Day 18 - The Big Lesson

I spoke with one of our IVF nurses today to confirm the injection schedule that our doctor set up for me. I start injecting this weekend. YES!! Woo Hoo! (I'm really glad that needles don't scare me otherwise I may not be able to enjoy this excitement so much.)

I'm sure it sounds crazy that I'm looking forward to the injections, but I'm sure those of you out there who have been through fertility treatments would totally vouch for me that it really IS exciting. After years of feeling bound by the infertility, we feel like the shots are a physical representation of being able to do something about it. In a sense, they temporarily give us some power, and they make it feel like we are moving forward again after being stalled for so long.

Of course this power is merely imagined. After all, nobody really has any control over anything do they? Ben and I feel like this has been our lesson throughout. The story goes like this:

In April of 2005 Ben and Cilla meet and fall in love. They are both control freaks who like to plan every aspect of their lives. They follow rules and ultimately live inside the box...happily. They date for one year and then decide to wed. Their engagement lasts for another year before their marriage. All along they planned on having children immediately after the wedding. "First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes a baby in a baby carriage"...right?

WRONG! For us it was more like...

"First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes years of heartache, tons of negative pregnancy tests, and multiple IVF attempts....baby carriage, still to be determined."

So what's the moral of the story? We have NO CONTROL over the timing of these things...or anything really.

It's the human condition to believe that we actually have control over our lives, and trust me, I am truly guilty of this. In early adulthood, it can seem that life is actually controllable. We made the decision to go to college. We chose what we wanted to study and what career paths we would take. We chose who we dated and who we married. We continue to chose where we will live and what we spend our free time doing. Basically, it has always seemed that we are in control of our own lives.

Fortunately, Ben and I have always been healthy and showered with blessings, so it was easy to mistake our good fortune in life for our control over it. Being faced with the inability to control when, how, or if we can have our own children has forced us to confront The Big Lesson: It's REALLY out of our hands!

As difficult as it has been to get to this point, I believe that we will be better people because of it. In a way, it feels like this is our first lesson in parenting...Have PATIENCE!!!