A third of a way through the hiatus: some peace and gratitude.

I record the hard times here, but I rarely bother to record the good times.

Today I'm feeling very peaceful and very grateful. I am a human being and humans look for patterns, no matter how spurious. For a while I, mired in self-pity, imagined my theme as I don't get to have what most people have, what I always thought I'd have.

I always thought I'd have a big wedding, with an enormous white dress and dancing till dawn. But when real life hit, we didn't have the money for a huge wedding, and getting married quickly seemed more important than getting married in the way I'd fondly thought we would. So this is what we had: a tiny, beautiful wedding, with our very dearest close to us.

So I'm trying this on as my new theme: Small things, done with great love (HT Mother Theresa).

Small things, done with great love, are not a bad way to make a life.


My beatific mood is helped by the fact that we've gotten some very good news. Small Boy was offered a place at a private school that we love but could never afford, with enough financial aid that we will be able to pay for it and eat food.

So yeah, feelin' lucky. Feeling peaceable with my uterus. I'll see where I am in a few months, but right now, the where-is-my-infant pain seems to be fading, not increasing.

And this is why I stay off Facebook

Within 5 minutes of scrolling, I am presented the very pregnant bellies of two friends from my high school class (one with #2, one with #3). People I really like. I wish them nothing but the best.  It's still a kick in the gut.

No, actually, I stay off FB because I suck at keeping up with it, I feel compelled to drink from the firehose and then get frustrated when I fail. But cripes, the constant stream of bellies and babies doesn't make it easier to go back.

On the other hand, my existential angst was nearly balanced out by  my genuine guffaw at this, also encountered via FB:
 






FB giveth and taketh away?

A year and a day

Yesterday felt like a day to get through. A year and a day ago I was at home, high on painkillers, and waiting for the Sea Monkeys to exit my body, which they did in a thankfully orderly fashion. I'm glad to have that day behind me. When it was happening, I didn't think that a year from then I'd be where I am now. I'm glad I didn't know. It would have only made it harder. 

So yeah, yesterday felt like a day to just make time pass so it'd be over. I bunked off work and went to IKEA. I flippin' love IKEA. I wandered slowly up and down each aisle. IKEA is a very family-full place and I felt a bit wobbly at times, but was generally soothed by the mountains of affordable Swedish midcentury modernity.

12 weeks ago I was examining a blood clot in the palm of my hand. I saw a little pale nugget in it, no bigger than a piece of arborio rice, with a dark dot in the middle. "Crap," I thought. "Doesn't look good." I was right.

I've been studying. That's the only way I know how to process anything. I recently read a rather good book on only child-dom, a collection of essays.

The first section was first-person essays on what it was like growing up as an only child. There was quite a range of experiences, as sibling'd children also have a range of experiences, stretching from loneliness to tranquility.

An interesting part was the section of essays by only children who were themselves facing the decision of how many children to have. Of the four essays, two of them spoke of the fear of having something happen to your only child.

This is something that's been clawing at my mind. I'm not proud of it. It seems kind of awful, like it's simultaneously devaluing the child you have (replaceable!) and the child you want (a backup!).  What, like children with siblings aren't mourned? But I am so very aware of the enormous state-change between being a parent of a living child and not being the parent of a living child. The loss of an only child is the loss not only of that irreplaceable person, but of the state of parenthood. I was a bit comforted to find that two of the four only children decided to have multiple children for precisely that reason.

Here's John Hodgeman, who surprised me by being not only a funny guy but a deft writer.

Like a farmer who needs children to till the soil and cannot risk having but one, so I need more than one child to lower my risk of absolute awful heartache.

To be honest, I do not know how this will work out. I, the only child, find it difficult to understand how love can be dispersed between two children. And there will be other shortages... For, yes, you will live in an apartment, and you will have to share a room.

But you will be freer to fail, as your errors will be outshadowed by Hodgmina's and vice versa. And thus you will free yourselves of the unfair burden to avoid death at all costs. By having you, unnamed male child, I have chosen to give you both less so that at the end, as point by point, the shape of our family disappears, you will not have lost everything.

-John Hodgeman

Yeah, that was pretty much enough to turn on my waterworks when I read it, and again now. He's captured something I couldn't articulate, the fragility of a family of three.

In the end, though, my decision is driven by sheer terror: I worry that something will happen to my child and having another would be the only thing that could get me through that.  I wish there were some braver, deeper, or more theoretical underpinnings behind my ultimate motivation for two, but that's what I come up with.
- Amy Richards

This quote doesn't offer me any insight, but it does make me feel less alone. I mean, these people were able to choose to have more children, and did (at least John Hodgeman did, I don't know if Amy Richards has yet).  But it's comforting to know that this is a fear shared by other parents, parents who were themselves only children. It's not the sole reason I want another child, even the major reason, but it's there and it's something I'm going to have to work out if I'm going to learn how to live comfortably with this.

