Insult to Injury

So.

A week or so after the shower incident letting me know that I most certainly WAS NOT PREGNANT, I started lactating. And I have to say it was/is pretty confronting. Not horrible leaky kind (like after your baby has died and you stop expressing) just a very distinct feeling in my breasts and an urge to check if I was lactating. Which I was. You can understand that it kind of threw me.

I visited Dr Google and typed in lactating while not pregnant and got pituatary cancer, benign cancer of the brain, menopause.

Which is a good reason why you should never visit Dr Google.

I rang the clinic and the nurse said "that can happen sometimes". CAN IT???? I don't get why injecting estrogen would make my prolactin go crazy.

And I get starving hungry (which I am sure is hormonal) so when i was racing past a teacher (who is pregnant) at 8.30 am with a packet of chips in my hand and some salty crumbs around my mouth, she asked me if I was pregnant.

DO YOU THINK I WOULD NOT KNOW IF I WAS PREGNANT AFTER HAVING A BABY DIE AND 4 ROUNDS OF IVF?????

I simply said "No I am not" and went home and took another pee test to confirm it. Definately not. I even dug it out of the bin half an hour later even though technically I would be 7 or 8 weeks and an early reading pg test should show positive in about 0 seconds if I was pg. I still wasn't.



I have become very effecient in my grief. I can now fit a good half hour wail (literally) in between the coming and going of two sets of guests, or between arriving home from work and leaving for a social engagement. I've given up trying to look after myself at those points. I mean, I could send the guests away but I would stay miserable and if they arrive I have a better chance of not being as miserable for as long. So I sit and stare for the first 40 min and after a while I just join in. There is only so long you can maintain the intensity of feeling absolutely miserable.


Which is not to say I feel happy. Or I do in some moments. Minutes, hours even, but never for a whole day. Never for days at a time. The heaviness always comes home to roost - settles itself in my chest again, clucks about creating noise and discomfort.


I still wish I hadn't experienced any of this.

I just wish it was someone else and not me.


Yesterday I thought that nothing seemed important to me anymore. I don't have anything to say about anything (except my pain). It does not seem important. I don't get uplifted by seeing something beautiful. What meaning does it have. My husband and I are going parrallel but both seem stuck in our own depression and grief this weekand don't often connect in that. Which is a pretty bleak place to be, and I get scared because after years of grief these feelings seem to be stiffening into a more permanent part of my character rather than a transient feeling that I know is just something I am passing through. That scares me.

Perhaps the fact that I ran inside to grab the camera and take this photo this morning means that is not the case. It was enough to excite me and make me feel like the day had something in store.


It's a rosella in the gum tree I planted which is now in flower. There were a pair of them, sipping nectar out of the blossom. I only managed one picture before they flew off but I hope they come back.

Some things

You should check out my husband's blog (link to your right - my dearest). He doesn't blog about the IF thing.

But you will see a lot photos of him eating, me eating, our friends eating, the food we make, and the scraps after people have eaten the food we make.

Can you tell that food is a hot topic in our house?



I was very impatient with one of the kids at school today. He keeps sticking his hand down my top and tugging at my bra.
So the internal dialogue goes like this

Good Barbie " It's a way of trying to communicate, what is he trying to tell me?"
Bitch Barbie "back off and STOP TOUCHING ME"
Good Barbie "Maybe he's not coping, maybe the work is too hard, maybe it's too boring"
Bitch Barbie "Why don't you just SPEAK to me. There are these things called words and they work for the rest of us. We don't have to pull clothes off each other"
Good Barbie "Hey little Mister. Why don't you grab this elmo doll instead"
Bitch Barbie (and todays winner) physical wrestle to untangle kid from my clothes and get him to sit down. Shouting "NO" in a startling manner.

(times that scenario by about 10 and you have a little piece of my day).

Yeah - there are days when I feel like I really could improve quite a bit at my job.


The weird thing is, I forgave myself for being like this when I was in the middle of the IVF cycle and had that mountain of stress. But it does not seem OK to be like this now. And today is not even a cry day. No tears today, just a run of the mill, life-after-your-baby-has-died-and- a-string-of-failed-IVF-attempts kind of a day.


I had a great massage last week. It released so much sadness and I had to do a lot of weeping for the next few days.
But it grounded me somehow. It was one of those great moments when you are so vulnerable that you will trust anyone - and somehow - this person was just the person to trust. Not that I spoke with her beyond "I'm really sad" but I completely gave myself up to her care. Her hands and my body had a heartfelt conversation. And she undid something, and put something else back together. And then she pulled something out and shook it from her hands and it left me. It wasn't the end of sadness, but it was a beginning. I had strength to enter my grief. To let myself live the aching pain of hope gone dry, again, and know that I will live beyond this too.

red, white (but no pink)

Standing in the shower with my hand between my legs.
Trying to stop the blood.
Trying to make it stay inside.

Please don't go

Please

don't go

little Bo

I

love you

so

much.