There's always one

I am on several TTC message boards. For the past fourteen months I've been a loyal follower, avid poster, and eager, upstanding member of the freakishly addictive online pregnancy-obsessed community.

At first I was soaking up any bit of attention, comfort, or answer that I could glean from other cracked, stinging women who had also lost their pregnancies. I cried at my keyboard, I typed in stunned disbelief as the last of the innocence I'd known slowly leaked out of me into a maxi-pad. I took out my anger and fear on the boards instead of my two bewildered teenage sons and grief stricken husband.

Slowly, as the blood eventually stopped flowing and six long weeks of nothing took up that painful, blurry summer, I began to offer some kind of support to other newly-raped-of-innocent non-mothers drifted into the board. I got a bit of a reputation for poignant advice. I also got something else. Hope. I started to see other non-mothers report newly discovered lines on previously barren pee sticks. I started to see them progress into later stages of pregnancy, and then I started to see them deliver.

Through it all, through two more miscarriages and about twelve months, I got to hold onto a big, glittery ball of hope. Every bit of good news, every new pregnancy or birth just added to the glitter and shine! I was never bitter, never envious of other women who were sporting expanding waistbands and contracting levels of comfort. I was inspired and revived by all the women who were getting pregnant - all around me!

I started to notice, sometime around September, that I was forgetting my ball of hope, leaving it laying around the house, forgetting to take it with me when I left for work in the morning, or when I was going to yet another doctor's appointment.

I think it was around the same time that five, yes, five women in both my online and real life circle became pregnant in ONE WEEK that I started to clue in. Holy fuck. I might not ever get pregnant. I sat down and calculated the women who I knew in the past year who had moved onto 'the other side'. Twenty-six. One woman was actually already starting to try again with a four month old still nursing her oh-so-fertile breast. These are not women who I've seen get bfp's online. I've seen HUNDREDS of those. These are women who I actually talk to, know their stories, and they know mine. It began to dawn on me, I was the ONLY ONE in my moderate circle who was not only facing losses, but now, oh thank you!, I was facing secondary infertility.

So the nice, round, glittery ball of hope started to feel more like a rock that was placed in my bed, just under the sheet, and right in the place I love to curl up and sleep my worries away. It's getting in the way. I am starting to wonder at the purpose of it, and why I wanted it in the first place. New pregnancies are still adding to the ball, but not in the shiny happy way it was in the beginning. Now the pregnancies add bulk and sharp edges to my ball of hope, and makes it heavy and I feel stupid lugging it around. I think other people think I look stupid with it, too. It has turned from a pretty, glowing centerpiece for family dinners and doctor reports to an obscene, embarrassing thing that nobody really wants to comment on. They secretly wish I'd put it away, bury it in the backyard, or simply forget it for good. What good has it done me, anyhow?

We've agreed on two more IUI's. One of which I am currently being ultrasounded, stabbed with needles, medicated with strong pills, and will have the actual insemination performed on Friday. What used to be sensual and warm, filled with hope lovemaking has turned into sterility, time-sensitive deadlines, drugs and bright, strong lights.

After the two IUI's, which I really don't have a hell of a lot of hope for, (remember that is just an ugly rock now), we will move onto at least one IVF. I somehow have reserved some positive energy for that possibility, but not a lot. After that? I guess I really will bury that stupid, used to be glowing ball of hope. Just put it away forever, out of the house, maybe in the back shed under the old skis and discarded, plastic flower pots that I just might use one day, but haven't been inspired to yet. Just more hidden away junk with an old, dull, awkward rock underneath it. I'm sure my husband will quietly discard it in the summer, when he quietly cleans out the shed while I'm at work. And I'll be forever grateful for his silent burial of what we used to treasure so highly.