Sadness

Next month on my birthday I'm attending a baby shower for a fellow infertile. She and her husband have been blessed and will soon have a new baby that they conceived naturally. I shouldn't be jealous because know that she's been here. They tried for 2.5 years and used up all of their insurance money trying and not succeeding. They are the couple that was in the process of getting paperwork filled out and getting a home study done when they found out about the baby. And I wish so badly it was me. If I hadn't had my miscarriage in January of last year, I'd be preparing for a 1st birthday party soon, if the party hadn't taken place earlier this month. But instead, I'm making a baby blanket and crying over each stitch. I wish so badly I was making it for my own child.

I feel bad because I'm happy for them but at the same time so sad for myself and my husband. This is such a double edged sword. It's so hard to be happy for everyone else having their babies when all I want is my turn to have a baby as well. Most days I'm fine. I take joy in the blessings I have - my husband, my beautiful step-daughter, my parents and siblings, my health, a home to call my own. But other days it seems I can't even take a step outside of my door without seeing a glowing Madonna with her hand over her gently swelling belly, ripe with child. And the knife drives into my heart and rips open the wound I try so hard to protect. Does this pain ever get easier? Does the memory fade? I know I'll always see July as the "might have been" month, but does it ever get easier? Do you forget the due date that was not? Other have lost babies much further along than me. I was only 6 weeks, 3 days. But how I wanted that life to grow and bloom and become fruitful. Now I make gifts for other people's babies and have nothing at all to show for mine.

I'm sorry for the whining and complaining dear Internet. But tonight it seems as though all of the memories are piling up. I think it's time to self medicate with a glass of wine and no working on craft projects for the evening. Tomorrow things will be better. I have faith. And one day it will be our turn, all of us in this awful stinking boat of IF. We will have our lives be as we wish for them to be. I have faith. It's what keeps me and us all going.