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So sometime in the last cycle of fertility drugs (after all drugs were already ingested) we decided in sheer frustration and stress to just quit. We were both emotionally drained; our marriage was suffering under the weight of the stress and sex schedules. It was more trying than I could even manage to write about. At that time to even write about it was to admit that it was defeating me and beating my mind and soul and heart into a bloody pulp.

The drugs make you crazy, you want to kill yourself just to get away from yourself and then you combine that with the normal irrational infertility thoughts. I mean to this day, I read about Britney Spears sister getting knocked up and Hanna Montana chick being with child and I want to rip apart a big big book and trample it’s pages until all the bloody words are scattered across the floor. I cannot even think of a way to acknowledge the sheer anger that an infertile woman is capable of feeling when someone else is pregnant. To this day I cannot watch “A Baby Story” and I avoid any magazine that has a baby on the cover. The only child that’s even managed to capture me, is Matthew. I have sometimes rubbed his little baby head and said a million silent prayers without even admitting it to myself.

After that last cycle I avoided the doctor with the plague. I knew that it was wrong to do and unhealthy to do but I was fed up, and sick of Dr. Can’t Get Me Pregnant. I had also had a few incidents whereby his office screwed things up, sending me for procedures without having a negative pregnancy test on file for clearance for the test, setting appointments and then when I would walk into his office, asking ME why I was there or worse yet telling me that test results from 23 days ago weren’t in the office. I was doctor’s office drained.

However, I finally set an appointment two days ago with the intent to go and get on the pill and remain physically healthy. The prospects for a baby well buried along with my former dreams for an expanded family. In the midst of all of this there have been issues with my son, things that have kept me awake at night with worry for him. Those two combinations, the letting go of what might have been and trying to deal with what is present and needs immediate attention as a mother, well they combined to make me absolutely loony when it came to baby talk or the like.

Some “very” well meaning person in my Internet friends list contacted me once saying something along the lines of “I know you said you were done, but being done doesn’t happen that suddenly or quickly, let me know if you need to talk” Now those words are not verbatim because at the time I was struck by just how truthful her acknowledgement was. I said, “hey I turned left” but my heart didn’t entirely follow.

You decide in life to just turn left and try to be happy about your choice to turn left and yet you still turn your head slightly to the right from time to time as if to just feel the pain of it might make it possible again. I have a hard time putting it all into words, truly I do. Wanting and envisioning and not knowing why you can’t when other’s simply can….

Today’s doctor appointment was a “consult” only. So just like the first time I entered the Dr’s office, I sat across from him in a chair and discussed our decision to stop trying. His response, “Yes, perhaps taking a break is in order, if we get your cycle regulated on birth control drugs, your body is more likely to respond to fertility drugs later. Lets do this but discuss your decision 3 months from now when we do a full physical and pap test again. I started to utter, “No you don’t get it…we’re done…we don’t want a baby.” But there’s that seed of hope somewhere deep within the soil of my being that saw light…saw light to breathe and heal and perhaps…hope later..maybe later we can try again. His words uttered through my hollow heart ping ponging against the empty room called “what if” that I built around my heart to protect it from truly feeling the vast disappointment.

And then he asked, “After the last round, when did you bleed?” I was astonished and said, “But I have PCOS and I don’t get periods, remember doc?” To which he said, “everyone bleeds after Clomid, even when it doesn’t work….unless…. ok I want my nurses to do a pregnancy test today…call tomorrow to get the results prior to taking the Provera to start on birth control.

And then I sat fighting back the tears of confusion…while the nurse jabbed my arm repeatedly looking for a vein. I wanted to say, “it’s ok that your jabbing me…physical pain is easier than the hollow wanting.” I said nothing. I left his office with scripts for Provera and birth control talking myself down from hoping. I drove across the street to get munchies for a Christmas party taking place at work today.

I went into Publix and within minutes some lady runs down the isle and says “ma’am…you drive that red SUV?” I said, “yes” She said, “I think you forgot to put it into park..it rolled straight across the lot and stopped at the cart collector thing!” I went out and looked and indeed my car was wedged diagonally against the cart collector that was thankfully empty. No one got hit by my car and I had no damage.

My mind…was …is…elsewhere. The sweetest thing is…at this moment…I ache for Rick….. I’ve called him a few times but he probably doesn’t have his phone with him, he’s working.