The Silver Lining

Before I say anything else...I've only been here for a few weeks, in my little corner of the Internet, pouring my heart out into what I thought was an apparently readerless blog (thank you, Ms Heathen, for putting it so succinctly). A few of you peeked out from behind the curtain, letting me know that you were there, and I felt a wonderful (yet slightly strange) sense of community. Then Monday happened. I didn't really know what to do or where to turn, but my instinct led me here. I cannot even begin to tell you how much your support means to me. I never expected it, least of all from (and here's the word that seems almost blasphemy to use) strangers. (As a side note, I want you to know that I have spent time over the past several days reading all of your blogs -- you are truly a remarkable group of women and I feel honored to be a part of this community). You have all made me feel connected where I would have felt so lost, and I thank you for that from the bottom of my heart. Thank you for reading, thank you for indulging me (I guess one doesn't really expect a post like that in a blog about infertility), and thank you for being there.

I think I need to be careful what I wish for. My husband was never a communicator. He was always the "manly" man -- beer and football, didn't like to talk about his feelings, didn't like to share, etc. I always wished something would happen to serve that cathartic purpose of tearing down his walls and allow him to completely open up with me. I didn't expect it to be this.

The past week has been really hard. Looking back, it's hard to believe that it was me -- I'm certainly not strong enough to go through that and be sitting here five days later posting an Internet blog about the experience. In the past five days, we have been to a marriage counselor, several sessions of individual therapy, and spent countless hours on our own talking about what happened, our entire relationship and marriage, and everything else you could possibly imagine. The lines of communication are not only open, but flooded. We have learned more about each other in the past five days than in three years. I am exhausted.

My husband is also not living with me right now. Our marriage counselor calmly suggested that I was not ready for him to come home after I told him I could not be in the same room with him for more than two hours without wanting to throw something really heavy at his head. (My apologies to all of you out there who thought I was handling this with dignity and grace.) We have since decided that we are moving towards him coming back, as a start, with certain rules in place. We will then see where it takes us. I have decided that I am not ready to throw in the towel today. It might be tomorrow, but not today. He doesn't know that yet, and I have no plans of telling him at this very moment (I am honestly not trying to punish him -- he is working so hard, I do not want to take his incentive away). We will see where the cards fall.

I have been going through all the stages -- grief, anger (okay, not anger -- try volcanic rage), depression, bargaining, and I have found a new one -- inappropriate humor. My mother was not amused when I told her we would still be following through with our IVF cycle in December -- I told her I didn't know where my husband and I would be with our relationship, but at least we wouldn't have to be in the same room to conceive a child. I thought about having to sign those consent forms for custody of the frozen embryos -- something I would not have thought twice about before all this happened, but now who knows what I will feel if and when that time comes?

I am feeling a lot of pressure to resolve issues quickly. In two weeks, we are supposed to be flying across the country to meet my birthmother for the first time, and to go to a friend's wedding -- both things I dread doing without him (although I could and would if I had to). Then there is our December cycle. I know I shouldn't be thinking about all of this right now. I feel guilty that I'm even talking about IVF when my husband is not even residing in the same house. I know we need to be putting our marriage first and working through this -- we need to figure out where we stand as a couple before we bring children into the picture, and all of that is still up in the air. If I could only find a way to put my biological clock on snooze until this is all over...