Meet me in Vegas?

I read a blurb on LFCA about a Vegas retreat for infertile ladies that was in the works. I love Vegas and have wanted so desperately to have a chance to meet and spend some time with other ladies who understood this journey. I have dreamt  of organizing such an event myself, but haven't been un to the task. I found my way back to the post  referenced in LFCA that introduced the retreat and had shivers as I read it.


An excerpt from that post by Shelby at The Great Big If says: 
I invite all IF ladies. Whether you are newly diagnosed and have not been through treatment, whether you are in the throes of treatment, whether you have a kid or two at home, whether you have chosen to live child free, whether you are in the beginning stages of adoption or are newly paper pregnant, whether you have no idea where you are, or anywhere in between all that I've mentioned (or even a combination of the above), I invite you to enjoy the partnership and connection of those who 'get you' much more than many do.  There is already an amazing group of IF ladies who have committed to this and they alone are with the trip out. So if IF has found a place in your life, I know you could use a place to unwind. Let the ladies coming to FIF 2011 help you do just that!

If you're seriously interested in joining us, please let me know at redrivershel at gmail dot com. Everyone is coordinating (ie paying for) their own travel and lodging arrangements, but I want to make sure that we all keep in touch.


I immediately emailed her to let her know that I want to come, depending on our treatment timeline, of course. Vegas is a (relatively cheap) direct flight from almost anywhere in the county, and there are so many fine places to stay and be entertained, as well as some world class spa's that I've been wanting to visit. 


Shelby is advertising a ladies weekend, but there is a good chance that ML will join me, since I don't travel by myself so well, and we have a voucher for the Wynn :) My plan is to be pregnant by mid March, so there will be no libations for me, just lots of relaxation by the pool and at the spa.


There are so many of you who I've met online this past year who I feel so close to, who I would give anything to spend a weekend with, talking and sharing beyond the barrier of this computer screen. I know that it is asking a lot, but if it possible, I'd love to extend an invitation to YOU to come along. It would be the highlight of my year (behind my upcoming pregnancy, of course!) to meet you in person. 


Ohhh, I am excited!

My Weekend with the Girls

A few weekends ago I went on a girls getaway trip. I wrote about the anticipation of it in one of my first posts.  I wrote this right after the trip, but apparently forgot to publish it! 

It was a great trip, but I couldn’t help but feel like I was going thru the motions. 

My Bestie brought her Little One (who I’m going to call LO). Her little one is A.DOR.ABLE. Seriously the cutest sweetest little thing ever. and she loves me. really! We giggled together and cuddled and played all weekend. I told Bestie that she should not pack the stroller so that I could hold the little one instead. and I did, and it was wonderful. 

Bestie knows everything. and she is so sweet and supportive. and of anyone else who knows, I feel like she understands best. She has had her own struggles, struggles that I will never comprehend, and for better or worse she has that pain to draw from. 

Another friend met us, and brought her little girl. She just found out that she is pregnant again. I can’t say that I have much in common with this lady. She is nice, but not someone who I’d want to get into it with. She has a general idea that we’ve encountered struggles, but doesn’t know much more than that. All weekend she kept making comments about movie stars or other ‘single older women’ who use artificial insemination to get pregnant. I’ve never thought to by offended by that term, but omg I hate it. I hate the way she said it, the way she judged. It made me feel so sick. I wanted to scream at her ‘shut the F up and don’t talk about things you know nothing about’. 

I also hated the way that she challenged Bestie’s parenting style. Bestie is the most wonderful loving mother, attentive to the needs of her precious babe. I love watching Bestie be a mother and have so much respect that she stands her ground in the face of others who challenge her mothering. I may not personally agree with the parenting choices of this lady, but I sure as hell down’t put her down for making those choices or challenge her reasons for raising her daughter the way she is. grrr. 

Bestie’s sister who is also a good friend came too. She is a sweetheart, married to the. nicest. guy. I’m not sure what her plans are for starting a family, other than a desire to have their finances secured a little. Besties sister is super creative. She helped me make my first quilt a few months back and always inspires  my creative side. Her ipod was full of music that made me feel so happy, and I came home with a list of artists that I want to download into my music library. (Lauren Hill - remember her? totally takes me back to a very specific semester of college; Jack Johnson - I’d kindof forgotten about him, but have heard his songs pop up here and there a lot recently; Matchbox 20 - yep I loved their cd and their music reminds me so clearly of being on my college campus.)

