Someone should award me a Golden Globe

Did I ever tell you I trained as an actor?   Well, I did.  Many years ago.  I never thought that my greatest performance would be in the living room managing my infertility status whilst singing “Happy Birthday” to my niece at her 1st birthday party.

That’s where I was at yesterday.  The first half of the afternoon was fine, although significantly, during that time the children were playing outside and their parents, (my SIL and brother), were mostly absent as well.  My brother was at the BBQ and I’m not quite sure where my SIL was…maybe watching the kids?  Anyway, point being, during the first hour and a half the DH and I were in the lounge room chatting with my sister and her fiance about their recent overseas trip and we were doing fine.  

At some stage the BBQ was ready and we all sat down to eat.  There was some chatter about kids but we managed to divert the conversation to other topics at regular intervals to give us a breather.  I remained calm and mostly consiously aware of what I was saying and I stuck to the plan of being quiet when things were getting a bit too intense.  In the past this has worked.

I should point out here that I don’t mean to imply that I’m usually an extrovert.  I’m not.  But sometimes, in situations where children and mothers dominate, I become ungrounded and start to respond enthusiastically, (and falsely) to conversations about babies and bringing up kids.  It’s as if I’m trying to over compensate for my deficit or reassure people that I’m really doing “O.K”.   Unfortunately this can lead to extended conversations that revolve around raising kids, and when I say extended I mean conversations that last for well over and hour or two.   During such conversations I am often wounded, but don’t feel the pain until much later when I realise that I should have excused myself politely after the 15 minute mark and gone to talk to someone else about the latest weather report.   Unfotunately such conversations are really hard to get away from when the group is small and you are all confined to one area, though really that’s no excuse.  I could always take a short walk or a long bathroom break.  No one would miss me.

So at lunch I began to “space out”.  I lost my bearings.  The kids were now with us and my Nephew, (who really is gorgeously cute), began to play with DH and I.  He was really taken with DH this time and even snuggled into him a bit.

Picture this.  We are seated on the couch and on one  side my Nephew is snuggling up to DH. On the other side my brother is holding the baby girl who’s gurgling and chuckling as he jogs her up and down on her knee while he, (my brother), grins at me, waits for my reaction and jogs her up and down again.  The scene is unbearably cute.

And so it goes on…and on.  I really couldn’t tell you the details of the next hour or so as I wasn’t really present.  Somehow I had disapeared inside myself and in my place was a relentlessly cheerful Aunt.

The cheerful Aunt was knocked out later when the sugary butterfly birthday cake was presented.  My brother’s young family clustered around the cake and it’s single lit candle while my sister took photos.  At one point my brother looked admiringly at his children and wife posing for the “1st birthday photo” and cooed “Oh, look at the little family”.  My heart stopped. It skipped a beat.  I have previously thought of that phrase as “just” an expression, but it really happens!  I felt my body lurch.   I’m sure no one noticed as I probably still had the “ cheerful aunt” smile plastered to my face, but inside I cracked and cried.

We had about an hour to go after that, during which time DH and I stuffed down our tears with pink frosted birthday cake.  We talked about kids movies and animation and my brother expressed amazement at us not having seen  ”Kung Fu Panda”.   I was compelled to exclaim,  ”We don’t have kids”.  The statement was a bit irrelevant and definitely halted the conversation  in an akward manner, but by that time I was just trying to find some ground to stand on. Some way of orientating myself.  Someplace to exist.  I claimed our infertility and gained some measure of safety.  We left soon after, thanking the hosts for a lovely day,  but not before being herded outside to watch the kids race their tricycles and applaud accordingly.

Now….I want that Golden Globe.

Oh where, oh where have my boundaries gone?

 You know how as an infertile woman there is practically no one to talk to about what you’re going through?  Very few people want to know the details, or even the abstractions,  of the experience.  There is lots of “chin up” advice  floating around, and proclamations about how lucky you are because you get to sleep in.  At least, (apart from my gorgeous sister) that’s how I’ve experienced other people’s reactions with regard to infertitlity.   As such, my boundaries around this topic have firmed up considerably over the years.  I am very careful about whom I speak to about the emotional and physical journey of infertility.

