I've been robbed!

I've been thinking a lot lately about all of the little things in life our IF has robbed us of.  I know I'm likely not going to come up with anything that hasn't been blogged about before, I just feel like hashing it out this evening for some reason.

1.) Surprises.  How many movies have I seen, books have I read, or even commercials have I watched where the woman "Surprises" her husband with a positive test or cutesie little way she announces to him that their family will be expanding?  I will never have that.  Not only will my husband not be surprised, but we'll even be able to spout off the exact date of "conception," transfer, and probable implantation.  No mysteries there, huh?

2.)  Excitement.  When we first started trying to conceive, each cycle brought a new round of excitement and anticipation at the prospect of AF staying away for a predetermined number of months for OBVIOUS reasons.  With each new cycle, we lost a little bit of that excitement.  Then, we turned to ART, and were given a new dose of excitement.  Sure, there were a lot of scary moments, but we began to get excited again.  We were even elated to get our first ever BFP and allowed ourselves to become hopeful that this would be IT for us.  With each "crash," our excitement dwindled.  At this point, I don't know when we'll allow ourselves to be excited next time.  J and I were just talking about this a little while ago.  I asked him when we'd get to be excited?  When my water breaks?   (Yes, I know even that can happen at the wrong time.)  Pardon my sarcasm.

3.)  Celebrations.  With our first pregnancy, we didn't even get to think about celebrating.  It was over before we really got started.  We had plans, but we just didn't get that far.  We had planned to go here.  It was one of our favorite "fancy" places to go when we were dating, and J thought it was just special enough for such an occasion.  Plus, there's one not too far from our RE's office.  It was the perfect plan.  Unfortunately, we didn't make it that far.  Then, for Christmas, J's boss gave him a giftcard for the exact place we'd wanted to celebrate our happy news.  We decided to save it for just that.  So, following our FET, we made plans to go.  We were slated to make a visit on Saturday, April 30.  Our 3rd u/s was on Friday, April 29, and we'd be given the all-clear.  We didn't make it to that one, either  That was when we found out our second attempt was all over.  So, J says we're just going to go and celebrate us.  Gosh, I love my husband. 

And IF we are never successful in our quest for parenthood (J says I shouldn't think like that), it will have robbed me of a whole list of other things.  But I won't talk about those today.  For now, I'm going to attempt to relocate my happiness.  After all, I still have so much to be thankful for. 

Hugs and love,