Pain

I work in a hospital, and I see people in a lot of pain every day. I have experience with physical pain too, after my car accident my hand hurt more than I can possibly describe for a long time. I remember having my eyes opened to what real physical pain was. But the thing about pain is that once it's over, you don't really remember what it was like. You remember that it hurt, but you can't really feel that pain again. 

The emotional pain from infertility is similar. You want something so much that your heart aches, it can consume you, you would give anything, ANYTHING to have a child. It can feel hard to take joy in anything else in life when you have this gaping, raw, sorrow following you around everywhere you go and in everything you do. 

At least with physical you can talk about it without shame or embarrassment and be reasonable sure people won't say completely unhelpful things in response. After you break your leg no one tells you "Probably the bone will heal if you stop thinking about it so much" or "Your leg broke because it was meant to be, it's part of God's plan" or "haha, wow my bones never break! I wish they would break more often!"

The pain from infertility changes who you are. I find myself thinking horrible, hateful things about pregnant women. Today I was listening to NPR and there was a woman talking about how she "had three babies" while working on this book and how it hard that was. I found myself thinking "oh you got yourself knocked up, how HARD for you". That's not the kind of person that I am. I like other human beings and I can normally empathize with their strife and identify with their own situations. 

I hope that I won't be infertile forever, that I will be able to have my own family, and if not I hope that I can find a way to live without feeling this huge hole in my heart.