Struggles

I have not been blogging for one reason... I don't have the thing that I so badly want to be blogging about. 


For many, many months Kevin and I have been keeping a big secret from almost everyone we know. I have been ashamed and embarrassed and felt pretty much alone. As I was reading someone else's blog this morning I realized, I need this; I need to have a place to talk and vent my troubles, to sort through my thoughts and to hopefully gain support and strength. 


Since April of last year Kev and I have been trying to get pregnant. I went about it kind of like this: 
I will go off birth control in April. I will get pregnant in Aug or Sept. I will have a baby right near the last weeks of school. I will have all summer off with my new little bundle of joy, then go back to work.
Well... The only part of this plan that seemed to go correctly was the stopping birth control in April.


I didn't worry for a long time. Not until about November did it become something that started to consume me. I think this is because around November EVERYONE I KNOW (and I am honestly not exaggerating) was either announcing pregnancy or new babies. This became a really hard thing to listen to, when I knew that we have been secretly trying for months and were getting nothing. I started to worry that maybe something was wrong, and insisted that we go get everything checked out. My husband, being the amazing man that he is, went right along with this plan, and we spent Thanksgiving break being poked and prodded and delivering "things" to be tested :) In fact I drove to the doctors on Thanksgiving morning to make a drop off for testing. All of this being done with only a selected few (maybe three) of my friends knowing. I just felt too ashamed to tell anyone in our families yet. Once we received the results though, my feelings changed.


A few days after our tests we got a letter with the results, asking us to come in for an appointment. I was excited and terrified. We found out that everything with Kev was totally fine, but a few tests of mine made our dr (who is a wonderfully warm woman) believe that I wasn't ovulating. I was distraught at hearing this because of the struggles one of our friends had recently had due to this same issue, and I just couldn't keep it to myself anymore. I had to share all of this with the one person (besides Kev) that I tell everything too, because it was simply too much to keep in anymore. We made the choice to share the information with my mom, even though I wanted more than anything to surprise her with a pregnancy announcement, I now knew this was going to be a much longer road than we once thought. 


I am not sharing to receive sympathy, because through this journey you would not believe some of the stories I have heard from other women, but I am sharing just to share. I feel like I have been hiding information, or keeping too many secrets. I hope that more of you can shed light on our situation, and share with me your stories so that this becomes an even less alone of a feeling. The one thing I request that no one says to me is "just relax and don't think about it and it will happen" this is a VERY annoying thing to hear when you have a biological clock ticking so loudly that you can't seem to hear anything else. Women who have been through this and can relate know, there is simply no way to not think about it, and the women who have not experienced having to truly want and WAIT for a baby simply cannot relate to the feeling. 


I don't want this to become my identity, but it is something that is beginning to be a part of who I am, and when I hear of someone else who is going though or has been through this, I automatically feel bonded. I want to shed light for others that is it nothing to feel ashamed of, and that once talked about maybe I will feel less pressure and less like I have too much locked up inside. 


More tests this month, and maybe more answers next month... As I sit here typing I am still not sure that I want to publish this for anyone to see, but it feels good to write about it. I realize while reading some friends of mine's blogs that things could be much worse, I could be losing a child, or dealing with a sick spouse, and I have neither of those things to worry about. This is something that I am trying to look at as a speedbump, and not a road block. It is taking us more time than expected, but I know in the end the joy will be unlike anything either of us has experienced. I can't wait to share the news with all of you that the wait is over... someday. 


Oh and for those of you who have been such an amazing support system until this point... Keeping it secret from anyone else, and letting me talk about it until you probably cannot stand to hear one more thing- You are greatly appreciated. Really. You have been my sanity. And probably Kevin's too, as then we can talk about other things together :)
Some of you even brave asking me about it... To which you probably get more than you wanted as a response. Thank you again.

"A friend is someone who is there for you when she'd rather be anywhere else." 

- Len Wein