Haisla's Adventures in Endoland

I sometimes write blog posts that are so depressing and self-pitying that they don't even really deserve to be released into the blogosphere (this is a sentiment often expressed by IF bloggers around cycle day 1, so I will join their choir today)..

This might be one of those posts, I fear; a post that perhaps should have been left for my eyes only.
So I can only apologise to you in advance and give you a strong prior-warning to enter at your own peril. For those of you joining here from ICLW, even deeper apologies for this fairly depressing introduction - I promise it is not always this bleak out on planet Endoland and that I will post a little recap of the journey so far and a better introduction in the coming days. Unfortunately this is what you'll be stuck with today:

AF has arrived again, and together with it, the crash and burn of a progesterone come-down.

As I have said before and will say again, I dread to think how I will fare when on synthetic progesterone. I can only imagine being a god-awful mess, if this is anything to go by.

And this is the problem of infertility blogging, especially for a girl like me, for whom, so it feels, nothing ever happens (IF-wise, that is). I'm just treading water, re-hashing the same old feelings, thoughts, responses, month after month. I can take the needed emotions out of the closet and line them neatly on the bed each month in anticipation of the arrival of the dreaded nemesis. It's become a well practiced routine, with only slight variations. I can pretend that it is not happening, I can play down the levels of hope. But every month, I lay out my emotions on the bed in wait for the arrival of the inevitable, in the hopes that being organised and ready will somehow lessen the pain.

It is monotonous and it is boring; it is even boring me writing this.

In many ways it's not actually like treading water at all, because at least with water you can imagine a beautiful beach or at least a pool where you can let go and just float to the top.

Not so, in this crap-fest.

If it's unlike treading water, then perhaps it is more like going around in ever decreasing circles, visiting the same sights with each passing month, with nothing new to experience or see or say, because it is pretty much just the same each time. I feel jaded and I don't know how many more circles I can go around, before I just go f*cking crazy.

I just want something to happen; something, ANYTHING. Give me a false positive, a chemical pregnancy, betas that are wonky, even a miscarriage (and please don't judge me for these thoughts, for of course I know that each and every one of those scenarios is a terrible tragedy and I would not wish them on my worst enemy), just anything that is not this nothingness, this absence, this blank where there ought to be a pink line, this blood in the panty liner, this bloating, this spirit-sapping, soul-destroying monthly little death. Because, yes, without wishing to sound melodramatic (which I obviously do), that's how it feels each month. A little bit of me dies inside. A little bit of hope, a little bit of that heady innocence, a little bit of the person that I used to be. It is being gnawed away by the greedy b*tch that is Infertility, and I have a feeling that she wants to leave nothing behind once she is done. How long I will allow her to gnaw away at me is anyone's guess. Because the other option is stopping, and that seems somehow even more unimaginable.

So I moan and I groan and I allow Infertility to gnaw away. It seems like a small price to pay when the ultimate prize is having your own biological child. But it does leave me wondering - who will I be when (if) the much expected finally happens? Because as well as being gnawed away, it feels like something else is growing back to replace the bits that were injured or lost. Something tougher and more leathery. Like emotional scar tissue.

And what if I don't get pregnant? Will the level of scarring I am allowing myself to go through be acceptable should I have nothing to show for it? Or will I forever regret that I allowed myself to become so greatly altered? Perhaps it'll pay to have a thicker skin?

So as well as moaning and groaning I try to insulate myself. With gratitude, with positivity, with prayer; by looking after myself mentally, physically, spiritually. But all the insulation in the world won't stop the gnawing from taking place, and I have to recognise that at the end of this process I will be forever changed. And that it is up to me to decide to what extent I will allow my emotional landscape to be ravaged.

I know that for myself I will have to let this carry on for a while still. Because I am not yet ready to stop.