The line

So, everyone is vain.  But I am REALLY. VAIN.  Vainer than the average bear.  Vainer than many people would expect, particularly the Viking, who has to put up with this nonsense.

It's probably the ballet.  Being instructed - no, actually expected - to stare at yourself in front of full-length mirrors four hours and hours on end will do that to a chick.  And it's an art that is all about a never ending quest effortless perfectionism (which is why the quest is never-ending, because there is no such thing as perfect, bitches). 

But the nit-pickiness of ballet has always bled into other aspects of my vanity.  For example, most people notice that I never leave the house without red lipstick.  I could be keeling over from the flu, but if someone finds my lifeless body, I will have a little color on my face.  And I have really thick, dark eyebrows that need a lot of love and shaping, so yes, I often shut my door at work and to pluck my brows when no one's looking.  Which is how I arrived to obsess about....

The line.  It's a frown line.  Smack in the middle of my head, right between my eyebrows.  A deep crease that I am sure is the vestige of four years of non-stop crying and stressed out brow-furrowing and fertility hand-wringing. 

The baby weight of 53 weeks of pregnancy is starting to come off.  But this line is taunting me.  I really wish I could be stoic about it, and proudly wear it as a survivor of all of this fucked-upedness. 

But, as we established, I am stupidly vain for a forty-two year old.

So guess who just spent an hour of her life she will never get back researching over-the-counter wrinkle fillers.  Gah.  Welcome to middle-age.

A confession about invisible rocks

So one of my coping skills is pretty common, but it sort of makes me uncomfortable.... I wonder if it means that I am relishing other people's suffering, making me someone who isn't empathic, but actually some horrible sort of sociopath.

So, here goes:
I often think of myself as carrying a giant invisible rock on my shoulders.  That rock is the sum total of grief and pregnancies and babies that never survived for over three years.  It's a constant weight, it is attached to me in staff meetings at work, in the hallways of Niblet's school, and when I am hanging around with friends.

Here's where the coping starts:  I imagine every person I interact with as carrying their own giant rock.  Because it's invisible, I can't see what it's composed of.  It could be the death of a loved one, a childhood trauma, or any stressful situation that would bring anyone to tears.

In the cases of friends who have had success with babies, when confronted with their reality - how THEY were allowed to have what was brutally taken away from me - I often remind myself of what I do know.   
 Her Dad died when she was young.   
Her marriage didn't survive.   
She lived through foster-care.

In the case of strangers on the street or in the grocery store:
She might have lost one too.
Are they going to make their rent this month?
Is her loved one sick?

When I think too hard about this, I get deeply uncomfortable.  What kind of person does this make me? To be comforted by the fact that deeply personal shitty things don't just happen to me, that they also happen to other people?  That everyone has a giant rock?

In Transition

So, what does it mean to be in a definitive phase in your life where you are no longer TTC?

And as long as you're getting a period every month, is it even possible to live without the vestiges of fertility on the brain???  I mean, are there women out there who have given up on ever conceiving, who are having sex while their ovaries are blaring (as some ovaries do), who are not thinking "I could totally get knocked up by this?"

I've written plenty about how none of this can exactly shut off with a switch.  Nearly four years of trying to make a baby will necessarily affect the way you live your life... though in some aspects, perhaps, for the better.

Like, I was telling my acupuncturist this morning that I really have no intention of eliminating my crazy supplement regimen.  If the (pseudo?)-science is true, then being diligent about taking my high dose methylfolate is a good way for a MTHFR mutant to live.  Similarly, who couldn't use more vitamins, particularly more D, fish oil and Co-Q-10? 

Next month will be exactly one year since my last pregnancy ended.  My year of kind-of-sort-of-trying-but-not-having-my-heart-fully-in-it-because-I-don't-want-to-be-heartbroken-again is coming to an end.  I just survived another birthday. 

Some of the difficulty this past year had come from trying to temper the Viking's expectations.  He hasn't given up, I can tell.  "I think I'm actually infertile now," I've been telling him the past few months. I wonder when it will really sink in for him.

in other news...

I am going to a baby shower in a few weeks.  For a friend who suffered though a few years of unexplained infertility and a miscarriage.  She's incredibly sensitive, always posting very carefully on FB, and being mindful of the infertiles out there (including one of her own family members whose only hope of a genetically-linked baby is through surrogacy). Anyways, you'll all possibly remember my attending PBFAW's baby shower in the midst of my mammo-crisis.

So this is nothing new for me, technically....  Buuuuut it's the first baby shower I am attending where I am going to actively - I mean ACTIVELY - turn off the hope (that I could ever be the lucky recipient of such a celebration)..

my only regret

I've mentioned before, Niblet's infancy was sort of brutal.  Other words come to mind.  Colic.  PPD.  Helplessness. 

She didn't sleep through the night until she was completely weaned, at 12 months.

