700 Posts: A Love Letter to My Life

This, right here, is my 700th post. SEVEN HUNDRED. That's crazy.

When I started this blog, I was so hopeful that what we wanted and saw other people achieving would be our ultimate takeaway. The title says it all, "My Path to Mommyhood." It wasn't "My Path Through IVF Failure, Ectopic Pregnancy, Miscarriage, Not Getting Chosen By Expectant Parents, Having A Breakdown, and Ending Up Not Parenting." That would have been lengthy, and depressing. (The title is misleading now, though...I need to figure out how to change it.)

I started this post by going back through old posts and reading to see what it was like at the start versus now.

I stopped at 2011, one year into blogging. In just one year I saw the hopefulness and certainty that it was just a matter of time grind to a horrible halt when we had our first pregnancy end in an ectopic that needed to be surgically removed, and then failure after that.

I realized, I don't want to go back and read through all of the pain I went through right now. I don't want to see the gradual loss of innocence and insistence that THIS time would be the time, through all that we went through. I don't want to go back and experience all that again -- it was starting to make me sad, and 700 posts later I do NOT feel like being sad in this moment.

Right now, Bryce is out on our deck, grilling up some bratwurst for our Memorial Day party of two (yes, I realize it's almost 10 pm, but we had sundaes out after a long sweaty walk today and then I gardened more and we are terrible at eating at a decent time, so thank goodness we have tomorrow off!). We had a beautiful day in what is now our truly beautiful life.

THAT is what I want to take away from 700 posts. That there was so, so much pain. So much uncertainty and seemingly forever cursed circumstances. An endless parade of watching other people achieve what we could not through a variety of means, and feeling so awful and empty as everyone else's life went on and we were stuck in the same old place.

BUT NO MORE! I can honestly say that the power of resolution is awe-inspiring. To no longer be in limbo, to live our life for what we experience NOW and what is, and not the wisp of what we strove for, fruitlessly... it is glorious. I wish I could go back and tell myself that everything was going to be okay, more than okay, just not how I'd hoped, originally.

I wish I could go back, a sort of Ghost of Resolution Future, and whisper in my ear as I mourned our losses of so many flavors:

You are going to LOVE your life. You are going to be able to move forward from all this, and even though it seems completely foreign and scary now, not parenting will not be the horror show you think it will be. You will have your amazing husband, and a beautiful house, and a great job, and end each day just so freaking GRATEFUL for the life that you have. Not what could have been, but what is... RIGHT NOW. You, my dear, YOU are one of the lucky ones. 

I really feel that way. It was a long, long road to get here.

But man, am I grateful to have survived all that and landed here.

Thank you for traveling with me.

Sunset from our deck tonight

Bryce looking out over the backyard earlier today

View out my office window

My cozy office, and an amazing mermaid pillow featuring Jeff Goldblum's face, a birthday prize from a friend. Nevermind the packing tape on the chaise lounge in a futile attempt to get Lucky not to scratch it. 

Fire table out on the other side of the deck

The world's most prolific magnolia tree, a few weeks ago, and our house on the hill

The last picture I have of us post-surgery, with my silver highlights, and Bryce's burly beard (he's trimmed it since)