Candace-That is what I am right now. Protectively hopeful. As our impending surrogacy is moving closer and it is becoming more and more a reality and not a dream, I have found myself fighting with my dream-self. Chris has many times now had to snap me out of my day dream trance I am in. This is how it is goes:
Me: La la la … Baby stuff, la la la baby unicorns, la la la rainbows with babies. SCREEECH. Memories of the past 6 failed IVFs kick in and I relive that pain all over again.
Chris: Candace? Cannndace? CANDACE!!!??? Dude stop staring at that mom pushing the baby stroller. Wait, are you crying?
Way too often Chris is asking me what I am thinking about because I am sure the catatonic dazed look on my face, is a bit off putting. Is she a zombie? No, just baby dreaming again. I just get lost in thoughts of what if, and as soon as I catch myself doing it sharp pains come back. I really want to think about baby names. I want to think about how we will break the epic “we are expecting” news to our friends and family if this whole surrogacy thing works out. Hell, I want to think about bringing my surrogate pickles, ice cream, and whatever fast food (not too unhealthy of course) she is craving at 1:48 am on a Tuesday night. The problem is that I just can’t bare let myself truly go deeper than our next step. As soon as I start to drift off I MUST catch myself. I have to maintain that careful balance of protecting myself, all the while padding the ground with fluffy pillows in case I fall again. On the other end, hope is the thread that keeps us together, right? Without it, hope that is, I would have given up pursuing, fighting, and sacrificing for that one chance to have a family. As I was in the grocery store yep, the same fine establishment I stalker-style stared down the women pushing the stroller, I found this magnet.
Yeah, maybe Winston Churchill came up with this quote but damn-it if this isn’t our mantra. So I will take it day-by-day and will remain protectively hopeful.
Chris: I am generally an optimistic person, but I think it is a somewhat grounded optimism. For example, if Candace stops to pick up some wine on her way home from work, I am optimistically thinking that she will pick me up some new 6-pack of killer craft beer. Or, if we are meeting up with friends that are rarely late, I am optimistic when I think they will meet us on time. I am not optimistic that since my last 30 scratcher lottery tickets were not big jackpot winners that my next one will be. That my friends, is called ‘imaginary luck karma’ and, shocking as it sounds, none of us have it. So, to say that I am optimistic about the upcoming surrogacy is not too surprising. What may be a bit more surprising is my growing fear. Candace calls it being protectively hopeful, I call it reaching out to touch the burner on the stove and being optimistic that the stove top is not on and I won’t pull my hand back with 3rd degree burns on it.
That’s the thing about all of this right? You work on getting pregnant, you fail, you fall, you get back up. You go to assisted pregnancy whether it is ovulation kits, fertility meds, IUIs, whatever, you fail, you fall further, you get back up a little slower. Then, whoa, IVF time! Man that is a big hill to climb but you do it anyway because the reward is so incredibly enticing. When you get to the top, if you fall, it is a huge plummet and even longer to get back up. Candace and I have climbed that mountain 6 times already and, although this surrogacy will be someone else climbing that mountain biologically, we are still climbing it emotionally and well, it’s just as hard as when we did IVF.
The only thing about this is that now we don’t have anything to compare this round to. All we have is the double-edged sword that we have great blastocysts and our surrogate has a great place to put them. That sounds promising right? Why not run around with huge smiles on our faces and be unfailingly optimistic that this time for sure will work? Because if we did that and it did not work, falling from that Mount Everest of an infertility kick in the nuts would be so hard to get back up from. Candace and I are climbing that hill, we want what is at the top so badly, but we are trying our damnedest to turn Mount Everest into a snow bank … turn a mountain into a mole hill (to satisfy my inner dork screaming throw the cliché out there). Thus far, we have been pretty good about it but I think as the days become fewer from now until our transfer, it will be hard not to start playing the what-if game. Hopefully one day we will look back and say “Geesh, what were we so worried about,” but for now, we just put one foot in front of the other on our Everest snow bank.
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<3 wishing you all the best and thinking of you two always <3
Thank you RunCC37. As usual, we will keep everyone in our Bloggosphere updated as we move forward with things!
Yep. Nailed it. Totally get it. Must. Stop. Thinking. Of. Baby. Names.
Foxinthehenhouse, it is always good to hear that we are clicking with you. Although we have experienced a lot living our life of IF, we know everyone’s experience is different and sometimes worry that we are the only ones that feel tentative about something as AMAZING as having a surrogate. It sometimes feels like being pissed off about winning the lottery! I suppose at this stage though we have been holding those tickets that we thought were sure winners too many times to not be nervous when they start calling out the winning numbers. Fingers, toes, eyes, and ears crossed that our Surro gets knocked up!