Conception: Perhaps the Ultimate Craft

So I have been thinking for awhile now about blogging about our [unsuccessful] attempts at creating Baby #2. And I don't have any reason for not writing about it publicly, other than that there's a stigma about it ... somewhere in the universe, somebody decided this is the thing you're supposed to keep incredibly private.

I get it. But I don't like it. This feeling that I'm supposed to keep quiet about such a huge part of my life. The fact that so few people ask me about it, what we've been trying, how I'm feeling. The hesitation before telling me that a new friend is expecting a baby. All of that makes me more sad than the fact that we've been trying to get pregnant for so long and so far, I am not.

There was an etiquette question in one of the latest Real Simple magazines about this very topic, and I was glad to see it in there. It's actually what inspired me to write about this here. The question was about a woman who learned she was pregnant and wasn't sure how to tell her good friend, who had been unsuccessfully trying to get pregnant for a long time. The answer was good: don't hide your good news and don't apologize for it either. Tell her your good news and be there for her if she needs a shoulder to cry on, or understand if she needs some time to herself.

It breaks my heart to think that people are scared to tell me their good news. I want another baby so much, how can I not be happy for you? Yes, I have my human moments and it may remind me of what I don't have. But if I'm any kind of a friend, those human moments don't last long and they certainly don't define me. If I want to have a second child so badly, I know how you feel and I am genuinely happy for you.

This world is so big and has so much good in it, and I want to think that I don't have to feel alone and isolated in this struggle. There are times when I am completely at peace, times when I'm extremely distraught, and times when I just don't know how to feel or what to think. I realize it can be an intensely personal issue, but I don't think it has to be so taboo.

I think there is something beautiful about a sense of community in the world. A place where it can be okay to say, hey, this is what sucks in my life and this is what's beautiful. I am not scared to talk about it and I don't want you to be scared to ask.