So what else is new?

I went shopping today. And, of course, there was this little kid in a stroller. Who suddenly sat up, alert, and looked at me intently with this startlingly blue eyes and broke into a big smile. I smile back and waved, trying not to assume the mom "appraised" me with pity because I was forced to make do with smiling and cooing at someone else's baby. What else is new, right?

This week I finally have an appointment to try to figure out if there may be additional hurdles preventing us from conceiving: namely on my end. While, on the one hand, this would just be yet another setback (and this after just being told, by my father-in-law of all people, how sad it is that Kenton and I don't have any kids - why don't you just shoot me??), at least I'll be able to be pro-active and ask questions that, I'm sure, Kenton failed to do during his appointment a millenia ago.

The truth is, of course, that I really only have two questions: can we ever conceive, and if so, how? To be honest, I don't really care about the biology behind it. I don't care what isn't working and why it isn't working and how or why what is preventing me from getting pregnant. I just want someone to tell me HOW TO FIX IT!!

Yesterday I was cleaning up, and I found these handmade burp cloths I bought on Ebay a long time ago. My first instinct was to pitch them, donate them - anything to get them out of my field of vision, now blurry with tears and a deep sense of injustice. But then I thought, I'll keep them for now. Maybe all is now lost yet. Or maybe I'll just have to upcycle them into something else eventually.

I see so many cases where I wish I could take a child away from someone who cannot possibly, from their actions or inaction, comprehend the miracle, the grace, the completely random gift that they are holding. There are times when hearing a baby cry makes me whince internally, where I keep thinking to myself: why is this person not picking that poor little baby up and cuddling it, reassuring it, comforting it? Why are they ignoring the cries and pleading of this little being that can't yet speak for itself? The truth is that, to them, it's just part of the furniture, part of everyday life - nothing extraordinary. So if it cries? So what, it'll cry again tomorrow, and it'll still be crying after they finish their copy of Sports Illustrated, caught up on juicy gossip with a neighbor or have had their mani-pedi completed. For these people, extraordinary becomes ordinary - becomes boring.

A few months ago, I once did something really stupid. I put a pillow under my shirt and looked in the mirror sideways. I pretended to pat the non-existing belly. And then I looked at my reflection through my own eyes, and I felt like a great big fool. I felt...childish and embarrassed that my need, my desire, for a baby had grown so strong as to make me, a grown woman, play "make believe". Sad, but probably not all that uncommon among those who want but cannot have...

Some days I feel like sleeping all day. I feel like it's easier not to leave the house, easier to just pull the covers up to my chin, hug a pillow, daydream until it's time to go to be for real. They probably have medication for things like that, but why dull something that may not go away, rather than confronting it? After all, eventually all suppressed feelings catch up with you, whether you like it or not - God knows I learned that lesson loud and hard.