Fears and Facebook

I have to be honest, for many weeks I have been in denial.  I think my logic was that it would hurt less if I didn't get excited in case something happened to the baby and we lost him/her.  Once I came to reality and realized it was going to hurt the same no matter what I felt, I started to deal with the emotions that come from realizing "O wow, this may actually be happening."

During our first year of trying, I kept telling myself that it will happen and I just need to be patient.  During the 2nd year, I started to worry just a little more, but still had lots of hope.  By the 3rd year, the realization that we may never have a biological child started to sink in. Then during the 4th year, I started to convince myself that maybe I really didn't want to be a mom and that Josh and I would just choose to be childfree and become world travelers. Obviously in my heart, that is not what I really wanted, but it was easier to deal with the disappointment this way.  Anyone who knows Josh also knows that the word travel stresses him out, and we have already had too many encounters with airport security to think we would really become world travelers :)

When we started telling people I was pregnant, I was TERRIFIED!!! I am not sure if I thought I could jinx it, or if it was the thought of having to go back and tell them something bad had happened and we lost the baby.  Many people didn't understand why I wasn't enjoying this pregnancy to the fullest, or why I was living in fear.  When you have prepared for the worst, it is hard to accept the best :)

Well, it didn't happen exactly as planned, but I guess we are Facebook official :)  We had wanted to wait until our next doctor's appointment to make it official, but there was sort of a leak of some "pregnancy announcement" pictures and a lot of people saw them.  After that, I figured I might as well make the official post and share our new blog with everyone. Lesson learned--Josh may be right when he says that there is nothing private on Facepuke (yes, he calls it Facepuke :) and he hates it).

I guess it was a blessing in disguise because I am not sure I would ever feel comfortable making the announcement on Facebook, but the reaction of so many of our friends reassures us that we want a child to be a part of our very blessed lives!  We have amazing family and friends, so if God forbid something bad does happen, I know we will have the support we need to get through it.

Pregnancy after infertility is interesting (I couldn't think of a better word, even though I know there has to be one). We have made some great friends who were experiencing their own infertility journeys, and now those relationships are changing.  We dealt with this change when some of our own great friends got pregnant when we were still trying.  You feel happy for them, but at the time it was a reminder of what we still didn't have and hadn't been able to achieve. Looking back, I think those friends were a great source of hope, but I am not sure I saw it like that at the time.  I hope that our friends that are struggling to conceive can see that everyone's journey is different, and in the end everything happens on God's time.

I am obviously excited that we are having a baby, but I think it is important for people to remember that accepting this is more than just taking a pregnancy test and planning a nursery.  This pregnancy has been a constant reminder of what we have lost, but also a daily reminder of what we hope for in the end....to meet our child!