View The World Through Infertility Awareness Colored Glasses

**There will be children mentioned here. If you disagree with anything I say here, or think I'm saying it wrong, let me know.**

As was laying in bed last night waiting for my allergy meds to kick in and drop me into a coma, I was praying for all my ladies. I was praying for all of those that are in the 2WW, hoping and praying they get that second line and that in about 9 months they will get their bundle of joy, or joys as the case may be. I was praying for happiness, health and acceptance for my dear friends. I was praying for understanding and praying for process and procedures to be as painless as possible. It's a long list, and if my meds hadn't been interfering with my train of thought, I might have gotten through my list. Since I didn't and my mind started to wander, I started thinking about who I was when I was pregnant with Nae and who I am now. How do I view the world differently? How do I interact with people now that I'm looking at others wondering if their like me or my dear friends?

I got pregnant with Nae easily. The pregnancy was not easy by any stretch of the imagination, but getting to the positive test was easily enough. Even though, she was easily conceived, I never took her or the pregnancy for granted. I remember being at the end of my pregnancy crying and blubbering how I just wanted the pregnancy to be over. The in the next breath, I was crying because there were women out there who wanted SO badly what I was complaining about. I felt horrible for crying and throwing a fit because I was "done with all of this" and there were women out there who were crying because THEY were "done with all of this". My mom reassured me, telling me "pregnancy is difficult on the body. You've had a horrible experience. It's OK to not love the stage you're in right now." I don't remember what my response was, but I know I calmed down after that and probably ate ice cream or took a nap, or threw up.

My mom wasn't infertile, she was the opposite. She gave birth to 5 children, two of which are a year and five days apart (my lil sis and I). I do know she had a miscarriage, maybe two, but that was before she married my father. I have a feeling these miscarriages were from her ex husband hitting her, but I never asked and it's a little to late to ask now. I don't think it's right to ask my father. Plus, he might even know. I'd love to ask my mom's ex husband, but I'm sure that would cause problems and I'd rather not cause my father any more heart break then he has already suffered.

Anyway...getting off track here, sorry...Once we decided to add another child to the mix, that's when things got rough. There were miscarriages and then once we got one to stick, there was the "keep everything a secret so we could have an ACTUAL baby in July" feeling. Which sucked, because I would have liked to be blissfully ignorant during the pregnancy. There were the thoughts that crept into my brain about is it right to have our children 6 years apart? Will Nae be affected negatively for being an OLDER sister? All sorts of mind numbing thoughts, that I really had no control of. It's not like obsessing endlessly over the situation and how I felt about it, was going to change the outcome. It wouldn't matter if I worried about preterm labor, if it was going to happen it will. And it did. Thank you body!

Now that my "baby" is almost 6 and our daughter just turned 12, I look at everything so differently. I look back on our experiences and I kick myself for not going to the doctor and asking what was wrong with me. I wonder if I had gone, would they have been able to fix something and we could have had more children? Could I give the kids the sibling they've been asking for the past few months? I guess we'll never know. We're done with out family building efforts. I've come to terms that my body wasn't made for having children. It sucks, but what can I do? I'm thankful for the two pregnancies I was able to get to full term and end up with healthy babies.

Now, when I pick up Zilla or Nae from school, I look around. I look around for women who are pregnant and wonder if she is in the same situation I was in. I wonder if she intended to have her children X many years apart, or if they have another "in between" one at home? I look at the ones who have children close in ages and wonder if they've suffered a loss or are they blissfully ignorant? Do they think about the woman who can't get pregnant and have to go through procedures and such just to have a shot at what may have come so easily to them?

I talk to our neighbors, who have no children and I wonder, "why?" Of course, I don't ask, but that doesn't stop me from wondering. I wonder if I could buy her Mel's book and place it on her doorstep *anonymously* and she would cry tears of joy because someone knows AND cares or would she wonder "what the hell is IF?!"

I look around me all the time and wonder if a woman is like my bloggy friends or is she like my other friends. I am curious, not because I'm nosy, but because I have resources to help her out. I can send her over to the ALI rooms. I can offer her stories of what I've heard. I can say "hey I know what that means", but most importantly, I can offer her a place where she might not feel so alone. With wine, if needed ;o)

I know this was kind of a random post, but I couldn't stop thinking about it since I woke up this morning. Has anybody else experienced this train of thought? Am I being too overly sensitive because I'm in the ALI community? Lets discuss this!