Two Different Worlds

Most of the time I try not to think about infertility. Most of the time it doesn’t work. I posted about my cousin and his wife newly expecting. It seems all she can post is baby related and last night I was mindlessly scrolling through Instagram when a new post by her sucker punched me in the gut. It was some cutesy thing with how many weeks, how mommy’s feeling, cravings, an ultrasound picture and size of the fetus. Vomit. I switched to Facebook, thinking I’d need to hide her there only to find a friend revealing an ultrasound picture of her second grandchild claiming they were having a boy. I broke out in a cold sweat but before I could get off Facebook a post by a different friends daughter stating how proud her and the baby were of “daddy” who is in the National Guard and headed off to some 15 day deployment and I was DONE. All these young people procreating just turned my stomach into knots. I wish it weren’t that way, I wish I didn’t feel like throwing up when I come across these things, but I do. And I try to avoid them as much as I can. Because I don’t live in that world. I live in the other world, the one where an infertile couple hoping to adopt is more stocked and ready for their placement than anyone in the history of adoption. I live in the world where an infertile couple worries about bothering their newly pregnant surrogate with too many text messages and is coming to grips with the fact that a different woman is carrying their child. I live in the world where a couple who are childless not by choice find themselves being asked to explain their childlessness or have their childless situation likened to the worst possible situation. I live in the world where my last thought before bed last night was how grateful I am for my little family and how much I love us coupled with the thought that I still wish I could know what it feels like to be pregnant and how I wish I wasn’t doing this alone. I don’t begrudge the expecting couples their happiness, I am happy for them even if seeing their good fortune makes me sad for me. Sometimes I wish there was some grace in understanding not everyone is so lucky, but I suppose they’d have to live that to get it and well no one in the trenches wishes anyone else join them here. Life isn’t fair and not everyone gets what they want. I’ve come a long way on my journey to accept the things in my life that I cannot change. It’s just sometimes it still stings.