I’m still looking up

Welcome everyone from ICLW Week – It’s been very interesting pursuing other people’s blogs and I have already found quite a few to add to my reader!  I have a very very full Google reader, I read all kinds of blogs but they tend to fall into three categories: Finance, TTC, and General Home (typically about home decorating or family orientated stuff).

I tend to read over every post that shows up in my feed but typically I don’t comment.  This week I’m trying to change that and not just for blogs that our listed for ICLW but for a lot of the general blogs as well.

The majority of the blogs that I read are written mostly by and for women.  Due to this I tend to in my personal life let my infertility become a “woman issue” when in reality it’s a people issue.  Sometimes I allow myself to become very insular in regards to the struggle and not want to discuss it with my mother, my rabbi or some days even my husband.  It is though there is a part of me that feels like it’s my burden and it shouldn’t have to be on anyone else – I should be strong enough to carry it around myself.  I’m pretty sure I’m not the only woman out there that does this.  If I’m sad – why should anyone else have to be sad too?  After reading a few blogs this week of women who are currently going through divorce I’m trying to confide more in my husband.  My heart breaks for these women and just like I’m sure they didn’t want that to be the outcome of their marriage I really don’t want it to be the outcome of mine.

I feel that in many ways I am very lucky. For example,  I married a man who deals so incredibly well with mood swings (thank you Clomid)  – he’s so calm and peaceful that no matter what we have argued about he has never once raised his voice at me no matter how loud I might get.  He tends to be very optimistic when I am being pessimistic.  He supports my decisions and I try my damnedest to be his biggest cheerleader in everything he does. He is kind and beautiful and there are days that I feel like he could do soooo much better than me and when I tell him this he tells me that for him there is nothing better and that he is not going anywhere.  I am grateful for those moments when he lifts me out of whatever funk has settled upon my heart.  I feel like I’ve been with him my entire life and can’t imagine not being with him – the mere idea of it makes my breath catch in my throat and my stomach feel queasy.

So why do I tell you this?  It’s simple really – I think sometimes the journey of TTC is like being on a carousel we keep going up and down and round and round waiting for the day when we finally get the outcome we want so we can finally get off of the damn thing.  We can get so focused on both that final moment and with the next trip around that we forget everything that surrounds us including sometimes the people around us.  Please do not mistake what I’m saying, I’m not implying that these women ignored their marriages or that infertility was the sole cause of their divorces.  I’m just saying that seeing this outcome for people makes me re-examine my marriage and see if there are any areas that I could improve on and there definitely are; I can listen more and not allow myself to let things some times fester in my mind.  I need to remember that this journey is just as much his as it is mine. If I don’t allow myself to talk to him about how I’m feeling or what I’m thinking the day will come when he does the same and the lines of communication between us would be forever changed.  I don’t want that and neither does he.  So like everything else it’s all a work in progress, nothing happens overnight but I’d like to believe that I’m making strides with all of it.  Until the day that we decide, (either by completing our family or by living child-free), to get off the carousel he’s stuck on it with me, a passenger not an observer – waiting and hoping.

This song is perfect for us & I think it’s actually a great TTC song in general.