It is day 1 of my 20th cycle of trying for baby #3.  I am surprisingly hopeful for this cycle, but that is a post for another day.  Today I am going to go back.  Back to where this journey began.

I was nursing Joey and at exactly 3 months I got my cycles back.  I won't lie.  I was super excited!  I wanted to be able to try again right away.  Within a week of my first period I ordered my Welcome Womb.  I was sure that it wouldn't be long before I was going to need it.  It took a few cycles for my hormones to get back to normal but we tried anyway.  Then, around that time, I started this blog.  When I was sharing those early posts for my 2 or 3 followers, I was feeling like I wanted to hurry up and tell all of the stories I had so that I could catch up to real time.  So I wrote about trying for Gavin, my first loss, my subsequent losses, finding out I was pregnant again, and my only solution for preventing another loss.  I posted my birthstory of Joey (which is still my most favorite post to re-read).  I was all caught up and ready for the next chapter.  I was ready and waiting to announce a new pregnancy! 

I looked forward to writing about a pregnancy and how tough it is to manage after losing the wonderful innocence of thinking that a pregnancy means a baby.  I was ready to speak openly and share my hopes and fears but never in a million years did I think that I would be sharing a journey of infertility.  I never did.  I was a Fertile Myrtle.  Getting the pink lines was an every other cycle occurance.  Now look at me.  I can't get pregnant for the life of me.  What is different now?  Did my "luck" just run out?  I may never know why this is, but I know one thing...

Even though I am tearing up as I write this, I am so happy that I am here.  I don't know why I am "here" but like I wrote so long ago, sometimes it isn't always about me.  If I would have been pregnant a year ago, I wouldn't have ever had the amazing opportunity to grow so close to so many wonderful women.  I love that by traveling this long and treacherous road, I have been greeted with nothing but love and support.  I have been able to love and support so many others who are right here with me, crying the same tears.  You know the kind.  They are the tears that make your heart physically ache for your sense of another lost opportunity.  The tears om compassion when you find someone else who genuinely has wept those same tears.  And then the tears that sneak in when you least expect it... The ones that can't be hidden even when you say, "Don't cry.  Not now.  Not here." 

But then there are the other kind of tears.  The kind that come when I smile.  When I hear of someone else who gets to experience the miracle that we all desire.  When someone who has cried the tears of a miscarriage or infertility finds themselves doing an anxious and excited happy dance.  I love getting to dance right along with them!

So I kind of feel like I am rambling, but I just wanted you all to know how much you mean to me.  Whether you are quiet and silently cheer me on, comment on every post, find yourself nodding and commiserating, or you think I might be slightly insane, I know God has handed me this path so that I could meet all of you.  You all make infertility worth it. Thank you for coming into my life and thank God for infertility!