Silence says it all

Well, I'm officially in a bit of a funk. I've had a rough few days at work and my sleep schedule has been completely off this week. One of the things I do when I am feeling a little blue is I call my mom. We've had some rough patches in our past, but overall I would say that I am very close with her. My parents live about 4 hours away, so we try to make an effort to see each other in some form or fashion every month, or every other month. Curiously enough I have not had many discussions about our fertility endevours. At first I didn't want to talk about it because I still wanted my pregnancy to be a surprise announcement to our family. Then when I did mention treatments and doctors appointments in casual conversation, she never had much to say. (If you can't say anything nice.....).

So tonight I tell her about my upcoming ultrasound and plan for IUI if things look good this month. "Oh." is the extent of the response I get. So decide to bite the bullet and probe a little more about her thoughts. After some guarded conversation I finally say "I feel like you don't approve of what we are doing." Cue the silence. She said nothing. I finally said "Well, I guess that answers that question", and the discussion was relatively closed. I did follow up with some justification - my adenomyosis pain is profound and if I was pregnant it would go away. I'm creeping up on 40 and that damn clock is ticking in my ear - no time to just sit idly by and wait for mother nature. I found myself reassuring her that even though the risk for twins increases with clomid, I am only on a low dose and I am not producing enough follicles for that to be too serious of a risk. I think it all comes down to money with her. She is worried for us about how much the treatments cost - right now luckily not too much (but I guess most people don't have to pay anything to get pregnant). She is worried that if we did have twins, that we would not be able to afford it without putting us in the poor house. The whole money theory is my own, nothing that she said, but always a thread in our relationship that gets tugged at every once and awhile. She doesn't have to say the words for me to know those are her concerns. What she DID say were things like "would it be the worst thing in the world if you didn't have another baby?" Cue the crying. How do you explain to someone who never had any difficulty getting pregnant that "yes, right now it feels like that would be the worst thing in the world." I tried to explain that giving up trying, would mean giving up on my dream, my plan, my expectations, my goals. Although the last 18 months have been emotionally taxing, I don't think that I could go through grieving the loss of a child I always knew I would have one day.

I am fighting the funk, I guess her reaction didn't surprise me much. My husband is more worked up about it than I am right now. Mostly I'm sad. I'm sad that I don't have my mother's support. She was such a pillar for me, especially right after my daughter was born. This process is a huge part of my life right now. In the past this has been a subject that I just didn't talk about with her, but now I feel like I can't talk about it. Somehow that subtle change makes all the difference. I need to continue to be hopeful. I'm surprised how much writing is helping. Although I'm sure no one is reading this - it helps to sort out the feelings and put them into words.