Sad and angry

A negative IVF is, as I can now attest, like being kicked very hard in the stomach when you least expect it. When I was six years old I can remember joyfully pushing an empty swing, a large blue wooden swing in our neighborhood park, and when I turned my head for just a split second, the sucker flew at my stomach and knocked all the air out of my lungs. Suddenly I was flat on my back on the ground, swing flying recklessly over me so I couldn't get up, gasping for breath and feeling dazed. I don't remember how long the sensation lasted but the surprise and shock and helplessness stays with me to this day. Tuesday was a lot like that.

The worst part in all this though has to be that gnawing rage, that tightening in the throat that heart sinking feeling of being in a very long line and being sent back to the end of the line as if all of your waiting in that line never counted at all. It's being told they are out of stock, there may be more, please try again tomorrow, next week, another time.

No that's not the worst part. The worst part is being sad and having your son see you sad. It's trying to put on a brave face for him and feeling the weight of this news in all of your limbs like lead pellets poured into your joints. It's crying in front of him because the tears are right there and once they spill over the edge it's like someone has turned on a too full hose, a hose bursting and bulging to be released of all its pressure before it splits in half. Once the tears come they last for several minutes and you bury your face in a pillow and try swallowing them down but it doesn't do any good. With the tears should come the healing but it's slow and difficult and each time the tears come and dry up you wonder how many more tears there are and how deep this reserve is anyway. There are a lot because the pain keeps filling the trench back up with more and the pain does not stop, refuses to go away.

My next appointment is September 20th, an eternity of waiting. Time to think and obsess and don armour for the next battle. This is not a pink, light-filled, fuzzy positive thinking fest where happy, confident people will win the baby. This is a war and only the strong will get there in one piece. No, not positive thinking but flat on your stomach clawing and scratching your way through a mine field armed only with a penciled map, a battered helmet and the overwhelming will to get to the other side no matter what condition you end up in, just arrive somehow.

Maybe in there somewhere lies a message of faith too, I don't know. To me though faith is lying on your back, hoping that something will come to you. This may have been my past philosophy, a quaint and simple belief that the universe will do what's necessary and right, but not anymore. Now I'm strapping on boots. Now I'm going to battle. I don't think I'll get there without a fight and after all isn't it a maternal instinct to fight for our children at any cost?