September Wrap-Up

My soul is deprived of peace,
I have forgotten what happiness is;
I tell myself my future is lost,
all that I hoped for from the Lord.

But I will call this to mind,
as my reason to have hope:
The favors of the Lord are not exhausted,
his mercies are not spent;
They are renewed each morning,
so great is his faithfulness.
My portion is the Lord, says my soul;
therefore I will hope in him.
--   Lamentations 3:17-18, 21-24

So here we are at the close of September and I have a very different story to tell about how this month has gone than I might have expected. Isn't that usually God's way though?

I want to start off by saying THANK YOU to all of the amazing Adopt-a-Blogger prayer warriors that have kept us in prayer all month long. You also really outdid yourselves with the sweet messages and comments. Every time I was having a rough day, it seemed another note would come my way reminding me that we were being prayed for and that we were not forgotten. Your prayer sustained me in a very real way during a difficult time and for that I am extremely grateful. I look forward to paying it forward to Mrs. October along with you all.

The sunset picture is one that I took in the Outer Banks back in 2006 (can you tell I found an external hard drive lately? :P ) I remember exactly what I was thinking at the time I took that photo. I was so hopeful for the future ahead, and yet crushed by a recent tragedy. It seems rather fitting to put such a quote over top of an amber sky that describes how I was feeling as I snapped that picture. And eight years later, though I find myself in a very different part of my life, I am at once half agony and half hope again. When this month began, as I've previously written about here, there was hope for the impossible. That hope was not blind. It felt nothing less than informed. We were living out a 2WW after two months of the most beautiful hormones and cycles anyone has ever seen. And if you've been following along, you know what a blessing that was in and of itself. We here at Conceiving Hope do not have beautiful cycles or beautiful hormones, let alone back-to-back months of both.

Those dreams for a pregnancy were not realized this month. Our 2WW turned into a 3WW...my entire post peak was filled with mucus and my temp had that three-phase look to it that seems unmistakable and the symptoms began to pour on. All signs pointed to conceiving hope in a real and tangible way. But alas, the positive test wasn't to be. Fourteen times over, it wasn't to be. The cycle that began in the beginning of August has not resolved itself yet. We're still going over here and looking on October's doorstep. So what happened?

Clomid.

That drug I will never, ever put in my body ever again. That's what happened. Isn't it a cruel trick that something we took to make things better ended up making everything worse? I guess the upside is that we now know, in the presence of no hormonal dysfunction, that clomid completely destroys my cycle. I think the clomid created a cyst. And that cyst grew and grew and grew and grew. It burst in a fit of rage and machetes in my pelvis early this morning. Like you can imagine, it was one of those "should I be going to the ER right now" kind of moments and it was such a constant, unrelenting pain that it stole the breath out of my lungs. The pain was unreal. UN. REAL. I was nauseous and vomiting and sweaty and just feeling completely awful. It was like the old days here, but really acute. And then, just as violently as it had begun, it instantly ended. As in, every symptom instantly disappeared.

I now know that the reason I've only been able to manage to eat 6 meals in the past 2 weeks is because of that cyst. It had to be a mix of crazy hormones and the actual cyst itself. I've never IN MY LIFE lacked hunger on this kind of scale....I'm just not that girl. So you can imagine how a lack of ability to stomach more than a couple bites of food would seem realllllly off to me. And you can imagine how not wanting anything at all would be very strange. But that's how it was. Thankfully, I was able to stay hydrated, otherwise I can only ponder how much more miserable I would have been.

So this month of prayer ends with a resolution, but not a resolution for my cycle and not for our dreams to be parents to a living child. This wasn't what I prayed for or what I hoped for and it isn't what I asked you to pray for at all. But it's a resolution nonetheless. Now we know for sure that clomid can't be a part of this journey anymore. After months and months of taking it - isn't it ironic that it essentially prevented the very thing we took it for?

So I leave September much more worn than I entered it, and worse for wear in a lot of ways... but I do not leave it devoid of hope. I leave September with a ridiculous cycle that will likely cross the 60 day mark well into October, with no baby and a lot of physical agony under my infertile belt over here. But I don't leave without hope.

I'm considering stopping meds at this point and just letting my body rest for the first time in almost 2 years. I'm considering letting go. And I feel pretty at peace with the decision to do both right now, which is no small feat for someone who has been face first in aggressively trying to sort out these health mysteries for so long. It's funny how you can be grieving and at peace at the same time, isn't it? I think it's something I need to learn how to do though, with the due date of our miscarried daughter fast approaching in October. I need to find a little more quiet time with God and a lot less anxious time with myself if I'm going to be able to learn how to manage that. What my heart needs is find a way to listen more through the hurting for the voice of God that is merciful enough to heal. And I'm not sure I can manage that with the noise of the meds right now. I know people all have a different stomach for this journey and some of my readers have been down this path for more than a decade. Some of my readers have lived through an unspeakable number of losses. But what I'm learning about myself this September is that I need a break. The favors of the Lord are not exhausted, his mercies are not spent...

