Just because it's a miracle, doesn't mean it's easy

I got WAY ahead of myself.

Once we had found our new surrogate, S, and we managed to line up all the pieces and cross all the T's and dot all the I's, I started thinking of baby names. I started scouring kijiji and facebook for the babystuff we didn't have with Rudi that would really have been handy. I started plotting about how we would fit another kid into our upstairs, which has only 2 bedrooms. Our car was giving us all kinds of grief and it was clear we needed something more reliable so we bought a larger car in the hopes that there would be 2 carseats in it sooner rather than later.

We've had 2 failed transfers.

After the first one, I was pretty ok. It is not to be expected that EVERY embryo will turn into a baby - that's just not how the math works. We tried again right away.

When second one didn't take, I was thrown for more of a loop. I didn't spiral into deep darkness but there was definitely more chocolate and ice cream consumed in the week following than normal. 2 back-to-back failed transfers brought all the fears and insecurities and some of the sadness and trauma right back. It's amazing how much can be lying in wait for you under the surface, ready to jump out and remind you 'THIS IS HARD. YOU'RE BROKEN IN THIS WAY. HAVING A BABY WILL NEVER BE EASY FOR YOU'. I started to question the time, effort and money (gah, the money!) we are putting out for something that all of a sudden seems unattainable again.

Of course, as Jake says, if we didn't have our history of so many failures and so many failed transfers when I was trying to get pregnant, we'd probably be able to take some bumps in this second surrogacy journey more in stride. But we DO have that history and it is not that long ago that I was a pure mess of a human, completely distraught over never having a family.

So, we're taking a little break. It's been nice not to be thinking about it all day every day. Or rather, trying very studiously NOT to think about it all day every day.

I wanted to write about these hiccups because THIS is infertility. We can try to control all the variables we want. Change the oven, change the medication protocol, change this, eat pineapple, celebrate here, mourn there. But what it boils down to is some combination of factors that I can't make head or tails of.

Surely God didn't bring S to our family only to have it not work, right? But going down that road can make a person crazy.

So for now I hug and squeeze Rudi more than he'd like sometimes. When we have nothing planned and end up reading 'The Hungry Caterpillar' 30x in a row I stop my annoyance in its tracks and focus on the fact that THIS right HERE, this squirming little body on my lap is what I wanted. It's what we're doing, reading the same books ad infinitum. Doing endless laundry, cleaning endless cheerios off the floor. It's all exactly what we wanted.

We will try till we can't try anymore because we know how amazing it is to get lucky and add a human to our family.

Prayers, positive vibes, all of the good energy of earth - all of it is appreciated!