I was therefore stunned when I found myself opening up to a lady at my local tea shop yesterday.  To contextualise this properly I should mention that I make tea cosy’s for the shop to sell.  They have been most kind and do not even take a commission on them.  I also buy fine tea from them on a regualar basis,  (because it is one of my favourite indulgences) and we have had a couple of friendly chats over the past six months.    So; we are friendly but not intimate aquaintances.

All it took was what I took to be a genuinely sympathetic look when I mentioned that we “sadly” didn’t have kids,  for me to regale her with the trials of IVF.   It helped that she mentioned that her SIL  had IVF and she seemed to know what she was talking about with regard to ovary stimulation and the steadily diminshing number of viable eggs that occurs after that first folicle number you are given.     But still…this is not like me.  I shocked myself and now feel terribly embarrassed. 

 It was just such a relief to be able to tell someone and for them to respond sympathetically.

splitting

Last weekend we celebrated my mother’s birthday with an afternoon tea at my brother’s house.  Unfortunately my sister and fiance couldn’t come so it was just mum, dad, my brother,  his wife and their children.    All afternoon the conversation was peppered with talk about how hard it is to be a parent, the joys of being a parent and grandparent and annecdotes about what the kids have done lately. 

DH and I tried to contribute to the conversation but when those are the primary topics we are really left out in the cold.  I particularly resent being given mini- lectures by my well meaning brother about what life is like when you’ve got kids.  

The really difficult part is that I feel drawn to my nephews and niece.  They are delightful children who just want to play.  I enjoy racing around the garden with them and discovering flowers and bugs and wondering why things work the way they do.    

That is to say, part of me enjoys being with them.  A whole other part is screaming in pain that I will never have my own children to experience this with.  That I can only ever be a small memory in these children’s lives.   I hope I will be a good memory for them.

Meanwhile I know that my Mum, Dad, Brother and SIL look on and are glad that I’m handling this all so well now.  Well, I can hardly interrupt every conversation to say…”Yes, life’s  also tough when you can’t have children”…”Yes, well the only reason we get to sleep in is because there’s no child to wake us up”…”No, we really don’t have more money because we don’t have children – we’re still paying back our loan for the IVF that didin’t work”…  etc. etc. 

They don’t understand that every family visit ends in tears for us.  I return home split in two. Not because anybody has done anything wrong.  It’s just the way it is.    For other people our drama is over.  We did IVF last year.  It didn’t work and now we are getting on with life.  For us the pain continues – True, we did IVF last year.  Last year we had hope.   This year part of us mourns and part of us tries to enjoy those children who are in the peripheral part of our lives.  The two parts do not intermingle well.  We are split in two.

Happy Birthday to me…

Well,  about a month ago I turned 40. Amidst the congratulations from friends there were many comments such as “It’s only a number”.  Not so.  You can probably guess who these comments came from.  Yes, that’s right – they came from those with young children.    As someone who is infertile the number 40 is pretty meaningful to me.  We had expected to have children (plural)  by 40.  I had expected to stop trying to conceive by 40.  I had expected to be moving on.  None of these things have happened and the fear  of being childless has increased.  I wonder if I will be able to move on once menopause hits?  I imagine then that I might then be able to say, “No, nup, never…it’s not going to happen”.  Until then….I’m on the other side of 40.

A couple of posts ago I received a comment which was really a link to a blog site.  It seemed to be very anti – IVF and was quite poorly written in terms of grammer, so I don’t think the author’s arguments were expressed very well.  I can honestly say I felt a little attacked when I investigated the site.  But I have decided to leave the link in as there are some points I believe are valid, such as considering the notion of Identity.    Plus…I want to make a point. It is the assumption that I, or “We”, as  IVF participants,  have not thought about such notions that I find offensive.   Of course I have wrestled with the idea that a child conceived from a donor egg may have unique challenges ahead in terms of  identity and their search for a place in the world.  Of course I have thought about adoption.  But each person must find there own way through this.  Who am I to judge another’s struggles or reactions to a gut wrenchingly emotional  time of loss and longing?  I bring to these decisions my own background and experiences of childhood, as does everyone who goes through such a journey.  The decision to do IVF, to adopt or to use donor eggs and/or sperm is not made lightly or quickly.     My decisions have been more like processes developed over seven years!  And yes, I am still questioning and still questing.    I am outraged, not that someone else thinks that I should think about such ideas, but that they would assume that I hadn’t!