Hobby Parents

The other day I heard the term "hobby parents" used to describe parents with one kid. I winced, then I laughed, and I winced again, and laughed again.  I googled it and found some sneering about how parents-of-one aren't real parents and how we have no idea and need to shut up about everything ever coz we have it so easy. That was painful. Then I saw this video by the comedian who may have coined the term, and I had to laugh again, because, yeah, fair cop, guilty as charged with most of that. 

Then I mentioned the term to Her Indoors, who found it charming.

Her Indoors: Well, yes, you don't need to make it pay.
Me: Hrm?
Her Indoors: Hobby parenting. You can just do it for fun, it doesn't have to be a paying proposition.


Which gave me a minute of self-reflection. I immediately ouched when I heard the term, but that's not surprising, as practically everything related to pregnancy, childbirth, or siblings makes me ouch right now. "Hobby parents" immediately struck me as fake parents, pretend parents, toy parents. But her interpretation's just as valid and is a damn sight cheerier. Reframe, reframe. I devote so much time to reframing that I might as well open my own (re)framing business.



Part of it is this conversation I have had to have over and over lately. I've been meeting a lot of people on kindergarten tours, and one of the first things that gets mentioned is how many children you have. People want to know: is Small Boy my only child? or do I have more at home?

I struggle a bit with what to say. I don't like saying "just the one" or "yes, he's only child." The words just and only imply some inadequacy and no matter how much I want another child I'll be damned if I'll let anyone imply that I should have one. Some people have snappy comebacks, but I don't like those either: We got it right the first time!  What, like I'm going to act like first children are mistakes? That's awful.  I've uneasily settled on "yes, he's my one and only."

Last year we got our tree on December 19. I know it was December 19 because we had planned to go tree-shopping right after the 8 week ultrasound. Even after we got the bad news, I wanted to go anyway. Damned if I was going to give up my tree too. We wandered through the tree lot; I was in a haze. We bought a beautiful, expensive tree. I'm glad we did.

We don't have a tree yet this year. It's time.

Taking a break, or, Shore Leave for the Pequod

When Small Boy was born, I went into labor at 6:30 in the morning. I wasn't fully dilated until 2:30 a.m. or so, and that's when I started pushing.

I pushed hard. I pushed really hard. I wanted Small Boy to be born. I wanted to stop laboring. I pushed really hard for more than 2.5 hours. I'm in mediocre shape at best, and by the end I was so tired I could barely breathe, but I knew I couldn't stop. After 2.5 hours Small Boy had progressed downwards not at all. My cervix was good and swollen, but the situation was otherwise unchanged.

Then Small Boy (who had been a trooper the whole time) started having some decels, and the OB called a c-section for fetal distress and failure to descend. He had been monitoring me remotely; when he burst into the room and was like "lady, you are done here" I burst into tears.

I had rather wanted an unmedicated birth. I had badly wanted a vaginal birth. But when I burst into tears, I wasn't upset because I wasn't going to get the birth I wanted. I cried because I was so relieved and grateful. I knew that I could not keep going much longer. I was just too tired.

We later found out that Small Boy's head was severely impacted in my pelvis, and that there was no way he was exiting in any direction other than out of my abdomen. I could have pushed for hours more, I could have been twice as strong and determined, and nothing would have changed.

I'm too tired. I'm putting this down for six months. My plan for spacing my kids is scuppered. My plan for giving birth to both kids before 40 is scuppered. I'm never doing a fresh cycle again. The embryos aren't getting any older. I need to stop for a while. My family needs me to stop for a while. I need to let this white whale go, for a time, at least. Maybe I'll return to it and maybe I won't.

Maybe I'll learn that I can live with this, and that the pain of the missing person grows less over time. Maybe it'll get worse.

In any case: right now, I am putting this down. In six months I'll see where I am.

The good and the bad and all kinds of beautiful

First, I'll get the bad out of the way: the bills are coming in and they're fucking depressing. Transfer, beta, beta, beta, ultrasound (pregnant uterus), beta, the end. I would prefer just to forget about the whole thing, you know? Pretend it never happened? But people deserve to get paid, and so they shall.

On the happier side: this weekend I took Small Boy to his soccer lesson. Then we went on  a walk through the woods in the crisp fall day, all oranges and yellow and reds and crunchy leaves and good smells. We turned out of the woods and found ourselves at the zoo, where we happen to have a membership and I happened to have the membership card on me. So we went to the zoo. And we dawdled and wandered and looked at lots of animals and somewhere in there I started humming a song. Pop lyrics are the bardic poetry of my generation and it's how my subconscious communicates with me. OnceI was on an elevator and started humming "Miss Otis Regrets" and only noticed on the way out that the elevator was made by a company named Otis. Anyway.

