I wish I could say that I am doing okay or that I am getting better or that anything in my life is hopeful. I am completely shattered to bits. My dear husband is coming home this afternoon so it will be good to finally get a hug. I'm so hard to look at. I can't even look at myself in the mirror.

I feel like I have been diagnosed with cancer only it won't kill me. I have to live with this cancer forever.

Most people have a next. Try again, adopt, buy a puppy. Next eases pain and I wish I had one.

Try again : we will not try IVF again. I knew this was my last one and I agreed to that. If I had 4 or 5 eggs, I may be inclined to beg for another but I had a total of 28 eggs. Something is clearly wrong. Perhaps it is in the mix. Like oil and vinegar. My lovely husband and I will never have our child. Our own child.

Adopt: God bless all those people who have the desire to adopt. We never wanted to adopt. We wanted our own child, not any child. Infertility suddenly puts you in a "selfish" category when you don't choose that route. When people suggest to me "just adopt", I want to say "you adopt". The concept of all of that then hits home. I said that I would post about adoption but never got around to it. In brief, we never wanted to, never had that desire, we wanted our own little M. and Julianna. I just turned 41 and M. is 47, adoption is very time-consuming and expensive and stressful. If you don't have the desire in your heart, all of the hoops to jump through make the answer clear. Funny thing is, even if we had the desire and jumped through the hoops, our cumulative age would be frowned upon. I have a friend who adopted two beautiful children through the county system and she said that our cumulative age for county adoptions (we are talking extremely poor Americans which include a lot of druggies and teenagers), we would not be accepted in a county adoption program. That blew my mind. They would rather a baby born to a 15 year old go to foster care than to our beautiful, loving home because of our cumulative age. Our age would be a factor in overseas adoption and also personal adoptions. Who wants to go through that? Jump and hope and pay, not even having a passion for it to be rejected by the babies mother or system. If I was 16 and had a baby I was giving up for adoption, I would not choose a couple in their 40's. If you want to adopt, God Bless You. NO THANK YOU.

Buy a Puppy: Three people have told me this. Interesting. I wish buying a puppy would work. I actually had a beautiful Maltese daughter named Chelsea. She was my baby all through my thirties. M. is allergic to dogs and I had to give her to my mother. That dog always loved my mother more than me anyway so it was an easier adjustment for them. I was depressed for three weeks when I moved to California to be with M. and my darling Chelsea was left with my mother in South Carolina. That dog has a piece of my soul. She is very happy and is relatively happy to see me when I go back to S.C. but she adores my mother. They are soul mates.

I am finding it difficult to talk to people. I don't answer my phone. People want to "fix it" for me. I get asked so many questions "what happened", "what if you try it one more time", "let me send you this great article about adoption"........and I have to think and I have to answer and I have to try to make sense of what comes out of my mouth.

I wish there was more air in the room, perhaps I could breathe better. I am just thinking of breathing, I cannot answer questions right now.

It looks like I am getting ready to start my period so perhaps now I can stop wishing my doctor is on the other end of the phone telling me they made a mistake. When I check my messages, that is what I hope for. A lab error. PLEASE.......something.

Tuesday was the worst day of my life. It was a comedy of errors set up to torture me. The universe said "let's see how many body slams Julianna can take in a day". Well FUCK YOU UNIVERSE! I am still breathing.

I don't even know if I can type it. I will try through the sobs.

It started with me waking at 4:45 to get on the road to get my blood drawn at Stanford 2 hours away, I knew I would be late for work. They said another hygienist would see my first patient and not to worry. I was 20 minutes into their appointment time when I finally arrived at work. I had already been on the road 4 hours! My patient was in the waiting room, was scheduled for a 2 hour appointment so they decided I would just start when I got there. Such a stressful morning, racing 2 hours to get blood drawn, driving 2 hours to work, not working for 3 weeks and being thrown into the mix - stressful mix. Part of me thought well, the morning will go by fast. It did. I couldn't even go to the restroom. They decided to have a staff meeting for lunch so I had no peace there. Here was the most important day of my life and I was in an environment that did not reflect that at all. I knew when I walked in that door that morning that I should not have been there. I was not able to really be there. I was completely exhausted, of course I didn't sleep much the night before. After lunch, I only had three more patients to go. Just get through the day I kept telling myself. At least you're not home waiting for the phone to ring, I kept telling myself.

The deal was that if it was good news, M. would call me at work. He would get the call in Florida, let family know and I would call him when I got home. I said in passing that I wanted to know ASAP if it was good news though. I told my office, if M. calls in the afternoon, put him through, it is good news.

Thirty minutes into my afternoon patient, the receptionist came into my room and said "M. is on the phone!!". Ohhh, remembering that feeling. I had it for only several seconds. I was so incredibly thankful, relieved, excited, euphoric. I thought, finally, good news, I was so relieved and also had the feeling of "I knew it would work out", I felt like I knew it would happen one day and this was the moment. All of this went through my head in the few seconds it took me to get to the phone. The doctor I work for even came out of his room to watch. Everyone was excited and watching me and I had the biggest smile on my face and then M. began to talk. He was talking so slow. Just say it! Yippee......as I bounced in my shoes with excitement. He was so slow and deliberate and said he had already called family and that he was so sorry but that it was negative. I was waiting for the "just kidding! YOU'RE PREGNANT!!", not that M. would kid like that, but none of it made sense. He just kept saying "i'm so sorry". I had to tell my audience that it was negative, that "no". My mouth went immediately dry, my lips stuck to my teeth. I went back to my patient and finished him. I somehow finished the afternoon patients. I couldn't wait to get in my car and wail. It was surreal. "Julianna, your next patient is here", "we set them up in the other room so you're not running behind", "Julianna, can you show her how to get under that bridge with those new threaders"............complete disbelief. I was a walking robot zombie, somehow seeming fine to the outside world.