How’s this for insanity?

So… I am one day late for my period.  One day late after an extremely stressful week which would absolutely account for the delay. Yet because my husband and I managed to have sex at exactly the right time last cycle I have hopes.  I have hopes after 7 years!  I have hopes despite the fact that part of the problem is getting the sperm to reach the egg!  I have hopes despite the fact that I’m 40 and my eggs are old.  I have hopes despite the fact that the last two IVF treatments failed because the egg didn’t fertilize properly, or at all.    I have hopes despite the image in the mirror reflecting back a chin full of hormonal pimples.  I have PMS and still have hope!  Hope? Insanity is more like it! (It’s killing me!)

Confidences

Over the past seven years people with children have had a number of different reactions to my childless state.  One very common reaction is to tell me that I can have their children if I want them.  When said publically this is the source of lots of laughter and bonding between those who are parents.  But sometimes this is said privately, sorrowfully.  Sometimes it’s not those exact words that are said.  Sometimes parents whisper confidences to me.  They wonder aloud to me if their lives would have been better without children.

Yesterday I was at a writer’s meeting and, as I was signing in, I had a chat to the security guard.  He knows our little group quite well now.  Somehow we got on to the topic of age.  He queiried how old I was.  He looked very suprised when I replied that I was “nearly 40″.  Then…(you can hear it coming can’t you?)…he asked if I had kids.  ( At least he asked, not assumed).  When I gave him the standard reply: “Sadly, no”.  He asked if it was because something was wrong with me or my husband.  I am always glad that I get to say “both of us”; that the blame is evenly weighted.  I am also always both outraged and amused that people ask this intensely intimate question without any hesitation. 

He paused, tossed his hands in the air and said dramatically, “You can take mine!”  I smiled and somberely looked into his eyes saying,  “That seems to be the way of it.”  In turn his face dropped and in a lowered voice so that only I, the infertile one, would hear,  confided in me that he often thought about what would have happened if he hadn’t had kids.  He wondered why he had them. He questioned what it was all for, when all they do is grow up and die, same as all of us.  He wondered if his life would have been more fulfilling without them and what kind of things he would have done if he didn’t have them.  I nodded and spoke one word  ”Life”.  He nodded and for one moment we both acknowledged our same experience with regard to having children: disapointment.    It didn’t make me angry.  I am finally begining to see that their are many parents who play out some fantasy of being a fabulously fulfilled Mum and Dad for the benefit of other parents.  But as an infertile person I occassionally get a glimpse of their own disappointment that, despite having kids, they still have a void in their lives.  We all have them.   I see that children don’t fill that void.

I am a horrible person

…or at least that’s often how I feel after dealing with situations that directly confront my infertility.  Take yesterday.  We attended the Baptism of my niece and nephew – my brother’s children.  I can honestly say that no-one, not one single soul said anything hurtful to us.  The ceremony didn’t even mention the “blessing” that children are to a marriage.  And yet I dissociated.

After the service we were meant to be going back to my brother’s house for what I thought were light refreshments.  Because my brother works at the church we actually ended up having to stay with the rest of the congregation to  have morning tea in the little playground behind the church with all the kids running around.  This meant that we didn’t get to B’s house until later.  We stood in the front yard, again with all the kids running around, and talked with a  lovely young guy for an hour or so.  Eventually conversation ran out and DH and I wondered if we  could leave yet.  My B and SIL hadn’t yet appeared. They were still preparing things in the kitchen.  I had wondered about this because I thought that celebrations we just going to be morning tea and a cake after the service and we were already at the two hour mark post-service with no sign of any “celebratory cake cutting”.  DH and I had previously decided that we wouldn’t stay more than an hour and so had already exceeded our limit.   My back was killing me from standing up for so long and I had my period so I felt doubly shocking.  We decided to leave even though we hadn’t talked to my B or SIL at all yet. 

