Better to Bee Busy



After my last post, I decided that I needed to do something to try to improve my perspective.  So, I took my infertility bible, also known as Eat, Pray Love, with me to The Prince’s doctor’s office.  As I suffered through the three hour wait, I fell in love with that book all over again.  Odd that a book about a woman who changes her life upon realizing that she doesn’t want to be a mother would speak to me, in my current situation.  But, inexplicably, I love the book and find that no matter how many times I read it, I always find something relevant to what I am going through in my life at that moment.

Today what hit me was the author’s discussion about how she throws herself so completely into things, mainly relationships, that she loses her own identity, and ultimately loses that which she is working so hard to create.  This describes my relationship with infertility perfectly.  So, how does she get beyond that?  Well, step one was learning how to experience pleasure.  She had to figure out who she was, what she enjoyed, and try things.  In the book, the author writes about starting each morning asking herself what she would enjoy doing that day.  What a lovely idea!  Now, obviously I cannot decide that I would love to travel tomorrow, and up and hop on a plane.  Not being a best-selling author, I have a date with a cubicle tomorrow…which would not be my first choice of what I would enjoy doing.  However, I am going to try to start asking myself, each day, what I could do that day if I was able to do anything at all.  I am suspecting that a pattern will emerge and that, slowly, I will start to relearn who I am outside of infertility.  And eventually, whether we are successful in our journey or not, I will at least have an idea of where to start to regain my sense of self.

Until then, my goal is to stay positive by staying busy…not busy on the internet searching adoption (thanks, Lindsey)…and not busy worrying about things I can’t control.  I mean truly busy.  I want to be cleaning, organizing closets, walking the dogs, writing (and not exclusively about infertility) and maybe even tackling some gourmet cooking when I am feeling overwhelmed about this cycle.  Tonight, when I was cooking dinner, while simultaneously doing dishes and cleaning the kitchen, I felt good.  I didn’t think about the egg issue for hours.  Idle hands are the devil’s playground, but an idle mind is apparently his summer home.

My great infertility friend also came up with an awesome idea.  She posted on Facebook, to all of our IF community, that she would like them to support me in Busting an Infertility Myth, in honor of National Infertility Awareness Month.  I believe it is RESOLVE that is sort of organizing the Blogger Infertility Myth Busting event.  I’ll be writing more about that soon, but all of my gals here at home are hopefully going to give me some ideas about what major myths they want tackled…with the truth out there on the internet for the world to see.  It is amazing that she intuitively knew that I needed a project to keep me busy.  Even though this endeavor is infertility related, it isn’t all about me and my issues…so I think it counts as enjoyable busy work.  So thanks, J.S. 

Finally…I just want to thank all of you who are sticking by me through my numerous posts and ramblings during this cycle.  You ladies support me, give me advice and let me vent my deepest and darkest thoughts and feelings without fear of judgment.  It is very rare to find one person in your life who cares enough to fill that role…I have been blessed to find lots of you…all over the world.  When the negative me is pummeling the positive me…you gals gang up on the negative voice in me and kick the crap out of it (nicely, of course).  I can never repay your kindness, but if there is anything I can ever do for any of you, please let me know.  Need me to wear a billboard with your blog address on it for extra traffic to your site…I’m your girl (please don’t make me do that)!  But seriously, thank you.

Preview for tomorrow…my experience with intralipids and THE FINAL UPDATE!