(In)fertile Myrtle

One of my favorite students has a rapidly deteriorating eye condition. He is 19, and has been told by a number of specialists that he will likely be blind within the next five years. He has been given little hope of stopping the progress of the disease. At best, they can slow it.

Although there are experimental procedures available for him in China, the cost and unknown side effects have prevented him from pursing this option. He has been told by experts in the field that this surgery might become available in the US within the next five years, but there is no guarantee.

Obviously, it is a tremendous challenge for a person so young to deal with the knowledge that blindness is more than likely his fate, and yet he manages to keep a positive outlook on his situation and on life in general. He is high strung and has a difficult time controlling his impulses, which might make him a challenge for some teachers, but I embrace his enthusiasm and willingness to speak his mind. He’s a good kid, and I genuinely worry about his future.

Earlier this month, I had been reading about wishing. I made my wish box, put my slip of paper under my mattress, and wished and wished and wished. The material I read was illuminating in terms of helping me understand why wishing is so powerful. Common among all wishing texts is the encouragement for wishers to wish for the well being of others, too. Wishing for others is good.

Soon after I finished my last wishing book, I decided to make a wish for someone else. I chose my student. I said my wish aloud and forgot all about it.

This afternoon he stopped me after class, like he always does, and told me that he had good news. Three months ago, as a last resort, his doctor gave him a special kind of eye drops that he hoped would buy my student a little more vision for a little longer. It turns out that his vision has improved far beyond any expectation, and even some of his other eye problems have diminished. I was so very happy to hear this news, and I immediately remembered my wish.

I said, “I wished for you!” And I told him the story about wishing and dreaming and hoping.

Whether my wish helped my student or not will never be known, but it is pretty obvious that by wishing for him, I became a bigger part of his journey. Even if wishing is not direct but associative, it still seems magical to me.

I have a good husband. I don’t always like the things he does, and I hate that he loves to argue so much, but he loves me and when all is well, it is very well.

As should be expected, he is different than my last husband, who was a nurturer. He did that well, but he dropped the ball in so many other areas of his life that his nurturing characteristics began to cause more harm than good. Nonetheless, it was an incredible comfort that he went with me to all of my fertility appointments and to all of the ultrasounds and other tests. It was nice to have someone there for me through the joys of finding a heartbeat to the D and C removal of a blighted ovum.

My dh (and I should add, the love of my life) is not at all a nurturer. As he says, he never had it, so he doesn’t give it. I have tried to gently teach him how to be more loving (mostly by loving him), and he has learned a lot, but there are still moments where I am struck by his absolute lack of overt compassion for me. I know he loves me. I know he doesn’t want me to be sick or in pain, but his own pain scale, which is markedly higher than my own, restricts his understanding of my condition.

This is especially true with infertility. He has been to the doctor’s with me once, but it was for his spermanalysis. I know that his job prevents him from going with me often, but the other day, he shocked me. I told him that I have pelvic surgery coming up, assuming that he would go with me. He IS my husband. He had other ideas. He planned to send a family member with me. I was outraged! It is one day off, not a week or a month or a year!

After thinking about it (and talking with our counselor), he has since changed his mind. Now, he has agreed to go with me, but I have a girlfriend lined up just in case he bails. I keep thinking that maybe the issue is that he has a hard time dealing with me being ill or needing doctor’s care.

Our therapist said that men who struggle with nurturing skills often develop them after they have a child. I can understand that process, but it is incredibly unfair for women to go through all of the pain of bringing a child into this world alone.

In so many ways, he is supportive and caring. He makes me perfect cappuccinos on Sunday mornings, he takes me out riding on his motorcycle, even when he is tired, and sometimes kisses the back of my neck while I am brushing my teeth in the morning. I am grateful for all of those things and truly believe that if he can make it that far, he can become the person I need when I am in need. I plan to do the same for him.

I am down to the wire, facing the gauntlet, biting the bullet, or whatever cliche you’ve got roaming around in your head. I am on my last doctor-sanctioned medicated cycle. I just started the dreaded clomid recently, so I am in desperation mode. Basically, I will have surgery in May, and then hopefully start IVF in July. Given how terribly difficult IVF is on the body, I have decided to give an extreme measure one more chance.

Tomorrow, I begin strict low carb dieting.

It really is my last resort before IVF.

Why low carbing? I have PCOS, which is a insulin uptake disorder (among other blasted things), and I am on a moderate carb plan now, but I was able to get pregnant twice while low carbing, so I figure I can do this for 90 days.

