November 25, 2014

The Healing Power of Hope

Hope was my enemy for so long while I struggled with infertility. Hope made me excited each new cycle, even at the end when I knew in my soul it wasn't working. Hope made me sob buckets, enough for a river, with each BFN. Hope was indestructible, no matter how hard I tried to squash it down in a tiny box, hidden at the back of mind to protect myself from the hurt it caused. There were days I wished for nothing more than to have no hope, so that I could give up and have some peace. Hope was the boogie man under my bed that terrorized me for 4 painful years.

Imagine my surprise when I experienced a new lightness of being by talking about our someday adopted child with M. I am becoming more comfortable speaking in definitives - instead of "if we ever turn the craft room into a nursery" I can say "when we probably turn the craft room into a nursery". And it doesn't hurt! I don't feel soul crushing agony when I consider how our daily routines will be altered by the presence of a child. Hope, it appears, can heal as much as hurt. And maybe, *hopefully* (get it?), I have turned a corner where hope and I can be friends instead of enemies; where I can feel safe thinking about the eventuality of our growing family without cursing myself in the same moment.

And I never knew how restorative and *wonderful* that could feel.

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