Climbing Aboard

So, the train station. The platform.

I hate them, and yet they have become a source of weird comfort. They are familiar; even though the snack selection sucks and the bathrooms are gross, there is comfort in familiarity. You know what you’re getting and what to expect. You know which hot dog stand will let you take all the ketchup packets you want and which bathrooms to avoid. It’s not fun, but it’s predictable.  Hopping on a train, though the whole point, can be hard.

After the surgery, we examined the map again, so to speak, and considered our next move.  Move towards adoption, or try again at giving it a shot at growing one?  Deciding felt like a loss either way. It was like we were toddlers who wouldn’t decide which shoes to wear and cried whenever we put a pair on because we wanted to wear the other ones, but then the grown up side of us wanted to JUST PICK A PAIR SO WE CAN LEAVE THE DAMN HOUSE ALREADY.

As we sat the two options in front of us, we noticed that there was something about adoption that continued to draw us in. It felt a little brighter; there was a sort of shine to it that gave us hope. While we knew there were difficulties and potential heartbreak with that path, it was new. Unchartered territory. Like that boyfriend named Pierre who still can’t decide if he wants to commit to a relationship or spend the next year working on an organic soybean farm, we remained unconvinced that biological kids would work “for real” this time.

As we continued to stare at Thing 1 and Thing 2, I noticed a pattern: every time I would lean towards adoption, an anxiety would well up inside of me – What happens if we adopt a child and the second it’s in our arms I spontaneously conceive?  I continued to perseverate on this like my dog stares at shiny things until my inner parent interjected with that condescendingly patient tone, Well, Bethany, 1+1=2, so that would mean that you would have two kids instead of one.  Oh. Right. If I DO get pregnant, then… I have an additional child. Right. And the human race has continued to evolve, so while challenging, it IS humanly possible to raise two children close in age. And then another fear crept in – What if we decide in a couple years we want to try fertility treatments again? Well, as it turns out, it is not a requirement of adoption that I hand over my uterus and say Here you go, I hear I must trade this for a baby?  And also –if we DID get pregnant naturally (which is unlikely but certainly not impossible), the likelihood of having two kids (which we would like) biologically IS very slim. So, we finally came to terms that some of my biggest holycrapholycrapholycrap worries could actually be incredible blessings (as well as a multi-year sentence of about fourteen minutes of sleep a night.)

So, onward. We filled out over thirty pages of paperwork that detailed some of the most intimate details of our lives, had multiple interviews, and allowed a (very kind) stranger into our house to look in our closets and ensure they did not house a meth lab or exotic animals. We did several background checks and I was waiting for someone to tell me how to prepare for the cavity check when our caseworker looked at us and said, “Well, that’s it.”

“What next?” I asked, expecting her to pull out the Bill of Rights and asking us to translate it into Latin.

“That’s it. I’ll polish up your home study, and then you’re ready go.”

By ready to go, you mean…

“Ready to advertise yourselves. There are several different options out there. You can just advertise on social media, or there are websites that expectant parents look at that have varying prices…”

Wait. We’re done?

I had become accustomed to assuming that there was always going to be one more thing to do. One more test to run. One more pill to try. One more piece of paperwork to fill out. One more background check to get. One more class to attend. Every time we had started to get our hopes up that we were nearing the end, or at least nearing a mile marker, we’d find out there was further to go. It was like running a marathon where the finish line kept getting moved farther and farther away. Eventually, you start to assume that you will never be done, even when you see the finish line on the horizon.

As we wrapped up that conversation with our caseworker, she reminded us of how there were no promises with timing. We could be matched with a baby in two years or in three months or never or tomorrow. She recommended that we get a few essential items ready – carseat, onesies, diapers, portable toddler urinals – in preparation.  The thought of gathering tangible items for a baby seemed odd and foreign, like buying windshield wipers for a car we didn’t own. She gave us some more advice about making an online adoption profile and reminded us to call her whenever we had any questions. We thanked her for her time and walked her to the door.

