For much of the time we were fighting to bring a baby into this world, I felt stuck in every other aspect of my life as well.  This feeling sneaks up on you, because you’re always absolutely sure that next month is the moment when everything is going to fall back into place like it’s supposed to.

Only after years of struggle and some therapy, was I able to acknowledge the need of having a life alongside the baby battle.  (Mind you, this was only mental, because my gut still doesn’t get it…)  That is, not to wait until the ordeal is finished to pursue hobbies, career and other interests.  I’ll give you one example:  our home.

Since we were married, we’d been living in this smaller, older apartment, with loud neighbors, unpleasant landlords and no parking.  At the time, it was a great start for us, but soon we were dreaming of improving our living situation.  Our thought had always been, once we have a baby, we’ll get a bigger, nicer place.  Meanwhile, we’ll save some money and enjoy our independence.  The further away our baby dream became, and the deeper into the depression I went, the more the apartment bothered me.  Not only do I not have my babies, I also am stuck in this place.

It took a long time for the thought to occur to me that we could put out the money and get a bigger, nicer place, without any connection to our baby status.  It took even longer to put thought into action.  Finally, we found a wonderful new home, and fixed it up just right, and even though it waited several more years to see a baby, we got to enjoy our new home in the meantime!

It’s too bad that even once this lesson was learned, I still had a hard time being stuck in other things in life… knowledge is one thing, but execution and drive are something else entirely.