The little engine that could

I think I can. I think I can. Those are the words running through my brain, full steam ahead, as I lay on the table, the probe of the ultrasound inside me. I can get through this. I can.

We can start the IVF process again. All the tests and the probing. The blood work. The estrogen. The shots. The money. All that fucking money. The hopes and dreams. The prayers.

My last ultrasound was horrific. It was two years ago and I was almost ten weeks pregnant after IVF with a donor egg. They couldn't hear a heart beat on the regular external ultrasound so they ordered a transvaginal one. The news was not good. The ovum was blighted, My baby was gone. The doctor told me matter of factly. I will never forgive him for his stoic professionalism.

It has been a long road to start the fertility process again after the horrible miscarriage. A big mistake I made was to allow the miscarriage to occur naturally at home, I am forever traumatized.

It took me almost a year to even feel anything close to normal again. I moved through my days on autopilot. I started having panic attacks while driving. My whole body would be covered in a sheen of sweat, my hands dripping so much water it made the steering wheel slippery. I would pull over and cry. Cars would drive by me going eighty miles an hour probably wondering why someone would pull over on the Cajon Pass. It was dangerous, but I didn't care. I was barren and forty-something. Childless. Hopeless.

I would think, let them hit me. Put me out of my misery. Let me start over, Maybe I would come back as a butterfly. Or as a woman with eight kids. People don't talk about having those kind of thoughts, but I have to be truthful with how bad it was. It was only with the help of a supportive therapist that I got through the darkness and saw the light again.

The light shined straight into my eyes in the ultrasound room and I blinked. The ultrasound technician was very kind and reassuring. As if she knew how hard the process was for me. She was wearing pink scrubs with dogs on them and had frizzy blond hair and Buddy Holly glasses. "Are you OK?" she asked again and again.

I nodded my head and whispered, "Yes. I think so. I think so. I think I am."