I want myself back!

I’m really struggling at the moment.  I feel like crying most of the time, which is not like me.  I’m not always rainbows and butterflies, but I am usually more upbeat and get-it-done than melancholy and down-in-the-dumps.  It could be the fertility drugs I’m on, which have an impressive line-up of side effects, but it’s also circumstantial.  More baby announcements, hearing a pregnant work colleague talk to another, whose wife is expecting their second baby, about feeling the baby move and how exciting it all is.  At my desk.  I had to get up and leave with the plan of having a good cry-it-out in the ladies, but given the acoustics in the bathroom I opted for a quiet office to take some deep breaths and pray.  They were gone when I got back – praise Jesus!

Usually going for a run helps me when I’m feeling down or upset or angry, but I’ve been advised not to while we’re trying to get pregnant – and after all the effort everyone’s going to to try and get me up the duff, I dare not.  After we’re done I can go back to it with wild abandon.  But I could really use a good 5km right now.

Another fact getting me down is my past.  Every so often the choices I made and the things I’ve done rear their ugly heads in my ‘new’ life.  I usually push it out, but given my current mental state, those thoughts have been lingering and are getting harder to shut out.  Sometimes I let myself dwell there – to feel it – but then I feel worse than before.  At the Good Friday church service today I was reminded that Jesus died on the cross for my sins, and my slate has been wiped clean – white as snow – but instead of feeling uplifted, I feel unworthy.  I just feel so sad.

Without running, and with my current shitty mental state – sadness, anger, shame, loneliness, jealously – I’ve noticed I am eating more than I should too, and eating things I usually do well avoiding.  I could write the book on comfort eating!  I feel like I’m eating hand over fist to try and make myself feel better, when really it’s only going to make me feel so much worse because my clothes won’t fit anymore, I won’t like my reflection and my self-esteem will take a nosedive, and getting back into running will be a longer and more painful (and jiggly) process.  To boot, one of the side effects of the drug I’m on is weight gain.  Freaking. Awesome.

I just can’t seem to shake this funk.  I almost can’t wait to stop going through this fertility treatment process so I can get off those drugs and get myself back.  But I want to see out our three attempts.  I want to give this everything I’ve got.  I told our specialist on Tuesday that when we've done our three attempts, we're going to call it a day, and he said he really respected that choice.  He is a beautiful man.  So when/if it doesn’t work, I will still hate hearing pregnant women talk about their pregnancies, seeing or hearing birth and pregnancy announcements, ultrasound photos and general baby business.  Why WHY can’t it be me?  I will still cry – I’m a crier from way back – but at least the cocktail will be out of my system, and I can run again to shift my mood.  At this rate, I’ll be set for my first marathon later this year!