Just about anything can make me feel barren

If I am ever lucky enough to actually get pregnant and have a child, please remind me never to make my profile picture on Fa.cebo.ok a picture of me and my baby. While there's nothing innately wrong with it, and I would have every right - even deserve - to do it, I will refuse to do so simply as a show of solidarity with my former, infertile, self. There is nothing that can make my mood go south more than scrolling through thumbnail photo after thumbnail photo of former classmates and their babies (actually, there is something worse - seeing photos of former classmates of my five-years-younger sister and their babies). Instead of a picture of them by their name, you'll find a photo of mom and newborn in the hospital, or one of mom and infant, or the entire happy family, or the always popular photo of just the baby, or - my personal fave - the parent with their seven-year-old (nothing drives my barreness home more than the reminder that I could have a child in the third grade).

I don't mean to sound bitter. It's not their problem, it's clearly mine. In no way, shape or form do I expect them to make decisions based on how it might affect someone with infertility. These people, of course, are normal and are just behaving normally. More power to them to do that on a social networking site. And I'm quite sure I'll even feel inclined to do so if I do ever have children. I'll probably want to show the world that I'm normal, too. But I'm pretty sure I'll always think of how it would have made my old infertile self feel. Darn infertility.

Speaking of things that infertility has robbed me of, my anniversary is quickly approaching. Unfortunately, instead of a celebration of four years of marriage, it will be a reminder that it has been four years since we first started trying to conceive. Just as two years sounded worse than one, and three sounded much worse than two, four sounds pretty bad. I hate that our anniversary has to be ruined by this, and while I know that ultimately I am in control of whether or not I enjoy the day, I can't help but associate the two things and that makes me mad.

So the thought that year four is almost officially here made me kind of depressed today. I decided, though, to use the experience constructively. I made sure to pray every time I felt the urge to get real down and I thought about suffering as a form of penance and all of that, which helped. Mainly, I tried to stop myself from taking it out on others (I'm not sure my husband will say I was successful). It was the first time I really put any kind of real effort into it "in the moment," so I guess it is at least a step in the right direction.

As for my cycle, it is day 13 and I've had about four or five days of peak-type mucus so far. Nothing too out of the ordinary, except I did have some pretty bad pain over the weekend and again last night. While in past months I had pain on my left side, this time it's on my right which makes me think it is possibly due to ovulation (but not necessarily in a good way.. I don't think healthy ovaries cause actual pain lasting several hours, do they?). Since there's nothing I can do about it, I am not spending too much time worrying about it. Putting time and energy into wondering what may be causing it isn't going to get me pregnant any faster.