Through

A couple people brought up a very relevant point on my Wednesday post: at some point I will be done with this family building thing. At some point, this will NOT be my life anymore.

I actually think about this sometimes, but in an abstract sort of way. Mostly I wonder what I’ll DO with myself when this part of my life if over. When I’m done building my family (and I do believe we will have another child, by some avenue or another) my life will be pretty sweet. Besides unhappiness at work, I’ll be sitting pretty, with a complete (or as complete as I can hope to have) family, a house in the city we love, helpful parents nearby, a good relationship (maybe?), a cranky cat and (please, please, please) a perfect puppy. What will I do with my life then? What will I write about?

I think about this aspect of my family building being over, of the “what will I do with myself when we’re done?” but I rarely think of it as a beacon of hope, as an assurance that some day this won’t be my life, that some day I’ll throw away my thermometer and the last tube of Preseed and I’ll delete the FertilityFriend app from my phone and I’ll never have to feel guilty about drinking Diet Coke again.

That one day I can take my medication whenever I need it.

Just writing that brings tears to my eyes, the knowledge that some day this will be OVER and I can move on and live my life. That one day the Facebook announcements and family gatherings and phone calls from friends won’t fill me with fear. That one day I’ll feel normal again, or at least a better kind of normal than now.

It’s nice to know that some day this will be over. That brings me hope. And peace. It also makes the waiting for it a little more bearable.

My feelings about this cycle oscillate wildly. For three days after ovulation I was on cloud nine (I’ve realized that progesterone makes me super happy, I love the first few days after I O) but since then I’ve crashed and burned into an endless cycle of negativity. I have about as much hope of this cycle working as I have of winning the lottery. It doesn’t help that I’m almost a week from ovulating and my tempts are still pretty low and my boobs aren’t even sore. Looks like this will be another busted month and I’ll have to navigate Thanksgiving on the coat tails of failure.

Even when everything lines up perfectly. Even with acupuncture and Chinese herbs and months of FertiliyAid for Men and Preseed and a positive OPK and some decent CM, even then, we can’t get pregnant. Over and over again we fail.

And sure that brings tears to my eyes just writing that. Sure they are falling lightly on my computer as I type. But the truth is I’ll get through it. I’ll get through my 10th BFN and I’ll get through the Kaiser class the following Tuesday and I’ll get through whatever diagnosis we may or may not be given and I’ll get through whatever treatments we may or may not need and I’ll get through whatever it takes to bring a second child home–be that from my own womb or someone else’s–and I’ll get through all of that and then one day, it will be over. And I will have gotten through it. And it will be done.

There’s no other way out of this but through.

And some day, we will be through.

And that is enough to keep me going.