Waiting for the Key Change

I stood at the checkout counter of one of our local nurseries, my hand on three huge and overpriced flower pots I had purchased there two days earlier. “What do you mean I can’t return them?” I said, my voice rising to a slightly embarrassing pitch.  “I have my receipt. I bought them two days ago.  They can be resold. I’ll take store credit.” The cashier pointed to small print at the bottom of the receipt: No returns on sale items, because we enjoy crushing people’s hopes and dreams.  I sighed, because in addition to eating 14 servings of dark leafy greens a day, using egg yolks to reduce undereye circles, and regularly scooping the dog crap in our backyard, Carefully Reading the Fine Prints of Receipts was apparently something I needed to add to my Things Grown Ups Do That I Should Too list.  I pleaded with her: “Look, I’ve returned sale items here before,” (read: I clearly don’t think through my purchases before buying them) “and I didn’t have a problem then.” She looked at me, truly apologetic: “I’m sorry. You can come back the third Tuesday after winter solstice during the full moon at low tide when the manager is working. It’s store policy. There’s nothing I can do.”

I stared back at her, suddenly aware of that my eyes were filling with tears and there was nothing I could do about them spilling over. I repeated lots of things about how I know it wasn’t her fault and she’s just the messenger and it’s just that I’m frustrated with the store policy and I spent many many dollars on these stupid pots and that’s a lot of money for me.  I then attempted to make a swift, dramatic exit while wrestling three huge flower pots that could pay for a decent percentage of my mortgage, which looks remarkably similar to attempting to limbo while carrying a sea turtle. As I crabwalked toward the door, another associate swooped in. She glanced at me, lookin’ fab lugging flower pots with tears streaming down my face, and whispered to the cashier, “We’re just going to do this for her,” (subtext: Give the crazy lady what she wants so she’ll leave). She then pulled the magic strings to override the Holy Word of the Receipt Fine Print. With the click of a few cash register keys, I had many many dollars on a nursery gift card to buy all the overpriced pots I wanted.  I thanked the cashier angel profusely and submitted a five star Google review on the spot. I even turned my phone to show her: “See? I mentioned you by name.”  She smiled politely and didn’t mention me bawling over flower pots three minutes earlier. With a full 8 minutes to spare before closing, I grabbed my shiny gift card and ran towards the flowers, where I grabbed two flats of pansies, an ironic similarity to my behavior.          

            At this point a couple of things are clear: I either regularly shed tears over monetary misunderstandings, or my emotional reserve bank was overflowing into other compartments. A couple days earlier, we had received confirmation that our last infertility treatment had failed. Our tenth try. Ten rounds of emotional ups and downs and mid-workday doctors appointments and ultrasounds and pills and hormones and giving myself shots in my car in the hospital parking garage because that was the most private place I could find. And money – lots of money. And I can wax poetic about how money doesn’t matter and love is all we need, but the bottom line is that money does pay our mortgage and buy us bacon, so while it sure isn’t everything, it is something.

            And now – I don’t know. I’m not sure where to go from here. I find myself paralyzed in this state of limbo (figuratively – no pots this time). I’m under the bar and I don’t know whether to keep shimmying under the bar or to back up or fall on the ground or grab the damn bar, throw it aside, and walk with my girlfriends towards an actual bar. I don’t want anyone to tell me what to do but I also want someone to make a decision for me. I don’t want to give up hope, but I’m tired of hoping and being let down. I don’t want to keep doing what we’ve been doing that hasn’t worked (IUIs), but I know we are edging precariously close to the point where our doctor will say, It’s time to either stop trying or pursue in vitro (IVF), and I don’t want to face that yet. I don’t want to stop trying, but the thought of completely draining our resources in the unlikely pursuit of in vitro being successful (our odds are quite a bit lower than most) isn’t appealing either. I can picture an IVF-conceived child asking for piano lessons and us replying, Sorry, dear, but we spent our savings and took out a second mortgage just to conceive you, so we’re going to need you to be satisfied with your mere existence.  And in the same breath I know piano lessons aren’t a big deal and they seem silly in light of bringing a child into the world, but the thought of putting all of our financial resources and a chunk of our emotional ones into the IVF basket, which is more likely to fail than be successful, feels like a bigger mountain than we have the energy to climb.

            And so, we lay our options in front of us. Continued fertility treatments. Foster care. Adoption. Foster to adopt. We stare at them all and are not sure which deck to draw from. Each has its own risks and rewards and beauty and potential heartbreak.  I feel inert and paralyzed by the decision but also viscerally anxious about doing nothing.  I offer halfhearted prayers for direction but am also scared of the direction I might be prompted to go. I hold tightly to my dream of what our family will look like and also want to set it down and walk away, because the dissonance of my hopes and current reality hurt my ears.

            The other night at church we sang a hymn that I love but don’t hear often enough to remember the words or title. I do remember the emotional progression of the song. It starts slow and low in a minor key, creating a feeling of tension and somber waiting.  The melody begins to intensify and our hearts follow along with it, hopeful and waiting with expectation.  The chorus leads to the bridge and we can feel the energy towards a key change building, our voices increasing in volume and passion.  As the intensity continues to grow, I find myself flashing to snapshots of our infertility journey thus far. The repeated negative pregnancy tests. The nights of my tears and Seth’s devoted but weary support.  The momentary hope of a pregnancy and the silence of the ultrasound screen. My eyes well up and I struggle to keep singing, leaning into the tension and hoping the resolve will come. 

And then the moment arrives – we break into the key change, our voices jubilant and relieved.  The tension and dissonance only added to the joy and relief that we feel at that moment. At that point, new images come – those of my unabashedly optimistic hopes for the future. Seth and I huddled around a child, our faces pressed together, sticky with mixed tears as we stared at the child so long hoped and prayed for. I watch Seth say, Daddy loves you, and my heart bursts with a love my mortal body can barely contain. In my vision the baby’s face is blurry; the physical details are unclear and yet I am so certain of this love for a child I do not yet know that it vibrates deep in my bones. I stood there, voice cracking, tears running down my face, singing from the very marrow of my being.  We are waiting for the key change. Waiting to see where the tension and buildup leads us. Waiting for a resolve, even if it is in a key entirely different than we were expecting. Continuing to stand in the dissonance and wait for our child, hoping against rationality that he or she is out there, waiting for us. And we continue to pray our prayer: Where are you? I hope we find each other soon.