Argentina

I spent quiet Christmas, just the two of us and beloved Wolf.  We went for a really long walk. Walking the dog is the best therapy ever.

I was thinking about the best moments I had so far with my DH. A lot of our best moments happened while travelling... so I hope there are lots of travelling is waiting for us in the next few decades.

I am attaching some photos from Argentina. We just loved Patagonia and lakes around Bariloche. We went there after second failed IVF, as a therapy for my broken heart.

Life after infertility

I got my period today. My first thought was: Great! I will be without it on 31st of December (I am planning short holidays with DH). It will be more romantic without it :)

Then I remembered of all the pain and grief that the first day of period caused me for many long years, each month.

How happy am I that those dark years are over! 

*** 

For the ones who are not there yet: Life after infertility does get easier and more beautiful.

I feel the grief. And - I am not a parent.

I regret that a tragedy in Newtown happened. I feel deep sorrow for the ones who lost their children and beloved ones.

I watched Obama's speech and he made me angry. Here is his quote:

"I know there is not a parent in America who doesn't feel the same overwhelming grief that I do."


A question for Mr. Obama:
Do you REALLY think that you have to be a parent to feel grief?

Finding a new dream

Don't get me wrong - I am happy that Kate & William are getting a baby. But please, could this not be news anywhere? December is hard enough without it...

I just came back from Italy (I spent 3 beautiful days working there). Have I told you that I just LOVE Italian cuisine? I am practising there ordering dinner and enjoying my own company. I was reading an Italian regional newspaper (Il Piccolo) and there they had really stupid article about royal baby arriving. The literate translation would be something like that: "Yes, they are able to reproduce. Thanks Heavens for that...." In the article there was word combination "in dolce attesa" (=in sweet expectations) like zillion of times. I tried to skip the article but I just couldn't. Luckily the dinner was delicious so my moods improved.

***

I had a coffee with one of my school friends from high school last week. It was nice to see her and catch up (she is also childless). Today in the morning I wrote her just saying that I had great time and that I would love to see her again sooner then in one year (this is how often we usually meet). And she wrote back immediately that she was dreaming about me previous night. In her dream I was holding lots of medical papers, I was very happy and was explaining to her that I am finally pregnant and that I need to make final test to confirm it.

I wrote back that I just burnt ALL my medical reports that I had after 10 IVF treatments. And that with the papers I also burnt my old dreams. And that now I am on a pursuit of finding a new dream.

It felt liberating to put it down!

Tons of documents from the hospitals

Only a woman that went through one IVF treatment knows, how much medical documentation there is for one treatment.

So you can imagine how many documents I had after 10 IVFs? Tons!

I just packed everything, my DH will burn everything tomorrow. It feels good!

The only thing that I could not throw away is a photo of our two embryos (we got the photo only once). This is the closest thing that we have to a photo of our children.

I put the photo of our embryos in a beautiful big box, where are plenty of nice memories. I can't say it is a nice memory. But it is a memory of a beautiful dream we once had.  I just couldn't force myself to put the photo away...

I don't feel sad. It is, what it is.

I  just know that I have to (and I wish to) make the most of the life I have.  It is not the life I planned for myself. But it is beautiful as well.

A toy

I love my sister. But sometimes she has absolutely no clue how to handle my infertility.

A while ago (I was in the darkest days of my infertility journey) she went to Australia for a holiday. She brought me a small present: a toy - koala with a baby koala.

I hated the toy from the moment I got it. I didn't want to be impolite, so I put it on our shelf in the living room.  Whenever I looked at koala it made me sad since a koala has something I will never have.

I was cleaning  the  living room today. I threw away many things that I did not need nor want anymore (for example some stupid books that I loved to read when I was 20).

And - I finally got the courage to throw away the koala as well.

I feel free!!!


***

Had a long walk with my Wolf today, in the snow. It was cold and beautiful.

Childless?

How can you call me childless if my life is full of children?
Well, the children are not mine, but they still belong to my life. 

Usually I see my nieces only 2 - 3 times per month, but this week I spent two afternoons with them since we are having a visit from Australia (two girls in their late twenties).

It was lovely to watch my two nieces (3 and 5) trying to communicate. They learned the words Hello and Goodbye. And they know how to count in English to 10... they were so proud that they could show their knowledge to Australian girls.

I enjoyed it so much! I am happy that my nieces have opportunity to speak English at such an early stage.