Imagining the Future

"It's day 33," I thought to myself. "If I haven't started my period by tomorrow, I'll take a pregnancy test."

As the day went on, the more excited I got. I let myself imagine telling Christopher that he was going to be a dad- and what perfect timing with Father's Day right around the corner! My dad is visiting us soon & I imagined us giving him something that said Grandpa on it. On one hand, I felt like I had alarms going off in my head, warning me that there was pain ahead. It was a bad idea to be imagining these things. I've done it before & I was familiar with the hurt I felt when it didn't happen. I couldn't help myself though- I was imagining the future I wanted. I was so excited. It was finally going to happen, I could feel it. It was almost tangible!

The time came for me to take a pregnancy test, and once again, I was shattered when it was negative. I saw the one line & tried willing a second line to appear, but obviously that didn't work. For the next few hours, I threw myself into doing anything but thinking about the test. I had left it sitting on the bathroom counter, and I avoided going into the bathroom. I didn't want another reminder. 

When you're on fertility medication, your cycles are supposed to be "more regular". That being said, when I'm late & taking medication, my hopes get even higher that I'm pregnant. It's hard for me NOT to imagine things like how it will feel finally seeing 2 lines instead of 1, how I'm going to tell Christopher, how we'll cry happy tears for once, how we'll tell all of our family, etc. But imagining those things and then having a negative test is so heartbreaking. Then I grieve all of those things I had imagined and hoped for. It took me another few hours after Christopher got home from work to break the news to him. He just held me and let me cry, and I'm so grateful for the love and strength he gives me, even as he is hurting and grieving too.

I listened to a podcast this morning that reminded me that infertility is "reproductive trauma", which is the validation I needed. Infertility is hard & it sucks. We all have various things that are hard at different times in our lives. It's ok to struggle, to need help, to stay home from a social function that will be too hard. It's ok that I"m probably going to stay in my pajamas for the next few hours & watch a movie that will make me cry :)