Saturday, March 28, 2009

Out to sea

Above: By HIROSHI SUGIMOTO (b.1948)
Caribbean Sea, Jamaica, 1980

It's been about a month of grieving since my last post. Thank you all so much for your kind and supportive words. I've been far far away mentally and there was no breathable air for words. It's been like those dreams where you are trying to scream but nothing comes out. But the image above is the closest thing to describe where I am right now. I saw this piece at the Guggenheim's exhibit "The Third Mind: American Artists Contemplate Asia, 1860-1989" and it stayed with me. At first glance it just seems like a simple splicing between black and white. When you move closer you see the subtle movement of gray to black - lapping waves of the ocean. My eyes get drawn into it's simplicity and I travel far into that horizon line. 

The image all at once can seem peaceful and contemplative and at the same time lost and lonely. This is where I have been banished to, but by my own choosing. When you have reached a new level of defeat, it takes a certain cocooning to come back to life. You need to live in that space between lightness and darkness. You are all at once blown out of your system to just black and white. It's good. It's bad. That starkness of failure, loss, heartbreak can be so crushing that you are numb. It's so painful you don't feel anymore. I don't mean to be so yin and yang about it all, but there is this weird duplicity. I feel nothing and everything. 

As much as I want to still hold on to hope that my eggs can bring life to this world, I can't. It's been too long of a relentlessly painful road that everyone seems to be in agreement that donor egg is our next step. In order to give life, I have to kill the dream of a genetic child. That child can no  longer exist in my heart and that, as we all know, is the biggest defeat, the biggest tragedy. It's what I've been fighting for. But I've raised the white flag. I've said "uncle." And now I must travel to lonely horizons. 

In most ways the healing process is like grieving any death. I've done it before. I have grieved loved ones who died tragically and too early. I've cried in disbelief that their lives where taken away and that I would never see them again. Now I am in disbelief that someone I never got to meet is gone. It feels like the end of "me" on so many levels. Even though there was no flesh and blood to bury, it's a loss that is indescribable. It remains invisible to the world and yet is ever present with every blink of my eyes. Imagined or not, it cuts right through you. So unlike my tears of grieving over real people, my cries right now are mythical. I've howled endlessly at the moon, like an animal crying for its children that were stolen by the sun and stars. 

Though this horizon looks stark - bleak almost - I do manage to see that there is a chance to make it to safe waters. The start being that we have found an egg donor who is getting medically screened in a few weeks and if approved, she will cycle with A. sometime hopefully in May. Before anyone gets their pom-poms out to cheer, I am afraid reaching rock bottom has left me quite skeptical of anything working - even something that seems so ridiculously guaranteed like using a perfect uterus with 26 year old eggs. I am still transfixed by the line between black and white and prefer to stay there even through this donor egg cycle. I am not sure when the cruelty of what has happened to me will ever stop bleeding. I know a piece of my heart has died with every loss and now the biggest piece has died with this genetic child I can't have. But the resiliency test lies ahead of me. Whatever is left of my beaten up heart, with all it's scars, holes, missing parts, is being asked what seems impossible right now- be big, be whole, be wise enough to grow.  

18 comments:

Paz said...

thanks for sharing all of that, I feel privileged to read it...and moved.

Nadine said...

Hey,
I'm here if you need me, and what you say, truely rings out to my heart.

Jaymee said...

i think most of us have been there. it is hard to trust the process again. i wish i could tell you that this will pass, but at least for me it never really has. just know that you are not alone in this process.

luna said...

tabi, this is such an achingly beautiful post. that loss is so real, so palpable. I've howled like that animal too. I think you nailed it when you said:

"Even though there was no flesh and blood to bury, it's a loss that is indescribable."

wishing you peace and strengths as you pick up the pieces and move ahead on this next step of your journey.

Sue said...

The heart has an amazing capacity to grow, and I am wishing you the best of luck.

momsoon said...

Your post has touched me as well, I share your feelings of not rushing to 'get out the pom-poms' and wondering when the 'cruelty of what has happened will ever stop bleeding'... I am praying that it stops soon, for all of us.
When I look back though, it seems that my hope has flickered, gotten super small and almost has been snuffed out, but must still be lit because here we are at a new phase and with some faith still in tact?? i do not know how that has happened except for that I must be being carried when I couldn't move myself???
Trying to be big, be wise enough to grow with you and feeling everything & nothing with you...peace, H.

Dora said...

Hope after so much loss is hard. Every "compromise" we make is hard. I had embryos from a 23 year old's eggs transferred 4 days ago, yet I mostly feel fear and sadness. But I want my child! So I move forward. As do you. Big hug to you.

MRS. ERIN SMITH said...

Perhaps the most beautifully written, heartbreakingly honest post I've ever read. Wish I could tell you the pain ends at some point, but I have yet to find peace.

Floating beside you on the edge of the horizon,

E

Please keep writing. Your words touch me.

DAVs said...

I completely hear you on this.
We haven't moved on to DEs yet, but it's certainly on our radar screen and we're not doing any other treatment right now anyway.
I know it's hard to hold on to hope, so let us do it for you.

Ms Heathen said...

This is such a moving post, tabi.

I am thinking of you as you grieve for this loss.

Lisa said...

Grieving with you, Tabi.

Shinejil said...

Abiding with you.

Sanda said...

oh Tabbi I'm sorry :( I just wish you the strength to heal from this and to get through this cycle. I'm just so sorry that you have to let go of yet one more thing on this journey, it's truly unfair. The pom-poms are put aside, but I am still wishing hard for your happily ever after.

KH99 said...

Tabi, No pom-poms here, but I'm glad you are trying again. I understand how difficult (impossible?) it is to have trust in anything working. I'm wishing peace and strength for you and so sorry that you are required to give up yet another thing to make your dream come true.

Andie said...

Tabi, such a beautiful post. I am glad to hear you are moving forward. You have captured perfectly how I feel (and I imagine, others) regarding having to let go of the dream of your own biological child.

Wishing you peace and strength on the next phase of your journey.

alicia said...

it is an amazing picture, I kept looking back to it while reading this post.

I have never been where you are, but you have described it well. It sounds so very hard, and lonely. I am keeping everything crossed for you that this donor cycle will work.

hugs

Me said...

I want to tell you how STRONG your words seem to me. But at the same time, I know from experience, that strength sometimes comes because one has no choice. And so it can be annoying when someone compliments you on a trait you wish you had the luxury of not possessing. I hope that good luck finds you soon and you can stop having to be so strong.

nyjap said...

Hey Girl,
been thinking of you and so happy to see that you are moving forward. You're in my thoughts and call me if you need to talk.