I do really love girls weekends - getting away from the day to day distractions of life; having the time to have substantive conversations with good friends; remembering how much I love ML and my home. I couldn’t help but thinking that it would be amazing to have a getaway weekend with all of you. I start planning it out in my head, but then realize that none of us have the extra spending money to make something like that actually happen. I do think it would be the most amazing experience to spend a few days with a group of us who have this shared experience. Vegas is a pretty central place with cheap flights and cheap hotel options. If anyone is interested, let me know, and I would so love to plan an infertile weekend retreat. :)

Shout Out to a New Friend

I just wanted to quickly welcome StarFishKittyDreams to this wonderful blogging community! She just stared her own blog Waiting for Baby and is stuck that difficult waiting place. Her journey started with a positive pregnancy test in early 2008 that ended in a miscarriage, another positive pregnancy test in 2009 that ended in a miscarriage, and now a positive pregnancy test but an ultrasound that is showing growing yet empty gestational sac.

From the moment I first met StarFishKittyDreams I appreciated her welcoming spirit and her positive outlook on the future. She is a beautiful soul and I am so happy to introduce her to my other blogging friends. Please drop by her little corner of this interweb and let her know that she is not alone on this journey.

My Scarlet Pain

My Scarlet Pain

I’ve been thinking about how to say these things all week. I’m going to try my best to get it all out on paper, but I know it is not going to make sense the way I need it to. It will sound contradictory and whiney, but there is a feeling that I need to communicate, so I’m going to give it my best shot.

I realized last weekend when my girlfriends and I had that discussion about hope that the people around me don’t have any idea how much pain I am in. They know that I am having a hard time in this struggle, and they are so kind and loving, but they just can’t comprehend it. My boss is wonderful and so accommodating and says nice things like “even at your worst, you are better than most of the people we work with at their best”. I couldn’t ask of anything more of the people in my life, but they just don’t know.

They are all looking to me for guidance as to how to be supportive and helpful. I don’t have anything to offer them. 

They are all watching my mood to gauge how I am doing. And when my mood is low, they can see that I am in pain. I need for them to know that I am in pain. I need them to know that I am struggling. Somehow their acknowledgement of my pain makes it real, makes it legitimate, makes it valid. Somehow it is easier to carry this feeling when it is acknowledged by others, and the only way they know to acknowledge it is to see me sad.

I feel like this infertility (aka pain, loss, fear, etc) is now a part of who I am, and yet I am struggling to incorporate it into the self that I was and to emerge in some sort of balanced way. 

I am so done with feeling so low. I am so ready to let some sunlight in, to let some bright warm light shine on my soul. and Yet I am struggling with how to acknowledge the pain, while letting happiness in. 

When I smile and act happy, people around me think that everything is okay.  It’s as if there is no pain, there is no sadness, I am not scared or worried, there is no unfullfilled purpose. If I am happy, then those other emotions must not exist. This is such an oversimplified view, but it is the best I can do to explain it. 

I know that all of these emotions can co-exist together. That I can experience happiness and sadness, pleasure and pain all in the same moment. Emotions are not mutually exclusive, they are not black and white.  I know that. 

But somehow, I feel like I am betraying my pain by wishing to make room for other feelings, by letting other people see that there is room for other feelings to fit. How could my pain possibly be as big as I say it is if there is space to experience pleasure and joy?

I wish that there was some way that I could visually show the world just how big and real this struggle is. Some way that even as I laugh or dance, that everyone will see that I am burdened by this additional powerful emotion. Even if they can’t comprehend my experience of this struggle, I want them to know that it is always with me.

Hope is a big word

I spent the afternoon today with a couple girlfriends.

I'd wanted to go to the spa, where I could get some much needed pampering, and lie in the sunshine next to the pool. They are two really great girls, always happy to go with the flow, very supportive, and always a good time. Getting them motivated to get out of the house and focus on an outcome can be a challenge though. We'd talked last night about spending the day at the spa, and again this morning confirmed our plans.  I got dressed up and packed my bag this morning. I really could use a good massage and envisioned the day wearing a plush robe with cozy slippers curled on a lounge next to a firepit.

By the time we got out of the house it was much later in the afternoon than I'd expected, and not really worth the money anymore to head to the spa. The treatments are expensive, but worth it if you can make a day of it and enjoy the facilities. So instead, we drove around for a while, searching for some sunshine, and ended up crashing a garden party at a fancy hotel.

