Letting Go of Guilt

The ladies at SITS are hosting a "Letting Go" Link-up, to inspire us to let go of our hang-ups and redefine "our best."

Now, this isn't my normal blog, which is far more fun. I come back and dust this one off once in a while, when something comes up, or when I need to vent. But I'm too chicken to strip my soul naked on the one that our friends read and families subscribe by email to.

This is hard for me. Not just the thought process, but the sharing process. I don't really advertise my infertility issues (except here, obviously,) but I don't keep it a secret either. And I never share the emotions: fear, guilt, shame. Not even with my husband, really. When I first read this challenge, I thought... "Huh. What can I let go?"  My first thought was maybe some vague parenting hang-up, but nothing came to mind. Then I thought, "My guilt?" and my gut reaction was "No! It's mine!"  

Because I don't share it, because I don't let it go, it's almost like a friend. Not a good friend, mind you. But one that's all mine, and no one else's. Someone I can go and play with whenever I want, even if I don't have a good time. Someone who will come to all my birthday parties, even if a part of me wishes they wouldn't. But this isn't someone I met through work, or my husband. Not a friend of a friend. Mine, and mine alone.

I have no reason to feel guilt. I didn't do anything to cause my infertility. And no reason to feel shame. Lots of men and women experience this. More than anyone could imagine.

But it's hard to let go. Sometimes you just feel like sitting there poking at your emotional wounds. "Does it hurt now? How 'bout now? Oh, and remember this?" [poke, poke, poke] "Now how do you feel?"

I've let go of so many things. Issues from childhood. Issues from my parents. Issues from my siblings. Even issues from my husband. But I just can't seem to part with the issues I created for myself. A teacher in High School once said something about how we shouldn't regret anything we do. If you did something bad, learn from it so you never do it again. But don't spend your life regretting what could have been, or what you did wrong. I took that advice to heart. I've always been a firm believer that everything that has happened to you makes you who you are today. And you need to love who you are in order to be happy, and in order for others to love you as well. So everything that has happened, and everything that I have done made me the person I am today. Made me the person who met my husband. Made me the person that he loves. Made me the person who created our daughter with him. And made me the person that she loves. How could I possibly regret being that person?

And yet... we tried for years to get pregnant. I've heard stories more heartbreaking than mine. But they aren't my story. I know some of what they felt, and they know some of what I feel. But no one can know exactly how another person feels. Not exactly.

I've wanted kids, like, forever. At eighteen I was planning what I'd do to become a single mother. Yes. You read that right. There wasn't anyone I wanted to be tied to for the rest of my life, but I wanted a baby. I was willing to move back in with my parents, if that's what it took, to be able to take care of one. But I didn't want to trick anyone into it. No "Yeah, I'm taking the pill." kinds of deceit. Plus I wanted to find good breeding stock, if you get my drift. So I dated a few guys, got into a few emotionally unhealthy relationships. One of those was without protection, as I recall, but nothing happened. He later had several kids. Then I had a long-term relationship with someone, and my recollection is that we'd kind of been "trying," or at least not not trying (he doesn't recall this, and shudders and takes a deep sigh of relief any time he thinks about it,) for several years. Nothing. Then I met the perfect guy... only one hitch: He didn't know if he'd ever want kids, but if he did, he wanted to be married first. But he didn't know if he'd ever want to get married. I'm not one of those people who deludes themselves into thinking "Maybe he'll change." So sometime in the first year of our relationship, I sat down with myself and forced myself to make a choice: Him without kids, or someone else with kids. I chose him, and no regrets. And no blame or resentment for not having kids. Because he didn't lie to me about what he wanted, or give me false hope. I chose him, and all that that entailed.

But over the years, his friends all started getting married. And having kids. And on our 5th anniversary, he proposed, with the caveat that he wasn't actually ready for a wedding yet. Just ready to commit to me. Well, I hadn't ever expected him to marry me, so, bonus! Then four years after that, on our 9th anniversary, we got married. And he said he was ready to start having kids with me.

So 2 weeks before when my husband and I got married, we immediately started trying. I had had a feeling there might be issues, so had started seeing someone at my OB/Gyn's office for fertility issues before we got married. Nothing. Got bumped up to an actual doctor, who started prescribing stuff and ordering expensive tests and doing ultrasounds to check for things. Nothing. Then to an infertility clinic, who said they were sure I'd get pregnant without anything fancy. Nothing. Then fancy procedures. Nothing. Then my Grandma let me cash in on my inheritance early, so we were able to afford IVF without going deeply into debt. Noth... oh wait. What? Pregnant? Really? 

But that was still two years of feeling like a failure. Two years of having my soul crumpled into a ball and stomped on every 28 days (26 for me, actually, the first year. Until they found a problem unrelated to fertility, but fixing it regulated my cycle. Let me tell you what a treat it was to get that extra 14th period every year.) Two years of watching my sisters and everyone else I knew with a uterus popping out babies like Pez dispensers. Two years of hating my body for not being able to do the one thing I wanted most. Ten years of cramps, moodiness, long periods, periods even though the pill I was taking was supposed to prevent them. Yeah. Ten years since I first went crying to my mom as she welcomed me to womanhood. All that, for nothing.

Until the miracle of science (and a hefty dip into our savings account.) And still, then only one egg out of the three we transferred "took."

I decided that when she was 18 months old, I wanted to start working on the next one. Since then we'd have a little time for delays to space them at least two years apart. So my body failed me again. At around 16 months, my cycle started being 14-17 days, irregular, and mostly bleeding. One month I didn't bleed 3 whole days. Yay. After wasting a few months being jerked around by the first doctor I saw, who didn't want to try and discover the cause of the problem, I had to wait another month to get in to see someone else, then it took months to wait to get tests and procedures done, before we were back on track trying to make babies. Then our vacuum, steam cleaner, washer, dryer and water heater all broke within 3 months of each other, so we ran out of funding for infertility treatments. So now she's almost 3. And now we get to start paying to try trying again! 

I can't make any promises. But I will try to let go of my shame. And my guilt. But just in writing this today, I felt a weight lift off my shoulders. The smattering of rain didn't keep us from playing outside. The sunshine was sunshine-ier. I wasn't as quick to race out the door the minute my sister got back from work to take over watching her kids. And I was a lot nicer to them today.

And as I gave myself the IVF shots today (Day 2 of probably 10,) that little part of me didn't hate myself for needing them.