Monday, July 19, 2010

Almost There

There is a photograph of me in my photo album from my 30th birthday “party”. My birthday was a Thursday that year and I spent the day at work and the evening at my 8 year old son’s football game. My husband left early from the game to set up my obvious surprise party. The party attendants were (including me) only my husband, my mother and my son.

The girl in that photograph is horribly intensely sad and depressed. It’s an embarrassing photo and I’m ashamed of how I looked in that photo. I can’t believe that is what I offered to the world. I can’t believe that was who I’d become.

I had just begun my 6th cycle of Clomid, a low grade fertility drug whose side effects are nothing “low grade”. I had just hit 180 pounds. And I had no idea that I was only 3 months away from finally acheiving conception of my daughter. I felt hopeless and defeated.

The largest side effect that Clomid had on me was weight gain. My normal comfortable weight is about 140/145. That comfortable weight is where I’ve spent about 75% of my adult life with the other 25% accounting for pregnancies, break ups, new relationship gains, savage hurricanes and general out of hand tom foolery moments.

So here I was at 180. In the photo, I’m wearing a frumpy dumpy sweatshirt (because nothing fit me), my face is bloated beyond belief and despite the balloons, candles, presents and happy child sitting on my knee, I’m about 1 nutshell shy of getting full blown suicidal. My eyes are glistening because I was doing everything in my power to not cry and go insane. I had been trying to conceive for 14 months unsuccessfully.

Trying to conceive my daughter is by far the hardest trial I have ever lived through as an adult. Katrina? That was a breeze compared to 8 cycles of Clomid and 5 additional cycles of temping and peeing on thousands upon thousands of sticks including an additional 4 months crammed into those cycles where my body just didn’t cycle at all.

I am so incredibly sad for that girl in that picture and also for the scared husband who tried so hard that year to make my birthday and fabulous event to get my mind off of failing as a woman at the one thing that I’m biologically supposed to do with my life.

Here I am, close to 3 years later. When I turn 33 in 3 months, I will have a 10 year old son, a 13 month old daughter and I WILL be 140lbs again in those photos (I’m down to 150 now). I will see a different girl in my pictures this year. She’s a happier girl and despite this daughter almost bankrupting us, she has *almost* everything she’s ever asked for in her life.

Now I need to learn to maintain, be grateful and enjoy and not constantly think of everything that I do not have because the majority of those things just don’t matter compared to what I have.