(In No Particular Order)
- We are all stronger than we think. Before we decided to give this whole procreation thing one last try, I spent days agonizing over this decision. Am I strong enough to go through this again? Can I stomach the heartbreak month after month? Answer: yes. Six months of repetitive heartbreak, and guess what? I’m still standing. Sometimes I feel like the day is literally going to consume me. But, for every bad day, I have several good ones full of hope and nursery planning. Through all of this, I have not had one day in which I thought, “I don’t think I can do this anymore.” I’ll take that as a win.
- Being vulnerable is a risk worth taking. I am headstrong and independent, and this one does not come easy to me. But, mostly through being open and sharing (or oversharing) on this blog, I have learned that more people care about you than you think. It’s not always the people who you expect to be your support system that show up for you. To the people that are holding me up (you know who you are)…I love you. Seriously. You check on me constantly and don’t let me get by with an “I’m fine”. I am as strong as I am, largely because I have learned how to let others care for me.
- Desperate times call for desperate measures. There is nothing I will not do to make this happen. I quit drinking alcohol and coffee overnight back in October. However, this is probably best exemplified by the fact that last week, in the midst of ovulation testing, I found myself, on my hands and knees, frantically dipping my ovulation tests in a puddle of pee on the bathroom floor. I suppose I should provide context: Leading up to ovulation I have to test my second pee of the day. The first one contains yesterday’s hormones, so the second one is the most potent sampling of today’s hormone levels. However, I rarely have to use the restroom a second time before work, so those few drops are necessary and precious. This all occurred (obviously) on a day I was already in a rush. After collecting the tiny amount, I set the cup on the floor and reached for a test. In doing so, I knocked it over. Cursing and screaming, I scrambled to open the foil packages before the puddle spread. (I test with two or three different brands each day, just to be sure that I don’t miss my window.) This was so comical that if you saw it in a movie, you would think that it had to come from someone’s imagination. Unfortunately, this wouldn’t be the most unbelievable thing in the movie of my life.
- Hormones are no joke. Also, ASPCA commercials are unnecessarily long. When watching Naked and Afraid on the Discovery Channel, I have learned to change the channel during commercial breaks.
- Listen to your emotions. I’m not (or wasn’t) much of a crier. But I have learned that crying is okay. Sometimes I don’t even know why I am crying. Usually those tears pass as quickly as they start. I have, however, experienced some pretty severe panic attacks lately. A couple months ago, I found myself coming home from the hospital and it was as if a switch flipped in my brain. I didn’t know where I was and I didn’t know how to get home. I called Justin hysterically telling him I was lost. You can imagine his confusion at my panic when I was describing a part of OKC that I know very well. Like my puddle of pee on the bathroom floor story, this is just one instance of many. I am still no expert, and I am still learning how to handle them when they hit, but I am managing them better now. Or trying to.
- Boundaries are healthy. I think sometimes we think that “putting others first” means “putting yourself last.” I used to attend every friend or colleague’s baby shower. I would do the dreaded game of guessing the belly circumference with yarn. I would sit and watch every gift be unwrapped. Each game and each gift felt like a knife in my ovary. I sucked it up, though, because it was expected of me. Almost every baby shower that I have ever gone to has ended up with me having a panic attack that night. I have learned that it’s okay, and healthy even, to say no. I can send a gift and be supportive without putting my own mental health at risk. I can also walk away from inconsiderate conversations and politely stand up for myself. As wrong as this felt at first, I have learned that it’s totally okay.
- There is nothing even slightly romantic about this process. I’m just going to leave it at that. (But, for the record, never tell an infertile woman, “At least you get to have fun trying”. I’ll spare you the details, but there is nothing fun about this.)
- Insurance coverage of fertility treatments is stupid. Sorry, HB, we spent your college fund trying to conceive you.
- Experiences can shape you without defining you. I’m still working on this one, and probably always will be. It is hard to not feel inadequate as a woman and a wife when your body doesn’t work like every other woman’s seems to. It is hard to not feel broken when scrolling through Facebook and seeing nothing but pictures of babies and children. It is hard to breathe steady and keep the tears inside your eyeballs when the baby in the basket ahead of you in the Target check out line tries to make eyes with you. All of these things feel defining. It gets to a point after twelve years of this, that it just feels like “who I am.” I am learning, though, that shaping and defining are two completely different things.
- This is not my fault. And no matter how hard I try, I can’t earn a baby. Accepting this has been difficult. I could, and probably will at some point, write an entire blog entry on just this idea. I have spent most of my adult life secretly thinking that I wouldn’t make a good mother. After all, how many times have I heard, “Things happen for a reason”? I didn’t know what the reason could be unless it was either (A) me not being deserving of it, or (B) the fact that I wouldn’t be good at it. However, through writing this blog, I am learning that there just might be some other purpose to it.
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Update: For those that are trying to keep up with the timeline, my fertile window for this cycle has ended and I have officially begun another “Two Week Wait.” Fingers crossed.
(three. thirteen. twenty-two)
Making Babies (and other things I'm bad at) 