We stood inside our doorway, silent. Seth hugged me, and I cried. And cried. And then cried some more. I cried out of relief. I cried because answering pages and pages of questions that ask about everything from childhood trauma to our biggest fights to how infertility has affected us takes a lot out of you. I cried because it was hard to believe we were done. But mostly, I cried because of a feeling I hadn’t felt in awhile when thinking about parenthood – hope. I felt Hope.  I felt ready to get on another train. I felt excited about the future. Letting Hope in when you’ve shoved it in the closet and shut the door as fast as possible to keep it from sneaking out feels strange at first.  It’s like, “Hmm, what’s that smell? Did someone leave the oven on? Who lit that lovely scented candle? Is Joanna Gaines here?” Opening that door and letting Hope waft through the house takes some adjustment, but I felt a lightness and joy I hadn’t felt in awhile.

After a round of spousal hugging and crying, we decided to move on with our evening, and Seth went outside to do a couple things in the yard. My mind wandered to our storage shed that still had baby items a friend had given me when she cleaned out her kids’ things. “I know it’s premature,” she had said, “but I’d rather give this stuff to you than someone I don’t know. Put it in storage out of sight until you need it.” I had followed these directives and shoved them in the back corner of the shed; every time I went out there, I would avert my gaze from that corner and try to pretend they weren’t there.  And now, mere minutes after our caseworker had left, my feet carried me without my brain’s full consent outside and to the shed. I pulled the bags out and brought them inside, folding the clothes and sorting them by size. And, also - sobbing. I sobbed as I touched each item as if it already belonged to a baby.  I sobbed as I marveled at the insane tiny-ness of each item. And I kept sobbing. Months of grief and deferred hope that I had shoved in the freezer to keep moving on with life was rapidly defrosting.

And then, Seth walked back in, work gloves on and walking with the intention of a man in project mode.  He stopped in his tracks when he saw me and a mound of baby clothes on the couch. From his perspective: Ten minutes ago Wife was getting ready to go take a shower. Now Wife is crying over newborn baby onesies. He sighed a loving but concerned sigh with a half-smile, took off his work gloves, and sat next to me on the couch. He held me for a minute before he tentatively asked in the voice a man uses when he is treading in uncertain emotional territory – “Um… this is good, right?”

“Yes! Yes, it’s good. It’s very good. It’s just… I never wanted to look at these clothes, but now all of a sudden I want to. It’s the first time in while that… I’ve… had… hope.”

“I know. I know, babe.” He sat with me for a few more minutes, and when I had recollected myself, left me to continue my catharsis.

So, now, we have accomplished another step in the journey. We have the legal document we need to be eligible to begin the adoption process should the opportunity present itself.  The only thing we need to do next is to get the word out that we are ready to adopt. The quickest way to do this is through websites that allow you to make a profile that expectant parents seeking to place their child for adoption can look at. They are easy to use and simple to complete when compared to the mounds of adoption paperwork. But this time, there is a new thing that seems to get in the way of getting that done. Not time, or collecting the right documents, or figuring out how to navigate the system. It’s different than that, and writing it down makes me feel very vulnerable and small –

I’m scared. I’m really, really scared.

Waiting for awhile to have a kid is kind of like standing on a diving board at the edge of a pool that you’re really excited about jumping into, but when you have to stand on the edge for awhile, you also have a chance work yourself up about how cold the water’s going to be and wow this diving board is really high and what if you bellysmack and what happens if you realize you don’t know how to swim once you hit the water?  All the lovely friends and family watching say they’ll be there to help you stay afloat, and you believe them because they are indeed very lovely people, but what if you’re really cranky with them at times because you’re so tired and what if you feel like you’re asking for help too many times and will they be annoyed when you say it’s hard because you also wrote a whole damn blog about how hard waiting was?

This time, I don’t have thirty-seven pages of paperwork to blame. Just that I’m scared and have become really good at finding other things that MUST BE DONE IMMEDIATELY the last couple weeks to avoid the scaredy feelings. Because in swift succession after the fear comes another from the Hall of Mom Feelings – guilt. Guilt that I am feeling scared in the first place because I also want this so very badly.  Guilt that I put off doing a simple thing that could make our dreams come true. It’s a crappy cycle that often leads directly to chocolate.

