A dose of reality

As my blog description indicates, this blog chronicles our journey through infertility, embryo adoption, and loss. You can imagine that this journey is quite a rollercoaster ride. There have been ups and there have been downs. There have been both tears of joy and tears of sadness. But regardless, today reality has set in that that I still have no baby in my arms. Today I'm feeling sad and negative but I'm not going to apologize for it because this is how infertility really goes. Being sad and hopeless is part of the package some days.

I am sad about our lost babies. I am sad that our first baby was due this month. Had I not lost her, today I might be anxiously analyzing every symptom in my body wondering "is today the day I meet her?" I would be buying a Baby's First Christmas stocking and would be planning activities around having her with us for the Holidays. Instead, I sit here holding back tears while broken hearted realizing we are still childless. Everyone around me seems to be pregnant easily or by accident. Many people in my life are on their second, third, and fourth babies. It's not their fault they are fertile and I'm not, but it hurts so effing much that we are left behind at this place.

While traditional adoption brings some hope and is on the horizon for 2014, the thought of the new stresses it brings financially and emotionally is gut churning. And while I would do or give anything for a guaranteed chance at parenthood, the idea of scrounging together another $25k makes me physically ill.  I guess I just wish there were iron-clad guarantees. That would change everything.

I was pushed to the brink yesterday by my sister in law who is pregnant with her second child. But the hard part is that she regularly posts on Facebook with complaints about her pregnancy. I finally had it yesterday and unfriended her. I just don't care if it ruffles feathers in my family. Unless you've been through this yourself, you can't possibly understand the pain an infertile woman feels when they hear a pregnant woman complain about something they would give anything for. I just couldn't take it anymore. I would do anything to be in the position to be uncomfortable physically awaiting the birth of our child.

I am realizing how emotionally guarded and scared I am for this upcoming transfer. And I'll be honest, with that feeling comes some irrational guilt. I feel like a bad mom-to-be that I'm not throwing myself gleefully into this cycle with hope and excitement like I did the first two cycles. I'm terrified of it not just failing, but of actually miscarrying right before Christmas. The Christmas season is already marred by the anniversary of my mom's death. Two years ago she died on December 18 and we had her funeral on Christmas Eve. The sights, the smells, the sounds are all associated with losing her. So unless this final cycle brings some mind-blowing betas and nothing but overwhelming positivity, there isn't enough Christmas cheer on this planet to bring me to the new year in one piece.

I'm trying to remind myself that having lots of hope or little hope has no bearing on the actual outcome. This is in God's hands and it will either work or it won't. It's written. Period. I'm obviously physically going to give this cycle my 110%. But emotionally, while I'm trying to get optimistic about the outcome, I'm clearly having a really hard time.

It probably doesn't help that I am on-call again for work starting today (which I loathe and leaves me majorly sleep-deprived) and Kevin's mom is going through a much anticipated and much feared open heart surgery tomorrow. Kevin and I feel like we are always going to draw the you-get-to-be-on-the-screwed-side-of-the-odds card and he's convinced his mom is not going to survive this surgery. I feel confident she will be okay, but then again we've felt that way only to learn we've been gravely wrong before. It's stressful and scary.

But to leave you on a somewhat happier note, I can tell you that despite the lack of a child, or the success of a current pregnancy to write about, I feel so unbelievably blessed for my incredible husband, Kevin. I know God has brought us to (and through) this awful process with the intention of helping us grow closer together. Before learning of our infertility or losing our babies, I knew I loved him with all of my heart. But today I realize that I had no idea I could love someone as much as I love him now. Infertility can either rip you apart or bring you together, and I'm grateful it's done the latter for us.

Maybe this headspace is due to a case of the Mondays, but I really don't think so. You're reading words written by an emotionally damaged woman whose only babies are in heaven or frozen as snowflakes. I ache for the day I can hold a baby in my arms, but today that seems so far away.