If I had to use one word to describe my attitude through this journey so far it would be :hopeful:I would have a pity party for a little bit after getting a negative pregnancy test, but then I would get control of myself and move on. Give me a day or two and I would be fine. I knew it was going to happen. I was hopeful that this would be our month.
I didn't let myself focus on the negative things because I knew it was going to happen for us soon. I was hopeful it would.
In my head, I had it planned out perfectly. When Ben and I would find out and when we could celebrate, when and how we would tell our families. I had already looked to see when the due date was and when I would find out the sex of the baby. In my head, I had every pregnancy symptom and woman has ever had. In my head, it was a little easier planning baby showers for sweet family because I would be pregnant too. In my head, I wasn't thinking about what the next step in this struggle would be because I was going to be pregnant and this would be the end of my"infertility" struggle.
But... my body didn't match up to what I had in my head. It really hit me one day that I wasn't pregnant. It wasn't a negative pregnancy test, it wasn't my period, it was just a feeling. I knew that I had let myself do it again. I let myself get so worked up and excited about a pregnancy that wasn't there. My commute home that day was full of tears. I had never been so thankful for traffic that was dead stopped.
It hit me that I had told everyone who asked that we were taking Clomid. I now not only had to deal with all the emotions of this but put on a happy face and pretend I wasn't dying inside because I wasn't pregnant. So I decided that I wasn't talking about it any more. Ben and I were going to continue on this journey a little more privately. I had decided not to write anything on my blog about it.
That was last weekend. I have since been able to talk about everything without crying and getting upset. I am okay with this path. But that doesn't mean I understand it. I know God doesn't make mistakes. He has me on this journey for a reason. When He wants to give me a child, he will and not a minute before.
It seems everything is so much more real now. Like since we didn't get pregnant off our first round of Clomid, it's official that we are struggling with infertility. Something inside me wanted to deny it, but now I can't. I'm not saying all of this to get pity. I'm saying it for me. No one truly understands this feeling until you are walking through it. I sure didn't. I thought I did but I didn't.
So what do we do now? We continue on. We continue praying. Not for a baby, because that's been prayed for, but for the peace to get through this. Ben and I are going to continue this journey together, a little more privately. I can't say I won't blog about it because the purpose of this blog is for me to look back on, but I may not blog about it as much.
I didn't realize so many people in my life are going through or have gone through infertility until I started talking about it. It helps so much being able to talk to people who have gone through this. It leaves me hopeful that our story will end on a happy note. But one person that I was surprised to hear about was Laura Bush. I think she sums it up perfectly.
"For some years now, the wedding invitations that had once crowded the mailbox had been replaced by shower invites and pink-or-blue-beribboned baby announcements. I bought onesies or rattles, wrapped them in yellow paper, and delivered them to friends. I had done it with a happy wistfulness, believing that someday my time, my baby, would come. George and I had hoped that I would be pregnant by the end of his congressional run. Then we hoped it would be by the time his own father announced his presidential run, then by the presidential primaries, the convention, the general election. But each milestone came and went. The calendar advanced, and there was no baby.
The English language lacks the words to mourn an absence. For the loss of a parent, grandparent, spouse, child or friend, we have all manner of words and phrases, some helpful some not. Still we are conditioned to say something, even if it is only “I’m sorry for your loss.” But for an absence, for someone who was never there at all, we are wordless to capture that particular emptiness. For those who deeply want children and are denied them, those missing babies hover like silent ephemeral shadows over their lives. Who can describe the feel of a tiny hand that is never held?"
-Laura Bush
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