I’m learning a lot, though. I’m remembering that I have felt the most scared before best and most life-changing things I have ever done. I’m reflecting on my adaptation of an Anais Nin quote: “Our lives expand in proportion to our courage,” and envisioning what that expanded life could look like. I’m learning that fear is not a chain I must completely untangle myself from before I move forward; that sometimes you shake off just enough anxiety to get some traction under your feet so you can take the next step. I’m realizing that fear and uncertainty will probably creep in a lot in this journey, and that it’s less about trying to shove them away and more about recognizing the fear for what it is, discerning what thoughts are helpful and what are not, and then gently nudging them aside so we can continue forward.

And so, a new train.  There is a lot that can go wrong on this line. There are spots where the track isn’t perfectly straight and the weather might get bad and at some point a cow will probably wander on the track and block us from making progress. But there are also a lot of beautiful things to see and some amazing potential destinations. We know that fear and guilt and sadness will probably hop on the train from time to time, but we’re determined to keep moving forward.

Onward.

Finding Forward

Dust fluttered into the air as I moved boxes around our storage shed. I had chosen to spend Day 1 of my spring break sorting through all my Boxes of Really Important Memories, hoping to make progress in widdling down my collection.  I mean, was my high school career so illustrious that I really need three Rubbermaid bins full of broken trophies and hand-cut photo collages to document it? Will our future children be satisfied with mere stories of my escapades as the 1999 clarinet section leader in marching band, or will I need to supplement them with photo proof? You have no IDEA the number of questions I field on a daily basis about this.  It’s overwhelming at times, really.

As I debated about what the world would miss if it didn’t have access to my 1997 JV skiing trophy, another box caught my eye. Future Baby Stuff. Inside were a few of my favorite children’s books, a few baby clothes that used to belong to my brother and I, and THE cutest baby sweater that I just HAD to buy from un mercado when I was studying in Mexico a couple years ago.

As I made my piles of Things to Donate, Things to Bring Inside, Things to Throw Away, and Things I Will List on Craigslist for Months Until Finally Coming to Terms With the Fact That No One Wants My Crap, I kept passing over the Future Baby Stuff box. The logical part of my brain told me to leave it in the shed. We had no immediate use for anything in it, save when I had the sudden urge to trigger a crying fest late at night. Yet, despite all rationality, the box found its way into the Go Inside pile.

I’ve often referred to how oCur infertility journey had us feeling like we were perpetually sitting on a bench on a train platform, slouching with our chins in our palms, itching to embark on the journey of parenthood but unsure what train would take us to that destination. We had tried to board the Baby Making Train on many occasions, and then the Baby Making Train With Supplemental Catheters, and finally the Baby Making Train with Supplemental Catheters, Shots, Pills, and Significant Emotional Lability. Most of these trains never left the station. Two moved forward for a few short weeks before the word Miscarriage flashed across the screen and the train began the heartbreaking trip back to the station. We were tired of the station but weren’t sure which train, if any, would lead us to our desired destination.

Bringing some of the baby stuff inside wasn’t necessarily picking a train, but it was at least standing up off the bench.  It was expressing some modicum of faith that, someday, our train would arrive.

************

After our last miscarriage, I sat in my doctor’s office, once again discussing next steps. We’re done, I was ready to tell him. We’re tired. We need a break. Miscarriages are hard. Treatments are expensive. We can’t keep bleeding money without hope of success. We were ready to stop, or at the very least pause, fertility treatments and begin the encyclopedia of adoption paperwork ahead.

Of course, this didn’t go as planned.  Instead of my geriatric eggs being the topic of discussion, this time my uterus got to share some airtime as well.

Over a decade ago, an ultrasound showed that I had what’s called a septate uterus, which basically means there is a wall of tissue down the middle. If substantial enough, this condition can increase the risk of miscarriage. Before and during our quest to become parents, I had asked several times if it would make sense to have the minor surgery to remove it. Each time, however, I was told that the imaging showed that the septum wasn’t big enough to cause complications, and the risk of scarring causing issues was greater than not having the surgery at all.  But after my second miscarriage, when I received the lovely diagnosis of “habitual aborter” (you can always count on the medical community to be sensitive with their terminology), my doctor wondered if the septum was bigger than diagnostic imaging could show. He recommended we consider it.

