megfowler.com

IT’S SUNNY OUT.

Or it will be, when the sun is fully present in the sky.

I’m not sure how long it will last, but my feet are shod in flip flops in celebration of the dryness. However momentary.

I’m all for reveling in short term joys, really.

Speaking of reveling, if you’re a consistent MegFowler.com reader — the kind that checks in now and then during the day because you’re aware of my tendency to post often and post hard — you’ll notice that I’ve posted a few things over the past 24 hours that I deleted very shortly thereafter.

Now, for those of you on Bloglines or Google Reader or what have you, this makes no difference. As soon as I post it, you have it and I can’t take it back. But you might have realized if you clicked through to comment that “Wha? Where did it go?”

Let me explain.

I’m completely bananas.

That’s the explanation. Did you like it?

Okay, okay… the reality is, I’m going through a fairly “hormonally challenged” phase of my existence. I’m constantly at war with my internal emo-meter, attempting to hold tight to the marble columns of sanity while the Rome of my emotions crumbles around me.

Wait. That explanation was even worse.

I’m going back to the bananas thing.

As I said in a short-lived post (I am saying the word “short” a lot here… complex?) last night, sometimes I feel as though there’s a wee alien living in my body, trying to control what I say and do and feel.

The reason I say it’s like an alien is because the rest of my body doesn’t actually feel the same way the alien does. The rest of my body might be cheery and upbeat… my normally energetic, content self.

Then the alien says, “No, actually, all your muscles hurt and everything makes you cry. Also? NO ONE UNDERSTANDS YOU.”

And even when I say to the alien, “That’s not how I feel!”, he (oh yes, he is a “he”) says, “Yes, you do. See?”

Then he’s right. Dammit.

While it’s nice to be able to point to tangible and biological reasons for this disconnect, it still sucks when I can’t articulate that I’m fine, I’m really fine, I’m just weeping and my back is so sore I would like to keep sitting down. Also? Can’t sleep.

Because I AM fine. I get up every morning ahead of my alarm clock and hum in the shower and sip my coffee and put on excesses of fun lip balm and dance with my iPod and eat good cereal at my desk and write things I’m proud of.

I crack jokes all day. I laugh with my friends. I call my mom on the phone and giggle and roll my eyes at her motherliness. I deal appropriately with what comes my direction. I work hard.

But all that time, there is the alien, and he is the bags under my eyes and the roughness in my skin and the pains in my joints and the random flushing in my cheeks and racing of my heart. He is the reason for bone scans, for odd vitamins, for medical appointments, for the roller coaster of putting hormones into a body that didn’t really have anything hormonal going on… and for this odd ache in my gut.

He shows up when I least expect him, and rattles me. Not so you’d see it. Just so I’d feel it.

And when I get home, sometimes I crack miserably. Because he’s been pushing me all day, and it’s absolute madness.

Then I write things I want to delete and say things I wish I could take back and confuse people with my odd, crumply soul.

All that time it’s not really me.

But it is.

I know that all of this seems completely odd to people that have not gone through perimenopause, and certainly odd to some people that have. I know few people who have gone through it this early, because only about 1% of the female population does it before age 40. The average age is 51.

And about .003% go through it for the reasons I’m going through it, this early into my 30’s, with an autoimmune disorder.

“‘Autoimmune disease’ refers to a category of more than 80 chronic illnesses, each very different in nature, that can affect everything from the endocrine glands — like the thyroid — to organs like the kidneys, to the digestive system. Underlying all autoimmune conditions is the concept of autoimmunity.

Autoimmunity refers to the process by which the immune system gets confused, and rather than protecting organs and cells, turns around and actually attacks those same organs and cells, producing inflammatory reactions and other serious symptoms and diseases.”

Very few people I know struggle with infertility, though I know there’s a whole little subset of bloggers who write about it all the time.

I can’t really go there. It’s not like I would be trying to get pregnant right now, so my issues are different. I’ll go into my relationships and my eventual marriage knowing what the reality of our experience will be, and that’s what I’m dealing with now. Telling someone. Finding someone who doesn’t mind.

And actually, not leaping at someone because he doesn’t mind, thus ignoring all the OTHER stuff that doesn’t work. Because I still bring a lot of good things to the table. I’m not compromising because I can’t have a baby that looks like an odd combination of us. That’s not my only value.

It’s still hard.

So.

This journey is why I want to edit, this is why I sometimes seem sad and happy all at once. This is why I sometimes feel like I’m in a haze.

