What If?

In case you haven’t read about Mel’s latest amazing idea/partnership with Resolve called “Project IF,” please click here to do so before reading the rest of my post.

Isn’t this an awesome way for people to express their hopes, dreams and fears as they relate to their ALI (Adoption, Loss and/or Infertility) journeys?! I certainly think so!

Here is what I shared in my comment on Mel’s blog post (where you can read more about and/or participate in Part 1 of Project IF):

What if one or more of our pregnancy losses (two miscarriages and an interstitial ectopic pregnancy) had been healthy “normal” embryos (or implanted in the “right” place)? How would our family be different? How would I be different? Would I have ever found out that if I eat better and exercise regularly that I could become as healthy and fit as I have over the past five years? Would I have become as sensitive and compassionate with others who have experienced losses and/or tragic life experiences as I feel that I have grown to be?

What if we had never done any A.R.T. cycles? Would we still have been able to to conceive again on our own?

What if we decide to try again with one or more of our remaining frozen embryos instead of donating them for stem cell research? If we do and any of them actually implant and develop, will they have severe and rare congenital heart defects, like Molly did?

What if after all these years trying to build/expand our family we really are “done?” What if we actually get to make that decision, instead of being told by a medical professional that we “shouldn’t” have more children or that they don’t think it is a good idea?

What if I don’t believe everything happens for a reason anymore, but I am able to see the many wonderful things that have come from the roller coaster ride we have been on dealing with secondary infertility, pregnancy loss and neonatal death?

What if I am able to live in the moment more going forward in my life? Will it help me to be happier then when I focus too much on the past or the future?

What if Mel never started Stirrup Queens? I don’t want to know the answer to that one and am glad none of us will ever have to wonder about that one. Thanks Mel! Another fabulous idea!

I know I haven’t been around here, blogging much lately (to say that our life has been busy would be an understatement), but when I sat down earlier this afternoon to see what was new in the blogosphere for a few minutes while Abby was napping and my parents were enjoying Sean’s day off from school with him at the Museum of Science and Industry, I was drawn in by Mel’s introduction to Project IF and reading the over 200 “What If?” comments that had already been thoughtfully left on her post by the time I made it over there.

Initially I only intended to leave a single question or maybe two that I thought would most represent our journey over the past eight years that we have tried to build and expand our family. However, as you probably already know about me, being concise is not my strong suit and before I knew it I had rattled off a plethora of “What Ifs?” to add to Mel’s/Resolve’s growing list! I imagine that it also won’t surprise you that I actually thought of some more after I pressed the button to submit my questions… But I resisted the urge to comment again. I did find posing and pondering the questions to be therapeutic though and look forward to finding out more about “Part 2” of Project IF later this month.

One week from tomorrow (Saturday, April 17, 2010) Abby will turn 7 months old, Sean will have just over 2 months left in Kindergarten and we will celebrate the life of our daughter/sister Molly on what would have been her second birthday. It’s hard to believe that almost two years have passed since our Molly-girl was born and died. We will have 4:00 p.m. mass said for Molly at our church that afternoon (anyone local is certainly welcome to attend/join us there). We will also be visiting her grave that day and having a small gathering with family members in our home that evening. We appreciate you sending some extra thoughts and prayers our way as we remember Molly in the coming week, though not a day goes by that I don’t think of and miss our baby girl.

Lastly, tomorrow (Saturday, April 10, 2010) is my 3rd Blogoversary! 🙂 It has been a very full three years and if you told me then what our life and family would look like now it would have been a stretch for me to fathom the road that led us here. I continue to be grateful to all of you who have walked with me over the past three years, whether you have been with me since the beginning or joined me on the path somewhere along the way.

Though I don’t post here on my blog nearly as often as I did when I started it back in April 2007, when Bob and I were in the midst of our first IVF cycle, I still find it to be an incredible outlet through which I can share and process my thoughts and feelings about my life and my experience building, nuturing and growing our family. As I have shared here before, I also never anticipated the connections I would get to make and the relationships that would form the more I learned about and became rooted in our ALI community here in the blogosphere.

So I thank you my family members and my friends (both those whom I know “in real life” and those whom I may have never met in person, however feel like we have known each other for many years) for reading, for “listening,” for praying, for commenting, for laughing, for crying and everything in between with me for three years and counting! May God bless you and your loved ones today and always.