I drove home heaving what felt like one big, gigantic sigh. I felt a strong desire to embrace my inner two-year-old by sticking my lower lip six inches out from my face, stomping my feet repeatedly, and shouting, “IDON’TWANNAIDON’TWANNA IDON’TWANNA!”  The surgery was pricey and I was tired. I was ready to take a break. I felt like infertility had sort of become like that boyfriend whom you really want to be with but he just won’t commit, so you wait around for a bit and give him time to find himself and backpack Europe and spend lots of Friday nights with his motorcycle until you are finally like, look Pierre, this could be something great, but at some point I gotta know IS THIS GONNA HAPPEN OR NOT. So I’m going to move on. I’ll consider leaving your number in my phone so I know it’s not a doorbell salesman in case you ever decide you’re in, but emotionally I can’t stay here. I wasn’t ready to shut the door on having biological kids, but it was starting to feel unhealthy for me to sit around hoping it would happen. Having a surgery felt like I would still be waiting around for Pierre to figure out whether he was in this or not.

Seth and I debated the pros and cons. There were no guarantees, but there was a chance it could decrease the likelihood of another miscarriage should conception occur again. On the other hand, we had already devoted a lot of time and energy and money to things that had “a chance” of working. It felt like we were rolling a set of 100-sided dice with a baby on one side. Sure, there was a chance, but our wrists were sore from rolling.

Eventually, though, we realized that even though we were going to take a break from fertility treatments, if we were to not have the surgery, conceive naturally, and then miscarry, the What Ifs would haunt us forever.  So, we decided this would be our last “intervention”, at least for awhile. Fine, we told Pierre. You get ONE LAST CHANCE.

The surgery involved pumping me with anesthesia that “usually doesn’t make people sick” and essentially “buzzing” the wall off. (Ladies, if you’re looking to get buzzed, may I recommend a day-old, room temperature Lime-A-Rita mixed with your best friend’s backwash instead.) To keep the uterus from collapsing in on itself  (are we talking about my uterus or a sandcastle during high tide?), my doctor then inserted a balloon all up in there to hold things in place while the wound healed. A BALLOON. INSIDE OF ME. And not just any balloon. You know the kind of balloons that have a plastic stick on the bottom instead of a string? THAT kind. Wait a minute, you ask… if the balloon was in there, the stick was… Yes. Yes, that is correct. And while I’m not easily embarrassed and I believe in using the correct terms to describe reproductive anatomy, if you want any more detail, you need to take me out for a REALLY fancy dessert.  Because I’m classy and becausemydadreadsthis.

(Also, if the above description was too much, may I point out that when ladies are describing their birth story, they often talk about “how many centimeters” and “how long I pushed” and other intimate stuff like that and no one bats an eye.)

After surgery, Seth drove me home and I did a really good job keeping it together until I barfed in our driveway. I then took up residence on the couch and spent the next 24 hours dozing in and out with episodes of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee in the background, which, when combined with narcotics, can lead to some pretty trippy dreams about Jerry Seinfeld. In addition to the typical joys of recovering from surgery, I got to augment my experience by taking hormones and a course of antibiotics strong enough to cure an elephant’s syphilis.

I was a real joy to live with that week.

At my one week follow up, my doctor removed the balloon (angels sang) and I celebrated by walking normally.  He gave me instructions on the pill regimen I’d be on for the next two months. I ran through my list of questions, which unfurled like a verbal scroll across the floor. My most pressing concern: How successful was the surgery?

“Well, the septum was a lot bigger than we thought from the imaging. I think this could really help decrease your chances of another miscarriage.”

Great!... wait, if it could have an impact on my miscarriage rate, what are the chances that the septum caused at least one of my miscarriages?

“Oh, I’d say it’s about a 50/50 chance.”

A fifty-fifty chance that the surgery I asked for multiple times in the last decade could have prevented a miscarriage?

