My 39th birthday was almost one week ago. That means that I have exactly one year to get this baby-making project completed. On the one hand it sounds like forever ... twelve months of lackluster sex, twelve months of tension, twelve months of depression, the list could go on and on. On the other hand, though, it doesn't sound nearly long enough. I fear that twelve months won't be long enough for me to get the baby I want. I fear that instead of being resigned to and ready to embrace a life without children, I'll just feel empty and even more depressed than I was the twelve months prior. I wish I knew the answers.
I wasn't expecting much from my birthday. Well, I guess I should really say I wasn't expecting much happiness from my birthday. I was very pleasantly surprised. Unexpectedly, my husband got the day off, and we trekked up to New Hampshire to do a hike we had been wanting to complete for two years. It was bittersweet without our beloved dog, Iceman, blazing the trail, but overall, it was so much fun. It was wonderful to be outside on a gorgeous day and to not once dwell on the fact that I was that much older and that much less likely to get pregnant at all. It was such a relief.
Then the weekend came. George and I had a very long discussion on Sunday morning about this whole TTC mess. He admitted that he has lost any hope that we will ever have a child. He also admitted that he is only keeping on because I seem to want this so badly. What does one do with that? I'm sad that he had no hope, seeing as I feel that all we have going for us at this point is hope. I'm the first to be negative about this whole process, but at the beginning of any given cycle I'm always thinking that maybe this will be our time.
George is afraid that one year down the road we still won't be pregnant and our marriage will just be in tatters from all the stress it has endured. He's afraid that one year from now we won't recognize each other and will have become shells of our former selves. I'm afraid of that too. I already feel a bit like a hollow version of what I used to be. The past eight months has made me this way. How do I justify pressing on when I know he is not wholeheartedly in the game? I feel guilty for not being in a place where I feel I can just throw in the towel. I don't know if I will ever get there, but I know I'm not there yet. After all, I still have hope, and maybe that's what it comes down to.
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