Washing the Dirty Laundry

Well the fertility "vacation" has officially come to a screaching halt.

Did I say "screaching"? I meant "screaming, crying, yelling" screaching halt.

As it turns out, having time off from fertility treatments actually just allows you to sit back and think about what has happened and what's to come and what's changed and who's handling what and how badly. While you're going through the treatments, you don't have time for that stuff. Then suddenly we have all this free time and it's given us a moment to stop, look back, recollect and think: "Holy shit, our marriage has some issues. How did THAT happen?"

After a fabulous day just hanging out together yesterday, we went to a wine tasting. Then took home a bottle of wine which we sat out on the porch and sipped. Which led to talking, which lead to the realization that we both have some major emotional scars, neither one of us believes another round of IVF will work, he's got guilt for the fertility issues, I've got guilt for the cycles not working. I've got mass amounts of anger, which spills out on a daily basis, usually in the form of me overracting to the smallest things. His guilt culminates into him drinking, smoking and generally being irresponsible with his body...which in turn makes me think if he's going to jeopardize our chances of IVF, he must not really care as much as I do, which leads to the never ending loop of more anger. And you know the saying - "when momma ain't happy, nobody's happy."

So after an hour conversation (in which no one was happy)...during which there was a good bit of yelling, arguing, crying, storming out of the room, then storming back in...we've decided:

we need help.

Despite the fact that it was a fight that even Don King would've been proud of, it was a good thing. We aired out laundry we didn't even know we had. We brought up issues the other had forgotten, or didn't know was important. We've been going at this too long with the attitude of "if we could just have a baby, all these problems will go away." It would definitely solve The Great IVF Financial Crunch of '07, but in the end, we'd be just another stupid undeserving couple with a darling little baby, and marriage issues. How stupid would we feel? Going through 4 years of infertility battling for a baby we so desperately want, only to get it and realize we're completely unhappy. It almost seems like the perfect ending to this rocky journey.

By the end of our talk, we both felt better, we felt closer and we (finally) both agreed that we can't handle all this on our own - it's simply too big. We're now on the hunt for a therapist to get us back on track before the next cycle, and to help us along as we go through it. I don't think we need a total overhaul, we just need somebody to help us make sense of it all. We need an outsider perspective to translate between us.

And in the spirit of eternal hope, lasting hilarity and the ongoing cynical view of the Medical Establishment that we've both come to harbor, my husband's final thoughts after all this were:

"If insurance covers therapy, and not IVF...I'm going to be. so. pissed."

What can I say? I love this man.