Friendly Fire

Thank you guys so, so very much for your supporting comments. I LOVE YOU ALL!!! I was in a really bad place last night - I couldn't even read through the first two comments because each one would just set me off in tears again.

I'm...okay. I'm in self-preservation mode right now, which is pretty much the same as self-nurturing mode except that instead of trying to refill a well, I'm just trying to keep the well from going dry. I'm hiding in a bookstore (favorite place of refuge since I was a kid), chilling until my acupuncture appointment. I think if I'm brave enough, I'll let the Poke Clinic know that I'm dealing with some emotional pain, and they'll probably open some more floodgates for me to release all this grief.

If anything, the fact that her news gutted me like that spells out pretty clearly just how depleted I am and that I did make the right decision in stepping back. Throwing "Clomidia" on top of the situation would just make things harder, and I'd be doing it for all the wrong reasons - panic, fear, ego, desperation...

I was trying to articulate to Mr. Stick (remember, supportive but clueless?) why I was so hurt last night, and it boils down to this. I had intuited a few months ago that M was pregnant, and the feeling was strong enough that I was fearful of calling her. (I'm really glad I had blogged my thoughts about it at the time because rereading it helped me articulate this.)

So I had prepared myself, summoned up my courage, called her and then asked her in the course of our conversation if she was. She said no, and then she asked me if I was. Which then segued into a really difficult but good talk where I finally came clean to her about IF.

I understand, of course, why she lied. (And I realize now that she did lie because in that first phone call, she wanted me to give her recommendations for a trip to Hawaii she was about to take, and I learned yesterday that they had originally planned this trip for late fall - until they found out that she was going to be due in November.)

But that lie created for me a false sense of security. I think that a lot of IF'ers protect ourselves in a subtle way when we are among "civilians" (I prefer that term to "fertiles") - I feel like I am on constant alert for a pregnancy bomb to drop. With M, my defenses were completely down. I was totally vulnerable. I didn't even have my usual flippant and witty persona on because I was in a state where I was feeling light, free, and trusting of myself.

So to beat the military analogy to death once and for all, I got taken down by friendly fire.

Mr. Stick had a really interesting take on it, which I think I will be able to accept when I'm in a stronger state of mind. He said that I had an intuition, a voice that was telling me to be careful around M because I thought she was pregnant, and I ignored it because she originally told me something I wanted to hear.

And then he told me that yesterday, I trusted myself and listened to that voice when it was telling me to take a break and give myself what I needed. So...in a way, the universe was reaffirming that my intuitions are correct, that I need to listen to myself and trust myself more. Because when it comes to my emotional health, I know more than my RE and even my closest friends.


(I need to give some props to Mr. Stick, btw, because despite my flippant comment about his cluelessness, he has been an absolute rock. One of the reasons I wanted to take a break was so that I could give the poor guy a reprieve from the fertility-drug-addled Crying McWeepy alien that has taken me over these past few months, and instead he gets an emotional meltdown straight out of the gate.)

Anyway...so...here I am, hunkered down and attempting to rally so that I can make the most of this gift of time I have. I'm still feel pretty emotionally torn up, but that little voice tells me I'm going to be totally okay, and I know that I should listen to her.