So yesterday marks 2 weeks since our second failed cycle. This one has been easier to process, thankfully, and I really want to thank everyone who left messages on my BFN post. I really appreciate all of your kinds words.
We had a very busy weekend after the news which was good and bad. Good because I needed to take my mind off things and bad because the full weight of it only hit me the following Monday on my way to work and I was just so incredibly angry with everything and everyone. The past two weeks have been murder at work also but we’re back to a lull in the office so I’m at least able to write a little bit.
The Friday after the call. I immediately called for my follow-up appointment, which is next Monday (that 2ww for a follow up was the beginning of my rage), and we took a shower and got ready for dinner. N was great as always. We hugged and tried to keep our chins up. I was actually very okay on Friday. We went to dinner with our dear friends B and B and had the best time. It was a French restaurant and I had foie gras for the first time and now I am obsessed. My father always told me that I have an expensive palette hahaha. I actually spent most of the following week trying to find out where I buy some foie gras. Man, that stuff is expensive. I am aware about the controversy around ethical treatment of ducks to make foie gras but I found other sites that made me feel a little better about myself. But I digress.
It turns out we had such a good time at the restaurant that I forgot my phone there and had to go back in the early hours of Saturday to retrieve it. If they were actually open for business at the time I would have gotten more foie gras because I misplaced my leftovers from the night before! I’m still upset about that. I lost my phone and my new favourite food.
We met our other friends J and H at their house and the 4 of us drove down to Connecticut for the night. J is N’s best friend from high school and the only person he’s opened up to about IVF. I’m so proud of him for that. He is very candid with him and I think it makes them a little uncomfortable because they don’t know how to react or what to say but they were very supportive and even paid for dinner that night :). Hey, I’ll take it. We were in Connecticut to see Bill Burr. The show was hilarious as expected and the rest of the evening was a lot of fun too. We lost about $60 at the penny slots and had a lot to drink and we ended the night with Domino’s pizza. A 24hr Domino’s at a gas station, like the universe intended.
We got home on Sunday and didn’t really do much else. But I wish we could go on little trips like that more often. Actually, I shouldn’t wish. I should just make it happen. Anyway, on Tuesday I found the strength (somewhat) to tell my boss that we’re doing IVF. I’ll write another post on that later.
As I said, this last failure didn’t break me down or make me sad. It made me extremely angry. I wonder if each failed cycle is a step in the grief cycle. I’ll certainly be bargaining if round 3 fails.
I was angry with my RE and my body and myself mostly. I don’t understand what’s going on. I was angry at my RE for just not getting me pregnant yet and making me wait to start again. The day I got my period I was so angry, I’m sure I pulled a muscle in my neck. I was Angry at my body for failing again and I was so very angry at myself for having the audacity to hope that this would work.
With the odds so heavily stacked against us, why would any of this work? How dare I believe that this would go any other way but south? What I learned from this cycle is that you can have the most perfect stim cycle, perfect lining, a perfect hatching embryo and all the hope in the world still end up with a big fat fuck all. Nothing means anything, so really, all my hoping didn’t mean shit. So why did I hope this round would work? Why am I doing another round? Why, as I’m writing this, I’m already hoping round 3 will work?
It’s simple really. Hope is what’s getting me out of bed and what’s keeping me going. Hope and faith are said to go hand in hand and my faith falters a lot because I’ve had so many doors closed in my face. So hope carries me in the absence of faith.
There’s a painting called Hope by George Frederic Watts that I think describes what I’ve been feeling about hope. It’s a lady, blindfolded, looking rather shabby, clutching a lyre and it looks like she’s trying to listen to the music made by the last string. I feel like that sometimes. When everything goes to shit around me, I still have the audacity to make a little music.
So while I’m still a little down-trodden, I haven’t given up. Why would I? We’re only on round 2. The game is far from over. With every fail I gain a bit of wisdom and a bit of empathy and a bit of strength and a bit (a very teeny tiny bit) of patience and I’m taking that with me into round 3.
I’m so ready and I really really hope round 3 works.
Tales of a 30 Year Old Nothing 