9dpiui... Hope...

Hope is a very funny thing when you are experiencing infertility.

On the one hand you want nothing more that to have unlimited hope to be graced with a child. This hope is what keeps you going everyday, through ever early morning doctor's appointment, through every shot, through mood swings and teenage acne. This hope is what makes you a stronger person.

On the other hand, hope is what causes each negative result to tear that much further through your heart. If you have hope, then you lull yourself into this false sense of security where you convince yourself that every little twinge or ache is a real symptom, when in reality it never was. This hope eats at your resolve, and tears your heart into pieces bit by bit.

I often catch myself when I want to tell people that I have hope that a current cycle will work, and have begun telling people that well, "Hope is a tricky thing..." which is usually followed by someone telling me that I should always have hope... and me agreeing with them, but then there is always that little part of hope that taunts... that makes you hate it... thats the part I want to be able to explain to them, but in reality, most people would never understand.

This time around, I "feel" like I should have hope, everything went beautifully, every med worked as it should(even if it was a little slower than I would have liked) and every procedure was better than it ever has been. I just don't know if I can bring myself to actually say that I have hope... it almost feels like a jinx at this point. I find myself rationalizing that "I had hope all of those other times, and nothing worked, and when it did, it eventually failed anyways. So why even begin to hope?"

So I find myself still several days from testing, and just less than a week from having a blood test, wondering if I should take a chance on hope. I want so badly for this bad dream to end with a wonderful reality of being pregnant, and having a healthy and beautiful baby. I have faith that it will eventually happen for us, but I sometimes wonder what will be the toll of all of this on us.

After the m/c we stopped going to church, I was angry with God, and the church didn't support me in the way I would have hoped. I was haunted by the phrase "Its all in God's plan...", I was haunted by the thought that maybe, God didn't want me to be a mother. I was angry with the church for everything that it had ever given or not given me... I was just angry. So I didn't go to church. Instead... I had chats with God... I tried to come to grips with everything that had happened, and I searched for hope... Now exactly 5 months after my m/c, this was the first cycle that I actually felt at peace with everything that happened, and I think that this is not only because of incredibly talented doctors, and a wonderfully supportive husband and family, but also a bit because of God.

So, beyond my better judgment, and everything that my head is telling me, I have decided to have hope. I am oddly at peace with that decision, in fact, its the first time in a long time that I don't feel like spitting out the word hope, but singing it. Its funny ever since I decided that I would have hope, it has grown, it has blossomed, and it makes me feel good inside.

Now lets just hope that "HOPE" doesn't let me down this time around...