But she was the loveliest baby in the world.  The kind of baby that made people stop us in the street and ask me "Is that YOUR baby?" (because she looked so much like her father, and I guess being much darker than her that I looked like, I don't know, her nanny?  Jesus.).

And I remember having a good friend over when she was maybe one year old, and she actually cruised over to a stack of books and picked one out for him to read to her. And we looked at each other like, seriously?  because we knew that she knew this was her favorite book and there was something so ridiculously cool about a baby with reading preferences.

I think I was present, well, as present as a full-time-working mom outside the home can be.  I tried to look at our midnight and 2 am nursing sessions as bonding.  I tried finding a new job immediately after she was born because we struggled with my 3 hour commute.  It took me two years to land a job in my own town.  My home life was consumed with her, but I missed a whole fucking lot. 

I had no idea those first one or two years of her life that she would be the only baby I ever mother.  The thought never occurred to me.  In fact, the only thing I used to think was, "next time I will be home more.  Next time I will be sitting in a new job, 15 minutes from my house.  Next time I won't be hustling her to daycare for the longest days."

But there won't be a next time.  And my one regret is not imagining that possibility, while I held her.

P.S.A.

Stay off of Facebook.  I say it like a broken record and then fail to heed my own advice.  I like to think I am a work in progress... one day, maybe a year from now, I will be able to see baby pictures from friends who never once suffered a miscarriage, friends who said things to me like "Why would you want another baby?" or, "why don't you foster a baby?" and not want to cry.  I'll get there, I know I will.  I am just not there now.

All of the things...

The things that sustain me, as I stare down the end of my fertility:

Niblet.  I am going to take this opportunity to brag.  Her artwork is beautiful.


She is reading years ahead of her class.  She was picked to participate in an after-school project sponsored by (gulp) MENSA.  She recently taught herself to sight read at the piano (fuck, I guess I have to find her a piano teacher now).  She loves ballet and shows some real promise, and I am going to have to find a way to haul her to class two times a week next year despite working full time.  Speaking of which...

Ballet.  I am back at it, and better than I have been in years.  Pulling off multiple pirouettes.  Getting my splits back.  Jumping again too, after sustaining an injury a few years ago I honestly thought I would never recover from.  All of this is MUCH EASIER TO DO when you're not pregnant or miscarrying.  Finally dropping 53 weeks of pregnancy weight is happening too.  Slow going because I am fucking middle-aged, but hey, I'll take it.

Marriage.  The Viking still rules and that's all you need to know about us. But I should add he is now taking steps to improve his own health, which is good because he has a kid who still wants to be picked up an awful lot for a tall first grader.

Parents.  Mine are both healthy and active. They send Niblet boxes of random stuff every few weeks (think clothes, coloring books, granola bars) that bring her joy and me... more cleaning.  My mom is the picture of loveliness, taking two ballet classes a week herself. They are cooler than imaginable, even my Dad, the part-time tai chi instructor, who is still crazy over-protective ("text me when you're home safe" he writes, when he knows I have late meetings or events at the office).  

Home.  We took out a home equity loan to finish out our basement.  Ahh debt.  Our beautiful cozy little house will get just a little more spacious, with a finished room to hide more crap in.  Along with a much-needed extra bathroom.  More room for me to clean y'all! (And yes, add cleaning and de-cluttering my own house as one of my de-stressing activities, lest you think I am even bourgier than I sound and hire someone to do it for me).

J-O-B. Here's a life-lived discovery:  Not running to ultrasounds in a constant state of panic helps one be more productive at work.  Did I mention that I received something of a promotion recently?  Well, let's be clear, my title stayed the same, along with my pay, but somehow my responsibility jacked up 100% because I am now a "Campaign Director" on a project to improve the lives and working conditions for thousands of home health aides in a nearby jurisdiction.  I don't talk about my work-life on this blog much, but I will make an exception right now:  These home health aides are the godsends who wash and bathe our grandparents, dress  them to take them to the store or the doctor, and do all of these things for a wage too low to live on.  Oh, and thousands of them had their pittance wages stolen by their employers in a nearby jurisdiction.  Anyways, I can manage campaigns like this far more efficiently when I am not pregnant or miscarrying.

Trashy books.  Fun fact:  when I am not mothering, enjoying the company of my own husband, cleaning my house or thinking about low-wage workers at my day-job, I like to visit this website and proceed to download and eventually read all of the trashy things.  Picture this:  Viking and I often lie in bed on Sunday mornings (before the Niblet wakes of course) and mock each other's reading choices. I like the books on my nook to feature shirtless pirates.  He favors graphic zombie novels. Frankly, I am just happy he reads.  We both do escapism.

The void in my life created by the loss of my babies will never be filled.  It can't be.  It's immeasurable.  The grief is still palpable.

But it's a full and good life.