until they get less sad.

Will that happen?

The things I normally love aren’t able to bring me comfort right now either. My writing, my reading and my bounding enthusiasm all seem tasteless right now. I am eating food to satiate a bottomless well of pain. I am not eating to taste the food. I know this because I can’t taste anything. This is why I’m eating worse things lately because it has to be deliciously sweet or painfully salty to feel anything at all. And even then it’s just a temporary distraction and then right back to the darkness.

Any next step feels so completely daunting. And taking the next step even when it’s hard or I don’t know if my foot will have something secure under it… well that’s what I do. And right now even that isn’t working. I’m a doer and even picking up the phone to call a new clinic and figuring out how to have our eggs transferred etc feels too difficult. Sometimes getting dressed feels too difficult. And it definitely feels too difficult to do anything about all of this, and that’s all I got. I’m a one trick pony.

Moving foward through suffering is my trick. I’m afraid right now it will swallow me.

I think I really had convinced myself that I’m a robot incapable of the kind of suffering that has taken me over right now. The evil voice says “yes you still are”, of course your’re upset about this you didn’t get your way. And all sorts of other things that criminalize my intentions and my heart. The thing that threatens me to think badly about myself, one of my only main constants. That process to make sure I do no bad thing, the kinds that were done to me. To make sure that I watch myself carefully for flaws and ill intentions and at any single sign of one I pull the kill switch.

I’m supposed to think about what I’m supposed to think and feel and to decide, and this process falls so far outside of that I am lost in the dark wood right now.

Except this is a whole new dark wood, one I have never experienced before.

This is why defense mechanims are such powerful forces, because some of the depths of suffering we are just not meant to feel. I see they are definitely there for a reason. Everything is there for a reason, and so they say it happens that way as well. And I’m supposed to believe my suffering right now has another purpose right? Everything happens for a reason just isn’t cutting it for me to give me any sense of comfort. I am not there yet.

Why can’t I just skip to acceptance? Why do I have to feel every fucking thing so fucking much?

I’ve been in control even of my grief it has felt for all these years. I have stayed ahead of it. Can’t catch me! But this time and this thing has me in quick sand. Even my will cannot carry me through right now.

Is this where I am meant to find faith?

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The International Women’s Summit

So we are hopefully off on a new adventure. I am asking support from my reader’s to take a healing trip to recover from loss, and from the typical self-doubts all of us human beings are afflicted with.

I will hopefully be able to have a Stella with Elizabeth Gilbert! This has been a lifelong dream. I mean a lot more than that, but that’s the simple part of the dream. The more advanced is that someday she write the endorsement for my book.

Anyway my presence is required with my wife today. We are watching A Muppet Christmas Carol and doing a puzzle. Today we have a little reprieve as we are excited to create a beautiful holiday for our kiddos.

Until I can write more later here is the plum fund account and there also should be a widget on my website. I can’t wait to write more later about what this means for to have the courage to ask for help towards my dreams. And to not just automatically discount it with so many a critical thought.

https://www.plumfund.com/travel-fund/womens-pilgrimage-to-connect

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Waiting: Darkness to light. Floundering to faith.

Waiting. We are heavy with it. Heavy with an irritability and sadness that is uncharacteristic of our lives together. Both breaking and numbing at different times. Both on our own journeys; separate yet together.

Humira injection day, plus PMS day, plus emotional devastation slowly settling in and also crashing down: its more than feels bearable.

I want to eat bad things and be numb. I know it makes it worse, but sometimes the inertia is too powerful. I try and get up but it feels like I have on lead boots, and a heavy lead plate across my chest. It seems to take a gigantic amount of effort to do anything but stare off into space. I wish I could just sleep for the next few months. Hibernate and recover and wake up ok, skip the inevitable steps.

We are fucking waiting to expel our dead dreams and it is excruciating. When is it going to begin? How painful will it be? Will we see it? Should we capture it in a tiny cup for testing.

People may go through this all the time it may be common etc etc; but I guarantee you for each one of those people that didn’t change their own personal experience. The way they made sense of it, or couldn’t.

I want this extensive time alone away from the world to understand this, and to hold my wife and keep her sheltered through each wave. Except that isn’t an option. You just keep going. Sure you take moments, but you just have to keep going. Or I do anyway.