We had a conversation about hope, that started when one friend recited an Emily Dickinson poem:


"Hope" is the thing with feathers—
That perches in the soul—
And sings the tune without the words—
And never stops—at all—

And sweetest—in the Gale—is heard—
And sore must be the storm—
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm—

I've heard it in the chillest land—
And on the strangest Sea—
Yet, never, in Extremity,
It asked a crumb—of Me. 

I'm not going to be able to re-create the conversation, but it was striking. Like a snap-shot that perfectly captured why it I feel so alone sometimes.

They started talking about how great it is that hope is ever-present, that bird in our soul that never stops singing. I disagreed, saying that hope is delicate and fragile and requires constant attention. The hope that I know takes so much energy to cultivate.

We talked about despair, the opposite of hope. They felt that it was despair that required the emotional energy.

Starting this blog was a manifestation of hope that had been so elusive for me. Being able to envision my "Someday", one that included a family, took me a long time. For nearly a year after our diagnosis I felt no hope. There was no bird. The song had stopped.

Finding hope for our future again has taken a lot of work on my part. Kind of like a garden that I have to plan and tend to, that takes time to grow, and needs the right nutrients and water and sunshine. I've worked so hard to regain a sense of hope and nurture it. Whereas despair takes energy, I have to give huge amounts of energy to maintain hope.

I don't know if they understood what I tried to explain. It was actually a depressing conversation. I hadn't realized how depressing I might sound to the people around me. But this is how I feel.

Wikipedia defines hope as a belief in a positive outcome related to events and circumstances in one's life. Hope is the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best.

I want so much to believe that our circumstances will turn out for the best, and intend to keep nurturing that idea.

How do you maintain and nurture hope on this journey?

Infertility E-Class

This past March I took an infertility e-class with Lily from The Infertile Mind. It was incredible. I wrote a post about it earlier, and will forever be grateful to Lily for the gift that she gave me via that class. It was that class that opened the world of this online community for me, and helped me find the most essential tool of writing to help me on this journey.

I am so excited to announce that Lily is going to offer another infertility e-class starting in October! I can't recommend this class highly enough and hope that you will all sign up and participate.

The World Travelers

We have these awesome friends. I’m going to call them Mr and Mrs World Traveler. (Mr T and Mrs T, for short.) Mr T and ML were in a fraternity together in college. 

They both drank like fish and and smoked so much 4.2.0. its surprising that they have functioning livers or lungs left. This fraternity was like animal house. A very diverse and random assortment of guys who, against all odds, have turned out to be some of the most successful people we know. Many of our closest friends are rooted in the relationships that ML formed through that fraternity. In fact, I met ML in that dirty house one night, but that too is a story for another post. 

So Mr. T and ML became good friends in college. Mr. T was ML’s best man at our wedding, and ML was Mr. T’s best man at his. I guess you could say that ML and Mr. T are like besties. When our world started to fall apart last year, (after the azoos diagnosis, work slowing down substantially for ML, and our dog died) I started feeling like ML must need a friend. I have a pretty solid support network with my bestie, my sister and my mom, but he really didn’t have anyone, and I worried about that. So I called Mr.T and without going into any details asked if he could reach out to ML. 

I think that Mr. and Mrs. T had some inclination that something was going on with us. We’d stayed at their house a few times when we had to travel to the City for early appointments. They knew that we were seeing doctors, and were stressed out about some stuff, but we’d sent some pretty strong signals that indicated we didn’t want to talk about it. 

I am friends with Mrs. T, but we are not super close. I love her and love hanging out with her, but we don’t actually have that much in common and probably wouldn’t make the effort if it weren’t for Mr T and ML. We’d always talked about starting our families sometime in 2009, and used to gossip about who was or wasn’t drinking at parties. She is super career oriented and travels a lot for her job. She’s always worried about how maternity leave will affect her career ladder. Earlier this year, on a ski trip, on a ski lift, she asked about our “plans”. Without saying much I just told her that we’d encountered some serious challenges and that it wasn’t going to happen without some serious assistance. And then last time we visited, maybe a few months ago, I must have been in a really good place because we talked about it a little more. I didn’t divulge many details, but was able to tell her how hard it has been and how hard the road ahead of us will be. She was really kind and empathetic, of course.

Every so often I ask ML if he has shared our situation with any of his friends, and he always says no. Until this weekend. 

