Floundering Feelings

image via google images

My feelings these days are floundering.  I am happy with our decision to move on and keep TTC this summer, but overall, my feelings regarding our future little bean(s) are so different than they used to be.

When we first began TTC, I was a starry-eyed optimist.  I thought of our babies all the time, named them, imagined them sitting up in the clouds, ready to tumble on down into my belly at any moment.  I meditated on them, on the idea of clearing my body and making room for the baby.  I talked to them, read them imaginary letters that were really more like prayers asking to get pregnant.  I simplified my life and began eating and behaving like a woman who was already pregnant, taking wild precautions with just about everything.  Hubs and I would sit together, jokingly talking for hours about what our babies would be like.  If there was a little disagreement about laundry or dishes I would tease him saying, "shhh, if they hear all this silliness the baby is not going to want to tumble down!"  I am not crazy, I swear, though much of this probably paints me as a psychotic lunatic.  It was fun, it was light-hearted, it was carefree.   We were about to get pregnant and have a baby!  Right?

Wrong.  I am still not pregnant and while I know this has not been a long journey compared to so many others, it has still taken a toll on my body and my hope.  In the last month or so, I'm not so sure where the hope and optimism have wandered off to, but I'm sure I don't see them in sight.  There are glimpses at times, but I can never really catch them and pin them down.  I could be concerned about this, but I firmly believe that they will return when needed--probably in the 2WW right around 10dpo, if history tells us anything.

But moreover, my entire psyche has now shifted.  While it is obviously about baby while TTC, it isn't the focus anymore.  It isn't about baby--not about thinking of names or imagining what we'll be like as a family.  It isn't about dreaming of a nursery or those cherished moments.  And it isn't about creating a zen-like environment.  Now, it's about getting through.  I have hit  a stage of self-preservation, I believe. I assume it is for the best, but I do lament those carefree days.  Today, I can't meditate on my babies or my body with a smile.  I can't even think of the names we had prematurely picked out as they now seem to represent so much pain.  Before, it seemed like every decision and every move was to ensure that my life and my body would be ready for a happy, healthy baby.  Now, it seems every decision and every move is simply a required motion in order to get to the other side.

Even my view of these procedures have taken a hit as I can't say that I honestly think that good news will come when I go in for my appointment Monday morning.  After having no effect with Clomid 50mg, my dosage has been upped to 100mg, but I don't feel as though there will be good news.  I am ready for the news that my follicles did not respond, that I am Clomid resistant and that, yet again, this cycle will be cancelled.  My starry eyes are gone and now I'm a realist.  Now, all this just seems like huge hoops to jump through, an obstacle course in the way of our goal.  And more than ever, I am feeling like it is simply a course we have to run before we inevitably adopt.  I say this with no issues and no sadness as I am from an adoptive family and have always wanted to adopt myself.  The sadness I feel, honestly, comes from the thought of this journey, the next few months of procedures being so taxing and tolling it completely takes the joy out of the road to motherhood.  When I think about adopting, I wish I could just start the adoption process eager, optimistic and starry eyed again, but in the current scenario, it seems as though we will go in emotionally drained and scarred.

Infertility has turned me into a realist and thrown me into the deep waters where self-preservation is a necessity.  When I started my meds and my pregnant bellied friend exclaimed with bright eyes and a squealing voice, "Oh, this is so great!  Now, in two weeks, you could be pregnant!" I wanted to bolt.  I wanted to say, "Sure, I could, but don't hold your breath."  I wanted to tell her how naive I thought that comment was and while I know it was said with best of intentions, I wanted to say that it hurt me.  Of course, I played nice, smiled with a shrug of my shoulders and said, "Who knows?"  Soon after, I excused myself to cry in the bathroom.

I'm sure that I'm being dramatic now and I know that I will find the hope and optimism when I really need them, but I, like everyone else just wish that I didn't have to wait for them....or for a baby any longer!