“Yes, this could really help you going forward. Do you have any other questions?”

Sure do. But the rest of my questions are for my therapist.

When we began pursuing parenthood, I remember being surprised by the power of my own emotions.  Sometimes these primal feelings would rise up inside of me, almost on a cellular level. This experience was no different. I drove away from the doctor’s appointment with a profound sense of loss. I felt like I was miscarrying all over again. Against all rationality I kept repeating “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry” through a thick stream of tears. I was apologizing to the babies we lost. “I should’ve advocated for the surgery more. I should’ve demanded it. I’m sorry.” My rational brain knew this wasn’t helpful. I knew it was entirely possible the miscarriages had nothing to do with what the surgery supposedly fixed. Yet what I couldn’t get out of my mind was the image on the last ultrasound screen of a slow but visible heartbeat. Life. For a moment, it was there. To believe that that loss was outside of any human’s control – somehow, that was easier to swallow. To even briefly entertain the thought that a simple outpatient surgery could have kept that heart beating – this brought me to my knees.

I’m going to pause for a second to take a moment and say that I don’t fault my doctor here. He gave the best medical recommendations with the information at hand. But sometimes we have to make decisions of which road to take with a map that is incomplete. We do our best, and sometimes that works out. Sometimes that takes us to sad places. Sometimes our experiences leave parts of our lives not neatly combed but with frayed, ragged edges.  And yet, onward we march, frayed ends and all.

************

I brought the baby clothes, along with a few children’s books, inside the house.  I opened the door to the “gray room”, the room that we hope will eventually be a nursery but is currently our second guest room. In the closet sits a dresser that I intentionally put out of sight. Recently, kid-type stuff had started to appear. A wooden caterpillar on wheels made my by carpenter uncle. A few of my favorite children’s books I had collected throughout the years.  Teddy bears that belonged to Seth and I when we were kids. I opened the top drawer and began laying items in. A denim dress I wore as a toddler. A little Carhartt jacket that belonged to my brother. The sweater from Mexico. All entirely impractical things to be in the top drawer of a dresser that I hope will belong to an infant soon. Yet they laid there like little beacons, symbolizing a way forward.

Forward. I knew that was where we wanted to head, but which direction was it? I tried to imagine all the paths in front of us that could lead towards parenthood. Biological kids. Private adoption. Foster to adopt.  I am so tired of trying to convince my body to do what it was “supposed” to do naturally, yet there is something inside of me, something intimately primal, that seemed to block every step I tried to take away from it. The what if’s kept pulling at me, and now there were even more of them. What if the doctor is right and the surgery really helped prevent another miscarriage? Am I giving up? Shouldn’t I be more hopeful now than ever? Is there something wrong with me that I don’t feel that way?

And yet, at the same time, when I consider more fertility treatments or continuing to “just relax and wait” for it to happen naturally – I can’t do it.  We’d been rolling those 100-sided dice for awhile. Talking to others that are also on the infertility journey - we’re all just standing at the table rolling dice. Some people’s dice have more sides than others. Some are able to keep rolling longer than others. But eventually, it seems that one of two things happens – they either land on the baby side or they step away from the table. You can stand at the table forever, because the reality is that, unless there is a clear, definitive you-cannot-get-pregnant reality at hand, the next roll of the dice could be the one. And this thought can be maddening. 

Or, maybe there is another option. One can step away from the table but not pull their dice out of the game. They can look at other tables and see if there are other ways to “win”. And maybe some of those other tables will bring “success”. Or maybe a miraculous breeze will blow through the place and the baby making dice will land baby side up.  Maybe, stepping away from the table doesn’t mean cashing out.  Maybe we can leave the possibility of biological kids open but divert our energy and resources towards other ways of begetting a human child. Because at this point, we aren’t picky about how a kid gets here. We just want to be parents.

Thinking of it through the lens of the train metaphor – maybe getting on a train at the train station doesn’t mean that’s the only possible train to be on. Maybe it leads to a place that’s even better than what we see on the postcards. Or maybe, the next train we get on takes us to a new station with different trains.  Maybe we stumble on a train that doesn’t seem exactly right at the beginning but we soon realize is exactly where we should be.

