Dancing In The Rain

Think of eight couples you know. Odds are, at least one of those couples will have trouble getting pregnant. Sometimes the trouble is identifiable, treated with health monitoring or fertility treatments. There is also a chance that there is no way to conceive without some major science. Then, there are cases that there are no identifiable problems, and treatments don't help. Some couples try for years, spending as much as a half million on drugs, IVF and IUI.

Fertility issues also come with a giant unseen cost. Uphill battles against disappointment after disappointment, combined with the brutal  storms of emotions. One moment a couple is full of sunshine and hope, and the next a thunderstorm of despair and anxiety that eats away at the very core of one's being.

Sometimes all of this cost pays out in the end. A number of times, they don't.

Rob and I have been married for four years. During that time we rode that coaster of emotions: failed tests, fertility treatments, miscarriages, surgeries, clean bills of health. Three years of spending money with specialists and buying medications and so many needles. With each step I was obsessive, easily distracted, irritable due to the drugs, teary eyed at the drop of a hat. The worst was the severe depression for the first few days after discovering we were not (or no longer) pregnant. I was irrationally terrified that if I moved too much, or bent just the right way, then I would break what was supposed to be happening inside me. I was no fun to be around, and I felt everything deserved an apology from me. Too much of myself was hidden behind my anxiety, depression and fear. Rob and I were suffering for it, our relationship and communication strained by this never ending trial of our heart.

We both knew something had to change, so we sat, and we talked, and we cried, and we mourned. Then we decided not to mourn, we decided that instead of inside my belly, our child will grow in our hearts. We chose to dance in the rain, we chose happiness, we chose adoption.

My smile came back, my determination came back, and we created a plan for our child. How to save, how to prepare, how to raise funds, what the estimated timeline would be. We found our strength through working together, planning, fundraising.

Maybe the change in attitude came to us easier than others because we both talked about adopting, deciding that after our own child, we would adopt. I'm sure that part of me will always want to know if our biological child will look like this one photo we had done at Dave & Busters. Little boy, red hair, brown eyes and the largest cranium ever. I mean, we called our photo booth generated child Brainiac, after the character in the Superman series. You see, Superman is my favorite superhero. He was adopted.

So, we are pregnant, just, in our hearts, not my body.

-Ashley