An apology....... of sorts.

I am feeling kinda sheepish about the melodrama of my last post.

I don't really think I am cursed, or that God hates me. It was obviously a crap week. I would delete the whole thing except that would make something a lie.... this blog I guess.... so for the sake of truth in the personal annals of B I will keep it up there.

I just read a beautiful entry from msfitzia at http://peanutsmom.blogspot.com/ describing her experience on the night of October 15th. A visit, if you will, from her son. A message of love and of peace. A moment of stillness in the darkness and turbulence of greif.

i know those moments. You can't break your way into them. But they are all the more precious for the fact that they cannot be conjured. I know it has made me fall on me knees and weep tears of gratitude.... for the chance to have experienced love. To love the little person that was made in love by me and jake and the grace of God. To know that even in death, there is still love.

I went to church last week which I hardly ever do because sermons really give me the shits. I just can't think of any other time in life where I would subject myself to listening to someone telling me how to live in three alliterating points with a tacky metaphor thrown in for good measure - so why do it at church? But I went last week cause my friend Jo was preaching. As it turned out the passage she was preaching on was from Jeremiah where the Israelites had been taken captive and were living in exile in Babylon. It has the oft quoted passage of "I have plans to make you prosper" but starts with Jeremiah telling the Israelites to make there home in Babylon, to take wives and have children, to plant gardens and eat the crops..... It meant a lot to me that she spoke on this because she too is experiencing infertility (which is a kind of exile) and her husband has been living with depression and had been home from work for a couple of weeks because of this.

The bit about making your home in Babylon..... that is the thing that has been ticking around my head. The Isrealites didn't want to hear this, they wanted to be delivered from their conquerors and returned to Jerusalem. They did not want the permanence of planting crops, building houses, taking wives, having children.... and the command to seek the welfare of Babylon. I have been thinking about the wisdom of making this, where-we-are-now, our home. Of building a home in exile, rather then waiting for deliverance.

I have been reluctant to accept this. For one it is just too sad. To accept my present life. And there also seems a kind of resignation to "building homes" and "planting crops". It is what I think other people mean when they say things like "getting on with life". There seems a lack of hope. Or a feebleness, a refusal to fight for what is right.

And yet, this week I have been reviewing this. I don't know how long our "exile" will be. If I will ever be able to have living children. Maybe it is time to begin to look at this as my new life, rather than a lapse or a pause from the real business. Looking at this passage also made me realise that embracing the present and finding a way to plant and build and harvest in this painful, confusing time is not giving up on hope. Rather, there is a deep level of trust.... of trusting the future to itself, or to God (if you are so inclined), which lends true freedom to the present. I cannot be held ransom by my imagined future...... I must plan to live wholly, fully, now.

****

Am back teaching at school. That is a good thing. I held a little kid tight today as he was loosing it. The body wracking sobs and self harming gradually subsided to indignant outbursts (in Shem-speak) and then sorrowful mumurs. He looked me in the eyes and touched the tip of my nose with his pointing finger. He took a shuddering in-breath and crawled out of my lap and onto a bike.

tis the season to be knocked up

I lied. God doesn't love me at all. He may even hate me, or curse me.

I am being a bridesmaid in three weeks. The bride just told me that my fellow bridesmaid is officially announcing her pregnancy..... and my response "wow. That's really great." and then get off the phone and bawl. I was already afraid because I know that my other pregnant friend will be there (you know... the one who ended up staying over at our house....) and I know that the day after the wedding I am going to a one year birthday/thanksgiving for my friends little bubba and there are going to be all these babies there born after my little girl. So its already an emotionally loaded weekend.....

No-ones knows how much it costs me to participate in their lives. I wouldn't make any other choice.... I just need a witness to my courage in continuing to participate. I need someone to see how hard it is, and how much courage it takes to be involved. Call me dependent. But I need a big fuckin "congratulations - on being a friend to your friends when the price is so high. you deserve an honorary degree in something"

Did I mention my next door neighbour who is pregnant? I stupidly spilled the beans about our last failed IVF cycle (the one before this) only to find out a month later that she was pregnant. We have been studiously avoiding each other which is hard given that there is only a few metres between her front door and mine. And it's (almost)summer so we all spend our time outside anyway. It's like when Maya died - 5 other cousins were pg, 2 workmates, 2 bestfriends and my sister.

