National Infertility Awareness Week

This week is National Infertility Awareness Week. I want to take this opportunity to help increase awareness. Resolve.org is a non profit organization that is a great place to find resources and is devoted to bringing awareness to this disease. Yes, it is a disease. I am frequent visitor to their website. They have encouraged me to share and to use this opportunity to let others know. I have debated with myself if I should post this list or if I should just keep it to myself. This has been a private list of mine for the last several months. I don't like to post posts that are sad or that may come off as complaining because I really do have a lot to be grateful for. I try to put on a brave face and look for the positive during this journey. But in reality, there is a lot of pain and heartache that is involved. Below is my personal list of confessions about my infertility. These are the things that I struggle with on a daily basis, some of my innermost feelings that I want to share with you. By sharing this list, I just want you to know that this is the hardest thing I have ever gone through and that I hope that this will help you understand a little bit more about me and about infertility. 

• It feels like someone is trying to rip my heart out every time I see a new born baby, expectant soon-to-be mother or a darling little girl.
• I sometimes un-follow your Facebook posts, Instagram or blog because I can't handle all of the baby pictures, complaining posts about pregnancy/kids and pregnancy announcements.
• I secretly wish I was strong enough to tell you that it hurts every time you complain about your greatest blessing.
• I would give up anything to go through morning sickness, hardly get any sleep and have a messy house if it meant I had a child.
• I appreciate your suggestions, but lets be honest, I have already tried to just relax and any other old wife's tale that helped your sister's friend's sister get pregnant. I just read a study about full fat dairy increasing fertility....ice cream anyone?
• I purposely plan my route in Target to avoid the baby section.
• Each month, I start to in-vision what it would be like to be pregnant and a mother....only to be reminded, painfully, that this month isn't the month.
• I cry a lot.....more than anyone would ever expect or even know.
• I think about infertility everyday....every single day.
• I frequently dream I am pregnant or that I have a baby. Sometimes they are so real that I wake up half expecting to find that child really there.
• I have a secret Pinterest board for infertility to remind myself that I am not alone.
• Please don't tell me that I have plenty of time or that I am still young, that doesn't make me feel any better.
• I genuinely don't mind you asking me about it. I honestly would rather have you ask than to have you wonder.
• Each month I feel so guilty because there must have been something more I could have done to make it happen.

If you have a friend or loved one going through a similar situation, give them a hug this week and let them know that you care. They may need it much more than you know.