The bad side, very, very limited food options, especially since I do not eat meat, msg, or artificial sweetners. Also, once I go off plan, I will gain all of the weight back and then some. No doubt about it. Plus, I will really, really miss bananas and apple. Woah is me!

Nonetheless, I know that it is probably a shot in the dark, but I have to at least try it one more time.

My brother had told me a couple of months ago that he and his girlfriend were trying to get pregnant. She had gone off of her birth control pills, so that they could try to have a child together. I love my brother very much, but his decision to have another child at this point in his life is hard to understand. He can barely make ends meet providing for his sons with whom he spends very, very little time and his girlfriend’s daughters, who live with him and her.

So, when the text message came in today asking me if I could keep a secret, I immediately knew what he was going to say. His girlfriend is around a month pregnant.

New life is a wonderful thing, and I am happy for him if he is happy. I am struggling with this knowledge, of course, and dreading the upcoming holidays as his girlfriend grows larger with her pregnancy and holidays farther down the road with the new baby, then toddler filling up my parents’ cramped house with baby noises.

Dh did his best to console me, saying all the right things at the right time, which surprised and comforted me tremendously.

I know that I should not feel resentful about this. I know I should be happy for him and his new addition, but right now, at this point in my life, after trying to so very hard, I can’t help but feel sad, angry, bitter, and frustrated.

Dh reminded me that we are just moving slower than I want. That our child is waiting for us, we just need to give him or her time to get here. If I can just remember that, I might be able to make it.

I am sick today as I have been for the past couple of days. I have a mild fever and just general aches and pains. The right side of my face is swollen. Both of my ears are clogged. I am hoping it is simply allergies and a minor ear infection. I bought a Neti pot to clear things up, but I have yet to use it.

But today’s entry is not about my ears and throat, but about my heart and the feelings of envy and jealousy that I sometimes feel when I see moms with their children.

Today, I sat at the table across from a young family. Mom, dad, and baby. I watched as the mom fed her little one strained peas or some other jarred baby mixture. I know from experience that trying to eat your own dinner while feeding your baby his or her dinner is not pleasant. I also know from experience that there are times when it would be easier to just hide under the table for a few, quiet seconds than deal with the stress of a crying child.

At the same time, I couldn’t help but feel jealous of this woman and her small child. Watching his or her tiny fingers reach out for her hand each time she took the spoon from the jar made me crave that moment. More than anything else, though, I longed to put the look on my husband’s face that he had as he stole glances of the fussy baby. He was smiling. Inside, I was wailing.

I suppose jealousy is not even the right word for moments like these. Envy is perhaps better. I envied her even in that space of humdrum routine. What could be more mundane than spoon feeding an infant? But for me, it seemed like the whole world was bound up in those actions, and I wished for more than a moment that I was the one with my hand covered in pureed food and baby slobber. That, my friends, is the good life.

It is the end of one incredibly miserable day. I woke up with mild (as always) period cramps, so I knew that Aunt Flo (or TOM or whatever euphemism you wish) was on its way. I felt like crying, but I made it all the way to my car and even to the interstate before my usual morning call from my husband made me burst into tears. He said he could tell something was wrong when I answered the phone. I tried not to explain why I felt so sad, but before I knew it, I was crying and blabbering about another busted month.

He said a few kind words, but he really doesn’t understand. I am the one who must live with this emotional pain month in and month out. I know he wants a child, too, but he can, in a sense, sit back and enjoy the ride. He doesn’t want to attend classes with me or go to doctors appointments, and I am left to deal with my body’s signals every single cycle.

It is 15 dpo, I thought that it would hold off until tomorrow at least. I am usually on time all the time. Instead, by the time I taught my 1 pm class, my period had arrived.

When you are trying to get pregnant, the end of every cycle and the start of a new one brings on grief. I am grieving over another cycle of failure and the loss of a potential new life. It has been said that orgasms are a la petit mort, or little death. For me, as a woman ttc, my period is such, a little death.

I know that the menstrual cycle is a site of renewal and rebirth. It is, after all, a cycle that goes and on and on. But the arrival of menstrual blood each time simply reminds me that I am, once again, not pregnant. I am not expecting a baby. I am not going to have a child any time soon. Each cycle that is washed away by my period, reminds me of how far I am away from holding a child in my arms.

I am usually upbeat. I can see the upside of nearly everything, but I allow myself this one day each cycle to grieve. I need it. I must pause for a day and allow myself to revel in the sadness that I feel knowing that there is no hope this cycle. It is done.

