The Shift

Last Tuesday found me in my therapist's office crying uncontrollably and unable to pinpoint the exact nature of what was bothering me. There were all kinds of extraneous factors, but there was no one thing. Usually when I get to the point of crying at the drop of a hat it's either hormones or there is something really bothering me that is not readily apparent. I wasn't particularly hormonal since the day before I found out we were benched due to the latest cyst and thus, not shooting up with Menopur.

That left the Unknown Thing That Was Bothering Me. What is amazing is even right after my miscarriage, I wasn't as upset as I was this time. True, it was right about the time that I was supposed to have been due had I not lost the baby, but I really think I had reached the breaking point, the point where I could no longer afford to be optimistic or to hope because each time, that hope or optimism was inevitably killed. Everytime, I went through the same grief, anguish and general unhappiness that I think my soul just said no more.

So what does this mean? It means that rather than focusing all of my energy every single month on whether this will be The Month, I'm going to try to focus on other areas of my life that make me happy. I'm going to focus on advancing my career, convincing Sweetie that we need to get a dog, learning how to sew quilts and clothes from patterns, and gardening.

It does not mean that I'm quitting. Far from it. We are still trying - optimal boning time (OBT) started just yesterday and we are on track. What I have quit doing, however, is hoping. I have to in order to save my sanity. It's the shift in thinking to accept that it may not happen, but that it would be nice if it did. It's the shift in focusing on enjoying the life that we have rather than planning for the life that we don't. I really think this is the only way that I will be able to function in a world where you will always run into someone who is pregnant, an old friend who has had a baby or the latest celebrity to beat the clock and have twins at 48.

This doesn't mean that I'm going to be successful 100% of the time in shifting my thinking. But, it's a new goal in and of itself and it is actually a relief to give up calculating how far along I will be whenever I make plans more than two months in the future or thinking that some activity will jinx my chances.

The shift did help me realize that if I had the baby I would be knee deep in screaming infant and I would not have been able to participate in the largest deal of my entire career, which was a truly once-in-a-lifetime experience. So, score one for the shift.