This is tough

First off I just want to ask that you don't judge me too much for this post.

As I have mentioned before, hubby has a degenerative bone condition which means that he suffers a lot of pain in his lower back and hips.  From time to time this pain reaches a point where he cannot get out of bed - sometimes for a day, sometimes a few days, sometimes weeks at a time.

I know that this is tough for him, but sometimes I think people forget how hard it is for DJ and me.  We are the ones that are left to care for him, and still live the normal life of being a family.

Recently, there has been more and more occasions of hubby being in bed than being with us as a family.  This usually happens once or twice a year, when he is bed for at least a week, but it has been more like 4 or 5 this year so far.

And here is my confession - each time I am feeling more and more angry.  I'm not angry with S as such; I'm angry that I am feeling more alone with each passing time.  Alone and isolated.  But I take it out on him.  I hate myself for saying this, but I feel so much anger towards S it becomes painful.

DJ is amazing with his Daddy when he is poorly.  He tries to understand (as well as any 4 year old can) how much his Daddy hurts and needs to rest to get better.  But I hate this for him.

I really admire those people that care full-time for a loved one.  I desperately wish I had more patience and tolerance for the pressure and strain disability places on me.  I think that the unknown is what causes me to not cope with it when it does happen... I never know from one day to the next when and for how long it will be like this.

All I do know is that this is likely to become more and more frequent as time passes.  Selfishly this makes me furious - doctors can cure so many diseases, yet this is beyond their remit.  Instead, they drug him and hope that he can manage the pain.

I hate me for this.  I have to learn to cope, but how?

My sister replies...

On my return from our couple of days away, I saw a handwritten letter sat on the doormat - my sister's handwriting.

I decided to not open it for a few days because I wanted to enjoy thinking about spending time with my little boy rather than think about what she had to say.

But I opened it last night... I won't share everything, but here goes some of the highlights:

Dear Dawn,


I'm not sure where to start.  I haven't contacted you because I am embarrassed about how I told you about the baby.  I didn't think.  I should have been more sensitive, I'm sorry.


Mark and I weren't planning this baby, though we had talked about it in our future.  I know how you feel.  I know what it is like to want a baby and someone else is pregnant, though I know I haven't had to inject myself to get pregnant.


I am here for you when you are ready.


Love you


S
xxx


As you can imagine, there are a few mixed feelings about this response:

1. I know that her intention was to be sympathetic, but S, you have NO idea what it is like to want a baby and see other people pregnant.  Especially when the other people are like you and fall pregnant by 'accident' without any effort.  It is more than just the injections, the scans, the hormones...  It is the emotional investment, pain and heart break that fertility treatment involves.
2. Yes, you should have been more sensitive about how you told me about being pregnant.  Grabbing the phone off Mum and saying that you had just been to the hospital with M (then boyfriend) because you had not started your period, and you were pregnant.  But the point of your conversation was to moan that Mum hadn't given you the money to pay M to take you to the hospital!!!  Firstly, he is working full-time so should pay his own petrol money.  Secondly, if he is man enough to make a baby, then he should take responsibility and this involves driving you to the hospital if needs be.
3. You really cannot compare your situation with mine.  Never try, this is a greater insult than you know.

I am not sure what to do with this now.

Do I just ignore it?  Do I ask Mum to tell her thanks for the letter and I will be in touch soon?

I hate my life at the moment.  I hate waking up everyday and knowing that I have to live this.

Dear Sister

After being unable to find the words to say to my sister, I decided that I should send her a letter to hopefully explain why I have not been in touch.  It went something like this...

Dear S


I just wanted to let you know why I haven't been around lately.  I know that I should probably do this face-to-face, but right now I just can't and I hope by the end of this letter you realise why.


I know that you are having a bit of a tough time with M.  I desperately want to be there for you, but at the moment, I need to sort myself out before I can be strong enough to help you and others.


Please know I am really happy for you - as long as you are happy, that is all I need to know.  But at the moment, I am still caught up in my pain and heartbreak.  I struggle to live each day.  My grief has stolen my smiles and my ability to share happiness.  I can barely leave the house in case I stumble across another baby bump or newborn.  I live knowing what should have been, and so I am trying to avoid any reminders of that, until I am able to cope.


