There are definitely opportunities for bitterness to seep into my heart when we think about what 9 months means...
...if I were pregnant I would have a baby by now
When in reality, if I were to get pregnant I would have a 4 year old by now.
I can see a difference in my attitude towards infertility when I stop negative thoughts and redirect my thinking to the positive. I'm not saying I'm always successful in redirecting my thoughts. I have my fair share of pity parties, but one, two, three years ago the difference is that I would stay in my pity parties & struggled to cope through the pain & unfairness of infertility.
Kevin & I regularly discuss the idea of having a kid in our house. What will that look like, sound like, feel like? It's just been the two of us for so long, we can't imagine having someone else to talk to or play with. I won't even go into conversations like...what will he or she look like???
We still get depressed. We still H-A-T-E waiting. We still grieve. We still hope...& that's the difference. We haven't given up & know there is an end to this period of our lives.
Realizing that nine months has passed has brought excitement to our lives in some ways. I actually want to finish our nursery, even if that means staring at an empty crib for months. We've starting to buy cutesy things like these:
This might not seem like a big deal to any of you, but it's monumental to us. We've spent years avoiding children's aisles, the baby department in Target, but now we feel ok to buy stuff like this.
The Wait is a roller coaster & a test of endurance. People ask us every day how we deal with it, what we do. Well, we stay busy. We work on projects around the house. We go to concerts, go hiking, watch movies, hang out with friends. I read and write every day. Kevin takes amazing photos of the moon and nature. We spoil our puppies rotten. It's these things that keep us going.
I'm currently reading a book & it mentioned grief in a brilliant way. In Jonathan Tropper's How to Talk to a Widower, the main character Doug lost his wife unexpectedly the year before & he struggles with life after losing his spouse. (It's actually quite a funny read. Not as depressing as it sounds.) At one point he is speaking to his stepson's guidance counselor & she says this to him:
"You didn't invent grief. My shrink once told me that...
The point is, people become possessive of their grief, almost proud of it. They want to believe it's like no one else's. But it is. It's exactly like everyone else's.
Grief is like a shark. It's been around forever, and in that time there's been just about no evolution. You know why?
"...Because it's perfect just the way it is."
In any unfortunate situation we have the capacity to let grief consume our lives. We have the right to be angry & feel self-righteous, but at the end of the day it just feels tiresome. All I can do is learn from my grief, rely on others & trust that eventually it'll get better.
Hopefully we won't have to keep waiting much longer, but if we do it's all going to be ok.
...thanks for letting me vent. :)
-B
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