It's Working!

I want to start off by thanking all of you for the wonderful comments you left on my last post. You sure know how to make a girl feel good and confident in her decision! So, thank you!!

I am still not testing or monitoring my cycle; although, I have thought about it daily. Today is CD 18 and I am have been having my normal 'pre-ovulation' symptoms. I tend to get this sharp, "side ache" like feeling, a week or two prior to ovulation, as well a low back pain; those symptoms started a couple days ago. I also have been experiencing an increase of cervical mucus. My body is telling me that ovulation should be coming. I say "should" because with my body and my PCOS, you never know if or when it will happen. I am a tricky one.

Mike is working nights for the next few days so I am tempted to just let this whole cycle go with out trying to catch ovulation. I want to stick to the mode we have been in since vacation. However, I want to know if in fact I do ovulate and I would love to catch the surge so I can compare to the last natural cycle. Because I am in such a comfortable place right now I truly believe I can do it without stressing or causing stress.

Friday I went over to visit my sister and drop off an anniversary gift for them as well as to meet her friend that she introduced me to via Facebook when I was first diagnosed with PCOS, over a year ago. Jen also has PCOS and had to resort to a RE to help conceive her two beautiful children. She was helpful in offering advice and she did her best to keep my spirit up when I wanted to quit. She has been great. So, of course I had to meet her in person and the two miracle babies!

Normally I tend to shy away from children; you would think that I would drool over every baby I see, since I want one of my own so badly but, I don't. I tend to smile and admire them from afar and look away before my eyes well up with tears, before my heart starts to aches, before my mind reminds me that I am childless. When I walked into the house, Jen's baby girl came right up to me, stretched out her arms and said "up". Of course, I couldn't say no to her; she looked like the perfect little doll! She was so small and round and had beautiful, long, brown hair; she was so cute! Without thinking, I picked her up and my heart immediately filled with joy! Holding her was great; it felt natural and healing.

When I left my sister's house I didn't sulk in private over the fact that we don't have kids, that I don't get to see Mike playing air hockey with his little girl, that I don't get to pick up my baby everyday. I left and went about my day. I went fishing with my other sister and her husband and I didn't think about my infertility, this blog, or my cycle. I was free of the burden of infertility for just a moment in time. It felt good. I felt present.

Then, the other day, something hit me. I realized that when I heard the news of women's BFP; in real life or in the infertility world, I would get so sad, angry, frustrated and jealous but, mostly I just got sad. Sad, because I feared that I was going to be left behind. I feared that while all my friends are having kids; or close to being done having kids, while other's, who have been on this infertility roller coaster with me are graduating into mommytobehood, I would still be here, competing against my own body in order to conceive. 

After I  recognized the true emotion I was able to remind myself of the things I learned while on vacation; I reminded myself that I have a great life full of love, compassion, support and trust. A life full of wonderful people and the chance to experience great things with them and through them. No matter what happens in our journey, no matter how many friends move on the be parents, no matter how long it takes us to have kids; or to accept the fact that we won't, no matter what, I reminded myself that we do have each other and a love strong enough to conquer anything.  Some people don't even have that.

Today as I read though blogs and status updates announcing pregnancies I felt such happiness and excitement for those women. My heart was warm and my stomach was filled with butterflies instead of tied in knots. My thoughts drifted to a positive place, a place full of good thoughts. I tried to imagine what it must feel like to be pregnant, to see the BFP for the first time, to be able to share with the others that your time has finally come! I was able to smile at the thought of it and it made me even more excited for those women who are where I want to be. My fear of  being left behind wasn't there nor was my jealousy or anger. All I felt was excitement for them. 

I started to wonder if being away from the doctor's office, out of the lab, and unaware of the numbers, helped get me to this calmer place. When we are actively trying to conceive our minds are even more consumed with infertility. Every monitored cycle I was on I would worry about numbers: were they right? Were they high enough? Did we mess up the timing? Is this going to be the cycle? Every day of a monitored cycle, we are planning the next steps; focusing on what could go right and what could go wrong.

Lately, it seems like our infertility is the last thing we consume our thoughts with. Of course, we still talk about having a family and what it would be like to finally get pregnant, however, we don't stress about it  and we remind ourselves how easy life is at the moment and that we better not take it for granted!

I said once before: I can either be infertile and miserable or infertile and happy. I'm choosing the latter. But, with infertility things things can always change, so I want to be clear:  I am not saying life will always be peaches n cream from here on out; I am sure there will be plenty of moments where I lose all hope, but the fact of the matter is, right now I am embracing this positive change in perspective.