turning decisions over to baby boy

The pressure wells within me. It feels like a fiery volcano. Steam building, then rushing for escape.

Maybe I am being very selfish, to want to be financially comfortable. To avoid any more potential grief or loss. To craft this perfect life for my long expected child, not to be interrupted.

I have these walls up. They raised with good reason. Months and years of longing and tears and strife.

But do they have a place anymore in me. In my family. Do they? Be honest.

"My grace is sufficient for you. My power is made perfect in your weakness". (2 Corinthians 12:9)

* * * * * * * *

Back to baby boy. Staring at his soft, perfect cheeks. Like that of a cherub. He gleefully laughs at a show that isn't even all that funny. He is living this life. But by the mere order his embryo straw was placed in the freezer, he is here. He could still be there. My chest is hurting.

* * * * * * * *

Then baby boy turns the tide. I don't think he knows, but he did. He was running away from D. D lunged to catch him and pulled a muscle in his back. He had severe back spasms and found himself at the doctor getting several injections. In pre-blog times, D ended up in the ICU from NASID induced ulcers. Well, thanks to the medication, he wound up with a second ICU trip for ulcers. A week and one blood transfusion later, he was back home.

How does that play into our decision you ask?

In only the most practical of ways. An ICU trip=$$$. So much $$$ that we end up paying nearly $8,000 out of pocket (because this is our yearly max OOP for insurance).

I am at a new job with different health insurance, and this policy covers fertility.

So we have coverage for fertility treatments AND it can already kick in, thanks to baby boy giving D a back spasm and the subsequent series of events.

* * * * * * * *

I can't live with this weight anymore. I've got to make a decision. I have to take action.

casting out fear

Periodically, people ask what the latest is with the embryos. Will I transfer them for Baby Boy's genetic family?

I don't know. 

I try to explain the barriers, and somehow they seem smaller when I hear myself saying them aloud. 

What if there is a way to make this work?

But there isn't. There can't be.

Am I being selfish? Selfish to try to make something work I shouldn't? Selfish to withhold from another family? Do you see the circle in my head. It's like a dog chasing its tail, and it never ends.

"Perfect love casts out all fears". (1 John 4:18)

These things keep coming up.

Last time, I was looking for signs. My eyes scoured for them, day and night. Any indication that this was finally "it". That things would work out after all. I am not looking for them this time, but they seem to come, if I am honest with myself.

My stomach is in knots. 

i don't want to surrender

I see full circle made complete in someone else. Full circle two and three times, just since I had baby boy. I know a whole brood of children is beyond my limitations or my desires. But the feeling of injustice is there, just the same.

Feelings just are. They are a method of communication. They aren’t really good or bad, in and of themselves.

My therapist asks me to avoid judging my emotions. Judging them's not helpful. In fact, it is driving me crazy.

Then I see this file on a popular social media site. Practical questions to think about when deciding your family size.

My immediate response is rage. It must be nice to have control like that. Maybe it is for the best (and I would say in hindsight, it probably is indeed best) that decisions have ultimately been made for me. But I feel a prisoner to my circumstances. It doesn’t “make sense” to feel that way. But just as my sadness at my perceived injustice doesn’t “make sense”, neither does this.

More numbing. More stuffing.

But I take a second look at the questions. “When you think about limiting or finalizing your family size, what is motivating that?” Options include comfort (check), control (double check), convenience, flexibility, desire for ease?” along with questions about faith and obedience to God.

I don’t want to open myself to more hurt. I’ve endured enough. Tears well in my eyes just thinking about the desperation and darkness of seeking baby boy. I don’t want to feel sad anymore. I don’t want to open myself to the potential of hurt. I am comfortable now. I run from the idea of discomfort.

There’s a certain kind of surrender for so much to hinge on just a couple weeks of medication, not knowing what is really happening inside your body all the while. It’s a high stakes situation. Then, tiny balls of delicate cells are carefully thawed. 

Sure, we have been on the negative end of odds, but almost half of the embryos we have had did not even survive thawing. You don’t know that until you walk in the office. It’s a cruel, unavoidable reality.

In the blink of an eye the embryos are placed from the catheter inside your body. Following that is more waiting.

Then, depending on your level of masochism and style of processing intense news, you either have blood drawn and wait for a call where the person at the other end says they are sorry or says they have good news; or, you could pee on a strip and watch the moisture wick up the strip to reveal either one or two lines. Neither is easy to do.

And this might sound dramatic but assuredly is not, but when you have had past failures and loss and trauma, your brain has a fight or flight response on a very primal level. It tries to protect you from this type of experience again.

Unfortunately, even if you go into a transfer knowing this situation with your brain and nervous system, there is not an easy way to turn the response off. So avoid pain, at all costs. Don’t entertain a circumstance that pulls the scab off.

Where does this leave me? The embryos?

Am I being selfish? What truly is best?