I have been in quite the funk for the better part of a year now. I have found myself questioning who I am, what I'm doing, who I want to be, and if any of my dreams for myself are even possible. I've been filled with self-doubt, and looking back, I realize I have been filled with a lot of pain, too.
You see, Ryan and I have been trying to get pregnant since August 2012. I hoped it would happen right away, and I think Ryan was just a little bit afraid it would. It consumed me - I thought about very little else. I was so focused on getting pregnant that I didn't even put up Christmas decorations last year. Months went by and nothing happened. I was crushed each month, and felt like such a failure. More time, and a couple visits to the doctor, and it turns out this whole becoming parents thing is going to be a little bit harder than we originally thought. Not impossible, but obviously it wasn't going to be the easy thing I spent 15 years of my life trying to prevent.
I spent the spring and summer (hell, the whole year, really) feeling pretty sorry for myself - I was supposed to be a momma already, and here I wasn't even pregnant yet. I was so sad, and so focused on what my life was missing that I completely lost sight everything I have. I have an incredible husband who loves me despite all my sortcomings. I have a beautiful home and a yard with flowers and a vegetable garden filled with a bounty that, given the right attention, will nourish us throughout the weeks and months to come.
It took me a long time to realize that I have a lot to be thankful for. I was chatting with a very dear friend a couple weeks ago, and was lamenting (and let's be honest, whining a bit) to her about how frustrated I was with this fertility business and how nothing was going according to plan. She said what a sweet, unexepected gift this year must have been for Ryan and I, then, to have been able to spend together before we become parents. At first I scoffed a bit - how could it be a gift? She doesn't want kids, she couldn't possibly understand. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that this friend, who is always so honest with me, was also so very right.
We went on a wonderful vacation to Mexico in the spring, saw lots of great music, had lazy afternoons at the Terrace, wandered hand in hand at the Art Fair on the Square sipping Summer Shandy, browsing our favorite artists, had lazy lunches that turned into afternoon cocktails and early dinners, went camping, went on a crazy roadtrip to Ohio to see my favorite band of all time. We've had a blissful, happy year, and while some of it was clouded by my fertility-related frustration and sadness, we really did have a wonderful time. I feel so guilty for not embracing it more fully, and for tarnishing so much of the good with my disdain for what it wasn't instead of what it was.
I keep thinking about what my friend said, and I've come to realize that I need to cherish these moments as gifts, and (try to) accept what comes for us with grace. I have a good life. It's not fair to my husband or to our marriage to keep wishing it away and waiting for something better to come along. Especially when I can't be sure it will ever come along. Because what we have right now is really pretty great.
I know I won't do this perfectly, but I'm really going to try.
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