Sometimes it’s good to sit in the station for awhile to collect yourself and try as best you can to determine the next route you should take. Sometimes we need to take a deep breath and refill our water bottles and go buy an overpriced snack. But the thing about train stations is that no one wants to live or vacation there. They aren’t meant to be the place we stay. Sometimes, you’ve got to study the map as closely as possible, throw your backpack on your shoulders, and just climb aboard. You don’t know what lies ahead or what direction the track will turn. But you get on, and you settle in, and you look out the window, and you say – the scenery might look different than I envision, but I’m going to stay open to being surprised by how beautiful it can be.

Redrawing the Map

My hiking boots squished through the mud of early winter that covers the foothills of the Wasatch Front, the mountain range that lines the eastern side of the Salt Lake Valley. Seth walked a few paces ahead of me and our perfect specimen of a dog, Charlie, trotted in between us, blond ears flapping as he enjoyed the hike, blissfully unaware of the tension in the air. I was mad. Seth had said something just absolutely awful that I could not remember if you offered me a thousand dollars in Chipotle gift cards and a nine hour massage… but whatever it was, I was mad and had every right to be and it wasn’t my fault and I was NOT overreacting and he should know better forever and ever amen.

More mud flew as my stomping feet made contact with the soft ground, the result of a light snow with still-warm earth.  I continued to impart my grievances regarding the Really Bad Thing Seth Said, and with every sentence I uttered I could feel more conviction and frustration and anger brew up inside me and bubble out in the form of emphatic arm gestures, wide variances in voice pitch, and poorly formed sentence structure. He responded with unique combinations of exasperated defensiveness and genuine but confused attempts to understand where I was coming from. Finally, as it was clear the exchange was heading nowhere near our wedding vows, he sat down on a rock, heaved a big sigh, and said, “Babe, should we just go home? I’m just not sure what I can do to make you happy right now.”

I stared out over the city, deep down thankful that he had thrown a wrench in my hamster wheel but also not ready to address what was really going on. As I gazed across the valley, I could feel my face wrinkling up the way a toddler’s does when she realizes that shutting her fingers in the door really hurts. I could feel deep sobs well up from parts deeper than my reasons for being angry at Seth. As they tumbled out despite my best efforts, out also came the root of my emotion: “There’s just… no one… to yell at.”  I stumbled towards him like a rag doll, sat down on a smaller rock next to him, and folded myself onto his lap, a bid for comfort and an unspoken apology.  He heard this silent regret and gave me a safe place to land. He stroked my hair and whispered things like, “I know. It’s not fair. You can yell at me some more. It’s not fair. I’m sorry.”

Rewind eight weeks earlier. Our tenth IUI (fertility treatment) had failed. We had begun to untangle ourselves from the emotionally and financially taxing but yet also familiar routine of pills pills pills pills pills supplement supplement supplement ultrasound shot insemination pills pills pills supplement supplement supplement  pray hope pray cry repeat.  We decided to keep doing the cheap and easy stuff (pills and supplements) but stop the expensive inconvenient stuff (shots ultrasounds inseminations) and refocus our attention on adoption. And while I expected this to bring a certain amount of anxiety and sadness, I actually found a tremendous amount of peace. I needed to step away. We had been riding the Infertility Train for awhile, and its route was starting to make me dizzy. We made the conscious decision to step off and began crossing the platform for the Adoption Train. Unlike the Infertility Train, this one wasn’t yet associated with loss and disappointment. The Adoption Train gleamed with possibility and promise.  It was shiny and new and I felt certain that train would take us to a wonderful place. We had one foot on the first step, and then –

Two lines. Two pink lines.

I stood in the bathroom around 11 pm the Monday before Thanksgiving. I stared down at a pregnancy test upon which I had halfheartedly peed, thinking There’s no way I’m pregnant, it’s just that my hormones are all messed up from fertility treatments, so my “schedule” is way off. But what to my wondering eyes did appear but two tiny pink lines as I whispered Holy shit and stared aghast in the mirror. This was insane. The first month we didn’t do any shots or pee on any sticks or pay anyone $500 to inseminate me like a common barnyard animal… we’re pregnant.

