Staying Sane While TTC

Well, another cycle came and went and I'm still not pregnant.  I DO know that it hasn't been that long since we've started trying, and I'm trying to be patient, I swear.  It's tough though.  It feels like it's been forever already!  Remember, when you wonder why I'm so antsy, that it's been 4-5 months PLUS about 2 years that I've wanted this to happen.  We just waited to start trying because life was unstable for so long.  My feeling about TTC (trying to conceive) is that if/when you want to be pregnant and it hasn't happened, it sucks, no matter the circumstances.  Whether it's been years or days since you started trying, whether you have known fertility issues or don't know if you have issues, whether you tried all thirty days of your cycle or just one day, whether you are 25 years old or 45 years old...  it is a hard thing to want to be pregnant and want to have a baby and not be there.

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A couple weeks ago I was talking with a guy I know that adopted a child last year after he and his wife tried for a while to conceive naturally and it didn't happen for them.  He gave me a great piece of advice, which was to look at the whole thing as a PROCESS.  This really resonated with me, because I tend to get hung up on the day by day of it all and the pressure of trying as hard as I can to make it happen each cycle or each time we try.  For some reason, hearing that it's all part of a bigger process to start a family helped me to think of each day as being a useful part of a whole.  I try not to look at the days, weeks, and months in each cycle ticking by as "wasted" if it isn't happening.  I know that we are hopefully closer to the goal the further into this we go.

The other thing that keeps me sane is knowing that when it does happen, I think it will feel so right at that time.  To compare, I was extremely antsy to get married to my husband when we were dating.  We didn't get engaged until 3-4 years after we started dating, and then were engaged for a year before the actual wedding.  I remember thinking it was an eternity back then, but when the wedding actually happened, it felt like it was at the perfect time and I wondered what I had been so worried about all those years, because life just seemed to fall into place and I was where I was supposed to be right then.  I'm hoping when I get pregnant and have a baby, it will be like that.

So those are the two big mental things I think of to keep me sane.

Other things I can do to stay sane in the meantime:

Hang with my friends!

Snuggle my dog.  Like I need an excuse...

Watch my husband snuggle my dog.  That always makes me smile :)

Take in all the knowledge I can from my pregnant and mommy friends.

Eat things I won't be able to later if I'm preggo.

Drink things I won't be able to later if I'm preggo...

Do yoga.

Run?  Actually yes.  I ran the other night for the first time in weeks! 

I didn't go that far, and it felt like I was made of lead, but hey, I'll take it.

 

And of course...  blog!

Any other ideas of things I should do to stay sane??