This week is...

This week is National Infertility Awareness Week. And well y'all know me lol, Lil Miss Infertility herself has to write a blog about it lol. Hardly ever do you find me in a smiley/happy mood when I write a blog about infertility but this one is different. I am happy there is a week like this, I just wish it was more out there and loud and everyone in America knew about it like they do other Awareness months and weeks, I wish I could just do something to spread the word more than just my blogs but oh well.

So for those of you that know me you know that infertility is like my shadow it's always there even though sometimes of the day you can't see it. For those of you that don't know this about me, you really should read my blogs lol!!!

When your married the first part of your marriage you get the questions like "so how is married life?" I use to answer just like it was before lol. And then as all married people know we get the "So when are you going to have children?" question, and I use to answer as soon as possible, I was in a pissed off mood one time when someone asked me and I said I guess when a kid falls out lol. I get asked that questions by people that know me, people that know we've had this problem, aunts and uncles. On the good days I'm nice, and then other times they ask me on a bad day and those days I end up being the biggest smart ass in the world, I say things like "well we've been trying", or "we have problems", or I might even get bitchier and say "who knows, I have problems that keep us from getting prego." that doesn't sound that bitchy in text but the way my brain was adding in the tude it really was lol. The other day our insurance agent for the office came in, he comes by at least once a year if not twice, he was talking to Angela about her son Tyler being 17 and able to drive, then he looks over in my office and says "do you have any children yet?" Of course I said no not yet, and then he says "are you going to or are you just going to be kid free forever able to go and come as you please?" well that hit a nerve and I was so trying to be nice and said "well I would have gotten pregnant the day we got married, it just didn't work out that way" and he was like oh ok and then left soon after that. My sister said doesn't that piss you off when people ask you that, I said maybe he didn't know, and she said he asks you every time he comes in here!!! The funny thing is one of our salesmen came in the other day and asked when I was going to have kids and before I could say anything Angela jumped to it and it sounded a little smart ass (don't remember her exact words lol) and it for some reason made me feel better that she was the one that had to say it not me, I am so sick and tired of telling people that I am infertile that I am the one with the problem, that I can't have babies.

But the one thing I am more sick of is people telling me stupid things to try and help, like just relax and it will happen, go on vacation and it will happen, don't stress and it will happen, stand on your head after sex and it will happen, stop trying and it will just happen, and that's just a few that I've heard!!! It's like I have been trying to have a baby for over 7 years don't you think I've tried all of that? Let's see here relax well the last couple of years I quit trying I just decided to let it happen if it was going to happen... did it happen??? hmmmm Nope!!! In the 7 years I've went on vacation with Danny to Bahamas, Aruba, St. Thomas, On a cruise to Jamaica, Cozumel, and Grand Cayman Islands, another cruise to Bermuda, to Panama City Beach FL a hundred times, Gatlinburg, Gulf Shores AL, New York City, and I'm sure about 10 other places I can't think of right now and going on vacation didn't get me knocked up either. The only thing standing on my head did was give me a head ache!!!

People that have never been through this don't know how hard it is, I read somewhere that infertility is like mourning a death, because every month when Uncle T.O.M. and Aunt Flo visit it's just an awful reminder that you didn't make a baby. I can say that I don't feel like that every month, it's not the same pain, with loosing a loved one you actually got the pleasure of knowing that person so you get to miss them and the pain of loosing a loved one is understanded around the world. Where as every month I'm left wondering if I'll ever get to meet my baby, and people don't understand that pain. Some months have been harder, the months that we had IUI (Intrauterine Insemination) done I expected to be pregnant those months and the pain was almost unbearable, I cried myself to sleep countless nights, it was so bad that Danny asked if we could take a break because he couldn't stand seeing me like that anymore. I've gotten better about hiding my pain behind a smile.

I've had friends that know everything we've been through tell me how strong they think I am because every time they see me I have a smile on my face, when I hear of pregnancies I smile while deep down inside I'm dying of jealousy and pain and the question why not me. When I hear someone else is pregnant I feel bad for feeling those things and then I have guilt because I should have been more supportive and more congratulatory towards them, I feel like I've lost my compassion, I feel like I've lost my ability to be completely happy for others, I feel like a big green monster of jealousy. I hate what infertility has done to me. It's even been a strain on some of my friendships I found myself pushing people away or not talking to them or answering phone calls for the simple fact that I was so depressed that I couldn't talk to anyone because I was afraid they were going to ask me something about babies or one of our appointments and I couldn't talk about it without crying and I didn't want to cry anymore.

It got to be so bad I just knew I was going to get pregnant back then (back then I mean around the IUI in 2003!!!) that I bought all of the stuff I wanted for my nursery the baby bedding, the light switch cover, a little piggy bank, a lamp shade, a night light, book ends everything matched my theme of precious moments Noah's ark. I've had this stuff in a box in our attic since 2003, when Danny's nephew Adrian moved in and we had a baby bed for him instead of buying new stuff I decided to get the bedding out and use it since I didn't think I would ever get to use it for my own baby, it was so hard to walk into our extra bedroom with two baby beds set up, one for Jeffrey and one for Adrian, and see that bedding being used for someone elses child. See that's what I mean by jealousy, it shows up at the wrong time! I let Amber keep the bedding when she moved out but just the other week when we had a yard sale I decided it was time to get rid of the other reminders, so as I'm sitting out in my driveway pricing all of our stuff I come to that box, that box that's been sitting in my attic taunting me all these years, I pull out piece by piece, pricing each of them after I had them all out on the table I see the book, it was a story book for kids that was just like the theme of the bedding. I had the whole room planned out on a piece of paper stuck inside this book. As soon as I opened it and saw the drawing of the babies nursery my eyes filled up, as they are right now, and I sat there in the middle of my driveway with tears rolling down my face, luckily for me no one was there yet, then Danny pulled in and asked what was wrong all I had to do was show him the drawing and the only thing he said was "oh!" he knew what I was feeling cause he felt it too, it was just as hard when that was the first few items I sold. It felt like I was giving up, even though I'm not and never will, but it was hard to give that stuff up.

Ok I'm done lol, I started this to be all about making people aware of the week, aware of infertility, and it turned into being a blog about the pain, but then again infertility is pain it's a pain in my chest, and it's a pain in my ass. So I hope I've made even one more person aware of infertility. Thanks for reading my blog. Have a wonderful day!