I breathe in, I breathe out

My Aunt’s Funeral: was beautiful.  I went along to the viewing, (which I had thought I wouldn’t) and stood with my siblings and cousins, watching over her and remembering things about her, having a laugh and a cry together.  It was very healing.  We all wore sprigs of lavender with purple ribbon pinned to our breasts.  Lavender was her favourite flower.  She held a lavender bouquet at her wedding in February, and another as she lay in her coffin just a few short months later.

Her hands looked so big.  I kept looking at her chest, waiting to see the rise and fall.  The finality of the stillness unnerved me.  I didn’t know what to say, most of the time.  There were lots of hugs and much weeping.  We got through a lot of tissues.

She had a great many friends.  Real friends, close friends.  She attracted a lot of people because she gave a lot of herself, smiled a lot, laughed a lot, listened well, never said a bad word about anyone, always looked on the bright side, hardly ever complained and just got on with it.

The service was very moving.  The room was filled with a couple of hundred people.  Although I sat between my Mother, husband and Father in the middle front row, I could tell the place was full.  The funeral director, one of my brothers, and a close family friend all said eulogies.  My Uncle compiled a montage/slideshow of photos old and new, from various parts of my Aunt’s life, which ran on a big screen at the end of the ceremony as my Aunt’s chosen song (Jeff Buckley’s version of Hallelujah) played, while her coffin drifted on those little rollers through the big glass doors.  It undid me.

After all the wailing and gnashing of teeth were done, many people joined together at her local pub to send her off with a toast and to share their memories of her in a more personal setting. We stayed til five and then drove the three and a half hours home.  It had been a long day.  

[During the gathering, my Uncle shared with me his experience of being present at the vigil for the two days before my Aunt’s death.  My grandparents, my Uncle, all my Aunt’s children, her husband and my mother (as palliative care nurse) camped out on the lounge room floor for 3 days, just being with her as she sat and dozed in and out of consciousness on the sofa.  Being with and supporting each other.  Having cups of tea.  Playing scrabble (her favourite game & she was a formidable opponent).  Saying goodbye.  It was very special and I am glad to have shared it, even if only vicariously.  My mother had also called me the second night and told me what was going on. Suggested my Aunt might not last until morning and perhaps I wanted to light a candle.  DH and I were playing scrabble at the time.  We felt a bit flat after the phone call and wondered if we wanted to continue the game.  I got a seven letter word in my next hand, but nowhere to put it.  The word was funeral.]

Pregnancy Announcement: On the way home from my Aunt’s funeral my best friend (IF, IRL)*  texted me to say she was pregnant.  We had a pact that whoever went first had to text the other (rather than phone or in person) and she had already let me know earlier in the week that she was three days late, so I was expecting it.  I even gave her one of my tests so she wouldn’t have to go to the chemist (small country town and all that).  She came over later in the week and DH wrote her out a path form for her beta, as it would have taken too long to get an appointment to see her doctor.  Her first beta was 10,000.  Her 6 week scan is today.

I won’t pretend it hasn’t been hard for me, but it has been different.  I haven’t felt angry or jealous or resentful.  But I have felt embarrassed and ashamed.  Odd, I know.  It has brought up feelings I had when still at school, where I was never picked for a team, but always left until last.  That’s exactly how I feel right now.  That shame, of not being good enough for someone to choose.  And along with that, a good dose of abandonment, as the person I shared this journey with is leaving me now.  ‘Crossing over to the other side’, as the IF community would say.  She is one of my closest friends in this town.  This is not going to be easy.  But I AM happy for her. Apart from anything else, it has been three years since her first and last pregnancy (that ended in miscarriage at ten weeks) and I know exactly what she’s been through.  Yay for her!

We have had the conversation about how we are both feeling.  I have told her that I want to share this pregnancy with her.  I want to cherish the next nine months of having her to myself, because soon I will be sharing her time and attention with a child and it will never be the same. I don’t want to cut myself off from her, as I have done with so many of my other friends.  This feels like a big step for me.  I have never shared anyone’s pregnancy journey before.  Actually been present for it, interested in it, engaged with it.  I don’t quite know what to expect, but I can guess it will be bringing up emotions for me all along the way.  I think this is healthy and I welcome that opportunity.  But I don’t suspect for a minute it is going to be a walk in the park.

However, it has been somewhat of a catalyst for making a commitment to embracing my existential crisis.  Really taking a good hard look at myself and my life and what I want.  What I think I can hold on to.  What part of me is the solid, the real, the true, and what is the transient, the suffering that I can let go of.

Bathroom renovation – intermission/light relief: The sander came this morning “to have a look at the job” and says he can maybe do it within a fortnight.  So that’s progress of a sort.  A two month bathroom renovation in the middle of winter was not what I had in mind, but there you go. Could be worse.  

