A year of hell

Well, I was waiting to sit down and document what the last 6 years have been like leading up to this experience with donor eggs, but recent events force me to document my current feelings instead.  Which is amazing because I have a neurotic compulsion toward chronology... so the fact that I am writing out of turn should be an indication of how yucky I am feeling right now.

My husband (aka Intended Daddy or "ID") already mentioned that the infertility gods have been moderately fair to us over all these years.  I watched infertile friends talk about how their close friends were all getting pregnant around them...  This was devastating for them, absolutely crushing to see.  (It's so hard to feel left behind...).   This would come up in support groups, and I would think to myself: "If we don't have kids by the time our close friends start having kids I don't know what I'll do!!"  Although I still knew a lot of people that were having children around us, we were ahead of our close friends in wanting to have kids-- most of them weren't married yet, let alone trying to conceive (ttc).  So for those around me who were having kis,  for the most part, I came to terms with this.  I came to terms with not attending baby showers. Sending gifts is adequate.  I came to terms with not always having to go see a new baby, or making convenient excuses at work when some glowing new mother brought in her new bundle of joy for all to see...

But our core friends who have been with us the longest have been --for the most part--childless. Until recently.

Well we are entering an era I am not sure I am prepared for.  Many of my close childhood friends are all announcing pregnancies.  The first friend was several months ago, and somehow I felt it was more comical than anything else because she is so not the mothering type.  But now we have learned of two more first-time pregnancies.  And another friend is expecting her third. My only grace is that I don't live near any of them.  

But my good friend sent out an announcement -- one of those "I have loved you (fetus) since you were only a thought and now you'll be delivered to us" kinds of announcements.  What the hell do I do with this?  These friends know of our IF story, and have been so very loving and caring about it.  This is their special time and I wish I had it in me to be ecstatic for this little miracle..  And gush and tell them how completely elated I am for them.  And it's so difficult to do that. 

I would never, ever, ever wish what ID and I have been through over these years onto ANYBODY.  But how can I express to them that it's hard to be happy for this joy that I will never ever experience?

As ID has said, even if /when this donor cycle works, it will never be the same. Years ago, I used to day dream about how I would tell ID the news that we were going to have a baby.  It's too pathetic to even write down.  But we've had such a long list of procedures, drugs, exams, and financial waste that it's just never going to be the same.  

I describe it this way: This experience has wounded both of us and we will never be the same. On his bad days, ID believes he will never heal from those wounds, even when we have grown children.  Because he feels irreparably harmed by the struggles of IF.  On my good days (and even on my bad, I suppose) I try to believe that this wound will heal.  And when we are parents and we are able to see our experience with the lens of parents, we will see the wound has healed over and left a scar.  And I know that the scar will never disappear.  As all scars do, it will be something I carry but it won't hurt so much anymore.

But in the mean time, how am I going to get through this next year of blissful pregnancies, new babies, and the concurrent possibility of our donor cycle failing us?