I'm back

That was quite the unintended lengthy hiatus. Moving across the ocean was a much bigger project that I foresaw. The good news is that after a few weeks at my inlaws we finally moved into our new apartment and we are now more or less settled (we FINALLY got internet set up on Friday). Y started his fellowship and I got my work visa and began work in the new lab.

I am doing okay but life isn't easy -- I still have many hard days, some incredibly hard days, and mostly a lot of in-between days. I wonder whether life would be a little more palatable with some pharmaceutical help, but truthfully, I am so distraught over the weight I haven't loss since giving birth that I am not sure I can handle adding antidepressant weight gain to the mix.

I never stop thinking about Aminadav and Naava. I imagine all the time what life would be like if they were here with us now and what they might look like and be like.

I get teary when I go through old pictures of Y or even myself from when we were both babies and toddlers. We were both really cute little kids -- I think both of us piqued in our looks around 3 or 4 :) I know the twins were really beautiful when they were born and I am sure they would just be so so cute now. Thinking about that never fails to make me cry.

And now here we in July, the month they were due. I suppose at some point the passage of time will make everything easier -- the memories gentler, the reality of life as it is less harsh, but for now I can't help but think time is strengthening the blow.

For some time after they were born but before they were actually due, the reality of our lives and theirs seemed somehow suspended in time, like we existed in some strange in-between where the twins were of course not here with us but they weren't yet supposed to be here with us.

I don't feel like that anymore -- I feel like our universe diverged into two roads, one the promising and happy path we were on and one the sharp and unexpected reality that came to be. I see all the new babies around now and think about how they were Naava and Aminadav's compatriots. How miraculous in some sense that they are here now -- so healthy and robust -- but I guess it is not so shocking after all, I mean isn't that what is supposed to happen? Supposed to happen for whom, though? Surely not for me.

I think that is what is so terrifying about moving forward with attempting to conceive -- the belief that I am somehow cursed, the belief that I am somehow different and every attempt at a live child will end in some permutation of something that is, well, not a live child.

To be fair this line of thinking is clearly not so illogical under my particular circumstances -- 6 IUIs, 5 IVF transfers, 3 pregnancies, 2 beautiful babies that my body wasn't able to support long enough, and 0 living children. It could be so much worse and I know I have many fellow comrades in the pity pool, but it is already an objectively abysmal set of statistics.

Y's grandparents met some woman with allegedly psychic powers who said I would never carry a pregnancy successfully unless I speak with her (she doesn't want money, she just needs to tell me a message). Despite their pleading, I can't bring myself to call her. I just can't. I guess to me it signifies 1) acquiescing that I am cursed 2) puts at least the illusion of personal control to change my situation back in my hands. The latter is a demon I have been working so, so hard to rid myself of -- the notion that any of this is in my control. If I say that yes, I do have control, the avalanche of self-blame that subscribing to this type of logic allows is limitless.

Also, just as a final update to my last saga, I thankfully ended up miscarrying naturally at 5w2d, bringing an uneventful end to my extremely short-lived pregnancy. I don't have any plans on the immediate horizon, but I do hope to set up a consultation at a clinic here in Toronto over the next few weeks. Realistically, it will take a couple of months to get in and then likely another couple months of repeating testing and making arrangements before I cycle again.

In the mean time, we are giving it a go the old-fashioned way…I have never had a naturally conceived pregnancy, but we have all of the right body parts, so I assume it is technically possible.

I would say that the loss of the twins is finally putting some strain on our relationship, not in a serious way, but it is something that wasn't there before that I feel now. Whenever I get really mopey and melancholy and ask Y whether he wishes things were different, he says of course, but he doesn't dwell on what was handed to us vs. what could have been the same way I do.

He even accidentally referred to the twins as "it" once a few weeks ago. He apologized and said he didn't mean it, but I couldn't look at him or speak to him for a little while after that.

When the babies came, we were truly one and together in a way I could never imagine beforehand nor articulate in a way that would do it justice now -- I am not big on soul-talk, but the best I can describe it is that our souls met somewhere above us and became one. It was a level of emotional intimacy that I had never experienced before nor will probably ever experience again.

Of course the flip side of such extreme intimacy is that it unsustainable and can pretty much only go in one direction after that. So I guess there is a bit of a rift now -- a sense that I still have so much intense sadness that can be overwhelming for Y. And whenever I feel bitterness I can't help but think it bad or dirty to feel that way, even though I know it is pretty normal. I know Y doesn't share the intensity of longing (not jealousy, I don't begrudge others for their good fortune) that I sometimes feel for what other people have.

The secondary issue is that I am feeling increasingly ready to accept adoption as a way of moving forward. This is in an abstract sense, because there are so many logistical issues that we would need to deal with. I would love to be pregnant again but having a child to love and to raise is more important to me than being pregnant again (of course with no guarantee that any pregnancy will result in a healthy living child).

Y doesn't feel even remotely similarly about adoption. Having a biological connection to the child is paramount to him -- he says he doesn't see what the point is if the child isn't his own. There is pretty much nothing to talk about there. There is no evidence to suggest that donor egg would be particularly helpful to us and while surrogacy may be helpful, with such a high price tag and in the absence of any super compelling reason why its our only option, that is off the table, too. In short, I think we will just continue to power on as we have before.

I just miss my sweet twins so so very much.