Dancing in the Rain

This past weekend my best friend got married. I was honored to stand by her side as a bridesmaid as she said "I do" and sealed her commitment to her new husband with a ring and a kiss. She was a beautiful bride and I could tell she was not only relieved when the ceremony was over (she was getting pretty nervous before it started) but she was happy to be starting the next chapter of her life.

I remember when we were trying on bridesmaid dresses trying to find a style that would look good on the various body types of the women she had chosen to be in her wedding. I couldn't get my measurements done that day, and I couldn't even order my dress when everyone else did. We were planning to start our IVF treatment a month after the dresses had to be ordered and I didn't know if our treatment was going to work. If it did, I would be 23 weeks pregnant with a much more rounded belly than I had at the moment. But I didn't want to take the chance of assuming I would be pregnant for her wedding because I also didn't want the painful reminder when I would be paying to have every part of the dress taken in if our treatment failed to work.

As we all know, I made a good decision by paying the rush shipping instead once we found out I was not pregnant by our IVF cycle and had no frozen embryos to try a frozen transfer prior to my friends wedding.

For a brief moment as I was eating dinner at the head table on Saturday night, I remembered what should have been in that moment. I remembered I should have been 23 weeks pregnant. That my husband and I would have known if we were having a boy or girl. That the next celebration in my life would have been my baby shower. Better yet, if life would have gone the way it should have, I would have had a 6 year old and almost 1 year old sitting with my husband and parents out with the rest of the crowd of people who were at the reception. I wouldn't have been pregnant, and the next celebration in my life would have been our son's first birthday.

Then I remembered, life isn't the way it was supposed to be and there is nothing I can do about it.

I snapped out of my thoughts and the rest of the night I drank and danced like there was no care in my world. I caught up with old high school friends, had a blast with complete strangers, and made a few new acquaintances too. My husband gave me space to mingle and dance like a fool and he also found himself out of the dance floor with me several times. Word to the wise though, don't try to imitate dances from So You Think You Can Dance unless YOU CAN ACTUALLY DANCE! My neck was stiff for 3 days after showing off my inability to "crump" properly! Anyways, we both had fun, and we needed that kind of fun. It was like we had forgotten for one night just how difficult our life has been over the past two years.

It kinda reminded me of when my parent's were separated during my freshman year of high school. It was a horrible year for me emotionally. But I enjoyed living in town closer to my friends instead of way out in the country where I couldn't walk down the street to my friends house. I remember many nights jumping through rain puddles as it was raining and having fun being a goofball with my friends, even though my heart was breaking for my parents. That's what it felt like Saturday night-my friends were dancing in the rain with me again.

I've grown a lot over the past one and a half years. I've gone through phases of anger, jealousy, isolation, avoidance, fear, depression, hopefulness, and acceptance. More importantly, I've learned to recognize there is no right or wrong way to work through grief and I've accepted what I have control over and what I don't. I've learned to enjoy the moment that I'm in, even if the moment isn't the way I wanted it to be. And I've decided that while I have no children to raise-I will treasure the freedom that I still have to travel with my husband alone and to party like a rock star with my friends. After all, once we have children I will need to act like a mature adult all the time right? Well maybe not all the time...but at least around the kiddos:)

Alex and I don't know when our storm is going to be over. We don't know how the future is going to turn out for us. And surprisingly, I'm doing okay with not knowing. I feel content since we have been back from New York that maybe we are on the right track now. And if this next step doesn't work, I will be briefly devastated but I know that with the strength of God I will stand back up and keep fighting for our rainbow baby.

If I had to give advise to my best friend it would be the quote next to this. Marriage isn't all sunshine, rainbows, and butterflies. Sometimes the life we planned isn't the life we end up with. It can be a struggle when you wake up on your second wedding anniversary with no children if you had started planning for children the moment you got married. (I know you say you don't want kids for awhile Amy, but one day you will change your mind and start dreaming of baby showers and nursery decorations!) Hell, I think it's an even bigger struggle when you wait a few years before you start trying and then encounter problems with conceiving or carrying because you regret the time that passed by while you were younger. At least that's the case with other older couples I've known who have infertility. I pray my friends will not have to endure this pain to create their families. But I do know that love and commitment and finding a way to still dance in the rain will get them through if they do encounter the struggles we have. And if they need a shoulder to cry on or an ear to listen to their struggles-I will gladly be there for them to let them as a strong sail helping them to adjust to the strong stormy winds.