Taking Care of Me

When you're after a baby and circumstances make that difficult, it's pretty common to let yourself go a bit.

I finally woke up to the reality I'm sure everyone else could see: the weight I was holding on to was much more than pregnancy weight. It was the weight of thousands of tears, of seeking small comfort in sugar, carbs and wine. It suddenly dawned on me that I was holding myself back with this pattern of instant gratification. And I stopped doing it, cold turkey.

I don't think I've had a bite of refined carb in two weeks. I'm still allowing myself wine in moderation on weekends and the occasional special event during the week. And I feel fantastic. I'm noticeably thinner and have more energy, and my skin breakouts (another topic for another day) have cleared considerably.

Before H, sticking with a PCOS-friendly (low carb/sugar) diet was a way for me to feel in control and stay healthy as I tried to conceive. I slipped after he was born, then started conceiving naturally -- so I guess it registered that maybe it was unnecessary. Then came the miscarriages and the medicating with food. But it's a new day. My body is mine again, and I need to take care of it.

Limbo

Yesterday, we took H to the library for story time. My husband (who works from home) wanted to go too, because they were doing a special tour of the conveyor belt book return system and, well, he's a guy and likes such things.

On our way downstairs for the tour, there was a gaggle of moms talking about how wild the boys in the class were, and how one of them should know because she has three of them. You can imagine where the conversation went. She should have another! She'd get her girl! Oh she hadn't decided on a fourth yet.

Decided. A fourth child. A question of will, not of chance. Not of daring and struggling or pain and suffering.

R and I met eyes. I explained later that I encounter some form of that conversation at least once daily. He shrugged his shoulders as he does. What can we do? That's how it is for most people.

I'm tired, guys. I'm just tired of it all. Tired of waiting, and wondering. Tired of still wanting something that's so hard. Tired of this horrible position I'm in, of having the first half of what I want in the freezer, and a horribly unclear and difficult path ahead for the second half -- yet no alternative. What can I do? Let them go? It's impossible. I have to do it. And I'm terrified.

Mostly, what scares me at this moment is that the clinic will say yes to the truly lovely potential surrogate we've found, whose records they are reviewing. And we will go down this path with her and spend all the money and then something will happen -- she won't get pregnant, or she will and we'll bring her into our reproductive den of doom. And then we'll have less money and still no baby.

That line of thought leads me to adoption. From there, I'm with the embryos, and knowing for sure that if we adopt it will bring us joy but also horrible pain over letting those embryos go. And possibly regret, and possibly some low-lying resentment toward the adopted child. Which obviously cannot be allowed to happen. Around and around we go.

And then I wish we didn't have the embryos. And then, horrible guilt over that thought. Then anger over being in this terrible predicament with no one to bail us out. With nothing to do but keep going and take the risk.

When I look at H and feel a sense of loss over the early childhood/pre-school years I can see evaporating before my eyes, I don't know if I should feel hopeful that we might do it again, or if I should cling more closely to this time, because it's the only experience of it we'll have. The answer is probably both, but the way I experience it is pure and painful limbo.