Wednesday, September 24, 2008

An Annoying Thing About Secondary Infertility: The Stuff

Advisory: For those of you dealing with primary infertility be advised that this post is about how I have so much baby-junk cluttering up my home in hopes of baby #2. So if you are having a bad day and don't want to hear about how I trip over the high-chair in the garage every time I pick my daughter up out of her car-seat...skip it.
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Man to I have a lot of stuff! I walk into my closet and it's FULL to the rafters with neatly folded and stored maternity clothes waiting to be worn. I walk into my garage and it's full of retired baby stuff that was lovingly stored with the expectation that it would be used in the not-so-distant-future. Piccolina's closet is also full of itty-bitty clothes just waiting to adorn a sibling.

When I bought, used, cleaned and stored this stuff I didn't know that getting #2 would be even harder (and take almost as long) as getting number 1. I just trusted that if I did it once I could do it again. But I couldn't. I couldn't do it again. And boy did I try. 18 months, 1 m/c, 4 high-dose injects/iui, 2 IVFs on max meds and nothing to show for it but a whiped-out savings account and lots of waiting "stuff". Impossibly-small baby shoes, bella-bands, my beautiful maternity coat from Pea in the Pod (a splurge!), some of the cutest sun dresses I have ever seen (maternity or not), the life-saving baby swing, beautiful baby clothes that she barley wore because she grew so incredibly fast, my breast pump. I want to unzip them from their hiding places and greet each one like a long lost friend. But I'm too busy to spend the time and probably too emotionally fragile to risk instigating a crying jag. I remember them all so well and wish to revisit life with this stuff in use instead of cluttering up the corners of my home and the corners of my memory.

Sometimes I want to purge them. Clean house, face facts, move on and reclaim my closet, garage, life. As if the act of "Spring Cleaning" would give me a fresh perspective, free me from this unrelenting desire have a baby, magically make me grateful for what I do have instead of always being in the state of "wanting".

The wanting is constant. The wanting makes me jealous, makes me small, cold, narrow, resentful. The wanting makes me empty.

My closets are full. I am empty. It's the exact opposite of the type of person I want to be: a thoughtful, open, warm, grateful person who lives each day with meaning. Instead I have materialism.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Boy, can I relate. Thank goodness for our Victorian house where we have a third floor we don't use. I, too, often think about just getting rid of it, but more in the hopes that if I did, that would be the catalyst for me getting pregnant again. Silly, I know...I think I am setting the target for next summer. If I am not pregnant by the end of next summer, I will purge all the baby stuff. Until then, I'm here tripping over it, physically and emotionally.

bleu said...

I so relate as well. My garage is so full of toys, carriers, exersaucers, baby clothes and cloth diapers from every size and age.

Even now I still hurt when I see it, I still do not feel I will get to use it, but I could never part with it.

Much much love hun.

Marie said...

The wanting. The emotion that drives us. I wish it wasn't there but oh how I would not be able to go on without it. Hope you have peace today. If you find it send me a little too.

Shelli said...

I feel like if I get rid of it, I am giving up.

So instead, I ignore it. I put the boxes and gear in dark corners. I even have a blanket covering the crib.

Erin said...

Secondary infertilitly must be so hard. I wonder what I will do with the stuff when this frist child grows out of it. Maybe just hide it all in the attic.

So about the diamonds, well you see my mother LOVES jewlery. She has so many beautiful pieces of all types and varieties. Her fav and her birth stone are diamonds. For some reason at an early age I picked up an interest in jewlery (not buying it really just knowing about it and looking at it) I don't have all that much of my own. I learned about them a lot books, tv shows, even at an early age (I was a weird tween/teen that loved non-fiction).

So when people mentioned going shopping and I said spend more on the cut if you want it sparkly, they brought me along to argue the finer points of the price and jewlery. I have been offered a job by the diamond guy every time I am in the store.

My own ring is a family heirloom. My grandmother's dating back to 1935, setting from the early 50s. It wasn't even sized, it was just right. The diamond isn't great, but it's the meaning on this one!

Unknown said...

Wow do I know this! Our one and only is 9. We kept everything until 2yrs ago when on one day anger took over when I realized it had been so long that our carseats were no longer legal! But I kept the crib in hopes....