Monday 3 October 2016

#Microblog Mondays: Five

Five am seems to be when my internal clock has decided I'm going to wake up: weekdays, weekends, days with commitments and schedules, days without commitments and schedules. Six am is when I have to wake up on workdays, and at least an hour later on weekends, so I'm losing between one and two hours of sleep every night, and it sucks.  But I'll try to take five minutes and write a microblog, at least.

I've had numbers on my mind the past couple of days. I'm starting a new cycle, which means entering and changing data in various places: phone reminders, Ovacue, the unpublished blogs I write about my physical minutiae, scheduling appointments and entering them into my calendar, counting OPKs to see how many more I need (I need a lot), and this time around, setting up a chart again. I haven't done one of those in a long time; I have just been keeping running notes. I hadn't logged in to the charting website in a long time and there were a whole bunch of charts from 2012 and onwards. I deleted them.

Maybe that's what reminded me that we've been trying for a child since fall of 2011, or five years. I started the blog in 2013, which doesn't seem that long ago.  And AJ was conceived a year after the blog started, which again isn't that long.  It's almost two years since she was born, not that long.  But five years somehow sounds like a long, long time.

In those five years we've had one pregnancy and birth. Amazing and miraculous and blessed, that event, and I wouldn't trade AJ or whatever unusual circumstances led to her existence for anything. On the other hand, it's not so hard to imagine what could have been in five years. Two children easily, maybe three. And five years is a lot of cycles, charting, hope, disappointment.

It also raises the question: When is it time to stop? Not yet, not this month, nor probably the next. But five years. Five years.

Me, five years ago. This place no longer exists as pictured, it was destroyed in a 2013 flood.

18 comments:

  1. Wow. Yes, 5 years is a lot. It sneaks up on us...
    Even (almost) 2 years, while I agree isn't that long, is still long enough for others to add a sibling to their family. Sigh.

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  2. Yup. Had someone else ask about a sibling coming soon, yesterday again. Answered truthfully enough: I don't know, we'll see!

    But there's so much behind that statement that's invisible.

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  3. 5 years does feel like a long time. It's frustrating to have all that time pass in a manner you don't want. Abiding with you as you continue this journey.

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    1. Thanks! It's funny I already knew all those dates and numbers, but never put them together into years. I tend to think of my fertility history episodically, and it seems more manageable that way. And some parts go by slowly, others quickly. But when it's all added up it does feel loooong.

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  4. I've never managed to wake up when I'm supposed to, i.e when the alarm goes.... My number must be 3 - I sleep in three-hour cycles and get up 3 times, then wake up half an hour before the alarm goes - not enough time to fall asleep again, but too early to get up - bleurgh. Night is always a bit of a battle. Good luck with your new cycle I hope it works out!

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    1. Sounds rather brutal. Hope it's not 3am at least. 3am is the most awful time to be awake. I always start reciting Philip Larkin's Aubade in my mind. At least you get back to sleep. Thanks for good wishes; I have 4 Clomid cycles prescribed and this is first, so still in the hopeful phase.

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  5. 5 AM! I'm so impressed. I think about this question all the time, particularly now with what seems to be a normal cycle and a stack of vitamins and herbs waiting to be swallowed on my desk. I keep waiting for myself to just tell me it is time to give up, but it hasn't happened yet...

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    1. Sounds familiar. :-) I agree, I think it's important to ask the question, but if feels OK to keep trying, for now.

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  6. Five years didn't seem that long ago- until I started thinking about where I was, what I was doing, and then wow, it was a lifetime ago. I don't feel any different, and yet when I think back, I feel like I have changed heaps. Funny that. I am tired too- having a hard time sleeping again and last night Bubs and cats (one other than my own) conspired against me and I ended up clock watching and running the numbers ("I slept three hours last night and survived, if I fall asleep within the next hour I might get another 3 tonight plus maybe a 2 hour nap..." and on and on). I think counting the hours I sleep makes me feel even more wrecked. Ugh.

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    1. Oh I know, counting hours and then doing the math of how many hours you COULD sleep, if you went to sleep now, but of course you don't go back to sleep....awful! I hope you get some better rest soon. I know, five years can seem both like not so much time and like a long time.

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  7. Five years is a really long time. I do that all the time -- imagine what could have been in a space of time, calculate how many people have gotten engaged, married, and had a baby in that space...it's hard not to measure time that way when things worked out so differently for you. I'm glad you're giving yourself time to think on things and not closing that door just yet, but looking on all those charts from Before and then thinking on all the charts and OPKs and things you're doing now...it must feel exhausting. More so for not getting good sleep. I see 4 am a lot, but I go back to sleep, thankfully. Everything is magnified when you're tired, I think. Good luck with this new cycle and I hope the OPKs catch that magical time.

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    1. You're right about how tiredness (and stress) magnify things. I really try not to dwell on could-have-beens (or should-have-beens, since "could" suggests possibilities that may have never existed). But there's a lot of expectations associated with certain numbers: married this many years, X should have happened, Child is almost 2, therefore sibling should be on the way.....Even though intellectually I know there are a ton of people whose lives don't follow that pattern, it's accepted enough that people can still comment on it without thinking. thanks for all the good wishes, sending them back and nights with few wake ups!

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  8. Wow, yes five years is a lot. It's about the same time as us. Sending you so many good vibes as you work through this big decision. I can't imagine ever feeling done, but I certainly know people who do.

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    1. Thanks! I Am not ready to be done either, and not rushing to make any decisions. But sometimes I just sit with the reality of it all. When you are dealing with infertility and subfertility there is so much projecting into the future. But it's good to pay attention to what life looks like right now, what it has looked like for the past 5 years. I'm one of the lucky ones for sure but there's still a toll.

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  9. I agree that (speaking from personal experience) something about 5 years seems impossibly long. But I have no idea how to know when to move on...or if there's even an answer for that.

    All the best to you this cycle!

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    1. Oh I know! 5 years must be one of those numbers that is hammered into our cultural consciousness: as in the interview question "Where do you see yourself in five years?"

      But in real life....how is one supposed to make sense of those numbers and the feelings associated?

      Thanks for the good wishes. So far, so good.

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  10. Five does seem to be an important interval, but that's how long we were trying, too, after our first child was born ... just about. So in total, I guess seven years. Another friend just had her second child, and her daughter just graduated high school. They took a break from trying, but still ... I don't know that I'd have that kind of stamina, or hope. Sending you all good thoughts. It's hard to make sense of numbers where the heart is concerned.

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    1. So true! I guess I have a need (an occasional need, anyway) to quantify things.

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