Insanity...

My mother always told me that the definition of insanity is:
the act of doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.

This makes me think about my infertility. Every month we try for a baby. Every month I pee on a stick, I pop pills, I prop my hips, I hold my breath, I take my temp, I eat right, I exercise, I do all of these things in hopes for two lines. The same thing over and over again. But each month...I get the same thing. One line. No matter how many months I try...one line. I think I have oficially crossed over the threshold into insanity.

I actually had my hopes up last night. I was at my sisters and when I went to the bathroom...there was...pink. The very very lightest pink you ever saw ... and for a moment...I had hope...I thought to myself...implantation spotting! Implantation spotting! This could be it! Since I am still taking my Provera...I should NOT be having my period...so it just HAS to be implantation spotting.

I prayed my hardest, most enduring prayer and went to bed last night a little smug. I just KNEW that I was going to wake up in the morning, the spotting would be gone and I would start barfing my brains out and I would just start laughing and enjoy morning sickness.

However...

When I got up this morning, I saw red. Literally and Figuratively. There she was in all of her glory...Aunt Flow. I was ok at first, but then it hit me. I REALLY allowed myself to believe that there was a chance last night. I thought for a moment that maybe this was my shot. My time. I thought for an evening how nice it would be to not have to go through another season of Easter, Mother's Day and Father's Day with nothing to show of our efforts to have a child for 3 years.

I thought for an evening that I had cheated the system, that I had gotten pg just under the wire of the dreaded 3 year mark. ... I thought.

Now I am just sad. I am angry at myself for even letting myself get my hopes up. After 35 months of trying to get pregnant and failing miserably... how could I let myself get all worked up over a little pink.

I am DEFINATELY losing my grasp at sanity.

Road Blocks

I humbly start this by saying that I am not trying to throw a pity party for myself (I have learned to not like throwing parties...the clean up afterwards is just too time consuming) However, this blog is simply a reflection on life in general.

Road Blocks...we have all hit them at one time or another, most of us, multiple times in our lives. I find myself asking...maybe I need to find a different road, cause the road I have been on for the last 26.5 years has been riddled with road blocks. I constantly find myself looking for detours and I always have one foot on the brake just waiting for the next road block to be around the corner.

I had a good childhood. I have two loving parents and the most amazing group of brothers and sisters. Really on the dysfunction scale I think we rate pretty close to the "normal" family. We have had our battles with addiction, poverty, wealth, trust, health etc., but I think most of the stuff we have been through, has been pretty typical for a large family. I had a traumatic event happen to me at a young age. An event that caused me to grow up way too fast, caused me much pain, grief, and overall quality of life for many years. However...I overcame that. I am now a better, stronger person because of it. I persevered and I conquered my "childhood trama".

All the time I was going through that trauma in my life, I kept telling myself...this is it Nichole...this is your horrible thing that will happen to you. You will grow from it and in the end benefit from it in some way. You will get over it, have a story to tell and the rest of your life will not be as traumatic. That childhood trauma was my red card. My penalty. My big hurdle in life.

I was wrong.

In 26 days, Pace and I will have been trying to conceive our first child for 3 years. In that time, many of my friends have had "oops" pregnancies, have had their babies and many of them are pregnant with their second baby. Britney Spears has had 2 children in this time. My mother in law has had a child in this time. My sister who was not even trying has had a child and is now trying again in this time. Too many celebrities to count have had kids during this time (many of them unplanned) and I have had...none. I have not gotten pregnant once.

Some days I have so much faith that it will happen and I just tell myself to be patient and I pray for my baby.

Some days I have so little faith and I just pray that God would take away my desire to have children all together.

I know now that my childhood trauma was not my red card at all. Infertility is. By far this has cost me more spiritually, emotionally, physically and financially than my childhood trauma ever did and it almost makes my childhood trauma seem obsolete. Maybe that is the point. All pain heals with time, but the pain if infertility only gets stronger as time goes on.

My first wedding anniversary I was just starting to see doctors and the fear had just set in that we may not have a baby of our own. My second wedding anniversary I was in the midst of my first IUI cycle and I had so much hope for that treatment to work. As I near my third wedding anniversary, I just feel helpless. I feel that nothing I will or can do will ever make me have a baby. My hope is diminishing as my pain is increasing.

My period never came on it's own...I am still on the Provera. My weight loss is not coming as easy as it was and sticking to my diet is even harder. My bitterness is slowly creeping back in and my willingness to fight it is shrinking.

I feel like I need to get a break soon or I will hit my breaking point. It makes me wonder what my breaking point will be. Will I ever be able to get to the point where I don't care? Will I ever get to the point that I will be "ok" with never carrying my own child, or with never being able to look at my child and see Pace and I's resemblance? Will I ever be able to accept that as my fate and my destiny? And if so...how long will it take?

I read the bible verse "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul." This verse makes me feel like a total Christian hypocrite. I don't feel this way right now. I do feel that the Lord is my shepherd, however there is something that I want...desperately and I don't feel like I am beside quite waters, I feel like I am standing on the edge of Niagra's Fall.

I know that I picked the road less traveled many years ago...now I know why that road is less traveled....to many Road Blocks.