And at this age, I realize what a break could potentially mean for us and I feel no more able to make that dream of having children a reality than I did when I first started TTC. It's almost a relief to be "giving up" right now. I need rest. I just have to trust that the Lord's plans are not exhausted and cling to the knowledge that His plans are better than my own. And I'm not going to find any of that in clomid. 

Of that I'm sure.

Finding Meaning in Suffering

This weekend has been difficult to say the least. I find myself a mix of numb and wanting to find meaning in all of this. It can't all just be endless, dark suffering. I already know what letting yourself go down that path does and I worked hard to get back from it the last time we had a miscarriage. I can't bring myself to accept this feeling for months on end right now. So I did what I always do and I try to search for meaning in suffering. I used to just go straight to the Book of Job. It's an easy read when you are pondering a pestilence in your life. Or rather, it's an easy target in the Bible. 

Lately, I haven't been going there though. I've been looking to the feast of the days that I suffer. Finding meaning in our faith has been more enriching than reading about the torture Job endured (again). And I'm learning more about myself and my relationship to the Holy Family in doing so, for what it's worth. It certainly isn't an easy effort. But I have found more meaning in it than just meditating on the rosary or praying a novena or reading a specific Scripture. Or maybe it's just that it feels like less of a selfish endeavor? I don't know.

That's actually one of the beautiful things about our faith - the diversity of the teachings. We have so many places to go to find God, don't we? Even in a moment like this, I find myself drawn to Him and wanting to understand where I fit in His plan. And no amount of 'fitting' means anything without understanding the origin of Christ's passion.

So a-feasting I went.You might want to go grab a cup of tea. This ain't gonna be a short read. Nor is it gonna to be fun. I guess a small part of whatever is left of me right now hopes you might also find some meaning in suffering and that the effort I put into trying to understand this will help you too. I had to at least try. So without further ado... here's what I came up with:

Feast of the Holy Cross

September 14th was the Feast of the Holy Cross. As Christians, we celebrate an instrument of death. We set aside a whole day just to celebrate the implement used to torture the Son of God. Maybe that seems strange, but given what I was doing yesterday…suffering my own body and the death of possibility…it makes perfect sense to me.

There is mystery in both infertility and the cross. Christ made His cross a source of life for the world though, and that is why we make time to celebrate it. There is nothing but the pain of death for us without the cross. We are the grain of the wood in the cross and it is very much a part of us in all that we do. So as much as I want to say that there is no meaning to be found in the void that infertility leaves in my life (and the pain that it so constantly brings), I know that all things are redeemed already. If we are all a part of the cross, that means God didn’t forget this pain. Not even this pain.
 
I am the cross and the cross is mine. When I was born, I became His through baptism. But even in that moment of cleansing, I was marked with the cross on my forehead. A symbol of death painted across the fresh, chrism-scented skin on a newborn baby…

And it doesn’t end there. I was taught how to greet the Lord every Sunday as a young child. You dip your fingers into the font outside the sanctuary and you cross yourself in the name of the Truine God. You literally reclaim your baptism with a symbol of the instrument of death by anointing yourself before you prepare to worship. And you repeat this as a preparation for every prayer you pray. Everywhere we go in our daily lives through the years of Christian Catholic life, we are putting on Christ through the cross in this motion. Do we always stop to think of why we do it though? Do we realize we are welcoming suffering with this act?

I can certainly say that I am not conscious of it 100% of the time. But I was conscious of it 100% of yesterday. I was helpless from the profound pain and truth that the cross represents. And as I sat there, feeling like all hope had been ripped from me and that all the power and strength and resolve in my weary soul had been crushed, I somehow became aware that the cross is not supposed to be a source of death to me. How can hope be dead, when Christ conquered the cross? How can there be no redemption from infertility when Christ rose from the dead so that I might live? How can I be dead inside when I’ve been redeemed by God?

In every way, it began to make me feel like the cross was my only protection from this sorrow that I felt. Do you remember the antiphon we sing at the moment of baptism? “You have put on Christ, in Him we have been baptized. Alleluia, Alleluia!”. I started to think of the cross as shining armor in that moment when for some reason this antiphon popped into my head – Christ’s redemption is literally something I could wear. Why hadn’t I thought of that before? (said the girl who has plenty of Catholic jewelry – not the least of which are crosses, medals, prayer beads…). I’m brilliant, y’all. You know, like a 5 year old who thinks they just invented something because it just occurred to them for the first time in earnest. Annnnyyyway.... Just like the priest so broadly signed a cross onto my forehead as a newborn, I started to understand the meaning in my own pathetic suffering. With that realization, I quickly make the sign of the cross and wept until I had no tears. And that took hours.

