Weeping Angels

Lurking Weeping Angel
from Dr. Who

You know that feeling when you step into a place and you feel like you've been there before? Or you have a conversation you swear happened months or years prior? That's deja vu. It's usually pretty subtle - a hunch or fleeting feeling of familiarity - but mine has been much more concrete. Sometimes I feel like this entire year has really been an episode of The Twilight Zone, complete with flashbacks and an ending that feels more like the beginning of an entirely different creepy story. And more present than my lurking monsters is the feeling that we've done this before.

Now I know what you're thinking: of course you've done this before! You really have lost your mind! But that's not what I mean. It's more the emotion of the thing. Last year, we stepped into this process quickly and hesitantly. As you know, I went for an informational meeting (by myself) and committed us to an IVF cycle the following month. This year, I've had nothing else on my mind but trying again; however, when the time came, it felt equally rushed and I was even more hesitant. The last time, I had a really hard time feeling excited about the pregnancy. (Perhaps this had something to do with the needles, bizarre and terribly restricting diet, and the surgeries.) I bought books and we poured through baby things, from names to supplies. This time, it's hard to let myself look through those baby things and it's hard to get excited. As I told my friend today, it's hard to find the balance between skepticism and excitement. And it doesn't help that looking at baby stuff sends echoes of the past washing over me. How to you get excited to restart the thing you failed so epically at the first time?

But aside from the emotional deja vu, there are some very concrete reminders. Of course, there are the physical things like the sharps container, pill routines, and wonderfully pleasant vaginal ultrasounds. But as if repeating the process might allow me to forget, fate seems to be playing a cruel trick. Last year, we started this process in August, transferred in October, and mainly had appointments on Tuesdays and Thursdays. This year, we started in October, will transfer in November, and have had most of our appointments on Mondays. But despite those differences, and against all rational prediction, major dates are echoing each other. Our second ultrasound this cycle was on Halloween. Last year, we found out we were having twins at an ultrasound on Halloween. And I just found out that I will do lab work to determine if I am pregnant after the transfer (which, by the way, is now Sunday Nov. 11) two days before Thanksgiving. Last year, two days before Thanksgiving, I learned I was having triplets. Seriously?! What are the odds? And why do I seem to have all of the bad luck?

Sometimes I'm okay. I can see the connections and look at the past, but then look forward and into the future. Other times, the parallels stick with me and I just can't shake them. Today was one of those days. It wasn't that I was focused in on this new Thanksgiving-related coincidence. I wasn't even picturing my experience that time last year. It was just an emotion - an overwhelming sadness. I can't say I was specifically mourning the loss of my children, but I was definitely mourning something. Sometimes it's sparked by a deja vu moment - a shared date, one of my children's names in a TV show, or a smell that sends me back to my week in the hospital. Other times it seems to creep in unannounced. It's as if they are the Weeping Angels of Dr. Who. They wait for me to turn away, be distracted, try to move on... and then they strike. But I can't look back forever - even when life is throwing reminders in my face - so I guess I have to turn away and take my chances with the angels.