We were festival camping with a big group of friends, including Mr. T.   I saw them sitting together and decided against joining them. ML later told me that he’d spilled his guts and told Mr. T everything. He said that it felt good to get it all off his chest. I feel so relieved. It feels so much better to know that ML has a friend who he can share this all with. A friend who knows the depths of what we are dealing with. 

Vacation is finally here!

Ohhh, I am so exited. We leave for vacation today. The one I wrote about a while back.

The best part of vacation is getting to spend so much time with My Lover. I told him that the other night, and it sounded so gooey lovey. But its true. I just love being near him.

I feel good that we are waiting until after we get home to do the SA. (Send me some good love next Friday!)

I am excited to see so many good friends who we love but who live so far away.

I can't wait to debut my sparkle costume, complete with fishnet gloves and the most awesome sparkle tutu ever.

I feel prepared to talk about our struggle to have a family, on my terms and with my boundaries. I do not fear this conversation or question.

I won't have (reliable) internet access, but I am bringing my laptop and picture hours of time to write, ahhhhh. I love to write.

Whale Breath

As a follow-up to that awesome training I did two weeks ago I had a meeting planned yesterday to meet with a few of the other participants. You know how there are people who you feel so lucky to have crossed paths with - I feel so grateful to get to work with these two individuals. They are social scientists who have the most brilliant way of understanding group dynamics, group process, and how to actually get things done. We all work on a community collaborative as representative of our various organizations. They are a bit older and more experienced than I and really awesome mentors.

So yesterday morning I get an email asking if we could meet on a whale watching boat instead of at the office! Umm, Heck yeah! I was even able to bring my two girl cousins who are visiting for the weekend. So we bundled up and loaded up on the boat. As we headed out into the Pacific Ocean, the social scientists and I had the most productive discussion about how to proceed with our work. Before too long we were awed by the spouts of humpback whales. Pretty awesome to see these huge creatures breathing just above the water line.

My sweet cousins have never before been on a boat and were as impressed as two teenage delinquents could be expected to be.

Then we got lucky, the captain spotted a blue whale. We motored along to get closer and were overcome by the nastiest smell. Apparently Whale Breath is really gross smelling! We were in the vicinity of the largest animal in existence. And then it spouted - 30 ft into the air! Just as awesome was seeing it dive back down into the sea. I found this video on YouTube - not from our trip, but just as amazing. The span of their tail can be 25 feet wide!

At the training I had a fun conversation with the lady social scientist about wanting to tour all of the local outdoor fire-pits and write up reviews for them to post on a blog. The local Spa's too. I figure it would be a great excuse to explore my community a bit more and encourage me to keep writing.  So as we were boarding the boat, we started talking about social networking and the blurring line between privacy and self censorship. They were saying that they are selective about what they say in their social networks, because of the public nature of their work, yet we agreed that writing was a powerful process of self-reflection that allowed us to see problems and ourselves in a different light.

I don't know what I was thinking, but I confessed. I confessed to these friends that I had a secret blog, one that no one knew about, one where I didn't have to self-censor. I don't know why I told them, other than that it was an itty bitty teeny weeny step towards being more open about this whole experience.

Along the lines of being more open, and little bits of advocacy, I was at a healthcare forum last week with our Federal and State elected representatives. They were taking questions from the audience on little notecards. The question I submitted was about infertility mandates on health insurance, as a way to reduce the rates of multiples who require expensive NICU stays. At one point after I turned in my card I had the urge to run to the podium, interrupt the dialogue, and take back my card. I suddenly didn't feel strong enough to listen to then answer the question. A few deep breaths and I got my composure together. They ran out of time and never got to my question, but I am sure that the Reps at least read the remaining pile of questions and saw mine. Maybe it planted a little seed in their minds.

My awesome boss submitted the letter I prepared asking my employer to switch to an insurance plan that covered infertility services. She was gone last week, but we received a memo that the insurance rates will be increasing. Isn't that normally the same time that the whole insurance package is reviewed and the opportunity to make changes? I took the liberty of calling HR to follow up on her letter and ask them if now was the time to consider changes. I was informed that they were researching and preparing a response to my boss's letter. God, it would be so freakin awesome if I could get my employer to make a change like that! I would feel like superwoman!

Before I sign-off I want to send the biggest congratulations and lots of love to Julie and Jeff who are PREGNANT!!! 

Happy Pills

Every night before I climb into bed I take a little pill. A magic little pill it is. I call these little pills my happy pills. They don’t so much make me happy, but they really do help me feel not quite so sad.

