The Carseat

I'll get to the carseat in a bit - I Promise.  Sometimes writing isn't as easy as I think it should be.  Right now, it's tough because living isn't as easy as I think it should be. Jakobe said that he was going home early from work today because he doesn't want to be there today.  Today - I don't really want to be.

Don't worry too much - not wanting to be is not at all the same thing as being suicidal - I've been there (In my deep dark unlamented past.)  It's more of a desire to do nothing, to be nothing, and to have the world completely pass you by for a while.

And I'm a little perplexed.  I don't know why it's all hitting me so hard right now.  Maybe it was going home yesterday to find the paperwork from the fertility clinic in the mailbox: we have 2 weeks to get it all filled out and returned, or we lose our appointment.  Maybe it's just that I let myself hope that we were going to get some answers at the appointment last week.  Maybe it's the bombardment of Mother's day at the same time I'm feeling powerless.  Who knows?  It's not like the situation has really changed from last week. 

Now it's just that there'a a doctor who said the same things that I had been telling myself. Plus, he was uncaring and perfunctory - he didn't bother to ask any questions, or want to answer any questions.  So, really, why should I care what he had to say?

Maybe it's knowing - instead of suspecting, that we're looking at a long road ahead of us, with no guarantee of success.  The only thing that's guaranteed is that if we keep moving ahead, we're going to spend a lot of money.  It's hard to feel good about moving forward.  It's admitting that there's something wrong with us.  It's the death of dreams. 


I have this carseat I bought March 1st of last year, while I was still on the pill.  I bought it because it was an awesome carseat, and I was saving at least $100 off the retail price.  I bought the carseat when I still thought that we were going to be one of the lucky ones - you know, one of those people who get's pregnant right off the bat, almost without trying.  I bought the carseat, even knowing that buying stuff for a baby that doesn't exist anywhere except in your imagination is probably not a good idea.  I bought the carseat - even though there was a voice in the back of my head that said I was jinxing myself.  It sits in a box in my basement, never opened, currently being used as a saddle stand, mocking me. 

I'm thinking about selling it, or giving it away.  The part of me that thinks of it as a jinx tells me that I need to get rid of it, and then maybe a miracle will happen.  (Forget it, says the cold logical part of me, a carseat doesn't have anything to do with whether or not you get pregnant.)  The other part of me, the one that's sitting in a corner, curled up into a ball, but holding on tight to that small thread of hope that I assume gets us all through this, feels like giving away or selling that carseat is admitting defeat before we even get started.  So, the carseat is still in the basement, with the crib my grandmother bought for my youngest sister, and the desk that was my mom's as a child and then mine that I started to refinish last spring.  These things are like our extra bedroom, pieces of a life we don't yet have, sitting in limbo and waiting for something to change.

If I feel like this right now - how much worse is it going to get?  I haven't even been at this very long.  Maybe it's graduated steps of pain - because you can get used to anything after a while, so eventually you start to feel normal again, at least until something else gets added.  Then you adjust again.  At some point - I know that it either get';s easier, or you get better at dealing with it.  That or you just give up.

I've thought about it.  Though about whether putting myself us through all of this is really worth it.  I just keep coming back to being unable to picture myself happy.  I can picture mostly content, and resigned. I can picture some of the differences, but in the end, it still doesn't pass the rocking chair test. So I'm putting one foot in front of the other, and tonight, when I get home from the bargaining committee meeting, I'll work some more on the new patient paperwork.