Sorry to be cryptic. The new entry on my timeline will have to suffice. -->
I've moved!
Nothing but tumbleweeds here. I've moved to missohkay.wordpress.com. You will be redirected!
Showing posts with label in which i feel sorry for myself. Show all posts
Showing posts with label in which i feel sorry for myself. Show all posts
Shoes
The challenge with infertility and adoption is that even when things seem to be going right, you're always waiting for the other shoe to drop. And in my case, there's always been another shoe.
Recalibrating
I spend a lot of time dreading specific upcoming baby-related activities. June 10, for example. See also: Holidays, visits with my niece, etc. Consequently I've spent a lot of time in therapy talking about dreading the baby-related activities. We play out worst-case scenarios and discuss my exit-options for when I need a break.
The baby-related activities usually turn out to be fine. The dread is worse than the event. What I've come to realize - or what I believe, at any rate - is that the dread isn't wasted mental energy for me; it's critical. I don't think I could have gotten through this weekend without "handling it" ahead of time. (Handling it being a euphemism for having a major meltdown.) So, yeah, I had a meltdown on Friday - but it was in the privacy of my own home so that I wouldn't have a meltdown in public yesterday or today as my family gathered for my niece's baptism.
I blinked back tears a few times during the big show, but I was fine. Right or wrong, I attribute my coping during the event to the dread I feel before the event. Which leads me to my next point. I also spend a lot of time in therapy talking about how disappointed I am when other people do things to make my pain more difficult to bear. It's been suggested that not everyone is as attuned to other people's feelings as I am. That I shouldn't just expect people to know how I'm feeling without telling them.
This post sounds self-centered and whiny, I'm sure. But I have sucked it up so many times. I went to my grandmother's 90th birthday party last summer even though I knew there was a good chance that I would miscarry my second baby that day - which started happening in the bathroom as soon as I arrived, and yet I stayed through the party, through dinner, and through drinks while I was bleeding and cramping. I found out the gender of my sister's baby on the day of my third miscarriage. I missed only 4 days of work through 3 miscarriages. I threw a baby shower for my sister two months after I lost mine. For the last 8 months, I've worked in the office next door to a person who got pregnant 3 weeks after I did.
Perhaps my attempts to be strong have misled people into thinking that I'm unflappable. But it hurt - really fucking hurt - that my mother went out of her way to tell me (me!) how this weekend was so wonderful. I held the baby in front of the congregation and watched my niece be baptized and thought about how we would have already done this with mine. I answered three different people before and after the service who asked if the baby was mine. No, she's not mine. I greeted all the people who attended the dinner afterwards. I'm so glad you could come to the baptism (for the baby that isn't mine). I deflected the questions from near-strangers who inquired about my babylessness. I tried to get everyone's attention to say goodbye but they couldn't hear me - five times I said goodbye - because they were trying to make the baby giggle.
I love my niece and I wouldn't have missed this for the world. And so I sucked it up, like I've sucked it up a hundred times before. And yet I can't help but be disappointed that my mother would tell me how this was the happiest Father's Day ever. (On a positive note, my sister definitely gets it. She wrote me the nicest thank you note today.) Of course my mom is thrilled. She should be - it's her first grandchild. But don't tell me how over the moon you are; to me, the day is bittersweet at best. Honestly, I don't think it's too much to expect someone to understand that without being told.
Recalibrating expectations in 3...2...1...
The baby-related activities usually turn out to be fine. The dread is worse than the event. What I've come to realize - or what I believe, at any rate - is that the dread isn't wasted mental energy for me; it's critical. I don't think I could have gotten through this weekend without "handling it" ahead of time. (Handling it being a euphemism for having a major meltdown.) So, yeah, I had a meltdown on Friday - but it was in the privacy of my own home so that I wouldn't have a meltdown in public yesterday or today as my family gathered for my niece's baptism.
I blinked back tears a few times during the big show, but I was fine. Right or wrong, I attribute my coping during the event to the dread I feel before the event. Which leads me to my next point. I also spend a lot of time in therapy talking about how disappointed I am when other people do things to make my pain more difficult to bear. It's been suggested that not everyone is as attuned to other people's feelings as I am. That I shouldn't just expect people to know how I'm feeling without telling them.
This post sounds self-centered and whiny, I'm sure. But I have sucked it up so many times. I went to my grandmother's 90th birthday party last summer even though I knew there was a good chance that I would miscarry my second baby that day - which started happening in the bathroom as soon as I arrived, and yet I stayed through the party, through dinner, and through drinks while I was bleeding and cramping. I found out the gender of my sister's baby on the day of my third miscarriage. I missed only 4 days of work through 3 miscarriages. I threw a baby shower for my sister two months after I lost mine. For the last 8 months, I've worked in the office next door to a person who got pregnant 3 weeks after I did.
Perhaps my attempts to be strong have misled people into thinking that I'm unflappable. But it hurt - really fucking hurt - that my mother went out of her way to tell me (me!) how this weekend was so wonderful. I held the baby in front of the congregation and watched my niece be baptized and thought about how we would have already done this with mine. I answered three different people before and after the service who asked if the baby was mine. No, she's not mine. I greeted all the people who attended the dinner afterwards. I'm so glad you could come to the baptism (for the baby that isn't mine). I deflected the questions from near-strangers who inquired about my babylessness. I tried to get everyone's attention to say goodbye but they couldn't hear me - five times I said goodbye - because they were trying to make the baby giggle.
I love my niece and I wouldn't have missed this for the world. And so I sucked it up, like I've sucked it up a hundred times before. And yet I can't help but be disappointed that my mother would tell me how this was the happiest Father's Day ever. (On a positive note, my sister definitely gets it. She wrote me the nicest thank you note today.) Of course my mom is thrilled. She should be - it's her first grandchild. But don't tell me how over the moon you are; to me, the day is bittersweet at best. Honestly, I don't think it's too much to expect someone to understand that without being told.
Recalibrating expectations in 3...2...1...
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