70s Flashback - Party Busses and Protests

For the last few days, save for a WTF appointment with my RE last Friday (more on that in coming post), I've focused on everything but infertility... and it's been good...not great, but good.

Since last Thursday, I've been supporting my teacher husband, B, in a fight for his working rights. Our state is currently "ground-zero for labor" (per an MSNBC news show host). Now, I don't want to get into a political debate here on my blog, but I do want to say how inspiring it has been to see people come voice their opinion and show support of a topic near and dear to their hearts. We've spent the last 3 days going downtown to be in the capitol building, chanting, waving signs, rallying, and PEACEFULLY (unlike some other news channel's reports) protesting the governor's proposed legislation. It has made me feel more alive than I've felt in a while. The energy that comes from being in a group of people, estimated at 35,000,  is very rejuvenation and also puts this infertility trouble in perspective. Yes, it sucks ass that we can't get pregnant. And yes, it sucks ass that we have to spend a ton of money on methods to try to have a child, but we are fortunate that we can even begin to think about paying for these things. Some of the people down at the capitol yesterday are fearing that they won't be able to pay their mortgage if the governor's budget bill passes. We are fortunate and I am SO thankful for that.

Also, last night, we spent the evening bar hopping via a school bus with a large group of our friends to celebrate a 40th birthday.  Getting out with them and laughing and talking and catching up, reaffirms to me that my friends, even though they are all parents and we aren't, still like us and find value in our friendships. I forget this often. I feel like because we don't have kids, we are missing a huge chunk of our lives that we can't relate to them on.  And to some extent, that's true. But there are other things in their lives and ours that we have in common and we can still laugh and joke and encourage and support... These evenings give me the strength and energy I need to continue on our path to parenthood and not give in to the desire to crawl into a hole and isolate myself or sell everything and go into the peace corps or something life changing like that...

So a few things have been helping me recoup and gather the energy and strength I need to move on to our final FET with our 3 embryos and beyond that if necessary. Because more than anything, I want a family with B and I want to wake up on a weekend morning and play with my kids. And I want to be awoken at 1am and 4am to feed my hungry newborn. And I want to see them grow into a their own unique self and learn to make choices and make mistakes. And I want to show them how they too can fight for their own rights and develop friendships that give them strength and help them when they need a lift.

So thank you, dear friends, for helping me through this journey, even though you may not know that your did.