Finding A Place

Before starting to read this post, you should know about the insanity that is swirling around me.  My husband is a die hard UNC basketball fan.  He hates Duke with a passion.  Right now, we are watching the game.  This is what watching the game in my house is like.  J stands two feet from the TV and yells at it.  He also sometimes throws small objects and for some reason, he hits himself in the head when something doesn't go his way.  I don't understand that part at all.  When things go well, he claps loudly and rhythmically four times in a row... waits 20 seconds... and does it again.  The dog does not like it when he gets mad (this is the only time he ever gets remotely angry) and she jumps all over him and whines and barks.  I promised I would not retreat to my bedroom if he bought me chocolate.  So I'm blogging, eating cookies, and enjoying the entertainment.

Now for the real post.

J and I have been talking more lately about how this whole thing is affecting us as a family.  He said something that was really eye opening.  He said that at this point, he would look back on our first year of marriage as a year of sadness.  That broke my heart, but I can't say it's entirely untrue.  I hope that eventually, whenever we find a resolution to this mess, we will look back on it as the year we really built our marriage, grew together, and saw what we were made of.  Right now, I hate that he is sad.  I hate that we are sad.  I hate that all of these memories are attached to our newlywed time.

So we've been trying two things.  One, we're choosing to be more joyful.  Could I sit around and focus on the sad things?  Sure.  That's pretty easy to do most of the time.  But couldn't we focus more on the happy things?  Even if it's something little, can't we concentrate on celebrating those things?  That's been the challenge this week and so far, so good!  It probably helps that we're in a futile TWW, I'll admit, but better to start at a less trying time than an emotionally charged one.

The other is to focus on the life we have now rather than the life we wish we had.  The life we have now is one that doesn't have kids.  Right now, we're a family of two with a giant black hole of uncertainty that continues to grow. It feels really awful. It's like a big question mark that keeps us from settling in to our life together.  The real turning point came for us when I brought up a trip I may be making to Germany in 2014.  We were talking about saving up so J could come with.  We realized we'd lost our shit when we were actually talking about the possibility of there being a baby he had to stay home with.  We seriously thought about not saving money for a trip because of a hypothetical baby.  Wouldn't it suck for 2014 to come around, there's no baby, AND we don't have the money for him to come with me?  Would we really want that infertility reminder?  Wouldn't it be better to be in a position where we had a pot of money AND a baby?

This is how we live our lives!  I actually have an real budget and a budget for when we have a baby and I change the dates on it every month we aren't successful.  We have two guest rooms and one is completely without decoration because it's meant to be a baby's room.  When we bought my car last year, we bought an SUV because we were planning on in being a mom-mobile.  We don't plan trips because what if I get pregnant and can't travel or there's a baby on the way and we need that money to get ready?  I stress out at the dog when she barks at night because worry she'll bark when there's a sleeping baby.  I feel uncomfortable about trying to lose weight because what if I get pregnant and haven't been eating enough?

All neurotic, I know.  Obviously, we haven't found a way to be happy with our lives as a twosome. We've skipped that.  So now, we're tying to find a place where we can see a future with just the two of us.  Maybe we will have a biological child.  Maybe we will decide to adopt.  Maybe we will live without children.  Right now, we don't have any children and we need to live like it. 

We will continue trying to get pregnant and pursuing treatment with everything we have in us while somehow balancing happiness with what we have right now.  We most certainly have to also find a way to be comfortable as a family of two.  I have to find peace with what our lives are now and embrace what may be our future.