I also couldn’t have bargained or known the anxious thoughts that would plague me. The nightmares, the wakefulness when I need to rest. My mind spinning into outer space like an astronaut that’s been lost in space.

Speaking of space and my mind I can’t seem to grasp onto any clear thinking.

We ended up watching Bruce Almighty. I’ve referenced this movie hundreds of times. Somehow Courtney has never fully seen it. And watching her laugh and watch it tonight was such a pleasure. She makes my whole world better.

It’s only with a raw and open wound that we can sometimes see things we didn’t before. I loved this movie for years, it helped me learn not to feel sorry for myself. It helped me learn how to get outside my stories of tragedy and truly see the world with gratitude.

We are just sitting here caring for one another and making it to the next moment filled with joy. We truly are in a love that will weather for better or for worse, and this is what I’ve always asked for.

The rest I have to just keep having faith through. Faith in myself, faith in more good than bad at the end of the day. Faith over fear. To find my way back from my experiences seems unthinkable, but here I am…..

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Yale Schmale: Ivf Horror Story

If something doesn’t feel right it probably isn’t. Bottom line. We have had a terrible experience with Yale Reproductive Center. I don’t even want to walk back through those doors. And despite what this will be chalked up to this is not just an emotional meltdown grasping for something to blame in grief. I know all about that. I’m a mental health counselor. This is about trust. You trust a doctor because you think they know more than you, but what was missing here is that they did not care nearly (if any) about us. I’ve felt this way for a long time, but since I wanted to keep my eye on the prize and “stay positive”, like everyone tells you…. I stayed quiet. I stayed quiet through the many alarms going off in my head. My hunch is even our IUI’s could have been planned better and paid more attention to.

I think if they communicated and paid attention then we would have a baby right now. I believe that with my whole heart because of the many evidences of them not knowing what was going on with anything.

And I already know what they can and will do. They will cover up for negligence by the fact we are clearly just emotional. That’s what will happen here. That’s how large medical practices get away with things all the time.

So here is our story:

Worst experience I’ve ever had with a medical institution. You are a number. You see a different “fellow” every time, and your “doctor” one or two times. In my opinion we would have been pregnant long before if anyone in this place communicated with one another. I’m sure you could and then will chalk this up to being in a painful emotion. But that’s minimizing what actually happened here. How many irresponsible things happening with our time, our money, and our hearts.

From not knowing our correct protocol, and if I wasn’t on top of it we would have started taking incorrect medicine. To the fact that the offices terrible communication led to a decision about frozen or fresh transfer to be made immediately while I was seeing clients back to back. The woman called back and asked my wife (I’m a woman we are gay) if she wanted to talk to her husband. We have been patients of yours for over a year, you’re handling the future of our baby and our joy here, and you don’t know who we are?

Then let’s get into the back and forth over frozen or fresh transfer. It’s appearing now that we should have done frozen and we think someone set it up because that was best, but another person said it was borderline. In the end the morning of it took a long time for everyone to get on the same page. We never spoke to our actual doctor at all about this, again a melange of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd year fellows.

I am not a doctor and I was concerned about the high thyroid levels that spiked with the fertility medications, the ones that we tried so hard to get down prior to trying to conceive. Our thyroid checks were not stayed on top of throughout, because no one speaks to each other.

We get a report in the beginning of mono diamniotic twin pregnancy, we are cautious as it’s early. And nervous because it’s higher risk and we know that. We go back in and it appears there is one sac and a hematoma on the other side of the membrane, we are possibly a twin down and we went in for heavy bleeding. At this time we see a tiny heartbeat and are given hope, sent home with a picture of our baby. No one said what I was thinking the whole time. If one twin goes because of a chromosome abnormality and they are identical the other is going. Was it too early to know these things. Sure. Should we have been fully spoken to by our doctor, a full experienced doctor about the risks. The heartbeat was 110, the bottom of the scale, it was on its way out too and yet we went home excited and the staff encouraged that. No one said be cautious and specifics about the mono di.

In fact no other resident even mentioned the twin situation. An actual doctor dr Pal, did the first ultrasound and gave us real info, including how early to tell. We aren’t stupid, but it’s the most questions I had answered the whole time. She did not check on us when we had bleeding, she did not check on us at all.

