ICLW Random Facts

Here are some random facts about me, in no special order:

1. I'm anonymous here. I was going to pick something about how bitter I am, but I decided to go with the one thing I want to hold onto during this journey. So I called myself Hope. It represents my hopes that someday I will experience pregnancy and giving birth (at least once), my hopes for children to raise (even if they are adopted or foster kids), and most of all my hopes that I won't entirely lose myself to the pain of loss & infertility.
2. I'm starting my first year as a Sunday School teacher at my church. I'll be teaching grades 3-5. I'm working with a team of 5 other teachers, round-robin style. We take turns planing and teaching lessons, and acting as assistants to each other. This Sunday I'll be in the classroom for the first time, and in two weeks I'll be teaching my first lesson. It's the trial by fire method. I hope I survive . . .
3. I'm in training to become a K-3 music docent. The program trains local volunteers to teach in public school classrooms & has been going for over 30 years. It's the only exposure many of these kids have to music. I was lucky enough to receive an excellent musical education as a child, and now I want to give back
4. I volunteer at a local, organic, educational garden. I've been working there for about 18 months now. I go once or twice a week for a couple of hours to weed, plant, harvest, prune, water, compost, teach kids, etc. Then I get to take home some of whatever produce is in season and buy pasture raised eggs. Yum!
5. I love getting out on my mountain bike. I got it fitted with a back rack and pannier this summer, and now I can use it to run most of my errands. Someday, I plan to tow my kids along as well. The weather is nice enough where I live that biking is a viable option most of the year.

Gratitude

First, I have to say how grateful I am for all the wonderful, supportive comments I have received in the past day. I really appreciate the warm welcome and all the support. Maybe in the blogosphere I will finally feel "at home". I have tried in-person support groups. Some help more than others. One in particular, is lead by a woman I feel a real connection to. At another I met a friend who is in a similar place in her grief, even though our losses were different. But even the groups that are helpful and the real life friends are only available sometimes. So I tried exploring forums. They helped some, too, but I had trouble keeping up with the conversations.

Here, on my blog, I feel free to express myself fully, and when I read other people's blogs, I really get to know them. There is much of the intimacy and comradery that comes from in-person connection, with the added bonus that I can choose when to be on-line, when to read blogs, and take my time responding. So far, it looks like the best of both worlds. But maybe, since I'm only just coming out into the public aspect of it, I'm in some kind of honeymoon phase.

At any rate, right now I'm appreciating the support. And I want to express my gratitude to those of you who read my blog, those of you who comment, and also to the people whose blogs I follow, for sharing yourselves and giving me the chance to learn from your experiences.

Drawing Lines

First, welcome to ICLW. This is my first time participating. I was going to write a boring post introducing myself, but then, in looking at other ICLW blogs, I found two posts on how lines form within the IF community. You can read them here & here. So instead of just a time-line, I'm going to weave my story in with my thoughts about drawing lines.

For the past few months, I have felt indescribably alone. I have thought that no-one could possibly understand, because no-one's experience is exactly like mine. I conceive super easily. Which is turning out to be more curse than blessing, because it means that if we don't want to risk another miscarriage, we have to actively avoid pregnancy until we can find some treatment that will lower the risk of miscarriage. My miscarriages occurred before I got a BFP, which doesn't make sense to me. How could my hormone levels be high enough to produce unmistakable pregnancy symptoms, but too low to show up on an HPT? Someone explain that!

So now I wonder where I belong. I sort of belong with the babyloss mama's, but not really. Most of them had later losses. I sort of belong with the IFers, but not really, most of them had to try really hard to even get pregnant in the first place. Although we all experience many of the same emotions, I have been looking at the differences in our situation and drawing a line around myself, saying, "because no-one is just like me, I must be alone." But the two posts I read today made me realize that I don't have to be alone. I'm isolating myself. And I have the option of opening up to feel the support and love that is there. So I'm going to try to be more accepting of those who offer me support. I'm also going to try to be more compassionate and less judgmental and to look beyond our differences to what we all share in common--the desire to be mothers and the pain of lost dreams.

Falling Into Place

That's what things finally seem to be doing. This is how I felt last fall, too. Like everything was falling into place just right. Will it all just get swept away again? I don't want to think about that possibility right now. Right now, I am in a place of hope.

This morning, after a shopping trip where I saw too many babies too many times, I went to a local park where I had seen a Tai Chi group on Labor Day. I wasn't sure of the time, so I arrived late, but I was able to join for the second half. Apparently the first half is actually Qigong. The group meets every Monday and Friday morning & best of all, it's free, and just a few minutes walk from my door to the park. The only drawback is that all the others there are senior citizens. But I guess I can live with that.

Even though I only participated in the second half, it was wonderful and by the end I could really feel the energy moving as I moved my hands. It felt very healing for my whole system. This is definitely the right type of exercise for me right now. I am focusing on engaging the energy in so many ways right now--the Munay-Ki Rites, Pranic Healing, and now Tai Chi.

I guess I haven't mentioned the Pranic Healing yet--it's something another friend is doing for me. I'm really excited about it. I'm not sure how to describe it, except that it involves healing the body on an energetic level, working with the Chakras and with specific organs. It seems to be a pretty well developed system--they even have a specific protocol for preventing miscarriage.

