Back in the Saddle Again

Resilience. It’s not a word I use often nor a word I have ever taken time to consider. After some consideration this morning I think it is the most important word for any infertile woman to learn. ,

re·sil·ience

/rɪˈzɪlyəns, -ˈzɪliəns/ [ri-zil-yuhns, -zil-ee-uhns]

–noun

1.

the power or ability to return to the original form, position, etc., after being bent, compressed, or stretched; elasticity.

2.

ability to recover readily from illness, depression, adversity, or the like; buoyancy.

This morning while attempting to use makeup to cover my ghost white face and purple eye rings that resulted from The Weekend in Hell (more on that later), I was listening to BBC.  They aired a segment on the psychology of happiness. It's here http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00fz84k if you want to listen. I’ve been hearing a lot about this over the past few years and even read a book about it. It’s a newer branch of science. Measuring happiness and solving the mystery behind what does and does not make people happy. Think about it. We have so much more than anyone has ever had in history in terms of food, shelter, treatments and cures for previously deadly diseases, all of the modern conveniences, etc and somehow we seem LESS happy than previous generations. How is that possible? What is it going to take to make us happy????

One topic discussed on the program was the part that resilience plays in happiness. Resilence.  Why hadn’t I ever connected this dot before? That is the key to my current struggle. When I am at my lowest point I ask my friends who have been through this battle how they survived, each has told me that I just have to bounce back after each setback and keep going. This word “resilience’” was never used, but that is exactly what they have been telling me to find within myself.  The ability to bend with the changes or to bounce back when brought to your knees by grief.

In this BBC segment they interviewed a woman who is an General in the US Army. She was shot down and taken as a POW. She now runs a program about resilience for service members. She realized there were all kinds of programs for those who HAD a problem (I am guessing depression, PTSD and the like) but not enough measures were being taken to prevent these illnesses. When she was held captive she thought about the best and the worst possible outcomes to her situation. She came to grips with both. Once she had wrapped her head around the worst possible outcome and put everything in perspective it helped. It got me thinking. What’s my worst case scenario? It takes a few more years and we adopt?  What’s wrong with that other than the fact that I need to find some more patience? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.  I have always wanted to adopt. My Love was the one who preferred an attempt to have a biological child. For the most part I have grieved the fact that I will never achieve a physical pregnancy. (By the way, it was hard to figure out how to phrase that last sentence. If this thing with Ginny ever works I will experience a pregnancy, our pregnancy, just not in my own body. It will all be second hand, but for the most part we will get to “live” an entire pregnancy. At this point that's close enough for me.) Okay, I was talking about the worst case scenario- finding patience within myself and adopting. Adopting is a dream I have always had and I will be able to fulfill if this plan doesn't work. For me that is a good thing. It does mean My Love and I will have to grieve the dream of seeing a child with his grandmothers eyes and my grandmother’s nose, but that is surely something we can get over.  This realization has taken a weight off of me that sometimes felt like a freight car of lead. If waiting and adopting is the worst case, no problem. As Ginny says, “I’ve got this!!!”

This segment also help me solve the mystery of the balloons that everyone keeps tying to me. I learned that optimism breeds optimism. So that is what’s happening!!! I need a new analogy. I don't thnk the balloons work anymore. Hmmm. I’ll need to noodle on that one and get back to you.  My optimism feeds on everyone else’s optimism and no matter how much I try to resist, I was unable to. Optimism breeds optimism. Thank you BBC for solving that mystery! I just need to focus on keeping all the optimists away ;)

I promised to tell you about The Weekend in Hell. You may have seen my Saturday post that has since been deleted. Once I got over the shock I realized it was incredibly inaccurate so I removed it. It was all my side of the story and none of hers. In this blog I try not to assign feelings to Ginny, so this is a total and complete guesstimate. She may tell me how she is feeling sometimes but I don’t want to put words in her mouth, betray any confidences or speak for her in any way. 90% of the time I don’t think most of us know what we are really feeling much less how someone else feels.  Writing this blog has helped me accept the fact that I am usually wrong about what I thought I was feeling at any given point. On Saturday I thought I was angry, but in fact I was hurt and scared. I think those two feelings quite often manifest themselves as anger. I am going to give you the seriously abridged version of The Weekend in Hell.  Ginny  wasn’t totally on board with the number of embryos we wanted to transfer next time (2) and thought perhaps she was not the GC for us and sent me an email voicing this concern. I read this and had a mini nervous breakdown. This is what I think happened. Fear+ high doses of progesterone=hell. I have been in that place. Those of you who have not cannot imagine what it feels like. I will never say that I had any idea what she was going through, but I imagine it to have been a combination of heartache for the loss of Sprout, fear of trying again, the impact it might have on her and her family if we fail and fear of succeeding but with twins (not something Ginny would look forward to), stirred up with a little pinch of every other possible emotion. Kind of an emotional allspice boiling in the pot. I was stewing in my own emotional allspice. Two women over seasoned with emotional allspice is not a tasty dish. Don’t worry. There were no harsh words spoken. There was just a whole lot of quiet while we both thought.  Well, I supposed I did more eating, freaking out and panicking than what you would traditionally describe as "thinking", but somehow I managed to process some of my emotions.  We have most of our conversations by email and it was strange to have such a Ginny-free inbox.  We’ve grown close. I love plotting and planning with her.  I was devastated at the thought of moving on without her, but I also could not bear the thought of any more single embryo transplants. The last one took a lot out of me. I know Ginny was in monumental pain too and THAT upset me. Can you imagine knowing that the sweetest person is hurting because she is trying to perform a miracle for you?? That pain of hurting her may be worse than the pain I feel for my own loss. That coupled with what I imagine My Love is feeling is just too much to bear more often than necessary. I really needed to transfer two embryos. I just need this to work.

There is not a single bone in my body that could ask Ginny to do something she didn’t want to do so I left it to her and My Love to decide if they wanted to do a single embryo transfer.  I was no longer capable of playing quarterback in a game where the chances of losing were so high. We’d all just played against this team last week and I knew they were capable of crushing me.  It was all too fresh in my mind and I hadn’t healed from the last thrashing we'd received. Before they could even send out the press release of my resignation as quarterback Ginny emailed me back and said she would accept a two-embryo cycle. The relief was almost as overwhelming as the despair.  That is my versionof our Weekend in Hell. I'm leaving tons out and Ginny will have her own version and My Love will have the third version. This is just my perspective at this moment.  I feel bad that we all had to go through it. I promise you it was no picnic, but at the end of the day we all reevaluated and recommitted to the team. I feel like we are stronger than ever now.  We’re moving forward quickly.  Ginny is already on cycle day 5 and taking her meds. She went for testing today. We are booked for the next transfer on the morning of Thursday, May  12^th.  They offered us Friday again, but after an April Fools Day transfer and beta on the 13^th , someone else can take the Friday the 13^th transfer thank you very much.  It seems fair to me. I think we all deserve a little break. Wish us luck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!