Period...

You know, its weird.  I've been waiting for my period to start ever since this mess started.  Once I get my period then we can start trying at home (without the help of our fertility doctor).  A new beginning of sorts...I was almost looking forward to it (which is weird, cuz for the last almost 3 years I prayed it wouldn't come).  So I've been eagerly awaiting it and then today, when it shows up, I can't stop crying.  I wasn't expecting to be so sad...I guess it just is another reminder that my baby is really gone and that the process of trying again has started.  

Forgive me for saying this, but I am not looking forward to the process of ttc again.  Its like a big grieving circle for infertile couples.  You start your period and you are sad because this cycle has failed and you are not pregnant.  By the time your period is over you have started to feel a little better and are not as sad.  You track your cycle and start to have hope that this cycle could be the one.  You take your temperature every day, use OPK's, and have scheduled sex every other day (after which you lay in bed with your legs up in the air for an hour). Your hopes get up even further.  Your temperature starts to rise as does your hope.  And then BAM, one day you wake up with killer cramps and your period has started.  The grieving starts all over again.  

Last year about this time I was having a conversation with my mom who was reading a book by Laura Bush.  She told me that they had suffered from infertility too and that she talks about it in her book.  The quote below is from her book and I think it speaks volumes as I journey back into the world of infertility and TTC...

"George and I had hoped that I would be pregnant by the end of his congressional run. Then we hoped it would be by the time his father announced his presidential run, then by the presidential primaries, the convention, the general election. But each milestone came and went. The calendar advanced, and there was no baby. The English language lacks the words “to mourn an absence.” For the loss of a parent, grandparent, spouse, child or friend we have all manner of words and phrases, some helpful, some not. Still, we are conditioned to say something, even if it is only “I am sorry for your loss.” But for an absence, for someone who was never there at all, we are wordless to capture the particular emptiness. For those who deeply want children and are denied them, those missing babies hover like silent, ephemeral shadows over their lives. Who can describe the feel of a tiny hand that is never held?"

**Funny side note:  I sent my husband a text telling him that my period had started (he likes to know these things).  We discussed that I shouldn't use tampons this cycle (even though the dr said it was ok).  I told him that I didn't have any but I was gonna go to the store after dinner.  He then told me that he had some at work...they were given to him for me at the hospital but we accidentally left them in the car and then I already had some.  He didn't know if I was going to eventually need them so he didn't want to throw them away but he also didn't want to bring them in the house cuz he didn't want to upset me.  So, he took them into work and put them in his desk.  Now, in the midst of my tears mentioned above this made me laugh.  To envision my husband take a bag of pads from the hospital and put them in his desk at work....mind you he works with 3 guys and one girl.  Yup, the picture is still making me smile.  I <3 you sweets!!!