TTC: A new attitude

If you are trying to conceive and sad posts are a trigger or stress for you - don't read any further.  There is good news in here as well, but I have to explain the bad for it to all make sense.

It's been over a year, technically almost 3 years, of trying.  Short of IVF, we've done it all.  IUI worked for us but I couldn't stay pregnant.  I finally have accepted that this was due to something being wrong with the baby - not me. It took about 10 months for me to wrap my head around that.

The first 6 months after our third miscarriage were pretty awful.  Short of losing my father, I've never felt such keen grief, guilt, and anger.  I thought I knew what depression was before then, but I had no idea.  I think, after all the money, meds, stabbing myself nightly with needles full of hormones - the thought that I could get pregnant and see my little miracle in the ultrasound then lose it was the part that broke me.

I've been mad at God before, but this was different.  This time I was mad at everyone.   From the people at work and the stress they cause me to the other commuters that made every day a nightmare for me on to the fact that we were trying to find a house to move into at the same time.  I was angry at my stepchildren, my husband, and mostly - myself.  I needed someone to blame.  Someone had to be at fault for such terrible pain.

In the end, it's the way it was meant to be.  I don't understand or like it, but I can now accept it.  I've begun to focus on getting myself healthy again.  Taking a break from the stress of worrying about my reproductive organs is a relief in some ways.  Sure, there's this niggling little clock ticking in the back of my head as a rush on towards 40, but I can't control this.  For someone like me, that's both devastating and a relief at the same time. 

I spoke to my doctor a week ago about my current thoughts and she was really pleased. She said it's the best thing I could be doing right now and being healthy - both physically and mentally - was by far the most important thing.  More important than my age, because any child I do have deserves to have the best mother it can not just the one that survived.

In the interim, you'll be hearing less about TTC and more about my efforts to get my lifestyle back to healthy and happy.  We're actually doing really well right now, but there will always be challenges.

It's learning to accept and handle them that's the lesson.  Thank you all for you continual support and caring - we need it!