Always on my mind

Recovery hasn't been bad. The gas pains from the CO2 they fill you up with were quite painful, made it kind of hard to breathe, but they subsided by around Monday night I would say. The incision sites were (can still be from time to time) tender, but they seem to be healing pretty well. My mom recommends leaving the steri-strips on until they fall off, which I was against at first, I figured I would take them off after a week, but they still seem pretty attached, so I guess I will give them a few more days.

I was talking to my mom yesterday. We talked about IF a little, we got started on the subject by talking about moving (as we are contemplating doing so after I take the GR.E, but we are not sure to where yet, I guess it depends on where I may get accepted and where A can find a job), and she said that "watching" us going through this from so far away was really hard for her. I can imagine that it was, as it was difficult for me to be away from her (and my dad), too. She said all she ever wanted to do was be with me, and hold me, and that listening to me cry over the phone, or tell her, "I am going to the ER", just killed her. She said that since we have started on this path that she sits and thinks sometimes about her pregnancy with me. If she did anything out of the ordinary, if it was somehow different that the other two, but she can never think of anything.

She sits and wonders about how IF can affect people, and why certain people are affected and others aren't. Why (and this same thought has gone through my mind millions of times, as I am sure it has other IF women to some degree) she was able to get pregnant so easily and have three healthy children, why A's mom was able to have 4 children (one passed soon after birth to a heart problem), pregnancy coming easily each time, and we can't even get pregnant (at least w/out medical intervention if you count our recent c/p)?

As I have said before, I wish I was truly a faithful person. I would tell myself that God knows and that He has a plan, and I just have to allow His will and wait for it to unfold in the way He wishes. I am not that person. I believe that He does have a plan, but I question it and wonder why it is what it is.........and what it is.

Our 1 year anniversary of beginning on the path of IVF has passed. The next big anniversary, at least in my mind is 5/7. This is the day we first realized, I think, how truly hard this path was going to be. How truly challenging and life-changing. The day we found out about our 5 beautiful embryos. We had life, light, hope...........and it died.

I believe we have truly experienced the grieving process. Maybe we are still within it.....maybe once you experience loss you never really come out of it. Maybe the rest of your life is spent on the path of grieving. At some level you feel the sadness that changed you, but you move forward, for what else can you do?

I don't know if I am making much sense in this post, this is very stream-of-consciousness. We are done, as I have said before, with treatments (for now, forever?), but I never stop thinking about things. It's always a part of me, always at the back (or forefront) of my mind.

One thing I have learned is this:
Infertility changes you. Forever.