What Does a Dead President Know about IF? Turns Out He Knows a Lot!

                                                

I began the bad habit of comparing myself to others at an early age.  I compared my appearance, body shape, weight, academic ability, athletic ability, musical talent, etc. against that of my friends and peers.  I would feel badly about falling short in some areas and so would make changes as I could.  In areas in which I couldn't make changes I would feel badly at times, but tried to focus more on the good than the bad.  I suppose this tendency to compare and the bouts of self doubt were typical of being and adolescent, teenager and young adult.

I foolishly assumed that maturity would eradicate this compulsion to compare, but rather it simply became more ingrained into who I was.  The habit continued into adulthood, though some of the areas of comparisons changed.  Continued were my comparisons related to appearance, but now I also compared teacher ability/test scores/evaluations and relationship status.  The attention of my comparisons also became increasingly intense regarding life's milestones (getting engaged, getting married, buying a home, having children).

Comparing myself to others clearly became problematic on that last milestone and over the last few years I have become more aware of and have attempted to diminish the comparing I do of myself to others (or vice versa!).  I thought I had been getting better until I really began to study the root of my anxiety and what was causing my normally optimistic self to become such a ball of doom and gloom regarding the potential success of our IVF.  Props to God for shedding light on the cause of my distress (or at least one of them).

For the last 5 years I have been reading anecdote after anecdote, story after story of couples' struggles through the turmoil of IF.  Some struggles resolve successfully and through IVF, adoption, or an unexpected natural BFP a child or children are welcomed into the couple's home.  Others never find success and 4...5...6 IVFs later the couple has decided to live childless either by choice at this point or childless not by choice or they have found themselves divorced after the strain of IF became too much or they found themselves still drifting aimlessly though life knowing they want to have children but don't know what to do next.  While still others have glimmers of success to only have these glimmers of hope dashed by miscarriage, still birth or a birth mother's choice to parent.   No two experiences are the same, but I have read enough emotional horror stories, that the concept of "happily ever after" has become a foreign concept.  All of this has to led to me living in my head comparing our circumstances to only those who fall in the latter two categories.

When I review how we got to where we are today:   I see prayerful decision making.  I see deference to my husband's leadership when I was at a loss.  I see conferring with Godly counsel through our pastor.  I see conferring with medical counsel and making a decision that statistically made the most sense.  I see God gracing us with the financial ability to under go IVF using donor eggs.  I see a relatively smooth decision making process when choosing an egg donor and getting our IVF cycle started.  I see J.T. and I making healthy (though admittedly imperfect) decisions regarding diet and exercise.  I see successful monitoring appointments where the doctors and nurses saw what was needed for IVF to be successful.  I see the development of two beautifully formed embryos and I see their smooth transfer into my womb.  I see signs that the progesterone is working and that I am continuing to make decisions that support a healthy pregnancy.

Short story long, I see the makings of a success story.  This is not some one else's story.  This is OUR story and it will play out the way God has intended.   I need to stop allowing comparison to steal the joy God has blessed me with at this stage of our journey.