coming home

  

Well hello dear friends, I’m back. Not that you noticed I was gone or anything. But this is the longest I’ve gone without writing since I started blogging.

We just enjoyed a few days away on a quick adventure in Seattle. It’s been 11 years since we were last there and a lot has changed. But the food and views are always wonderful, and who doesn’t love being on vacation, however long it is? The view above is sunset from our hotel window overlooking Puget Sound.

We had fun exploring and soaking it all in. We ate and drank what we wanted. We slept in on a cushy pillowtop down feather bed. We walked and talked and got caught in the rain and walked some more. And did I mention we ate and drank a lot?

We enjoyed every minute and each other. We allowed the past to be past and the future to be uncertain. We toasted to the present moment, in full appreciation of the fortune that brought us together, and the hard work that has kept us together through some tough times. We embraced the present, rather than the possibility of the future, for better or worse.

That’s not to say that the longing ache has subsided.  That’s not to say that I now feel complete. But surely that’s no reflection on my marriage. I feel deep gratitude. I feel glimpses of joy. We share laughter, and deep love. We enjoy our time together more than anything else.

Yet still I pray for our child to join us — to come into our lives and enrich us.  To share our love. To teach us. And still I wonder if I will ever be truly happy and whole if I cannot mother a living child.

Anyway, it felt good just to not think about these things for a few days. Aside from being in the middle of an FET protocol, that is.  I mean, it’s not like you stop thinking about infertility treatments and childlessness while you’re plunging 10 units of Lupron into your belly each night and reading the scary warnings on the estrogen patches you’ve been applying in greater numbers. But for just a few days, it was gratifying to step outside of our daily routine, the frustration and drudgery.  It was wonderful to just enjoy each other, without regard for much of anything else, if only for a few moments.  

 

Seattle is notoriously not-so-kid-friendly (restaurants especially), and it was only when surrounded by kids running around the Space Needle or crammed in the aquarium (enjoy the views above) that our childlessness became so glaringly obvious (in my gut). I realized I was actually able to put it aside for a short while.  But it was and is always just under the surface, and deep to the core.

And so I guess it was especially fitting that on the way home, a young-ish couple with a baby about one year old sat in front of us. This little girl in her pink jammies made instant friends with the Amazing M (he’s good that way), and they played peek-a-boo and made funny faces at each other on-and-off the whole flight, which brought smiles and laughter all around. But as adorable as this precious scene was, it also brought the painful pang of returning to reality. And just like that, we were home. 

 

~ by luna on March 4, 2008.