Are Those Happy Tears?

I feel like life has been really good for the past couple of months. I'm loving hair school. My husband is wonderful as usual. Things just feel really good right now. And yet, I'm very weepy. It may be a song, a comment, a feeling, anything these days can bring me to tears. Maybe it is the holidays. Maybe they're happy tears.

I know this is a little psychotic, but it is how my mind works, always analyzing everything. But I'm sitting here wondering if I'm trying to really focus on how happy things are so I won't think about the one thing I'm missing and that one thing is where the tears are coming from. Like I've decided to change my mindset and choose happiness, but those feelings of pain and hurt that I'm repressing just bubble up every once in a while.

I'm not sure what to do with this, because I don't know if it's a problem or not. It just seems like if you repress feelings they will eventually come to the surface, and I would rather not have a nervous breakdown! But how many times can you purge the same thoughts over and over? I'm just so old and practiced in punishment, that I'm simply not interested in it anymore. I guess I would rather focus on the happy and not let the one thing I don't have affect how I feel about all of the things that I do.

 So is it just me always waiting for the bottom to fall out of things and I'm freaking out because things are all really good and calm right now?? Geez I wish I wasn't such a freak!!!!

Christmas Cards

I have been getting the cutest Christmas cards in the mail this year. It is one of my favorite things at Christmas time to open up the mail and see all of the pictures and well wishes from friends and family. But at the same time, it makes me feel like a loser for not having sent any out this year...or last year. So I started thinking. Have I not sent out a Christmas card because I've been so busy? Yes. But now that I think about it, the first year that my husband and I were married, we sent out generic Christmas cards. The second year, we sent out an adorable Christmas card with photos of us and our puppies. The next year, we sent out a card with a cute picture of the two of us. And last year, I had dreams of sending out a maternity picture of us excited about expanding our family. That card never happened.

So my question is, is it pathetic at some point as a married couple to keep sending out Christmas cards with pictures of ourselves on them? All of our friends have sent us cards with pictures of their kids and a newly engaged couple sent us a card with a CD of holiday music.  I don't like generic cards, so I like the idea of a photo, but once you have been married for over 5 years, is it just arrogant/creepy to send out a picture of ourselves? I would just feel weird about it.

Clearly I need some new ideas for a creative Christmas card from the two of us. Or maybe I will just wait and hope that next year we will have a baby bump to take a picture of. Sigh.

Here's another option

Paying Old Medical Bills Is Fun

I got a bill in the mail from my IF clinic from July and decided to call the billing office to confirm that it was something I had to pay (we've had problems with their billing in the past). After about 30 minutes, they discovered that I have a $70 credit on my account (after sending me a bill for $28...glad I called). So the man told me that if I will be coming back in they can just leave that as a credit on my account for future visits. I said no, we won't be back anytime soon. 30 minutes later, we were about done with the call and the man said, "So did you end up getting pregnant?" Are you fing kidding me???? I almost lost it. It was just so sad to tell yet another complete stranger, "No, not yet, maybe someday, bla bla bla". His awkward reply was, "Well kids are such a blessing. Mine are all grown, so it's grandkids now". Seriously dude, F U!

P.S. AF came to town...

Do You Have Any Children?

I've been meeting lots of new people lately because I've changed jobs and I'm going to hair school. Getting to know new coworkers, employees, students, instructors, clients. When a new person finds out how long I've been married (five and a half years) the next obvious question is if we have or plan to have kids. I have made the conscious decision to be open about my infertility struggle (the basics and the facts that is, I keep this blog and most of my internal struggle private). So I let them know that we've tried for a while now and that it just hasn't happened for us yet. Then they usually want to know if we've pursued any treatments and I tell them we did for about a year and it didn't work. Finally they say "it will happen when the time is right" and diagnose that I just do too much and "stress really has a lot to do with these things". Then I have to say, "oh, I know! I'm sure we'll get pregnant when the time is right", because no one wants to be the depressing infertile girl.

I'm sure we've all been through this over and over. It just seems like I've been dealing with it a lot lately.

The reason I continue to participate in these conversations is that I feel it is important for me to be honest about our struggle (or as honest as I can be). But I'm not gonna lie to you, it freaking sucks to keep having the same conversation over and over again. It feels good to end the conversation with positivity, but as soon as I state so assuredly that I "know" we'll get pregnant when the time is right, I question it. I don't know that for sure. It is what my husband tells me all the time. It is what I tell others all the time. I just don't know that I believe. After three years, it just isn't that easy to believe.

Mark This Under: Things I Couldn't Do Pregnant

About a month ago I was asked to be a model in a hair/fashion show. This is something I would not have been asked if I was pregnant. God must have known that I needed the self esteem boost.

First, they hardly changed my cut or color because they thought it was perfect as it was. Then, when I went in for my fitting, the store didn't have pants small enough to fit me so I had to end up wearing my own jeans. Finally, the show was last night and I found out that because all the store had to fit me was a very underwhelming red dress, I would be dripping in diamonds (7 pieces to be exact) and wear a gigantic ruby and diamond ring. As the girl was covering me in jewels she told me, "Just so you know, you're the most beautiful girl here". I'm not gonna lie, as a 25 year old 5'7" infertile surrounded by 18-20 year old 6' tall girls, this made me feel pretty damn good.

In other venues this would sound like I'm bragging about how hot I am. But I know that you all know me well enough from my previous posts to know that this is just my way of looking at the glass half full. ie. if I was pregnant (or recently gave birth) lets face it, I'm not Giselle and no one would have asked me to do this.

So I'm going to just go ahead an mark this under: another experience I got to have because I'm childless.