We walked into the kitchen to find them preparing lunch.  Lunch?  Had we been invited for lunch?  I started to feel guilty about leaving, and then a bit annoyed that we hadn’t been told it was for lunch, because if we had been told we could have prepared ourselves mentally, or had a break between the service and lunch and not stood around limply in the kids playground after the service.    My brother seemed sad that we were leaving and I felt even more guilty but I wished he had communicated the plans for the day more fully to us. 

We walked back to the car, relieved to have left, but full of the sadness and hurt and anger at our situation – emotions that we’d just spent 2 hours hiding underneath polite smiles and small talk.  DH suggested that we stop into a little coffee shop nearby.  I agreed as we needed time to just sit by ourselves before starting the  1 & 1/2 hour journey home to our empty house.

At the cafe I ordered a “T2″ (good brand) pot of tea while H ordered an extra strong coffee.  I was served a cup of hot water with a lipton tea bag in it.  “Great!”, I snapped, “What I really need now is another cup of crap tea!”  And with that my face crumpled and I began to cry – in the middle of the cafe.  Luckily it was not the sobbing kind of crying.  It was the kind of crying where tears just stream down your face.  After some moments I collected myself.  I was suprised that I had cried – I had thought I was doing ok.  Just 10 minutes ago I had managed a false smile and lively chit chat.

DH and I talked about what was happening.  About how, even though we had managed the situation quite well, it is impossible to guard against the sneakiness of grief.  About how DH had been unable to look at the children as they played around our feet.  About how it would have been better if we’d known that we were meant to be there for lunch as we could have prepared ourselves mentally and emotionally.  About how people with children possibly just expect to stay a long time when they arrive at friend’s homes, (after all they’ve just spent so much time and effort packing up and getting there and the children were playing well together so it would make sense to hang around for a while, wouldn’t it?).   About how we have no idea if the previous statement is true and it’s probably really stupid of us to try and think like fertile people.  About how we feel like outsiders, observers, imposters, stealthily slinking around the edges of other people’s lives.  About how angry we feel at having to constantly pretend to be OK infront of others.

We drove home still talking.  We had brunch on our balcony.  We spent some time apart. I drove down to the ocean, which was churning and thrashing. I cried.  I came back home and we settled down for the night together.

This morning I read the invitation that I’d stuck on the fridge.  It said, after the formal invitation to the baptism, “please join us for a light lunch afterwards”.   I hadn’t read it properly.  I had obviously skimmed over the invitation, as I do when I receive any invitations to baptisms, baby showers or children’s birthdays.  I had replied in the affirmative without even realising what I’d agreed to.  No wonder my brother seemed a little hurt and confused when we left before lunch.  It was my oversight, not his.

Our House

Last night I had a really, really bad sleep. Despite a sleeping pill ( a herbal one, don’t worry), I didn’t sleep much.  My tired old brain just kept on running around the problem circuit.  My sister just recently got engaged.  They plan to get married next year and I’m wondering if it is just too much to expect that she will still want to be my donor egg person this year.  I think if I asked her right now she would say yes, but in 6 months time when she’s preoccupied by the wedding? 

I’m also wondering if it’s even fair to ask this of her in her engagement year.  After all, I love her very much and want this year to be a special one for her.  She’s had a rough time in the past and deserves a huge helping of joy and attention.  Do I have the right to ask this of her at this time in her life? Last year she knew we might be planning to do a donor egg cycle this year.  But I suspect her engagement might change things just a little.  She is 12 years younger than me and used to call me “Mum” when she was little because I was highly involved in her care.  I love her so much and really want her to experience this time as her “own”.    But I’m turning 40 this year, and unfortunately every year counts.

Today DH and I went for a swim.  It’s near the end of the season.  Each swim could be our last for the year so we are paying particular attention to the beauty of the sea whenever we step into the waves.  Today there were tiny sand coloured fish that swam around my toes.  My fingertips were crinkly by the time we stepped out of the cool water.  We lay on the beach soaking up the late afternoon sun.  All was perfect until a family a few feet away from us started talking loudly abount the mundane aspects of their lives with kids.  Was it loud, or did it just feel like they had a megaphone hanging from their lips?