Seriously though, I’ve spent a lot of time reading the stories of so many other women who are living this life crisis and am a little shocked that no one else talks about this. Is it that no one else has a bottle of happy pills, or is it that no one else talks about it – even here where the most intimate details of our lives are shared.

The diagnosis of infertility is the worst news I have ever been given. It shook me to my core. It changed me forever. It was a trauma unlike any other that I have ever experienced. Everything about my life as I understood it, my purpose for being, my dreams my future, everything changed in that instant.

And yet I carried on, as best as I could, with my work, and my volunteer commitments, and my friends. Except, it was exhausting. I was exhausted trying to hold it together everyday. I walked around, going through the motions, yet the only thing I could think about was the overwhelming grief and the unspoken fears. Every time I got in the car, alone with the radio, I fell apart. I cried more tears in those first months than I have my entire life. But I managed somehow.

Waiting,

Appointments,

Waiting,

Tests,

Waiting,

Appointments,

Waiting,

Results,

Waiting,

Procedures,

Waiting,

Appointments.

Waiting.

It turns out I am stronger than I ever gave myself credit for being. I really am.

But it was so hard. And I was so tired. And the journey ahead felt like it was so far.

You know, we were seeing doctors, lots of them. But they were focused on the medical part of our infertility. The weren’t concerned with us, with how well we were handling the choices they kept giving us. And even if they had been, we were managing, we put on a good show, we were holding it together.

I suppose I could have gone on like that. Managing. Getting by. Going through the Motions. It sucked, but I was surviving.  We were surviving.

But then we got back the results of our second biopsy, the FNA map. I was hoping for good news that there was sperm and we could proceed with IVF. But I was also prepared for bad news that there was no sperm and we could proceed with DS IUI. We received the bad news, there was no sperm. But we also got a third option -6 months of hormone therapy to try and create sperm. I wasn’t prepared for the third option and it knocked me down hard. Six more months of waiting!?! Still no definitive plan!?! Thousands of additional dollars!?! I wasn’t prepared for this.

The idea of using donor sperm is so hard to accept. I started out thinking that it wasn’t even an option that I would ever consider. I even told my mom at one point early on that if we couldn’t use My Lovers’ sperm we were finished trying. Smart me, I reserved the right to change my mind about any decision at any time. At this point in our journey, I knew that we had to exhaust our options for full biological children before we could accept donor sperm.  I knew that I, we, still had some emotional work to do before actually moving forward with DS IUI, but it felt like an acceptable option for building our family, if we knew that My Lover’s sperm really wasn’t an option.

I wasn’t prepared for this third option and I just fell apart. I wasn’t strong enough to keep going through the motions. I just completely lost it. And I couldn’t pull myself back together. It was a combination of the sadness over the FNA results, the uncertainty of our next steps, and partly that I had just run out of energy.

My Lover and I had been seeing a couple’s counselor since we got the initial diagnosis, and she finally suggested that I ask my Dr. for a prescription for an SSRI anti depressant. Finally. Finally someone saw that I was suffering. Someone saw that the pain was overwhelming. Someone noticed that I could only tread water on my own for so long. Someone threw me a floatie.

The happy pills are my floatie. I’ve still got to tread water out here in this vast ocean. But I’ve got a little help. I’ve got a little more energy. I’ve got a little more perspective and the ability to feel beyond the pain.

It’s been at least a couple weeks since I cried. (I take that back, actually, because Dory’s comment about the Father’s Day cards had me going yesterday, but before that it had been at least two weeks.) Let me tell you I am so grateful for this break from the tears. I’ve spent time with friends, smiling and laughing, and ohhh is that nice.  I feel like me again, a changed me for sure, but me.

So, I suppose that this really long post is really to ask if I really am the only one with a bottle of happy pills, and if so why?

If the reason is that no one has noticed and offered a floatie, I hope that you’ll consider taking the one I am offering right now and make an appointment to talk to your Dr. I personally wish that I hadn’t waited so long.

Nelson Mandela

A friend gave me a copy today of this 1994 Inaugural Speech from Nelson Mandela. It lifted my spirits and validated my need to make my voice strong on this IF journey. 

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us, it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” 

Yesterday afternoon I was hit with a wave of sadness that I haven't felt for a while. I was in the car driving home, maybe it was a song on the radio, maybe it was that I missed him, maybe it was just that I've done so much emotional work these past few weeks that I was tired, and I got sad.  It was that heavy exhaustion, that settle in your stomach on the verge of tears sad. It reminded me of the hopeless sad that I felt for so long after our initial diagnosis, but it was much lighter than that. 

