Lost in the woods

I was in the middle of a complicated piece of work this afternoon, sitting at my desk and minding my own business- when suddenly and for no particular reason- I had a strange and vivid memory.

When I was a child, we lived in a house in the woods, in rural Nowheresville. Every day I walked down a quarter mile of gravel lane (past the scary dogs at the neighbouring farm) to catch the yellow school bus, and every day I trudged up the lane again, lugging my heavy school bag. Over the years, my parents gradually bought up all the parcels of woodland surrounding the family homestead, until we had our own little forest around us. It was peaceful, but isolated. On winter nights I used to wake up and press my face against the cold window, watching the deer grazing in the front lawn, a raw sliver of icy moon in stark branches against the sky.

My parents being of an environmentally friendly, economically conservative bent, the house was heated by a combination of a coal stove in the basement and a log burning fire in the living room. For my dad, the axe, the chain saw and the coal scuttle was a big part of daily life. Before I became too cranky and wild with teenage hormones, I would sometimes go into the deep woods with him to help chop logs and load the wheelbarrow full of firewood.

One day, I got lost. I had wandered off to find the stream which ran through the property to rinse my hands, and on the way back, I somehow missed the vague trail leading back to where my dad was working. In the forest in early winter, all the trees looked the same. Terrified, I tried to retrace my steps, looking for something familar, something recognisable. After an hour, I realised I was simply going around in a big circle, passing the same grey tree stump over and over. I was about to sit down to wait for someone to find me when I heard my father calling me- all that time, he had been so close by, virtually right next to me. We rolled the wheelbarrow home together. But I stopped spending so much time in the woods after that.

When the IVF failed, I lay on my bed with my hands folded across my stomach. E. went to make soothing cups of tea. And I had that dreadful feeling again- of someone who has walked a long, long way. Thousands of miles, through heat, storms and the darkest, blackest woods- only to discover that when I finally looked up from the path, I was right back where I started. That in fact, I hadn't moved an inch. All that pain and time and trouble, but the essential position was no different. Not pregnant. No baby.

I had gone around in a big circle in every sense of the word. It was a horrible, brutal realisation to discover that despite all our best efforts, we were simply, truly, back at square one with absolutely nothing to show for it. And some days, like today, it hurts to realise that this is where I stay- where I may be trapped forever.

I think what I have come to find hardest about infertility is that it's often very difficult, if not impossible, to find meaningful lessons from it. Everything about it feels so stupid and pointless. With many other challenging life experiences, we can sometimes turn around afterwards and say, "OK, that sucked the biggest of donkey balls, but as a result I am a better, wiser person. That which does not kill us makes us stronger, yadda yadda."

But with infertility, I often find it incredibly difficult to put a positive spin on the death of this particular dream. I can't yet find the good in it, at all. I can't see how the end result facing me is truly meant to balance out all the equations of my life. I know I don't want to keep going around in circles forever, but at times, I don't know how to begin to find my way back to safety either.

When you are this deep in the woods, all the trees look the same.

Comments

[Alexa]

Mare, I am so sorry, I wish I could say something along the lines of "Well, here, this it what it means!" but I just don't know. I am in the woods too, still. (Really though, this was a beautifully written post.) The problem I find in looking for meaning in infertility is that meaning seems to depend upon whether the cycle works. Not that it is "easy" to find meaning in it then, it just feels less like being caught in a hamster wheel, if you know what I mean.

[Ami]

This is exactly why I keep coming back to read your blog. You ability to perfectly articulate your feelings is enviable. I'm sorry you feel like you're getting nowhere; I'm praying for a healthy baby or two for you.

[Lisa]

I know what your feeling. I agree with you. There's not really a way to put a positive spin on infertility. Our fertile friends envy us for our free time, but I want to be up all night with a screaming baby. I guess it will teach us to appreciate our future children.

[T]

It might be a while til you find what you're looking for - the positive spin is very elusive. But, if you look closely at the trees, you'll be able to see small distinguishing marks. Thinking of you.

[instamom]

like many of your readers, i wish i could say something to make you feel better. i can't. i guess that sometimes, it is better to say nothing than to say something "dumb" just to say something. i hope that it helps to know that we are very sorry you are going through this really difficult time

[Meg]

I feel lost too and frustrated like I'm going around in circles. Thanks for the great post.

[Caroline]

Delurking to say what a beautiful post that was. I often feel that all of this treatment is just spinning our wheels and at the end of the day we will end up at the same place - no where. Thanks for providing a good analogy for that. I hope that you find your way out of the woods soon.

[DD]

It's the IF Box Step: one step up, one step rt, one step back, one step lt, repeat...

One would reason you wouldn't be able to make progress with such a step, but eventually you find yourself moving around the dance floor. On-lookers (a.k.a. lurkers) see you as the dancer, and marvel at how smoothly and practiced you look.

So even though you feel as if have gone nowhere, you have grown. If you hadn't progressed in some way, you wouldn't have so many of us watching, waiting, knowing that one of these days (and I pray in the very near future), you, too, can announce two pink lines, increasing betas, conclusive US, etc., etc. I know that your dance partner is sitting out this next song, but he'll catch his wind and you two will be ready to face the next challenge head-on.

[fisher queen]

It was a beautifully written post. I'm so sorry you're feeling this way.
All respect- but I don't believe you haven't learned anything. It's not possible to go through this much pain and not at the very least gain a broader empathy and a confidence in your own strength.
I hope you find those marks on your trees and some others too to help you get home.

[Karen]

Beautifully put, and very true. I've always felt that I learned SOMETHING through my infertility, and something valuable, but that I learned it in the first damn year, and all the rest is just piling on.

[Betsy]

Wow!! Thanks for expressing so beautifully what so many of us are feeling!!

