how to feel?

Darling Hashai (hashai.com/blog) just wrote about not knowing how to feel and she's just finished IVF and it didn't work.

I dread being in that final "not knowing how to feel" situation but I think that it is only one of many in our strange adventures.

I've been trying to educate myself on what I'm going through. Many books talk about the grieving of infertility. I for one am pretty bad at grieving and also am not so sure about the emotional effects of grieving on a regular 28 day cycle. I am just now starting my first IVF cycle after 3 1/2 years of trying to get pregnant.

How do I feel? How should I feel? are the questions that haunt me on a daily basis.

In the early years of infertility (with a little help from that bad drug, Clomid) - I felt rage, jealousy, anger and bitterness at the unfairness of it all. There were often times I felt complete despair and sadness but I must say that these were always brought on by infertility + something else that's awful. So bad day at work + period = massive sobbing. Or family drama + rude people + bad weather + negative stick = sad, sad, sad.

I must say that just infertility alone does not make me sad per se. It's a weirder, less definite feeling. Sometimes there's relief mixed in, or anticipation, or obsession, or a sense of being resigned. The infertility feelings can fluctuate within seconds, like a little stream.

Now that we're starting IVF I'm very afraid of more situations where I don't know how or what to feel. The drugs make me crabby and a little depressed, the possibility of actually getting pregnant makes me VERY excited, the anticipation that we will have to give this all up makes me actually feel peaceful, the poking and prodding of my body makes me feeled used and violated, the love of my husband makes me feel like my life is really much better than I ever thought it would be.

When I tell people about this cycle, I realize over and over again that no one knows how to feel. A very dear friend (who loves children) reacts in a "I could never do that" sort of way. My mother thinks this is great and will all work. My IF friends are cautious. Some members of my family really don't want to know, others have told me they pray special sperm prayers for us.

IVF brings out odd reactions in the general public - and IVF brings out odd reactions for those of us going through it who really get lost in the process.

How to feel? it's very odd - I don't know what to compare it to. It's both like gambling and mourning and jumping off a cliff and quietly measuring meds day after day - what is all of this?

My quandary is that I have two distinct tendencies both of which are reinforced by others. My acupuncturist says take this time to relax, be happy, enjoy life, be in a really good space. So I feel like protecting myself, like ignoring work, planting more flowers, planning to read lots of novels, doing restorative yoga - basically checking out.

My therapist actually suggested that this could be a very cathartic time because my emotions will be on the surface so I could go through powerful grieving over other family stuff, face my past, delve into the depths of my own personal sadness and complexity. And I think this is the time to do more creative writing, to think about what's really important in life, to reconnect with people who were important to me, to make myself entirely vulnerable to the world - since I will be that anyhow.

I'm afraid that I'll wake up and do #2 and by lunch do #1 and by the end of the month still not know how I feel about all of this.