Anger

As I sit here recovering from whatever has possessed my stomach and turned it a sea of churning angry froth... I find myself reading lots of blogs.

I am finding myself particularly drawn to the women who freely write about their rage, anger, and pain.

I have a hard time doing that - I wish I could just let it pour out of me. There are so many things that piss me off, but I try to be strong, calm, reasonable etc.

I have such admiration for those who can let it fly... words and curses, fists and fury. Maybe I am still in shock. Maybe I just don't even know how I feel yet. Maybe its just been dribbles of emotion sppread out over a decade with few tangible loses.

I don't want my life to be years of anger or bitterness, but I don't want to be false either. Reading some of these blogs, particularly when people share hideous things doctors & medical staff say, bring back the emotions I have burried. Perhaps if I hadn't been so good about putting on a good front...

I was told nothing after my surgery, and through the lines of nothing I read 'kids aren't in your future young lady.' I went back to university to a sea kids hooking up and hoping not to get PG. No one in a high-flying uni campus is really all that available to deal with your grief over being infertile. So you make jokes. You become the person who is young enough and far enough removed to correct people when they say stupid things to older people struggling with infertility. When I saw other people's faces stone up, I could pip in that having kids isn't easy for everyone, that losing a baby at any stage breaks hearts, etc. They could hear it from me, because I technically wasn't the one grieving a loss

But I was.

One that is so intangible. I look completely healthy. Feel fine (now that hot flashes are subsiding). I am so young. I still get carded when I order beer in the States. Friends are only now starting to ask when we'll have kids. I've been spared that for all these years. Sometimes I was able to plant the seed years ago that I might not be able to, and that has been a wise move because those who know are a bit more sensitive now.

For years, I felt like there was broken glass within my womb... not physical pain, just a searing emotional one. All the uncertainty. All the annoyance that I knew so much about charting and how bodies are suppose to work, even though mine never really did. All the 'its not fairs.'

I was reading today about how lesbian couples who use donor eggs often have a different experience than those coming from the infertility world... one of going from assuming a door was closed to the joy of possibility-- rather than going from presumption to mourning a loss. I guess I'm in the middle. I have known since I was 18 that I probably could not, always secretely harbouring hope that if I stayed healthy enough, I could.

When I read all these amazing women sharing their pain, I fear that as I go down this path, with all the ups and downs, that I won't be strong enough. That it will be too much. Today I am angry that thinking about starting my family starts with doubts, rather than the joys of possiblities.