Out of Insanity, Light

I knew I was heading down a dangerous road on Monday. I was so full of anger which I acknowledged was mostly irrational, but I knew was a manifestation of some deep seated problem. My trip to the grocery store to stock up (for the second time) on items for T-Giving dinner gave me the unlikely opportunity to really ponder and question where all of this hostility was coming from and what to do about it. Dodging ill-dressed women manhandling produce is apparently great for self-therapy.

First, I admitted that I was feeling betrayed by my friend who got pregnant au natural. I don't mean betrayed in that she's another on the other side of the list. But of all of my friends, I thought that she was actually going to have problems and I was secretly happy because I would finally have someone who would know exactly what I was going through. She definitely looked like she was heading down that road. And then, poof! Pregnant with no problems, no drama.

But, in admitting this feeling, I also felt like I was flirting with that line between infertility schadenfreude and actively wishing ill on someone, particularly someone I love. I didn't cross the line, though, which relieves me greatly since I think I would then feel like a truly Bitter Infertile Woman. Once I admitted this fact to myself and accepted that it was how I felt (regardless of its merit), I was able to move on and be genuinely happy for her. Although, I'm very glad that she is in another state so that I won't have to be subjected to the expanding belly dance. A girl can only take so much.

I had also felt angry because I felt like my parents weren't really being supportive of our recent decision to move onto IVF if the next IUI is a bust. I talked about it with Sweetie who not so subtly implied that I was being overly sensitive. Maybe, maybe not. I couldn't stand thinking that my dad's questions about why we couldn't just get pregnant naturally (been there, didn't do that) were questioning whether we were really infertile and why there was such a hurry. Whether or not we can still be said to meet the clinical definition of infertile, at this point, we are ready to get out of the infertility holding pattern and move ahead. And we probably can't do that without intervention.

I decided that the best way to resolve this was to subtly remind him of why we are doing this. I told him how excited we are to move on because we had felt like we were in a huge rut for the past four months where we were just spinning our wheels. In other words, we may no longer be clinically infertile, but we are still treading water. I think he understood and told me that they are behind us and really hoping that we get our wish. Of course, this was after telling me that once I have a kid or kids, I will look back on this and question what I was thinking. Not helpful.

Once I battled through these two problems, I felt like me again. And for now, that's enough.