Sunday, September 18, 2005

not realizing how much it still hurts...

The pain of this thing called "infertility" can creep up on you when you least expect it.

It usually happens on Friday nights, at Shul. This Friday night, not only was there another pregnant lesbian, but our favorite two year old was there, and responding to the "nishekah" (Hebrew for kiss) that I had been teaching him for two years by pukering his lips in my general direction when I said nishekah! (HOW CUTE IS THAT!) But there was also a pair of dads there with a two month old new born.

Seeing C preggers was REALLY hard, although she did have one m/c (I think, as we're not close, so I can only guess) but she and her partner haven't tried that long.

Narda pointed out to me, as we left shul that she wishes I had someone to talk to about all of this. She sees the pain I feel through infertility, and I tell her - yeah, I'm really fucking jealous of minor acquaintences that I see get pregnant, when I can't.

It hurts.

And for the first time in this journey, I realized that altough she loves me with every fiber of her being, she doesn't understand this primal pain called infertility. She longs for a baby, sure, but the feelings of failure, incompleteness, inadequacy, physical shortcoming, all of it, it is not a known quantity to her.

And I realize that I wish none of you had to experience it. It's a hurt like no other. And unless you've been there, you can't understand.

I DO so thank you for the love and support, it helps.

If you've been there, or are there, I hear ya, sister, I hear ya.


7 comments:

cat said...

Sending you love and cheesy internet hugs until they can be real ones. You know I feel your pain. Please call me anytime you want to talk.

Anonymous said...

Shelli
I can relate. My partner Laura loves me TONS and really wants a baby and is sad that we don't have one (and that we've lost one) but I know she doesn't feel it as intensely to her core like I do. I know she isn't getting those pangs of jealousy like I do whenever i see someone pregnant or with a baby.

It's so hard. And so unfair. And (for me, anyway) it's the ONLY thing in life I can't get over just by working harder.

It helps to vent, just a little.

Anonymous said...

It's really true, isn't it. It is like a little club. Or people who have been in the army and the rest of us haven't. You have to be there to get it. I get it. And I was talking to a friend last night, and he doesn't get it. He thinks a kid is a kid, and adopting in fostercare is the same, cuz of course a kid is a kid. But he got to have his daughter with his girlfriend, to be there from birth. To see the family resemblance. To feel for her kicking in the womb. To wonder if she'll inherit his traits etc. Adopting a kid is great, but it is not the same. And a child you only met after they had been in this world for a year or two is not the same feeling as a child you spoke to in the womb and then outside in the world all its life from the moment of conception.

I'm sorry for your pain on Fridays, and everyday. I hear ya.

Anonymous said...

{{hugs}}

Calliope said...

I soooooooooo get it. It is a feeling like no other, a type of grief that can not be explained.

Anonymous said...

I get it... I may be only 6 months into this whole ttc thing, but an ectopic in June and a beta of 17 this time around doesn't make one feel terribly "fertile". My husband doesn't get it - he tries... but he just doesn't understand that that positive pregnancy test can bring so much joy and then to hear the news that the beta is 17 just sends you to the floor... I hear you... loud and clear and I so wish that you weren't a member of the fertility challenged... I wish no one had to go through that agony...

Rachel said...

Shelli --

I'm come to know you through the FF boards. Just wanted to let you know that I COMPLETELY understand everything you have posted on your blog lately.

I haven't been on this journey as long as you and Narda, but it still hurts. I wish I knew why things happen they way they do .. or don't happen, for that matter. Maybe it would make things easier. . . if I knew the ultimate purpose for all of this waiting, crying, disappointment . . maybe then I could go through all of this more patiently.

But, for me, it's all the unknowns that make this more tormenting -- not knowing for sure if we'll ever have children, not knowing why we had to lose our baby, not knowing why every time I go to the Dr. I have to hear bad news. Sometimes it feels as though God is just playing with me, giving me this intense desire to be a mother yet giving me a body that's broken -- incapable of producing a child.

I watch my friends and family getting pregnant; each pregnancy has "casually" happened. Each time I've heard the phrase "we weren't even trying." Lol -- why do I have to hear that?

Whew -- this has turned into quite a long, rambling mess! Sorry -- my ultimate goal for writing was to let you know that I understand and send you my support and prayers.

~~Rachel