And I am tough enough to withstand all of it, alien or no.

It just means that some deleting might happen now and again.

So bear with me. I’m taking control of the things I can take control of, and I won’t apologize for it.

Especially not on a day when the skies are blue.

No one should feel sorry today.

… even if I remember everyone elses’ and the phone number from the address I lived at in university, too.

So it’s funny that I even realized that it will be six months ago tomorrow that I had one of the worst days of my life.

I’d like to say a lot has changed since then, but life has been pretty much the way it always was. I work, I spend time with my friends and family, and I can’t sleep worth a damn.

Same girl I always was.

Except.

Now there are the migraines and the body temperature fluctuations and the low iron and the whacked-out blood sugar and the rashes and the infections and the bone pain and the cramping, too.

But life goes on.

Right?

It has to.

That’s what I believe in order to keep walking through all of this.

And this is what I wrote that night, six months ago.

***

I was told by a specialist today, after rounds of tests and examinations and referrals, that there was 0% chance I would ever bear children.

There was lots of stuff after that, too, but I assume that will sink in later. I heard her talking about rare autoimmune disorder and nonfunctioning systems and shutdown and likely been this way your whole life.

I did. I listened really well.

And then she said, “Any questions?”

“You can’t do anything?” Heart beating.

“Not about that. I don’t like telling anyone your age things like this, especially when you’re not married and you don’t have any children yet. But this is not something your body can do. If I said it could, I’d be lying, and that’s not fair at all. I mean, you could try donor eggs, but your body would likely attack them. I’m very sorry.”

Alright.

Stand up now, smile, go make your follow-up appointment, walk out the door, go to the elevator. Where is the elevator? Take the stairs.

Eleven floors down. Slowly. Call your mom, apologize. She says not to, through tears. Do it anyway.

Walk home.

Sit down on the couch. Are you crying? You’re crying. Nobody else is here, go ahead.

No.

Tell your roommates as they arrive home. Matter of fact. Just say it. Smile. Shaking, a little.

You should eat dinner. You didn’t eat today. Think of what you want to eat. What do you want?

Then it hits you like a hard, silent, dark wall.

Not 20%. Not 10%. There is 0% chance.

She said depression would not be unheard of. Grieving. Letting go. Issues with relationships. Did I have a boyfriend? Was I planning to have children one day, anyway?

No. And oh, yes yes yes.

In my head and heart, that was going to be the culmination of 22 years of feeding and rocking and diapering and caring for hundreds of little ones who were not my own, from sweet babies who belonged to friends and family, to the frail bodies I held in hospital, to the smudgy-faced toddlers I corralled to give their moms a break at camp.

An absolute natural, everyone said.

Nature says otherwise.

I am trying so hard to keep feeling lucky, because I know that overall, in the big picture, I sure am.

But all I have right now is just keep breathing.

***

Guess what?

I still am.

Perspective, perspective, perspective.

I’m a girl who just came back from a two-week vacation.

My family is incredible… very few people have such a solid foundation, and I’ve always had them on my side.

I have a great, stimulating job — AND my co-workers make me laugh.

I love my apartment. I love my roommate.

I love my friends to bits.

Hell, it’s even a sunny day today.

I haven’t had coffee yet, but it’s out there.

I listened to music on the way to work that made me want to get up and dance, and Attractive Bald Guy smelled like lemons when I passed him by on the way to my seat.

So what in the hell could I possibly have to complain about?

Really, life is pretty perfect.

Or it would be if life were simply the sum of these factors. On paper.

I hate to seem ungrateful for what I have. I hate to seem like I don’t see the blessings. Because I do… I do. Every time I turn on the news or walk down the street, I’m made aware that I have so much — through no action or merit of my own — that so many people would love to have.

(I’m a pathological comparer. Have you noticed?)

I feel guilty about being frustrated if someone else ISN’T frustrated under those same circumstances. I feel guilty if I complain more than someone else does. I feel guilty if I ask more of one of my friends than the other people in their life might happen to ask. I feel guilty if I feel sorry for myself when someone else is going through something worse.

This is where my mom and I? We join firmly at the hip.

My mother gets genuinely, bluntly angry maybe twice a year.

I think she probably actually gets frustrated far more than that, but she feels so responsible for so many people and so many situations that she doesn’t allow herself the “luxury” of giving in to her mood. Sure, there will be the momentary bursts of “what the hell?” — say, when my dad is doing his classic traffic rant, or her sewing machine tries to eat someone’s wedding gown or my grandfather’s doctors play fast and loose with his care — but she returns to a peaceful state pretty quickly.

