I'm not going to be eloquent or make things sound nice. I'm worried about this blog post but it's been rolling around in my head for at least a week and parts of it have been there for longer. That's what this blog is about, right? Vulnerability? Showing myself? Practicing this strange thing of being vulnerable to potential...strangers...online! Yikes!
So here's where this is coming from.
I am pregnant.
When I typed that sentence I felt so many things. Let me names some of them. Happy, scared, weird, out of body experience, I don't believe it, and gratitude. Some happy feelings and some weird feelings. And that's part of why I needed to write this.
A week ago I posted a little video of my three year old on my facebook page where she declared she was going to be a big sister. Messages of congratulations and happiness flowed in. And I felt numb. And then someone said something like, "we have been praying for this for so long and are so overjoyed". Suddenly I got texts from people saying, there is no one else I'd rather hear this about. And things like they had been praying for so long and that so many people had been praying. And that's when I started to feel things. I started to feel the joy of having friends who really KNEW what this pregnancy meant to me and my family.
And then I started to feel guilt. Guilt because so many other people had no idea. And it was just a regular Hey! I'm pregnant announcement. And it felt fake.
We struggled with secondary infertility for 22 months. Nearly two years. I realize that this is a short time for many who struggle with infertility. This is also something that plagues me. Like do I even get to claim that word because it was shorter than 5 or even 10 or even a lifetime? But no, we all struggle with things and some struggles are longer than others but a shorter amounts of times don't diminish feelings. At the beginning I didn't tell anyone. My mom and three best friends knew. And then after a year or so I started telling people. I learned a very powerful lesson. I don't have to suffer alone.
And see this is where I feel like a liar, and have so many weird feelings. Because I was starting to be open about infertility and to talk about it and to really learn from it and I felt the deep, deep pain that accompanies those feelings of not being able to have a child when you want to have a child. And now I'm like thrown from it. And I am not trying to be ungrateful. I'm just trying to be real. It's a very strange feeling to be thrown from the depths of yearning and praying and feeling peace about timing to suddenly being pregnant. Like...what just happened? It almost feels like all those things I felt before don't mean anything. And like I have been lying because now I don't identify with that world I had grown okay with. It's a very strange limbo and I guess I'm just trying to articulate a bit of how I'm feeling. Maybe because partly I'm selfish? Like do I want more people to know about this? Probably. That's a huge reason why I told many people we were struggling to have more children when we moved to Florida. Because you meet someone and they are like, "so how many kids do you have..." And you say "one". and then they find out she almost three and they are like, "oh, just one"? or they just look at you. Many people don't care and it's like great! One kid big deal! But then I think I have to tell people! Because I'm insecure and what if they are judging me and and and!
And see I'm writing about these things and it's all so real but I feel fake because I just entered my second trimester. Like who writes a blog post about infertility when they are pregnant? Hi. I do.
So we had a pass to Thanksgiving Point when we lived in Utah, which was wonderful. And I'm there with my daughter summer of 2014. This was the early stages of things. And I remember one 3 minute time period where every. single. woman I saw was pregnant. Like I am really not kidding. We were in the Museum of Natural Curiosity so if you have been there, you know. And every beautiful, bulging belly I saw honestly felt like a knife going through my chest. And I sat there and I started to have a panic attack. So I grabbed my sweet girl and raced to the car and just sobbed as I drove home. I prayed so hard. And that was my "why" prayer. It was a why do I have to be in places that remind me how badly I want more children? Hi there secondary infertility...that's just what happens. And after this prayer of me just getting all my ugly and pity party cries out, I felt such immense love from my Heavenly Father. He was completely aware of me. And I realized then and there that maybe I just saw all those pregnant bellies to help me turn to the Lord. We have a choice to turn away or towards the Lord during our trials. And I am grateful, so very grateful for that prayer and that peace in the car that day because it set me up for the rest of the two years. I found quiet strength and faith in the Lord's timing. I knew His perfect love would be enough. It was hard. But this knowledge of the Atonement and of my belief in the purpose of this life was amazing. Prayers are answered and hard things happen.
And then a month after we started to get the ball rolling here in Florida with infertility doctors...my period that I've pretending wasn't coming for two years actually didn't come. And again. The FEELINGS! The tears, and the joy and the gratitude and the disbelief. And it has continued. And the weird thing with infertility and then suddenly being fertile is that I'm scared out of my mind that I'm going to wake up from this wonderful dream. And I'm thrown into this world where I'm suddenly in a support group for HG pregnancy and ladies are really sick and talking about their struggles and I just came from another community where we are talking about fertility tests and drugs and it just throws me for a loop! And yes I've been really sick and then feel guilty because now I'm on the other side and I shouldn't complain because I wanted to be sick for a long time.
Am I even making any sense? Is this blog post weird? It totally is. I have so many weird feeling and I thought if I wrote them out I was be able to make sense of them but I just feel weird.
The point of all this is to say thanks. Thank you for every person who said congratulations or thought congratulations when they saw we were having another baby. Thank you sincerely to everyone who texted me and called me and told me they were crying because they are just that good of friends who want amazing things for us. And for all those prayers. Boy, did we feel that strength! And thanks to my dearest friends who literally called me or texted me every single month to ask how I was, and if Aunt Flo came and how I was feeling. And who cried with me when I cried again and again and again. And again when I lost those few days old embryos. And those same people who just sobbed when I told them I was pregnant. Because they have literally been angels on a Lord's errand to lift me up when I couldn't do it anymore. And take my little girl to the park because I needed to be sad for a day. And I could go on and on. I can't justly thank my mother or my husband for their support. I mean let's be real, this was a struggle for my husband too so I want to say we tried to support each other but I know he really mostly supporting me. And honestly I'm at loss of words for my angel mother. And am I winning an Oscar right now? And yes, you know what? I am publicly going to thank my Heavenly Father and my Savior. Because this life is a test. But we have someone to lift us and guide is and who has shown us the way. And because of that knowledge and the experiences I have had my testimony has been strengthened. And I am grateful. I know I am loved deeply. I am cared for and there is strength through the Atonement. And the Holy Ghost has borne witness of that love over and over again through out my life and specifically through this trial.
So yep. That's it. That's mostly what I wanted to say. Life is wonderful. The ups, the downs, the happiness and the sadness. And I needed to formally say goodbye to my infertility for the time being. It may be something we deal with again and for the rest of our lives. And that's okay. I know I am better because of it. I am more in tune with my pain, with the pain of other people and more in tune with myself and the Spirit. And that makes it all wonderful. I needed to say goodbye to the very real things I felt. And now I feel a bit more like I can say hello to this new stage of life.