The loneliness of an infertile...

I think that one of the most difficult parts of being infertile is making and keeping friends.  Please tell me I am not the only one with this problem!

As a military wife, I move a lot.  Which makes it difficult enough to find friends, especially for an introvert like myself.  When I do find great friends, I then have to move away, or vice versa, which means I have to start all over again.  Not fun.

Now when you throw my infertility into the mix, it is even more difficult!  It is hard to make friends with people that already have kids.  I hate to say that, but it is true.  Not only do I not have much in common with them, but I think I make them uncomfortable.  They wonder why I don't have kids myself at this age, or they find out that I am infertile, and they don't know what to say.

Let's face it.  Nobody ever knows what to say.  Even the friends I do have already are at a loss, I'm sure.  I'm at a loss.  Nobody wants to be around a sad-sack that is obsessed with having a child.  Especially if that person has kids or is pregnant.  Infertility is a disease, and they don't want to catch it.

It is such a lonely time for me.  Even when I find support from infertility groups, I then find myself getting jealous when one of the other infertiles gets pregnant.  Yes, I am happy for them.  But then they graduate out of the group, and I am left behind.  Once they have the baby, of course they still remember being infertile.  And they want to still support you.  But they also are happy being moms and don't want to think about those things all the time.  They don't want to feel that they have to censor themselves around me, as in not talking about their pregnancy or their kids.  Many of them have "survivor's guilt" because they have succeeded and I have not.  I get it.  I wouldn't want to hang around either.

I guess I can only hope that someday, I will have my chance to procreate...to annoy people with pictures of my ultrasounds, my kids sleeping, etc.  I can't wait to annoy people with those things.

CD1...again

AF showed up in full force this morning---first thing.  It is such a lovely way to wake up.  What makes it worse is that I had such high hopes for this cycle and had actually bought some cheap HPTs yesterday that I planned on using tomorrow.  I don't know why I thought this cycle would be any different.  I guess I was just hopeful since my luteal phase and cycle in general have gotten longer the past few cycles, and then the timing seemed so perfect this month.  Plus, I just "felt" different.  I should know better by know than to play the symptom-spotting game, but it is so hard to not look for those things when you want something so badly.

The husband's 29th birthday is this month.  I had hoped to be able to surprise him with an early birthday present.  I will just add this to the past birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays---4 years of dates that I thought I could make extra special with the ultimate gift, but couldn't.

I had a vivid, emotional dream last night about my mother in law.  We were at her memorial BBQ (which was last weekend on what would have been her birthday), and all of a sudden she was sitting there next to me.  She said she missed us, and I told her that we missed her so much.  She asked me to take care of her son, which I of course promised that I would do.  I woke up with tears running down my face.  It was so emotional, but it made me feel at peace as well.  Even though I don't usually believe in signs, I thought that maybe the dream meant that I was pregnant.  It kills me that she couldn't see her son as a father before she died, and she wanted it to happen so badly for us, so I thought that she was my sign.  Especially since I haven't dreamed about her since she died earlier this year.

But no.

Instead, I had to tell her son that he isn't going to be a father.  Again.  How many times will I have to do this?  I'm only human.  My heart can only handle so much.