100

Welcome to post #100! There was a point in time when I first started blogging last July that I was having to restrain myself from posting multiple times a day. I mean, it was getting ridiculous, folks. I actually began thinking in 'blog' speak. Part of the reason for gratuitous posting was that I had the summer off to dilly and dally as I pleased (yes, now I envy myself for it) and the other part was that I had a lot to get off my chest. Now, 100 posts, a fantastic on-line IF community and an amazing group of real-life IF friends later, and I no longer feel as compelled.

This is not to say that I don't need and value my blog, but that I have processed so much emotion related to IF since then that while I still have more to say, the words don't come as urgently, or rather, the need comes in waves and is no longer the unending stream it once was. Nevertheless, I still need you, my beautiful blog and I still need you, my beautiful on-line buddies. Days like today remind me of this.

I've also been quiet lately because this has effectively been the most trying, mind-f%$*ing 2 week wait I have ever experienced. Every day that has pushed on since my transfer has made me feel more and more like I am completely losing my grip on hope. Not just hope for this cycle, but for all future cycles. Obviously this is not a new concept for me. Since the beginning of getting out 'the big guns', I've felt increasingly hopeless and I long to move on from that feeling, in one way or another.

I know what has made me feel this way: infertility. I am infertile. Even after almost 5 years, after 1,000 conversations discussing it, that statement still has the power to jar something deep in my chest. And my infertility has taught me to always expect the fall...too well. And there is nothing like day-after-day of prodding and sticking and pills and measuring and lab coats and bruises to make you feel so...ill. And to make you feel as if there is no cure. And then, at the end, all of the blood, sweat and tears, all of your hopes and dreams rest on one little blood test and no matter how much you try to will those beautiful embryos to grow and to stay, and no matter how much you've set the stage, they do what they will. I am powerless.

When I did my first IUI, I was pretty damn convinced that it was going to work. How I long for that initial naivete. Even if it makes the fall harder at the end, it will at least soften some of the edges of my steely jaded exterior. I sit, bracing myself, expecting the worst and no longer hoping for the best. I hate that. While I always intellectually grasped the very real and likely outcome of my first IVF failing, I never realized how terrifying that would be to face until I stood at the door, waiting for it to approach.