Is There An Escape Button?

Sometimes I really wish that I didn't have to deal with this.  With anything, actually.

Normally, I don't consider myself a quitter.  In fact, anyone who knows me will tell you that my stubbornness and my fight are two of my defining characteristics.  The first time I went rock climbing, the instructor pointed out three paths to the top, saying, "This one is nice and easy with a lot of foot holds.  This one will require some creativity, but it's not too difficult.  This one over here is basically impossible, even for experienced mountain climbers."  And I started on the last one.  Without hesitation.  I didn't make it to the top, of course.  I fell.  But I fell trying.  And as I screamed and plummeted through empty air before my rope went taut and I could feel the support of my harness, I had no regrets.  I was ready to try again.  Because that is just who I am.

But something about this is starting to kill that in me.  And since that's one of my defining characteristics, it feels like it's just killing me.

Lately, I've been fantasizing about dropping out of law school, quitting my job, throwing out the drugs and deciding that I'll figure out children later, and then moving to some small town where no one knows me and starting over.  Taking a month or so off before just getting some boring retail job that doesn't suck my soul out of my nose and dangle it mockingly in front of me.  Or, I don't know.  Just something random.  Be a lion tamer.  Or a robber barren.  Or maybe just like a really nosy neighbor.  Something, anything, completely different from my life now.

Because right now, I can't catch a break.

My boss is such a stickler for attendance that he actually got mad at my husband for missing a total of three days last year.  He missed them in order to attend two weddings and a funeral.  But apparently we should have chosen two of those three events and said "Sorry!  Can't come!" to the third.  So no break there.

Law school has "breaks", but the work is so brutal that both Thanksgiving and Spring Break are NECESSARILY spent studying, Winter Break is only a couple of weeks and full of holidays and other such non-break events, and you can forget about taking summer off because you're expected to work AT LEAST full time, and probably with a commute that's about an hour to avoid competing directly with everyone in your entire class.  So no breaks there either.

And obviously, taking a break from infertility isn't a real thing.  I wish it were.  I wish that I could just turn my feelings off, put the effort on hold, and happily carry on with my life for a while without thinking about how badly I want a child and how completely ineffective my efforts in that regard have been so far.  But I can't do that.  It's basically all I think about these days no matter how hard I try not to, and despite the fact that there is exactly NOTHING new to think about because this process is the same freaking thing month after month.  Waiting and then trying to control things and then waiting and then starting to hope and then waiting and then planning even though you tell yourself not to and then waiting and then total, utter despair.

And then waiting.

Oh, PCOS. You're so clingy.

It seems to happen that whenever I get to a point where I'm able to set aside my struggle and engage in life like a normal person, my body decides to throw a weird symptom at me.  I was feeling good this week!  I was getting into the swing of my new job and staying on top of homework and overall doing well!  But obviously, that couldn't last.  Basically, PCOS is an insecure friend who hates it when I hang out with anyone else.  Like, you know in movies when there's that one "friend" who goes to crazy, lying, manipulative lengths to sabotage the main character's relationship for some flimsy and really not believable reason that almost always comes down to jealousy?  I'm talking From Justin to Kelly status (yes, I watched that movie this weekend (no, I don't want to talk about why (shut up.))).  PCOS is that friend.  Every time.

This week it was weird, sharp abdominal cramps on one side, breast pain, and then today some random spotting.  I hate the spotting the most because it was spotting that made me think I was pregnant way back when.  You know, when I was starry-eyed and thought my body could do no wrong.  Back then, I figured it was implantation bleeding.  But, nope!  My body just does whatever it wants whenever it wants.  YOLO, I guess.

So obviously this go-round I'm not getting my hopes up.  Instead, I'm just getting irrationally angry.  That's healthier, right?  Progress?

Also, for those that were wondering, Husband's Best Friend is having a girl.  Arizona Sister-in-Law (who is actually no longer moving to Arizona so maybe I should come up with a new name for her.  But, you know, later) was unable to discover the sex of her baby today because the silly little boy or girl was apparently doing cartwheels in the womb and making it impossible for the ultrasound tech to see their tiny, baby genitals.  So now they have to wait two more weeks.  It basically sucks.

Impatience

I can't wait for anything anymore.  It's like it's taking all of my waiting ability, all of my strength, and all of my will power to hold it together while I wait for a baby (which, obviously, I'm not even doing very well) that waiting for anything else at all drives me crazy.

If my husband is five minutes late picking me up (because he has to drive me around now because SOMEONE STOLE MY BIKE BECAUSE I DO NOT HAVE ENOUGH TO DEAL WITH) I start fidgeting violently.  Spasming, really.  Like a crazy person.

And I'm an introvert.  I used to be great at filling time.  As long as I had a phone or a book or, often, even just my own imagination I used to be perfectly content for hours on end.  I would draw pictures on the roof of my mouth with my tongue.  I would think about what I would use as a weapon and what I would use as fortification if the zombie apocalypse happened exactly where I was and then I would evaluate my chances of survival based on that plan (tell you what, I would have been SCREWED in Zanzibar.  There are no doors or windows to shut; everything is so open.  And you can't even flee to the sea.  It's shallow for miles.)

Heck, I used to people watch.  For hours.  That's baffling to me now.  People watching these days is like dancing through a minefield.  No matter where I look I'll get a spike of pain.  I see a baby.  A stroller.  A pregnant woman.  An older man walking his elderly father.  A young couple clearly in love and unburdened by what I'm dealing with.  I can't look anywhere.  I used to try to guess what a person's life was like based on their shoes and if I did that now every single narration would be bitter.

I'm so boring now, you guys.  I'm so one-dimensional.  I'm only pain, only anger, only bitterness.  And that sucks because everything in my life is good except for this one thing.  I love my classes, I love my schedule, I love my husband, I love living where I live.  But none of those things take up anywhere near the amount of brain space that PCOS takes up for me.  I feel like it's become my entire life, my entire identity.  I am PCOS now.  Not a woman, not a wife, not a law student, not a sister or friend.  Just that one thing that everyone hates and doesn't want to talk about anymore because there's nothing else to say.

True confession: I started this post on impatience because I'm so impatient to get even one response on any of these entries.  I just want to know that SOMEONE has even read it.  I feel like I'm screaming into a void.