The 'F' Word...

Disclaimer: this post is emotional, this post is angry, this post has been bubbling up inside for a very long time, and this post has just come pouring out.

Every month the dreaded conversation with my husband occurs. One that is simply meant to be an eager, supportive question; but one that leaves me close to tears, so angry I just want to yell, scream, rip down the walls in our townhouse and scream at the top of my voice:

"NO! I am not FERTILE, not this week, not last week, not last month, not the month before that or the month before that. Dam'nt the answer is NO."

Instead I just silently shake my head and continue getting ready for work, or making our lunches, or heading out the door to go grocery shopping. Week after week, month and excruciating month ticks by and every stupid test I have to pee on comes back with a resounding 'NEGATIVE'. Probably the only time I wish something medical would come back positive is during these 3-5 minutes of torture every morning as I have locked myself in our bathroom. Most of the time I keep very silent about these early morning struggles in our bathroom. I wait till I have gotten to work where I can cry and yell in the empty parking lot. Sharing this pain and negativity all the time with my husband is hard. It feels like each time I am killing a part of this dream John and I have for our future.

The sadness that surrounds this entire monthly ordeal is one thing and I have learned, and God has placed amazing people in my life to help me, to figure out and how to deal and coupe with the sadness, the sadness is one thing; the fermenting pissed-off, mad as hell anger is an entirely different thing. I use to be so incredible happy when I saw friends posting on their social medias announcing their great and joyous news. I would freely and very joyfully press the like button or double tap their photo. Now with a heavy and begrudgingly heart I force myself to hit the like button and double pound on that photo. I force myself to do these thing because I know, deep down...lets be honest...way deep deep deep down under the anger, frustration, every loathing pissed-off feeling I have, I am very, undeniably happy for these amazing friends and the joy of new life and additions into loving families.

That anger though is still there, it is still festering and it is daily gnawing away at my joy. I have learned to never actually expect something good. To set my standards really low, cause then I wont be as hurt when something a doctor tells me goes against my dream or when a test comes back negatively. I have learned to build my walls higher and stronger even after John worked so hard and adamantly to break through those walls while we were dating. Marriage wasn't suppose to be me building these walls back up and my husband being frustrated because we are digressing and not progressing as I lay silently sobbing in bed at night. Life is flourishing all around us all the time and yet all I feel like is dead inside. The high school insecurities all flood back: not being good enough, I can't do anything right, I am a failure, my own body has turned against me.

For far to long I have not been able to put to words what was happening inside of me. This knowledge at 18 that things were not normal that something was wrong with me, has now progressed 9 years later filled with anger, life suffocating sadness and fear. 9 years later and I am finding my voice, my ability to speak out and put words to this war raging inside of me that occasionally rips through the facade that I so strategically build up for the rest of the world to see. However, now, in this moment it is not the anger and the sadness, the fears and insecurities that are seeping through the cracks and tears of my facade but the words that I am choosing to write down, the words I am giving voice to. Those words:

"I am not okay, I might smile and answer your simple question of 'how are you' with a nod and a simple okay, but thats not true. I am dying inside with a fear of being overcome of this sadness and anger to the point that that, is all I know, all I can remember. I am afraid of losing myself in this journey of infertility. I am already tired of this journey, I am tired of this being our reality. There are days that I am overcome with sadness to the point where I struggle to will myself out of bed to shut of the alarm. There are the briefest of moments where I am so overcome with anger that I don't recognize the woman yelling and crying in the mirror. This is not an every single day, or even every single moment of every day kind of thing; it happens occasionally, it happens in certain moments, it happens after certain doctor visits and test checkups. I DO NOT want this to become my life, my everyday.
Somedays I am just not okay...what I need is for you to be okay with that. I don't need you to cheer me up, I don't need you to tell me just give it time. I am not living in a multi-dimensional world of the space time continuum, I am living in the present here and now, and right now I am not okay. Right now I need you to walk with me in my valley not try to drag me to a mountain top. I need you to remind me that God is good and God hears my cries and cries with me in my sorrow. I need your presence more then I need your support. I need a shoulder to cry on not a placid voice of opinion.

I need to know that its okay, to not be okay"