Why?

I am so surprised that I haven't written all week.  When I started this blog I felt like I could post every hour I had so much on my mind.  I suppose I haven't written this week because I haven't needed to write.  As an outlet to get all my overwhelming emotions out, I am sure that I will write more often when I am down than when I am up, though my initial purpose was to document the good and the bad times equally.

When I opened this page this morning to write, I was trying to find the words to share how extraordinary my husband's love and support has been throughout this process.  I sat, conjuring up images in my head of times a simple touch or look has saved me.  I reminisced on words of wisdom that have come at the exact moment I was about to abandon all sanity.  These are all things I definitely want to write about, things I want to document and share.  Yet, while sitting, searching my head and heart for the words, I suddenly became vehemently bitter.

And so, this post has changed.  What is to come, you may ask . . .  A pity party?  Yes.  A lamenting why me rant?  Undoubtedly.  A waterfall of things I simply have to let pour out of me less they drown me?  Absolutely.

As I was musing on the rock that is my husband, I did hear his words, feel his comforting touch and looks down to my soul.  But what I also experienced were the events and feelings that made those very lifelines necessary.  In a matter of minutes, I relived negative pregnancy tests, hours researching positions and timing, dietary changes, and obsessive ovulation testing.  My mind ventured back to the dark places where it mocked my fertility as if it already knew that I could indeed, never conceive.  At this point, nothing is known.  We have started our fertility testing, but there are no more answers than there were months ago--a fact that makes the questions all the more meddlesome.

While I realize that we are on the path to answers, my mind is still here now.  It is still asking a very simple question:  why?  Last night, I bemoaned to a friend that, "I am so annoyed that it takes me anything more than just fucking to get pregnant!"  (If you are offended, I apologize for the language, but my crass choice of words seem to help color my current jaded view of this entire process.)

Why do I, under doctor's orders, have to gain even more weight while also increasing my physical activity?  I am sorry to those who may sneer at this dilemma, thinking that it may be a wonderful problem to have.  But please understand, for me it is a real challenge, and one that may drastically alter my ability to conceive.  This prescription currently has me sitting down with a dietician and personal trainer for consults, consumed with researching whether building muscle, packing on the fat, or both is optimal for my situation.  I am planning my meals with measuring cups and a scale, counting calories and fat grams, trying to understand how I can gain weight and exercise simultaneously.  And all the while, I am obsessing about how to gain weight and still eat heart healthy as to avoid the cholesterol baggage my family has so generously blessed me with.

Why do I have to chart every cycle, spend a fortune on ovulation predictor kits?  Why do I become giddy at the sight of a smiley face after I pee on a stick when we never end up catching that little egg anyway?  Why do I feel every twinge possible in the two week wait and become optimistically hopeful, only to have to admit to myself later that they were absolutely nothing?  Why do I have to worry about oils and lubricants, vitamin and mineral supplements?  Why do we (now also by doctor orders) have to schedule having sex every other day?  Though we generally have no problem having sex, the idea of it being prescribed in certain increments is incredibly unnerving, as is the idea that  if we want it two days in a row, we can't have it?  Talk about sexual frustration!  Oh, and while I'm on the subject of sex, why do I have to prop my hips up, holding my legs up in the air to help the little guys out with gravity.  Aiding gravity is doing nothing more for me than assuring that I finish in the most unattractive, comical way possible.  Why do I work to calm myself, meditate, hoping that that the peace inside will bring the babies into my body?  Why do I have to find times to squeeze appointments into my schedule?  Be poked, prodded, scrutinized?  Go through the anxiety of waiting for test results?  Why do I feel as if I have to tell everyone we are trying to conceive, thinking this is the only way I will get the medical, dietary, physical fitness, and emotional support I need throughout this time, thinking that my sharing this will help give reason and understanding to those times I seem dismal and distant?  Why do I have to do any of this?  Why can't it just happen for me as it seems to for so many others?

I realize that I am not the only person in this place, desperately asking why.  I empathize with every why out there as I sit and wonder what whys may be on other hopeful mothers lists.  If there are others out there, what are your whys?  And what do you do with them?  How do you cope?  I realize that there may or may not be many more crushing whys in my future.  I realize that these aren't all of my whys right now, but that I am exhausted by documenting them.  I realize that my current list of whys may look insignificant compared to other's lists.  If it causes any angst, I sincerely apologize.  But this is where I am now and this is how I feel.  

I suppose it was one of these very "why me?" moments that inspired this entire blog in the first place.  It was the moment last cycle where I realized I was 10 days past ovulation, traditionally the day I start to torment myself with pregnancy tests that inevitably come up negative.  I didn't take a test that morning, but I did realize where I was in my cycle.  I did recognize the hope rising in my body.  But, that morning I shut it down.  Why, I asked myself angrily, why would I get optimistic right now if sorrow is bound to follow when I find out I am yet again, not pregnant?

As I recall that moment, I wonder what my reaction will be this time around.  And the next time, and the next time. . .  What will happen when I hit that 10 dpo marker that so defines my mental state?  Is it wrong to deny hope when it fills the heart?  Is acknowledging those hopeful moments the only saving grace I really have?  I don't have answers to any of the questions that I raise today, but it would not be honest of me if I didn't admit that they were in me.  The only wish, I suppose, is that they do not eat away at me, consume me, become me.  I will have them, of course.  We all will.  The struggle, the question, is how to not allow them to overtake you?  If only that question could be answered!