She feels she has to. After all, if she drops the ball, who exactly is going to pick it up?

She listens to her friends more than she complains to them. She brings the most stuff to the potluck dinners. She has patiently put up with more annoying, gossipy, controlling people as a pastor’s wife than have found their way into all the seasons of Survivor combined. She is a born problem solver. She is an organizational wunderkind.

She’s hard core, frankly.

Granted, it seems a bit of a martyr thing at times — how does anyone put up with all of that without slugging someone? — but honestly, truly… that’s not why she does it. She doesn’t call attention to her sacrifices. She just does it because she feels like anything else would be ignoring the provision and blessing in her world.

And while I’m not nearly so good and thoughtful — you know that! you’ve read my blog! — I know that this mentality informs much of how I walk through life.

Or it did.

Because I’ve finally bumped up against something that makes me so genuinely angry and hurt and frustrated that I can’t seem to make it go away with lists of good things and cheerful song lyrics and 10 cups of coffee per day and bleaching my bathtub.

And I’ve spent a ton of time trying to ignore it and minimize it, even as I have written about it and mourned it on some level.

It’s actually hard to blog about it, especially when my non-blogging friends often decry web writing as perspectiveless whining. As one of my guy friends once emailed me after I set up this site, “It’s like people finally get a chance to bitch without anyone interrupting them, and you finally get to see how selfish and clueless and isolated they really are.”

I don’t agree with him, but I don’t want him to think that of me, either.

He might today. Because I have to get a few things out of my system in order to remember all those blessings again.

This is really, really hard. This adjusting. This grieving. This letting go.

I read a study — in some crazy ass women’s magazine, maybe even in a waiting room! — about a month after I was diagnosed with everything from an autoimmune disorder to perimenopause to no-recourse infertility. It was a survey polling women about their response to health problems.

Women with children — and still in their childbearing years — were asked whether they would prefer to be diagnosed with cancer or infertility by their doctor. Now, that’s a fairly horrible question. Why the heck would you even compare the two things? They’re utterly and completely different!

But the people hosting the study said that they were comparing the two states because they stood out as the two health issues that women routinely mention above all others as experientially traumatic.

Fair enough.

The results? 70% of women said they would rather be diagnosed with cancer.

I boggled. And boggled even more when the numbers shot up to 80%, among women without children.

Why? Many of the recipients stated that “cancer was often treated successfully nowadays.”

Mind you, people still DIE of it, ladies! I couldn’t believe it. Especially when I remembered how terrified I’d been waiting for results on tests for breast cancer last year. Especially when I’d had so many people lose loved ones to the disease. Especially when my own grandfather was struggling through it.

Then I read another quote from a mother of one: “Part of me feels like infertility is a sort of death sentence anyhow.”

Are you kidding? When you can adopt? When you already have a child you love?

And this from a woman who’d HAD cancer: “Cancer I knew I could fight, and if I lost the fight, there was nothing undignified about it. But infertility comes with this shame. Like you’re not a real woman.”

“We all know we’re going to die someday — no one lives forever. You wouldn’t expect eternal life. But you do expect that you can conceive. That just seems like part of being a woman. If you take that away, what else do you have?”

I was completely and utterly shocked.

But.

It all goes toward evidence of something I already know. Something I’ve had to face in the last few months. Something I wouldn’t have been able to understand unless I’d experienced it. And I feel guilty about writing all of this. I certainly don’t think anything I’m going through is anything like receiving a death sentence or a cancer diagnosis, so please don’t think I’m aggrandizing my experiences.

But.

As someone who worked with kids all her life and someone who had always wanted children of her own, I’d taken it for granted that I would be able to have them when the right time came. Maybe that’s a silly assumption, but I sure as hell assumed it. Losing that ability in the space of a ten minute discussion with my doctor — though I’d lost it, she told me, likely years and years before — was the single most unbalancing moment in my life.

It was horrible. I was breathless and speechless and wanting to scream or wail on the bus back to work. I couldn’t even stay at work, either. I was on the edge of crazy, unstoppable tears. I mean, I don’t leave work. I don’t take sick days. But I had to go. I had to go.

And telling people about it? Oh, the awkwardness. Telling people about the cancer tests was easier. People know how to respond to that — it’s BAD. Clearly bad. They can worry about you. They can say it sucks. They can share their own experiences. They know other people who have been through it. They’ve been through it.

But so many people had no clue what to say about my news.

