Mentally at least, I'm pretty sure that I'm back on the other side of the break point. I had to say goodbye to Chance and Apollo Saturday afternoon. We did okay through lunch and managed to part ways without shedding a tear (opting for "see you later" vs. "goodbye), but I admit to breaking out into an ugly cry the moment I got back in my van and I bawled most of the way back home.
I gave myself a week to wallow in misery (and snot), and then forced myself to get up yesterday and make the first real steps towards moving on. That's how it goes...I have to disconnect from the sadness over things gone wrong and the goodbyes, and then re-engage more deeply into the goings on of everyday life. So, on that angle I know that I've come through the worst of it...my main concern of course is for Chance and Apollo and how they are coping with needing to move on to the next stage in their life.
To continue in the vein of the parable that niobe recently posted (it's a must-read if you haven't read), it's not my bag of troubles. I don't mean that flippantly, apathetically, or uncaringly. That is only to say that as a surrogate, I choose to pick up someone else's bag of troubles labeled "infertility and loss" and try to help shoulder the burden for a while. No matter what I must personally endure while carrying it, the bag doesn't belong to me and there comes a point when I have to give it back, even though I wish like all hell that I could still help somehow.
And of course, there is that touch of survivor's guilt that I even have the choice to set that load down, to regretfully have to push it back entirely on their shoulders and then turn around and have the shameful, yet reflexive audacity to feel at least a small sense of relief that I have the option in the first place, when they don't. After working so intimately and so in sync with with them for so long, it's a complicated untangling of my mindset from theirs, but this realignment of my mind is necessary and leaves me where I know I need to be -- taking a step back to a place alongside those of you who support Chance and Apollo by proxy of supporting me, and alongside those of you who also know Chance personally and have supported her for the past couple of years. We all try to support them best way we possibly can, hurting for them but still knowing that we have our own lives to lead. I know we all wish that the joys of parenthood could be known to Chance and Apollo, and we all hurt that their road can no longer be on a path in attempt to get them there.
I hurt terribly for Chance and Apollo, but as far as I personally am concerned, I know that I'm over the hurdle and I'm trying to look ahead to brighter things and new opportunities. As moving on goes, mentally -- I'm there. Physically, not so much, apparently. Betas:
May 22 = 50
May 24 = 46
May 30 = 355
June 1 = 460-something
In a nutshell, this isn't viable and wasn't to begin with. TMI - I bled from Friday-Sunday. Yesterday it tapered off into nothing. With the other chemicals I bled for 1-2 weeks. Dr. Sleepy said that I will likely restart bleeding within the next few days and will "fully miscarry" (his words, not mine). Next Monday I will have another beta. If I have not started to bleed and/or my beta continues to go up significantly by then, I will be scheduled for a D&C and possibly a shot of methotrexate, depending on what the D&C yields. *sigh* I can handle this...it's just exhausting. I mean, hell -- at least we could have caught a break on the resolution of this cycle, but even that can't be easy for us. Like I said -- I can personally handle this without it leaving me a deep emotional rut, but Chance and Apollo just do not need anything else added to make that bag of troubles any heavier. I hate that they have to go through this. I completely hate it.
So, that's where things stand as of now on that front. I have Stubborn Undropping Beta Syndrome, otherwise known as Some Unnecessary BullShit (SUBS).
exhale
This is also where things start to feel a little...odd...around here in my personal blogland. Yes, the surrogacy and the cycling and the betas and the loss are a part of me and a very large part of why we're all here reading, but it is not all of me or even most of me, at least not right now. This is that transitional time, where the balances both in my life and in this blog shift again. I can't help but feel a little schizo and...I guess weird about writing about some of the the things I want to share. There are lots of good things going on here, too. Blogger friends to thank for keeping me afloat through phone calls, emails, hugs, and comments of commiseration or comments which simply said something to the effect of "this sucks monkey ass" -- which it did, but I laughed my ass off through the tears just the same. Funny children who are dazzled by the splendor of summer and all the potential that it holds. A husband who as of today, is now a kolidge stoodent. You should have seen him with his bookbag. Actually, you will see him with his bookbag, because I totally took First Day of School pictures of him. For the next couple of weeks, there will be days in which one post will bemoan the aforementioned SUBS and how much emotional havoc that might wreak and me and C&A, but then the next moment I'll jerk hard in the opposite direction and write about something stupidly hilarious that el Cinco did. So, yeah...for a little while it will feel just... weird and awkward to post about all that is happy joy and sunshine in my life right now, but at the same time, I know that it is right that I should, and that it is okay that I do.
Because after all, Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da...
...which is as it should be.
Mentally at least, I'm pretty sure that I'm back on the other side of the break point. I had to say goodbye to Chance and Apollo Saturday afternoon. We did okay through lunch and managed to part ways without shedding a tear (opting for "see you later" vs. "goodbye), but I admit to breaking out into an ugly cry the moment I got back in my van and I bawled most of the way back home.
I gave myself a week to wallow in misery (and snot), and then forced myself to get up yesterday and make the first real steps towards moving on. That's how it goes...I have to disconnect from the sadness over things gone wrong and the goodbyes, and then re-engage more deeply into the goings on of everyday life. So, on that angle I know that I've come through the worst of it...my main concern of course is for Chance and Apollo and how they are coping with needing to move on to the next stage in their life.
To continue in the vein of the parable that niobe recently posted (it's a must-read if you haven't read), it's not my bag of troubles. I don't mean that flippantly, apathetically, or uncaringly. That is only to say that as a surrogate, I choose to pick up someone else's bag of troubles labeled "infertility and loss" and try to help shoulder the burden for a while. No matter what I must personally endure while carrying it, the bag doesn't belong to me and there comes a point when I have to give it back, even though I wish like all hell that I could still help somehow.
And of course, there is that touch of survivor's guilt that I even have the choice to set that load down, to regretfully have to push it back entirely on their shoulders and then turn around and have the shameful, yet reflexive audacity to feel at least a small sense of relief that I have the option in the first place, when they don't. After working so intimately and so in sync with with them for so long, it's a complicated untangling of my mindset from theirs, but this realignment of my mind is necessary and leaves me where I know I need to be -- taking a step back to a place alongside those of you who support Chance and Apollo by proxy of supporting me, and alongside those of you who also know Chance personally and have supported her for the past couple of years. We all try to support them best way we possibly can, hurting for them but still knowing that we have our own lives to lead. I know we all wish that the joys of parenthood could be known to Chance and Apollo, and we all hurt that their road can no longer be on a path in attempt to get them there.