It's my (pity) party and I'll cry if I want to...

Negative beta.  Zero.  

I knew it was coming yesterday when again I had a stark white HPT and then by noon I had started bleeding through the progesterone.  Yet that voicemail message still hurt to hear.  

And then to have to tell everyone, because I have had so many cheerleaders through this journey.  I have not even told my parents yet -as for me I think that will be the hardest.  I know they have had so much love and hope for Jeff and I to be parents.  I'm dreading that call.  I almost feel like chickening out and just sending it as a text message.  I know I shouldn't, but I just don't know if I can get through that phone call.  

Jeff said we can "Talk" when he gets home from work about where we go from here.  What?  I thought we were on the same page.  There's no more money.  I am physically and emotionally drained.  I had horrible response.  I don't know what or where that conversation will go.  I just don't.  But I can't imagine, my heart is guarded.  

I read something this morning that spoke to me.  I am copying the following from a blog called "Outlandish Notions"

You all know the “Infertility Island” metaphor right?  To recap, there’s a ferry that runs between Infertility Island and the mainland, call it Motherworld.  And the ferry comes, but you never know when your ticket is going to be called.  You wait and wait and hope and wave goodbye to your friends and wish them well and simultaneously feel miserable that you’re not going with them.

Then one day, for whatever reason, you realize that you simply CANNOT stay one more day on the Island.  Could be that you’re going crazy, could be that your spouse forces your hand, could be that you run out of funds, could be … any number of reasons.  But you can’t stay.  And you still can’t go to the mainland cause you don’t have a ticket for the ferry.  So you jump in the water and let the current carry you where it will.  And pretty soon, you wash up on another island downstream.  There’s a great big jungle on the side of this island that faces infertility island that’s deep, and dark, and foreboding, and hides all the villages.  But once you hack your way through the jungle, you realize that there’s a gorgeous beach and friendly neighbors with lots of tequila to share on the other side.  

The ferry doesn't come to this island (well, occasionally it’ll show up without any warning, but it’s a complete surprise because no one here expects it).  For the first few months after you wash up on the island, you force your way back through the jungle to watch the ferry travel back and forth between Infertility Island and the mainland.  It’s sad, it’s painful to watch the ferry and know that you might have been a passenger, that your ticket might have been called this month.  But after the first month or two, you get settled into your new routine and you realize how much WORK it is to trek through the jungle to watch the ferry arrive.  So you delete the arrival date from your calendar, you try to find something to keep you busy on the day the ferry arrives.  You still know it’s there, but you make a conscious decision not to keep watch for it anymore.  More time passes, and one day you realize that you really don’t know when the ferry schedule is anymore.  And the absence of that knowledge is an absence of pain.  Sometimes you’ll think about the ferry, or catch a glimpse of it as it travels over the water, and you remember.  Some days the memory is sharp and it cuts like glass and leaves you bleeding.  Some days the memory is a fleeting ghost that you catch out of the corner of your eye and then it’s gone.  But the vast majority of your time is spent doing things other than thinking about the ferry.  More time passes, and memories grower paler and the pain grows duller and then one day you wake up and it hits you: you are happy.  Not just faking it, not just the absence of pain, but true and real joy in the life you have instead of longing for a life that might have been.  And that is a wonderful day.

You know what's really sad and crazy?  I read that this morning when I was searching for comfort for moving forward child free.  And just now I went to search for it again...and I swear to god - her latest post?  She gave birth to her third child.  I guess she swam back and got her ticket in the six years since she wrote that.  But it doesn't make the sentiment any less true.  I'm tired of holding a ticket watching everyone leave wondering when (if) it will be my turn.  

And yet I can't in one day one let go.  You see a movie clip - and think "I'll teach my children that lesson. - Wait, I'm not going to have children."  You hear a name and think "That'd be a nice name for our child - wait we're not going to have any".  

There is no switch to just turn off - what you as a human have been conditioned your entire life to expect.  But I know - without a doubt -this is not the worst day of my life.  The two worst days were the day I learned of my second miscarriage and a few days later passing my dead son into this world.  And while the pain of those days cuts deep, I have had many good days - many great days- in the short time since that happened.  So I know, this too shall pass.  And I will have good days, and great days once again.  

I'm not sure if I'll blog more as I slowly and cathartically move forward.  Or if like many who move on child free, if this blog will become deserted or with posts very few and far between.  What I do know, is I am thankful for this journey and this place to write about it.  I'm not who I was before.  But I am stronger - that I know for damn sure.  Life sucks sometimes.  But what are you going to do?  That's life.  

Thank you - to all of you that have followed me through some or all of these past five years.