Mid-Year Check-In

     Here we are.  It's June.  By this point in the year, I fully expected to have a miracle growing in my belly.  I had planned to spend my summer planning the nursery, discussing names with Drew, buying clothes for our baby, planning maternity photos.  But as most things in life, my plans didn't work out. Instead of spending my summer preparing for the arrival of our first child, I'm spending wondering what I'm doing wrong.  

     At the beginning of the year, I visited my OB/GYN.  I completed all of the testing that was normal screenings for infertility.  They all came back normal.  I did an ultrasound.  Normal.  Blood work.  Normal.  Everything seemed to be doing what it needed to be doing.  To help "boost", I was prescribed clomid.  I took it for two cycles and after the second, Drew and I decided it wasn't worth wasting my last "shot" if he hadn't been tested yet (you can read about that in earlier posts) so we stopped.  We made a decision to quit "trying" and just let what happens happen. 

     But, even when you do that, you still expect every month to miss your period.  You cry yourself to sleep hoping and praying that this month, this time, this day, this instant, will be the time your body finally works.  And the heart break you feel when you learn it wasn't...it's crushing.  I've thought about this for a long time.  I thought about leaving this alone and moving on.  But I can't. 

    My husband and I just returned from an amazing vacation to Disney World.

  The entire time, we kept noticing the children around us.  The babies smiling and playing with us while waiting in lines.  The smiles on the kids faces while meeting their favorite characters.  We talked about how the next time we came back we would bring our kids.  We talked about the rides we would take them on, the shows we would watch, what restaurants we would take them to.  It was so exciting to talk about all the things we planned to do with OUR kids.  Until the realization that that may never happen for us. We may spend our days smiling and playing with other peoples children, but never our own.  

     I really wish I could find the words to describe the way I feel.  When you have a desire so strong in your heart and nothing you seem to do is making that desire happen...it sucks.  Having to admit to yourself that the dreams you had built in your mind may not happen...that sucks even worse.  

     In a few short weeks, we're going to be picking ourselves up and getting back on the infertility bandwagon.  My insurance is changing to a more infertility-friendly provider and we will be starting the steps to begin testing for the male side of all of this.  Our battle is just beginning, and I know it's far from over.  But the second I admit that I've lost, is the second it becomes worthless and I'm not ready to do that yet.