Thirty Six

Earlier this week, my husband said “somebody has a birthday coming up soon”. While that would have normally put a smile on my face, this year it made me sad. I did not want to turn another year older and found myself begrudging my own birthday. I’ve found that infertiles do not like birthdays. It just means another year has gone by and we’re still childless. It means our eggs are more crappy and our FSH is higher. With every passing year, we watch our chance of success steadily drop, as we near the edge of the fertility cliff, we wonder will it ever happen for us?

I'm reminded of this picture, standing on the icey edge, just one foot away from an enormous drop to the bottom of the canyon. This was 3 years ago, we were just a few days away from Kerry's vasectomy reversal. I was so excited I could barely contain myself. Little did I know how symbolic of my journey this would become.


While I definitely did not look forward to my birthday all week, I managed to come around. I had to make a change in my thinking. I realized that while bad things happen in one’s life that we cannot control, what we can control is how we deal with it. I realized that I had a choice, a choice to have a fun or depressing birthday. No matter which one I pick, I’m still going to be a year older, I’m still going to be childless. So why not have a fun day, I deserve it!

Yesterday was the celebration of my life, 36 years of it. My husband treated me like a princess for the entire day.

We started out with a 1 hr massage. Gosh I need that! My lady could have really upset me if I had let her, but I was determined that nothing was going to ruin my day. As she was massaging my back, she asked me if I had any children. I said no, we've been trying for three years. What would come out of her mouth was a new one for me; "Well that's a good thing because having children can really mess up your back". What??? I asked her if she knew what IVF was and she said "yeah, I worked in a fertility clinic for 4 years". I guess they didn't teach empathy there. She then asked if I ever thought of adoption or surrogacy. I so badly wanted to say "Gosh, I would have never thought of that, that's a great idea, thank you!". I instead chose to just ignore it. I didn't make it out of there without one more though, one of our favorites "what's meant to be will be". Oh well, at least I escaped the "maybe if you just relax it will happen".

It turns out Kerry got that line instead, lol! It never fails, I guess "do you have any children" is a very common conversation filler. So after his lady finds out that we've been trying unsuccessfully, he gets the story of how she gave this woman a massage and that night she conceived, all it took was some relaxation. He replied with "and did this woman have an infertility related medical diagnosis?" He asked her if he could teach her a little etiquette when it comes to those struggling to conceive, and that he did! She actually thanked him for it. I love his approach, I need to learn from him.

We went to lunch, ate like pigs and then shopped till we dropped. He then took me to The Melting Pot for a 4 course fondue experience. We even had a couple of drinks, something we haven't done in years. Take that eggs! I can't tell you how great it was to feel so free and to just enjoy one another.

On the way back to our car, we passed 2 homeless people sitting on the sidewalk under a dingy blanket. It was freezing out. One held a sign "Homeless, need food". I handed them our 2 boxes of food and they lookup up at me and said "God bless you!". It was the best feeling, I can only imagine what it would be like to help several. I said in my Life's Unfair post, "I need to reach out more and help those broken in their own way. Sometimes our own healing is found in helping others." So this is my next step. It's my heart's desire to reach the broken. I collected some literature today on how to help and hope to get started soon.

Thank you hubby for a GREAT Birthday!