I ran to the bedroom to tell Seth. By tell Seth, I mean I woke him up (not an easy feat), stuck my phone in his face to record his reaction, put the recently peed-on stick mere inches from his face, and said, “Seth. Babe. Sethbabe. Babe. We’re pregnant.”  I waited for him to leap out of bed, pull me into his arms, and spin in circles.

He blinked and stared at my blankly. “Huh?”

“We’re pregnant!”

Pause. “Yaaaaaaaaaaaay.”

“That’s it?”

“Well, I mean, I just woke up…”

Lesson learned – the next time I have exciting news, I’ll just wait til morning.

In all fairness, he really did try to be present, despite that waking him is like trying to rouse a bear mid-January. He held me while we had our “Holy shit!” time together.  While there was certainly excitement, there was also a healthy dose of skepticism. We’d been here before. We’d traveled this path and didn’t like where it led.

We went through the next few days in an odd haze of excitement and disbelief.  We found ourselves experiencing a significant case of emotional whiplash – we were marching so confidently towards the Adoption Train that changing our plan, although exciting, left us standing in the middle of the platform, not sure which direction to head. Yet over the next few days, my HCG levels continued to rise, along with our hopes. We began to inch cautiously across the platform towards the train that had led to disappointment in the past.  I may have even snuck peaks at baby name blogs, which is The Thing You Never, Ever Do When Trying to Keep Emotions In Check. We knew our miscarriage risks were high, but we could feel ourselves slowly stretching one foot towards the step of the We’re Pregnant Train.

And then it came time for our first ultrasound, midday on a Friday. I had had some mild bleeding the day before, and I had already spun it in my head – It’s over. There won’t be a heartbeat. It’s over. But when familiar images popped up on the screen, there was something different. Blip. Blip. Blip. Seth saw it before me – “I can see the heartbeat! Right there!”  I felt like my heart was sitting on a launch pad, ready to soar, my cautious mind telling it to hold on, not yet.  I held my breath and waited for the doctor’s assessment. “Looks like the heart is beating at about… 66 beats per minute.” My heart rolled off the launch pad… plop. I had read enough to know that that number should be around 110-120. As he repeated more numbers, I sat there in a daze, staring at the meeting of the tiles on the floor. He turned the machine off and his voice softened. “With bleeding and a slow heartbeat, we know that things aren’t looking very good. It’s too early to call it a miscarriage, but…” He said some more things, but his voice was muted and distant, as if I was underwater and he was trying to get my attention from the surface. Seth’s hand found mine, and the doctor’s voice continued, sounding further and further away. I waited with little response, hoping he would leave.

As the door shut softly behind him, Seth leaned in and held me. I continued to stare at the floor tiles. I didn’t say much and I don’t recall a lot of crying.  I still felt like I was underwater, numb, disconnected from the world.  Seth and I sat there mostly in silence. I eventually looked at the clock and said, We both need to get back to work.  And the “need” – it was a different kind of need. Our respective workplaces didn’t really need us. They would have continued functioning without our presence. The lights would’ve stayed on and nothing would’ve spontaneously combusted without us. But – we needed to go back to work. We needed to remember that we are more than a couple who can’t seem to get or stay pregnant. We needed to remember that there is more to this world than this small room we have been living in, this dark room with the words Infertility Lounge stamped above the doorway, this train that provides hope and promise and yet has never taken us to the destination we hoped it would. And while the colors and sounds were muted and we went through the motions like robots slugging through waste deep water, that was good. We needed to get outside ourselves.

That night, I texted a few friends who knew we were pregnant. I shared the doctor’s prognosis and the heartbreaking joy of seeing a heartbeat – our child’s heartbeat – for the first time. I shared that the likelihood of the baby’s survival was minimal. And these friends – they are warriors. They prayed. They encouraged. They offered any and every form of comfort they could dream up.  I could feel them fighting and pulling for us. I could feel their prayers. I spent a large part of that night curled up with my cute dog and cute husband inside. But I could hear them. I could hear their prayers outside the window, these beautiful friends standing in the rain for us. I borrowed their strength and whispered something like, Yes, God – what they said, please. I know that’s probably not going to happen. But I still need to ask.

