July 1st.
I haven’t sat down to write since April 28th. We have had many big, life-changing decisions in the Glossner household since then.
The last critical morphology we had in February (??? who knows anymore? what is time?) wasn’t…stellar. To say that we were defeated & disappointed would be the biggest understatement of the century; although what is disappointment anymore, fellow infertiles, ya feel me? We basically don’t feel anything at all anymore…So, anyway, we sat down & had some tough conversations. We both came to the conclusion that we needed to make some major life changes. Mostly on my husband’s part. 3 months of a major lifestyle change, & both of us taking the conception supplement (female & male if you’re interested in purchasing yourself. Warning: your pee will be NEON. I’m really not kidding. Anywhoozle…
We knew that this was our last shot, a last-ditch effort – if you will – to try to conceive “naturally” & “on our own.” If we (he) could make this major life change, & made a difference in a second critical morphology repeated in May, then we had the answer. And my LORD aren’t answers what any of us is looking for on this horse shit covered path? It’s the not knowing that’s really, truly, endlessly maddening.
Alas, it they weren’t the results that we were hoping for or expecting. At all. And instead of going down the rabbit-hole like I usually do (I’m basically Alice), we booked a Telehealth appointment with our awesome fertility doctor. We both had questions written down, but within 1 minute of pleasantries & greetings he said: “Okay, so I think it’s time for IVF.” I blinked choked out a dry laughed & spat out: “Well, there goes my list of questions!”
Let me be perfectly clear: no one wants or thinks they’ll ever be at the base of the IVF mountain. Aside from all of the other BS mountain-bases we’ve found ourselves at the bottom of, staring at the impossibly high & almost unseen peaks (struggling to conceive, miscarriage, officially diagnosed infertility, etc., etc., etc.,), I can say with absolute certainty I didn’t ever see us here. In fact, I had actually uttered “We will NEVER do IVF. It is simply not the path or journey to parenthood for us” numerous times. More times than I can count. More times that I care to admit. Because, here we are. Life has played me for a fool, & I feel like the court jester in my own damn life more days than not. My therapist has worked very hard to reframe my thinking to minimizing finite statements like “I’ll never” from my life & vocabulary until they’re truly gone forever. The truth is, you don’t know what you’ll do unless & until you are standing at the bottom of that mountain squinty-eyed, necks craning, attempting to peer up, & then past, that peak to the rainbow in the sky.
A note: this is a particularly hard decision for as I’m adopted. I couldn’t be more proud, happy, blessed, to be adopted. I LOVE being adopted. I tell people about being adopted all the freakin’ time. I love my life, I love my parents, I don’t know what’s above & what I believe (or don’t believe) in, but I know I believe in soulmates. Because there’s little-to-no reason or explanation that someone born in India who wasn’t wanted & was given away (with love, eventually I guess) married a man she met in BFE Kentucky…but…adoption is expensive, y’all. And guess what? It doesn’t guarantee any type of ease. It is a totally different type of difficult. And I’m 1,000,000% not saying that this isn’t something that we’ll consider at some point. One day. Right now, Stephen & I both feel like “We might as well exhaust all of our biological options” before embarking on that incredibly choppy & ever-nauseating journey.
So, we wait.
Again.
For my period.
To start this very, very, very expensive, anxiety-filled chapter of our long & winding “journey to parenthood” book. We are tired of being parents-in-waiting. We’re ready to just be parents.
In an effort to distract ourselves & calm us down (???) we’ve decided on adding 4 paws to our family. Morbidly, if this doesn’t work we’ll have another furry, little, love-muffin to help sop up our tears.
~ As always, thanks so much for reading. Much love, & hope for a return of the light.
I’m sitting on a citadel
Contemplating life
Making a point to waste my time
I’m walking on clouds of whiteWhat if I fall?
Anna Nalick “Citadel.”
What if I don’t?
What if I never make it home?
What if I bleed?
What if I break?
And I find that I can’t take
The city below the Citadel
Holding my own hand?
Soulstice: Return of the Light 