The One Thing I'm Grateful For

Every night at the end of yoga, we come out of our super relaxation pose and slowly emerge to a seated position. We put our hands in front of our heart, and we think of one thing we are grateful for.

That one thing is always, always, every single time, my husband.

I am grateful for the way that he balances me. I am grateful for the way that he understands me, even now in the grip of completely incomprehensible times. I am grateful for how he can make me laugh, hold me and soothe me when I need to cry, and how he surprises me with special treats.  Like an Easter basket filled with goodies edible and otherwise and a quirky Black Knight action figure to guard it all. And a breadcrumb trail of Cadbury Eggs to lead me to my hidden prize. He is the best Easter Bunny.

The view of Cayuga from our balcony.

A goose among the daffodils.

This past week we took a mini-vacation--two nights in a B&B outside of Ithaca on Cayuga Lake. We don't usually do getaways because spending the money on something like that seems luxurious. Too luxurious when we are facing ridiculous expenses to build our family, and don't quite have enough hope in store to believe 100% that this next time will truly do the trick. But this week we decided that we needed a romantic respite, an escape from the everyday of rugs to be vacuumed and dishes to be washed and dogs to be walked and crazy cats to feed and medicate and nurse back to some semblance of health. So we went on our two day escape and it was amazing. Despite the early-spring spiders and the freezing windy weather, we had a truly romantic mini-holiday that fed our relationship in a way that we'd been missing. We hung out in our sitting room with candles and wine and read and talked and made each other laugh. We had a completely decadent 3:00 dinner at a fancy restaurant with 3 courses and a bottle of wine. We walked the Cornell Plantation trails and decided we need an annotated herb garden at home. We slept in a bit and snuggled and loved.

And we hardly ever talked about infertility. It came and went in passing, and that's it. A guest our second night was a single mom with a five year old girl, but they pretty much kept to themselves--we had picked a super romantic bed and breakfast to avoid the family crowd but somehow managed to be small child magnets all the same.  Bryce made one joke, "We came here to get away from children and families because we are infertile people and we get the romantic inn with a child!" I received a sad email from a friend who received confirmation her pregnancy wasn't viable from her last IVF cycle and acknowledged it. And that was it. No planning for the future, no rehashing of our past cycles, just Bryce and Jess on a romantic trip enjoying ourselves and truly escaping the complete infiltration fertility has had on our daily lives.

So what am I grateful for? Hands down, my wonderful husband. I am so lucky to be on this journey with such an amazing man.