I mean, if they said something negative, would they be adding to my frustration? Was it best to chirp at me with cheerful thoughts about adopting? Was it best to minimize the problem so I wouldn’t feel like a freak? “You can always adopt.” “Well, it’s not like you were ready to have a kid yet anyhow.” “Hey, you can babysit my kid anytime you like. That will make you feel lucky!”

The people that chose the other route — shock and awe — spoke out of their own fears: “Do you think you’ll still get married?” “Are you totally depressed now?” “I can’t imagine not having my experience giving birth to .” “Do you feel worthless?” “Do you think God has a reason for it?” “Oh, YOU of ALL people!”

Argh.

I was also (am also) going through perimenopause. Did you know that part? Awesome. Have you talked with menopausal women about how much they enjoy that experience? The ups and downs? The changes in your body? In your skin? The whole nine yards? I sure hadn’t thought about it yet, other than joking with my mom about hot flashes when she’d get overheated from gardening or something (not from hot flashes.)

But in my case — at 32 — the whole idea is horrifying to women and mystifying to men, to the point where I just have to joke about that part to make it less awkward. What else can you do?

And I don’t even know how to deal with autoimmune stuff. It’s so vague, the physicality of that. Is that why all the headaches? Is that why all the insomnia? Is that why I would get sick all the time? Is that why I was more prone to broken bones? Well, yes.

Because of socialized medicine, my turn for a bone scan hasn’t even come up yet. But what’s that going to tell me? That I have the frame of someone much older and weaker?

I am a person who always had serious pride (ooh! comes before a fall!) about three things: I have always looked younger than I was (as does my mom), I was going to be a great mom (as is my mom), and I was strong and resilient as hell, health wise (ditto).

Now I’m old before I’m old, childless before I’ve even had a chance to try for it, and weak through no fault of my own in ways I don’t even understand yet.

Holy shit.

My doctor warned me it would be “hard”, but who the hell knows what that means? Hard is so relative. There are so many worse things than this, and I couldn’t quite figure out how “hard” to take it. How badly to feel about it.

My “autocompare” tool broke.

It’s still broken.

I still don’t have a clue how I’m supposed to be reacting. I don’t even know how I AM reacting.

I know I’ve annoyed myself when I bitch to my friends. I’m annoyed at myself when I’m erratic or emotional, which I know I have been. I know that I’ve pulled back from a lot of people to avoid gushing at them about how I feel. I’m terrified of losing my friends because I can’t get perspective. I know I’ve shoved it down deep into my system a lot. And half the time, I’ve wished I was doing that MORE.

I have a morbid fear of disappearing too much into this pain. Which, as anyone who thought longer than ten seconds about the whole thing might conclude, only makes it worse.

So here it is, the truth, so I can say I said it all at once. To get it out.
Yes, I forget about it momentarily all the time — when I watch women in labour on TV, or hear about one of my friends having gone through labour — and say things like, “I wonder if I can do it without drugs?” or “I’m fully going to slug someone when I have contractions!” Well, no I won’t. No, I won’t. And that moment of realization? So awkward. My friends have actually flinched when I’ve done it, because they don’t forget. The realization stings.

Yes, I think about it when I see babies. Yes, I think about it when I talk about babies. Yes, I consider it because so many people I know are having/have had babies. Yes, there is now a newborn living above my head at my apartment. And I love those sounds, I do. More than I can say. I can’t wait to babysit. But it also aches a little.

Yes, I think about it when I consider relationships. All of it — the perimeno, the infertility, the illness — makes me feel less attractive, less worthy… whether that is rational or not. I know some men see me differently as a result. But I know this isn’t my only relationship flaw, so. I probably have a lot about me I could change. I don’t know if I will.

Yes, I’ve drawn close to depression, but no… I don’t think I’m depressed. I am quite certain I am grieving. I am quite certain I am anxious more often than I was before, but that’s something I’m prone to regardless, because of the OCD.

Yes, it is something I experience physically. Pain, overheating, increased migraine activity, blood sugar issues, iron issues… etc.

And yes, I’m figuring out how to handle it. And how to be open about it. And how to deal with it.

I really don’t like it. It’s mine now, though, so I better learn to walk through it gracefully.

But maybe not yet.

This isn’t well-written, and I don’t know how to end it, but… yeah.

It has now been more than three months since I received word from my specialist that I was unable to have children. They were — and for this I am oddly thankful, since I hate uncertainty — quite blunt about the reality of my situation: there wasn’t anything I could do but adopt, since my body would neither produce viable eggs or host anyone else’s without attacking them.