Speaking of gut wrenching sorrow…

Our Lady of Sorrows

How apropos is it that today is the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows?? Great, now I have to figure out how to connect (once again) to a mother figure and understand her pain at losing her child… while I mourn a child that I don’t have. JUST WHAT I WANTED TO DO TODAY after I’m left with the soreness in my abs (from weeping) of someone who did 1000 crunches yesterday.

Don’t get me wrong, I get that the Blessed Mother suffered intensely and grieved the brutal torture and death of her Son. And maybe it’s a good thing that I find myself basically incapable of connecting to anything but her suffering right now. Mary and I have a weird relationship. Suffering is the only thing that really helps me connect to her. It’s not for lack of praying, but it’s also a reason to keep praying. That’s where Mary and I are anyway.

So Our Lady of Sorrows. What are we celebrating? Yesterday was a celebration of an instrument of death – so I suppose today is a celebration of gut-wrenching agony. Times seven. Because that’s how the Bible rolls…

The Bible provides seven sorrows, to be specific. These are:

The dark prophecy of Simeon

The flight of the Holy Family into Egypt

The loss and discovery Jesus in the Temple

Mary meeting Jesus on His way to Calvary with the cross

Mary at the foot of Jesus on the cross during crucifixion

Mary holding Jesus after He was pierced by the lance and taken down from the cross

The burial of Jesus

It’s not just suffering Jesus’ death that this feast is celebrating. It’s so much more. It’s a veritable pain buffet that spans Jesus’ entire life. We’re reminded that motherhood *is* suffering in this feast day. And there are real examples that modern day mothers can certainly relate to in these seven examples (ask any parent who has lost a child in a store in the blink of an eye…).

But it has to be more than that. I have to believe that this is a day that highlights the essence of female suffering and that it is not about physical motherhood as much as it is about the nature of being a woman. Are we not meant to suffer? As I look up images of Our Lady of Sorrows, I notice that Mary’s heart is often depicted with swords piercing her heart. I can relate to that feeling right now. And yet I have no child in my arms. How can I relate to anything Mary suffered?

I’m also finding that in previous years, this feast was known as Our Lady of Compassion. And I think most of us know the Latin derivation for the word compassion is ‘cum’ and ‘patior’ (literally: to suffer with). So maybe I find not a mother to look at in Mary so much as I find someone to suffer with me. I don’t know. We’re not there yet. She’s the master of willing it to be done unto her according to God’s will – and I am most certainly not. I wish I could say I was, but who among us has reached that in their infertility journey – especially a couple years into it?

The one thing I do understand about Mary though…is that she joined in with the suffering. She knew it had to happen. She knew Christ would be taken from her beyond her own power, just as He was given to her. And she joined herself to that reality and suffered it with Jesus.

The only thing I can understand in this moment is that joining my suffering (the suffering that I feel in the utter emptiness and hopelessness of my own barren womb) to the suffering of Mary may be the only way that I can understand today’s feast. I'm mourning a lack of being able to suffer as a mother. And it kind of messes with my head to think of it that way right now.

I think it’s a more powerful statement to admit *I'm not there yet* on this topic as a Catholic than to pretend I have some bigger understanding of this than I do. Someone needs to hear that today and I don’t know who it is. All I know for certain is that Mary saw redemption win with her own eyes. She saw her own flesh and blood defeat death. And that inspires a kind of hope that is much, much bigger than the pains of my infertility. At least - it should.

Speaking of seeing redemption win…
 

Let Me See Redemption Win

Truth be told, when I returned from Switzerland and France in the beginning of September, already a week into the dreaded 2WW, I was overjoyed to learn that I had been crowned to be this month's Adopt-a-Blogger. We felt like it was a life preserver sent from above to help us when we needed it most. After all, it had taken all of our strength to find the courage to TTC this past cycle. Prayer and grace were what we needed to sustain us through the waiting.

I was starting to see and feel some very reliable pregnancy symptoms. I found myself thinking and hoping and praying that this was the month that IF died and I was prayed into pregnancy. And all of you, my generous friends and readers, joined me in prayer to that effect. The timing just seemed perfect. Everything seemed perfect. I was amazed that we had found the courage to TTC again after so many losses, so it was amazing to be feeling like such a huge and long-prayed-for-miracle might be coming to life all at once. DH was convinced this was it. And the symptoms kept coming. It all seemed too good to be true. 

And it was.