As the second anniversary of my initial consult came and went a few weeks ago, this is exactly what I was feeling. I could have foregone IUIs, IVFs, miscarraiges and negatives and still been in the same place - with a lot more money and still no baby.

After lots of looking, I did find one thing different as I circled back around - I have realized that I am a lot stronger than I ever thought I could be. (And I can give myself shots! Big whoop!) Sometimes it doesn't seem like much, but I hope that realization will help me get through whatever lies ahead - baby or no.

I hope you find your own meaning in all this. And I hope for your success.

[mm]

You said it, girlfriend. Sure IF can make you stronger but so the fuck what? I'd have been perfectly happy to go through life, fertile and weak.

[pixi]

I struggle with similar feelings. Still, I'm hanging on to the hope that I'll make it out of the IF "forest." And I'll use any path--ART, adoption, surrogacy...whatever it takes.

I do worry about the toll, however. All these setbacks and ups & downs. Maybe someday I'll feel wiser and stronger for having gone through it. Right now I feel a bit broken.

Thanks for your post on this. Obviously there are many who share your feelings, and somehow it helps to find them written down in such an articulate and powerful way.

[Jill]

What a lovely post. I often feel the same way.

Through four miscarriages over more than three years of unsuccessfully trying to have a baby, I suppose I have become stronger and more empathetic, I feel more confident in my marriage because the trials and tribulations have drawn us together rather than splitting us apart, and I definitely will have a deeper appreciation of parenthood if I ever attain it...but for crying out loud, I learned those lessons years ago after my first or second loss! I'm not a slow learner, so I don't understand why I keep having to repeat the same class.

Basically, I feel like I am missing out on the Big Lesson that I am supposed to be learing from this, too. But I think that the Big Lesson often is obscured from our view when we're still in the midst of the struggle, which you and I most definitely are. That doesn't mean that the lesson doesn't exist; it just means that we can't see it yet. I am still holding on to hope that one day I will find my way out of the woods and eventually can look back and say "Aha! Now that it is all over, I can see what I was supposed to learn."

[wessel]

Yes, yes, yes: everything you said.

Not only do I not find meaning or increased wisdom from all this pain, but I am losing patience with people who have gone the way before me and claim to have found meaning or garnered wisdom. Yeah? So what. And anyway, I don't believe it! (But I admit I'm just being negative and ungracious--of course, everyone has the right to find meaning in their pain, and if it made them wiser, well, more power to them.)

[JJ]

You awe me.

[Cat]

It's so very true. They look the same. Thinking of you and hoping a trail out of those woods becomes clear soon.

[chris]

I would trade all the empathy and knowledge I've learned from being a recurrent miscarrier just to be a normal person. Sounds awful, but it's true. I'm really sick of this.

[Heidi]

*Nodding*

I can't think of anything to say. You know I so understand. I wish I could show you the way out of the woods, but I don't think anybody takes the same trail. Love you...

[Sandy]

I echo the "beautifully put" comments. I am often unable to see the forest for all the trees that I've bumped up against since starting on this journey in 1994. 1994. Eleven fricking years. Two marriages. One that should never have born children anyhow, but I have a hard time understanding how this near perfect man that I am now married to and I cannot bring a perfect child....any child....into this world. I struggle to see the lesson, and I am a person who can find a lesson in just about anything.

Yep. Beautifully put. Thanks.

[thalia]

Yup, I'm right there with you. I don't begrudge others their learning, if they can manage it, through this shitty process, but I don't want that need to have learnt something to be inflicted on me. That's pretty much what I wrote last week when I was pondering the shittiness of Ovagirl's failed cycle, the same day that Persephone and kate got their good news. Who gets to pick that Ovagirl is shit out of luck but of course can learn something from that and Persephone is lucky and has nothing to learn? I don't buy it. Either way round.

As always, thank you for your eloquence.

[Helen]

Do things is life have to have meaning though? Are obstacles put in our way to make things difficult so that we learn lessons? I don't think so. Life is just one big lottery, sometimes its great, sometimes its shit. Some people get cancer, some people don't, millions die in natural disasters. I hope poor old Christopher Reeve didn't spend all those years paralysed in his wheelchair trying to think what his lesson might be. I suppose I am not one of those people who ever thinks "that was meant to be, that was not meant to be". I'm just a cynical atheist. I wouldn't wish infertility on my worst enemy, no matter how wise they might become. I suppose it can increase ones emphathy towards others, but a year of the experience is enough to do that. In short, don't bother trying to put a positive spin on it. Accept that its just awful and very unfair. Be miserable and feel sorry for yourself until you can bear it no longer, then go out and get pissed and dance!

[fisher queen]

Wow you all are depressing me (imagine, on an infertility blog).

Maybe I'm clinging to my lessons b/c I desperately need something good to have come from this, but I really do think I have learned some wonderful things and have become a better person. Maybe I was an awful person before! Very possible.

They haven't given me all the answers, and I am very jealous of the people who haven't had to go through this, but at the same time, I look at them and know that I have a deeper wisdom than many of them do.

Thalia, I thought that post was anything but nihilistic.

I'm going to have to post on this. It's making me crazy. Mare, I hope I haven't overstepped my bounds on your comments section. I'm new here, so don't know how much back and forth you like. I'm just feeling bad for us (for so many reasons) but right now because of this issue in particular.

[fisher queen]

And I don't disagree with Helen, BTW.

[Emily]

You write so beautifully, so eloquently. I am in awe and envy your talent for wrapping up these difficult emotions in a tidy way and convey it to your readers.

I totally hear you on this. Three years later and I constantly feel that my life is one big Zeno's Paradox and I will never, ever get to my goal.