At this time we were told to come back 3 days later on a Monday to check things. My wife called to make the appointment and they said they didn’t have anything til Thursday. Again if we were told to come for bleeding where is the follow through.

This fertility clinic is the do it yourself variety. This is the target self checkout and if there is an error you better know how to fix it yourself. I have so many questions, so many anxieties, my wife and this baby we want to have are my world. I’m not a number. I’m a human.

So the set up was one baby was ok with a heartbeat and the bleeding stopped fully and we got excited again. And when she went to the ultrasound I was on FaceTime because I’m trying to provide and it’s just an early one. I had been at every other appointment no matter how small. But this one my wife’s twin went with her and I was on FaceTime. I got to hear our baby has no heart beat and probably hasn’t in a week from another different doctor over a screen before my 3 pm client. Again no word from dr Pal. We should have stopped progesterone a week ago so my wife and I could get on with our grief, and we would have known that if they talked to each other and prioritized our Monday appointment. We had just had bleeding. No one cared whatsoever.

Yale gets picked for its name. And I think they have forgotten real human values. It’s a machine, and contrary to their words to dismiss my many concerns they are not “a well oiled machine.” I will never affiliate myself with this group again.

My wife was sent home with a hat to collect our dead baby in and a specimen cup, and a two sided pamphlet about support groups. No word any of the way through our miscarriage from the actual experienced doctor.

The only comfort there are the few gems of nurses we will remember fondly in our hearts. The ones who get it. Doctors became arrogant and lost, and I just plan to learn from that. That I’m not too important to sit with a human and talk to them fully about what they are feeling and going through.

We will be just a statistic to them, an angry customer clearly clouded by grief, but they have a legacy with us.

We will be seeking out a space to share our very intimate fertility journey with people who genuinely show us the attention we deserve when they are getting thousands of our dollars, and holding our hope in their hands. There is a way you treat people and this was not it.

We will not be walking back through the doors of Yale fertility! There is a reason their reviews are terrible. I am so disappointed and hurt with the lack of care we have received.

I will never again put our care in the hands of someone who is an expert in medicine that isn’t also an expert in caring about the individual.

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The unthinkable

*also please don’t tell us it was early or it will all be ok, tell us it’s ok to express our journey as we see fit, and that you will hold us through our pain.*

What they fail to tell you when you’re a survivor of trauma, huge life transitions, and vicious ongoing self-development; is that you won’t hit a place where human suffering becomes less. Unknowing of this you will keep searching. Maybe the beauty is that you search anyway.

There is a certain amount of entitlement that a survivor has. They almost expect that if and when they have worked hard to turn their stars around that life will grant them a time to sail peacefully. Perhaps I am not capable of sailing peacefully, because I’m too determined to fill every page. I fill in the margins, and the back, and the top, and then I make notes around that too.

My best friend calls it defying gravity.

We thought we could defy gravity with science and this time again is not the one for us. Again.

It has however allowed me the opportunity to view with extreme clarity the many changes in myself that have occurred over the last two years. It has allowed me to know I won’t shatter into a million pieces. It’s allowing this unique look at my sensitivity. I thought I was Teflon before, and that was all wrong. You are not Teflon until you have experienced unspeakable loss. And even then soft can never be Teflon, you may think you are, but you are not.

I thought I experienced suffering before, but this is an entirely different ball game. This time I’m attached to all my feelings. This helps me understand why the body has such elaborate defense mechanisms in place, because we humans have soft skin and tender hearts for a reason. We are meant to connect with others and to commune with our innermost voices, and yet so many of us become so different as a result of the world we live in. It is not a place for soft skin and warm smiles.

This inevitable contradiction blinds me with pain on a daily basis.

I was working so hard to be able to have time to relax with family, and now again crisis takes precedence and our time off together becomes grieving. This is one of the worst parts. Thinking of getting back into the swing of work, or talking about it without crying.

Watching her is the worst part. Watching her wonder if she could have done something differently. Watching her wracked with sobs. It cuts through me. And now we wait to see if her body will expel is naturally or if we go for a D & C. Wondering if our donor and her are in some way incompatible and thousands of dollars are wasted. Wondering if we can’t have one at all. If we will. If I even think I could make it through this again.

