Negative

There is a negative pregnancy test sitting on the top of my bathroom trash. Normally, I like to push them to the bottom– to forget about them, to hide them, to keep them from being a reality. But this month, too exhausted and too disheartened, I leave it there. It will go out with the rest of the trash Sean collects on Thursday. I know I shouldn’t leave my pain for him to sweep away, but I do anyway. He wants to know how to be there for me, but he doesn’t realize he already is. All of the little things I once seemed so able to do, he does now, automatically and without criticism. Like the trash on Thursday nights, he carries away the burdens I cannot speak.

In an email earlier this week, I referred to my infertility as a “journey”. I actually almost erased it. I highlighted it and held my finger over “delete” for several minutes, just staring at it. Calling my struggles with infertility a “journey” seemed to give it too much power, too much credit. This does not feel like some great adventure to see the Eiffel Tower or the Taj Mahal. But, in the end, I left it there mid-sentence and sent the email anyway. How am I to know what to call this cycle?

I talk to my unconceived child like I do to my recently passed grandmother, in my head at night. Laying there in the darkness I will one’s ideals and the other’s memory into my imagination, introducing them to one another. I know if my grandmother were here I would tell her of my struggles and she would abrasively tell me, “well that’s just the way it is, no use dwelling.” She was a hard woman who conversely served everyone she met with the strength of the Great Wall of China, sturdy even when she lost a stone or two. I know she would tell me to focus on what I do have, to take care of my husband and daughter. And so today, I will try. If not for myself than for her. She didn’t fight for so many years and for so many women so that I could feel sorry for myself. There are better things to do than feel sorry for yourself, I am sure this is something I heard her say once or maybe it was in a dream I had.

I try to think of ways to turn all of this into something positive. Not good, there is nothing good about this, but positive. Surely the only way to combat all of these negatives is with something positive.

So I write this morning to clear my head and gather my strength. I will not let this negative turn me into a negative person. I will allow myself to cry this morning for what I cannot seem to have and then I will carry on. I need to shift my expectations for the day. I begin by making a list of my realities. Sean will work until 4. June is home from school today. A storm system is rolling through Michigan and it will rain the entire day. It is Thursday and so, the trash will go out. This is what I know to be true for the day, but surely there are other truths to be discovered as well. And somehow, through it all, I know there is something positive to find if only I can muster the resolve to look for it.