Six months gone

I can't believe that today it's been six months since Aliya's water broke, since my body failed us, since we learned our babies were going die. I am so raw today for so many reasons...for my broken heart, for the babies I can only remember in my thoughts and in a single photograph, for life going on anyway, for our continued struggle, for the poignant posts of others, those I've read and those I've posted for others. For the nephew who will be here soon, probably sooner than expected, who I will help celebrate as I should - unlike last weekend - this afternoon. I've shed so many tears already today...I hope they're done before the shower. It's supposed to be a happy time. Yes, I'm forcing myself, but I figure it's for my own good: What would be worse, choosing to be easy on myself and not go, or regret not being more involved for the rest of my life? Seems pretty simple to me...I have to accept that yes, my babies should be here, they should be the older cousins to my coming nephew, but they died, and he did not...he will be here and in my life, and I don't want to resent him, even though *that* would be very easy and not unexpected. I don't want *that* to be my reality. And so...I will go, I will shower the mama-to-be and her husband, Paul's little brother, I will force myself to be near the newborn I have been warned will be there. Maybe it will do me good, help in some way, or maybe I'm completely insane and about to do some major emotional damage to myself. I'll let you know.

*****

Today is a beautiful day...really cold so far, pale blue sky with whispy clouds, the birds chirping and searching the bare ground for tidbits to eat. I looked at the sky this morning and instantly remembered the clear, deep blue of August 6th, the day we came home from the hospital, and how much that clear sky broke my heart. How unfair that it should be such a beautiful day. How unfair that I had to live on that beautiful day. How unfair that any of us mommies who lose our babies have to live at all. But it is what is, and somehow our lives will go on, forever changed, a little broken (or a lot broken, depending on how we heal and the support we have or don't have), cobbled together, picked up and carried sometimes like an armful of tattered rags, and other times like a pale balloon held by a string, aloft but delicate and fleeting...one instance and it can disappear.

*****

I feel resigned to unfairness sometimes, like the fact that my period would start - signalling the failure our latest IUI cycle, the one I held some hope for (why??) - the day before today, that I would be bleeding when six months ago I was nearing the end of 7 weeks of bleeding. Our medical due date, February 1st, came and went, yet another day not without major drama as my sister-in-law landed in the hospital with preterm labor. (I'm so over ever being pregnant at the same time as anyone else I know, because when things go to Hell for one party, the reminders are constant. My experience has really made me question my karma...what the Hell have I ever done to deserve the pregnancy crises of another landing on our important dates - twice? Even still, I begged my babies to somehow protect their baby cousin and keep him safe until it's time.) I held it together pretty well that day, but spent the next home sick, vomiting with a severe headache behind one eye. Bad karma? Bad luck? What??

*****

Paul and I are feeling fairly sure that we will postpone our next superovulation IUI cycle until April instead of March. We have financial catching up to do to pay off December's disappointing and stupidly expensive attempt, and those discounted overseas meds are still really costly. The upside of this decision is that it would give more time for the DHEA and the Royal Jelly with Bee Pollen (which we'll both start taking next week) to work. Paul has put out to the Universe that he's hoping I have so many healthy follicles next time that we have to convert to IVF again and end up with embryos to freeze for later. I just hope I respond better, that's all, that I have normally-rising estradiol and plenty of antral follicles this time, to ensure a fighting chance. I decided, and he has to accept, that I don't want to do another unmedicated cycle while we wait. Why waste another $450 on something so unlikely to work, something that so disrupts and controls our marital relations that he actually bet me the other night that we've only had sex no more than 20 times in the last year? He may be right. I really hope not...it's one of the major downsides to ART when the man has male factor infertility issues; intercourse has to be so carefully timed that when it's time to give a sample for IUI or IVF, he hasn't "wasted" any swimmers to too-recent sex. It sucks. Lucky for me, I have records of every time we've had sex in almost the last 4 years, thanks to my dedication to my Fertility Friend chart, so I can pretty easily go back and prove him wrong or right...but I'm afraid to know the answer, because, yeah, he might actually be right....although, I will point out that I couldn't have sex from May to September of last year because of my prescribed pelvic rest due to the bleeding and Aliya's abruption and then recovery from miscarriage. (Edited to add: I just proved him wrong...by two. How sad is that?)