I will begin clomid for this new cycle. It is #54. I do wonder on these grieving days how many more times I can see red and not say to myself, “STOP.” After all, if I was a woman not trying to conceive, the beginning of my period would be just another day.

It seems that everywhere I go these days, I find something that relates to my current journey. Although I know that it is probably because I am looking, I have never experienced anything quite like this. It is as though once I opened up to the universe, the universe opened up to me.

In addition to the little heart I found in my front yard last week, I have received a fortune cookie fortune all about dreams, got to see my nephew for the first time in nearly a year, and found a giant plastic ladybug under the bar of my sun awning.

The other night my friends and I went out to dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant. After an excellent meal of green tofu in curry sauce with veggies, the time came for the reading of fortune cookies. One friend had a fortune about money, another about love, and another didn’t quite make sense. Then, it was my turn to read out loud:

In order to achieve your dreams, you have to have one.

I erupted into giggles, given my recent quest with dreams and wishes. How fitting! It is as though my life philosophy was captured on that little slip of paper.  Of course, this is not the first time that I have had a fortune cookie fortune relate to something pressing in my life, but given that my friends’ fortunes didn’t seem to fit their situations, I took mine a little bit more to heart. After all, I am in the swells of a vast dream. I have one! I do!

Then, this afternoon, my nephew and the plastic lady bug appeared.

I have been estranged from my nephews for more than a year. Their mother (my brother’s ex-wife) has refused to let anyone in my family see the kids because of a grudge she carries against my brother. Today, my brother calls to say that he is bringing his youngest son to visit me. At first I didn’t believe him because in the past, his mother has agreed to a visit, and then changed her mind minutes before they were supposed to leave, but my mother confirmed that they were on the way.

I have grieved the loss of both boys. One of the reasons I worked so hard to move home is because I was so frustrated with having to miss football games, Valentine’s parties, Christmas plays, and all of the moments in which an aunt can be so proud of her nephews. However, not long before I moved home, my brother and his now ex-wife went through a bitter break up, and she took the kids away from all of us. They were nine and eleven at the time.

In many ways, they filled a gap that was left behind when my children died. I never saw them as replacements, but certainly as children who needed and wanted my love and support. Now, I feel their absence at each holiday, on their birthdays, and on special days in my life. It is as though I am living in a kind of limbo. They are not gone forever, but I cannot be with them. I feel like Tantalus, just inches away from what I need with no relief.

Our visit went well. He is taller and darker haired than last year, and he hugged me warmly and told me he missed me. It was hard to say goodbye to him, but I kept my smile and voice light and cheery. More than anything, I hope that he knows that he is so important to me and that despite his parents’ problems, I love him and want the best for him. He’ll be 12 in a few days, and he will want to spend less and less time with adults than he does now. I miss him and his brother more than I can even admit to myself.

My nephew in all his pre-teen smirkiness.

During his visit, I unrolled the sun awning on my back deck. I looked up when it was fully open and was surprised to see two antennae poking out from behind the bar holding the awning to the house. At first I thought the bug was real, a giant moth perhaps. But as I moved closer, I realized that it was a plastic lady bug. I couldn’t imagine why I had never seen it before. I must have unrolled the awning a dozen times since I moved here.

My nephew climbed up on a deck chair and retrieved it from its hiding it place. It has a hole in the bottom big enough to fit on a child’s finger, which he promptly demonstrated. I imagine it must have fit on the top of a toy or an umbrella or the back of a child’s lawn chair. It was made to be removable, so it was no broken, and it was in perfect condition.

At first I thought that perhaps a child had deliberately placed the ladybug behind the bar, but as I watched my nephew, who is tall for his age, struggle to reach it, I realized that the children who lived here before me could not have put it there. The oldest was a girl of about seven. I have found other momentos of their time in this house, including a picture of all three children, a Scooby Doo sticker on one of the bathroom doors, and a pair of baby nail clippers on the front porch. Clearly, this rubber insect was a long-forgotten remnant as well. I imagine that one of them tossed it up onto the awning and over repeated uses, it made its way up the awning and down to the back of the support bar.

No matter how it got there, I took it is a sign of the universe speaking to me about children, lost and found. I have had some of the first, but none of the second, until this afternoon when I found my nephew once again.

The ladybug sitting on my grill cover, where my nephew thought it looked most photogenic.

