Limitations

Rock: 1, Me: 0

I was reminded by Busted Babymaker's Show and Tell that I had a memorial tree to plant, to honor our lost ones. I set out to plant our tree in our yard, the spot that Magic and I had picked out. The story of my planting the tree had many metaphors to my life.

I thought, how hard can it be to plant a tree? I thought the same thing when I first knew I would have to do IVF. When I started digging, I realized how tired I was and that it was going to be more challenging than I thought. Certainly, IVF was a lot more challenging than I thought. I really wanted to plant this tree for what it meant to me, so I was inspired to forge onward! As I dug down, I encountered rocks. I thought, "I'm not going to let a few rocks get in my way!" I envisioned them as the fibroids that had grown in my uterus and I was removing. That was the first obstacle I had to deal with before I could even consider IVF. I felt vindicated as I pulled more and more rocks out the hole.

I was getting a pretty good hole, but I was still finding more rocks, until it all became one huge rock. I couldn't get a handle on how big the rock was or if it was a series of rocks. I brought out the big guns. I always thought of IVF as "bringing out the big guns". I was on pretty high stims my first cycle, but had a lackluster response and we converted to IUI. The second cycle, they threw everything at me, putting me on maximum stims with a few other goodies thrown in. I got out the rock bar, a six foot long bar of solid steel with a pointy end, and proded around the rock. I even managed to break up some of the rock, but in the end, the rock won. I wasn't going to muscle my way through the expanse of this rock that was covering the entire bottom of my hole. I also wasn't going to plant a tree in a hole where it couldn't put down roots. I sat at the edge of the hole, realizing I had to admit my limitations. I was going to have to walk away from this hole, and that is how it was for my pregnancy.

Eventually, I gathered enough strength to put the soil back in the hole the same way I had removed it. I cleaned up, moved the tree to a new spot and left it for another day. A part of me felt defeated, but what can you do when you have limitations? I really wanted to plant that tree yesterday, but I am not Super Woman. I could have beat myself up about it, but that wouldn't have done me any good. I'll get that tree planted some day, but yesterday wasn't the day to do it. Instead of pushing myself to get the tree planted, I took a nap, which is what I really needed. It's a hard thing to admit the reality of your limitations in the midst of your dreams. Sometimes, I think I should be Super Woman and I do beat myself up. Sometimes, I wish everything had turned out different.

I reflected on the metaphor of this experience. In the path of life, you sometimes come up against a rock wall and you can't do anything about it. All you can do is turn away and find a different path, even if it isn't the one you imagined. In the meanwhile, I'll keep watering that tree until I can get it planted.