Dear Alien...A flash?

Dear Alien,

I left the dentist office this afternoon and for the quickest of flashes, I felt I wasn't alone.  Like you were in there.  It was such a weird feeling - lasted for a few moments.  And then it was gone.  But I truly felt like I wasn't alone.

3 days down.  11 to go.

Dear Alien...Tomorrow?

04/11/16

Dear Alien,

I'm sorry I haven't written in awhile.  It's just been too difficult after last month.  Trying to keep myself positive and with my eye on the prize (you) was just a little more than I can muster.

So this month, specifically tomorrow, we try IUI.  We are upping our game so to speak to try and get you to us a little faster.  I have equal parts hope and despair.  I can't envision that pink line forming on a test but at the same time, I can't picture it not happening this time.  Then again, I'm not sure if that's just because I really am hoping we don't have to go through IVF.

I'm trying to stay relaxed and not stress.  I'm trying to visualize.  I'm trying to drink water and take deep breaths.  I stuck myself with a needle last night.  I'm doing everything I can on my side to get you to us.  Or us to you?

Please alien.  Please.  Please please please.

I love you,
Mom

Dear Alien....What a weird weekend

3/28/16

Dear Alien,

For some reason, this weekend felt like I had just had my D&C.  I went to the spa with the girls on Saturday and it just felt weird.  I felt like an outsider.  Like they were treating me differently.  I think I've hit the point with them that it's just awkward.  No one knows what to say anymore.  It's not trendy to get updates from me - it's just sad and pathetic.  No one wants to hear about the needles that are stuck in my arm on a regular basis.  Or the tears I've shed in the last few weeks - a deadly combination of hormones and sadness.  Or that I've pretty much given up all hope and really prefer to not hear the "hang in there" and "it will happen, just stop stressing".  Because the truth is, as we near the one year mark next month, it may not happen.  Not everyone gets what they want.  And since I really don't play the odds well, I'm not betting on it.  And I'm sorry that makes you uncomfortable because you don't know what to say or what to do but that's not my problem.  Why am I comforting you in my time of need.  Do you realize how selfish that is?

Sorry, I'm venting today.

I love you,
Mom

Dear Alien...Still Waiting

03/23/16

Dear Alien,

I'm still waiting to hear from the doc.  I called to try and get my results but they didn't have them yet and now I'm afraid that they got them and don't want to call me back because it's not the news I want to hear.  I'm trying to make myself be okay with bad news.  It's so hard.  It's so so hard.  The constant stream of disappointment.  I'm trying to be okay with it because the end result leads us to you and I don't want any baby but you.  So if this isn't the month you enter our world, I don't want this month to be it anyway.  If I say it enough, I will believe it.

Sorry for the double letter - there is no one else I can talk to about this right now out of fear of upsetting others.

I love you,
Mom

ps - Also promising myself Keratin treatment and hot yoga on Sat as a concilation prize.  Also, i would get to go in the steam room and sauna for the girls' spa trip on Sat night.  Woo.  Hoo.

Dear Alien...My eyes play tricks

03/23/16

Dear Alien,

I lied to your father today.  I told him I had an early meeting, which is why I left the house at 6:50A.  The truth is, I went to do bloodwork.  I took tests Monday and Tuesday and after many many hours of agonizing over what appeared to be lines, I e-mailed Dr. Evans and asked to come in this AM for bloodwork.  I told no one.  I did last looks this morning to make sure I wasn't crazy.  And a part of me thinks I am.  There is no part of me that believes when the 818 number pops up on the phone, that Dr. Evans will be on the other end, bestowing good news on me.  No part that believes but every part that hopes.  I'm trying to prepare myself for the bad news.  The news that this will not be the start of our mother / child journey together.  That you are sadly not yet growing inside me.  That my eyes, do in fact, play tricks on me with those tests.

But how I do hope.  I've played out the scenarios in which I could happily share the news with your father tonight.  How I've done a little to get him through this yuck part and onto the next yuck part which is seeing if my numbers go in the right direction.  How I've measured out approximately how much celebrating is appropriate before we dig in and continue pushing the boulder up the hill.

I want to meet you so bad Alien.  Whether it's 9 months from now or a year.  I just want to meet you and show you how much we love you and you are only an idea right now.  Just someone please tell me you are a pine nut now.

