The Waiting Game

I have not posted in quite awhile.  I think it is because I have felt stuck--stuck in the purgatory that is the waiting game of trying to conceive.  This stickiness seems to have affected everything.  I feel stuck in my cycle, stuck in my diagnostic testing, and even stuck with nothing to say.  It is as if a layer of thick, slimy goo has oozed over everything.  It will age me right now, I know, when I say that the goo in my imagination is tied to the slime from Ghostbusters.  Yes, that is it.  I feel as if I have been slimed!

image via google images

I have come here to write often in the last few weeks, but when I come I simply sit in my chair, stare at the screen and wait for words that never come.  How could I have no words?  First of all, if you knew me, you would think that absolutely impossible.   Secondly, there have been many events that would usually lead me to pouring my heart out.  Instead, they have just left me numb and, apparently, mute.  I don't have the words to go into everything that has transpired over the last few weeks.  For at times, the events, comments, and feelings seem so disastrously monstrous and at other times, so embarrassingly insignificant.  The main disappointment is that I had another month of doing everything right with no little bean on the other side.  It is so crushingly comical to me how every month, without fail, I have the same desperate moments where my hope is so overwhelming it turns me into a hot, delusional mess!  My constant inner dialogue goes something like this:  

"Well, I know that I've gotten my period, but...it was earlier than expected and lighter and shorter, so it could have been implantation bleeding.  I have felt so sick and I know I have the flu, but it could be for other reasons.  I know I took pregnancy tests and they were all negative, but some people have to have a blood test to confirm pregnancy."  

How silly!  How insanely delusional can I be!?!  Am I certifiable?  Do I need to medication?  Counseling?  The thoughts are downright crazy, but in those moments, I whole-heartedly believe every single one of these things.

So now, I wait again.  Indeed, this time I wait closer to the edge of my seat than ever before.  After surviving a violent case of the flu, I have found myself in the probable position of having missed my ovulation completely.  It is so hard to tell with fevers that tamper with BBTs and dehydration that disturbs CM, that I truly don't have a clue what has or hasn't happened in my body this month--something that hasn't happened since we began TTC.  In months past, I had entertained the idea of putting my charts away for a month to see if it would help me to relax.  I now know that relaxation does not come from being left in the dark while TTC!  I am addicted to the information that charting provides me--the assurance that I ovulated, that we had well timed sex.  While it all seems very clinical and void of romance, I still feel like monitoring my cycles closely is the only thing that keeps me sane at times, my lifeline.

I wait this month also, for my cycle to fall on a day I can get into the clinic for my tests.  It was a huge disappointment last month when the possible testing days fell on the weekend.  In fact, I was crushed by the news.  I felt like falling out, letting the tears cascade down my face, hiding in a dark corner.  And then I realized how silly it all was.  There was no real devastating news, just more waiting.  I keep trying to tell myself that while waiting is the hardest thing on this side of (in)fertility, when I finally find myself on the other side, rocking a baby in my arms, this time will seem completely insignificant.  Another month is another month.  No more, no less.

And so, I wait.  With all the patience I can muster, I wait.