The emotion persisted through the evening and woke up with me this morning. I hate being such a grump at work. Then this afternoon a friend gave me this poem, and the wave almost immediately started to settle. I thought about the people that I work with and how amazing they are. I thought about the people I volunteer with and the way their passion inspires everyone around them. I thought about my bff and the way she embraces motherhood and trusts her instincts to meet the needs of her little one so lovingly. And I thought about you, the way you all share your stories, your truths, so openly. Your presence has done so much to expose my fears, the fears I don't have words for yet and the fears I have words for but am still afraid to talk about. Your honesty has liberated me in so many ways, and I am so grateful to share my honesty with with you now. 

It should be me

Not that I know how I feel about this, but two of the three girlfriends who will come on my summer Girls weekend have little ones. Little girls who will be coming along for their very first girls getaway. You know, I was supposed to have a little one who would be tagging along with me too, but I don’t. I started trying years before these friends ever thought about it. In fact, I should have two little ones by now.

It wasn’t until recently that I’ve had any feelings of anger or jealousy. I have so many friends who have recently become parents. I am so sincerely happy for them. They are beautiful wonderful grateful mothers and I love seeing them in their new role. I wish for them all of the happiness and joy and love that they share with their perfect little ones.  So its not that I feel jealous of them.

But I do feel like it should be me. What did I do to deserve this? To be prevented from experiencing that joy and love? Why does it have to be so hard for us? It is just not fair and I hate that.

Summer Plans

A girlfriend emailed me today to make plans for a girls weekend this summer. She doesn’t know about our challenges with infertility. She proposed a date in August. First thing I had to think about was where we might be in our treatment. Can I make plans for August? What if I need to stay close to home for treatment that weekend? How will I explain if I need to cancel the trip? Maybe I just shouldn’t make plans at all.

Time-Out. My plans have been on hold for so long. Trying to plan my life around the possibility that we might be moving forward with IVF on a certain date is making it impossible to live my life. I wrote back and told her that I would LOVE to plan a girls weekend and the date she proposed would be perfect.

There is a scenario in which I’ll have to cancel because of treatment, but the chances are so small. Even though I just know that we have more bad news waiting for us when we get our next SA at the end of July, I want to believe that they will find sperm and we will start IVF with my cycle that month, which would mean I couldn’t go away. Small chances, so tiny, not even worth mentioning. Its amazing how a glimmer of a chance can be enough to control my life. I sure don’t plan my summer around the chance that I could catch the flu, get laid off, break my leg, win the lottery, etc. Crazy. When I think about it like that, I feel a little bit crazy!

Final Summer without Kids

It was a few years ago that I started thinking this could be the last summer we do this or that free from the burden of kids. (yep, we used to say things like that - little did we know the burden would actually be getting those kids.) What stands out most in my mind is a summer camping trip we take every year with a group of friends from college. Definitely not the kind of trip that would be appropriate for little ones, but loads for fun for us bigger ones.

We were on one of these adventures the first time we ‘slipped’ up on our birth control. It was late afternoon, we were having the most wonderful time, we got caught up in the moment, and, well, one thing led to another. I knew it was late in my cycle, but oh my god, we hadn’t planned on this, and anything was possible. I was happy. Really happy. Just knowing that there was a possibility that we could have conceived made me so happy. Just knowing that he might be ready to really start trying made me so happy.  It was a pure innocent kind of happiness, a calm happiness that I yearn to have again.

I was sure that trip we were on that summer would be the last one like it that we took without kids.

Fast forward to 2010. Yeah, so here we are years later planning the annual summer camping trip, headed back to the same forest where the first (what was supposed to have been fateful) incident took place.

I am excited about a vacation and spending time with our good friends. I especially love vacations because I get to spend so much time with him. The timing of the trip is really nice because we will be just finishing up four months of hormone therapy that is supposed to generate sperm production. We’ll get the SA before we leave, (expecting negative results), and will probably appreciate a chance to get away and grieve together.

I don’t find myself thinking anymore that maybe this will be the last summer we do this without kids. I just want to find a way to enjoy the experience without any expectation of what comes next. I want to enjoy the moment, to love in the moment, to let go of these expectations and fears and enjoy it for what it is. This is my life and I’ve spent too long thinking about conception and planning my life around it. This is it. It may or may not be our final summer trip without kids. Regardless, this is my life, and it is up to me to live it.