I just want you to know that I think about you lots.  I have always loved you, and will always do so.  I want you to be happy and as soon as I can I will be there for you as much as you need me.


I hope this explains how it is at the moment.  Please forgive me.


All my love


xxx


Let's just hope there is no bad fall out...  Only time will tell

IF sadness

There are many things about infertility which are filled with sadness.  I'm not going to mention the obvious ones here...if you are battling IF then you know them only too well and if you are trying to get an understanding of IF so you can support someone you know who is battling IF, then there is a plethora of info out there.

we are organising DJ's christening.  I know that he is nearly 4 and that we should have perhaps done it already, but we never quite got round to it.  If we are honest, there is one main reason why we have put it off - who are going to be his godparents?  We know that my sister and brother will be godparents, but we always wanted him to have 3 or 4.  And this leads me to the one of the saddest things about IF...you start to drift away from others. In our case, we started to see our friends having 2nd, 3rd or 4th babies and we found that we were less able to cope with the heartbreak each announcement brought.  Though our friends didn't know about our IF, I think they could sense the pain inside us when they shared their happy news.  I don't want you to think that we are awful friends - we were of course happy for them, and I never forget their children's birthdays.  But this doesn't stop the pain inside.

So we have found that we are more and more separated from our fertile friends.  So the once difficult decision to decide who would be DJs godparents was because we had a wide circle of close friends, it is now the reverse.

This fills me with great sadness, and I wish I knew how I could rebuild those bridges that we once had.

It's nearly here!

It's only 36 hours before I have to leave for the hospital for my laparoscopy.  I have to admit I am starting to get nervous.  I went for my pre-op on Monday.  Unfortunately I wasn't able to speak to my consultant as there was a medical emergency, but had all the necessary prods and pokes to make sure that I was fit for the anesthetic.

I was intending to post about the appointment, but instead I had to deal with the really sad news that my little boys nursery was closing - that afternoon! :(  Anyone that has a little one knows that the decision to leave them with someone else (even their Daddy, grandparents or aunts/uncles) is a really tough one.  Our search for a good nursery took us months, and we were so happy with our choice.  The staff are amazing.  They have become part of an extended family to us all.

In September, the nursery was sold to this...woman (is how I'll describe her for now).  She promised that nothing would change, but very quickly we noticed the staff weren't happy, children were leaving and things were indeed changing.  I spoke to her, I wrote to her, I shouted at her to leave it alone.  Because DJ starts school in September, I didn't want to upset him by leaving his friends and 'teachers' now and then again in September.  Starting 'big school' is tough enough as it is, why making him do this twice within a year?  We only stayed there because we loved the people involved in his care so very much.

So when she wrote to us last week and gave us 2 weeks notice that they were closing for good, we were devastated.  Why hadn't we moved DJ when we started to be unhappy?  Now it is even closer to school and I have to unsettle him!

Then on Monday we got a teary 'teacher' tell us that they were closing that afternoon for good.  I was heart-broken for them, for LO and all the children there.  Luckily we had been looking at another nursery which one of the girls had recommended and thought it was a lovely place to send LO.  We also found out some of his friends are going there too, so maybe it's not too much of a change for him (or us).

Obviously, with this and uni, my week has pretty much passed in a blur.  Unfortunately I never got chance to tell the idiot of a woman what I thought of her.  She was a coward from the second she told us it was closing last week, hiding out and not showing her face.  I would never had said anything in front of LO or a child, but I really hope I bump into her at some point to tell her.  I'm not normally aggressive (well unless I'm in my car) but she has really hurt me by hurting my little boy.  Last night, I had to try and explain to him that his lovely teachers wouldn't be at his new school.  His tears were so painful.  She is a mother herself and yet she showed no compassion to the children in her care.

On a positive note, I was able to collect my uni work from last Semester.  I had 4 essays and 2 exam marks to get, and with all that had been happening, I was sure that there was at least one fail among them.  BUT in fact I passed all of them, and even got 1st class grades for most of them!!!  So stick that endo! You haven't beaten me just yet!

Must dash as LO is in the bath and his Daddy wants to get the bins out - pah, can't he see I'm busy ;)
xxx