Back to that muddy hike overlooking the Valley, my head on my husband’s lap, wishing that I really was indeed furious at the Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Thing Seth Said.  He didn’t, of course, say something awful – at worst it was probably annoying. Yet that was just the only tangible target at which I could aim my emotional dart.  That’s one of the tough things about grief that is diffuse and abstract; it can be hard to gather it all up and direct it in any direction that brings relief.  Sometimes, it gets haphazardly hurled outward, and those closest to us happen to be in its path.  And while it’s not fair and we should always be careful of our aim, I’m thankful Seth stood back and gave me the space to let all those emotions gurgle up, even though some of the mess got on him.  I’m thankful he could see through my dust cloud of anger and self-righteousness and notice the pain and sadness in the center. I’m thankful he named that pain and then gave me a soft place to fall.

At the doctor’s appointment on Monday, the ultrasound screen showed what I had prepared myself for. I stared at the tiles again while the loud silence echoed in the room. I heard the doctor’s instructions without really listening, all too familiar directives he had uttered a few months earlier.  I felt the post-visit instructions in my hand and read them without committing anything to memory. When the miscarriage didn’t happen naturally, I took the pills to induce it. It was painful and long and sad. I moved from couch to shower to bed to bathroom floor, looking for relief.   Everything was muted – emotions, sounds, color, social interactions. I felt emotions rise up inside and vie for a spot in my consciousness. Anger – Why is this happening again? We weren’t even trying for it this time. Fear – Is this always going to be our story? Will we ever be parents?  Helplessness – We’ve tried everything. Why isn’t it working? I cast a side eye at each one and examined them, yet never lifted an arm to choose one. All those emotions took energy, something I didn’t have a lot of.  I found myself settling into a meditative numbness. The world passed over me and I found it challenging to drum up the desire to engage with it.

As humans, we like things resolve. We want our songs to end on a major chord and we like our movies to have a storyline that fits neatly with our worldview. Yet sometimes there isn’t a way to tie things together. Sometimes the ragged threads of life stick out with no discernable pattern and the puzzle pieces lay in a pile on the table, and we are unsure how to make it look like the picture on the box. Sometimes you stand in the middle of the train platform, spinning in circles and frantically reading the schedule and the destinations listed on each train, but none of them match up with the map you’ve drawn. And as you hope and pray and try to will the trains to change their course or for a new train to show up, you begin to wonder if maybe the way to a resolution is to redraw your map, yet you don’t really know what that looks like or what train it will lead you to. So, eventually, you sigh and take a seat on the platform. You watch the trains come and go. You study your map and consider alternate routes. And, sometimes, you just wait.

Waiting on the platform is hard. It is no one’s final destination, so we want to get off of it as soon as possible. We like to feel like we are making progress and moving forward, so we run up and down the platform, chasing trains and second-guessing decisions. Because, if I’m honest, I’m really (expletive) tired of waiting. All the crosswords in my carryon are completed, and the scenery inside the station is getting really old. Yet while I have learned to sit with the pieces that don’t fit, I still notice a drive within me that is determined to make some beauty out of these mismatched pieces. So, for today, here is the good I see:

 I am so deeply thankful for those of you who have joined us on the platform. Thank you for sitting with us, even though the benches are uncomfortable. Thank you for bringing comfort food and movies and bad jokes. Thank you for bringing your silence and your willingness to not have any answers. Thank you for not emphatically insisting that we try out this one train your cousin’s neighbor’s stepsister got on that worked out for her.  Thank you for praying for us and not being upset when we sometimes let you do all the praying. Thank you for reading this blog as I sort out my drawer. Thank you for showing up with your texts and calls and emails that just remind us that you love us.  Thank you for insisting that we leave the station every once in awhile to remind us of the beauty that exists where we are right now.  Thank you for loving us even when we feel like we haven’t given much outside ourselves. Thank you. We appreciate it more than you know.