I finally called M. just before my last patient and freaked - "What did you miss about the plan??? I could have had the fucking nurse call me here at work if I wanted to get bad news right away! WHAT DID YOU MISS!!!!! I can't even think much less breathe and I have to stay here and try to get through the afternoon. I cannot wait to get in my car and finally release all of this pain.......I don't know how I will drive home. WHAT WERE YOU THINKING!" I didn't let myself cry, I knew once I started, I would never be able to stop.

He said that he heard me say "if it is good news" once but that before he left to go out of town, I was so insistent on making sure he had my correct work number that he felt I was wanting to know ASAP.

I even posted here that I mentioned it in passing because I didn't want it to be definite, that if he didn't call me at work I didn't want that to mean it was negative. I was trying to protect myself so much.

The most painful thing was hearing that M. was on the phone, such elation, to be STUNNED with the news. Completely smashed and crushed.

I don't know if I will ever get over that.

M. is very upset. We need each other right now. He is coming home early to be with me. I cannot wait to have him hold me. I cannot wait to cry in his arms and have him tell me we will be okay. He is human and he made a very bad boo boo. I have to forgive him. It made the news so much worse than it ever needed to be though. So much worse.

FUCK YOU UNIVERSE! again and again and again. I am still breathing.

I know it is important to keep busy. I must soldier on.

I tried to work yesterday, I made it through the morning. Finally, at lunch I could release. I was crying eating my sushi. A lady was sitting at a table near me and I could see her watching, wondering. It made me cry more because I could feel her feeling bad for me, probably wanting to know what was wrong, if she could help. I had to get up and leave. I sat in my car for 20 minutes and wailed. I went back to work and the office manager said that if I needed to leave, she understood. I was brushing my teeth, looked at myself in the mirror and knew it was impossible to try to stay. I completely broke down, told her "yes, I need to go."


Did you know that it was possible to cry in your sleep? I woke up last night at 2:30 and literally had tears streaming down my face and I let myself continue to cry for another hour and a half. At least I don't have to work again until next Tuesday.

Speaking of work, I don't know if I can stay there. I love my job. I love my schedule. Eight months ago, a girl started working there to help with filing. Her husband lost his job, she had 3 children and needed to try to make money. She was a friend of the receptionist. She got pregnant with her 4th child the first week she started work, she was depressed and crying, said she couldn't tell her husband that he would be mad at her, and she couldn't tell family because they would know "she was doing something nasty with her husband and she was embarrassed". Finally after 3 months, she told her husband. This woman worked only two days a week. The exact two days that I worked. I had to watch her get bigger and bigger and be so unhappy to have another unwanted child they could not afford. I avoided her like the plague. It was so painful to watch for so many months. She is finally on maternity leave as of last week, so I don't have to see her anymore but now begins the next slap.

FUCK YOU UNIVERSE!

Now, the doctor and his wife are starting their first IVF. She is already on the BCP's and will start injections soon. Her pregnancy test is the end of November. She just got her dental hygiene license and is now working in the office - of course - just the past two weeks. She is who was filling in for me when I was gone. She does not want a child. She has put ZERO effort into learning about IVF. The BCP pills even made her sick. She has called me four times to ask about everything IVF. Her husband wants children so she flippantly says she will try IVF. She is 38, he is 41 and they have been married for three years also. I have never heard of a woman going through IVF who really doesn't care if she has a child. She said she is perfectly fine with their dogs. Of course, she will get pregnant with her first IVF. I will not suffer through watching her belly grow and hearing the doctor so excited with the perfect pregnancy. If she gets pregnant, I cannot work there. I tried so hard with the other lady and this would be torture. I will have to leave. It is a never ending fucking nightmare.

FUCK YOU UNIVERSE!!!

I don't know what will come of my life. I must walk through this dark tunnel or crawl or be drug. Speaking of drug, I wish I had some drugs. Something to knock me out. The pain is so deep almost, almost unbearable.

I have only wanted to be a mother. I even picked my career because it allowed one to work a couple of days a week and still raise a family. My nature is maternal.

I have pictured my little Julianna and M. in my mind so many times. I have pictured the little dramatic girl in her dresses giving us fits, and the little boy being petulant and stubborn. I will never meet them. They are dead. How do mother's survive when they have been able to hold or feel their child inside of them? How can they ever breathe again. How do you carry on?

I cannot see my future. I cannot picture any road in front of me. I only ever wanted to be a mother to my children. A very simple request.

FUCK YOU UNIVERSE!


My mother sent me this email when she knew I was in my car, driving in the dark to get my blood drawn. -

Subject: My darling daughter


My Dearest Julianna, as you are on your way to Stanford for your blood work, my constant prayer is with you.

Remember, God does not make mistakes. Whatever the outcome, it is His will. Of course, our hopes and dreams are positive and that you and Michael will be parents. It will be totally devastating for all of us if this is NOT God's will. Still, it is out of our control and all we can do is turn it over to God.

I love you soooo much and want this dream fulfilled so badly for you and Michael.

I will talk to you tonight.

Mom



FUCK YOU UNIVERSE!


I am so overwhelmed with the emails and messages. SO completely overwhelmed. That is all that helps. Feeling love and wishes.


I started this journal, not knowing the end. An unfolding melodrama. It is not what I anticipated. My October Julianna should have come and saved me, she should have run back to August and hugged me and said that it is over, she could have saved me the torture of the last IVF. The cruel, perfect, torturous IVF.

I will be glad when my next is revealed. I have been traveling the road where my children are my whole life, I am lost. I want to hold out my arms and tell them that I am trying, I am trying so desperately hard to get them - please come to me. Oh God, I wish they could come to me.