It is very difficult to wait patiently. I have never been good at it.
It is hardest to be patient when things are at their most difficult. When you want them to end with haste more than at any other time.
My period still hasn’t come this month. I’m now on day 44 of my cycle (normally 28-35 days long in the “average” woman). Until it arrives, there is nothing I can do. I need it to come before I can start taking the Clomid again, hopefully at a higher dose that should stand a better chance of working this time.
And don’t get excited – I know I’m not pregnant. I had to do a test before I could take some antibiotics last week, and it was negative.
This means that I am waiting. Again. Waiting in the uncertainty of when the next cycle will start, always knowing in the back of my mind that I previously went for years without one at all, worried that the same could happen again, worried that something else might be wrong. I know that right now all the medical help I can get is held at bay by my lack of a regular cycle. There is nothing I can do about that, and believe me I have tried. Jumping does not work.
And every time I go to the toilet, I am disappointed.
I know this is a small disappointment, I mean, it’s not the same as losing Top Chef, or Survivor, or Britain’s Got Talent. But it is repetitive. And for those who know me and my mouse bladder, you’ll get some idea just how repetitive this is. I go to the loo 8746767 times a day, or there abouts. This means I have as many tiny disappointments each day. And they mount up.
I’m not writing this for sympathy. Well, I don’t think I am. I’m writing it because it is this minutia, this unseen detail that wears away at your hope, your resolve, your faith. It is this tiny erosion that is insidious and unspoken.
So I have started singing. Sometimes silently inside my head, and sometimes out loud in the car or shower. I sing the words to a song that sometimes means something to me. And please don’t think that I believe the lyrics all of the time. I would say that 80% of the time it’s more like wishful thinking…
You reign, You reign
Over everything Lord You reign…
I know this may sound strange, but this is my attempt to take control of my thoughts. Each time the disappointment and hopelessness sets in I sing instead, and try to think of something else. Sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn’t.
I know that Christian teaching might tell us that the in between is good. I’m sure it builds character and all that stuff. But it is also shit. It is full of disappointment and impatience, fear and worry, fading hope and frustration. So I’m not going to end this post on a high, with sugar-coated platitudes. Because to do so would be hypocritical. I just wanted to capture some of the realities of the in between, as this is a part of our story too.
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