Part of our journey to parenthood is often filled with awkward moments, difficult conversations, and tough choices.  Some days go off without a hitch while others are hard and often seem to linger in our minds.  A perfect example is when the other day we went out to dinner with a good friend of ours.  The conversation came up about our fertility treatments, how we feel about the situation, and other options such as adoption if all else fails.  Like alot of couples dealing with this issue, bringing things up and talking about them are just plain hard.  Chris and I love each other immensely and I think we both feel we can tell each other anything.  Despite this however, we often struggle to learn what each other thinks and feels.  As I've said before, it's funny how one thing can both bring you together and tear you apart from each other at the same time.  I only hope that we can use this as a learning experience to communicate better with one another.


 Most days I think of our infertility issues as a curse, but some days I feel we have been "chosen" to deal with these issues to learn to be better people, better parents, to help educate others, and to help others in our situation.  I do feel that this will make me a better mother and a better person all around.  Sometimes when things come easy, it's easy to take them for granted.  


Chris and I deal with our sadness and frustrations in different ways.  Often we avoid talking about difficult topics just because we are tired of it all.  Sometimes it's better to talk about something else to take our mind off things.  If not, some days I feel like we'll explode.   While undergoing treatments, it's hard to not be forced to think about things.  I visit the doctor a few times each month and have to take medication daily. For me, these are constant reminders of what I don't  have and how unfair life is sometimes.  Like most husbands, Chris has the luxury of not having to deal with any of these.  So during our dinner conversation Chris said to me, "but you don't know what it's like to be a guy and go through this."  He's right on.  I don't even though I tried to imagine.  No matter how much we communicate with one another, neither of us knows what it's like to be in each others shoes.  Also, for couples who never had to deal with this directly, it's impossible to truly understand how bad it feels.  So me, being hotheaded at times I said, "but you don't know what it's like to be female and go through awful tests and doctor's appointments."  I know Chris's problem is not his fault and there's nothing he did wrong, but I'm still angry about the whole situation (but not at him).  It's hard not to be.  I'm speaking honestly when I say that I'm not even the one with the problem, yet I'm the one who has to go through all the difficult things like medication, painful tests and procedures and doctor's appointments.  It's just not fair.  I will say that Chris went to his first appointment with me the other day and I think and hope he had an eye opening experience.  Usually our schedules don't allow for him to be there with me, but this week seems to be working out.  Tomorrow I need to have my third biopsy done of my uterine lining. It's a quick but awful and horribly painful procedure.  I am sick of all the pain because I don't deal with it well.  How could any man ever understand what it's like to have that type of pain (annoying how the person doing the procedure is male)?  Chris will most likely be with me tomorrow so he'll get another taste of what it's like to be in my shoes.  For women who've had abnormal paps and had to have a cervical biopsy, it's even more awful than that.  For those interested, they stick a catheter through the cervix (quite painful).  Then a tool that scrapes out your insides out is put through the catheter to take a tissue sample (also painful).  Last time I took a percocet and ibuprofen and didn't think it helped a bit.  Needless to say I'm not looking forward to it and quite frankly want to shove that thing up that doctors ?@#$&!  


Besides tomorrow I have another appointment this Friday for more bloodwork and an ultrasound.  This is when they will decide what day to do the next IUI.  It could be as early as this Saturday or sometime early to middle of next week.  Timing has to be perfect or it won't work.  Then comes the dreaded 2 week wait period.  It'll be my third IUI and 21st consecutive negative if it fails.  You'd think I'd get used to it by now.  It never gets easier.