processing

In case it hasn't become obvious already, I process my thoughts, feelings and strange notions aloud. Talking. Writing. Both are resources for me to work things out and make sense of my life. I appreciate those of you that read this blog because even if you don't respond, having this outlet helps me understand myself better.

And tonight, I really need to process my thoughts. So bear with me please because it may get messy.

Another disappointing day for the books when I realized that I am, again, not pregnant. It's been a less than stellar week and today was the perfect day to cap it off. I don't know why I let myself think that it was possible since it was merely the 22nd time that we paid attention to the calendar, did what we were supposed to do and had my defective reproductive system rear its ugly head.

I haven't been back to blogging long after the break but I hope it is obvious that my mindset has been slowly changing about all of this. Of course, it changes a bit every month and within the month it varies a lot (never underestimate the power of nature over a woman's emotions). But overall, it's changing.

For today. Right now. I'm over it.

I'm so over testing and testing and waiting and waiting and hoping and hoping only to be disappointed. I'm completely over looking at other women's pregnant bellies and comparing my empty uterus to their full one. And I'm definitely over thinking about how if it does happen this month, how that will affect our future only to find that the time I spent thinking about it was time wasted.

Infertility is heartbreaking.

Someone could get a book published, hard cover and everything, with just that one line inside and I would buy it because that is the only word that truly describes it and trying to explain it more is just pointless. A boy never really broke my heart but because of the last two years, I truly know heartbreak.

For me, it is particularly difficult because all I've dreamed to be since I had any true capability of making that decision for myself is a mom. That's it. Not a successful non-profit goddess who saves birds and black babies like Laurel always said I would be. Not a bakery owner like Andrew dreams. Not a photographer like I once thought was possible.

A mom.

So what are you supposed to do with yourself when you realize that your dream, the one you based your life around, the one that has kept you from looking for other jobs and worrying about your career, isn't likely to happen?

Please don't think I've forgotten that we will be able to adopt. One day. But that day isn't soon. We can't even begin to have enough money to adopt. That will be years from now.

So what do I do today? How do I find a new dream? How do I find that thing that drives me most, that fulfills me?

And how do you balance the need to find and pursue that dream for yourself when you need to have a full-time job that provides enough money to support your family and health insurance to cover the autoimmune disease that pushed away your old dream?


And how do you work with your husband to find a new dream together? How do you shift your focus from trying to have a child to something else? How do you fill that empty space that you both know is there but just can't talk about anymore because it hurts too much?


This is a post full of questions. I probably won't get an answer to most of them. Hell, there might not even be an answer to any of them. But I ask them anyway. Because I have to. 


If you had asked me 3 years ago, 3 months ago or even 3 weeks ago what I want to do with my life I would have said without hesitation "I want to be a mom." In my heart, that will always be my answer but I've got to find another one, too. So if you ask me that question in 6 months, I might have the same answer for you, I might have a new dream or I might just say, "who the hell knows?" or maybe it will be so apparent you don't even have to ask.


I guess we'll all have to see.