Book Review

I have been reading the book, "When Bad Things Happen to Good People" by Harold S. Kushner. I am almost finished the book (which is a quick read if you don't break it up like I have) and until today it was just that, a read. I was struggling to find the connection to what I was going through and the examples in the book. This is part of my problem though. I don't like to hear stories about people who struggled with IF and then got pregnant because they never relate to me. I have read countless memoirs and heard many stories, but they are just that...stories. Aside from all of you, who get it, I am just not interested in hearing about so and so who took for Clo.mid for a few months, stopped and then got pregnant. I tried the Clo.mid, it did absolutely nothing for me so shut the fuck up, it won't help. I didn't even last a full cycle on it. After five days, I added injectables and haven't looked back since. That was over three years ago. I have been on injectable hormones for 32 cycles (timed intercourse - IUI - IVF - DE IVF).

I am not usually jealous, but rather upset for myself when I hear of other people's success; and especially with this last loss, I found myself very very sad, depressed, angry, bitter, jealous (insert other adjectives that fit) and questioning why. I would not consider myself an overly religious person. I don't attend synagogue on a weekly basis, nor do I follow the Halacha (Jewish law) to the letter, however I do keep many of the traditions and try to find meaning in what I believe. Over my IF journey, I have become more in tune with my Judaism. I have begun going to the Mikve and also consulted with a rabbi from time to time. At each major failure, I have found myself questioning my faith. Right now, I am really struggling with this. I am so angry that my life right now is defined by calendars, cycles and hormones; I just want to cross over already. I want to be myself again. The happy, outgoing person that A. fell in love with. I know she's in there somewhere, and I am trying to find my way back to her.

When reading the book today, the section that really spoke to me was about anger and jealousy. It was the first time since reading the book that I was able to relate elements to my life and my situation. I don't know if that made me feel good or not, but it did give some validity to what I was reading. It also helped me to not feel so alone. For the first time, I felt like someone got it. Someone that wasn't reading this blog. Someone that I hadn't met and that didn't necessarily experience IF.

"What do we do with our anger when we have been hurt? The goal, if we can achieve it, would be to be angry at the situation, rather that at ourselves, or at those who might have prevented it or are close to us trying to help us, or at God who let it happen. Getting angry at ourselves makes us dressed. Being angry at other people scares them away and makes it harder for them to help us. Being angry at God erects a barrier between us and all the sustaining, comforting resources of religion that are there to help us at such times. But being angry at the situation, recognizing it as something rotten, unfair, and totally undeserved, shouting about it, denouncing it, crying over it, permits us to discharge the anger which is a part of being hurt, without making it harder for us to be helped.

"Jealousy is almost as inevitable a part of being hurt by life as are guilt and anger. How can the injured person not feel jealous of people who may not deserve better, but have received better? How can the widow not be jealous of even her closes friends who still have a husband to go home to? How should the woman whose doctor has told her she will never be able to bear children react when her sister-in-law confides to her that something may have gone wrong and she may be pregnant for a fourth time?

It serves us no purpose to try to moralize against jealousy and talk people out of it. Jealousy is too strong a feeling. It touches us too deeply, hurting us in places we care about...We hurt ourselves more than anyone else by feeling jealous, and we know it. But we still feel it.

Perhaps that is the only cure for jealousy, to realize that the people we resent and envy for having what we lack, probably have wounds and scars of their own. They may even be envying us.

Anguish and heartbreak may not be distributed evenly throughout the world, but they are distributed very widely. Everyone gets his share. If we knew the facts, we would very rarely find someone whose life was to be envied" (Kusner, 120-124).

It's a lot to think about. I'm still processing how these words make me feel. Each sentence touches on a different part of my emotions - even some I didn't know I had. I have two more chapters left of the book and then I will be able to completely reflect on what message I have taken away from it, but for today I am comforted knowing that I am not alone.

-R.