Adjusting

Hola!!

I am writing from Mexico, where Hubster and I are currently enjoying a beautiful beach get-away. When we got married, we didn’t take a traditional honeymoon. Instead of heading off to some exotic place, we drove up to my little house up on the Owl Creek Mountains and hid away for 4 days. It was lovely, romantic, and restful, which was what needed following the excitement of wedding preparation. Plus, we were pretty excited about the…ehm…alone time, since we the choice to abstain until we got married.

Anyway, we decided that since we didn’t take a big trip, it meant that every trip we took for our whole married life would be a honeymoon, a celebration of our life together. Therefore, we are honeymooning for the…third or fourth or eighth time now (we’ve lost track).

In the midst of our fertility struggles, my wise and awesome cousin suggested that we take the time to do something fun, something that we might not be able to do once we have a baby. So, a white beach vacation, to relax and decompress, seemed like a great idea!

It also worked out (fortuitously), that we left right after my Whole30 experience was complete, since (drumroll, please) I FINALLY ditched the extra poundage I have been carrying around since the Depo Shot.

That’s right!!!! I brought 15 pounds less to Mexico with me than I would have a month ago, and that felt pretty great, like I am finally myself again.

As usual, I have been thinking a lot about having a baby. It’s never far from my mind, which I am getting used to. It used to feel a lot like carrying around the extra weight—uncomfortable, like it was something I couldn’t get rid of. But as I’ve shed that pesky weight, I finally feel like I am shedding the discomfort of fertility struggles. Don’t get me wrong, I am not suddenly just peachy about it. I still feel sad, angry, frustrated, and overwhelmed. But I don’t feel that despondence any longer—I am finding ways of adjusting, both my perspective and my emotions. 

Hubster and I have had a great couple of days here by the ocean, and we’ve had some great talks. Part of my process through all this fertility business has become planning a life without children. I still want to have a baby, but I can now look forward and imagine that we could go on and have a wonderful life that doesn’t include children. It would be a very different life than we originally imagined, but it could and would be a good one.

As part of this process, we’ve begun planning some trips we want to take, as well as strategies to save for them. Australia is on both our bucket lists, and we’re contemplating a trip there in a few years, if no baby comes along. We’re also giving some thought to a cruise in the Mediterranean at some point too. We’d also like to go visit Hubster’s grandparents in Hawaii, and maybe do a Riverboat cruise down on the Mississippi with our parents as well.

I have no idea if all these plans will come to fruition, but in the same sense, I also have no idea if my plans to have a baby (babies, hopefully) will pan out either. Yet I still plan for it and pray and hope for the best.

Maybe we’ll have a baby by this time next year. Maybe we’ll be headed off on another fabulous adventure somewhere else. Maybe we’ll just be enjoying the beauty and tranquility of the ranch, and that’s okay too. It’s hard to say, but either way, I am okay with it.

And being okay with it feels like a pretty big accomplishment.

I hope you are having a lovely summer evening, wherever you find yourself.

Cheers,

            R-Lib

PS—Another installment of Struggling to Conceive coming soon!