A time to grieve....

Even though, I have come to a place where I am "okay" if we never have our own children; I have found myself still being angry & hurt about it. Thanks to a friend of mine who was telling me "I grieve daily!" on her struggles with not having a "normal" child, I was finally able to recognize that the pain & anger I still feel is grief. I'm grieving!?! I'm not crazy, I'm not bitter......I am simply grieving. I'm grieving an invisible loss. Because I will never let go of the hope of having our own child it will be a daily battle for me until it happens. But I know like every grief it gets easier with time; you learn to live without it. But right now, I find myself grieving when people around me are announcing their new bundle of joy is on its way :), or documenting their pregnancies, gender reveals, maternity pictures, baby showers....ultrasounds.....it all reminds me of something I so desperately want but may never get and it hurts. My grief will never alter my happiness for the people around me but that doesn't mean those events wont force me grieve over it. I dont want to grieve the rest of my life over this, I think in order for me to be able to FULLY accept my circumstances I need to grieve, I need to let out all the anger, sadness & frustration I've held in.
So I'm going to finally let myself grieve it out.......

 I had a misconception of what being "infertile" meant. For years I had been under the impression that it means you dont produce eggs or sperm but on the contrary it means "the inability to conceive" & is usually diagnosed after a couple has tried for a 1 year with no luck.....were going on 10 years this year.

 According to Psych Central the stages of grief are:
1. Denial & Isolation
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. ACCEPTANCE!
 
I'm to logical to deny the fact that we aren't getting pregnant but isolation yes. I couldn't do maternity pictures for others or attend baby showers because it hurt. I isolated myself from that to avoid the reminder of not being able to conceive. Every maternity session I turned down or baby shower invite was never against anyone, it was just hard for me. I never said anything to anyone because I am not the kind of person who puts their own sadness on someone else's  joy. A baby is a joyous occasion & not about me so it was easier for me to say I had other plans. I never found myself bargaining with God but the anger....yeah.....even the depression.

Anger, Frustration & Sadness...
My sweet husband has been distracted the last couple of years because of all this......because of me. Since my husband has been home from his last deployment its been hard. Because he was distracted he has been relieved from a position, denied another and back stabbed by his "brothers in arms" and in the midst of all of it I blame myself. I blame myself because if we could just have kids this huge heartache wouldn't haunt us, I wouldn't have fallen into a depression leading me to be diagnosed with GAD & intrusive thoughts; the dr visits wouldn't be me NEEDING him there.....he wouldn't have been so distracted and then maybe we wouldn't be in the situation we are in now.....it makes me angry. Angry that people have no clue what has gone on the last couple of years and that their "dislike" for my husband doesn't just affect him, it affects me as well, it affects our foster parenting (we may loose our foster parenting) we may have to be away from each other the last 3 years of his military career....and I blame infertility for it all.....

I'm sad because I feel broken.


I'm angry because I feel like the one thing a woman is suppose to be able to do; I cant!

I'm frustrated because I have no answers.


I'm angry because I see you bless woman with the gift of life to only sit back and see them destroy it by abortion or drugs or abuse!


I'm frustrated because people feel sorry for us!


I'm angry because I want to be pregnant and You wont give that to us!

I'm angry because I am 29 years old and childless!

I'm upset because everyone around me has children & something in common & I dont fit in/I cant relate because I dont have children.

I'm angry because I actually have to TRY to conceive, it doesn't just happen like a normal person!


I'm sad because no matter how much hope we have I still have to face the fact that we may NEVER have our own child! A little piece of us left behind in this world.....

I'm frustrated because I cant fix it! I cant make it better! I cant miraculously say "TA-DA! BABY!"

I'm sad because I may never know what it feels like to have our child kick in my tummy.

I'm angry because I may never get the excitement of announcing "WERE PREGNANT!!!"

I'm upset because I may not get to experience the miracle of childbirth & earn my "tiger stripes" :'-)


I'm sad because I dont know if I will ever know what it feels like to hear my child's heartbeat underneath mine.

I'm tired of  keeping the faith when I have every reason to give up.

I'm frustrated because I dont know if I will ever feel the gift of life growing inside of me.

 

But most of all Lord; I'm hurt because I feel forgotten by You....I feel cheated & no matter how much I want to give up, I cant! Something inside of me keeps me going and keeps me hoping and there are days the hope sometimes feels so debilitating. I just want to know if we will ever have a child or not so I can move on with my life! I dont know if my hope and perseverance is me running the race towards the prize or me just fighting a loosing battle? Trusting you in this journey has been the hardest battle, but I'd be liar if I said I wasn't mad at you.

That felt good.....to let it all out......

The "acceptance stage" is hard when there is still hope the next pregnancy test you take will have two pink lines.....