Clearly, I've lost my mind...

 
Birds hate me.  That's the truth.  They really do.  This truth first came to light when I went to my Uncle Jimbo and Aunt Fay's house.  They raised chickens and for dinner we were going to have FRESH chicken pastry.  Being little enough to know no better (and having an uncle with a sense of humor lost to me at that time), I sat in the truck bed when the chicken met the hatchett.  To this day I have nightmares about that evil zombie-like chicken body running towards me with no head.  I also remember being a little girl and having two parrots poop on me at the pet store.  That was just the beginning.  Since then, they have found various other ways to torment me thru my life.  In high school, I couldn't eat out in the courtyard with the other Seniors because the birds would fly down from the trees and swoop at me, their talons grabbing at my hair.  When I went to summer camp, there were bats and small birds that would dive bomb me in the swimming pool - kamikaze bats, if you will - who were willing to die for their cause (one drowned as he tried to grasp my swimsuit).  As an adult, I married into a family of bird lovers who insist that their birds can't fly because their wings have been clipped.  This is despite evidence to the contrary where they have left their cage tops in a determined attempt to cross a room and peck my eyes out.  Oh, and I haven't even mentioned the probably 50 birds that have flown straight into my car and died with a dramatic thump as they tried to scare me off the road. 

THEY ARE EVIL CREATURES AND I HATE THEM AS MUCH AS THEY HATE ME.

This brings me to the point.  I must have lost my mind because last night as I sat in the living room watching (redneck) TV with Harris, I sobbed uncontrollably after "Billy the Exterminator" was tasked to "relocate" Canadian Geese who had nested in areas too close to businesses or schools.  Billy and his brother, Ricky, forced the daddy into protective mode and then bullied the mama goose off the nest so they could put oil all over the hot eggs.  The result of this process is that the eggs would fry in the heat and, once the parents found out their offspring were dead, they would have bad memories of the place and move on.

Watching this and hearing the cries of that mama as the daddy was fighting and then once she was bullied from her nests broke my heart.  Suddenly, I was the mama goose and that daddy was Harris out there dive bombing Billy and Ricky trying to keep his almost-family safe no matter what.  Oh, and the horrible cries that came out of that mama when they did get her off the nest and she realized that her eggs were exposed.  Do geese wail - because it was such a soulful cry that, had she been human, certainly it would have been a wail. 

All I could do was cry because I knew that there was nothing she could do that she wasn't already doing.  She'd done everything right - she'd mated for life and chosen a loyal & strong partner, she'd laid her eggs and attended them vigilantly, she'd fought for her almost-children, and still it wasn't enough.  The worst part was that, according to Billy and Ricky, it would take the geese a few days to realize the eggs were ruined.  In my mind, what I heard when they said that part was that although she would go back to the nest and continue doing what she could to take care of her babies, it was all for nothing because they had put their hands into the nest and rubbed oil on the eggs.  That poor mama and daddy would sit there for another 3 days while their children died in their care.  How cruel.  How devastating.  How relatable for anyone on this journey of infertility.

I know that along the way I have done everything I can to make sure the people I work with are certified, well versed in their craft, knowledgeable, thorough, and careful.  Harris and I feel confident in our choices and our treatments for the most part.  And, we feel like we've made a good choice for overseas surrogacy with SCI should this last cycle fail.  For those reasons, and because of the endless amounts of research/prayer/correspondence/checking behind/questioning that we've done over the last 6 years, I can feel okay and know that I'm not the mama goose sitting on those hopeless eggs.  But man, I sure do feel sorry for her. 

(By the way, Harris had no idea how to comfort me during this drama because he knows my tense-at-best relationship with feathered not-friends.  I'd put a link to that episode, but I'm honestly embarrassed to admit that I watch that show.  LOL!)