Feeling left out

I'm feeling left out for a number of reasons.

1. Our church is having an expectant mother's luncheon this month. At this point if our baby hadn't died I wouldn't even be eligible to go because I'd already be a mom, but it still grates on my nerves that they're having this.

2. Our pastor (whom I really don't like, but just tolerate with the hopes that he'll retire soon) announces the expectant mother luncheon from the pulpit this morning and explains that our church (between the 2 campuses) has 20 expectant mothers. Then he says, "Good things are happening here at FBC." That just crawled all over me for some reason. As if nothing else good is happening at our church other than the 20+ new members that will be coming soon.

3. My dearest and closest friends here in BR are L, who just had a precious baby boy in April; MW who has a little boy and is pregnant with her second; and K who has 2 little girls. We have no close friends (here in BR) that don't have kids. And that sucks. So we're just the couple that's great with kids, but doesn't have any of their own. Not to brag, but we *are* great with kids. L's little boy just loves me. He just laughs and grins when I'm around. He looks for me to see where I am in the room. He cocks his head to his shoulder to "flirt" with me. It's adorable. And K's girls just LOVE J. He's wonderful with all of our friend's kids. We've been asked on numerous occasions to keep our friend's kids so apparently they think we're responsible enough to handle the task. I just get so angry when I think about how good we are with kids, yet we can't have any of our own. (Again, not trying to brag...just stating what we've heard over and over from our friends.)

4. I've joined my.space and face.book to connect with old classmates from high school, and inevitably when I've found an old classmate I get the question, "Do you have any kids?" and then they go on to talk about their brood. SLAP!! They don't do it on purpose, and they haven't seen me in almost 15 years so it's just a natural question to ask, but it still makes me feel even more left out and even more barren.

5. I was looking through my 2007 scrapbook (which I'm not quite finished with yet), and over half of the pages are of my niece. SAD!!! I guess the only good thing about that is at least the other half of the pages aren't about our pets. That would truly be a sad, sad album.

Lastly, this doesn't necessarily tie into the title of this post, but I have to confess something...MW found out last week that she has gestational diabetes. And you know, I can't even find anything supportive to say to her. The only thing I've said is, "I'd give anything to be in your shoes right now." I'm such a BI-YACH!! It's not even like she's complaining about it. Of course she's made it known that she's disappointed and feels like a failure, but get this...when she talked about her disappointment and feeling like a failure my reply was, "Failure...something I know all too well." Double BI-YACH!!! OMG what have I turned into that I can't even offer my friend (who, btw, has been my greatest support system through the last 2 years of IF crap) a sympathetic ear and words of encouragement??? I HATE WHAT 'IF' HAS DONE TO ME!! Or rather I hate what I've ALLOWED 'IF' to do to me!!! I'm just disgusted with myself!!!

I sent MW an email apologizing for my behavior (couldn't do it in person because I was just too embarrassed even though I was with she and L last night.) And true to form she was very gracious, understanding, and even said she didn't think anything about my comments because she knew where my heart was. Thank the Lord for such a wonderful, understanding friend, but that really doesn't excuse my harshness towards her. I'm embarrassed. This just isn't me. I've ALWAYS been a sensitive person that people come to when they're hurting. I have so much work to do to get myself back to that person.

CD1

Enough said about that.

Exactly 2 years ago today I was CD 1, but so excited because we were starting our journey to have a baby. Ironic? I think not. I think it's God's way of saying, "You're not gonna have a child of your own! Stop trying to force it to happen!" So I guess it's a good thing we're stopping. It couldn't be a more perfect time, huh?
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I called this morning to let Dr. K's nurse know I was CD1, and Dr. K called back while I was at J's Christmas party at work. I didn't have my phone on me (STUPID), so he left a message. He was so sweet, very apologetic...it made me cry. I decided to go in for the "I'm not pregnant" appt to talk about options. I don't think I have many, but I want to hear that from him. Plus, I need a pap. I haven't had one in over 2 years. (Shame on me!)

Another ironic happening...I have to sing "The Prayer" tonight for our Christmas performance at church. (It's not really a Christmas song, but that's what our director wanted me to sing with him.) If you haven't ever heard it, you'll cry. It talks about God being our guide, taking care of us when things go wrong, watching over us, etc...I started bawling when I was practing earlier. I've NEVER cried before, but now that our future is so up in the air, and my heart is broken about not having a baby of our own, I know I'm going to cry tonight.
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Dr. K just called back. He asked me how I was doing, and my reply was, "Shitty." (Sorry for the language, but in all honesty that's how I'm feeling right now.)

He told me he was so hoping we wouldn't have to have this conversation, and that he really was sorry. I believe him. I think he's pretty darn invested in this thing. He asked me what we wanted to do, and I told him we had talked in great length about it, and we were ready to quit. I told him that this has really changed mine and J's relationship, and it just wasn't worth the stress, heartache, etc... I told him that our insurance only paid for diagnostics, and we just weren't going to depleat our savings on injectables or IVF. If we're going to depeat our savings it was going to be on an adoption. He said he understood, but that he hated to see me quit because I had had success. I told him the only concern I had with quitting was that I would regret a couple years down the road. So he said, "There's nothing wrong with going back to just clomid with no iui's, no opk's. You know your body, and you have this down." He told me I could take the clomid as long as I wanted to. He suggested that J and I talk about it, and possibly give it more time with clomid, no opk's, no iui's, just going into this with the mindset of "if it works...wonderful, if it doesn't...that's okay." But I don't know that I can do that after being so invested emotionally. He told me not to make any decisions today, for us to talk about it over the holidays and when I come in for my annual in January we could discuss it further with him.

A part of me wants to keep trying, like he said, with just the clomid and none of the other crap. I DO know my body, and I DO have this down. I don't think I need all the charting and opk's. I just don't know that I can truly let go, and to go about it that way I'm going to have to let go. I want this too bad. We're still moving forward with adoption plans. In January I'm going to start requesting packets from adoption agencies, and in the spring I'm making my appt for lasik (to spend all the medical pre-tax money we set aside for fertility treatments). And hopefully once we get all wrapped up in the adoption stuff I can let go a little bit and we can go the clomid-only route.

Dr. Phil had a show about women desperate to be a mother, and there was a woman with PCOS who had tried to get pregnant, but had no other option than to move on to injectables. Her husband was dead set in not going into debt over something that wasn't guaranteed. He wanted to invest in a house for the two of them. And Dr. Phil told him, "You don't want to do this because it's an investment without a guarantee, and I understand that. But you have to invest in your relationship, and if this is what your wife wants to do, and nothing else will make her happy, then isn't that an investment?"

I agree with that statement, but in talking with J about that show I came to the realization that I wanted to invest in our relationship by NOT going to an RE. Our relationship is too important to keep putting the stress and strain of ttc on it. I have to find a way to be happy some other way. I don't expect everyone to agree with me, but this is what's right for us. J is the most important person in my life, and if I keep going the way that I am, there won't be much left of our relationship. If we were to keep going and something were to happen and I were lose him over this, I would never be able to forgive myself. Infertility tears families apart all the time, and that's something I'm not willing to chance. If I can go back to that "if it happens...great, if not...that's okay" mentality like I had in the beginning then maybe we can do this again. But for now I have to follow my gut and hang this up.