Four Years

After four years, I felt like I had just gotten good at highschool. I was so ready to leave, but I was secure in the knowledge that I beat highschool and that, if necessary, I could step back into the fray and conquer all of the classes, teachers, social situations, and activities again. Highschool became something I knew how to do, and for the four previous years, was my normal.

College was similar; another four years in a predictible pattern. By the end of it, I was eager to get married, but it also felt like I had just gotten things right. I'd found the perfect roommates, a great part-time job, a true best friend, learned to manage classes, my relationship, money, my parents, and I'd finally figured out when to submit my paperwork for financial aid. But then again, regardless of my comfort, things changed again with graduation.

So maybe there is something to this four years thing. I don't really know. For me, this is my fourth year past without the child/children/pregnancy we've longed for. And I've gotten good at throwing the "infertility" word around. Sometimes I even toss in "barren" if I want to feel the pain of tiny needles in my skin. But, for most of the time, I'm good at being this person. The one who doesn't have kids, but enjoys them. The one who can't seem to get pregnant, but isn't any less excited for you because you are expecting. I've found ways to just not think about life in this black/white, me vs. them scheme. Because really, that's not the way it works.

And after four years, with less hope for the future than we started out with, I am over it. Perhaps the very future that I wanted is now my kryptonite. I don't know how I'd react to my own pregnancy. I desire the end result, but my mind can't make the leap through the dangerous, scary, terrifying pregnancy to focus on a real live baby. Much like George Strait's "Gotten good at goodbye," I've gotten good at being infertile, accepting it for what it is right now. It is familiar and almost comforting at times. I know what to expect and am usually not left wondering. Infertility is my badge. Which sounds a little sad now that it is written out like that.

- Posted from my mobile phone