Chances of my getting pregnant are still firmly stuck at zero and the hope of a happy end for my family have never looked more grim. Although there have been many high hopes over the past three years, each has been methodically and mercilessly crushed. It's been a wild ride.
We who struggle to build our families because of infertility and/or loss have been involuntarily thrown onto a wild roller-coaster ride. There are dizzying peaks of hope (maybe this month we'll finally get lucky, perhaps this drug or surgery will be the answer, maybe this pregnancy will make it to term) followed by gut-wrenching plunges into the depths of despair (another pregnancy loss, more options tried and failed, perhaps an adoption that falls through). We all wonder how much longer we can hold on while being violently thrown around and often sustaining lasting injuries in the process.
Meanwhile, the normal people in the fertile world are watching in bewilderment as we soar and plummet. "Why don't they just get off?" they ask. "Just relax. Just give up." They think we're a bunch of sick masochists - that we chose to be here and can just as easily choose to get off. They're oblivious to the fact that they could just as easily have been plucked up and thrown kicking and screaming onto this horror ride. For some, it could still happen.
The thing about this ride is that even when you do eventually get off, you don't end up back where you started. For those who end up with a badly wanted child, that's a good thing. A very, very good thing. But for those who don't...well, it's a devastating place to be.
Every once in a while we see one of our fellow riders escape into the happy land of new parenthood. That's what keeps us going. Then again, we see others among us left bloodied, bruised, and broken again and again. We wonder when we'll reach the point when we just can't take it anymore. Will our physical, financial, or emotional limitations force us to give up this crazy up and down lifestyle in favor of the relative stability of chronic low-grade depression? That seems to be where I'm headed. After so many ups and downs, a more flat-line depression begins to look attractive.
