Big Sister Shirts....

So I got the "awesome" idea to look at "Big Sister" shirts for Alex. You know...for her to wear when we announce the impending arrival of our not yet conceived second child. And, while doing this,  I thought "Wow....this is the secondary infertiles equivalent to looking at baby gear online". Or, in extreme cases, actually adding baby gear to a wish list for the yet to be conceived child. Yes. I did this. I wonder if this is normal in the "infertile crowd" or if I completely bypassed normal and was functioning in a whole stratosphere?

Well...we don't need anymore gear. Like many women struggling with infertility, once you do become pregnant, you tend to buy EVERYTHING-multiple of everything-in different colors and varying shades! So yeah, we really don't need any gear. And we totally don't need clothes (unless we have a boy), because I am addicted to buying my daughter clothes. To say that she is better dressed than anyone in our family is NOT an understatement...and it's not like we are absolute slobs. So, we don't need clothes, don't need gear...that leaves me with browsing for "Big Sister" shirts for Alex.

So I guess whether it is your first time through treatments, your second or third...some things remain the same. The excitement, the anticipation, the planning and the dreaming...and the wishing and the praying. We won't even go into the worry and the bouts of hyperventilating/crying because we have all been there.  I guess it's the planning and hoping that gets us through the endless blood draws (seriously...I can now *tell* people the best vein from which to get my blood...the exact location, really), 6AM dates with the transvaginal wand and the "I'm sorry" phone calls from the clinic.  It is that hope that keeps us going when all you may want to do is give up and give in.

And sometimes, hope is hard to have. Sometimes, it seems like a curse. When a cycle doesn't work, hope sometimes seems to abandon you to deal with a harsh reality. And at the lowest of lows, sometimes hope seems to almost be taunting you. It is said that infertility is especially cruel because it is a loss that happens again and again with every month that yields bad news. You can't just grieve and move on. It happens over and over again. How does hope survive that?

I don't know what the answer is. But I know that when we were trying for Alexandra, hope was a double edged sword. It kept me going even when I hurt to the point of physically aching. At these times, I did not welcome it. But, today, looking back on where I was....I thank God everyday that I had hope (even when it hurt like hell to have) and that I *just kept going*. Sometimes you just have to put one foot in front of the other and turn your brain off. Sometimes, the only answer is to take a deep breath, cross your fingers and keep moving.