Game Time

                   

      

It's kickoff day for the Pats, my husband and I are rabid football fans and will spend 1pm-4 yelling for our team and then the remainder of the day going back and forth from computer to TV and back, keeping an eye on our fantasy teams (this is the first year we're in the same league - lookout marriage!). Excitement and bliss aside, today is also the day my period is due. Wah wah wah. And while the past few cycles have been like clockwork but with no PMS symptoms, this cycle is already a few hours late and with no symptoms. Commence troll brain. 

I totally stood in the evil section of CVS yesterday for far too long, gazing at the pregnancy tests and ovulation kits, debating spending the money. "I'll just buy the store brand one," is how I justified the idea of buying one before my period is even due. I ended up talking sense into myself before I wasted money on a test (I spent it on makeup instead weeee because I always need more and there was PINK mascara and glitter eyeliner, you guys). 

On my way to checkout, I walked straight into a lady with her arms chock full of prenatal vitamins. Fuck. It. I convinced myself that she was in the TTC stage and maybe even she is like me and her RE told her to start them along with her hormones. It kind of helped me have compassion in place of seething jealousy. 

So I'll be simultaneously cheering on my team while cheering on my period to just get here already because really, we had sex three times this cycle, and according to my RE, we don't want any part in the sperm he was producing last semen analysis (I think those sperm were probably slow moving Jets fans- barf!).

Retrospect

How time flies when you are not obsessing over infertility appointments and deadlines! Makes me wish we all had an "off" button somewhere internally for the days when we're tormenting ourselves waiting for our periods or for "the call" or the beta test, ultrasound, blood work, followup, FET, ER, ET.....phew, it truly is a wonder how we don't all end up committed at some point throughout this affair. As difficult as it is to see when you're in the depths of the process, a break can really be a good thing and I strongly recommend one to anyone who is able to do so.

The past week I've been in a toss up of "clouds". Clouds are what I call it when I retreat into my brain and allow my thoughts to wander and escape so much that I'm having conversations and scenarios play out internally without even really noticing so. Our dear friend was finally memorialized on Monday at a beautiful location in my hometown, with many beautiful people who represent the epitome of my childhood, and beautiful stories about the beautiful woman who chose to create her own fate and destiny, right up to the very end. I sat flanked by my parents, in a row with my childhood best friends' parents, watching through the windows as sailboats passed and seagulls flew effortlessly on the breeze. I could not help but think of how many times I'd been in this exact position as a child, with those very characters in that very town and how much of an absence there was and will always be from now on. 

The numerous stories of our dear friend were touching and there was much laughter and even more tears. When it was over, in place of the relief that one often feels at the end of such a memorial, I felt an emptiness and sadness that has lingered with me ever since. Thinking of the tales of such a strong woman who made such a seemingly weak decision in the end and how many lives she touched! Oh the people she influenced in her life and from such an early age! And I've been sitting around feeling desperate for a child, doing nothing but planning and thinking about becoming a mother for years. What stories would anyone have to tell of me were I to die? 

One could get lost in the cloud of life and death but there's been another cloud nagging at my brain as our deadline to return to the RE for a semen analysis quickly approaches. The deadline itself has me thinking of the deadlines we've set for ourselves; the idea that - despite it only being the second day of September - that I could possibly have to survive yet another Christmas without bearing a child. Deadlines that our dear friend may have set for herself; watching the game clock wind down 4...3...2...are you happy yet? What will you do if you are not so by the time the whistle blows? How will you sit through another holiday feeling so empty, so useless? What will happen if this month off break has been all for not in terms of the ceaseless search for sperm?