Dredging Up the Past

Therapy makes me sad. It makes me dredge up the past when I think the past should just stay where it is and not bother me here in the present. I spent most of the therapy session crying this morning and now I’m just tired, all worn out and used up from the emotional toll. I’m going through the motions and just trying to get through the day, but I really just feel like crawling in bed and bawling my eyes out. I don’t want to relive the pain from the past, to remember how deeply some of the things cut me, I don’t want to pick at old scars. My therapist has suggested I need to go back to some of these dark places so I can heal correctly and move forward. Maybe. But, I don’t want to wallow in it anymore. I’m tired of feeling all the hurt. I want to move forward into the (hopefully) brighter and better future. My therapist also thinks I hide my feelings behind the kids, meaning I use them to distract myself from the pains of the past. She is asking me to find a support group for women with infertility, in hopes that talking more about that bag of painful goodies will help me get over it. I really don’t want to go back there. There’s no point in talking about something that happened that has no solution. I was unable to get pregnant and have children. Period. The end. Talking with other women, who might still be in the throes of infertility treatment, isn’t going to change my position. It’s not going to change the fact that I had and have no hope in conceiving a child any more than I have hope to end world hunger or get Pluto reinstated as a planet. It will probably just make me mad, in fact. To hear other women talking about how hard it is to deal with the poking and prodding of infertility treatments or, worse, to hear how someone miraculously got pregnant after years of trying – well, that would just piss me off. I suppose that says a lot about me and my character, but it’s the honest truth. It’s not that I don’t want to applaud someone’s miracle and wish her the very best, I just don’t want to get into with her, I don’t want to join her story or share my own with someone who eventually won and got what she wanted. Because it only reminds me that her story is not my story and I don’t get a happy ending and there’s no miracle for me. It’s selfish, I know. This is why it’s better for me to stay away from it. Infertility isn’t me anymore. I’m done with that, I’m done with everything about it. Infertility robbed me of my life, of the life I thought I was going to live. It took everything away from me and left me broken and alone. I want nothing more to do with it.

I know my therapist is right about one thing. I do use the kids to hide behind when it comes to dating or trying to find a romantic partner. Some of it is logistics – finding time to get to know someone is hard when respite is never a given and using my own network is a no-no. But, some of it is me just giving up. The children give me a purpose, they give me a family, and so it’s easy enough to overlook my needs for intimacy when I have to be so concerned for the health and well-being of these “little” people. I guess you could say the children are my life. I don’t think I mean that in a bad way, like I don’t have my own identity or that I feel like I’ve lost myself, I just mean that all that I do revolves around making sure the kids are taken care of first. I find enough left-over for me to treat myself to small luxuries, but mostly I take great pride and joy in raising the children and I enjoy spending time with them. I don’t know, I guess I sound crazy. I do wish I wasn’t doing this alone, I wish there were someone here by my side, but I just don’t have the energy or strength to try to find that someone. I guess I just don’t have any hope that there is someone out there for me.

Last night I was holding Love Bug while Chica Marie played and Primero met with his therapist. Love Bug laid his head on my shoulder and I nuzzled him under my neck, sniffing the sweet scent of soap and hair lotion in his soft, fuzzy curls and it took me back to when he was so much smaller, just a little peanut. Suddenly I was struck with just how much this baby has grown and my heart hurt with just how much I loved him, but I also remembered how much he has changed since his mother last saw him. It saddened me to think how Love Bug wouldn’t even know her if he saw her. The children haven’t had a visit since early June and nothing will be decided for them anytime soon, since their next court date is in December. Chica Marie sometimes makes mention of her other mommy (the name she came up with for her biological mother, although I think when she’s with her mom I’m the other mommy), but she hasn’t asked to see her. She has asked to see her sister and her grandmother, but not her mom. Love Bug knows me as his mom because that’s what I’ve been to him since he was 3 days old. His smile never fails to melt my heart and now when he calls me momma (which isn’t that often) my heart rejoices to be so blessed to have this little boy. Still, my happiness comes on the heels of his mother’s great sadness and so that taints it a bit, to think of how much she has lost, how much she has missed. She doesn’t know he’s walking as well as he is or that he’s saying words now (he says Chica Marie’s nickname a lot and calls Primero “Ninny,” he also calls the dog Ella and says “nuh” for no). She hasn’t seen how tall he’s grown or how thick and long his hair has gotten. She can’t see all his teeth and how he’s getting his molars now. She doesn’t know how he eats by himself and makes a heck of a mess because he wants to feed himself. Babies grow so fast and she has missed so much, it’s heartbreaking. I don’t really know where things are at with their case, I don’t know what is happening or what to expect at the next court hearing in a few months. All I know is this little, precious life is in the center of my world and I am honored to be there to watch him grow and learn.