letting go, again

I’ve been trying to find some way to address this issue, to deal with it in real life and to write about it. But I haven’t.

Back in December 2008, nine months ago, we got (yet another) bill from our (in)fertility clinic for frozen storage. After our IVF failed despite a great response, we tried an FET in March 2008 that represented our “last hope” for a biological child. We doubted whether it would work, given my history, but there was reason to try.

After it failed we still had embryos remaining, though we were not convinced they would ever = real live baby. My RE (aka Dr. Reassuring) later convinced me not to view the remaining frosties as the “bottom of the barrel” since they can’t yet predict how each embryo will respond in the human body. She encouraged us to try again, at some point down the road.

Of course we never went down that road and chose a different path instead. We know we chose the right path for us; it led us to our child, the baby I truly believe we were meant to parent.

The truth is, with my wounded womb, I was unlikely to ever carry a baby to term, even with amazing new scientific advances. I know this now. It took me years to believe it, to know it in my heart. But I know this to be true.

I will never be pregnant again. I will never carry a baby to term. That door, if it ever was open, is closed now.

It was this realization that allowed me to finally face the irrefutable fact of my infertility and ultimately learn to accept it. This realization, painful as it was, enabled me to find a way to keep moving forward instead of continuing to spin in my tracks forever.

Yet these microscopic cells — created in December 2007 and now stored in a tiny tray tucked away somewhere in a seven story building downtown — still represent the lost hope of our biological children. Frozen in time, these little clusters captured a part of a 38 year old Luna and 41 year old M desperately trying our luck at what was, for us, an impossible gamble.

Those frozen clusters are the only thing we have conceived in four years, since I became pregnant with the son we lost. In reality, they are the last thing we will ever conceive, as I near the end of my supposedly “fertile” years.

They are a part of us — our past and our lost future. And it’s time to let them go.

Piled on my desk are several pages of official looking forms that we need to review and sign after informed consent and a visit to the notary, and return to our official sounding institution. We did this all once before. But these documents have been sitting here for months, and the pestering calls keep coming. Seems they need to know whether we would like to donate our frosties to research or have them destroyed. Great.

I wish I could view these little clusters as “life,” but I can’t. They represent a mere chance at life. In my body, they have no chance of becoming a real living, breathing baby. How is that life? (This is a rhetorical question; no need to answer it from a scientific or religious perspective, especially since I might not publish your comment. Hey, it’s my blog.)

Had we any faith that they were decent enough quality — along with a bank account that could withstand another huge gamble — I might still be fantasizing about finding a surrogate to try again and complete our family. I may have “resolved” my infertility but I still want Baby J to have a sibling.  But that’s not going to happen any time soon.

No, these cells represent the hopes and dreams we once had that have since faded away. A final loss, perhaps.

Yet it’s still hard to sign on that dotted line.

I didn’t even want to write about this. I just wanted to avoid the whole situation. In fact, I refused to even discuss it for about a year. But a recent heartbreaking post by Lost in Space brought to the surface all the emotions this loss raises. (Thanks also to  Mel for highlighting this post in the Friday Roundup. It was just what I needed to read in a very cathartic sense.)

~ by luna on August 25, 2009.