I was going through my drafts today and came across this. I'm sure there was more I wanted to write but for now I can't remember what was on my mind then. I thought it was worth sharing.
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I never knew when Shawn and I decided to add to our family the thoughts, feelings and emotions I was going to end up experiencing. I knew there would be fear, because I felt fear before we started trying. As my first post about our struggles stated I couldn't believe my nightmare was coming true. I think not being able to get pregnant is probably a fear most women and girls have. Its just one of those things you grow up expecting will be able to happen fairly easily for you since everyone you ever knew never had a problem. (at least that you knew of.) The biggest thing that has caught me off guard has been my dwindling confidence in myself as a woman. I have been so surprised at what infertility does to make you feel in some senses like less of a woman. Add on the hit of finally getting pregnant and then losing the baby, and then you get a wreck of emotions. My faith has been tested in myself, that I'm even good enough to be a mother, maybe I've done something that I'm being punished for. At one point in time I even felt as though I was having one horribly sick joke played on me. Saying "here have hope that you are now going to have a baby.....oh wait just kidding that's not going to happen right now!" Recently the thought has been what could I have done differently? Did I do something to cause the loss of this pregnancy? I feel guilty at times that I haven't been able to get pregnant and then when I did I lost it, and maybe I could have stopped it. I see the way Shawn longingly looks at children (not in a creepy way, just that same look I'm sure I get, the one that says man I can't wait to have our own) and I feel so bad I haven't been able to give him that. Hopefully we will be able to get past our first battle with infertility. I don't kid myself that once we have one baby we will be able to get pregnant straight away. I know that we most likely will not only have to deal with primary infertility but we will also have to deal with secondary infertility, I just wish/hope/pray that we wont have to deal with this round of infertility for much longer.
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I never knew when Shawn and I decided to add to our family the thoughts, feelings and emotions I was going to end up experiencing. I knew there would be fear, because I felt fear before we started trying. As my first post about our struggles stated I couldn't believe my nightmare was coming true. I think not being able to get pregnant is probably a fear most women and girls have. Its just one of those things you grow up expecting will be able to happen fairly easily for you since everyone you ever knew never had a problem. (at least that you knew of.) The biggest thing that has caught me off guard has been my dwindling confidence in myself as a woman. I have been so surprised at what infertility does to make you feel in some senses like less of a woman. Add on the hit of finally getting pregnant and then losing the baby, and then you get a wreck of emotions. My faith has been tested in myself, that I'm even good enough to be a mother, maybe I've done something that I'm being punished for. At one point in time I even felt as though I was having one horribly sick joke played on me. Saying "here have hope that you are now going to have a baby.....oh wait just kidding that's not going to happen right now!" Recently the thought has been what could I have done differently? Did I do something to cause the loss of this pregnancy? I feel guilty at times that I haven't been able to get pregnant and then when I did I lost it, and maybe I could have stopped it. I see the way Shawn longingly looks at children (not in a creepy way, just that same look I'm sure I get, the one that says man I can't wait to have our own) and I feel so bad I haven't been able to give him that. Hopefully we will be able to get past our first battle with infertility. I don't kid myself that once we have one baby we will be able to get pregnant straight away. I know that we most likely will not only have to deal with primary infertility but we will also have to deal with secondary infertility, I just wish/hope/pray that we wont have to deal with this round of infertility for much longer.