Today, I've been reading all of the blogs I follow (on my blogroll and through Google Reader). There are some really positive ones, written by people I couldn't be happier for: couples who've just conceived, couples who are basking in the delights of new parenthood... but then there are endless entries from women who are at their wits ends with this whole TTC thing (I won't list them out of respect for their privacy and pain).
Their honesty has got me thinking about my own journey, which has hardly begun, and make me question whether I'll be able to stay sane through the process. Knowing my health isn't great on the best of days - will I be able to do this?
I don't even know whether I'll be able to go on fertility meds with the meds I'm currently on. I don't know how screwing with my hormones is going to screw with my head. Fuck, I don't even know if my partner still wants to have a baby with me... whether we'll even go down that road.
The process excites me, but freaks me out beyond belief. I feel like on top of the mad journey of TTC, I have so much else going on. So should we even start trying? Perhaps I'm writing this, and doubting myself, because I am still in my pajamas on a Saturday at 3:00 p.m., after sleeping for 10 hours because work is killing me right now, and I need a break.
How the hell am I ever going to get by without sleep, stressed out about getting pregnant, or up every hour with a new baby? Does this innate parenting thing kick in that makes it possible? I'm not not looking forward to it - I know it will be worth it all... I just worry about post-partum depression, and though my shrink is confident that the odds aren't high enough for me to worry about, that's what I do: I worry.
I have a good friend who has a 7-year-old daughter (pregnant on the first date with her now husband). She's a wonderful mom, and she wants me to be a mom, but she says nobody tells you how much you worry. Granted, she's a bit of a helicopter mom whose child can do absolutely no wrong, but if I'm a worrier by nature, what will that translate into when motherhood arrives?
I work at a Children's Hospital, which is wonderful and sad. I see kids every day who are sick, and I can't help but wonder whether my health will affect my baby's. You see? My partner and I haven't even decided on whether we're going to get pregnant yet, and I'm already worrying about the health of my baby. Lord knows that if we do start this journey, our baby may not come for years. Can I keep up the worrying for that long, or will I just worry about something else in the meantime? Probably.
But then there's this other part of me that *knows* I'm going to be an incredible mom. I just know me... and I know, no matter what the circumstances, I will thrive. Maybe that's what gives me hope and is pulling me through.
D and I have less than a month and a half before we can start talking baby again (therapist helped us make a deal that we'd drop the subject for 3 months so that we could work on "us" first).
I was flipping through my menstrual calendar app on my iPhone - amazing little things - and my birthday is in a few months. On the calendar, there is a big, dark box around my birthday: it is the day of the month that is my best chance of conceiving. Last year on my birthday, I told D that I wanted to be pregnant by this birthday coming up... that's nowhere near happening.
But thank you, Apple, for reminding me of the cruel irony that for my birthday, I *could* be in a clinic office, with the possibility of conceiving on that very day, but instead, I will be worrying... about something, I'm sure.
I suppose I didn't have to download the app, eh?
(Photo credit: here. And no, that's not my real birthday, nor my real cycle).
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