Balance

The journey to a family sometimes feels like you are walking a tightrope making sure you find your balance each step of the way. Early on, it's just simply remembering that you still have a life-a job, a husband, friends, pets, hobbies. I never thought seeking pregnancy would make me lose my mind, but once my mind was set on a family, I found myself not worried about the rest. I was surfing the trying to conceive blogs, dreaming of what the nursery would look like and  had a hard time focusing on anything else. It took time to find that balance and find myself in the journey. One month, when we discovered we were unsuccessful yet again, I asked Marty why it didn't bother him when it didn't work out he said, "because we have a pretty good life, not that it won't still be a good life when we have kids, but our life will change so I'll be happy when it works and in the meantime I'll enjoy what we have going." He has been great all along at living life in the meantime.

As the journey moves on and the treatments begin, you know that pregnancy isn't going to come easily, but that you can't lose hope along the way. One of the hardest places to find balance is keeping yourself positive and hopeful through a cycle, but also just realistic enough that you don't come crashing down too far if it doesn't work or something gets put on hold. I've learned to take a day to grieve when I know our cycle has failed, but to have something to look forward to (a night out with friends, a favorite yoga class, a movie I've been wanting to see) to get me back on track. 

Finding balance seems to be taking a new turn as we face our last cycle covered by insurance. We know we need to focus on the cycle at hand and give all of the positive energy at hand to making it work, but it's a little hard to not look forward knowing that when the insurance money is gone we have some big decisions to make--do we try more IUI's that we pay for ourselves, do we move to adoption or IVF? So for now we push those thoughts to the back corners of the brain and focus on today. We know that this cycle will lead to a new chapter in our journey, but for now we wait and see how that chapter will read.