Phantom Due Dates

While it was a fantastic experience to attend the Olympic games, there was a voice inside my head that wondered what could have been, if we hadn’t used the emergency contraceptive Plan B nine months ago. A few days after our first month of officially TTC failed, we received a ‘Save the Date’ announcement for a September wedding. I looked at my phone app and noted if we had conceived, the due date would have been the same date as the wedding. We would have much rather been welcoming a new baby, but would have been gutted to miss catching up with old friends. This wedding became the first of many silver linings that we would find after each month’s disappointment.

We did thoroughly enjoy ourselves during that weekend, but it felt like a weird milestone. Here was the day that could have been my due date and I wasn’t even pregnant. A few days after we returned, I ran into a former work college who was 8 months pregnant. When she told me when she was due, I recognised the date right away. It would have been mine if my first Clomid cycle had worked. I know I have to stop looking ahead as I can drive myself mad with extra reminders of disappointments, but one of the most frustrating aspects of infertility is feeling like your life is on hold. Future vacations and athletic competitions all have to work around a possible pregnancy that may or may not happen. In case we didn’t endure enough family fun in England, my father started talking about planning a trip to Hawaii with us and my in-laws. Husband and I agreed that we were absolutely not going to try to defer pregnancy around another trip, but the reality is that we have to be mindful of the need for my parents and in-laws to book their flights months in advance. Husband suggested letting our parents in on our situation, but I refused. Firstly, we don’t need any additional pressure on ourselves. My parents think that I’m just not keen to have children, so I hope to be able to give them the surprise of their lives. I feel that so much of this process is not going the way that I wanted, so I don’t want to let go of this aspect. So we continue with our plans to try to conceive and will just wait to see what happens.