Better

I'm feeling so much better than I did yesterday. The yoga, writing that post, a long phone conversation with a friend and the sweet support I always find in my husband are all so magically healing. I am so grateful for these things.

Now I'm getting ready to volunteer at the after-school program I went to last week. I haven't written about it yet, but I will. As I take my deep breaths, I'm feeling good and trying to channel the spirit of Ms. Kathleen to help me connect with these outrageously cute and challenging kids.

More laters.

Oh! I almost forgot-I FINALLY got my period and am started Clomid por la manana. Wish me luck!

Sick of the Heaviness of it All

This past weekend was one of the hardest of my life. It was so full of pain, anger and sadness, with no time to myself to process and let it go. It just lived in me, growing and twisting. I've never wanted to run so far or so fast.

I went home for the weekend, earlier than planned because my great aunt passed away unexpectedly. She left behind my Uncle Ed and their three kids, all around my age, and one grandbaby. The family was deeply in shock, in turns crying hysterically or retelling the story of her death, writing it anew with every pass, maybe until it was real. My heart broke for them, is still breaking.

But the worst part for me was, predictably, my mother's drinking. I watched her drink about 10 glasses of wine at my grandparents' house after the funeral. I asked her to stop after two-she had to drive my brothers home, an hour and a half away. She told me not to worry about it, she would stop and wouldn't leave until she was fine. She drank more and more. I worried more and more. I felt it build inside of me, this worry and pain and anger, as she became more incoherent, slurry, belligerent and embarrassing. She says things when she's drunk, hurtful things, without realizing what she's saying. She does real damage and this time was no exception. This is how it always is now.

(I later found out that she and my brothers slept at my uncle's house. She didn't drive, thank god.)

I went to yoga today. We were instructed to let our negative thoughts and our pain float away, like bubbles into the sky. But my pain was too big for flimsy little soap bubbles. I began to think about all of the time and energy I have put into my family's addictions-most of it internal-the speeches I give to them, our imagined arguments, my empathy, my love and my anger. The stress that precedes every visit. The planning on how to avoid catastrophe. The deer in the headlights aspect of living through the actual drunkeness and later, alone, doing damage control within myself, feeling the anger and trying, so hard, to let it go. Because I don't want to be this bitter person. I don't want this anger. I don't want to dread seeing her.

I guess what I really want is my mother back.

This weekend made me realize that I am very close to being done. I don't think I have another episode like that left in me. When I weigh the pain of dealing with her and her alcoholism against the love, support and encouragement mothers and daughters should share between them, I seem to be getting the very short end of the stick. When does it become not worth it anymore? When and where does it end? It's beginning to feel like self-abuse, to keep hurling myself into such painful situations. But how do you leave your mother?

I don't want that. I've been thinking about writing her a letter. She is supposed to come visit me next month to celebrate our birthdays. I've already begun worrying about making sure there is no alcohol in the house, but it won't matter. She will bring her own. I think I have to say something before that happens.

It is very scary for me to think about writing her this letter. She has had a lot of pain in her life and I certainly don't want to hurt her. And I don't fool myself into thinking anything I have to say will make her stop drinking. But something has to change and she is either incapable or unwilling. So I guess it's my move, if only for self-preservation.

So, so hard.

Messiness

Firstly, my period has decided to vacate the premises for the foreseeable future. It has been over 7 weeks since it last made an appearance. Six weeks is the norm for us, but for some reason, my cycle has lost it's shit and we are now at 7 weeks and 1 day without hint nor word. (I've taken pregnancy tests. No go.)

Could it have been the travel? That was a stressful 24 hours-lugging heavy and unwieldy bags through big foreign airports, getting lost, barely making flights. And then readjusting to life here, most particularly a change in time zone...this could have scared Ovulation enough to hide out for a while.

Or could it be the yoga? I've been going to class three times a week, equaling about 4 hours of yoga a week. My body loves it and thanks me constantly. I'm relaxed and centered. Surely it can't be the yoga? I don't care, Period. I'm not giving it up for the likes of you.

