Midlife Crisis

When people ask me lately how I'm doing, I tell them, in a light and joking tone – but in all seriousness – that I'm having a midlife crisis.

I'm told a midlife crisis should entail flashy distraction: an extramarital affair, a shiny new sports car. In my case, there are long bicycle rides, the most recent of which was undertaken alone on the Fourth of July, 100+ miles of winding Connecticut roads from my home to my mother's where I met up with family and friends and celebrated the holiday, old school. (Literally - we went to see fireworks at my old high school.) The whole day was a pleasure.

That's the thing about midlife crises, they aren't straight-out despair and depression. There is something vigorous in them, a reclaiming of life's joy, a new-found intolerance of years-long low-level misery.

As long as I'm exercising, or with loved ones, I'm fine.

The down part comes only after several hours alone, during my solitary work days. That's when I start to sink. For the past two months, I've felt downright miserable a good deal of the time.

On the bright side (I know this will sound strange) I'm doing a lot of crying.

What's bright about this? The stuff I'm crying about is stuff I have needed to cry about for years: childhood loneliness and disappointments, dashed hopes, all the miscarriages, the divorce, the fact that I felt so poorly about myself that a marriage to someone who I knew wasn't deep-down sure he wanted to be with me felt like the best I could expect out of life, that such a thing, not so long ago, actually felt like good luck.

It's hard work, all this crying. I often feel feverish beforehand, heachachy, and afraid. The tears come in heavy, sweaty, snotty, guttural sobs.

I'm not doing this alone. I have counseling partners (we trade time in counselor and client roles, sometimes on the phone, sometimes in-person, taking turns caring and listening and handing each other tissues, trusting that this emotional expression is the path to healing). Sometimes I cry with J~. After each round, I feel lighter, better.

I love this midlife crisis, actually. I love that I can no longer tolerate a dull, low-level misery, that I can no longer mask it with a trumped up enthusiasm for a long list of chores. I love the sense that old limitations are lifting away, that slowly, subtly, I'm moving my life to higher ground. I feel brave.

I also have new thoughts about pregnancy, and the not-yet resolved Babies or Not question. More on that soon...

Letting Go. Or Not.

I've been ruminating on questions raised by my last post, namely, have I truly given up on pregnancy, and if not, why not continue to pursue answers? Why risk another miscarriage?

Such good questions, such simple questions. I've been soul-searching for weeks.

This is what I've figured out so far:

No, I haven't yet given up, not fully anyway, in spite of my fervent wish to the contrary. There is still a glimmer of hope, like an ember in an otherwise dying fire. Add a little kindling – a well-timed cycle, pronounced premenstrual symptoms, a bunny in the front yard – and the whole thing is ablaze again.

But kindling is easy to come by. There are flare-ups every month. I find the prospect of stoking and tending the fire, gathering the heavy logs of sustained desire and a pursuit of purposeful intervention, utterly overwhelming. Why? Well, for one, the hope simply isn't very strong. I am discouraged by the idea that all that work and heartache could be for naught.

And then there is the shame. Somehow I feel foolish still longing for a baby after all these years. I suppose I've felt foolish all along, so strongly have I absorbed the message that smart, talented, interesting women have more important things to do than make babies. Or if they do make babies, and raise children, they do so with ease and only peripheral attention, akin to a trip to the bathroom in the midst of writing a fascinating dissertation. It's a terrible, sexist notion, one I know is patently invalid, but I live in a sexist culture, and in spite of myself, I've absorbed and internalized a measure of this thinking. It creeps in when I least expect it and requires concentration to banish.

And then there's the issue of pursuing effective medical help. I don't trust doctors easily. I mustered the courage to see a Reproductive Endocrinologist at one point, J~ and I went together. The doctor leaned way back in his chair and spoke in a relaxed, weary tone, going on about how underfunded research is in this field and how nobody really knows anything, reinforcing my feeling that it's all a crap shoot anyway.

I was relieved and pleased with this doctor at the time, so afraid was I of a salesman's fake smile and hucksterish enthusiasm, pushing me toward interventions that made me uncomfortable. Just sign on the dotted line and hand me your life savings, please. Now lie still on the table and we'll see if we can get to the bottom of this.

But then I started wondering maybe if this jaded-seeming doctor would have treated me differently if J~ and I were younger, if I seemed a more promising candidate. A letter came from the practice, two weeks after our appointment, announcing this doctor's decision to retire.

I never followed up.

I haven't tried another doctor.

J~ and I are talking about going to someone else, maybe someone recommended to me on this blog. The ball is in my court.

I keep putting it off.

Mother's Day Again

In the front yard the other day - she's back, daintily nibbling violets and dandelions. (If you were reading this blog last spring, you might remember this visitor, nicknamed Henrietta, and the symbolism I ascribed to her then.)

In the neighborhood, a barred owl – tan and white with great yellow eyes, big as a (fat) cat (we call it Hootie) – implores each evening and morning: Who cooks for you? Who cooks for yoooou? I got a good long look at him (her?) perched on a log not eight feet away, but no camera on me at the time, alas.

Biking 90-ish miles on the weekends lately, and a little more during the week. Loving it.

All dressed and ready to meet riding companions yesterday morning, I burst into tears when it hit me: it's Mother's Day.