This isn’t just one loss, and “it’s early”, and you have more frozen embryos. This is a year of waiting to exhale. Focusing, surrendering, sacrificing all our time to relax and play together for appointments, needles, injections, tests, poking and prodding and at the end all that hard work is supposed to pay off.

Except that isn’t how the world works. Also while I know I’m angry right now the word Yale means nothing to me. Perhaps I’ll write out experience in the next blog post because I need to get it documented anyway. Just because a couple of nurses are kind does not make it comprehensive or a good experience. After the bleeding we were told to go back on Monday for an ultrasound, they didn’t have an apt Monday (even though we were told). No communication that this was a necessary appointment, that if one twin was lost the other might follow.

Except we were elated by that tiny heartbeat on the screen. Ok good we have one. Not at one point did anyone even know what was happening in there. With our chart or file. No one has checked on her. Our Dr does not care, we have ten doctors.

We had to decide frozen or fresh transfer at 5 pm when I had clients all evening and then no one knew what was happening. A lady called my wife and said you’ll need to discuss this with your husband. This is a fertility clinic for crying out loud. They aren’t used to same sex couples? We had been attending a year and you don’t know us? It was so frustrating, but we let ourselves block it and so many other things out because eye on the prize.

A doctor who was seasoned and knew what they were doing would have warned that mono di twins might be different, the heart rate was in the lowest end of the spectrum. Yet we came home with an ultrasound picture and hope in our hearts. I think they could have known at that time if someone was paying attention. Yale is a fertility farm and we were cattle. I’m furious. I kept chalking up my frustrations to normal things on my end, but looking now at all the dropped balls.

We are going to take our 4 remaining babysicles somewhere else. Norwalk I think. I’m done. I wonder if they see too much extreme hope and extreme suffering and have had to desensitize themselves completely?

And before that we need a vacation. I’ve missed my wife for a year. We need to give some tlc to us and our relationship, and find a new normal. This dream is just too painful right now.

We have other things to focus on for awhile.

At least I get to know I wouldn’t want anyone else to go through something like this with. Rather than tearing at one another we are careful and kind. The other is sacred to us, and that is an irreplaceable gift in this world.

Back to square one…. again..

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New is scary…. everything is so fucking scary

I’m thinking back to Elizabeth Gilbert’s book Big Magic, and how much it helped me to change my perspective on fear.

I am in a space right now where things are scary again. I am learning many new skills with understanding the business of solar and how to present numbers and designs to clients. I am so not a numbers gal. This is really intimidating for me. You come out of the gate needing to understand how to present information to people. And I am so literal and it is so important to me to be honest. I am finding if I don’t fully understand something and am trying to explain it as if I do it feels incongruent in such a way that I completely freeze up. So lately I am doubting my ability to close the deals so to speak. This is called a Welcome Call in my world. I mean I know that the District Managers can’t close my deals forever.

So here is what I am trying to do. I am trying to think back to my level of fear before I knocked my first door. The very first day that I tried I sat in my car driving around for hours trying to get enough courage. I texted Courtney lots of times of how afraid I was, and how I couldn’t do it. And she just kept telling me I was so brave, until I was forced to believe it myself. When someone believes in you so thoroughly you have no choice but to rise up to that blessing. She is my blessing. So I knocked. It ended terribly. The woman was beyond rude. And yet I went skipping down the steps with glee at the fact I had mustered enough courage to even knock this first door.

It did not get easier as soon as you would have thought. The next day I got up enough courage to knock three doors and by the time I was done I needed a serious nap. In between each one it probably took an hour to muster the courage. My heart pounded in my chest when I knocked and I hoped they wouldn’t come to the door. When they did I stuttered and stumbled. These nights when bed time came I passed out fully clothed on the outside of my bed. I was too tired to even undress. Now that I am reflecting on this I am thinking in one perspective I could wonder what is wrong that this isn’t easier. I could be nasty to myself. But when I am looking right now I feel like a warrior. Because this is my real experience with this and I am still going. That is the only thing that matters is that you still try. With parenting, with relationships, with learning something new. The only thing that matters is you keep squaring up with your fears. You don’t let them drive the car, they have to come along to keep you safe and aware, but they don’t call the shots.

