Strength is born in the deep silence of long-suffering hearts

“Strength is born in the deep silence of long-suffering hearts; not amid joy.”~Arthur Helps

How do you ever forget something you love? Even when you only knew it for a few weeks. When it was only a blue line on a white stick. From that moment regardless of how short it was…it was my baby. It was my dream, my husband’s smile and my daughter’s “forever friend.” The hopes and dreams for your child begin from the moment the bathroom door open and you fall into your husband’s arm with the stick in hand or the moment you press enter and the due date appears in the blue box on the screen. May 25,2010….that was my due date. In 6 weeks I should be a mother of two. There should have been two Easter baskets this Easter. My mom should be making two pairs of matching shorts for the 4th of July. I should be in a picture on May 15th with all my friends and their baby bellies.

On the outside I appear to have moved on. I have completed the adoption classes and seen the fertility doctor. I’ve got the answers I was looking for. I am even working on a plan to try again. So I guess I have survived yet another loss in my life. Another punch to the stomach. Another knife in the heart. I wake up each morning thankful for all I have in my husband and daughter, enjoy my work and my life as it is today. Then there are those days and moments when things get tough and those times hit hard and fast. They come on so fast you don’t have time to think about the next step before they cripple your every thought. They remind you that your dream is not going to turn out the way you imagined it. That I will never be a mother of two… there will always be that angel that will be part of my thoughts. There was not supposed to be an angel.

I’m tired of my role as the infertile woman who deserves a baby. I am tired of seeing other parents with their children and thinking they are taking their roles as parent for granted. I am tired of looking at parents with their children and thinking they don’t love them enough. I am tired of being so critical of people and the way they parent. I am tired of being so angry at people who look at their role as an at-home- mom as a job instead of as an amazing experience. I am tired of searching for answers about what I should do or not do out of fear of being judged in the end. I am tired of hearing advice from people who have no idea what I am feeling inside and how even the gentlest comment can bring me to my knees. I am tired of infertility consuming my every thought. I am tired of playing the “what if’s” of every scenario. I am tired of hiding behind food. Living like this is exhausting. I am exhausted.

Being the age I am everyone is having babies. All my girlfriends are having babies. That is the hardest thing for me. I try to be happy for them. Deep inside I am sure I am and I am constantly having to remind myself of that. They try to understand and show compassion but it is never enough because they don’t understand. They will never understand unless they have been in this place. Unless they have experienced of losing something so precious and no matter how hard you try you can’t achieve the outcome you set out to achieve. It can change you forever and change everything about you. It has changed me.

Then there is the relationship with my husband. This experience has changed us as a couple. How could it not? So much of his energy is focused on making sure that I am holding it together. He is there to hold me when I cry, walk into doctor’s appointments with me and sit in adoption classes, but I want more. I want to know what he is feeling on the fertility drugs, miscarriages, being a family of three, clomid, IUI…not his thought but his feelings. I want to see him cry with me. I want to be able to feel needed in a way to make him feel better about what we are going through. I want to know that we can work together to figure this mess out. I want to know that we can make love again without fearing another miscarriage. I want to know that having a baby with a playboy, cup and syringe will allow us to love as deeply as we do for our daughter that was conceived with just us in an intimate moment. I want the days back where we were a happy family of three. I want to night back before this mess where we would lay in bed after Sophia was asleep and talk about the future of adding another baby to our family. I want “us” back.

I am tired of these extreme high and lows. I am tired of feeling out of control. I feel like I am in water, deep rough water. I keep treading and sometimes I am under the water and I hear Sophia’s voice and it makes me tread faster and harder and I come back up. Sometimes I see Mike is on a boat with a life preserver. He keeps throwing it out to me but I am afraid to take it because I don’t want to pull him into these rough waters. I want him to be safe. Sophia needs him to be safe. So, I let that preserver close to me but I can’t get myself to grab a hold because the “what if’s” of what will happen next scares me. One wrong move and my life as I know it can change forever. It already has.

Over the next few months Mike and I are faced with a decision that only we can make. This decision will shape who we are forever. I am scared. I am scared that my decision will be selfish and I will never be able to forgive myself if the baby I crave doesn't have a fair shot at life. I am afraid that I will change Sophia's life for the worse. I am scared that if I don’t decide to try then I will forever wonder what would have happened. I am in a place that no person wants to be in... ever. There is no right or wrong answer. There is no internet site that I can go to and in time come across the right answer. I can't ask my mom or sister or friend for the right answer because the answer needs to come from Mike and me. One decision will change my family’s life forever. I do not believe I am strong or wise enough to make this decision…and that scares me.