It's been quite the week of appointments - Monday to the oestopath (about my sore lower back), Wednesday to the Dr (about my abdominal bloating) and today to radiology (a referral from the Dr). Turns out there is no cyst.
First thing this am there was an indication that AF was arriving. After five months of no periods, it is quite the surprise to have AF visit. I suspect that my bloating is hormonal this time round. After five months without a bleed, my body probably doesn't know what's going on.
It has been a tough week. I have been triggered on the SIF front on several occasions: first thinking I might be pregnant with a swollen belly and all, consequently facing a BFN, and then today going in for an ultrasound only to be reminded of my empty womb, one ovary and failing reproductive system. It has not been easy.
I just feel so alone and so tired of trying to get people to understand my SIF pain. The only people who get it of course are the ones also in it - the people I've met on-line through Dailystrength and RESOLVE.
I feel as if I just want to distance myself from pretty much everyone I know when my SIF grief flares up. Afterall, who is going to understand that getting a recent BFN could shatter my world when it's old news that I am infertile? The general feeling out there is - even without spelling it out - shouldn't you be over this already?
Well I'm not people. I'm close to three years of fighting/living/struggling with SIF. THREE YEARS. It does not get any easier. Time is not a healer, in this case.
I can only begin to heal when my family is deemed complete. I don't know why God cannot end this cruelty and just take my desire to have another child away. It would make things so much easier. But no, here I am, hanging in there, feeling like such a tragic fool.
I try so hard to budge my life to move somewhere beyond SIF but to no avail most of the time. Somehow my/our future with another child is all tied up with other areas of our life and so everything is on hold. I cannot bear to be in touch with those who have what I so desperately want when in the throes of my SIF grief. I do not want to hear how sweet life is for them. I cannot face it.
Sometimes, when the SIF pain lessens, and I am able to come out of my SIF cave; I can reconnect briefly, fleetingly with those I love. The trouble is my loved ones often take this to mean that I'm okay, I'm over SIF and I'm ready to be out there in the world again. But I'm not. I'm so not.
A week like today just illustrates how raw the pain of SIF can be. I am in such a catch-22 situation where I want someone to listen to my bleeding heart - but most of all, to understand it. Yet at the same time I don't want anyone to see this ugliness - the desperation, the jealousy, the bitterness, the pain - and the despair.
SIF would have to be one the loneliest things I've experienced in my life - and I've been through stuff. I saw a woman the other day with her family and her head was shaved - probably a cancer victim. I had sympathy for her - her kids were young. Yet I could not help but think what about us IFs and SIFs - nobody can see our suffering. It's invisible - infertility - so most forget or seem to forget that it exists.
I've had enough of this thing taking hold of me. I so look forward to the day when I can look back on SIF and say "That was a hard phase in my life but it's in the past now." Please God, don't let that day be too far away.
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