I woke up this morning, put David on the bus and settled in for my work and a large cup of coffee when I came across this post from my blogging friend, Melissa. For those of you not connected to the infertility realm, Mel is one of those people who has a heart of gold and has been a champion for all of us who have fallen into the wrong side of the statistics. There have been times during my own struggle when her blog saved me. This fact I am not exaggerating.

But sometimes those we look up to and commiserate with have their own bad days too.

Her post hit me like a brick.

A very large brick.

Go read it, and come back here.

No really….

I’ll wait…

I think the overriding feeling that I took away from her post is that never-ending wish that things weren’t so damn hard. That all of our dreams were more easily attainable.

And (yeah, I’m gonna say it)… that life was FAIR to all of us.

I need to spin off of Mel’s post on this subject, so bear with me here. Not sure where my thoughts will lead to… but this post and a certain piece of info I learned about yesterday sent me careening off the rails.

It was troubling news that angered me. It propelled me into THAT place. I can’t go into any specifics, but someone in my real life is pregnant and has no freaking business being pregnant.

I wish I could give you all the whole story. You’d choke. You’d gasp.

Yeah, it’s THAT BAD.

In any event, I spent the remainder of the day thinking… where is the fairness in this? To bring a baby into the world that will need and want and have no provisions available. To be born into a bad situation. No opportunity to thrive. A dysfunctional and potentially dangerous situation.

And all the while here I am. Spending thousands of dollars to get to a dream that is wasted on someone who has no right. Not knowing (ever knowing) that my investment of time, money, and love will produce ANY tangible result.

(Whew, let me breathe for a moment).

Here’s the thing…

Infertility has taken away so much from me and my family. It has invaded every last corner of my little world. It has made me less of an outgoing person. It has destroyed my body image. It has made me fearful for my only child (because WHAT IF something were to happen to him!?!). It has drained my emotional resources, and my financial resources.

The perfect life that I envisioned slips away, little by little. Sucking the life out of it.

All the while people are getting married, making plans, deciding on how many kids to have. Having babies, planned and (ooops!) unplanned. Not even THINKING anything could go wrong. They have no idea how quickly their world can be stripped away. No idea.

Until they end up here like us. The misfits.

To end up in a vacuum like so many of us. Where the world exists in a holding pattern. When time moves from cycle to cycle rather than calendar month to month. Where sitting down to dinner at a table that seats 3, 4, 5, or more people makes your heart ache for the empty chairs that have no living children sitting in them.

Knowing that a decision to stop treatment could mean feeling like that forever.

Constantly feeling empty.

This is what keeps me going. I see the future of unfulfilled dreams and I turn and run. I run as if my life depends upon it. Because the alternative is just too hard to think about.

Quoting from Mel: “It’s just that you never expect that you’re going to be infertile when you’re skipping back down the aisle at your wedding, your heart literally traveling out of your chest like a released balloon.”… “It is possible, I’ve heard, that you can change your dream. You can adapt to anything. These are just the growing pains of holding a dream away from your heart and examining it closely. Dreams don’t like to be separated from the body; they howl. They cry.”

I could not have expressed this better or as eloquent as she.

To carry the burden of infertility and loss is like carrying the universe on your back. It’s heavy, dark, and sometimes it seems just too infinite to measure.