Overcoming Obstacles

I am awake at 2:00 a.m. again, feeling the familiar crushing feeling of panic in my chest.  No particular reason for it, but it’s there all the same, like a visitor no one invited.  I even worked out yesterday.  Yeah, me…I joined a gym and walked one and a half miles…not much, I know.  But it’s one and a half miles more than I walked the day before.  I thought that would help my sleep, anxiety and weight.  Apparently not so much for the sleep and anxiety, and the effect of walking on my weight remains to be seen.

I find that I frequently don’t know how to overcome certain obstacles…and I’m not even talking about the biggie- infertility.  The little obstacles keep tripping me up. 

In fairy tales, that just doesn’t happen.  The heroes of the tales are faced with challenges and they decisively conquer those obstacles with ease.  What is wrong with me that I can’t do the same?  All of my careful planning and obsessive researching is not getting me over the little hurdles being placed in my way.  I can’t even sleep…that’s not even supposed to be a hurdle.  That’s supposed to just happen.  Then again, so is getting pregnant.

A lot of times in fairy tales, the princess just waits for someone else to overcome obstacles for her, so that she can be saved.  There’s a lot of “deep sleeping” or going about a normal life until the prince comes to rescue her.  If only I could just sleep until I magically become pregnant…leave all of the worry and heartache on someone else’s plate.  Instead, I have to come up with some plan of action (hopefully one that will actually work) and find the strength to implement that plan.  Standing in front of my obstacles, staring at them, is not helping.  Apparently G.I. Joe’s “knowing is half the battle” slogan does not apply to infertility and everything that comes with it. 

I wish my prince would step in and make it all okay.  He has been especially distant since finding out on Friday that we are about a month away from me starting the medications to get the donor cycle going, and less than two months out from an embryo transfer.  I’m scared and I think he’s scared.  I think a lot of my panic comes from the fact that he acts like he isn’t committed to this, after encouraging me to commit, and now it is too late to back out (not that I want to).  I want compassion and encouragement, but I am getting long periods of silence and no physical contact at all.  He always seems irritated with me and if I try to address how he is acting, he retreats even further.  I wish he could recognize his feelings of fear for what they are and work through them, instead of putting up a wall (yet another hurdle) between us at the beginning of each ART cycle.  Then again, I’m lying awake, writing a blog in the middle of the night because I can’t work through my own fears and worries.  So I guess I shouldn’t be doling out the judgment and advice just yet.  Right now, we both need some rescuing.