Waiting,Faking Smiles, Isolation and HOPE

My heart is heavy tonight. That's a pretty loaded title huh? Let me break it down by category :)

Waiting
I feel like my life is a series of waiting. Waiting for my period. Waiting for the next doctors appointment, next ultrasound, next blood work. Waiting to take the next pill, next shot. Waiting for ovulation (or at least the shot that makes me ovulate), waiting for the IUI. Waiting to either see one or two lines. Waiting to repeat. It's exhausting.

Faking Smiles
Tonight I spent wonderful time with dear friends and their beautiful babies. It makes me smile but it breaks my heart. Todd LOVES kids. He will play with any kid that will give him the time of day and it breaks my heart, but I smile. I call it faking smiles because on the outside I'm truly happy to see so many happy families and I wouldn't take away a minute of time spent with our friends with children but I sit and wonder month after month if we'll ever have that. Will I ever give Todd the children I know he wants so badly? Will that ever be us? I don't know, but I'll keep on smiling.

Isolation
This is the hard one. Infertility isolates you. It is so hard to listen to people talk about planning pregnancies when you know first hand that its not that easy for everyone. Its so hard to be that couple thats been married for almost 3 years and doesn't have kids in a huge group of couples with kids or kids on the way.  I don't fit the "typical" military wife. I have a career and no kids. To most people I look like a heartless women who doesn't want children. Todd and I often feel like we don't have any close friends here and while we're pretty sure we aren't bad people, mean people, rude people or not fun to be around we always feel like its because we don't fit in one of two categories: 1. young,married, still want to party or 2. young,married,have kids or pregnant.  It seems like being open about our infertility struggles isolates us more to some people because they don't know what to say/can't relate/feel guilty that they don't have trouble trying to get pregnant but I also feel like our lack of children and lack of desire to party like we did in college isolates us as well.  I feel like we're just stuck in this weird place and I don't like it.

Hope
But there is HOPE. Our church sermon this morning was about hope. Hope for new beginnings. Hope in God's promises.  I don't know where this journey will lead us but I have hope that God will guide us and show us the path.

I will keep smiling and having hope for better days.