Anticipation...

You know how it is, you work something up in your mind to the point where you may very well explode in a frenzy when the actual moment arrives.

I had thought since April when it was decided to try to add another member to the Infertile household, that I would just be overwhelmed with emotion when the time finally came for us to begin again.

Hmmm yeah well, it hasn't hit me nearly as hard as I thought it would, in fact, other then taking that stupid little pill every morning, I don't even think about it. I don't know if that is a good or bad thing. I don't want to Not put the attention to detail into this cycle that I put into Turtle's, if I don't, and we fail, then it will forever be in my heart that I did something different and therefore, wrong this time.

Ahh, the mind F*ck continues for me even after a successful cycle.....

Try to pretend that you are normal. Your not. Sitting there in the restaurant, at the table next to yours, is the older retired couple that you noticed have been glancing your way since they were seated. Somehow they manage to overhear your "IVF workup really does suck" conversation (how could they not, I mean they are seated only millimeters from you). You saw them pointedly looking earlier. You know it isn't just because they saw the boys wheelchair. You get this look. A LOT. It's the wife this time who leans in and asks why the huge age difference in your kids. They then get to hear your son pipe up and joke about how it is because he is adopted, and you wanted one of your own to mess up from the begining. (He loves to tell people that, he is 16 after all, so the shock value is something he loves to aim for)

Wait for it....

Really, wait for it, it is coming...

Yep, they don't let me down.... I see it all over their faces, the pity, the curiosity. Geez, there is nothing in the world that I hate more then that look. I don't feel sorry for me, and I hate that other people do. I love the fact that I actually got to see Turtle when she was just one of our tiny little embryo's. I know exactly the day that my daughters life started. I know the struggle that went into getting to this place (you know the one where you are sitting there laughing hysterically because your babies face is covered with "cookie" and you really don't care if it gets all over her new outfit, or in her hair, because damn she is cute with that stuff smeared all over her face... don'tcha think??) Trust me she was!!!

I don't want people to pity me, I love the way I got here, and I can't wait to do it again, but this time I don't feel the urgency that I did before, and as I said, sometimes that worries me. I want this. I do. I really fear that I don't have the deep terror of failure in my heart anymore. I have what I was shooting for last cycle. I got what I went into that clinic to bring home. It all worked out in the end, and we are a family of four. I am not in the least worked up yet about shots or meds, U/S's or follie counts. I am not even worried about the FSH that got drawn the other day (that they should have called me about already... ok maybe there is the slightest hint of it....) It isn't like me at all to not be freaking out!! Anticipation used to be my drug of choice, I thrived on getting to the first moment, planning it all out to be perfect, freaking if it wasn't, and now it all just feels like a giant pain in the ass. An inconvenience I can count on to irritate the hell out of me.

I have an addiction of a different kind now.

I kissed Clark as we left the restaurant. I smiled at him, took a deep cleansing breath and I thought to myself....

I have the Turtle. My fiesty daughter. I love that little girl with all my heart and soul. If she is the one and only child I ever bear from my body, she is enough. She is more then enough.