It's not your fault

Here's the thing: it's human nature to find blame when something goes wrong. When it comes to fertility issues, you try to blame things like biology, second hand smoke, the chlamydia you got (and took care of) when you were a teenager, or the amount of time your husband spends sitting on a bike. I understand the need to find meaning, to find a cause and fix it, but unfortunately what that often means is that you're blaming yourself. Blaming yourself seems like the only logical way to deal with the pain and anger that comes along with infertility - you internalize it. And I'm talking to you men with MFI as well. Stop beating yourself up, stop looking into the past, regretting mistakes (that made you who you are today) and start looking forward.

Easier said then done, I know, and I'm not there yet either. But what you can do is not allow others to place the blame on you either. When someone tells you to 'just relax', what they're really saying is 'if only you would stop doing ______, you would get pregnant (or stay pregnant)'. It's assumed that you or your partner must be doing 'something wrong', and if only you would raise your hips, use OPK's, have more sex, time sex better, 'get the job done', or whatever, you would get your take home baby. Unfortunately, many of the people we confide in about our struggles can not empathize (though if you do have a fellow IFer in real life, one who remains an IFer even after succeeding, hold on to them) and can only offer misguided advice. Usually it's with good intentions, so don't fault them, but don't let it drag you down either. They just don't understand and (likely) never will.

Be stong, fellow IFers. No, your time may never come, though I hope for a take home baby for each and every one of you. But in the meantime, during this painful journey, be kind to yourself. It's not your fault.

The benefits of being childless

This is a make myself feel better post - I've been a bit mopey about the TTC thing lately. Obviously I'd give all of these benefits up for us to have a child of our own, but in the meantime:

1. I can sleep until 11 on the weekend if I want to AND I sleep through every night (almost).
2. We don't have a pay a babysitter so we can go on much needed 'dates'.
3. I never smell like baby poop or puke.
4. I can wear nice clothes any time I want.
5. We can take last minute trips.
6. The only person I have to consider when making decisions is Derek.
7. We have a lot of money to spend on ourselves.
8. My house is (relatively) clean.
9. We can watch R rated movies at 3 in the afternoon.
10. We can have sex any time and anywhere we want (sorry mom and dad).

Ah, that's better. Make anyone jealous? Probably not.

We have our first appointment with the adoption homestudy lady this coming Monday night. It's nice to be moving along - it's been almost a year since we started this whole process. As well, I've made an appointment with our RE to tell her (yes, TELL her, not ask) that we are doing further immunology investigation and that I'd like another Lap before we do the FET. I have been having severe twisting ouchy pain in my ovaries, especially the left (the one where I had my ectopic last year), and especially during AF. Makes me wonder if I have some scar tissue and/or endometriosis in there. Really, I just want to make sure everything is good to go and all cleaned out when we finally do this FET.