perspective

while it was hard to pinpoint exactly when it started as i never stopped spotting after the biposy, i definitely have my period. and while i am, of course, disappointed, i am not surprised and also not very bothered by it this cycle. this was our 13th try, i think, though i'm losing count. it's a mere five days until our results appointment, and i'm really looking forward to hopefully hearing something definitive, something to change the course of the past year and my outlook on the future.

and in the meantime, i think i can honestly say that i've developed some perspective on this, finally. there has been so much stuff happening in lives parallel to mine that has made me think about how very lucky i am to be at this point of my life and to have almost everything i ever could have wanted. i know it sounds cliched, but it's really true. in the past year i got my doctorate, bought a house, and landed my dream job (which has, unbelievably, actually continued to be my dream job even after doing it for nearly a year). the hubby and i are happier than we've ever been. and yet, on the periphery of my rosy life, i have friends and acquaintances who can't find jobs, relatives going through divorces, friends fighting cancer, a friend whose mother is dying of cancer, a friend who has had a student die in recent weeks, and a fellow chorus member whose life partner suddenly passed away -- leaving her financially and legally very bad off. i recently learned that a colleague -- one of the people i'm closest to at work -- has been trying to get pregnant on her own for over a year. she's been inseminated 14 times and they can't figure out why it's not working. she's 37 and desperately wants kids so, although she's single, she finally triumphantly decided to go it alone and had every reason to believe it would happen easily... and here she is, shelling out big bucks for hormone meds and procedures every month, to no avail. she's spending her nest egg trying to make a baby and they can't figure out why it's not working and she just doesn't know what to do next.

i'm not going to say "it could be worse;" of course it could be, and that's not the important thing here. the important thing is that i am, in every other facet of my life aside from my un-parenthood, incredibly happy. and i'm not going to sacrifice that for want of this one elusive thing. i do want a baby... so much. so much that it makes me cry both in happiness when i imagine it and in misery when i think it won't ever happen. but no matter what we find out on wednesday, i think we're in good shape to deal with this with perspective. we know what we will and won't pursue in terms of fertility assistance, and any information we get will hopefully help us to make a plan going forward. if there's nothing conclusive, we'll give ourselves a time limit for how much longer we'll try before we switch routes. and that's that. i don't think we're going to let this crush us. i really don't. and while i've claimed that in the past, i am pretty sure now that i actually mean it.