getting ahead of myself.

My mom, who through all of our trying to conceive, was just sure I needed to relax, to quit worrying about it, has finally come around to realizing it wasn't my stress level, and I wasn't crazy for being so sure something was wrong.  She gets the truth of it all now -- that we're infertile.

Now she's very sensitive to hearing about other couples' struggles with infertility or journeys toward adoption or IVF, or whatever the case may be.  A couple of weekends ago, she called me with news about a couple she met who had adopted a baby.  She had gotten their contact information for me and assured me that the mother was more than happy to talk to me about the process.

Maybe this should make me more uncomfortable than it does, but I'm all for reaching out to others who have struggled with infertility, who have chosen one path over the other, who have taken the adoption route or the IVF route, or whatever.  I'm all about making connections and learning from other people who have been there.  As I've said many times, this is a very lonely road, so if talking with others who have been there makes it a little bit more bearable, then I'm goin' for it.

So I called this gal.  Remember, though, that I've got IVF scheduled.  It's happening in December.  All of my focus should be on staying positive and getting ready for this life-changing procedure, right?

Why can I not just keep my focus on IVF??

Should I really be calling complete strangers that my mom talked to about adoption?  Should I really even be thinking about that right now?  Am I dooming my chances at IVF by not putting all of my figurative eggs in one basket?  Does this mean I'm not totally committed to IVF?  Does this mean I don't believe it will work?

I don't know the answers to any of these questions, and I am likely to drive myself nuts considering the possibilities if I dwell on them too long.  But it all does make me wonder.  Should I be less realistic and instead, more optimistic?  Probably.  And I'm working on it, but I haven't mastered it yet.

I'm incredibly aware that I essentially have a 50/50 shot at this.  I think maybe my way of coping with this incredibly unsettling probability and my awareness of the fact that this very well may not work, is to keep my mind open to all of the other possibilities...  Maybe my thinking is that if I keep investing myself into other options, if IVF doesn't work, I won't crash so hard knowing that there is a next step.

Really, though, I want to be excited.  I want to truly anticipate our upcoming IVF and hope-hope-hope that it works.  And I want to believe that it can work and that it will work.  How do I convince myself of these things?  How do I live in the moment?

I called that woman.  And she talked with more for over an hour and was so kind and so supportive.  And she, like all other women dealing with infertility, made me feel as though I'm in good company.  She taught me a lot about the process and what to expect if we do go down that road.  And she made me feel hopeful -- that one way or another, I will be a mother.

But right now my path is to see if I can achieve motherhood through IVF.  I want to focus on that and only that.  Does anyone have any tips?  How do I put my blinders on and quit constantly considering the possibility that it won't work?

blogs.

Sometimes I get online to work on something that has a pressing deadline or to check my e-mail or to look something up, and I quickly find myself on infertility blogs.   I seek them out because these blogs are written by people I can actually relate to.  They're infertile too!  They remind me that I'm not the only one, that my break-downs and my moodiness and my jealousy are all really normal for someone in my shoes.  And I need that.  Frequently.

Last night I should have been working on some statistics homework for a graduate class I'm in.  I should have been.  Instead I found myself on one of my favorite infertility blogs which then linked me to about seven new infertility blogs ... and I had to catch myself up on each of their stories.  I found blogs specifically by women who were undergoing IVF or who had been.  I found blogs by women in almost my exact same situation.  And I did feel that I'm not alone, and it was comforting.

But then I got sad.

I'm in this three-month waiting period to begin my first IVF cycle.  I'm taking a myriad of drugs to get my body ready before I start the actual IVF stim drugs.  But mostly it just feels like waiting.  It feels like prolonging the inevitable, and in many ways, I just want it to be here.  Because I'm excited and nervous and terrified.

I read these stories by women who had been there, who had been through the entire IVF process.  Some of them had been through it more than once.  And many of them weren't successful.

I've been working so hard to stay positive about what lies ahead.  I've been trying to stay out of my head and only think happy thoughts about this end result.  I've started acupuncture and meditations to relax.  I go running every morning to kind of physically rid myself of nerves.

But it's all still there.  This might not work.

I read the blog of a woman who was starting her second IVF cycle.  I went back and read through her first IVF journey, and it broke my heart.  She wrote about how hard she was working at staying positive, she wrote about feeling like it was really working after her transfer, and then she came crashing down.  And I could relate to every word in those entries, and I could see myself in her and my situation in hers.  It reminded me there are two sides to what's coming up -- a life-changing happiness and joy and an earth-shattering despair and depression.  Sounds dramatic, maybe, but I don't think it is. And I will only experience one or the other.

I'm sinking everything I've got -- emotionally, physically, spiritually, financially -- into this hopeful attempt.  I just don't want to be let down.

And so, while I know that reading these blogs has helped me tremendously in feeling less alone, and they've really educated me about my options and the different processes people pursue, sometimes they just make me sad.  I decided, in last night's funk, to go to bed early and hope that I would wake up this morning feeling a little more optimistic.

A night's sleep is magical.  But I wake up every morning acutely aware of all of the possibilities.  I suppose no blog will change that fact, so I will keep reading.  It's better to avoid the loneliness.