Four Months Later - Living in Limbo

I’ve been trying to write this for quite awhile, but I’m not sure where to start or how to accurately portray my thoughts.

It’s been about four months since our last IVF cycle and subsequent miscarriage.  And for four months I’ve felt a bit lost.  I’ve always had a plan for everything and I’m finding myself in limbo.  Work has only complicated things and added to my stress.  I mentioned previously that I wasn’t happy with my job.  My “plan” has been to wait it out and hope that another position will open.  It’s a poor plan in that I have no control over job openings or being selected for a position.  But it’s all I’ve got.  Sure, I could look elsewhere with another company, but I need the flexibility to work from home in order to take the boys to and from school and I don’t think I’ll find that anywhere else.  I’ve also worked for the company long enough to earn 4 weeks paid vacation.  Something I take full advantage of and I don’t want to lose that.  So I wait.  Through long meetings, poor management, and an unfulfilling job, I wait.

A and I had a chance to talk about our situation a month or so ago.  We agreed that we feel like the decision has been made for us.  We don’t have any good options.  If our odds were better, we’d likely try IVF again.  With 20% odds for $20,000, we feel like we’re just setting ourselves up for failure, disappointment, and debt.  While we agreed that we probably wouldn’t try again, I told A that I just couldn’t give up yet.  I wasn’t saying I wanted to try IVF again, but I couldn’t commit to giving up forever.  Limbo.

Most days I’m ok or better than ok.  When I start to feel sad, I think of my boys and tell myself that any money we would have spent on another IVF cycle can instead be spent on a vacation.  We want the boys to see the world.  Other days I deal with lots of anxiety where I feel a constant sense of dread and worry (often intensified by work).  And then there are days like yesterday where the tears come easily.  Yesterday, a friend, whom I’ve been very supportive of announced that after an FET cycle and a bleeding scare, she was released from her RE with a healthy pregnancy.  She found out she’s having a boy.  Her fourth child.  I went through an entire IVF cycle.  Hundreds of needles.  She did FET.  She gets to keep her baby.   I didn’t.  I shouldn’t compare.  I know it’s never beneficial.  But sometimes I can’t help myself.  Classmates and friends are expecting their third and fourth children.  I tried so hard.  So damn hard.  How do you not compare your situation with theirs when that announcement pops up on social media?  They got what I tried so hard for.

A fellow blogger who is pregnant with her first girl, her fourth child, explained that she was so happy to be having a girl because men don't hang out with their mothers.  I never felt like I was missing out, but suddenly I did.  My mom is basically my best friend, but I certainly can't say the same for my brother.  It was a horrible thing to read, but it occurred to me that she was probably right. And I felt so incredibly alone.  If something happens to A once the boys are grown, I'll have no one.  It's not a reason to have another child, but the thought only added to my grief.

Somehow I know I can’t blame myself.  Somehow I know it’s not my fault.  But there are moments I wonder… maybe if I had taken more supplements, maybe if I had eaten better, maybe if we had tried earlier or a different month…

And so I wait in limbo.  Hoping for a new job.  Hoping to feel better.  Hoping for a change.