The silver lining...sort of

Pregnancy and babies are all around me. There is no way to avoid thinking about it. I end up contemplating our failure to conceive at least a dozen times a day (and it feels just like that...a huge failure on my part to accomplish something so basic, something Britney Spears was able to do...twice).

So, instead of attempting to banish the thoughts from my mind, I find myself inventing creative ways to keep a smile on my face. Let's look at all the positive consequences of infertility! No stretch marks. No morning sickness. No gaining weight...I can have flat abs forever! No labor pains. No overpriced and ugly maternity clothes. No sleep deprivation. I can drink lots of wine and diet coke and forget to take my vitamins, and I'm only hurting myself. No strangers thinking they have the right to touch my belly. No mastitis (ouch!). No weird changes in the appearance of my breasts. No stretched-out vagina. No crazy hormonal changes. No worries about whether to quit my job or find a daycare. No arguing with B about what color to paint the nursery. I could go on and on.

But the hardest part is, I desperately want all of those burdensome hassles I just listed. I want to see my hips spread and my abdomen grow and my belly button pop out. I want to be awakened in the middle of the night when the baby inside me starts kicking my ribs. I want to experience the pain of giving birth and then the exhausted joy of those first moments with B and our newborn. I want to stumble out of bed at 3am to nurse our child, even when it hurts. I want to be forced to buy massive ugly nursing bras and spend the rest of my money on diapers. I want all our relatives to argue about who the child resembles most.

I don't know how to mourn the loss of this vision. Of course, it's too soon to know for sure. These desires might be fulfilled someday. But it feels necessary to prepare for the possibility that I cannot get pregnant.

I try to think about adoption...to do so helps me feel in control of the course of my life. But that is no comfort to me at this point, because every moment I've listed above requires conceiving a child. And I'm totally lost trying to figure out how to be okay if that never happens for me.

I hate the word "trying"

After years of "not trying," I jumped for joy when B told me he was ready to "make babies." He said it just like that...plural...babies! And if only it were that easy. A year has gone by, and still not even one baby. Not even the tiniest hope of a baby. Just a bunch of money wasted on pregnancy tests that are always negative. (Is that a second line? Maybe? The smallest hint of a very faint second line? Maybe if I give it two more minutes...) And now we embark down a long, windy road called "infertility." We don't want to start down that road, so we linger at the crossroads, and the longer we linger, the more depressed I feel. We try to fill the empty space with distractions. We'll travel more! We get to spend all our money on ourselves! Skiing every weekend! Life is fun! I know, let's get a dog!!! But none of that satisfies this intense, gut-wrenching, undeniable, cellular-level longing I have to be a mom. And most days, I find myself resenting the poor dog we adopted because I really just wanted a baby.

I do realize that babies are much more exhausting than dogs, but at least they don't chew the faux fur off your new boots.