I love you,
Mom

Dear Alien - The Signs Are Everywhere...or Nowhere

03/18/16

Dear Alien,

Since your grandfather died, I look for signs everywhere.  Signs that he is around.  Signs that he is watching over me and actively participating in my life.  Signs as small as catching the instrumental version of a Bruce Springsteen song in a supermarket or as large as a giant gust of wind interrupting my wedding ceremony while he was being spoken about - so large that I actually told him out loud that "we get it" and the wind subsided.  Your grandfather loved to make his presence known so it's not uncommon to get these peaks into his continuing-existence fairly often.

Lately, with everything, I question the signs.  If he knew how much pain I was in, wouldn't he do what he could to show me everything will be okay?  I'll get a sign, like a dream that he will cameo in, only to have a delayed period and negative pregnancy test.  What do they mean anymore?  Why isn't he coming around to tell me to keep the faith, that you and I will meet one day soon?

Maybe I'm looking at this all wrong.  Maybe the signs are that he is here with me.  Going through this as much as me and your father.  Or your grandmother and aunt.  He can't make the situation better but he can show me he's still championing me, still in my corner.  Why should he have special parenting powers that supersede my mother's just because he is no longer around?

I think I'm just so desperate for something to tell me to keep hanging on, that this is right around the corner, that we just need to go a little further before we get our sweet sweet baby.

Or maybe I'm just tired from a 4 hour Bruce Springsteen concert last night.  Apparently your aunt was very early pregnant with your cousin the last time she was at Bruce.  Sign?

I love you,
Mom

Dear Alien...Internet Friend or Foe?

03/16/16

Dear Alien,

So here I am again.  Back in the dreaded 2 week wait after ovulation.  And feeling symptomatic.  This happens every single month.  I feel stretching flutters in my lower abdomen.  I google.  I have an eye twitch.  I google.  My boobs hurt.  I google.  Everything tells me that I am pregnant.  And my hopes start their steady incline toward convincing my head and my heart that this is the month that I will get the news that we are on our way to meeting you.  Every month, I tell myself that I will keep these feelings to myself so not to get the hopes up of everyone else who is waiting on my body to do what it is supposed to.  And every month, I inevitably tell your father.  And your aunt.  And your grandmother.  And some of your honorary aunts.  This month, I decided to share with you and only you.  It will be our secret, hopefully the first of many that we will share throughout your life.

Two days ago, my nipples started hurting.  I was so confused because I seemingly ovulated only a few days prior.  I tried to ignore and then the stretching feeling plus some intense bloating started as well.  It's progressed over the last few days.  I started progesterone supplementing today so any pregnancy feelings will be taken over and simulated by the drug.  My barometer on what is real and what is in my head will be eliminated as the progesterone makes me feel ALL of them.  But I know myself and I will hang on to the few things I felt before I introduced the progesterone.  Those things will monopolize the majority of the thoughts in my head over the next 12 days.  I hope you inherit your father's calmer mind.  And his nose.

I love you,
Mom

Dear Alien...a backstory

Dear Alien,

Where do I start?  This is part of my effort to stay positive and visualize a life with you.  I want you to one day read these so you know just how badly your father and I wanted you.  One day, when you are hating us for loving you, I want this to show you just much we do love you.  Or, perhaps, one day, you will go through this struggle and I will watch from afar, frustrated that I can do nothing but empathize with your plight and assure you that one day, you will have a baby...much like my own mother does for me on a near-daily basis.

Kids were not part of my plan.  Neither was marriage.  I was, in my own mind, fiercely independent, career loving and focused.  When your father came along, he snuck into my heart through the guise of friendship and when it came time for him to ask me to marry him, there was no easier decision that I had ever made.  It's been nearly 2 years and with the exception of a handful of annoying habbits (such as running the dishwasher half-empty) I have loved every minute of our marriage.

Your father was as ambivalent about children as I was.  Your cousins, when born, changed my world.  They brought happiness back to my family that had longed for joy since my father died.  They employed my sister in the role she was meant to excel in.  They were the first creatures that I had pure, unabashed love for and they could and still do melt my heart every time I hear TIC yelled either on the phone or in person.  However, despite all that, their births and subsequent presence in my life did not immediately change my mind about children.  One day, in Dec. of 2014, I had a conversation with my aunt about children.  She simply asked, "how could two people who love their families as much as you and Stephen not want to have children".  That was it.  MIND.  BLOWN.  My whole world was rocked.  I knew I had to have a sit down conversation with your father and tell him that everything I had thought, was wrong.  He came home from a boys' weekend, I forgot where, hungover and tired.  He walked in the house and after nervously kissing him hello, I told him we needed to talk.  I repeated what my aunt had said, just as a ways to ease him into this rough sea of a conversation about the future.  He thought about it for a minute and agreed.  That was the extent of our baby conversation.  We spent more time agonizing over whether or not to adopt a puppy than having a child.