This is still so new, this letting go of the pursuit of motherhood. I'm not sure that I have let go completely. Not yet anyway. But I'm headed in that direction. I'm thirty-nine now, after all, and though I'm not preventing, I'm no longer trying to conceive, nor am I pursuing answers anymore, or super-charge health cures, in regard to my many miscarriages. Another Mother's Day passing.

So I cried for a minute, then kissed my very sweet and supportive husband, strapped on my helmet, and rode off into the bright windy morning.

Opportunity

I received an email this morning from Lisa Rosenzweig, a Columbia University doctoral student in Counseling Psychology. She is researching the miscarriage experience. Have you had a miscarriage in the past six months? You may want to consider participating in her survey. If you have questions (like for instance, why limit to just the last six months?) you can email her directly.

Here's her text:

Research Opportunity

Everyone has a unique experience with miscarriage and many find help and support through websites like this one. Unfortunately, little is known about women's experiences of support and how this may affect responses to miscarriage, and so I invite you to participate in my dissertation research study examining women’s experiences following a miscarriage. Although there is no direct benefit to you, survey results may help healthcare providers better understand and meet the needs of women following miscarriage. This online survey takes approximately 15-20 minutes and is open to women who have miscarried a wanted pregnancy in the previous 6 months who are 18 years of age or older, living in the United States, and involved in a relationship with a significant other. Participants are eligible for a raffle for a $50 American Express gift certificate. For more information, please don't hesitate to contact me.

Lisa Rosenzweig
Teachers College
lsr2106@columbia.edu

Turning Over a New Leaf

After so many years of orienting my life around where I am in my menstrual cycle, it is both liberating and sad to throw in the towel. Liberating most of the time. But then I stumble into a pocket of sad. I suppose it will be like this for a while.

After a long two weeks of marathon work, I packed my cameras and a journal and took a leisurely afternoon hike yesterday. These photos are (part of) the result. FYI - the black background you see in some of them is my shirt.

Overwhelming

Sometimes the harvest just keeps on coming:

A successful solo art show in the gallery.

A request to make an appearance on a popular radio show - tomorrow morning (details here).

Finally opened my Etsy shop.

Just landed a design account three times bigger than any I've ever had.

In today's mail - a book with my writing in it: Who's Your Mama?: The Unsung Voices of Women and Mothers

I had better go to bed before I think of anything else!

Or Not.

See more of my art >>

Friday
9:15 am: Positive home pregnancy test. It's a faint second line, but it's really there. I stare and stare. A sweat breaks across my lower back. I leave a message on J~'s cell:

I want to talk to you... about... something.


9:30 - 10:30 am: I post a photo of the test on this blog. I have some happiness, some trepidation about the demands of parenthood. Though I know it may very well happen, I'm surprised to note that I'm not worried about miscarriage.

So why this nervous shaking in my thighs?


10:30 am: J~ returns my call and I tell him the news. Our conversation is guarded – upbeat, but not ecstatic.


11 am: It's decided - I will ride with my bike club on Saturday, despite the cold I'm fighting, despite the pregnancy. I find myself having an imaginary conversation with an imaginary Devil's Advocate:

D.A.: With your history, I'm surprised you don't just crawl into bed and stay there for the next nine months.

ME: No way. I don't want it that bad.

My response catches me off guard. I don't?


4 pm: I have not veered from my original plans for the day – work (client design stuff, plus I'm preparing for an art show, only two weeks away and still lots to do), a walk, and a drive to the bike shop to pay for my new bicycle.

This is no small purchase. I've resisted for a year, unsure of my commitment to the sport, reasoning that if I were to get pregnant again, I would not be riding much. Last year, a fancy new bicycle seemed like a leap of faith in the wrong direction. But a year later I'm still riding, still loving it. And another pregnancy has not emerged.

Until today, of course.

Isn't this the way it always goes in the movies?

Okay, now I'm getting a little excited.


4:30 pm: I plunk my credit card down on the counter along with a patch kit, a spare inner tube, a few tools and accessories. The shopkeeper is chatting with her friend, commiserating about how, with young children, they no longer find the time to ride like they once did.

I resist the urge to blurt that I am pregnant, resist the pull to think about what they are saying. Resist also the desire to add an expensive form-fitting windbreaker to my purchases.


5:30 pm: Home again, I do another HPT, anxious to see a darker line. But it's just the opposite, fainter than the first test, almost nonexistent.

I feel completely deflated.


Saturday
7 am: another HPT: Negative this time, no doubt about it. Damn.


9:30 am: Bleeding. And to think - my period wasn't even due until Sunday! If I hadn't done the test, I never would've known an egg had been fertilized. Bum egg, bum sperm, bum uterus. Who knows.

10:30 am: pick up the co-op order. I look at all the other co-op members. It feels strange, and sad, that no one knows.


1 pm: 40-mile bike ride with my club. Feeling happy.

Happy? It makes me nervous that I'm happy.


Sunday
Another 30 miles with the club followed by a two-hour nap on the couch. Still feeling happy. I can't make heads or tails of it.


Monday
I'm troubled that I don't seem to have any lingering feelings about this miscarriage. I admit to K~, my friend and counselor, I may be more excited about my work and riding my bike at this point then I am about getting pregnant.

And then it hits me, and I start to cry.

It's been a long, hard road. It didn't lead where I had hoped it would lead. This was not the goal. I did not want to find myself here. But it's happened, and there's nothing to be done.

I've moved on.