Maybe, Baby

  Do you know the lengths you would go to get what you want?

 I respect the experiences I went through in the first few years especially with no handbook or way to navigate my course. I was driven by many emotions, fears, and desires that were easily confusing with so many changes my body was enduring.

  It was my fourth year trying for the baby that would never come.
  I was tearing myself down every month. The one thing I thought defined my youth was the ability to still have a child. I never thought it would happen and gave up long before that day emotionally.

 If you know a personal friend going through infertility, hug them. They are so emotionally ripped apart no matter how much they smile and say it's ok, It is not though.

 I was devastated each month I never got what I wanted and I worried nonstop that I would lose Khalid if we continued much farther.
  I drove down to the coast where he lived for a weekend together in April 2017, It would be the last time he and I would embrace.
 He was always so patient as a friend and professional that was there for a job. We both learned to take any weirdness away from the baby-making by just becoming friends and getting to know the people we were.

 I don't even know if I had any faith left that a baby was ever going to happen and I was just going through the motions until my contract was done, I never quit a job. Khalid, however, was very much committed to the process and asked me to continue. He really knew how much I wanted a child and he knew if anyone could help it was him.

 I remember that last encounter so easily because I knew it was the last time we would see each other for this purpose. It felt like we talked for hours and that night baby-making was second on the table to just two friends hanging out and talking.
 I found myself apologizing so much for not being an easier client for him and he would always grab my face and make me look right at him as he would say " stop! We are in this together".
 We really weren't.
  I knew nothing outside of our friendship in hotel rooms and he didn't know me except what I provided him to know. I was so secretive at this point I didn't even know who I was and my friends were clueless as to what I was going through.

 In every sense of the word alone, I was.
 I was locked in negative thoughts about my productive system. I lost faith in my own self and would let depression control everything daily. I was beaten up every time I went through a cycle just to end in a period and I was mad at everyone.

 It's very difficult to explain to others the relationship you form when you are working with donors and trying to achieve a baby. The relationship is so beautiful in the sense its the one time you can have sex and it doesn't count. It didn't count because he and I were so mature and so adult about what we were going through, we were in contract. It wasn't just sex rather sex for contract which sort of sounds bad also now that I type it out.
Sex for a baby.

 That night I was in his arms looking at him in the mirror of our hotel room ( we had the same room every time) I let out a big sigh an started to speak. My voice cracking " I just can't emotionally do this anymore" I said as he swept his arm from under me and around my neck. He knew I was broken by then. He knew my heart.
  He was my best and only friend. I say that because he was the only one I had to talk to about what I was going through. It was my safety and losing him was so entirely heartbreaking.

 That night with tears rolling down my face he just looked at me and said "I want to make love to you just because I want you to know you're beautiful, desired and good. You are a good woman".
 Maybe it was those words that I wanted to hear or maybe it was the way I believed them when he spoke but it was the first night I had ever truly made love.

 I was over 40 and experiencing sex for the first time as an adult. Never was I in such an unselfish relationship in my life and that night was proof two strangers can find love through friendship and still have responsible meaningful relations without any hurt feeling when we drifted apart.

I'll never forget what it was like to feel love like that. It wasn't even like Khalid loved me, it was the love and respect he had for all women. It was his ability to make me feel his words. It was the way he would hold my hand looking deep into my eyes as he would make love to me. It was how he always wanted to see my face when we were together.
 He would say things like "My god woman, you're beautiful" and kiss my face. He treated me like a goddess and I knew there were other women and it didn't matter this was business and pleasure. It wasn't my fault he was only 26. It just worked out that way.
.
 It was by far the most mature relationship I'd ever been a part of but it was over.
  To continue with Khalid meant to continue for a  baby and that was off the table for me in my mind by 42.

 Sometimes I think I gave up long before I said it as I just didn't want to keep spending the time, money and pain it took to deal with so much maturity. I had gotten to a point where I dreaded the entire process so it just wasn't worth the brain battles I had to go through to get what I wanted and I wasn't even sure why I wanted a baby so much anymore.

 I would find out two weeks later that Khalid gave me a child that night.

