The Terrifying Highs! The Dizzying Lows! The Creamy Middles!

Seventy million years ago, when I was trying to get pregnant and thought I might have a respectable shot at it, I imagined this. Heck, I even imagined it written by Julie. Because, obviously, I'm prescient like that. But that was the struggle I imagined for myself: a carefully watched pregnancy after infertility, a turbulent flight, an uncertain white-knuckle landing.

Now I find myself: living in a shotgun shack! In another part of the world! Behind the wheel of a large automobile! Signed up with an adoption agency! I crammed that infertility in an old Doc Martens box and stuck it out in the garage, where it'll turn up some hot summer years hence, amidst the high school research papers ("Slaughterhouse Five and Catch-22: A Comparison and Contrast") and that Replacements tape I wore out while I wrote them. Hey, but it fit! Infertility fit in the Docs box! And now I don't have to look at it anymore.

Then I found this thing I didn't even know I had. I didn't even know they made these. I think, I'm not sure, I can't really tell from the wrapper, but it looks like it's coated in ... survivor's guilt. Maybe with a gooey caramel layer of ... more guilt. I know, right? Who would even make such a thing?

(This candy metaphor, I think it's going to pay off. See, even before I realized there was such a thing as Derrida, I had this habit of deconstructing the central source of pleasure and meaning in my life: candy bars. The method requires delicate toothwork and judicious use of the tongue, pleasures in and of themselves, but how rewarding it is: to experience each component as a solitary note! The swirling chaos of a Snickers bar breaks down to the outer layer of chocolate, eaten first; the salty, savory-sweet nougat layer, and then, always last, the buttery-sugary peanut-caramel layer, so dense and crunchy in the back teeth. All together I find the confection overwhelming, choking in its sweetness; but taken alone, o! What textures! What flavors! Do it to a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup and you are free to experience the thick gritty peanut butter without the interference of the chocolate, which breaks off so delicately around the edges -- feel the little ridges on your lips! -- and requires a bit more care to remove the flat top and bottom.

If you're going to try it, fifteen minutes in the freezer will intensify the contrasting textures, and render any bar more easily fractured.)

So let's take it apart, huh?

For a while now, since my Meltdown of Decision, I've had a hard time reading certain blogs. Infertility blogs and pregnancy blogs. It's not painful to look at them, doesn't dig into my soul with fishhooks of That Which I Will Never Have. No, it's more like the blood supply to the part of my brain that was invested in that world got cut off. I had a thinking-about-fertility stroke. (It's okay, though; I'm making great strides in therapy, with the part of my brain that cares about baseball compensating.) Essentially I feel like I abruptly deserted a cohort of friends. And though I'm back to keeping up with other blogs, I still feel a smidge guilty over that, even though I know it's completely understandable.

But wait! There's more!

It's not just that I couldn't be invested any longer. It's that when I'd read those myriad courageous, funny, deep-feeling writers, and marvel at their strength and grace and willingness to meet excruciatingly painful challenges, I'd think: Am I missing out on something? Have I revealed myself as a shallow pain-averse loser? Have I just run out on a set of experiences that would deepen my compassion, make me an amazing person? Is this whole switching-right-now-and-fairly-easily-to-adoption thing all just one big evasion of my duty to suffer? Is making the choice that makes me happy a cop-out? Do I just suck?

And you know, I didn't like wondering about that. So I bailed.

Now in my clearer, caffeinated moments, of course I realize how deeply warped that is. Struggle for struggle's sake? Entering the Pain Contest to win a biologically-related child I don't value any more than the one I'm going to adopt! That's way fucked up, yo. And clear evidence of what a few rounds in the ring with infertility will do to your brain: the constant reassessment of emotional state, the painstaking evaluation of motives. Self-doubt and lack of entitlement. Come and get it.

And I know, I know, that the process of open adoption, and then of PARENTING(!!!), will deepen my compassion, break me down and build me up in ways I can't foresee. There will be pain aplenty, and joy aplenty, and worry and boredom and Cheerios, and in the end I'm not going to care that my blog got kind of boring. Note, if you will, that none of my fears had to do with whether I'd be okay, or a good mother, or a "real" mother.

I am so used to unearthing hidden rusted things that it has been difficult to accept that, for me, the choice to stop treatment (before having run out of options) and enter an adoption program was a very clear one, and -- compared to many people I know -- a very easy one. I'm happy. I'm really, truly, joyfully happy about this, and what doubts and worries I do have, have been easily addressed by a phalanx of wonderful supportive people, on this blog, on others, via that oh-so-sweet backchannel action.