Secondly, I'm going home this weekend. There are parts I love and parts I hate, most specifically always leaving with a big sadness where my heart should be because I am always realizing anew that my mother and I don't have the best relationship. I blame her alcoholism, something that began about 6 years ago and that she has never acknowledged. But it makes me not trust her and it makes me angry and it makes me not want to share things with her. And I think she is very defensive about her drinking and doesn't want to get to close to us because she thinks that we (my siblings and I) would say something if we knew how bad it really was.

We do know how bad it really is. But we don't say something directly because...god, I don't even know. Probably because for the last five years our family has been so beaten down by addiction that we don't have the energy left to fight anymore. Within a year of each other, both my brothers told us they were heroin addicts. As were their girlfriends. These announcements were followed by years of fear, frustration and sadness. We lived with it every day. And now they're finally doing well, clean, in school, and we have nothing left over for our mother.

I literally think about her and her drinking 15 times a day. I'm very tired of it. My empathy swells and wanes. There is so much anger.

I know she wants me to talk to her about my fertility treatments and worries. She went through it herself with my youngest brother (IVF). But why would I call her and share my deepest fears, make myself that vulnerable, when she'll be too drunk to listen to me anyway?

I've recently come to the conclusion that I can't control my mother's drinking and I can't cure her isolation. But I can foster relationships and build communities that are healthy and supportive, something I can't get from her right now. This includes more closeness with my dad and stepmom, my aunt, my grandparents and my friends. My sisters. And maybe even my brothers. Maybe we're ready for that now.

Ah, messiness. What I wouldn't give for the normal family bullshit.

These are the Good Days

Lately, I've been taking care of myself like it's my full-time job. Feeling not quite present? Let's take a half hour alone to meditate. Finding peace in yoga? Buy a monthly pass to a favorite studio and wear that baby out. Think little glittering nose studs are sexy? Get your nose pierced and catch it twinkling happily in the mirror, unexpectedly. Want to have that second cupcake at the cupcake shop? Go ahead, they're tiny cakes for god's sake, eating just one is a ridiculous exercise in ridiculousness.

Long hikes in the woods. Gluttonous magazine consumption. Cooking extravagant dinners.

And you know what all this self-love begets? Love, period. Abundant and overflowing, it demanded a home, so I met with the Volunteer Coordinator at a local nonprofit after-school program and volunteered to tutor kindergarten through third grade kids every Tuesday.

The love, it is swirling all around me. And what a wonderful thing it is.

Shhh. I've been here the whole time. Really.

Dude, I know. Where have I been. Spain is so one month ago. I've been busy? Adjusting, to, um, America?

Let's pretend that whole month of no posting never happened. Ok? Ok!

After I got home from Spain, I enjoyed lots of honeymoon-type feelings with my husband and it was sweet and wonderful and all of that. In between all the lovin', we pulled ourselves off of each other together and went to see our RE for our test results. I was nervous. I hadn't given this meeting a lot of thought-I was in Spain after all, and my fertility or lack thereof was blissfully far, far from my mind. Suddenly, I was smack in the middle of the whole thing again, in a bright doctor's office, talking nervous talk at my husband. It was jarring and I honestly had not prepared myself for anything. I felt like I was going into this meeting ice cold. For our first meeting, I had my charts and a paper full of thoughtful questions I had been very thoughtful about. But this time, I was bare. No papers. No thoughts.

So our diagnosis came and it was kind of lame, and also I didn't really understand everything that was said, not because it was too complicated, but because my brain just did not want to engage. I was so anxious to hear the information that I didn't hear it at all. My brain was rushing to the next thing, not hearing it, then the next, waiting for the one sentence: You are completely fine and fertile. Or: You are infertile, so sorry.

Neither happened. After reading the results of what seemed like a million tests, my doctor said based on one test, you may have mild PCOS. But none of the other tests indicate that, and you don't present that way. But we're going to start you on Clomid and progesterone suppositories.

The one thing she did say that really stuck with me was that at this point, after having tried for over a year, we have about a 3% chance per month of conceiving on our own. Clomid raises that to only 8%. I'm still digesting this. It's a toughie.

For right now, Clomid it is. We opted not to monitor with an ultrasound this cycle because they're expensive and our dosage is low enough that our doctor didn't push it. My period is due Sunday or Monday, I think, and then we're off.

So that's where I'm at. In America, happy to be home, ready to start this next thing.

Any Clomid success stories out there? I know about the lovely Superhero, but any others? I could use the daydream fodder.