.

on monday, some of our very best friends welcomed a new baby girl...a little pink to add to their brood (3) of blue. and she is adorable and soft and fuzzy and all baby. i sent the Captain up to see the newest addition on the day of her birth with our gifts, as i was unable to break away. but i did go visit on day 2 of her stunning little life and...

i'm not sure how to explain it. i was concerned about my how i would feel and/or react. because the last thing i wanted to be was snot-sobbing in sadness...and i wasn't. and i didn't want to come off as overjoyed at the birth, lest someone think it fake (entirely possible, i can pull off the fake happy like no other)...and i didn't. i was, for lack of a better word, content.

for the first time in a really fucking long time, i was FINE. i didn't once think about infertility or feel a longing for my own baby. nothing. nada. i just enjoyed being there with my friend and cradling little Miss M for a bit...until she made this yawning face and i just knew she was about to spit up all over me (and friend had to laugh b/c apparently 2 day olds don't really hack up, hehe) and so friend's mother came to the rescue and took the baby.

and in that moment, i took a breath i hadn't realized i'd been holding. perhaps it was because subconsciously, i was just waiting for the breakdown and trying my best to enact a few self-preservation tactics, like you know, not allowing oxygen to flow to the brain. or maybe, just maybe, it was that i realized that, for me, there is life outside of infertility and it doesn't have to encompass every thought, occasion, fear, want or need.

i'm still not ready to jump back on the ttc train again. nope. not even close. and that's okay, too. after putting our lives on hold for the 3 years with the mantra of "we can't because we might be pregnant," i think we're starting to actually live again. and that's good. really good. it is what it is. and for me, IT is not IF right now. and when we're ready to jump back in the game, it will all be for the better. hell, maybe we'll even be a little less bitter and a lot more optimistic. one can hope...

i realize that i'm in a much different place with my personal IF struggle/acceptance/co-existence than many others, some of whom are close to me. but i can't be any different than what i am. and that, too, is okay. it's been mentioned that i've "pulled back" since our decision to stop ttc. and i have. i've never said otherwise. but that, too, is about self-preservation. when you're trying to find yourself, the person you kind of lost while playing the waiting game for so long, it's not conducive to surround yourself with the same things. in order for you to change, things around you have to change. this is not to say that i wish to lose friends or let friends go. it's just that i can't immerse myself in constant sadness of longing and wanting and depression and mourning and needing ALL THE TIME because then, i wouldn't be moving forward. and i have to move forward. i have to or i'll fucking drown myself in self-misery and self-pity. and i can't do that anymore. once in a while, sure. i'm human. but on the constant - no. and so i hope that you can accept what i have to offer and if not, i understand. i truly do. and what i have to offer is my friendship and my shoulder and my ear. the same things that have always been there, just maybe with a different perspective than before.



*check back with me next week and i may feel completely different. but today, i'm pretty fucking comfortable with myself. and that's all i can do...take it one day at a time. see, somethings don't change.