I already knew the Asian legend that if you whisper your true love’s name to a ladybug, when it is released, it will fly to your love, deliver its message, and your love will come to you.

However, I was astonished to read the following at The Doorway of Symbolism:

A ladybug can symbolize that

• A new love interest is on the way
• New love in the form of a pregnancy or new born is right around the corner
• Closer attention to loved ones is required at this time
• It’s time to persue your passion and do more of what you love
• Self-love is vital – are you loving yourself enough

I started to dig a little further and found that other sources corroborate this meaning and go even deeper. According to The Cycle of Power: Animal Totems:

A messenger of promise,  the ladybug reconnects us with the joy of living. Fear does not live within joy. The need to release our fears and return to love is one of the messages it carries.

Ladybug teaches us how to restore our faith and trust in great spirit. It initiates change where it is needed the most. When ladybug appears it is asking us to get out of our own way and allow great spirit to enter.

Of course, I have been trying to do just those things in my life in general, but with fertility in particular. It is hard for a person with my drive and ambition to let go, but I am getting better at it every single day.

According to the site, Ladybug Lore, ladybugs are considered incredibly lucky in all cultures and to kill one is considered to be bad luck. (Of course, around this part of the country, ladybug infestation is so common that many people do exterminate them.)

Finally, according to Totem Animals:

Ladybug: Life, Rebirth, Abundance, and Hope.

Lady bugs, a type of winged beetle, is a gardener’s friend in keeping other more harmful bugs out of the flower beds. Lady bugs with their bright red shells and black spots carry the magik of rebirth. Red and black are the colors of thoughts and manifestation. Often Ladybug will appear to us when we have an opportunity to succeed, grow, and start something new. All of the beetle family transforms from larvae to adult, showing us we too can transform our lives. Ladybugs can consume large quantities of aphids and other harmful bugs which eat and destroy plants. When we garden with more conscientious we can be aware of this balance within the garden. Allowing nature to show us how it takes care of the pests, without the use of harmful pesticides and chemicals. So as Summer begins to fade into Fall watch for Ladybug to fly into your life. Let Ladybug consume your unwanted fears and encourage new adventures.

Of course, this site makes me want to learn more about totem animals and their meanings, but I think I will save that delightful journey for another day when I have time to explore their potential. For now, I will dwell on the often-missed clues that the universe seems to provide. Would I have saved my fortune cookie fortune this time last year? Would I have noticed the ladybug hiding beneath the support rod if I hadn’t started really looking at the world around me? Would I have had the most wonderful fortune of seeing my nephew if I didn’t begin to believe that the universe will provide?

I am not sure of what all this means. I just know that I have been incredibly moved by each presence. It seems that as each day unfolds, I am greeted with another sign of hope that my dream, my wish, will come true. These signs give me the courage to keep dreaming, to break open a sweet treat, to believe that a mother’s heart can be changed, and to look under a sun awning for hidden joys.

I gave my nephew the ladybug. He gleefully walked away with it stuck high upon his index finger. Not long ago, I would have kept it, fearing that its magic would not work if I gave it away. But I learned a lesson from that ladybug long before I looked up its meaning: Let go, Christina. It’s okay.

Me and my nephew. It's the glasses that make us look related.

I am away at a conference for a few days, but I could not resist posting an entry. I have been having a great time, but my fertility situation is always on my mind.

This morning I spent some time with one of my best girlfriends. We had no specific plans and ended up going caving. My memories of caverns go back to my children, when my family would spend at least a week each summer exploring the underground of our home state. These are found rememberances. The perfect temperature of the caverns. The darkness. The incredible rock formations. Of course, it was good to be with my family, which included my grandmother for many years. We did not get along most of the time, but being so far under the surface seemed to shut us up . . . for a little while.

As we explored the vast cave system, I was stunned by the smoothness of the stones and the care that the park system has taken in managing the caves. Mammoth State Park is gorgeous, and I felt at peace there. I love hiking and spending a day in the woods, but it the humid air and quiet of the caves helped me feel more centered than I could have imagined.

At some point along the way, my friend pointed to the ceiling to show me a natural downspout from a sinkhole on the Earth’s service. Water rushed out of it in a long stream for five stories to the creek below. We giggled, realized that the formation from which the water ran was a perfectly shaped and shaded vulva. I took a picture (yet to be developed) in the hopes of connecting with this subterranean symbol of the goddess.

As we climbed farther and farther down, the womb-like feeling was unmistakable, and I found myself thinking about this journey as being a kind of descent into hell, as in the quest of the hero. Down and down I went into the darkness, uncovering with each step a more quiet, more dangerous place.