I'm drowning. And it's happening painfully and slowly and I can't even help myself out of it. It doesn't seem to matter how often I converse with God, or how often I meditate on the mysteries of the rosary, or how many novenas I pray, or how often I just sit in silence with Him...there are no answers being given. No directions being given on how to take a left turn away from this pain and emptiness. No encouragement on how to soldier through it. There's just this giant echoing silence. I'm worn. Even before the day begins.

Christ, I long to understand Your plan for my life. I want to understand the purpose of this suffering. And I find myself praying this week more that You would rob me of the deep longing to be a mother than anything else. If Your plan is to leave my arms empty and to never know the joy of children, then I wish you would just make that clear and take this from me. If you have already redeemed this intense suffering that I'm lost in, let me know the struggle ends. 

I know You can give me rest.

I know You can mend a heart that's frail and torn.

I know that all that's dead inside me can be reborn.

I'm just too weak and life won't let up.

I'm crying out with all I have left. My prayers are wearing thin.

I've lost my will to fight.

I'm worn.

Every single lyric in this song could have been sung by my own heart.

 

Almost Crazy Now

So we've made it 10 days into September, and saying I'm sane at this point would be a brazen lie. I've had literally every symptom a human being can have to make her question whether she's pregnant. And the things that have crossed my dumb brain the past 10 days have been ridiculous.

Since there's no way out of this two week wait other than the long, slow, painful way I'm trudging already - I've decided that bacon is the answer. And ice cream. And avocados. Oh what about that beautiful gluten-free, dairy-free existence I've been living for the past year and change? FORGET THAT. Pass me a pint of Ben & Jerry's and let me ponder the universe until I reach the bottom.

Friends, we call this "making up for lost time". And can I just say - Americone Dream Flavor - where have I been all your life??

The irony that an intense dairy craving only further confuses my wait...is....irritating. But I'm going to run with it. I mean, I did just come back from the land of dairy. I guess I should be feeling grateful that my gut is healed and I have not had one single adverse effect from this bacon-ice cream-avocado parade that I'm marching in.

Yes, it's a parade over here. Of food. And I'm drum major.

I need to hear the things you've done during two week waits that were not helpful. Make me feel like less of a failure over here, interwebs. I'll pull up a chair and live off of your comments. With ice cream spoon in hand...

Sending out a hearty thank you to everyone who is praying for us this month (and always). I know it's only with your prayers that I'm even sitting here shoveling ice cream into my ice cream hole... 

Thank you for keeping our intentions for babies with you as you speak to our Lord each day this month. We are humbled by your helping us on this wild September ride.

The Math of Infertility

Infertility is a very math-heavy occupation. Or should I preoccupation? Why's that, you ask? You don't see the math associated with infertility? Well, it's an inescapable truth that all infertile women are stuck calculating chaos theory. We're like the Good Will Hunting on the status of our wombs.

We calculate and analyze our bleeds with the precision of lab technicians.

• Was it sufficient enough to warrant a good estradiol surge? Was it too heavy? How is too heavy quantified? Was it too light? Do I have to worry about a poor ovulation because of it?

We track our mucus and/or our temps like veteran statisticians.

• This is just plain, raw data collection. It's calculated from the moment we're aware of our breath every morning, to the frequency with which we use the bathroom. We collect the data, graph it, analyze it, and our entire cycle is ruled by the prevailing trends we see or anticipate.

We are experts at postulating the evidence to support our theories about the Two Week Wait.

• We sort and sift through every possible symptom we experience after ovulation (which we calculate with dynamo-like precision based on the biomarkers mentioned above!) for the presence of compelling evidence to support a hypothesis of pregnancy or impending CD1. We use multiple instruments to measure these symptoms in order to support or disprove the hypothesis. Armed with 2 weeks of data - we can pinpoint with scary precision what will happen next. And in our case, it's almost never pregnancy. Yet we are trapped in the cycle of hope, believing that maybe just this this *once* the data will not support the outcome.

We forecast our futures based on the dates of ovulation we experience

• Ovulate on the 1st? I know what I'll be doing in 9 months to the second from right now. Was ovulation likely delayed by stress? I'll develop an algorithm of likelihood for everything from P-5 through P+4 and scatter plot the outcome to figure out the likely due date. I'll ignore the doctor when they date the pregnancy because I'll have the data to prove the likelier date of conception.

We're mathematicians. All of us. And we chart, graph, plot, calculate, analyze, test, and collect data all month long in hope of more math. And more calculations. And more hypotheses. That the outcome might finally be a baby...

But you know what? Even when we don't do that (and that's a pretty big 'when'), we can also tell you the opposite of what the data shows us. I know right now that I won't have a child in May of 2015. My arms will be empty next summer. I can tell you with precision on why that is a fact. And that realization is gross.

Sometimes I hate math.