The Weight of Waiting

The next right thing was sleep, but she could only really do the wrong thing which was let her chest feel heavy over the weight she was carrying, even if it meant losing some sleep for a while. Sometimes thinking can be a detriment when you do it too much, but sometimes in the quiet of night you like the safety of your mind swirling things around as you're trying to make sense of things. You have all the time in the world - you’re just tired too.

One of the highlights of each nighttime routine with her husband was looking at the word game he would play and working as a team to solve it. There is always a grid of 16 words. The words don't seem to go together but there are four groups of four words that all have themes, and you have to decide how the groups are themed. Maybe having a puzzle like that right before sleep has not only been the solace of collaboration time with her husband, but a way to orient her mind on a singular task. It's so rare that only one task is on her mind.

There's always that let down when you finish the puzzle and he turns over and starts snoring within 5 minutes and there you are to commence your overthinking in the safety of your mind. It’s familiar and calm while also unorganized and dysregulating.

Not only does he have the superpower to fall asleep almost anywhere and pretty quickly, but he probably never overthinks about anything. I'm sure that's wrong, but I won't overthink that.

10:12pm

“That was an easy one tonight!” he said to her before a quick kiss. As he stood up to turn off the light and plug in his phone, she already started drifting into her mind. She was tempted to start a conversation with him so she didn’t fall apart, but he really should’ve been asleep an hour ago since he wakes around 4:30am. She decided to simply process. Normally, she does that by talking, but the art of thinking is tricky but necessary.

The last 43 days compressed into many seconds of thoughts… This cycle has been a strange one. Normally, the Letrozole allows her to ovulate, then the period comes in full force when a pregnancy doesn’t happen. That’s actually been a small win - not the not being pregnant part, but the having regular periods and ovulating on one medication. In the year or so of taking these meds only a couple of cycles didn’t cooperate and the dosage had to increase or something had to be tweaked and retested. This cycle was strange not because it was longer. So many cycles are still about 35 days, and ovulation has happened all over the place, mostly between cycle days 18-27. No, the annoying part of this one was having no evidence of ovulation at all. It’s probably worse than periods coming after successful ovulation. Uncertainty is the driving force of pain and fear in all of this.

Will I ever conceive?

Will he have enough and leave her one day if it never happens?

No ovulation means - at least for me - that no period will come unless I take the Provera. I was holding out hope that maybe I was ovulating later than ever or missed it but still it happened. But in almost three weeks of testing twice a day, none were positive.

Another day goes by and she doesn’t make a choice except to wait one more day again.

She never wanted sore side boobs more than right now. That’s usually a sign her progesterone is increasing and ovulation occurred. There’s hope when the egg releases.

I won’t make any hasty decisions. Help me decide, Lord. I want to probably start my period over soon, but I don’t know what’s next if I have no refills of the Letrozole left. It feels like a question mark with no answer. I’m not ready to reconnect with the specialists if they want us to go to the city almost 2 hours away or add in extra annoying things. We don’t know what we want yet except to maybe regroup and do nothing for a couple months.

Reassuring herself over a pause of the treatment was a struggle. There is no guarantee she would ovulate without the meds, and testing for it is precise and tedious and she was over it. She would have to fly blind for a couple months if a true pause was next.

10:56pm

The snoring roared next to her and she turned her head to see the back of her husband, the rise of his shoulder as he breathed, and she smiled. For a moment, she was thanking God for his superpower sleep, then the next moment came of grief rising in her chest and tears filling her eyes. She knew the type of cry she needed for a couple days was finally creeping up - the kind that is more like weeping, and it gets a little messy as the nose drips and tears fall down the cheeks.

Somehow, as it came, she stifled what she could and tried breathing slowly and he slept entirely through it. She deeply wanted his comfort and for him to turn over and hug her, and he’d never complain a single second if he awoke to her crying and lost a little sleep to do so. Even still, she protected his sleep and hoped the crying would tire her into sleep.

As she thought of the friends and celebrities enjoying pregnancy currently, she let herself feel bad for herself with no shame. No words even arose in her head. She just cried, sniffled, wiped her tears, and blew her nose. Feeling more composed, she tossed the tissue, laid back down, and reminded herself nothing needed to be decided tonight, or tomorrow, or this weekend.

Still, a rapid fire of thoughts trickled through the sieve at warp speed:

Maybe I missed the surge and it still happened.

Maybe I ovulated on day twenty-six and that would only just be showing a positive pregnancy about now.

Maybe the strips were faulty…

What if we're supposed to keep trying?

What if we're supposed to stop?

How do people know?

The only thing I care about is that he and I are on the same page.

11:27pm

Their sweet dog was sandwiched between them under the covers. She reached her hand to his torso as he stretched and turned to his other side, moving the covers a bit as he adjusted. She glanced at her snoring husband to make sure he didn’t wake from the stirring. Finally, her eyes felt heavy and with her laying on her back and her hand still placed on the fur of her first and only baby, sleep came.