Day Three

As I sit in our hotel room trying to occupy myself, I smile as I look at my husband with his headphones on doing a conference call for work. Originally the plan was going to be that I would travel here first before my husband so he could save as many days possible to take off for paternity leave. He was going to fly out closer to the due date. When planning this all, I sort of cringed at the idea of sitting in a hotel room by myself trying not to go mad with boredom. My husband knows me well. He was able to work it out so he could work remotely up until delivery, hence, keeping me company in these final days. Granted, I might have done some whining that compelled him to work out this situation, but I know he also feels better being here. I look at him working so hard and trying to finish up everything so he can really enjoy our baby and I think to myself, "I got lucky. He's a good one."

TOP TEN WAYS TO PRACTICE THE ART OF BEING INFERTILE:

10. Arm Yourself with Information, But Accept the Unanswerable.

9. Find Other Infertiles.

8. Tune out the noise.

7. It's okay to be angry.

6. Keep Trying.

5. Fulfill Another Dream.

4. Limbo is your middle name.

3. Remember Love.

It's cliché, but it's true, all you need is love. In the robotic and sterile nature of doing IVF, it's easy to forget the emotion motivating this all. You and your partner love each other and want to create a family out of that love. Though this experience could easily tear couples apart, I do think that my husband and I have grown stronger in our love through this craziness. There is nothing that tests a relationship more than surviving an insanely difficult life experience together. I find it incredibly frustrating when there is criticism of fertility treatments claiming selfishness or vanity as a driving factor. The media and general public seem to always forget that infertility stories are in fact love stories.

As much as I tend to focus on my own heartbreak from infertility, I try to remember that this is both me and my husband's journey. He lost the pregnancies too. He got his hopes up with every BFP too. He watched me suffer through all the shots and surgeries. He held me tight as I cried and cried and cried. He stayed positive in the midst of my complete despair. He didn't toss me aside for a younger more fertile woman. He still sees our baby as "ours" despite that she's not my egg. He still loves me. Infertility plagues both men and women, whoever medically is diagnosed as "infertile." I try to remember that as much as I can when I get into the "me, me, me" mode. I could not have made it through this without the love we have for each other.