Dealing with Father's Day

So it was Father's day yesterday, a day to celebrate your da or if you choose not to, that's cool.  Earlier this week David received an invoice for the stored spermcicles from our failed IVF attempt in December.  This was out of the blue and it threw him, so he telephoned me at work to let me know.  He was sobbing a little and I started to cry too.  Then he apologised and said he shouldn't have but the pain is both ours so we needed to share it.

Mother's day was difficult for me this year, where I'd hoped to be pregnant with our warrior queens Juno and Hera, or at least one child, it wasn't to be.  So to see everyone celebrating Mother's day with gifts from their kids (I'm lucky enough to still have my mam so I celebrated her).  But I yearned for a Mother's day card from the bump (I'd never thought I'd ever want one of those cards and if David had got me one, I'd probably have taken the piss truth be told but secretly loved it.  Now I can't have one, it hurts).

 

I can only assume what I felt on Mother's day is what David felt yesterday. 

 

And then last night, I couldn't get to sleep because all that was going around my head is the fact that we will never have a child that is biologically ours, we'll never see what our genes smashed together would create.  Definitely blue eyes, but blonde or red hair?  Freckles?  Slightly sticking our ears?  Would they need to wear glasses?  What would their personality be like?  Fiery like me or quiet like David?

 

I don't know why I'm writing this; probably catharsis, but receiving the invoice for something that wasn't to be hit us both hard.  I'm still not emotionally over our IVF failure, I'm a little better.  David seems to handle things better, but sometimes at night, we have a little weep over what wasn't to be.

 

We're still taking a break from anything child related, aside from meeting friend's new children or seeing friends other kids.  And they're always an absolute delight to be around which can make it bittersweet.  We'd be incredible parents, I know we would.  And I know there's still time with adoption, but for now, we need to concentrate on us and rebuilding Tara and David as a couple before IVF came in, windmilling its arms and kicking its legs, battering us.

Hello blogger, my old friend

Hi.  Me again.  I know I only ever write when I’m upset or something catastrophic has happened to me and for that I’m sorry, but I’ve got to get this out.

I hit 36 in May of this year.  I’m getting on (in dog years, I’d be dead).  As every media outlet seems to delight in telling me, I’m not getting any younger, so I should probably start a family or something.  Well dear readers, I’ve tried (not like the Immaculate Conception, obvs) actually, I should probably say WE’VE tried, and nothing is happening.  And it’s probably all my fault.

I’m morbidly obese, according to the BMI scale.  And I’m shocking trying to do anything about it.  Sure, we both try to eat healthier, but as with everything, that falls off during the month until we’re just eating junk and crap and getting takeaways instead of cooking.  And each time, I beat myself up, each time, I fall back there.  And I’m not an emotional eater; if anything I’m an emotional starver.

To add to things, I can’t exercise at the moment due to a stupid trip down the stairs that’s fucked my hip up (I can’t tell you how excited I am to have a man jam a steroid injection into my hip joint – but I don’t know when that’s going to happen – could be a fortnight, could be November).  So my movements are very restricted, walking can be agony at times, so treadmill running (which I actually enjoy) is way out of the question.

So being a fatty isn’t conducive to conception, it certainly also means that IVF isn’t an option either.  I’m so desperate to lose weight AND have a child that it’s all I can think about.  If I wasn’t such a great big fucking fat mess, then we’d be swimming in kids now, probably.  I’ve even enquired about a gastric bypass so that I can’t eat the world.  My circle of close friends, bar one, have at least one child.  I’ve jokingly said to my friend who has four that should she pop out another, could she just let me have it instead?  It’s easy to try to laugh it off; it isn’t so easy to hide the pain and the tears regarding a situation that is ultimately probably my own making.

I know I probably shouldn’t be whinging on about how I’m fat, I’m well aware it’s my own fault, it’s just losing weight isn’t easy, especially when you suffer with depression, low self-esteem and that nagging feeling that you’re an embarrassment to your friends and loved ones due to your size.  I grew up with the mind-set that fat cannot be attractive, although there are hundreds of THOUSANDS of exceptions to this rule.  I found myself perusing ‘pro ana’ sites as I browsed for which VLCD was best.  And that frightens me, but then again,  I’ve felt like a failure for not being able to develop an eating disorder for fucks sake – how screwed in the head am I?  Like that is how any normal person thinks.  I’ve downloaded a ‘virtual gastric band’ hypnosis app, knowing that it’ll just be mumbo jumbo bollocks and won’t help me a jot (still going to try though, I have to). 

I suppose this is heading, ultimately, to the fact that I am just terrified that I am never going to have a child of my own, I’m never going to give birth, hold nine months’ worth of work, blood, cells, love; nine months’ worth of David and me mixed together into a teeny tiny mewling pink ball of new human.  I know there’s adoption which is something that we’ve discussed in the past, but to me, right at this moment in time, I want to feel how being pregnant feels, the tiredness, the puke, the ankle swelling, the constant need for weeing, the contractions, all of it.

If I start dieting now, I don’t know how long it will take for me to get to a weight where I can actually realistically conceive, assisted or not.  I’m scared I’ll be too old; I’ll be 40 or over.  But Christ knows, I have to do it, I have to try.

 

Try harder, you stupid critter.