So 20 days into my 60 day trial period where I have to prove myself I have 4 out of 10 welcome calls. One more and I get to attend a cruise to the Bahamas, and if I get all 10 then Courtney gets to come with me. I love a good challenge so this is fun for me and keeps me feeling alive and engaged. Why not?! It’s the challenge, and the small incentive challenges within the challenge that makes it fun for me. I have always enjoyed being challenged. That is kind of comical if you knew my life, because if I am not challenged from an outside source I will create my own, setting them up like a track of hurdles at a meet. I make pole vault sized hurdles, and then expect myself to get over them as if they were just jumps.

And because I believe I can I do.

The fears nipping at my heels the entire time. You aren’t made to do this. You don’t understand ALL the info you aren’t an expert yet, so you’re going to look stupid at a closing alone. You will stumble and get nervous because these people are intimidating, and think you’re out to screw them over, and if you’re afraid that’s what you’re doing without knowing it, you’ll fear being insincere. If you don’t put everything into one thing then the rest of anything will fall apart. I’ve cut back on my hours of the stable employment that I LOVE to grow myself.

But did you hear that? I did it to grow myself. If I am going to help others grow, my continual self-growth is crucial. Staying fresh and engaged. Again I will think of my hero Elizabeth Gilbert and her style of writing. The fact that before she writes a book she will spend 3-5 years immersed in researching everything about the topic, and then like training for a marathon she quarantines herself with her love, a delicious tryst versus being caged. She shows up dressed and ready early in the morning to commune with her writer’s gift and she creates works that her reader’s love. I want to find my groove with writing, and to do that I need to buy some time, and to buy some time I’m going to need some more money and a space that I feel as if I can commune in.

Our baby is the size of a raspberry this week. 7 weeks and 2 days (ish), it has a tiny heartbeat and looks like a little hunched over tad pole. We get to see it again at the end of this week, and I am wondering when we “graduate” to the normal OB, and who we will pick for that special special task of helping us deliver our baby in a way that feels best for us, and keeping him/her safe until that point.

I have so many questions. I always have so many questions. It used to be annoying to others and I always knew that. Now more and more I see it for the gift it is. To stay curious and open is to be engaged in our lives. I want always to be this way in my life.

There is a work truck outside that has interrupted my morning commune with myself, and I am none too thrilled about it. I’ve tried to do what I can to drown it out. I want my Nature and quiet at the colony in Woodstock. I am still trying to figure that out, as I stash the cash to be able to purchase it. Will I be able to take THAT RISK. When I have that kind of money. Should I not put it to my student loans or a down payment on a different home? So many things need to come before that.

Shouldn’t I be able to write anywhere? But that just isn’t true. Right now I write in the bath tub to drown out all other enough, and in certain ways as you might imagine it isn’t ideal. I want to walk in the woods and have that unique meditation. I think I will have to make friends with the space I am in. Know it well enough that nothing new is spiking my interest before my attention will relax itself enough to produce writing. I need a spiritual space where I feel accepted and alive. I felt that way there. I also felt that way at Omega. I must answer this dream. I must.

So to be able to answer people’s questions and know what I am doing this will require some studying and learning and rehearsing. So I am not frozen in the moment. Truth be told I am probably more interested in all the human aspects of people once i am in the door. So many of them are widows and recently lost a loved one, or new and starting out.

That is what I am interested in, not if I can close the deal.

Such a large portion of life is discovering who we are and who we are not. We can do a great many things that can be taught, but do we want to is the question? For me I have no other choice but to strive for tasks that light me up and make me present. Counseling does that, and yet I still need to stay fresh and learning new things. And I never liked that to be only one thing. I am learning so many things about people from being in their homes and having the challenge of challenging them about a new and scary concept. A new way to source their energy. Tired and overwhelmed people who just don’t want to bother with something new whether it’s a better idea or not.

Anyway that’s another blog post I think. So I’m just here learning new things each day, preparing to turn 38, wondering what I’ll be like as a mom this go round, being in awe and radical gratitude of my capabilities….

Learning is life..