I was rushing out the door this morning, I heard part of this segment from the NPR series This I Believe.
It's a quick read, but worth it.
Over the last 18 months I too have come to believe in Biology, and I find it infinitely more comforting than the religious beliefs that I've courted over the years, and the ones that were knitted into me as a child. I am comforted by the knowledge that there are processes, some of them work, some of them fail, but that the processes don't hold the key to my goodness, my worthiness, or my destiny. This time last year I was in such a state of distress about not getting pregnant that I was hardly rational. My longtime therapist fell apart under the weight of her own life, and couldn't bear my off-the-charts decent in to crazy meaning making about why I wasn't pregnant. Painfully, she cast me out. I don't mean that melodramatically, she insulted me and my sanity, my husband and my work. I did find someone who was better able to handle my pain, and that was when I had the first inkling that I was hoping to get pregnant as the final act of redemption for things I felt terribly ashamed of.
I imagine that some might have felt that I could have turned to Jesus, or Gaia, but that kind of faith didn't touch my pain, it just drove me deeper into my own twisted meaning making. So at some point I moved to biology. It feels gentler to realize that I am not the master of my fate, and that I might have 95% of the needed equipment to make a baby, but that 5% is the difference. This doesn't protect me from grieving, or sadness, or even the decisions I'll have to make in the future, but it does allow me to grieve what is real, what is true.
I am nearly 1/2 way through my two week wait. It is an odd bittersweet kind of waiting. The progesterone supplements make my breast heavy and sore, but I can't feel excited by it. I had to buy a larger bra on Friday, and one to sleep in. For now I'm calling them my "IVF Bras." On Tuesday April 8th I'll know the outcome.