So of course I feel guilty about that too.

That's the -- what, hazelnut? -- at the center of this elaborate metaphorical candy-thing. I am actually having to tell myself: It's okay, little Joey! It's okay to be happy! And to be happy about being happy! It doesn't make you an asshole if you are happy when your friends are not. (Well, unless you show up on their front porches screeching about how they should just shut up and be happy too, ungrateful harpies! Then you will be, I assure you, an asshole.) Happiness isn't a limited, transferable commodity; my happiness isn't depriving somebody else of hers. Of course this will be embarrassingly obvious to everyone but me. Kind of like tucking your skirt into the back of your pantyhose.

What's more: it is possible, I am trying to tell myself, that I might be a worthwhile person even when I'm not demonstrating my fortitude in a mighty struggle against despair. Even when my humor isn't borne of suffering. I am strong even when I'm not fighting. Interesting when I'm not broken.

Holy crap, I literally just realized that I had this discussion with a therapist when I was in the eighth grade. I wasn't buying it then. Guess I had to figure it out on my own.

I am such a dork.

And I am putting that candy bar down.

Comments

[Julia]

Ah, sweet Jo. To each their own road, right?

I don't care how you get your baby, just so long as you do. And I can't stand you feeling even an eensy bit guilty about it because... well, as my mother would say, "that's just plain silly."

But do keep the candy talk comin'.

[Mollie]

Well, you know that I know EXACTLY what you mean. Thank you for writing this. I, too, have often felt like I took the "easy" way, even though adoption presented plenty of its own heartbreaking challenges. But I embraced it with a full and grateful heart, and signed on for the whole package, highs and lows. It didn't scare me or put me off at all. I felt jubilant and relieved and positive for the first time in years! I was eternally thankful for whatever it was in me that let me "skip ahead" to what I felt was inevitable anyway, that being me as a mother. Spare me the out-patient procedures, thanks.

For some reason or another, I got a keen sense that things that might have been up ahead in the ART landscape were things I just didn't want to deal with, and quit before I started (though husband had surgery). I marvelled at women who went that way, and didn't think I was missing anything. But once in a while I read a blog so full of pain, and suffering, and heartache, and it's all about that person embracing the highs and lows of ART, something I ran from.... and I feel that "survivor's guilt" or just "lucky person guilt" or something. Or I wish somehow I could "skip them ahead" to happiness, the way I found it.

But once you have IF, you have choices to make. Choose this, choose that. It's personal. I am grateful to be happy; for me, IVF would have been self-punishing, and I refused to be cruel to myself. I wasn't cut out for it and I knew that. Call it weakness, call it laziness, or just call it clarity, but I'm happy with the choices I made. And I am thrilled that you are, too. I wish it for everyone who faces these sometimes less-than-delectable choices.

[wavery]

Very occasionally I have made a decision that once acted out, seemed just 'right.' Things click into place, resistance is nil, progress is made. Sometimes even, that progress is smooth.

That's where you seem in my view. You made a choice that is working well for you.

Good for you. We (I) need to observe people making tough choices and getting rewarded for it. It's part of tolerating this endless wait. It's hopeful, and thank you for that.

[Kay]

Nothing IF related - but I eat my Snickers bars the exact same way. Yummy!

[dish]

Jo,

You soooo do not suck, and you deserve every single sugar-coated morsel of happiness that you find in this process. You've sided with your heart and that's going to make you happiest in the end.

[jen]

Oh, I so know the feeling, but you and Mollie up there both explain it better than I could. I felt for a while like I was wimping out, in some vague way, that I couldn't hack the IF rollercoaster and decided to get off and therefore I am a weenie scaredy-cat. Whenever someone said "I don't know how you're doing it, I couldn't do that!" I'd jump in and explain how IF was soooo much harder and really this is nothing in comparison. I don't know why. I knew I couldn't deal with IVF and in comparison homestudies and paperchasing was a freaking walk in the park for my. I kept thinking "wait, shouldn't this be harder?" Then I somehow got to a place where I was able to say to myself that no, it DOESN'T HAVE TO BE HARDER. This is hard enough, and it's right enough, and it's the good thing for us, and that's all there is to it.

But I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who has freaked like that.