Smackdown!

One of the worst things about infertility and RPL is what I like to call the grief smackdown. I can be walking around, a sorta normal, fairly happy person, when BAM! A grief smackdown leaves me cowering, snotty and tearful, waiting for another blow.

Most often, the grief smackdown is triggered by something ridiculous and unexpected. Sure, the belly rubbers and the FB baby boom get me down, but I expect to feel like shit when looking at newborn pictures or staring at pregnant bellies.

This week's grief smackdown has come courtesy of a bed.

Hubby and his dad spent the day doing some heavy moving on Wednesday. They picked up the materials for our new deck (to be built sometime this summer, I hope) and then some furniture his parents wanted to get rid of.

The furnishings? They're for our empty guest room. Since we've lived in this house, the second largest bedroom has stayed empty, ready to become a nursery for our baby. That emptiness was like a symbol of our hope that eventually, someday, some way, we'd bring a baby home. I'd go in there, occasionally, just to look around the room and picture how we'd set it up. It was a room that was fertile ground for daydreams and wishful thinking.

And then we agreed to take this bed and dresser from the out-laws. We need another bed, to be sure. My family lives halfway across the country, and between their visits and friends who spend the night, it'll get used. (Side note: I need to remember to put rubber sheets on that thing. One of our lovely friends occasionally spends the night because he doesn't drink and drive. Last summer he ruined our sweet. red. leather couch by peeing on it in his drunken stupor. Somehow, I love him anyway.) I always imagined, though, that we'd get some small daybed or futon and stuff it into our third bedroom/office (which is really not much bigger than a large closet). There is no way that queen sized bed will fit into the office - not if you want to be able to walk, too.

And so now, that queen sized mattress and boxspring and dresser sit in my dining room, because I cannot bear to haul them upstairs and say goodbye to my vision of us, as a family, filling that room with the sweet smells and sounds of babyhood. It feels like a betrayal of my hopeful self, but the reality is that I'm probably not pregnant now. And even if I were, I'd probably miscarry. Chances are, we have years left in our quest, because that is how long it's going to take to get our finances in order.

Hubby is so wonderful. I know he won't push me to get the bed together and the room established as a proper guest room until I'm good and ready to say goodbye to what could have been. And I suppose that is the one small light in all of this: I love him. I know how much he loves me, despite my faulty parts and bouts of tearfulness. That has to be enough, for now.