resolve...

Today I was over it and at the end of my rope. My emotions were choking me and I needed to do something otherwise I was going to lose it. I came home from a long day at work to my loving husband and while he made me dinner, I googled infertility support groups. As if my prayers had been answered, I learned that the National Infertility Association resolve is opening a chapter in Utah and are also starting a peer-led support group. I am all about support groups considering that is what Sharing Place is and I feel so relieved to have a place of my own I can go and talk about my deepest and most raw emotions and have people actually get it and not judge how I am feeling. Groups are offered the second Wednesday of the month at the downtown library for free and I can't wait until the first one.

After learning about RESOLVE, something I had never heard of before, I decided to take some time to read their website. There is a TON of awesome and enlightening information on there and it's as if someone stole my emotions straight from my soul and put the words to them they so desperately needed. I am sure http://www.resolve.org/ is going to be my new favorite website and I am excited to read all the information they have on there. The article that really caught my attention was this one... Infertility Etiquette. Here is the opening paragraph that brought me to tears because it's so painfully accurate.

Infertility is, indeed, a very painful struggle. The pain is similar to the grief over losing a loved one, but it is unique because it is a recurring grief. When a loved one dies, he isn't coming back. There is no hope that he will come back from the dead. You must work through the stages of grief, accept that you will never see this person again, and move on with your life.

The grief of infertility is not so cut and dry. Infertile people grieve the loss of the baby that they may never know. They grieve the loss of that baby who would have had mommy's nose and daddy's eyes. But, each month, there is the hope that maybe that baby will be conceived after all. No matter how hard they try to prepare themselves for bad news, they still hope that this month will be different. Then, the bad news comes again, and the grief washes over the infertile couple anew. This process happens month after month, year after year. It is like having a deep cut that keeps getting opened right when it starts to heal.

You can read the rest of the article HERE. It discusses the pain an infertile couple feels and things to say and not to say. I really appreciated the article's references to grief after a death vs. grief during infertility because I have really struggled with the differences between the two. While they may not be the same, they are both valid and it's completely appropriate and probably necessary to grieve the void infertility creates.

This is exactly what I needed tonight and I look forward to learning more and becoming a part of a support group. I am also visiting a fertility acupuncturist this week so I will let you know how that goes. I guess just a few more steps in our journey :)