Man it hurts. And i hate to say it but it is getting worse. I have been desperate to have a child since Maya died. Each new pregnancy feels like a nose rub in the shit.

And I voice my protest to whoever cares to listen.... actually... just to God and you and my husband.

But God doesn't hear and you guys and husband can't change it (I know you would).

Excuse the lack of imagination in this post..... somedays there is just no love.

Confused

I never did get my vision.... my midnight encounter with God.

But the week went on moving and once again I am caught in it's flow. And I persist in believing that LOVE is the force that creates and sustains each molecule and moment of this crazy world. And I believe that God and LOVE are one and the same. And therfore I persist in believing that God loves me.

Here's this weeks proof.


My friend Ruby dancing.




Love in beauty.


Fellowship.


And I love my husband and he loves me. Which means...... everything.

I spent the week wondering why I did not feel worse, thinking that maybe all the greif and anger would hit me when I got my period. But the anger never came, or is still yet to come. I don't get it. I think I'll give up trying to get it. Maybe understanding yourself is not as important as I think it is.

What is this thing?

I don't normally go in for denial. It's a stage of grief I've never really bothered with. Let me tell you, I know grief..... I know how I grieve... well I think I do.

I'm having this new things happen. And it's scaring me shitless.

I found out on Saturday that there were no helathy little embryos to transfer. The fact that I had remained so positive through the cycle (except for the tiny wee hour on Friday which is when you happened to catch me last), the fact that the daisy whose petals I pulled told me I would have a healthy one, the fact that I was on my knees before God asking Him to see me, just see me this once....... these things didn't count for anything. As if i needed my lack of control reinforced.

I didn't even make it to transfer this time. Shit.

But this new thing.... I seem to have shut down completely emotionally. Yesterday I had a tiny cry, went to the pub for a beer and yes a cigarette, and came home and played jenga (can you pick a more nerve wracking game than waiting for a tower of blocks to fall?) then went to bed and more or less slept. Did I mention that we made love? for the first in unaccountable days/months. Who knows? It's hard to reenter your body when you have spent the last month and a half trying to remove yourself from it while needles, ultrasounds, hormones, pessaries, tablets get put in you. It was hard. It was clumsy. I didn't know what to do. The thing is.... we didn't use contraception (which we never do- it is playing with death). I woke up this morning with this strong feeling that I would become pregnant and it would be a miracle baby (you can't get pregnant 6 days after an egg retreival can you? you know.... if they missed and egg) and because it would be a miracle baby it would be healthy and I would have a child in my arms at last and we could be parents at last. And then I thought about donor embryos and maybe someone would want to donate their embryos to ME. You can't use money in that kind of exchange in OZ (I guess its not an exchange, that is why they call it a donation) so I don't know how you go about finding a donor. But I felt sure that anyone who met us would realise exactly how much love we were able to give and would be happy for their little embies to go to sorrowing couple. We would send them photos and updates. School reports and paintings. They could have as much or little contact as worked. I thought it all through...... "Yes" I thought "we will have kids". So simple.

I went for a two hour walk. We went to Oktoberfest at the daggy German club across the park. I laughed, danced and ate strudel and drank too much beer (obviously didn't have that much faith in being pregnant..... but it is a miracle baby, it can survive anything). I came home and read. The only thing to tell me I am actually "grieving" right now is this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach and the clenching of my jaws.

So can your body take over your mind? Can it make the decision that enough pain is enough and just take over and let you not feel things anymore? That is what makes me scared.... It's never happened before and so I am worried that when it comes it will be unbearable. I am more worried about my anger.... I swear I find that more unbearable than sorrow and pain. I am scared I will be unsafe. The thoughts I have terrify me so much I wil not even tell you. I mentionted them to Jake and he said "That is not OK".

I lay in bed and prayed and prayed for a sign that God loves me (I'm not normally into "signs and wonders"). I asked him to give me a vision. To come to me. To let me know that he can see this terrifying mess that I am in.

And it is four in the morning and I am not even asleep. Can God come to you when you are awake?

Will I (and we) withstand the storm when it comes?

How can I shelter myself?