The song lyrics I was humming turned out to be


one life
is all we ever get
and all we ever give up for it in return
is all of 
the ones that might have been
just one kind of beautiful, each in our turn...

 I walked, and thought about it. One kind of beautiful is what I get. This life is one kind of beautiful. It's sleeping in and spontaneous zoo trips and money and time and just a very relaxed, civilized way of living. Since we have him outnumbered, when one of us is out of patience it's very easy to say "here, you deal with it." I wouldn't have that luxury if there were two.  We never have to operate at the edge of our ability to cope. It's just all very comfortable and peaceful.

Would I trade for the infinite richness of a larger family? Hell yeahs. There's no question. The material and lifestyle advantages are all things I would throw away in a minute, if I could. I mean, for the past two years I've been attempting with both hands to throw them away.

But if it turns out that I can't -- this is one kind of beautiful.

If I can hold onto this feeling, I'll be fine. I know these things tend to be a spiral, passing the same point again and again on a different plane. I know I'll be back to desperate sadness, jealousy, anger, grief. But with any luck this is one of the places in the spiral and I'll see it again, the place of feeling peaceful and grateful and wistful, not angry and grieved. And now I know that this place exists, that there is a world in which I never have another child and I am okay.

Two years later.

A lot of women who miscarry have problems with anniversaries. Sure, I remember some dates -- the very first time I was pregnant, the due date was supposed to be December 21; for my second miscarriage,  August 1; July 31 for the third and June 3 for the fourth.

I remember these dates but they really don't have any heat in them. I thought I was pretty impervious to date-ghosts. But the other day Her Indoors mentioned this year's Christmas Tree Festival. Now, I'm Jewish, but I love a good Christmas tree festival as much as the next girl, and of course Small Boy adores it.

And it was like a sock to the gut. 'Cause the last time time we were at the festival, I had a backache and was walking slowly because I was easily winded in that weird early-pregnancy way. That was what turned out to be the Sea Monkeys, miscarriage #3.

Why hasn't the date of my miscarriages bothered me before? Because duh, I've always managed to be pregnant again. First miscarriage, 5/08; in 5/09 I was pregnant with Small Boy. Second miscarriage, 12/11; by 12/12, pregnant again, although to no avail.

But I timed it wrong this round. By all rights I should have put off the transfer for another six weeks, so I could have been pregnant on the miscarriage-aversaries and then had that miscarriage at the traditional time of year.  But nooooooo. I had to do it early, so this year's miscarriage was in October, and so for the Christmas Tree Festival I'll be walking around not only not pregnant, but not even in the middle of a cycle.

I can't believe I'm here a year later, not only not having made any progress but having made negative progress. I have fewer embryos stored and I'm at higher risk for miscarriage, having had three in a row.

But I guess in a way I have made progress. I'm further along the road I'm going down, and I know that road is not endless. I'm closer to the point where I give up and start to Deal. If I'm going to subject myself to years of this pain for nothing, at least those years are drawing to a close.

Right now I feel like I'm grieving in slow motion. Not really, just kidding, maybe a little, if I mourn properly does it mean I'll then get what I want? I don't know whether to hang onto hope or just let it go. I wish I knew which the operative cliche was.

 I find myself reassuring people, friends, medical professionals. "It's okay!" I chirp. "I got my little guy!" And it's true but it's also not true. It's what good infertiles say, grateful ones, ones who don't think I should get to have what so many other people have. I am grateful, every day, grateful beyond breath for Small Boy and how he's spun my life and heart right around like a record, baby, I am, I truly am. But at the same time I'm angry that I'm supposed to be grateful and content with what it seems like practically the whole fucking world takes for granted.

The other day I walked past a box of First Response Early Result Pregnancy Test with FREE Keepsake Due Date Calculator! And I audibly scoffed. A keepsake due date calculator, after the first pee stick? Getting a bit ahead of yourself, aintcha?  And that's assuming it's positive. How many of those suckers get bitterly tossed into the trash?

But then I realized it's not that ridiculous. Most pregnancy tests are probably purchased by women who already suspect they're pregnant. Most positive pregnancy tests result in actual children. A keepsake due-date calculator on a two-pack of FRERs is utterly laughable from my point of view, but my point of view isn't representative. It's just my reality.

Small Boy is four, and we're going on lots of kindergarten tours, meeting lots of other families. This is the age interval when most families are mid-spawn, or have recently spawned. Lots of babies, lots of newborns, lots of big bellies, lots of brothers and sisters. I suppose in another five years or so it'll all simmer down other than the occasional "oops". That will be easier.