Sunday, Apr. 24, 2011 9:59 p.m.

national infertility awareness week

ahh...emotions: I love that you allow me to feel and to experience life with such greater depth. But I don't like how you change so quickly on me some times.

And I refuse to attribute this to this current time in my life, so I won't. I may feel, but I also think. And thinking always (or at least should always) win.

I'm still beyond elated. I hide this joy from most, because it feels like I'm bragging, but it's always secretly there. I am so excited to be able to feel complete. K and I were recently talking about something that had to do with raising kids. K remarked that it's weird to have to think about all this stuff, and I replied that I'd been thinking about all this stuff my whole life. And I really have. Since I was old enough to start babysitting, I've been watching and observing, and learning what happens in different situations, and how to respond and guide and what to do. I've been making judgments on how I want to raise my own children for a really freaking long time...at least 15 years. It may sound silly for me to be saying this and I may kick myself later, but the point is: having a kid is a desire that's been a really long time in the making.

And I just want to cry all the time just thinking about how joyful I am for this. And how thrilled I am to be able to give this to K.

But then I'm a little freaked out as well. Oh, how my life is going to change. I'm scared. I've gotten so settled into my life and how we do things. I'm nervous about the unknown, about finances, about careers, about feeling like a failure if the kid turns out to be a loser who makes poor choices in life. I'm worried that I've already given up my life, that I'll never write a book, that I'll never become anything. Though I admit - the allure of "becoming something" has greatly faded in recent years. Life is short. If I'm happy and settled now, why not be content with that? Who says I'm supposed to be anything in the first place? We live; we die. Maybe the whole point of life is just to survive and be content with what we have.

One of the women from my team at work emailed me tonight and said she's pregnant and due in late Nov. My first thought? "oh, I guess that will cut back on my maternity leave then" as professionally thinking, it doesn't serve our students well for two people of our 4 person team to leave our classes with untrained subs during that time. I was originally planning to being gone through Christmas break. My second thought? "uh, wasn't she JUST telling me that they were thinking about having a 2nd child?" Seriously. I saw her on Pi Day, 3/14, and she commented how they had been thinking about their 2nd, but that it hadn't happened yet and they might have to start figuring out and timing things soon. This means that she probably ended up getting a positive test the very day or the day after I saw her! Ugh, and clearly she wasn't even trying very hard for it either. And she couldn've told me if they had - she KNEW that it took us two years and that we had to go through a bunch to get pregnant in the first place.

Blah, whatever. It's life. But it still annoys me and is another reminder, yet again, that most people have no concept that getting pregnant is not a walk in the park to everyone and is a very difficult and emotional ordeal for some.

Oh, and this this week is National Infertility Awareness Week. Which is something that I've honestly been looking forward to for about a year. I decided that it was going to be the week to somewhat "come out" about our infertility. I've planned stuff to post on facebook and everything.

But then it also stresses me out. I don't know how people will react. I really want to post about it because, well, if I don't, how does the awareness of infertility of get out to others? It has to be through people like me. But what if people say snide comments, or say the world's overpopulated and people should just adopt, or try to throw in some jab about how gay people aren't allowed to have kids (if anyone says something like this to me it will annoy me the most! The whole pain of infertility in the first place is that something is broken that should be working, not lamenting the biologically and psychically impossible! anyways...), or imply that because I'm now pregnant that it shouldn't matter anymore - I don't know how I'll take it. And the reason I'm nervous to post.

But I so desperately want to post, because if there are any other people out there dealing with this, then I'd like for them to know that they can reach out to me and that I understand what it feels like. I wish I had been able to reach out to anyone that I knew in real life.

So...I don't know. I'm probably going to go through with it and say something on facebook, but I'm terrified too.

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