 It was 2am and as usual, I only sleep 2 to 4 hours a night with my friend perimenopause. He likes to creep round about 3-5 am and say "BOO Bitch, you look way too comfortable, let's get some sweat and anxiety rolling off you"!

 Typically I would ignore the bastard but he had decided to give me my period two days late and I figured it would be any moment now. I felt the most sweat between my legs that early morning.
 FUCK PERIMENOPAUSE!
 I looked in the mirror and did my usual weird shit I do ( Gun fingers at myself with a "hey hey, you are aces." wink/wink) when I realized I was cramping really bad.
  I was use to mid-cycle pain this intense but not period or perimenopause issues this late in my cycle.
 Implantation? I had no clue and I wouldn't for a few days waiting on my cycle to show. I was way over getting excited anymore but I decided to pee on something because that is what women who are trying to get pregnant do. We pee on everything to make lines. We imagine lines and ask people to tweak photos, they turn the pictures into negatives to try and locate another line and it hardly ever turns out the way we wish which is another reason I was so isolated.
 I was tired of thinking I was pregnant, sharing the news with close friends just to know it was me wanting it so badly. This time I was indeed preggers.

 I had saved the golden Willy Wonka of pee sticks for just this moment. The digital with no way to fuck up lines. I wanted a clear 'you are pregnant' or I was calling bullshit.
 There it was glaring at me PREGNANT.

  I want to remind readers we are in a judgment-free zone and this is a place of positivity. What I am about to say will baffle some and make sense to others. I freaked the fuck out!
 At first, the thought was holy fuck how did this finally happen?
 How would I juggle the new promotion and two kids now plus my uncle's declining health while there is a new baby?
 How would my oldest child feel now that we are finally in an adult relationship in our lives?
 How would I afford a new car for everyone that would need to fit in? How could I juggle my other child's autism when I had a newborn and already didn't sleep.
 Every emotion imaginable was filling my head and I sat on the floor my eyes wide awake realizing for the first time I may not have made my last few decisions based on logic.
 What the hell was I thinking to go through the measures I did to get here?
  It was like waking up from a 4-year hangover or as I have said, the worst acid trip ever.

 I looked at the pee stick ( I called them this now because I was so unattached to the hate I felt for them) and then in the mirror. I looked at my tired eyes, my sunken cheeks, myself frowning back at me, my only thought.
 I didn't feel happy.

 This baby wasn't the issue at all. It was me. I was the one searching for what I needed all the time, always feeling like I was forgetting something or someone or an object that I couldn't hold but needed at all times. It wasn't a baby that was making me do this for so many years and it wasn't being pregnant that was going to fix my issue. It was inside me separate from any child or thought of a child.

 I dealt with the day by thinking of names and planning the situation with sleep and space. It would all work out, I was a planner and I knew how to overcome hurdles. I began thinking logically how to react to a four-year illogical decision and deal with my new brain never to mention to anyone the lengths I went to get there.
 They would never understand. No one would.
 By the end of the evening, two names were chosen, I knew the proximity of the birth date and I was already buying clothes.

By the next day, my period arrived as always but left me baffled. I was still pregnant right? Maybe just spotting but I had no cramps at all.
 I peed on three sticks before I realized I had a chemical pregnancy. I knew the dangers of testing too soon. I had been in every baby forum for four years reading and learning. I knew it wasn't smart to test at 2 weeks. But I did and there was no baby at all.

What I felt was intense pain in my heart so deeply that I fell to the floor and sobbed like a child. I cried so hard my eyes stung and my face hurt to touch. I held myself so hard until I couldn't stand to be held and would stand up to try and walk and be swept back down to my knees from crippling agony.
 What I had put my mind through those past four years had finally surfaced and I was so frightened.
 I didn't know if I had the beginning stages of a mental problem or if I was going through my time of realizing that it was just too late for a baby.
  I had reached my prime and it was never going to happen without years of more of this. Whatever this was.
 It wasn't me. I didn't even recognize who I was at all. I was torn on what I was going through and if I was mentally stable so I googled all night.
 I looked up individual symptoms which all came back with nothing. I then put all the symptoms together,

bipolar reactions
racing thoughts
strange behavior
depression
stress
anxiety attacks
night sweats
not being able to get pregnant
mood swings
being tired
facial rashes
visual migraines
flashes of lights before headaches
weight loss
weight gain
food aversions
decline in eyesight
aging faster on one side of my face
bone fractures

