I Am Angry

That may not come as a shocker to most of you, but it about sums things up pretty well right now.

I am angry at much of the world -- everyone who has ever had babies, easily or otherwise, or who will in the future have babies, with or without huge costs to their marriage, their sanity, and their self-esteem.

I am angry at infertility -- that faceless entity that has stolen so much from me.

I am angry at my husband, and his inability to accept the reality of our situation. (He actually wanted to talk tonight about using his sperm and a known donor egg if this next IVF doesn't work -- because, even though that's way more expensive than d-iui, and there are no known egg quality issues, this can't be " all his fault." *)

I am angry at the System, and the bureaucracy, and all the red tape. I am angry that adoption has become a for-profit business that is trumpeted as the answer to all of our problems by people who will never have to consider all of the sacrifices we will be making if we ever do choose to walk down that road.

I am angry that, at 31 years old, I have spent a decade chasing the unattainable. I am angry that I may have "wasted" my most fertile years waiting for an opportunity that has already slipped out of my fingers.

I am angry that I have spent so very much of my soul on this process -- and still have nothing but emotional scars and a broken heart to show for it.

I am angry because I am grieving. I get that.

I am grieving the loss of the life I planned, and will never have. I am grieving the loss of the babies I created and carried and will never hold. I am grieving for my marriage, which has been battered and broken and patched up again too many times to count.

I am grieving for the person that I was, and will never be again.

No matter how this ends, the girl I was is gone. There is no way to escape that fact. I am forever, irreversibly, damaged. There has been too much pain, too much sorrow, too much bitterness and regret.

Sometimes it feels overwhelming, impossible to bear. And yet, somehow, I bear it. I wish I could say I bear it gracefully, but I do not. I bear it, but with a deep and unforgiving anger that bubbles just beneath the surface. I do not hide it well.

Some people are beautiful on the outside. Others are beautiful on the inside.

I am neither. **

Beneath my very average face, and all my extra-padding, is a heart that is twisted -- black and gnarly and wholly repulsive.

So, yeah.

I am angry.

Angry.

And broken.

And sad.





* I have never, ever, said that any of this is his fault, just for the record. Our diagnosis is male-factor infertility and recurrent miscarriage. There are many things at play here, some of which we understand and others we don't. I absolutely do not blame Mo -- but, if we are looking for solutions, we need to look at the things that we DO know are contributing to our inability to get/stay pregnant, don't you think?

** Yes, yes, I know. Learning to love myself, accept my flaws, blah, blah, blah. Some days I can manage that. Today? Utter failure.