The one where I'm an ungrateful brat

With Halloween behind us, my normal "next step" is to reflect on the many blessings I have in my life. 

This year, there's just one problem: I've got a serious case of the "poor me's."  I can't seem to get my spirits up.

I've done okay.  Alright, so if I'm being honest, I could have done better.  Could still do better.  But I'm deep into resenting the fact that I'm still not pregnant.  Still.  Even though we started this adventure when there was snow on the ground.  There is snow on the ground again. 

My new years resolution for 2011 was to get pregnant.  It wasn't something I admitted to outloud because I knew we weren't going to start trying right away.  Besides that, it's not exactly something you casually drop in during the what's-your-resolution conversation.  "I'm going to lose 20 pounds!" "I'm going save money!"  "I'm going to have sex with my husband until he knocks me up!"  Yeah.  Not exactly a Hallmark card. 

But it was one of those things that gave me a serious case of the happys every time I looked forward to "this time next year," when I would undoubtedly be patting my seriously swollen belly and moved to tears with gratitude over the little life growing inside me. 

And we're, like, there.  But no baby. 

2011 is coming to a close.  We've reached that juncture where I won't be pregnant over the holidays.  Where I very well may end this year no closer to expanding our family than I was when the year began. 

And that thought, friends, is sucky.  Awful.   

I know... there are worse things in life than this one issue.  So don't chastise me 'cause I'm an ungrateful brat.  I told you this up front; at least you knew what you were getting.

I'm fighting a feeling of claustrophobia.  A feeling of sinking, of drowning.  A feeling that everything is just a little foggy around the edges; ever so slightly out of focus.  It's a feeling I haven't experienced often before in my life.  I'm the epitome of obnoxious, determined optimist. 

Hope?  Right now, it's an emotion I'm warring with, and sometimes I don't win.   

Maybe it's all the peeing on things. 

Sticks, specifically.  There is nothing quite like the rollercoaster produced by all the peeing on sticks.  The precision of knowing that tomorrow is two lines and a happy husband, 6 days from (maybe!) the start of my period, 2 weeks until I can test and 9 months later is July.  If you've ever longed for a pregnancy, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

The hyper-aware of even the tiniest fluctuation in my existence during those 6 days between ovulation and the start of my period which can be interpreted to mean either I'm pregnant or I'm not.  The agony of realizing - yet again - that premenstrual and early pregnancy are so! darn! similar.  Well done, whoever thought thought that one up.  What a fantastic trick you've pulled on women hoping to conceive.  

This is supposed to be a time of year for gratitude.  I know I have so much to be grateful for.  I know.  Please don't think that I take it for granted. 

But this longing in my heart.  It's like a hole.  I'm in danger of letting it consume me.  I don't know how to make it go away.