Back to work and other miscellaneous thoughts

Well, here I am smack-dab in the middle of the dreaded two-week-wait. This is that "nth" day of 100 degree temperatures in the summertime, when you are just looking for some relief from the heat. This is the phone that isn't ringing when you desperately need to talk to someone. The dolldrums - when there is no wind when you just want to steer your sailboat. All one can do is rock on the waters, and drift aimlessly - the currents of life take me where they will.

So, I've thrown myself back into my work. Or rather, I'm trying. Although they've bumped me up to a priorty status (I've increased my hours), they are still struggling to bring in the OT referrals. I didn't get to see any patients yesterday, but Tuesday was busy, and that was a great relief from the drifting. The drifting is awful.

My son is my greatest blessing, always, but particularly in these nether-world days when the promise of a baby is still close - but just out of reach. So we do fun things together. Go to the park, visit flower gardens, take hikes, visit with friends, go get ice cream or have a special dinner out.

He deserves this time - all the weeks of preperation for the IVF: the shots on schedule, the ultrasound and bloodwork appointments, the surgery to remove eggs, the procedure to replace one much-loved embryo - every one of those things means time taken away from him. Yes, for the greater goal of providing him with his longed-for sibling, but I see that it takes it's toll on him.

So my days from here on out are dedicated to him. And when he's in school, to my work. So far, it has kept me focused during this drifting, dreaming time - when the longed-for baby is still a possibility.

For over two years, I have entered into the two-week-wait feeling determinedly hopeful. There was a time when I felt I knew my body and it's signs and would attend to them with an air of expectation. After literally being through this dozens of times, and subjecting my body to various procedures and many medications, I have now had to surrender any sort of ability to forsee the outcome. The medications fool my body into thinking it's pregnant, so it behaves that way. Healing from the surgery produces symptoms that make one feel bloated and heavy. The mind manages to play tricks with the rest, and one can begin to convince herself of anything. The truth is, I have no idea is this worked.

To all those who wait and wonder with me, I feel I owe some words of caution. As a veteran of the cycle of hope and despair, try not to become too invested in the outcome. I know many, many deserving women, women who would make the best mothers, and still have not gotten their miracle. The unfairness, injustice of it happens everyday, and I don't know why.

I just don't know what will happen. I feel responsible for those I've invited on this journey - I know how a heart can break for someone else when they don't get that miracle - I spend more and more time consoling those who don't. But I also know the joy when someone finally catches a break, and it is just so sweet.

So I hope you all can stick with me, regardless of the outcome. I realize it is difficult. I hope that we, me and this (hopefully) exponentially growing blastocyst (or should I visualize it as a rapidly differentiating fetus by now? I'll have to check my old college textbooks . . .), do not fail to disappoint.

I may post a couple of times over the next week or so, but I will be trying to shift my focus to things of this world for the time being - to what is. Sometimes my greatest consolation is to simply live life in the present and accept the fact that the tides have control - they will take me where they may.

As always, thanks for reading.

-kelly