Alas, here we are. It is after 1 am. I returned home after 7 pm and tended to my furbabies and other evening activities. I failed to tackle the stack of ungraded papers until 10 pm and then suddenly recalled that I had to work on an exam. Oops. Now, I am brimming with scholastic enthusiasm and my brain needs some time to tire.
We remain in a holding pattern on our adoption. I believe that we have remained surprisingly patient for the first 10 years of our baby adventure. However, as baby Sera grows more and more imminent, I find myself become restless. I had imagined her for years, but she had always been a figment of my overactive imagination. But, looking at the timeline (babies are usually placed around 6-7 months and we hope to adopt in December/January), it is entirely possible that little Sera exists somewhere on this earth. I find myself watching a pregnant coworker, who has just entered her 3rd trimester and think, "I bet Sera is about that big right now." Vicarious pregnancy is better than none, I suppose.
As mentioned in my second blog post, infertility is a devastating process. You experience so many emotions that you resent and don't understand: Hope, anger, rage, anxiety, numbness, guilt, shame, and jealousy. I found jealousy to be one of the most difficult emotions to manage. As a babyless mommy, I watched the news in frustration... parents leaving babies in cars, exposing them to drugs and alcohol, shaking them, and hurting them. Yet, here we were, two loving parents with empty arms.
I felt that my media-related jealousy was justified, as parents and nonparents alike were outraged. What I found most surprising (and most shameful) was my reaction to friend's pregnancies. I attempted to conceal these emotions. No one wants a sad and jaded woman involved in the happiest moments of a mommy-to-be. So, for all of my friends who have been pregnant... here are some of the evil thoughts that crossed my mind....
Why them? Why not me? Why does it come so easy to them? It's not fair.
I don't know how well I managed to mask these emotions. I'm sure I wasn't as successful as I hoped, as some people actually seemed to withdraw from me after the babies were born and I resented how they attempted to "shield" me from myself. But through these powerful emotions, I tried to remain strong. I visited the hospitals. I bought baby gifts. I went to baby showers. Through most of these, I maintained my stoic facade, but I recall leaving a co-ed baby shower with my loving husband and crying the entire hour-long ride home. I felt sad about my infertility, jealous of other's procreative luck, and guilty about my jealousy. I felt hindered by the jealousy and did my very best to overcome it.
Yesterday, I actually felt myself fly over a huge hurdle. My former college roomie (the best college roomie you could ever have), April gave birth to a son (after her own struggles and adoption). While looking at the pictures and the video (complete with a look of contentment on her face that nearly brought me to tears), I felt pure joy. Not a twinge of jealousy. Not a hint of shame. I feel selfish for finding my own success in April's happy news, but I feel like I have regained a sense of humanity, a piece of the old me, the pre-infertility Cyndi and have been exorcised of the green-eyed monster.
I think the reason you feel such strong negative emotions, like jealousy, is that you have so much love to give and nowhere to put it. All negative emotions have an equally strong positive emotion attached to them. As soon as you have somewhere to put all that love, the jealousy and frustration will go away.
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