We returned to our house, washed our feet and climbed the stairs to the balcony.  DH looked up the side and started talking about home extensions: a second story, a studio downstairs for me with an attached room in which children could play……if we had them…or if we had one.

Our house is small.  One lounge/dining, a kitchen nook, one bathroom and 3 small bedrooms.  Room enough for 2…or maybe 3.

Old Friends

It’s been one thing explaining the IVF/”why we don’t have children thing” to new friends, where there is no expectation that they will be understanding because we don’t “know” eachother yet.  It’s been quite another thing to deal with old friends and their various reactions to what we’re going through.
For example:

I went to Uni with X about 15 years ago.  It was a very intense and personal course and we became very good friends.  After Uni we flatted together until she met a guy who became her husband, and I met a guy who became mine.  Once we were married and lived a distance away from eachother we quite naturally saw eachother less.  Though we are not in frequent contact we have been privy to eachother’s successes and challenges.  Her pregnancies.  My IVF.  Two factors that have contributed, I am sure, to our fading friendship. 

During last year she never, not once, sent an email or phoned to see how the IVF was going.   She sent an email recently to see if we could catch up.  She sent in that email a link to a job website - I am currently not looking for work.  She said in that email “I hope you are well?”

How are you meant to  respond to that question from an old friend when you are not actually going well at all.  Should we be all polite and stiff upper lip and protect the old friend from our discomfort?  Or should we come right out and say it?

I said it:  “We are both coming to grips with the fact that IVF was unsuccessful” .

Her reply: “Yes, I kind of figured it hadn’t gone well.  Last year must have been very trying”.  Then she went on to tell me about how her daughter was doing and signed off saying some “mommy” thing about having to go now and clean up all the chaos that the kids had made in the loungeroom.

Does anyone else find this unempathic?  

I’ve just told my friend one of the most disapointing and sorrowful things in my life and she responds that she had worked it out (yet hadn’t checked in to see if I was ok) ; then she supposes that last year must have been hard (honey – it’s not just one year – it’s the implications for the rest of our lives at stake here) ; and then she regales me with stories of her children.

Now….in a new friend…I’d just write this, (and possibly them) off as being not very understanding people.  But  such a response from an old friend?  It’s hurtful that this topic is so uncomfortable for them that they can’t handle it or you, and so you lose contacts, and even if you don’t lose the friend, the friendship is hollowed out somewhat.

The new year rolls on.

I can hardly believe that 2009 is here…and that I made it through 2008 – the year of unfullfilled promises.  We started off 2008 with hope in our hearts for a successful IVF.    I’m not sure how we’re starting off 2009.  It feels like it has rolled on despite us.  I am not ready.  I haven’t even recovered after Christmas and New Years yet! 

Christmas and New Year’s was full of family…just not ours.  It has been a very, very sad time for us and yet we’ve smiled along with everyone else.   Just last weekend I found myself in the middle of a room full of women discussing child care and the hardships of being a Grandmother.  One of these women was my Mother.  It was so hard to carry on a conversation with them thinking that I will most likely never get to be a mother, let alone a grandmother.   It was so hard to sit there and feel invisible because I had nothing to contribute.  What can I know, or share of the difficulties of child-care?

A much more interesting, (i.e. interesting to me) conversation was occuring in the next room.  The next room was full  of men.  I wonder if it is always to be like this now, that I will find myself separate from the women and leaning towards the men who are suprised that I’m not with the women.  When did the sexes become so divided again anyway?  I don’t remember this division from Uni days…does it happen once people “settle down” and have children.  I can’t imagine wanting to sit in a room full of women talking only women’s business, even if I had children. 

I am left wondering where my true place in the world is.  I know that is not an uncommon existential question…but infertility lends it’s own bent to the problem.

We still have not decided if we will try donor eggs.  My Sister is still willing though she has to come off some medication first.  At this stage I think we might be ready by half way through the year.  If we are going to be ready at all, that is.  By then I will be 40.  I feel old.  Infertility makes me feel older than I am, I think.  Or maybe, I just am actually this old.