Tunnel Vision

Mel over at Stirrup Queens had a thought provoking post yesterday.  So, I figured I could explore it more over here as it relates to me. 

“Infertility and loss have a way of feeling like torture. While it’s happening, it’s so painful and all you can think about is that future moment when you won’t be feeling this intense amount of pain. And I think we all believe that the key to happiness, the key to ending the torture, is to parent. I think the torture begins lessening when you get that positive test or you receive your match/referral. But I think we’re all focused on that day when the child is in our arms or in our house and we are parents. And part of that is true.”

I complety subscribed to this philosophy.  I believe that I have had one serious case of tunnel vision in the past four years.  My husband and I, hand in hand, running for the finish line where a bouncing baby would be placed in our arms.  We would then raise him up for all to see in a very L.ion K.ingish way, then return home where we would live happily ever after.  Yeah, I know.  HOWEVER, I don’t regret a second of my TVS (tunnel vision syndrome), because it is exactly what I needed to make it through the hell I was in.  I wasn’t emotionally capable of much more.  TVS was my coping mechanism.

“But then how do we explain the fact that infertile women are four times as likely to suffer from postpartum depression?

I think a lot of it is a lack of release valves–we seal them off ourselves because we’re too worried what turning them on means. Complaining and venting is a resource that non-infertile women use to get through the stress of pregnancy or the stress that comes with new parenthood. But we think we can’t complain because that means that we’re not grateful. We’re scared to complain to our support system–usually other infertile women–because we know they would trade anything to be in a between-ultrasounds panic rather than a two-week-wait. We’re scared to complain to our friends or parents for fear that they won’t understand and say, “but you wanted this.”

I’m seriously working on this front.  How do I find the balance in my communication to relay just how much I love Lucky, but also allow myself to convey just how exhausted and frustrated I am?  I am grateful, but I don’t feel as if I need to say that every post.  I don’t feel like I should preface each negative with a positive in front of it for fear that somebody will find me ungrateful for my huge blessing.  Yet, each time I do.  It always the same…”Last night, Lucky refused to sleep in his crib.  He screamed until midnight, fell asleep for two hours, and screamed some more.  It left me exhausted, and longing for the nights where sleep was a given not a gift.  (Then comes my disclosure that I always have to say.)  This is not to say that I am not grateful for each and every sleepless night that I will gladly take a million times over rather than not having him.”  I mean seriously.  I am so not grateful for sleepless nights.  Let’s get real here.  Who the hell wants to not sleep at night?  Ummm….nobody.  Loving Lucky and finding parenting to be trying at times are not mutually exclusive. 

Many of us who are parenting after infertility feel the need to add that disclosure.  I’m vowing to stop right now.  No more disclosures or prefacing the trials and tribulations.  I don’t do that to the positives.  Care to join me anybody?

“I think the other reality is that we make parenting the goal that will lead to happiness rather than making happiness the direct goal. Does that make any sense? I think we equate parenthood with happiness therefore, we drop happiness from the equation and aim for parenthood.”

I wouldn’t say that I didn’t have happiness in my life.  Nor would I say that I’m not happy now.  If happiness is a scale from one to ten, with one being life is hell and ten being life is bliss, during infertility three quarters of the month I was an eight, and for one I was a four.  Life still went on.  There was still love and laughter, new hobbies, trips, and a lot of fun.  However, beneath it all there was an ache, longing, and deep pain.  Now, life is more of a continual eight.  There’s still love, laughter, new hobbies, trips, and fun.  The coloring beneath it all is now something different.  I’m not sure even how to describe it.  It’s more of a fine cocktail of happiness, frustration, love, and that emotion that has me shrugging my shoulders and wrinkling my nose while trying to describe.  You know that one, right?  

I’ve never just plain outright strived for happy.  In fact, I would have no clue how to do that.  Does anybody have directions?  Never mind, I can’t follow directions anyway.  I’d get lost and end up somewhere else.  I guess I will have to wander my way and find my own route even if it takes using the back roads that aren’t clearly labeled.

“Children are sort of like money in that regard. Not having them brings a lot of stress. But having them brings stress too. And when you don’t have children, you think that the stress that comes from having children is more manageable. Just as you can’t really imagine the problems of the rich are that bad. But parenthood is stressful. While I wouldn’t trade it for anything and I’m obviously willing to do anything/everything to parent another child, I am also appreciative when someone is complaining to me about the sleeplessness or the lack of privacy or the infinite changes that take place with parenthood.”

The changes are infinite.  Whether you have children or not,  you can figure them out.  You don’t need me to tell you what they are.  I did believe stress would be more manageable with children.  I did not believe it would be more or less, just easier to deal with.  I thought I would have this giant load off my shoulders and be free to handle things more aptly.  I guess my conclusion is that the stress is just a different kind of stress.  I used to be frustrated with my temperature and ovulation patters, and now I lament over sleeping patterns.  Six to one, half dozen to another. 

I’m sure I will revisit this after I digest it a bit more.  She had a lot going on in that post.