 Every single symptom I had told doctors and knew of was right in front of me with one and only one answer.
Menopause. But I didn't have that, that was for an older golden girl aged women, not me a 42-year-old young lady.
 I looked up early menopause and saw the word Perminopause. That was when all my symptoms except a few were all listed back at me staring me down and saying
 'WTF woman!!! We have been trying to tell you'.

 Perimenopause. What the fuck was that and why would I have that so young.
 It would be another half a year that I still did not believe this or take it to the doctor for a proper diagnosis.
 I was not ready to hear any news I was entering menopause at all. I was still doing things I did in my twenties. I wasn't ready. It was a bullshit WebMD thing that wasn't real.

I never told Khalid what happened that month, I didn't think it was important to prove a point I had told him many times before. ..I couldn't get pregnant.
 He and I still remain friends and I love to see what he is doing for other women in this world. I support him so very much and the families/moms/dads he helps.
 They are so brave and strong for what they do and it is not easy to approach these situations, it's scary and it's crazy at times but so worth it to see a person you know to walk away with what they desired.

 My baby story ended there with no baby at all. Leah ( The baby's name) was an imaginary thread tying me to my twenties and thirties not allowing me to move on.
  I had to experience this entire event and the four years leading up to it to begin proessign I did in fact have perimenopause.
 What I went through resulting in a loss no matter how unformed the fetus was or how young, destroyed me.
  I did not want any more children and the thought would never cross my mind again. Just like that, the entire planning of a baby stopped and I was left to understand something deeper was happening.

 The next two years I would surely learn both the truths I was entering into another phase of life and I was so much stronger than I ever knew.
 I would learn to let go of regret and people that hurt me. I would become one of the strongest students in the teaching of my life imaginable.
 I would learn to absorb every smell, sound, and texture to experience life as much as possible.
 I flew in a plane even though I was always terrified of them.
 I hiked up large mountains just to sit and hear my mind, learning to enjoy the earth and the fact there was more to life than my problems.
 I allowed myself the chance to live and not focus on what was dying in me or what I was losing.

 I was in an awakening stage. I recognized this person too. It was me before my marriage and my children.... the real-life issues I faced for two decades as an adult.
 One day on top of a mountain in West Virginia, I got a glimpse of that person I was when I was younger before raising a family.
  The freedom I felt and the independence of being one with my thoughts and feeling so small in such a large world filled with beauty,
 It was me before I had been tainted by fake love and hurt of realities and deaths of my loved ones and it was wonderful.
 For the first time in many years, I was beginning to see that a baby didn't prolong my youth. My youth was there waiting for me to find it again. I really missed that girl too.
 She didn't care what others thought or told her. She lived her life the way she wanted without regrets and fears and she was a fucking queen warrior.
 She was still there. Very much with me when I let the baby idea go.
 Things started to make more sense and I was understanding now I didn't have to be scared rather prepared.
 It made me realize being a woman would be so much easier with a team. I knew I was in perimenopause a year before getting the doctor to say it. I had been there for over 5 years by then. But I knew I couldn't be alone. There had to be more women out there like me. Why wasn't anyone talking about this?

 The hot flashes would increase in the next two years and soon I would find a doctor that cared.
I had to get to a point of caring about my own body and health before everything locked into place and no part of it was really a bed of roses.
 But I am here.
 A warrior Queen that has found herself again.

 So do you know the lengths you would go to get what you want?
 If what you want is the peace of mind and the ability to get to a place of more self-discovery I suggest you go to any length possible to find the warrior in yourself.

 I wasn't searching for a  baby that was never going to be mine, I was searching for the last time I knew myself ..when my children were born and I still had so much innocence.

Finally, I was at peace with this now.