Seven hundred thirty days...

give or take. It has been two years this month since we started trying to have a baby. Two years is a long time to wait for something you desperately want. During the last two years of my life I have experienced the happiest moments of my 26 years on this Earth, and also the most devastating. Seeing my two tiny babies heartbeats was an experience I will cherish forever. There are no words to express the beauty and wonder of those moments. As there are no words to describe their loss. I have lost not only my two angels, but lost others who were so very important to me. People who I imagined would be in my children's lives influencing and shaping who they become. I have also lost the person I was when this journey started.

I recently visited with a very important person in my life whose path is quite similar, she has lost one more angel than we have. We were discussing how much we've changed from when our journeys began. I was so naive and innocent thinking throwing out my birth control pills would immediately result in pregnancy. How foolish I was. That person is gone now. Replaced by someone who lives her life in two week increments. Two weeks of treatment, followed by two weeks of waiting, followed by two more weeks of waiting for bloodtests when you're pregnant, or two more weeks of treatment when you're not. I have seen my babies grow from their very earliest stages to nearly the second trimester, marveling at the incredible force that is life. I have twice felt a loss so powerful and deep it cuts through your soul. This has changed who I am.

I feel like a different person now. I don't identify with who I once was. I don't feel that she was ever me, or her I. Memories from her seem to me to be experienced in the third person. I watch them as though a spectator. My entire life seems to be summed up in the experiences of the last two years. Nothing before that seems to matter anymore. I have learned my strengths. I have felt my weaknesses. I have done things the old me would have never imagined doing, I have seen things the old me never fathomed existed. There are moments when I am bitter for the change forced upon me. Moments when I am sure that life can be no more unfair to anyone than it seems to have been on me. Yet, every moment of the last seven hundred and thirty or so days has prepared me for what lies ahead. For that I am thankful.

My journey is far from over. When my child/ren come into my life, however they are meant to be, the person I am today, is the person I want to raise them. I am hardened a little by this journey and although it seems an odd quality for a mother, I know it will allow me to better parent my children. I now know myself, this person I have become, better than most people truly know themselves. I know true love, sacrifice, patience, and perseverance. I know how to pick yourself up when you're down, and how to comfort yourself when you're lost. I know how to grieve and how to rejoice. These are the lessons I will bestow upon my children.