I feel so out of the loop now. I feel like I’m living a different life than the one I had before. Bedtime consists of laying in bed with my husband, listening to our daughter laugh and squeal as we tickle and kiss her. I had this image today of us, the perfect happy family. Watching us all you wouldn’t even know. Except for the dead tree, the decal on my truck, the fact that Kate wears a onesie that says “little sister.”

When we talk about having another child it’s always with a caveat. “If we can…” Plans all involve IVF just as a matter of course. But what bugs me, what really really bugs me, is that people – people who know the whole story, no less – constantly have to throw out, “Well maybe you won’t need that! I heard how women are more fertile after a pregnancy…” Ignoring the obvious irritation of the statement because I did TTC after my first pregnancy and it didn’t work any better than in had before, I am constantly amazed at everyone’s ability to completely overlook a medical condition to err on the side of “keeping your chin up.” If my problem was simply ovulating it would possibly be more in the realm of realistic… but it’s not. I am not whining about the fact that I need IVF, I am simply starting it as an inevitable truth. It does not change after pregnancy (or two!).

::

Kate continues to take some naps by herself each day, which continues to delight me. This allows me a moment to breathe, clean up a little, sink into a chair, and realize that I am still an individual aside from being a mother.

I have started to feel the need to get back into the other parts of me. Not just the stillbirth mama and infertile girl, but the working me, the wife, the tech geek. No, I’m not going back to work full-time, but I’m thinking it’s time to go back to my job at the non-profit. I’d like to do 5 or 6 hours a week – enough to give me something totally different, to be around others that have nothing to do with babies, to do something meaningful in the world outside my home. I also think it’s time to start going to the loss support group (more to support those with recent losses than for support myself, though it would be nice to curse about the tree). It would also be nice to come up with some sort of hobby, but as of yet none have been forthcoming.

It’s like the parting of the clouds. After 5 years of having my life overtaken up into some form of treatments, pregnancy, grief or frustration I have stepped through and past it all. Now I get to decide what to do with the rest of my life.