Willing the G-ds of Fate

I’m still at the tail end of the two week wait. We are trying to decide if it’s best to have the nurses give me the news of my blood test, or have them call the Bear. I want to be IN CONTROL and hear it, but I don’t want to be stuck between meetings weeping in the bathroom stall (as before….).

Sometimes it feels like the movie“Goundhog’s Day” where we remain in a cycle of horrific repetition. We get the same news every time. I am always told I am pregnant, but the numbers are too low. They make me do other bloodtests and wait till the number is zero before they leave me alone. It makes me feel like my soul is holding on to a faint heartbeat that is getting slower and slower until it stops. It’s been terribly painful for both my husband and me.

Obviously I cannot control fate, but if I can break out of the cycle of repetition, perhaps I am doing something in my small way to WILL the g-ds of fate to give us a new solution. What if I do everything differently on the day of our blood test? Here are some of my ideas so far. I'd love additional feedback and other ideas. Even silly or outlandish ones....


1. I will wear something very bright, even though it's winter in New England. That way the g-ds of fate may take notice and I will proclaim "This is the day!"
Maybe I'll wear a lucky necklace or something I haven't worn before...


2. I will get my blood drawn at another location.


3.I will have massive sex the night before. That's not something I would normally do before the test.


4. I will begin the day eating something unconventional- like ICE cream for BREAKFAST.


5. I will leave myself little notes of affirmation at work, so no matter what the news, I will see these little wise and supportive thoughts.


6. I will go to temple a few days before. It will be Hanukkah no less! (If I am not feeling particularly Jewish, I will create my own little temple and say a prayer somewhere...)


7. I will send myself flowers...(????)I have not done that- so no matter what the outcome I will get a little present of love.


8. I will leave a little WISH note in the third stocking we have hanging on the mantle. That way our wish is out in the universe. 


Any other ideas???????? Any favorites.


Please say a little prayer for us and our embies! Every little bit helps....

IVF and the Newlywed: Hope and a Wish

"Sometimes our fate resembles a fruit tree in winter.

Looking at its sad appearance who would think that

those stiff branches, those jagged twigs

would turn green again and blossom

and bear fruit next spring;

but we hope they will,

we know they will."

                        -Goethe

This quote was recited on National Public Radio this morning during “The Writer’s Almanac”. It touched me in a way my own thoughts and words cannot.

It reminds me that we each have such a great capacity for beauty, grace and love. I used to think that if our lives resembled trees, family and children would be one of the branches. Now I know, that for me, it is the trunk, the root. The green core of my center.

I think I will go to the sea this weekend and throw in a stone in to the water. I will make a wish, and part of that wish will be reserved for YOU as well (yes YOU, reading this!). If all of our wishes were cast out onto the sea at the same time, imagine how the current would change, the waves would crest and the weather would beckon different tidings.

What could it hurt? I think of the childhood story, “Horton Hears a Who,” when all the Who’s shouted “We are here! We are here!” and a large, courageous roar was heard from the strata of a dustball. What if we all made a wish, for ourselves, for the other women and men experiencing this baby-making journey, for all the babies lost and found. What if we ALL did this, just put love and hope and healing power out there? Do you think we would FEEL IT?

I do.

It’s Goethe’s birthday today. He was a famous German writer and philosopher who seemed to have changed the world in his time. Born in 1749, he lived for 83 years. What do you suppose Goethe would think, if he knew his quotes were translated to English in a COUNTRY that did not exist for most of his younger life, recited over the RADIO, pulled from the INTERNET and re-presented on a BLOG about IVF ?

Oh, the power of words.

What would my day have been like if I had not awoken to reading this quote from the Writer’s Almanac on my Blackberry this morning? The sun casting long shadows into our small bedroom. My body aching for a sign. Just something to hold on to today as we form the next steps of our journey and prepare for the emotional load.

I feel like I can hear my grandmother’s voice telling me to “breathe”, and reassuring me that all I need can be found inside myself, if I dig for it and believe in it. It will happen…Whatever that path or journey, wisdom and experience are to be found with each change of direction….

I don’t know what’s next for us. IVF again, a break, Donor eggs, Adoption? Each path offers it’s own bliss and shortfalls. What I can do TODAY however, is try my damnest to treasure these moments in between. The sun on my face, the strength in my backbone, a radiant, beating heart.

Wishing you strength, wisdom and JOY!

M

Another poem on the Almanac today:

Not Swans

by Susan Ludvigson

I drive toward distant clouds and my mother's dying.

The quickened sky is mercury, it slithers

across the horizon. Against that liquid silence,

a V of birds crosses-sudden and silver.

They tilt, becoming white light as they turn, glitter

like shooting stars arcing slow motion out of the abyss,

not falling.

          Now they look like chips of flint,

the arrow broken.

          I think, This isn't myth-

they are not signs, not souls.

                                        Reaching blue

again, they're ordinary ducks or maybe

Canada geese. Veering away they shoot

into the west, too far for my eyes, aching

as they do.

      Never mind what I said

before. Those birds took my breath. I knew what it meant.

"Not Swans" by Susan Ludvigson, from Sweet Confluence: New and Selected Poems. © Louisiana State University Press, 2000

FIND IT HERE: The Writer’s Almanac http://www.elabs7.com/functions/message_view.html?mid=837262&mlid=499&siteid=20130&uid=6959020fe3