S4 Ep4 - Grief, Silence, and My Hubby's 2-Year Secret Plan (Stage 4 Diary Series)

Mom-on-a-Mission (0:03): After a clinic fertility doctor told us consider using donor eggs, our marriage entered almost like a two year survival mode that almost broke us. At that time, I took one look at the paperwork they had sent me. And as I said in the previous episode, completely catastrophized the cost and just kind of exasperated barrage of pain and anger. I put it all in my husband. And I remember what he said to that entire, like, unleashing of wall of agony.

Mom-on-a-Mission (0:48): And he just looked at me, and he said, okay. Just like that. Okay. Okay. How on earth do you read anything into that?

Mom-on-a-Mission (1:01): Like, didn't know if he was agreeing. I didn't know if he was shutting down. I usually can read him really well. But this time, I was too exhausted to ask. I was too scared to ask.

Mom-on-a-Mission (1:16): And also, I had really, like, exhausted myself. So I remember what happened next, you know, was just kinda felt like this long, dark disconnection. In fact, truly, I think we both fell into a deep depression. Although, we would never have been actually diagnosed, but just more depressed than what we usually are in the sense of not that we're depressed, but just life had just kind of it was just being lived. Right?

Mom-on-a-Mission (1:51): There was no purpose to it. Because at least before with, you know, fertility and trying, we both had a single goal, a purpose. Every decision revolved around how do we make a baby. And now, it's like we had no purpose together. It was odd.

Mom-on-a-Mission (2:08): And, of course, we didn't really talk about it either, because I just kept it all locked up inside. And he just knew that he usually has to wait things out. But I think he was so heartbroken that I don't think he wanted to talk about it at all either. So I noticed that my hubby started to throw himself into his work a lot more. Like, I mean, weekend work, everything.

Mom-on-a-Mission (2:34): And in my dark headspace, I was convincing myself that he was doing that because he just didn't wanna be around me. When he was home, it was like he was a ghost. He was kind of like physically there, but just totally checked out. And that was not usual. And then for me, for a self proclaimed control freak, feeling like I had zero control over my own life was the most scary, suffocating feeling in the world, like, with no purpose.

Mom-on-a-Mission (3:03): I'm a goal oriented person, and it was like I was just flailing. So, for me, who I used to be at all was just completely gone. I was isolated. At the time, I had, you know, a ten year old business, and I was just tired of it all. Like, it was like midlife fertility crisis.

Mom-on-a-Mission (3:22): It was odd. So I decided to take back control the only way I kinda knew how, which was by learning something new. And I know this sounds horrible, but feeling good because I do it well. So, I decided to go back to school. And I wanted to feel more normal.

Mom-on-a-Mission (3:42): I wanted to meet some people. I wanted to make more money to recover all the financial damage I felt I personally caused because it's my fault that we couldn't have a baby. And then I just told myself, we have time. You know? I was a big believer in you're allowed to have feelings.

Mom-on-a-Mission (4:00): You need to process them, and don't rush into things that you're not ready for. So I truly thought we had time. So let's just process it. Right? So this is when I said, okay, we'll look at this baby stuff again later.

Mom-on-a-Mission (4:18): So one year of school turned into two years, and I kinda just convinced myself that we were just moving on. Things were getting better, and in a sense of financially. And our marriage was still the same, but you could tell we were trying. But I can honestly say during those years, the hardest days were always our birthdays. I mean, for us well, for me, I shouldn't say us, but for for me, I truly learned to hate my birthday.

Mom-on-a-Mission (4:52): Because when you're struggling with infertility, it's like every single birthday comes with this cruel reminder that one more year is gone, and that it's one more year less to actually have a baby. And that is if you can have a baby. It brought a lot of depression, which is not what you want when you're celebrating your birthday. So to fight back, we kinda started this tradition of we'd force ourselves to go for a hike. And by the time this specific birthday rolled around, I was turning 47, and my husband was already 50.

Mom-on-a-Mission (5:29): And we were just standing on our favourite oceanfront trail, and that is when the silence actually finally cracked. In fact, we hadn't spoken about donor eggs pretty much at all in years. In fact, I was convinced my husband had entirely settled on a childless life because and he was doing it for me. But the truth was, over those years, I had once in a while secretly been logging into the portal and looking at that information privately by myself. And just just that information and just trying to process it more and more and more.

Mom-on-a-Mission (6:21): And, you know, you I don't know. I don't know if it was just to kinda, like, help me process it or if it was just me kinda checking in going, okay. Remind myself this is something I need to decide about. But, anyways, at the time, we were aggressively saving a massive chunk of money, which I thought was for a down payment to build our house. We were totally excited about that.

Mom-on-a-Mission (6:49): Little did I know that was not the actual purpose of saving money. So, in the next episode, I am going to tell you exactly what had happened on that trail. And I guess the conversation that I didn't know that brought my husband a huge wave of relief that I never knew he was waiting for. And I mean, he let out visible sigh. Like, he was like, oh my god.

Mom-on-a-Mission (7:19): Thank god. And I am finally gonna tell you how he actually revealed the just in case you wanna do it plan. He had been running parallel to me going to school all these years, which he had planned from the start of when he said, okay. I couldn't believe it, actually. It was pretty amazing.

Mom-on-a-Mission (7:47): Anyways, before I let you go, I have to apologize for the delay. I haven't posted in a week, and I want to try and post two a week. One hurdle, and one diary episode at least a week. But we were right in the middle of my birthday week, and for the first time in a very long time, we were actually celebrating it. And how?

Mom-on-a-Mission (8:05): You ask, I bought nursery gear. I actually went real life shopping for baby clothes. We bought our crib. We bought our stroller. We bought all sorts of stuff.

Mom-on-a-Mission (8:14): And I cannot tell you how many times I dreamed of doing that. I don't know how many lists I built in Excel, comparing baby items, doing research every year, trying to make sure that I knew what I would buy that was practical. And every year, it got different. And every year, I never got to do it. So, actually hitting order was a whole new experience.

Mom-on-a-Mission (8:40): So, most of these items are actually going to be delivered on my birthday. And I couldn't believe it. So, anyways, that was interesting. Right now, we are also busy training our 16 old golden puppy. We're trying to make sure that we pre train him before the baby arrives so that he is a huge part of our family, and he can be the best big brother puppy dog he can be.

Mom-on-a-Mission (9:06): And we're still waiting on our NIPT genetic results. I'm a little nervous about that. But we're hoping to get a good report back either my actual birthday week or next week. And, yes, my husband finally agreed to find out the sex because he told me he has had quite enough surprises for one pregnancy. So that was a win.

Mom-on-a-Mission (9:28): A small win, or a big win for me. Anyways, thank you for walking this very long road with me. But I can assure you that it may seem hard, and go up and down, and up and down. But if it's the right thing for you, it will be worth it. So see you in the next episode.