Saturday, October 18, 2008

Trying Times

The end is in sight. The Big Project looks like it's FINALLY winding down. I expect it will wrap up in a couple more weeks. I can't even tell you how excited I am. There are some things in life that look infinitely better in hindsight than they ever felt in actuality, and this project is definitely one of them.

As we reach the end, my focus is of course turning back toward my other big project. I am incredibly unhealthy right now. My BMI is 16.9, which is underweight. I'm feeling rotten, I've barely been sleeping, etc. I look like I've aged about 10 years in the last few months. I am all angles--bony and pale and giant circles under my eyes. I look horrid. I had assumed we would TTC again as soon as I finished the BP, but I just don't think I can launch into it right now. I think I need a month of sleeping, eating, and relaxing, before I jack myself up on Clomid. I don't think I can deal with the hormones and the anxiety of trying right now. The rollercoaster of hope in a "trying" month is more stressful to me than not trying at all. While we have been "trying" for the last few months, I've been so distracted and so sure it wouldn't work that it didn't feel like we were trying. But once the BP is done and we start with the Clomid, I will no doubt be obsessed again, and every BFN will surely be like swallowing broken glass.

I've actually been thinking a lot lately about that very issue--of how much more it hurts to try and have it not work, than to not try at all. I keep wondering how this is all going to work out for us, in the end. I keep thinking about the possibility that it will never work out. It made me realize that it would be infinitely easier to have lived childless if we had never even tried, than it would be after trying but not succeeding. I can't uncast the die, obviously, but I have been wondering how I will get back to that place where my life was just fine without kids, if in fact we don't get there.

When I was a kid, I used to love those books where you got to choose your own path (ie, if you want Option A to happen, go to page 56; if you want Option B, go to page 84). I think I loved them because if I didn't like the ending, I could go back and choose a different path, and it was like the story never happened the other way. Sometimes I sort of wish life was like that--that you could know the end before you started, so you could make a more liveable choice in the beginning.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Argh

Still swallowed up by the Big Project. . .and hopelessly behind on my blog reading. And writing. But then, since all I am doing is working, you're not really missing out on much with me. I AM missing everyone in the blogosphere, though, and I'm looking forward to the end of the Big Project and focusing on other stuff, like house projects and catching up with all of the blogs that I love.

Today is CD2. I just finished up a rotten 40 day cycle in which I may or may not have ovulated. Who can be sure, though, given the crazy schedule of late. I'm coming into the home stretch of the Big Project (I think. . .I may be delusional at this point though. . .so hard to tell). Soon, I may be in Borneo, "just relaxing," and doing some old-fashioned trying. I can't wait.

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Timing

I've been thinking a lot about timing lately. With the Big Project being so hard, it's been easy to second-guess all of my choices over the last year. And then there are the million other little things. Another season of Halloween costumes for babies popping up in the stores means that another year has gone by, and I have no one to fill the costume. I still keep up with a group of chicas that I started TTC-ing with, most of whom have real live babies now, and it strikes me just how long it's been since we started on this journey, when I read that their babies are teething. And then there are the people that I've seen through journeys of their own. I was thrilled for you when I saw that you'd finally gotten a positive pregnancy test. I still am thrilled for you, and I don't begrudge you what you have. Some days, though, looking at your pregnancy ticker or your baby's age ticker takes my breath away when I realize how much time has past. Tick, tick, tick. What lies ahead for me?

We decided a while back that if we managed to get pregnant by the time the Big Project ended, we'd go to Hawaii on vacation. If we didn't manage to get pregnant, we'd go to Central America. I've wanted to go to CA since 1994. I've literally had the trip planned in my head, in some fashion, since 1994. I've wanted to do something for 14 years, and haven't managed it. It's a little thing, a trivial thing, maybe, to want to travel. It's not exactly on the same level as wanting to have a child. But it's there.

So, anyway, back to this timing thing. If we were pregnant, we couldn't go to CA, because after everything that we've been through thus far, I'm not risking malaria while pregnant, and malaria is a very real risk in the places that I want to go. Plus, I want to take SCUBA lessons, and you can't do that while pregnant. So, CA wouldn't make sense if we were pregnant, and hence the Hawaiian Plan B.

I have a Goethe quote stuck up on my desk. It says, Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.

While browsing at a travel bookstore a few weeks ago, I came upon a travel guide for CA that I don't own (and I own a lot of them!). When I opened up to the beginning, at the very top of the page, there was the very Goethe quote that I have on my desk. I am choosing to see this as a sign. I am choosing to see all of my struggles in the last year, both personal and professional, as what was intended for me. I am choosing to believe that the universe will unfold as it is supposed to, that my time for motherhood will come, and I will be all the richer for the wait. I think that I am probably going to CA, and I think I am probably meant to go there. I can't wait to see what adventures are in store for me.

Sunday, October 5, 2008

I did a bad, bad thing

While out celebrating some good news with friends and family last night, someone thought celebratory shots were in order. As the age range at the table was late 30's to late 50's, this was an irrational move, at best. Add both wine and beer into the mix, take into account my recent weight loss. . .you know where this is going. I got a little happier than may have been advisable. And of course, I wasn't tired when I got home, so I popped my new Netflix in. Which happened to be Juno. It really wasn't a good combination. I almost had to get out of bed to come find my friends inside the computer in the middle of the night. I went from happy to psychotic in very short order. I feel like crap this morning for so many reasons. . .

Actually, it's been brewing for a while. The Big Project is still in full swing, and I have to say, it's been a rough enough ride that I'm questioning every choice I've made in the last year with regard to my career and my pursuit of motherhood. After the miscarriage last summer, I went three months without getting my period, and then we took some time off from trying to conceive, so that I would be available for this project and not off having a baby. And then I had a ton of unrelated health issues, and we had to stop trying for a while because of that. As I continue on this wild ride with the Big Project, I keep thinking "was this worth it?" Worth putting off having a child? Worth the sacrifice I may have made, as the clock keeps tick-tick-ticking? Did I compromise forever my ability to have a child, by waiting during those precious months? Should I have been more aggressive in seeking out treatment after my miscarriage? Should I have been more focused in my pursuit of a child?

I put my personal life on hold because I believed in the Big Project, and because I thought it was the right thing to do on so many levels. It was something I wanted to do, and something I thought I should do. I thought it was important work. I knew it was something that a lot of other people were unwilling or unable to do. I knew that I was uniquely positioned, and I knew I had the skill set to do it. It made sense to me, and I made my choices accordingly.

But now, I just don't know. I'm starting to see my own logic as flawed. I see how much it costs me, day-in, day-out, to be working on this. And unfortunately, I'm also seeing just how little anyone but a select few seem to care about the hardship that I have gone through--and continue to go through--to work on this project. Doing what is right is not always easy, and it becomes exponentially harder when the people who should care, don't. I just keep thinking, I put my life on hold for THIS? Don't get me wrong--I know that I am doing the "right" thing by tackling this project, when I look at it in a vacuum. It's just that when I add in all of the other stuff, I start to wonder about the value of doing the "right" thing on a global scale, when weighed against the cost to me personally. I would like to think that putting others' interests ahead of my own has inherent value. But I'm starting to wonder whether I am just a damn fool.