I have struggled on this blog for the past three years (yes, my blog will be 3 in August!) with how much to share about my personal life. While it's been an amazing refuge in bad times (I've been able to escape from my real life worries and focus on pretty interiors), there's been an issue in my life that I don't discuss that feels like a personal elephant-in-the-room. It's something that I've thought of discussing many many times but haven't. But then I read a beautiful post by the blogger of Peppermint Bliss (read it here, if you haven't already) and I decided I wanted to share my story as well. Because reading her story made me feel less alone.
For longer than I have been writing this blog, I've been trying to have a baby. For 3 1/2 years my husband and I have struggled, failed, cried, had glimmers of hope (we got pregnant through IVF once, which was so incredibly wonderful, but the baby turned out to be very sick and we didn't make it past the 6th month, which was - and still is - devastating,) we failed again... And I've kept poking along, blogging about pretty bedrooms and kitchens. We tried for a year before turning to fertility treatments (we started trying when I was 28 and was reasonably healthy, so we didn't have much concern.)
I am now about the embark on my 11th round of fertility treatments. 11 rounds, oy. And we've tried all the different types, many different drug cocktails. We are currently doing IVF (this upcoming round will be my 4th try with IVF) and I feel like I need to share this on the blog because it's just brutal. And I don't know if I can just blog and say "Oh, look at this awesome chevron pattern" when I'm sick-as-a-dog and feeling down-in-the-dumps. I want to be able to say "Oh, look at this awesome chevron pattern. And I feel like monkey-balls today." So now I can say it. And I feel better already.
I get nervous to post nursery ideas on the blog because I don't want to jinx myself. Maybe I feel pathetic for posting nursery designs when I don't know if I can ever have a baby. I'm not sure why I feel anxious every time I post something baby-related. But I refuse to feel that way anymore. I can't jinx things, so I'm taking a new approach "If I blog it, it will come."
With everything I've been through, I would love a whimsical nursery. Something that doesn't take itself too seriously. Playful. Silly. Fun.
I know that somehow, we will have a family. And I know that I am blessed with the most amazing, supportive, beautiful, incredible husband. And I know someday I will feel like this...
But until then, I have to keep fighting the fight. And I'm glad now that I can share it here.
Oh, and one funny IVF story before I'm done with you for today... When you do IVF, you have to have your eggs taken out under anesthesia as part of the process. I'm not a doctor, I'm an interior designer, so if you are really curious the whole process, google it... Anyways, when I came out of anesthesia, I was in a recovery room relaxing and making sure my vitals were ok before I went home to lay in bed the rest of the day. At some point, they wheeled out another lady who had her eggs retrieved. She was just coming out of anesthesia and blabbering on and on about how she was going to fly everyone in the office on her private plane somewhere fabulous. So when the nurse came to check on me, I asked her, "What did I talk about when I came out of anesthesia?" She said "You told me you dreamed about blogging."
