Our Blessings, Our Burdens in The Day To Day Ramblings

There is a reason for everything. It's the most cliche statement out there but damn is it true.

If infertility has taught me anything it's to appreciate what I have already. I heard a saying the other day that stopped me in my tracks. "These are not our burdens, they are our blessings." When you really pause, really think about it, every single 'burden' is the chance to look at the blessings all around it.

As we struggle to grow our family and get pregnant, life has continued on. Weeks, months and now years have passed. When we initially started trying, I dyed my hair back to my natural color, stopped drinking alcohol, cut all junk out of my diet, stopped making longterm plans incase I couldn't do them while pregnant and tried to live as 'pregnant' as I could so that the transition to pregnancy couldn't be so sudden. As time passed however, life kept coming at us. A baby did not. I slowly decided to go back to blonde. I started drinking a drink or two a month, at happy hour, very casual. I made plans for six or eight or twelve months ahead. I started living again. And truly, that has made me feel better than any word of advice, website or self help book ever could.

One of the hardest parts of infertility is all the waiting. The dreaded two week windows in your life - between if you'll be late (yay!) or if you get your period (a deep, bone penetrating feeling of failure) back to your fertile window (which feels like the most high pressure, least sexy you've ever been) and then back to maybe being late (yay!) or your period (you're still broken) - you are constantly waiting. By changing up my mindset and embracing all the blessings I have right now instead of all the things I wish I had but don't ultimately control, I gave myself permission to be present. I let myself be okay being me, being us, being 'just' a married couple who wasn't currently pregnant. I relinquished that need for suffocating control and I stopped living in the two week window.

As I've done that I've felt a whole new world opening up to me. A world where a young, strong, healthy body is so capable. Where I can play two and a half hours of competitive power volleyball and hold my own against collegiate players. Where I can throw down a 10 mile run because I have the time and the willpower and the stamina. Where I can travel and eat what I want and get a little tipsy and live in the moment. Any month now my life will change. My body will change, my stamina will change, my abilities will change. I welcome all of that with open arms, as I welcome the 'sacrifices' you make when you choose to have children. But right now, right here when I am 'blessed' with not having them instead of 'burdened' with infertility, there is a life to live too. Time is passing and I will only be 29 once and I will only be young & childless and in this healthy & capable body for so long.

So while I can't wait for that plus sign on the pregnancy test some day soon, I'm right now thankful for all the things I can do in the meantime. And instead of looking at it as 'the meantime', I'm looking at all of these things as my life. I'm looking at them as my present, my reality, my happy, fortunate, beautiful, blissful blessings.