I'm Having a Moment

Please forgive me, but I'm having a pity party moment.

I know I have a lot to be thankful for, and believe me, I am. I'm very grateful to be pregnant, to be less than 24 hours away from the 24 week mark, to be able to feel Kiddo moving around.

I'm still an infertile though - 100 percent. I've read a lot of women who have gotten pregnant after infertility say at some point that they feel like they've "crossed over", and others who feel kind of in between, not like a completely "normal" pregnant woman, but also not totally in the IF world any more, either.

Neither of those are me.

Some people live the nightmare for a year or two and then go on to find success in treatments without any miscarriages or other setbacks. They have all the kids they planned to have, and while infertility touches their lives and leaves its painful mark, their lives seem to eventually evolve into "normal": it winds up being pretty much exactly what they had envisioned, even if it took longer to get there than planned, and the mark eventually fades or disappears altogether.

Then there are those of us who have lived the nightmare for a much longer period of time. There's not just going to be a temporary scar; instead, for a lot of us, infertility has literally altered who we are. It hasn't just taken us on a brief, inconvenient detour - instead, it's changed our lives in irrevocable ways.

And it turns out that even being pregnant, even feeling Kiddo's movements, doesn't make it all better.

What has brought on this statement of the obvious, you ask?

Really, I have no one but myself to blame, because I brought it on myself. 'Tis the season. I opened a Christmas letter from one of my college roommates. She has two kids and generally leads a great life - great husband, great job, great house, annoyingly slender (I say this with affection, really), etc.

There have been some years that I have just not even opened her letters because I knew I couldn't handle it. But this year, I did.

I try really, really hard not to count anniversaries. And don't ask me how, but for the most part I manage to be pretty successful at it. But she was due with her second within just a couple of days of the due date of my very first pregnancy. And her daughter will be 8 in a few weeks.

Eight. R and I should have an almost-8-year-old second-grader now.

And - valid or not, I'm choosing to blame this on the pregnancy hormones - somehow all I can do is sit here and cry for all of the losses that represents. All of the milestones, all of the little moments, all of the big celebrations.

And yes, hopefully we'll get to experience those soon with Kiddo. But one child does not make up for the loss of another. Or, in our case, 7 others. I knew that intellectually, but I guess I'm just now recognizing it emotionally.

You would think I would be smart enough to stop there. But no...

Then I go on to read about her younger sister, who is probably about 34 and had a child several years ago and has severe endo. And got married a couple months ago. And is now apparently 3 months pregnant. You know, the way "normal" people do that. And has already picked out a name for the baby, because she's Just. That. Sure. that she'll be bringing a living, breathing, healthy kid home from the hospital in about 6 months.

I don't think I can blame the pregnancy hormones for my feelings about that news. Good old fashioned bitterness and jealousy get the credit there.

Like I said, pity party. And still an infertile, 100 percent of the way.