Coping, Not Hoping

My periods have become frightening, and as my latest cycle started, I tried to calm my constitution as well as I could.

To feel more prepared, I spent the first day making menstrual pads from ill-fitting flannel pajamas. It did make me feel better, a little more in control, and now I have several more cloth pads. I love win-wins.

That night I had a vivid dream of nursing my newborn baby. When I woke up, I told my boyfriend about the dream and he asked if the baby was a boy or a girl. I don't know, I said, it didn't matter. I was shattered by the dream, felt absolutely mournful for the baby that was never mine. I curled back up under the covers and cried.

I'm too sick to have babies. My head likes to torture me, and now my uterus might be trying to kill me; but that remains to be seen, it might just be aiming to for grave illness. Actually, my symptoms did improve a bit with the iron supplements and other remedies I threw at it, so that gives me optimism that I won't bleed out before I can get some help from a gyno, at least.

And my migraines have gotten really sharp lately, which may also be period related. I do pretty well coping with the dull and throbbing, but the sharp migraines are a whole other thing. They can easily render me fetal, or turn me into a pacing, panicking ball of distress. I'm keeping the anxiety at bay pretty well though, with various snake oils I've collected over the years, and with meditative techniques. I looked like a woman in labor the other day, I was bent over the bed, rocking and moaning as the pain closed my eyes and brought my head to the sheet. It felt better to move my body as I rested; I can't seem to keep still when these sharp spikes hit, plus I was sort of stretching my back as I rocked. But it was only intermittent rocking, because the nausea shows up for every single one of these parties lately.

However, the cyclical depression I've been experiencing seems to have faded over the last two months, and I'm not sure what I'm doing differently, but I'm relieved for the break.

The IC seems to be under control, I've tolerated moderate amounts of spices and small amounts of acids. I'm definitely still taking it slow, because I really don't want to lose this progress. I can go out to eat again! It feels like a miracle, to have this much freedom in food. Taking the citrus slowly doesn't bother me at all, I'm too busy relishing the lack of urethral pain.

But still, I'm too sick to have babies. That dream really brought it all front and center and it feels like every conversation ends with that conclusion, even if we started at what produce should we get at the store.

If I had more support. My partner is not available for full-time parenting and I can't imagine a financial situation in which he would be. I don't have any family or friends that would be up to co-parenting with me. And dogs are about all I can handle on my own, and let's be real, I need help with them on my bad days, too.

Wanting a child is selfish, sure, but it's also a biological imperative that is difficult to ignore, logic withstanding. If there was a positive trade-off it might be easier, a great career or loads of traveling, but no, just me and my sick.

There's always hope for the future, but I find it difficult to live with hope, at least not too much of it. Hoping can lead to waiting, and of course to major disappointment and maybe sometimes to wish fulfillment, but we chronic migraine people tend to have this for a short while or forever, especially when we're medication resistant, so hope is a thing with feathers that I'd shoot down if I wasn't a vegan.