Trying to Deal

The first night I was told about my infertility, the bishop of my church came over to see me. He asked me if I was mad at God. I could honestly answer at that moment that I wasn't. There was no point at being mad at God since He was the only one that could get me through it. I said that being mad at Him wouldn't make him say "Oh, you're mad at me! Don't be mad, here, you can get pregnant. There, is that better?" And for a while I honestly stood by that. However, as time when by, my sister & friends got pregnant, I had a scare with ovarian cancer, and NOTHING was happening with any solution I started to lose faith. I'm the kind of person where when there's a problem, I want either an immediate solution, or I want a solution with a plan of action in place. I can't just sit there idly & not know what I need to do next. Unfortunately, that's just what happened.
In looking at our options we basically had 5 things we could do to solve the infertility
1) Just accept it - Basically accept that we were never meant to be parents.
2) Foster Parents - it's the cheapest option if we want to be parents, since we would take the child(ren) in and then the cost to adopt would be significantly reduced.
3) Adoption - More expensive, and then there's no telling how soon we would get a child since we'd be placed on a waiting list & have to wait for someone else to decide that we were good enough to give their baby to. No telling how long that would take!
4) Surrogacy - Even more expensive, Have someone carry a baby for us. Either using a donor embryo, or the surrogate's egg & Sam's sperm. So I basically get left out of the entire deal...
5) In-Vetro Fertilization - My favorite option but definitely the most expensive, I get to have the baby. No matter if we use my little sister as a donor, or a random donor's egg or even a donor embryo.


No matter what option we chose, aside from the first, we were facing the heartache of either never being chosen, waiting for months, possibly years until we got a child or could adopt, or handing out thousands upon thousands of dollars to adopt, have a surrogate, or me go through IVF which could then still end in heartbreak if the pregnancy didn't take, and then we are out all that money, and more miserable than before. Adding to that, it seemed that the I lost the supportive husband that went to all the appointments with me at first, the husband that was there with me through all the tears. Now that we had these choices to make, I was alone. Sam just seemed to distance himself from it all. He didn't want to do foster parenting because he wasn't sure he could take the pain of having to give the child back if that was the decision of the courts. But then he didn't want to adopt because he was afraid he wouldn't be able to connect with the child. Then having a surrogate or going through IVF was is so expensive it's just out of the question. So I started feeling very alone. I started getting the idea in my mind that, yes, Sam wants a family... He just doesn't want one with me! We have these options, but none of them are solutions for him, the only way he wants a family with me is if I can have a baby like every other normal woman out there... naturally! I got it into my head that eventually, he would just leave me because I couldn't provide the family I know he wants. I even started having dreams about it (and still do to this day). Dreams where he would come to me and say, "Sarah, I love you, but I want a family and you just can't give that to me. I'm sorry, but I want a divorce."
Between the days, weeks, & months going by with no solution or plan in sight, seeing so many women around me becoming pregnant & having babies, and the ever growing feeling that I was alone in this and being so sure that Sam would leave me anyway, I slipped into a deep depression. It came to the worst point in 2009, about a year after the diagnosis. I didn't want to do anything any more. I'd play The SIMS and just get lost in it for hours on end, or  I just wanted to stay in bed & be left alone. I became distant with Sam. I stopped going to church every Sunday. It hurt to much to sit there and watch the families during sacrament. I would just sit there & stare at the new babies. I hated watching the fathers with their children the most. I was the most hurt that I was ruining Sam's life because I could never give him those moments. On the weekdays it got to the point were I would wait until the very moment possible before I could finally convince myself that I needed to get out of bed & go to work because I had a job to do and people were depending on me to be there to do it. Most days it was my job that I was even able to get out of bed... I didn't want to face the day & reality that was now my life. I contemplated suicide, but not the conventional way. Not in that I would hurt myself, but maybe I'd get in a freak accident, or be a victim of a robbery at 7-11... weird things like that. My depression got so bad that Sam expected me to just up & leave. And I honestly thought about it. I didn't want to keep ruining his life anymore. I figured I could just pack my things & go, and I didn't think he would care. I started pushing him away. I guess I figured if I pushed him away, and he did leave, then it was my doing and not his, and it would hurt less if he did want to leave me.
Then the other shoe dropped. It was the lowest point of my depression. One night my little sister called and I mentioned that it seemed that Sam & I were in different worlds. She said something to her husband & his advice was to just leave it alone, not to talk to my husband about it because it would probably just make things worse. I didn't listen to my brother-in-law. That night when I was laying in bed, Sam came in to lay down & go to sleep. I asked, "Sam, do you love me?" He said "Yes." I pressed a little further: "Are you in love with me?" Then came a pause. "Sam?" Still nothing. I repeated the question again. After a silence that took forever came a faint "No." I knew it was coming, but I still couldn't believe it. I jumped out of bed & turned the light on. After a heated discussion Sam spent the night on the couch & I stayed in bed trying to make sense of everything, trying to figure out what was going to come next. Divorce? Was I right all along & Sam really did want to leave me because of my problem?
The following morning, I tried to go to work. I knew I couldn't call in to take a personal day because I didn't want to stay home with all the "happy" photos of us on the wall. Unfortunately I didn't last more than an hour at work. One of my coworkers just looked at my face, asked if I was alright, and I started sobbing. I was able to gather myself together for a while, then another coworker asked if I was ok. Again, I lost it, this time my supervisor saw me. I explained as best I could between hysterical tears what happened & was sent home. I drove around for a while not wanting to go back to the house. After about an hour of aimless driving, I just went home. I was mentally and physically exhausted from little to no sleep the night before & still trying to wrap my head around everything that had happened. Eventually Sam got home & said he made an appointment to talk to the bishop & asked if I wanted to go. I wasn't sure since I didn't know if he meant to tell the bishop he was done, but I decided if he was there was really nothing I could do about it & it's best to know now then just keep wondering, so I went. The bishop talked to Sam first, then me, then both of us together. Based on what each of us had told him, our bishop concluded that we still cared deeply about one another. He believed that we could save our marriage if that's what we wanted to do, and we both agreed.
We began seeing a councilor. We went every other Wednesday for a couple hours at a time. At this point my older sister was getting remarried & the wedding was getting close. I had quit wearing my wedding ring the day Sam said said he was not in love with me anymore. I gave it to Sam and told him that if he decided he wanted me to have it back, he could give it to me, but he had to be the one to make the decision. At this point neither of our families knew what was going on between us & I didn't want to say anything now. (Especially since my older sister turned into bridezilla & DEMANDED that no one do ANYTHING to ruin her big day... even if it was her 2nd big day...) So I told Sam that I wanted us to wear our rings to keep up appearances. He agreed, and we went on our trip to Michigan for the wedding. It was a pretty good trip and we actually had a better time that we had expected. Upon returning, I took my ring back off & handed it to Sam, he handed it right back to me to start wearing again. We went to another session with the councilor, and decided that we were back on track enough that we could stop going. From that point on, things started getting better. Not a complete miraculous turn around, it took some time, but I'm definitely in a much better, brighter place now, than I was then!