Only the Lonely

Well hello, and merry Christmas.   On Christmas day I managed to not devote any time to sulking or even wistfulness.  Surrounded by my family, delicious food, and a whole smorgasbord of conversation, I can honestly say I didn’t think about pregnancy or babies for more than a fleeting moment here and there.  Yay me!

This does not distract too much from the fact that I am a little bit over halfway through the two week wait.  That bastard.  But this two week wait I find myself in a slightly different place.  I am feeling a bit less lonely.  Let me explain.

My husband and I decided that it would not be appropriate to tell people, other than a couple of very close friends and family, that we were trying to get pregnant.  That means that for the past year I have had this secret weighing on me, plaguing my every thought, and I couldn’t talk to anyone save the three people who knew about my plight (apart from my husband).  I have one friend at work that I told, I have my mom, and I have Jen.  That is *it*.  Oh sure, there are a few others that asked when we were going to have kids and I cryptically hinted that maybe we were thinking about starting to try.  But they have no. friggin. idea.  the frustration and pain I’ve been going through the past year.  And every time a friend I haven’t seen in a while asks me what’s new, I have had to lie.  Because the truth is that all that I think about most of the time these days is infertility.

And even the people who *do* know.  They are so supportive and wonderful, but only one of them (my mom) has been in this same position of struggling for a year plus to conceive.  And I don’t really want to go into the nitty gritty details with my mom about my sex life, so I can’t really bare all with her.  All of this has made this a very lonely process.

I know there are people who open up to their friends and family and accept the hugs and encouragement gratefully, but I just can’t be open about this.  I don’t want pity, and I don’t want to be constantly asked by casual friends and co-workers how the baby-making is coming along.  It hurts too much.  I also don’t want people to tiptoe around me and avoid telling me their good news when they find out they’re pregnant.  I’ve read too many stories online about women whose cousins or sisters didn’t reveal they were pregnant until they were approaching their due date, so as not to upset their poor infertile relative.  So I made my choice, and I’m sticking to it.  But the loneliness continues.

Well, thanks to this blog, I’ve found an outlet.  There are women out there in the same boat as me, I know there are.  And gradually, I’m finding them.  On the bump.  On Twitter.  In the blogosphere.  I don’t know them personally, and we can’t cry on each other’s shoulders or hug it out, but we are in the same boat together.  And while we may never meet in person (BlogHer 2011? Maybe?), we are there for each other in a sense.  So if any of you are reading this, thank you.  Thank you for making this a less lonely process.  Thank you for being there.  I’m sorry that we couldn’t have met under better circumstances, but hopefully we will all have happy endings and be able to share in each other’s joy just as we’ve shared in each other’s frustrations.

So this two week wait, for the first time, I feel a little bit less alone.  We can do this, ladies.  We can.

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