The follow up post

I wanted to post a follow up post to my terribly depressing post from yesterday. I had actually gone to bed thinking I would sleep on it. There were moments when I wondered if it was an accurate portrayal of how I felt as the evening went on. When I couldn't sleep at 4 am this morning because I kept thinking about it, I went ahead and hit the publish button. Perhaps not the best frame of mind to make the decision, but now that it is posted I don't think I will pull it. It was accurate for how I felt at the time, even if I am a bit embarrassed about it now.

Today I wonder why I cared so much yesterday. As I have stated in this post, I think about LB being the product of DE almost every day, but I would say that 98% of the time there is no emotion associated with it. It is of no more consequence than if the sun is out or not. Actually, it is of less consequence because a sunny day has a bigger impact on my mood than the origin of LB's genes, at least most of the time.

Here is where I am putting part of the blame on my emotional meltdown: Sunday I danced my Psalm of the Infertile Woman piece again - I pulled out all my emotional baggage for the performance (performance isn't the right word because it is supposed to be more of a prayer, but you know what I mean); that night we didn't sleep well - LB waking me up 7 times in 9 hours; bright and early Monday morning I had my first blood draw for my upcoming FET - walking into that clinic brought up some suppressed grief, I suspect.

I am not going to say it is all ok, however. Better to look into the wound and see if it is worse than I thought or if it just bled a lot for a moment and is actually healing nicely. To that end, I have made an appointment with my grief counselor and set up a get together with a wonderful lady I know who raised one adopted and one genetic child. I hope the latter person can answer some questions about how it is the same and how it is different. Since I don't have anything to compare it to, I am probably over selling the genetic connection.

And the thing is my genetics suck - heart disease (mother, grandfather), mental illness (father and several of his siblings), cancer (11 of 13 female cousins had breast cancer), arthritis; you name it we've got it - in spades. We definitely traded up in terms of better prospects for LB.

I come back to wondering if a portion, perhaps even a greater portion, is that need for success. That need to say, "I can do it too, so there!" But we all know the harder part is being a good parent for decades than getting the sperm and egg to make a healthy baby (not that the latter isn't hard for some of us).

I also think it will benefit me not to think about it too much. I don't want to bury my grief, but I don't need to poke it with a stick either. And sleep . . . more sleep would be good. I am currently reading the No Cry Sleep Solution and hoping to change our sleeping habit for the better. I haven't had more than four hours sleep in a row in nearly 9 months. I'm not complaining. Better to be tired from waking up with a baby than to have no baby at all. Still, the shortest road to insanity is sleep deprivation.