I have spent nearly 5 years trying to make sense of the nonsensical. What is meant for me here? I have grasped tightly on to the notion that there must be something to gain, to learn, to uncover in the hell that has been infertility and pregnancy loss as a way to preserve hope for myself. As the days, months, and now years pass the overwhelming belief that there isn’t a reason or remedy haunts me. Why am I going through this?
A couple weeks ago I was lying in bed and felt the beginning of what would be my period. It’s a swelling signal that radiates throughout my entire body, first beginning in my head and then pulsating in my uterus, permeating every limb. I get dizzy, distracted, and find it hard to concentrate. The fatigue enters every cell as if to prepare me. “Brace yourself,” my body whispers.
I made the mistake of listening to the advice of an Instagram health professional this particular cycle who was touting the benefits of curcumin for pain relief during menstruation. I thought I’d give it a try because at this point…why the fuck not? I took the dose she recommended and then doubled it, nearly tripling it as I felt the wave of pain escalate. I conceded. “Fuck her,” I silently thought. But in reality, “Fuck this. Fuck my body. Fuck endometriosis. Fuck infertility. Fuck it all.”
Pain and anger are ever present during these moments; there is no gratitude journaling my way out of either of these emotions as desperately disappointed as that must make everyone.
When the hot pain arrives, I tolerate it. I wonder how much more intense, how much longer. I know it will end, which is the only saving grace I have in those moments. After about an hour of pain, I begin to cry. It’s a particular cry that I have become familiar with. It’s not the physical pain that brings me to tears, it’s the emotional fatigue. I have spent nearly 10 years cycling through this scenario every month and I’ve grown tired.
My husband lies next to me exhausted from his day. He rolls over and asks if there is anything he can do, although we both know there isn’t. He gets up and gets my heating pad, the bottle of Ibuprofen, a glass of water and returns to massage my leg; on this night, my right leg was in far more pain than my left. It helps, slightly, but ultimately it feels defeating. He tires of massaging and we both know it’s best if he gets rest. I have no choice but to continue to lay in unrest until the pain passes.
Recently, I’ve been working on trying to be present, to come home to myself. “Mediate,” they tell me. I know, I know. I need to meditate and all my life’s problems will be solved. Fuck. Although I cognitively know it would help, I’ve been immaturely resistant to the idea. Sitting with myself inside my body is a discomfort I’ve been avoiding for over a decade.
I have spent many years of my life, intentionally and unintentionally, disconnecting myself from my physical body; existing outside of myself as a way to keep climbing the proverbial latter of life. Stuffing, hiding, concealing and avoiding the hard stuff in order to get to the things I thought would erase the pain. I assumed both consciously and unconsciously that the disconnection was making me lighter but the weight of the unpacked bullshit has ultimately weighed me down.
I have come to view my 20s as a hike uphill. I could see in the distance that there was a destination, a stopping point. When anything difficult or challenging would happen, I would put it in my backpack and continue hiking. I kept telling myself, “once we get to the destination then I can put down this backpack and breathe. For now, just keep it moving, we are almost there.” The moment I recognized that my infertility was a real thing, I also recognized that the destination I had been fantasizing about reaching was a mirage. It didn’t actually exist and I could no longer bear the weight of the backpack I had been lugging around. All of this was terrifying.
I spent the first few years of my infertility trying to “fix” my infertility problem. It was more of the same; me believing I could muscle through, figure it out, and get to the next destination. Obviously this strategy hasn’t worked.
I was being forced to pause on my hill and I was frantically searching for a way I could keep moving. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be paused. I don’t like it here.
My frenetic, anxious self was spinning on my hill like the Tazmanian devil trying to make sense of our inability to start our family. Paused, but still moving. When we were all forced into quarantine, it felt to me like the universe picked me up, held me in the air, shook me like a child and yelled, “SIT! Be still! Stop moving!!”
And so I did. And I have been. There has been nowhere to go, nothing to do, no achievements to achieve, no latter to climb. So I have been forced to be still but I have chosen to try and be present and be in my body.
I don’t like it here, I am reminded over and over.
Just as mandatory lockdowns were beginning last year, I learned I was pregnant but it was soon determined that the pregnancy was ectopic and not viable. I have spent the past year letting go of trying to figure out how to start our family because I’m exhausted. Instead I began trying to figure out how to fix my tired, broken heart.
Being unhappy is inconvenient for other people. It’s uncomfortable. We assume that we aren’t supposed to feel grief and I certainly don’t want to burden people with mine so I’ve tried my best to shield it. Lately it feels as if its been spewing from my pores.
And because of this perhaps I haven’t been the person who others expect me to be recently. “We just want you to be happy,” they say. “Well, I’m not happy,” I remind them. The idea that I’m not meeting others’ expectations is upsetting to me but I also feel like the expectation is unrealistic. Someone telling me they want me to be happy when I’m not feels like they’re asking me to be 5’1” when I’m 5’8”…I simply can’t do that.
It doesn’t mean I’m not grateful. I am grateful for so much that I have. But I am also in pain, and it’s pain that I’ve been ignoring for a really long time.
I have been trying to outrun my grief, trying to “fix” it, to manage it. I’ve been spinning yet again, trying to come up with a solution for how I can move through the discomfort of unhappiness and be more pleasant for the sake of others. It’s not been as easy as one might think.
As I lied there in pain the other night I felt anger and frustration bubble to the surface, simmering underneath the heavy sheet of physical pain. I’m so uncomfortable with my own anger and frustration. I judge myself for it and question it. I try not to feel my anger (not sure if you’ve heard, but people don’t really like angry women). I resist these emotions as if it would help them disappear.
I remember thinking, I don’t want to be here: a familiar desire to leave my own body. And I went on thinking about all the ways I numb and distract myself in my life from my own feelings, from being present in my body. But this is different, I argued with myself. This is physically painful. Why would anyone want to be present for this? What is meant for me here?
And suddenly I understood something I haven’t before: maybe I was meant to feel the pain. That’s it. Nothing more complicated than that. Just be still, exist and feel the pain. Yes it hurts. Yes it sucks. And I’m meant to feel it.
I’ve become aware that my body has been trying to communicate with me: “You cannot escape this,” she reminds me. “Stop trying to. Feel the pain. It will end.” And I finally hear her.
So I am here. In pain. In sadness. Feeling it. Choosing to not run from it. It hurts but it will end.
*Note: I wrote this essay yesterday afternoon. Yesterday evening, I approached my husband in a panicked state—frustrated that we don’t have a plan, a next step into how we will start our family. I end with this because my emotions are fickle and temperamental. I am working on trying to create peace but there is still a lot of unrest.