Busy Bees

When I first started this blog, I had just found out about my high FSH and realized I would be entering the IVF battle. Fighting against the odds to have a baby, fighting against the insurance paperwork jungle to get medical expenses covered, fighting against my broken self-esteem to have some functioning semblance of myself. Just a few short weeks after starting this blog, Mr. Warrior and I decided to set a date for a wedding. And though we have been making baby steps (ha-ha) towards IVF, we have mostly been caught up with wedding preparations. We see the wedding as a step for us, in and of itself. Not towards IVF, but towards our ultimate goal, making our family. Ideally, our family would be built through pregnancies followed by the births of healthy, live babies that are biologically mine and his, but we know the chances of that happening is low and are willing to make our family in other ways.

All these wedding tasks have left me little time to blog and I probably will blog a lot less about the struggles of infertility until this is all over and we get knee deep in the IVF fight.

However, making all these million and one decisions about the wedding has made me realize some things about myself. One, that I can feel good about myself again. It’s been so nice to worry about something happy and positive instead of the negative and unknown. I just feel better about myself and feel more competent. Those are two feelings I haven’t felt for a long time and wasn’t sure I would feel again. Two, I am learning what is really important to me and what are just nice extras that I can live without and still be happy. For a long time after my miscarriage, I had a real need to have something, anything go my way. If I couldn’t choose the quickest checkout line at the grocery store, if I couldn’t find a scarf I was looking for, every little thing that I put energy into but didn’t receive gratification from could devastate me. I think I was looking for some sign, some hope that things would be ok and took those “failures” to mean nothing would go well in my life again. Three, I feel transformed in knowing I will be married. That is surprising because I had felt that Mr. Warrior and I were married even though we didn’t have the paperwork to show it. But, you know what? Wearing that ring does make a difference. We got our wedding bands yesterday and I have been wearing it to see if the sizing is right. And somehow, I feel transformed. I don’t know how to describe it much more than that. For people who haven’t been together as long as we have, weddings are true beginnings, the start of a new life together. I don’t see us starting a new life after we are married, but it does feel like we are starting with a new slate. The old slate is scarred and full of the pain of miscarriage and broken hopes and dreams of someone who thought she was fertile. It will not be forgotten, but it is no longer the basis for what is to come. The new slate has infertility and IVF written all over it, but it also has the possibility of new dreams and futures. I think it is because of this new slate that I no longer avoid babies and toddlers in the grocery stores for fear of feeling that stabbing pain and ache in my insides.

I don’t know how long these good feelings will last. I hope the wedding preparations are not just a temporary distraction. I hope I can carry some of these good feelings with me through IVF.