Hope: rekindled and dashed

This morning I had my first run-in with an evaporation line. It stoked my hope sufficiently, stirring those damp ashes until heat burst forth once again.

Four excruciating hours of holding my pee and a (holy shit these are expensive FRER) later confirmed that the shadow of a line I saw when I went to throw away my pee stick this morning was just that, a shadow of a line that was never there.

How many times can one woman listen to Tori Amos’ 1,000 Oceans while bawling alone in her car? Turns out, a LOT of times. (Two hours worth of driving a lot).

I feel like I’m drowning in this. And, for the most part, the day to day, minute to minute, I feel like I’m so alone. Mi.Vida doesn’t care when we get pregnant. He has no idea what an RE and testing and treatments and any of that entails. He just doesn’t really seem all that invested in any of this. If I stopped caring and walked away, he’d follow me willingly. And never look back.

When I ask him how he feels when we get a BFN he says it’s sucks and he’s concerned about where it means we’re headed but that he doesn’t want to dwell on it. He just doesn’t have the emotional energy for that. I try to explain to him that I don’t want to dwell either, but that my body is constantly reminding me of where I am and what is coming. He can step around all of this, avoiding it when necessary, while I live inside it. It is my whole world.

Saturday starts our 12th cycle. We’ve been trying for 10 months but my cycles are only 23-25 days and I counted on my FertilityFriend app today and realized this cycle is actually our eleventh. We’re coming up on the actual, definite definition of secondary infertility.

Secondary infertility feels so complicated. There is so much pressure to count your blessings, to be grateful for what you have, to consider your child(ren) to be enough. Struggling to have a second child can feel so selfish, like you don’t appreciate what you’ve been given, like you don’t love your child(ren) adequately.

It feels so unfair, that I have to feel like my one child is enough when others get to have as many more as they want. Why don’t we chide them for not being fulfilled by the children they already have?

And accepting secondary infertility when you have already conceived a child on your own is complicated as well. I am so lucky for the experience I had bringing my daughter into being, but that doesn’t negate how hard it to experience what’s happening now.

I feel like I’m underwater and I’ll never make it to the surface in time. I’m not ready for trying naturally not to work. I’m not read for the next steps. I’m not ready for the uncertainty. Everyone says I should be excited to have all these tests done but I’m not. I do not expect them to figure out what is wrong. I mean, I’m 32. I got pregnant twice in a year only three years ago so obviously nothing was wrong then. What could possibly have changed so much in those three years? Most secondary infertility cases (for those who did not experience primary infertility) are caused by advanced age. But I’m not old enough for that to be the case. I just can’t imagine the tests will show anything and when they don’t, how will we know how to proceed?

I hate this. I hate not knowing what is wrong. I hate the reality that we will probably never know. I hate that my partner doesn’t understand me and can’t find the energy to truly care. I hate that the presence of my daughter, for many, invalidates my suffering. I hate that EVERY FUCKING MONTH hope fills my heart and then reality rips it out and stomps on it until it stops beating, then deposits it back in my chest only to perform the whole charade all over again.

I hate that I’m doing all I can and it’s not enough. I hate that I have no control and that when I see an RE I’ll still have no control and that no matter what I do, I cannot effect the outcome of this.

I hate that I may never have another child and I will probably never know why. And above all I hate that I may never be able give my daughter the sibling she deserves.