I pulled this from my personal stash of blog posts that isn’t supposed to see the light of day. It’s all about feelings. All the feelings. I was compelled to share it for anyone else going through fertility treatments/infertility/etc. Dealing with fertility issues can make you kinda crazy. It can also make you think about things that people without fertility issues may never have to worry nor concern themselves over. 


And that’s okay. 


It’s okay if your mind goes to places you never thought it would go. It doesn’t make you a bad person or a Debbie Downer. It makes you someone who has been dealt a crappy hand and is doing the best they possibly can. Or maybe infertility has made you an eternal optimist and you don’t go to the dark corners. I have never met anyone like that, but there’s a first time for everything. If I have learned anything over the past number of years, it is that everyone faces challenges differently. And with infertility, the second you think you’re doing okay, you’ve got this infertility thing under control, the shit flies up and hits you smack in the face.    

I don’t see the big picture anymore. I can’t see the big picture anymore. My life is a series of small, deliberate steps. I find it almost impossible to imagine my flat, empty stomach as ever being a swollen, pregnant belly. I don’t allow myself to think in those terms. I just can’t.

Infertility has taken away my ability to envision where I will be in one, two, or ten years. My life is about what is happening right now. Getting through each step in the hopes that something bigger and better is at the end of this road; while simultaneously living with the mind numbing, paralyzing fear that there may be nothing at the end of this road.

It feels like the ocean’s waves. Pulling me back and spewing me forward as I crash on the sand, only to be pulled back right before I can fully catch my breath again. I feel out of control, nauseous, scared…wondering if it will ever stop. But, I just keep churning and churning and churning.

I repeat words like “hope” and phrases like “maybe one day” as if they are my religion. Because, really, they are all I have. Our lives hang on “if”. IF I get pregnant this cycle, MAYBE ONE DAY we’ll finally need that second bedroom. For the past four years, we have selected cars based on whether the backseat can fit a car seat or not. If we purchase this “family friendly” car, maybe one day it will hold our dream come true.

I avoid the deep thoughts, because, if I go there, I fear it could be never-ending. The pain, the what if’s, the constant churning. I start to get a headache, and then that familiar lump of anxiety forms in my throat. My chest feels tight, and I can’t breathe.

And that’s why I don’t see the big picture anymore.