Everywhere I look is a reminder of my inadequacy

Everywhere I look whether I'm at work, family functions, parties, the grocery store, etc. people are pregnant. I'm talking EVERYWHERE, almost like a bad dream. If they aren't pregnant they are talking about their kids, as they should be because when you have kids they are your everything. I swear sometimes God is laughing at my dreams. Its like he sees me struggling, crying, and praying for the chance to get pregnant for once in my life and he just says "nope you don't get what you want." I feel like there are a lot of people praying for me too. Are you even listening to me God?? I say that at least once a month when I get a negative pregnancy test or a cancelled cycle or am told the next step is to try another outpatient procedure. Its hard to keep praying for something when you don't feel like anyone is listening. I have taken so many pregnancy tests, it makes me sick. Hundreds of negative pregnancy tests, people. I know women that have been upset when they didn't get pregnant in 4 months. Try 36 in a row, then talk to me. I'm going crazy!!

The most frustrating part of the whole Infertility journey is the inability to control your ability to get pregnant when you want it more than anything else in the world. Unless you are inherently rich like the Kardashians or have health insurance that covers IVF treatments and recognizes infertility as a disease, you will probably have to give up on your dream to start a family at some point. The cost of a surrogate is just devastating. Who do you know that has 100k laying around, especially when you've already paid for IVF and medications and procedures out of pocket? The kicker is that you are not even a guaranteed baby! You already have to give up on the dream of feeling the baby moving and growing inside of you, but lets add refinancing everything you own in hopes of have a stranger birth your flesh and blood because you cannot do it yourself. I know this sounds like a science experiment, believe me, I didn't even want to consider it until I lost my genetically and chromosomally normal embryo baby the week of Christmas 2017. After this happened, I decided I'm not going to be suffering in silence anymore. I'm going to talk about my pain. Maybe others going through this will find my honesty refreshing. It's probably not for everyone and that is fine.

Infertility makes you feel significantly inferior to those around you. You feel embarrassed when you don't even understand why you have to feel that way. Some days I just burst into tears randomly. Everything revolves around starting a family after you are at a certain age, about passing on what you have worked hard for in life to your babies, and finding something other than going out and drinking/partying or shopping or whatever to work for. When I was in my 20's it wasn't so bad because most of my friends were just getting engaged and meeting their future husbands, so I still had someone to go out with and enjoy having independence and freedom with (and you could still wake up for work and not feel like a bus hit you). Now that all my friends have their little families, and are busy doing that, my journey has left me feeling very alone. Even if everyone around you is exhausted and beat down from the tough challenge that raising a child in this world is, I want nothing more than to be exhausted for that reason. Otherwise you are just broken, depressed, inadequate at doing what was supposed to be your basic instincts as a woman and wife.

So I guess I'm mostly writing this post not to make others feel bad, but to make them understand. When your immediate circle cannot leave their houses because they have infants and newborns or young children, its tough to come over as much as I want to see you. I miss having the ability to call up a friend and decide to go out for dinner or drinks without planning it out a month in advance around babysitters and stuff. Hell I can't drink or have caffeine anyhow. I might as well just be a hermit. I know that sounds very selfish, but it is true. I know deep down some people are just thinking so you won't have a kid, what's the big deal? And you can probably only say that because you haven't been in my shoes, and haven't struggled with procedures and costly injections that make you crazy, bruised, and swelled up in order to get pregnant.

Not everyone will choose to go this far in trying to have a family. I can totally understand why they wouldn't now that I'm here. I wonder if I went too far at times, like when is enough enough? There are the select few people that don't want children, too. Perhaps the infertility epidemic will lead to more people making this choice versus having to endure the hardships and unknowns of fertility treatments. I don't think there's really a "wrong" way to be despite how bad your families may want you to reproduce. Perhaps its just not in the cards for everyone.