Infertility: a Four-Letter Word

In the beginning, I was a google-addict.  I followed blogs on conception and watched birthing videos.  I must have visited the youtube video of the giggling twins a couple hundred times at least.  Just about any early pregnancy symptom google can produce, I have experienced: late period, sore breasts, insatiable hunger, nausea, diarrhea, consipation, burping...you name it.

Every once in a while someone asks why Tony and I don't have kids yet.

"We're trying," I tell them, "and believe me.  Trying is fun."  They laugh.  I laugh.  And we try again.  Twenty-one months, 4 IUI's, 1 ultrasound, and a couple handfuls of heart shards later, we're still trying.

Here's the thing.  Most of the time I am indifferent.  After such a rocky journey of getting our hopes up, being let down, getting our hopes up, being let down, I've disconnected myself.  I don't google would-be symptoms anymore.  I don't blog on this site.  I don't seek out readers.  I don't share my story.  The trade-off is I get to move on month after month with little more than a, "well, that sucks," response to af's timely arrival.

But...

Occasionally I can't help but feel my m&m shell crack a little bit letting melty mommy feelings out.  My heartbeat drums a steady rhythm into my mind, "what-if, what-if, what-if."  I can't fight it.  I start to wonder what if.  Starting my period after that comforting mantra has saturated me is a pain as real and as physical as my chest being hollowed out by a parasite.  You'd think I would have learned by now.

When we tried an IUI the first time, when we added an ultrasound and a trigger to our treatment, when we really took full advantage of bding every opportunity we could during my fertile days...bfn, bfn, bfn.

This month I've taken Clomid, 50mg days 3-7.  How do I keep from hoping?  My heart hurts already in anticipation of a let down.  Either the Clomid is really messing with my emotions or I am just subconsiously setting myself up for another emotional battering.

Thank God my husband is wonderful.  I couldn't do this alone.