I have a really strong intuition that I need to engage the energy first, before I move on to more physical levels of healing. Although I think that there might be treatments out there that could keep me pregnant, I'd like to do my best to fix the underlying problem, so my body can carry a pregnancy on it's own. I'll consider other treatment options if these ones don't work, but I want to start with these options. If these energetic techniques allow me to stay pregnant, I'll feel more like I did it myself.  I want to stay as independent as possible through this whole process. If it's not to be, I'm coming to terms with that possibility. But at least I want to try.

Munay Ki

A couple of months ago, my friend Hum told me about the Munay Ki, nine rites of initiation from the shamanic traditions of Peru. She told me that they were really helpful in her life when she received them and then offered to give them to me. I considered what she said, did some research, and finally decided to give it a try.

Yesterday, Hum gifted me the first rite--the healers rite. I'm not sure what I was expecting--if anything--but I did not expect it to be so dramatic. First, Hum is two thousand miles away from me, and I wasn't so sure long-distance transmission would really work. Second, I seldom have "flashy" spiritual experiences--my experience of spiritual things is usually very quiet. But this was something different.

During the rite, my hands got really tingly and warm, and since then I have, quite simply, been feeling better and better. It's like night and day. It's been less than 48 hours, but I can hardly remember the depth of depression I was experiencing just a few days ago. I also realized that the feeling of "getting some sun" that I had a few weeks ago was just the barest hint of sun through clouds. This is full on blue sky, smile, laugh, sing-out-loud, I'm-doing-pretty-well-thank-you sunshine.

Let me tell you, it feels so good to be here right now. It feels like a real shift--a real step towards healing the emotional trauma of my miscarriages. It gives me hope that soon, I will be emotionally ready to want to try again. Yesterday, I was able to be around mothers with children with minimal discomfort, and today I have been happy all day. All I can say is, "Wow."

Losing Myself

This is the hard part. Hard to talk about or write about or explain or even think about. But I'll try anyway, so here goes:

I didn't just lose two pregnancies this spring, what I really lost was myself. I lost my self-image, my image of who I am. I lost the person I thought I was. And even worse, I lost my image of who I would become

I thought I was a healthy, fertile woman. Now I find out that I'm only fertile enough to get pregnant, but not fertile enough to stay pregnant, and that qualifies me to be called infertile. It feels horrible to think of myself as infertile, when I can get pregnant.

Infertile. The word itself stings. It carries so much baggage. It seems to imply failure. It sounds so permanent. Pregnancy is Impossible. Or at least, healthy-full-term-pregnancy is impossible.

Infertile: Not capable of initiating, sustaining, or supporting reproduction. I thought is was just the first part--not capable of initiating reproduction, but it turns out that all reproductively challenged people qualify. Including me.

All the while, something inside me is screaming: This is not who I thought I would be! This is not how I imagined my future!

In fact, I can't see my future any more. I can't envision myself staying pregnant or carrying a healthy baby to term. I can only see more miscarriages. If I try to envision a full term pregnancy, my vision gets sidetracked, and I start picturing a stillbirth. Pregnancy has become synonymous with death for me, when it should be synonymous with life.

I've lost so much of who I thought I was. I used to be such an optimistic person, and now, well . . . it's hard to be optimistic. Sometimes I manage it, but a lot of the time I just feel hopeless. It often feels like I'm drowning in a sea of  questions and none of them have easy answers.

Who am I?
What comes next next?
Do we try again now or get some tests done first?
Do we start with local care providers and hands-on treatment, or do we go for energy-healing techniques? Which do we try first? Do we do both at once or one at a time?
How will I ever feel ready to try again, when I know that to get pregnant is to step onto a roller coaster of intense emotion?
How will I ever believe I have a chance of carrying to term?

I am not the fertile earth-mama I thought I was, so who am I? I don't know. I don't know myself anymore.

Getting Some Sun

Both literally and figuratively. Life has been better the past few days. I think it may have had to do with a really good focusing session with my mom on Thursday. It cleared up for me what my specific fears are, and what (small) steps I can start taking now to alleviate my fears. It feels like sun breaking through clouds or a big weight being lifted.

Am I alone in having trouble taking action on big decisions? Even when I know the steps I want to take, actually taking them can be really hard. So the first step, it turns out, is to do some things to address my fears. Then, hopefully, I'll be able to see more clearly whether it is the right time to take the next step on my quest for living children, and what that step needs to be.

Actually, the reason I say Thursday's session was so good, is that I already feel more at peace and ready to begin to lay the foundation for the next step. Nothing is set in stone yet. I can still change my mind. But a week ago I was going out of my mind with worry and fear. I was paralyzed by not knowing what direction to take, or what lay in store in the future. I still don't know what the future holds. But I do know the steps I am willing to take now. I'll figure out the next steps once I've taken these ones.

One step at a time. One day. One hour. Sometimes one minute. That's how I live now. It's one of the odd blessings of experiencing pregnancy loss. It really brings home the truth that I can't see the future. It forces me to live much more in the present. I never thought I'd have to lose my dreams to start understanding how to live in the now. There must be easier ways to learn this lesson, but this is the way I was given. So I'll take it. I do try to look for silver linings. It keeps me sane to be grateful for something.