We made our ascent an hour and a half later, and we stepped out into the sunlight. I felt re-born, not in a significant sense, but in that moment, at this time.

I know that there is so much more to life than this journey, but it seems to be the goal among all goals for me. I have achieved everything else I have strived for: wonderful friendships, a well-paying, meaningful career, a home, marrying my dh, and many other objectives, large and small. Becoming a mother will not make me feel whole, but I believe it will allow me to share my love, experience, and knowledge with another being.

Before leaving home on my trip south, I scheduled my surgery to remove the tube. Up until then, that surgery was theoretical, but make the appointment for pre-op, the surgery, and the post-up, drove the reality of it home. It should get me one step closer to getting pregnant, but that doesn’t mean that I am not scared of the procedure and what we may learn through it.

Yesterday afternoon, I visited the rock shop down the street again. This time to have the owner make me a fertility bracelet. I had seen a beautiful bracelet online, but it was quite costly, and it seemed impersonal. I wanted to pick out the stones and the charm that would hang from it. I chose moonstones and rose quartz, but in a different size than on the bracelet I found online. I also chose a fertility goddess charm and not the turtle that is on the original bracelet. (Both are symbols of fertility.) I picked each bead and each piece of silver. My rockhound friend put it all together, and I picked up a little while ago.

My new fertility bracelet.

Sadly, my cheapie digital camera does not do it justice at all. It is absolutely gorgeous. I saged it when I got home, and now will wear it as often as I can in the hopes that the two stones will help me on my journey.

According to the all-knowing rock lady, moonstone has the following properties:

A stone for hoping and wishing; allowing one to recognize the ‘ups and down’ and gracefully acknowledge the changing cycle allowing one to sustain, maintain, and understand their destiny. Moonstone cleanses negativity and enhances the positive attributes of creative and self expression. It is used for protection agains the perils of travel and is a talisman of good fortune.

All of those qualities should help me on my journey, especially the hoping and wishing part. And I will need the protection from the perils of travel tomorrow as I head out of state.

The other stone, Rose Quartz, has the following properties:

A stone to remove negativity and to reinstate the loving, gentle forces of self-love. Reinforces the message that there is no need for haste and brings calmness and clarity to the emotions, restoring the mind to harmony after chaotic or crisis situations. A ‘stone of gentle love’ bringing peacefulness and calm to relationships. Promotes receptiveness to the beauty of art, music and the written word. Useful in treatment of emotional wounds and an aid to sleeping and ameliorating nightmares in children.

Once again, it sounds like a valuable stone to keep on my person. I like the idea of the stone bringing calmness. I need that right now and throughout the journey to having a child.

I guess the bracelet will give me something to hold onto, especially since the fertility goddess fits perfectly in the palm of my hand when my arm is hanging down.

A somewhat better view of my new bracelet.

Before I left the rock shop today, I asked her about the significance of Amber. Last summer, just as dh and I were picking up the pieces and trying to get our life together in order, I developed an intense love for Amber. It is a gorgeous stone, and it seems to work well with my dark hair and eyes. I wore Amber earrings and an Amber necklace on my wedding day, and a month before that I bought a gorgeous Amber ring. I had never been interested in it before that time.

The rock lady says the following about this stunning stone:

Allows the body to heal itself emitting a sunny and bright soothing energy, calming nerves and enlivening the disposition. Rekindles choice, helping one to choose and to be chosen. A symbol for renewal of marriage vows and to assure promises. Transmutes energy of physical vitality int eh activation of unconditional love.

Wow!!! I could not believe that I had unconsciously been choosing Amber over and over again because I needed to heal myself and because I was struggling with the choice of getting married. Dh is the love of my life, and I can think of no more fitting stone to wear on our wedding day than that one.

A blurry view of my favorite amber ring.

Most interesting of all of these hidden meanings I have been uncovering is the heart I found in my yard last night. I was walking back from the rock shop, and in the corner of my yard, I saw something red. At first I passed it up, thinking it was a piece of ribbon from a child’s toy, but then I went back for it. It is a simple metal heart with a red ribbon. I can’t quite tell what it might have been attached to before, but I plan on attaching it to my small handbag or even my rearview mirror. It has a flower on it, which is the symbol of hope and spring and life!

The little heart I found in my front yard.

I know that someone, probably a child, dropped it by accident, but I can’t help but feel that I was meant to find it. I think this is a good sign.