Lonely.

 

"A heartbreak isn't always as loud as a bomb exploding.  Sometimes, it could be as quiet as a feather falling and the most painful thing is, nobody hears it but you."

This journey is difficult.  There are some good days, but a lot of bad days.  It's a rare occasion when infertility does not occupy the majority of my thoughts in a given day.   It's a lonely journey.  Even though, I have a great support system around me, my infertility is difficult for me to discuss.  It's hard to talk about, even with people who have experienced it before.

With the holidays coming up, I've noticed that my infertility is impacting me a lot more.  It's hard to celebrate holidays because they are just another marker in the journey of infertility.  This is the third Christmas that I have wished, hoped and dreamed that I would be pregnant.  It's hard to wrap presents when you wish you could be wrapping presents for your own child too.  It's hard to sit in the glow of a Christmas tree while watching Christmas movies- absolutely alone.

Maybe someday this heart will heal, but until then I will keep pushing forward in this journey.

Big (Baby) Steps

We have really enjoyed the time we have spent working with the nurses at our fertility clinic, but it is time for us to move forward in this process and try things beyond just medication.  We need to move on to procedures and truly finding out what is causing our infertility.


In January we will be going to see a Reproductive Endocrinologist. We truly believe this is the best move for us right now, and we believe that his experience with infertility will help us move forward in completing our dream of conceiving and having a healthy child.  He seems to have a great rating with his patients and being able to address their needs.

We are looking forward to taking this step and really hoping it pushes us forward on the path towards conceiving.   

Left Behind

It's been awhile.  I have been taking a break.  I have deactivated my facebook and have mostly stayed away from social media in general.  I needed a break.  I needed time to not see pregnancy announcements at every turn.  I needed time to cope with the three year anniversary of trying to conceive. It was hard.  It was emotional.  It was a mess.

It's funny how much relationships change when you are infertile. I have built an amazing support group of friends who are also struggling to conceive.   Some of us have been in touch for 2 years or more.  But something strange happens when you're part of a group of friends who are all trying to conceive.  There are different dynamics to your relationships.  You are all in it for the same end goal of getting pregnant.  And some reach that goal. And some don't.  But what happens when you're one of the people who is left behind in the group of women who haven't conceived?  There becomes a divide. 

Last year, around this same time, I took a break from facebook.  I stayed in contact with many of my infertile friends to offer support and just check in on life overall.  This year has been different.  Many of those women have conceived.  They have had their children or are in the late stages of pregnancy. It's a hard thing to feel like you're being left behind or even forgotten.  You no longer share the bond of the struggle to conceive.  They have moved on to pregnancy concerns or concerns with their child.  Who can blame them though?  They have finally gotten the thing we've all been dreaming of over the last few years.    It's just hard when you have to take a look at the relationship and see that there was only one bond holding you together and while you are still in that place, they are not. You have been left behind.

Milestones

When you're infertile and you are trying to conceive, life begins to have markers.  Each group of days is marked by an "end" which is usually a holiday or other significant date.  They are timelines you set for yourself saying "Oh, we will definitely have a child by this date" or "It would be so perfect to tell friends and family we are expecting on this date".   You plan holidays and vacations by questioning if you will be pregnant during that time or if you will have a newborn by then.

When we first started trying to conceive, we knew that even in a perfect world, conceiving could take a year.  Our first "marker" was that we would at least be pregnant by our first anniversary.  That gave us a year to get pregnant, but we passed that marker without conceiving.  Our next marker was Christmas of 2011, we hoped to be pregnant by then so we could tell all of our family and friends during the holiday festivities.

Our trip to Germany in June 2012, became our next marker.  We hoped to be pregnant by then, but we were also concerned at the possibility of having to book plane tickets more than 9 months ahead of time.  This milestone passed without conceiving too.

When you are infertile, all of these little goals and milestones you have set for yourself, become difficult.  Each holiday, each vacation, each passing birthday-They all remind you of your struggle.  Days that should be joyous remind you of your failure.

In just 5 days, we will hit the three year mark of trying to conceive, and it is hitting me hard.  Harder than any of the other milestones we've hit.  Statistically, the longer a couple is trying to conceive, the less likely they are to conceive.  And three years is a long time when trying to conceive.  It's a long time to see people around you easily getting the thing you're trying so hard for.  It's a long time to spend each and every day hoping for the same thing.

  I am dreading my 25th birthday this year, absolutely dreading it.  In a perfect world, we had planned to be trying to conceive a SECOND child by now, and we still haven't conceived a first.  I know that I am by no means "old", but this birthday has been haunting me for a long time because for three years we  have been planning to have a child, but here we are three years later and we are not any closer to our dream.