Warning! This blog can't be read without this song "Safe and Sound," by Electric President running in the background.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnUdlFdTWcA
I would consider myself a reasonably strong person. With the exception of my bosses, boss there is not much out there that intimidates me, makes me cry or breaks me down. I take a lot of pride in being strong, resourceful and able to handle tremendous amounts of stress that would cripple most. I'm battle hardened but not weary.
Except, that's not entirely true. That's what I tell myself every day. Everyday-when I go to work and lead my team of amazing battle ponies. It is what I say to myself everyday when I lead my household of reluctant feral Man-children towards the road to something that resembles civility. I am a warrior in high heels. A woman. Fearless- Unstoppable- Unbreakable- I am a survivor of a multitude of devastating huricanes and tsunamis that have crashed upon the sandy shores of my being...exposing the rocks...leaving me somewhat jagged, but better for it. Sturdy. Predictable. Honest. Immovable in the face of a storm.
I am in control over every part of my life.
Except one. This one tiny thing. The smallest, easiest thing in the world literally brings me to my knees... Like a butterfly crushing a diamond into sand.
So small it is measured on a microscopic level; the egg meeting the foreign invader and creating a life almost like magic. Except I am...
Broken.
Hopeless.
The ability to conceive and bare children, is something I do not posses. The very physical thing that sets women apart from men, the thing so many women take for granted, the one thing that is so easy that even a monkey can do it- is the one thing I simply can not do and I am mad as fucking hell about it.
Over the years I have had wide range of emotions; unexpected emotional side effects if you will. Fear, Anger, Depression, Anxiety... the constant feeling of failure and defeat weighing me down like I am carrying wet stones in my pockets. All feelings I never expected to experience over something so small. So small, yet so incredibly large. A monster I can not slay. I want to take the stones from my pocket and hurl them at this...this monster...this thing... like David slew Goliath, but it's too big, a Leviathan, and I feel so very small in it's face.
I have been to doctors and doctors of doctors. I have been on a cocktail of pills that could almost count as a meal. An edible rainbow in the palm of my hand that promised a bouncing bundle of pure fucking joy at the end.
I have become the queen of the pregnancy test; forming very strict rituals about when and how I take the test. How much urine to collect, how much water to drink before I test, what type of test to take. I strain my eyes looking for that second line, holding the test up to the bathroom light and rolling it between my thumb and forefinger so the plastic test window could catch the light at just the right angle. That stupid, glorious faded pink line. The line- the one that has the ability to change my life by simply making itself visible. Never shows itself. And I, female warrior extraordinaire of the new millennium, leave the bathroom crushed.
Like sand.
I just want the water to carry me out to sea. Suck me under - take me out with the tide.
I have been pregnant in the past and have had miscarriages. The pain that comes with the loss of an unborn child can not be measured or compared to anything else. It is unique. It is not the same pain a mother feels after losing her child from a long illness or to a war or in a car accident. Each of those carry their own unique pain and set of emotions that simply can not be described or compared to one another. But it is a pain none the less. A deep personal pain that you can not share with anyone else. The pain I felt, the sadness was so deep that it did indeed carry me out to sea and washed me away with the tide. I lost myself. I stopped going to work. Gained weight, stopped doing anything that I had previously enjoyed like singing karaoke and art. Soon, going out into public became very difficult. Just seeing a baby sent me into waves of guilt and sorrow. I would burst into tears or begin shaking. I must have looked insane. I was afraid of myself. I couldn't trust myself to not lose it in fornt of people. I let myself down. I let everyone around me down.
So it was just me. Just me the lioness. Until then, I had never met an enemy I couldn't conquer. Never faced a battle I couldn't win. Never met an obstacle I couldn't overcome. And now I was facing the biggest monster in my life totally alone. I had lost my roar. Lot my ores...lost my mind.
Improvise. Adapt. Overcome right?
Only I couldn't.
I was so alone. This was something I could not make the Viking understand.
Or his Parents...
Or mine....
or anyone. I was completly alone. Just me and my failure.
And a silent watching God.
I wanted so badly to have a baby. To nurse near to my heart. Small dimpled fingers reaching for my face with bright, twinkling, powder blue eyes; milk bubbling from the corner of a small smile.
After a while the sadness turned into extreme anger. Still hopeless, at least in the baby end of the spectrum. The hard part of me, the gladiator threw out a life line and towed me to the shore. I went back to work. I soldiered on. Forgot about babies as much as I could.
Until today. I had been putting off my yearly doctors visits because it seemed that the act of going there was like visiting enemy territory and giving away my position. Every doctors visit brought more pain, more realization that this one thing was always going to kick my ass. Like superman visiting a Kyrptonite rock museum. So I just didn't go. It's been 5 years.
I sat on the torture table with my baby powdered feet resting on the stirrups, paper gown doing a
shit-tasic job of covering all my assets, my butt literally trying to eat the paper sheets they put down for whatever reason. I remember thinking that I know women who should just resort to buying paper sheets and then the doctor came in while I was giggling like mad to myself.
I was nervous.
Scared.
I already had tears in my eyes and she hadn't even said hi yet.
I was an emotional time bomb ready to explode. I tried to hold it all in, but the water was too strong. the floodgates ruptured from the weight of the rolling tide and I was terrified that I'd drown in it all. It had been so long since I told myself I would not feel this pain. That I would not go back to the doctor. I had been holding this in for so, so long.
She just hugged me.
She hugged me like she knew everything I was going to say but didn't. Something I simply hadn't allowed anyone else to hear or see for fear I'd lose myself again to that dark, dark water.
She hugged me and then she gave me something I had lost when I floated out to sea. Long lost and forgotten.
HOPE.
Throughout the course of our visit she slowly and steadily built a lighthouse on my rocky beach. A guiding light. A beacon. A piercing light so that when I get pulled back out to sea from time to time I can find my way back. And I will...find my way back.
Yes there will be more pills. But she had an energy about the way she spoke, as of she knew that this current course of action was a sure win. She gave me renewed hope and handed me my prescriptions- like a nautical chart and a treasure map-
So here I am again. Captain of my own ship.
I can not let the Leviathan drag me under; sink my battleship.