White Light Essences – Water:  Another good friend dabbles in the art of Australian Bush Flower Essences and the White light essences are an extension of those, which work more on a spiritual plane.  Water is the first of these.  My friend warned me that it would probably make me cry for days.  I replied: no problem, I have been crying for over a week now anyway so it is not going to make much difference!

The Artist’s Way: Continuing on the theme of existential crisis, this is part of a conglomerate of things that are bringing a lot of emotional upheaval into my life at the moment. I am now into my second week of the course, though taking a rather slower approach.  I have only missed one ‘morning pages’ although I am still on exercises for week one and think I might take two or even three weeks to complete each ‘week’ of the course.  This is ok.  In fact it is good, because it is an example of where I am not sticking myself to some arbitrary rule and flogging myself to death over not achieving some standard I have set.  I am just allowing myself to take the time I need to plod through and make the most of the journey. It feels great, a real relief.

Meditation: Over the last week I have made time for meditation on most days, around 30 mins. I can’t believe I am finally doing this, after thinking about it and talking about it and wanting to do it for so long, I am actually building it into my life.  I loved the ten day Vipassana course I completed in November last year at the International Medication Centre.  I had planned to do another one this April, when the ectopic intervened.  I thought I needed it to spur me on, but I guess not.  Somehow I have just found myself ready to commit the space, and just to sit. Sometimes at night when the dinner is cooking itself, and sometimes in the morning if I get up early enough.  This morning I saw the pink clouds of dawn wafting past my window and the morning song of the warbling magpies.  It was beautiful.

Elimination Diet: Also over the past week I have found myself wanting to avoid sugar, alcohol, caffeine and cut right back on wheat and dairy.  It just felt right to do it and it hasn’t been a big deal like it often can be.  I find myself offering DH the Friday night chocolate and not feeling at all like I am missing out.  Yesterday I ate two pieces of shortbread my friend had made with her freshly picked macadamia crop.  It was delicious, but I felt a bit weird/wired? afterwards.  And it didn’t make me want to rush out and eat a packet of biscuits.  So I’m feeling lucky that it has been so easy to have a bit of a cleanse.   I’ll just keep going until I don’t want to do it anymore. See- flexibility!  No more bigger-than-Ben-Hur-rule-bound- extravaganza! Phew.

“The Work is a simple yet powerful process of inquiry that teaches you to identify and question thoughts that cause all the suffering in the world.  It is a way to understand what’s hurting you and to address your problems with clarity” [taken from the website].  You write down what is annoying you, then ask some questions, then try to turn it around.  I won’t go into it here, you can see for yourself if you want to click on the link.

And here’s the BIG offer of help:

Donor Egg:  OMFG.  The other best friend I have in this town, C, today just offered me her eggs. We were having a conversation about it over the phone about an hour ago and she just came out with it.  I haven’t even told DH yet.  

C is my shiatsu practitioner and I babysat her almost-one-year-old last night while she took a meditation class.  I was in the middle of a rather emotional and heated discussion with DH about where to go from here, (brought up by the RE’s letter in which he addressed our questions and basically had no treatment to add besides asprin and the HSG) and the fact that I couldn’t do the driving force/main researcher/ and advocate roles anymore and could he take them on please? (that’s the nice version) when I had to leave it all hanging and go off to the babysitting job.  So of course when C got home I blurted it all out to her.  Felt much better. Then did a bit more talking with DH when I got home.

This morning DH emailed me a link to the Australian guidelines for investigation and treatment of recurrent miscarriage.  Basically it does appear that we are very close to the end of the line. If not there already.  We have now decided to see the geneticist, the recurrent miscarriage specialist, the RE (all in Perth) and the RI (in Sydney) before we call this a day. Neither of us feel they will have too much to add, (besides offering us IVF again) but I think it might be useful for closure, to hear them say their pieces and tell us we tried everything we could and it’s not our fault and such like.  Some reassurance that we’ve done our best and we can let it go now.

And then C phoned and I told her the developments and how I was close to a decision to let it go because my options had narrowed so rapidly.  She asked “what about someone else’s eggs?” and I told her it was great in theory but the donor egg lists in this country are years long and realistically it isn’t going to happen – people just don’t donate their eggs here anymore.  I have a dear friend in the UK who would do this for me, but the logistics of that exercise via such distance just seem too much. 

And she said these words:  You can have mine.

Even if I don’t, for whatever reason comes along, take her up on the offer, just having someone say that and really mean it is probably the biggest gift I have ever been given.  I’m still crying over it.

Ok.  Now you can breathe out.