Graduation Day

I was officially released by my RE yesterday and have my first OB appointment next Tuesday. I cannot believe this day has finally come!

I remember the first time I heard someone say that they had "graduated" from their RE. I thought it was a cute way of phrasing it, but, I never thought much about it. Until yesterday. I posted on a message board that I had graduated and someone joked that she didn't remember that I had been in school, and, it got me thinking.

Our journey to have a baby has been almost 4 years long. Yes, we started with the RE 3 years ago (May 5, 2006, my 37th birthday, to be exact), but, really, we started trying to have a baby as soon as we got married, which will be 4 years next month.

Coincidentally, this is the same amount of time it takes most people to earn a college degree. We go off to college innocent and young and come out more mature and with a few more years on us and a few more battle scars, but ready to face the world. Many of us enter sure of what the outcome will be and find that we change paths while there, sometimes multiple times. What we are doing during those years becomes our whole world, even though we know that it will end at some point. Many of us struggle to pay the bills, but find a way because we know this is something we have to do for our future. We experiment, sometimes pushing the boundaries of what we ever thought we were capable of doing. We meet people along the way who help us learn and grow and listen when we need to cry or vent or share our joy, and these people go on to become lifelong friends. Most importantly, we learn more about ourselves during these years than we have at any time previously in our lives. We never forget those years, but we take what we learn and move into the world, ready to embrace the next steps.

Reread that paragraph and think of it in terms of my (or your) journey through the world of infertility. All of those statements still apply, so, yes, I think graduation perfectly explains where I am right now!

One of my first posts after starting this blog compared cycling to going to school and, you know what, I really do feel like I've gone through an extensive education process about myself and the science that got me to where I am today.

I will proudly and honorably accept this degree, with which I hope to plaster my walls in the form of pictures of our baby!