Unexpectedly Hard

I didn't expect this. I was all prepared to deal with another light pink line indicating another miscarriage, potentially even a few of them before we would be successful or decided to stop all together. I wasn't looking forward to it, but I knew what it would be like, and in a way, how to handle it. I knew I would survive and keep on, because I'd done it before. I was as ready as I could be to go through the loss.
I wasn't ready for two months of negative tests. Ha! I know how ridiculous that sounds. Even in the world of fertile people, two months is nothing. Nothing. In the infertile world, it's entirely laughable. So I understand if my words get under your skin, but bear with me please - I know that you do understand what it's like to stare at the empty space that would radiate pink if wishes, hopes, and dreams could force our bodies to bend to our will, and feel utterly disappointed. "Disappointed." It's not nearly a strong enough word to describe that feeling really. That moment when your soul seems to cave into yourself and the grief adds another layer to your already burdened heart.
So I know many of you have been through months and months of negative tests, and then following that months of painful procedures and meds that screwed with your body and mind - and then stared for the zillionth time at that empty space while your heart broke again. I know this doesn't compare, but I know at the same time that many of you have learned compassion for those going through different journeys experiencing pain in different ways, maybe even if it sounds ridiculous to you, so I'm bringing my courage and sharing with you still.

In some ways, I feel like we've experienced a strange mix of hyper-fertility and infertility. Remember that article that was going around a few months ago about recurrent loss possibly being caused by hyper-fertility - a woman's body accepting any fertilized egg, even if it wasn't a healthy one? Yeah. That made so much sense to me, because honestly, we've never had trouble getting pregnant before. I remember one time that it took us two months. That's it. But of course, six out of seven didn't stick around, and most of them were gone before the five week mark was reached.
So ridiculous as it sounds, this is new territory for me, and I really wasn't prepared for it. This has all hit me harder than I ever would have expected. I mean, shouldn't not being pregnant be better than going through another miscarriage? You'd think, right?
They do say that we seek the comfort of the familiar, even if that familiar is not really comforting. So I guess that's what I'm going through. As painful as the miscarriages are, they're familiar now. Two months of negative tests in a row - not familiar. Unfamiliar is scary to me. This is weird, new territory, and I'm not sure what to do about it. The very first time we decided to ttc, I knew that it could take a few months, or even several months before we were pregnant - I actually expected that. But then it only took one and has been that way ever since. I've dealt with the occasional negative during times we were trying to avoid pregnancy, but thought we might have slipped up; I've dealt with strong pink lines that led to weeks of utter fear, and for one, high hope brought crashing down to "no heartbeat;" I've dealt with staring at lightly positive tests knowing that I was staring another miscarriage in the face. I've never dealt with repeated negatives.

Seeing each negative test is bringing all this grief that I didn't expect and I find myself struggling to move past this cycle. Why is this so hard?! It's only two months of trying. Why am I still so incredibly sad about this? Three days ago, I knew that I really, really wasn't pregnant (although it took me another day to completely 100% believe it), and today I still woke up dragging through a deep sadness that doesn't want to let go. I need to get my life back into balance, to get a flow of normal, productive, giving-my-son-the-time-he-deserves kind of days, before we head back into going through all of this again in a few weeks. I need to be ok for just a little while.
I knew this year of ttc was going to have its difficulty and its hard times. I apparently just had no idea what it would actually be like.