That was it.  We went on with our lives, checking in with each other periodically about timing the "trying process" over the summer, starting prenatals, when to go off the pill, etc.  We bought a house and I started a new job in March - a job that propelled me into the next stage of my career that I worked so hard for.  Then, while we were in the process of closing and I was in NY to start my new job, we found out that David and Lynsey and Chris and Candice were expecting about 3 weeks apart from each other.  I won't say this completely sped up our timeline, but it did intrigue us into wondering what it would be like if it happened for us.  This led us to being purposely irresponsible in May, which resulted in 2 positive pregnancy tests the morning we cleaned our apartment for the last time to be inspected and start our new life in our new house.

The two months I was pregnant filled me with more questions and doubt than I had ever experienced.  I truly felt as if an alien had taken up residence in my body and made me worry about everything I did to it.  We told our families and a few close friends.  Everyone was overjoyed.  I had a nagging suspicion that something was wrong and this was too easy.  After experiencing the battle my father waged with brain cancer and his subsequent death, I tend to take the more pragmatic approach to good news.  And at about 8 weeks, when my exhaustion seemed to disappear overnight, I knew this pregnancy was not meant to be.  Our second ultrasound, a few days later ,confirmed my fears.

I don't think I can accurately put into words how I felt.  Yes, I had not really allowed myself to rejoice and start the excited planning that a baby brings about.  Yet various auspices that come along with a pregnancy had began to penetrate the hard cocoon of protection I form around myself.  Things like thinking of D names to honor my beloved father.  Or calculating how many months apart the baby would be from all my pregnant friends, especially David and Lynsey.  David and I had started our friendship around age 12 and pretty much done everything together since so it was super special to me that our kids would be about 5 months apart.  A perfect recipe to top the longevity that our own friendship had boasted.  And those little rays of hope were stripped away by an ultrasound technician's worried frown lines appearing as she searched inside me to find evidence of life and then confirmed by those words I will never forget as she turned off the machine .  "There is no heartbeat".

After the calls were made and the news was broken and the surgery to remove the physical evidence that we had attempted to build a family, I did what I have always done.  I straightened up my sagging shoulders, plastered a smile on my face and appeared to publicly move on.  The concerned looks and head tilts of sympathy that I had grown so accustomed to when my father died reappeared.  So did my nightmares of that time.  I was again, forced into the role of unicorn.  Our friends tiptoed around me, especially those that were pregnant.  I was reminded of when I first moved out here and my roommates at the time bought father's day cards while we were out grocery shopping.  They had tried to hide them from me until we had gotten to the register.  I remember not feeling angry or grateful but more so challenged that they thought this yearly tradition what break me.  Or that they needed to protect me.  The same emotion came with this and I dived deeper into their pregnancies - planning baby showers, finding gifts, counting down the months with eager anticipation.  With everything external I did for someone else, I was that much further along in proving how alright I was.

Your father, grandmother and aunt knew the truth.  I could hide the majority of the world just how broken I was, but not from those people.  And I was broken...am broken.  It's been nearly a year since that positive pregnancy test.  This year has brought along several more early-stage miscarriages.  A surgery that removed a blocking fibroid.  The kids that I refer to as your cousins whom I hope will pave the way for you in so many ways as well as provide you with hand-me-downs.  Countless pregnancy tests.  Dozens of lines spotted and dozens more blank screens.  Ovulation sticks.  Ultrasounds.  Bloodwork...so much bloodwork.  Painful tests with catheters.  A fertility doctor and a regular OB.  Pills.  Vitamins.  More google searches than appropriate for a work computer.  And now this.  My open love letter to the alien that I wanted more than anything in the world.  This is my vision board as well as my labor of love.  I'm writing this with the confidence that one day you will read it.  Which means not only did I successfully create and birth you, but I also managed to teach you to read.

I love you,
mom