That was hard. Is hard. Will be hard? I don’t know. Dealing with the physical difficulties of the autoimmune stuff and my subsequent treatment will eventually die down to a dull roar, and then I’ll be left to see if the emotion of everything is easier to wade through once I no longer feel sick and sleepless and frustrated with my body.

But I don’t think it’s going to be easy. I’ve already done my share of crying. And yelling. And sitting very quietly waiting for the ache to pass.

It would have been easier, perhaps, if I’d never been the sort of person who wanted to have kids or had much to do with kids, but if you’ve read this blog for long, you know this is not the case.

I have been dreamily attached to babies since shortly after I stopped being one, and working with kids has pretty much defined most of my life up until a couple of years ago. I’m good with little ones. It feels natural. I love them and value their little hearts and minds more than I can express. I feel committed to the wellbeing of each one that crosses my path. The connection is always quick, and always strong. It’s just a part of who I am.

So.

Like I say, hard.

The funny thing is, I’d never really considered adoption. Isn’t that crazy?

Maybe adoption would be something I’d do after having a passle of my own biological children, but it was never the first step I’d had in mind. It seems a bit odd to me now, but I certainly wasn’t basing my decisions on a lack of appreciation for the concept, or on the notion that adopted children were somehow less connected with their parents.

I just wanted to experience the birth process. To grow big. To breastfeed. All of that stuff. None of which is the definition of parenthood, but all of which were in my list of benefits.

Maybe I was being limited in my scope, but I know I’m not alone in this. I’ve read enough infertility articles and blogs to see that this is a longing I share with many, many women. And I don’t think there is anything wrong with that, just as there is nothing wrong with people who wish only to adopt their children, or to do both. It’s a matter of choice.

Although, oddly, as soon as I started coming across these blogs and reading their archives, a few of these struggling women actually started getting pregnant. Or once I’d read forward in their archives, it turned out they’d eventually had a child and that I was actually reading a couple years back. People would pile on the hope and congrats when test results came back positive, and I felt that elation for them, too, even if it was bittersweet.

Hell, a ton of my friends are pregnant or have been recently, and I celebrate each amazing story, regardless of the fact that this aspect of the parenting experience will never be my own.

But for me, it’s no longer a debate or a hope or a process or a goal. Now it’s a concept that exists in my history. Which makes me want to accept and celebrate something else entirely for my life.

Which brings me to the now.

Now I have to think about what adopting will mean. About going on lists. About looking at laws. About analyzing my income and making plans. About dealing with all of this potentially before I even have a partner on the scene. I’m 32, after all. On one hand, I’m very much ready for the next stage of my life.

But will I find someone who shares my dreams? And if I don’t, then can I do it alone? I won’t be really alone — I have family and friends galore — but it’s something I have to consider. Am I enough of anything and everything to be a single parent? And is someone else’s lack of desire to adopt a child going to be a dealbreaker for me?

Some people have told me that it’s too early to be asking these questions, but to them I say: when, then? I’m not a kid. And this is the new playing field, so this is what I have to explore.

No one would dream of telling a 32 year old that she was too young to worry about her fertility. By that same token, I’m not too young to worry about my options now.

So.

A million questions. How much will it cost? Domestic adoption or adoption overseas? Foster care adoption or international relief? Newborn or not newborn? My own race, or another race? Do I care about gender? And how many times can I afford the process?

To be honest, when I break it down into thoughts like that, some part of me mourns that I’ve lost a particular angle on the mystery of having a child, even if this has created a whole other set of mysteries for me.

But this much is true:

Within five minutes of receiving my “news” (as it’s come to be known among my friends and family) I was on the phone to my mother in a concrete stairwell telling her that maybe this was all supposed to be this way, because I had never, ever had a problem connecting to children that didn’t come from my own body. That I could love a baby in my arms within seconds and feel as protective of that child’s life as of my own. This is why it was so hard for me to deal with abuse cases at camp. This is why the children’s hospital work ripped me to shreds.

I think I was saying it to comfort her at the time, to make this all seem like grand destiny and not just a horrible kick in the head. She knew that, but she also agreed with me.

And three months later, I’m even more aware of how many experiences in my life prepared me for this moment in time, and all the moments going forward.

That doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt like hell and that my stomach isn’t twisted into knots right this very second.

What it does mean is that I’m being practical.

Because, at the end of the day, that’s what a mommy has to be.