Bloggers Unite: Project IF
Beyond the book news, the other exciting thing I’ve been sitting on is a project I’m working on with Resolve that actually involves all of you.
Since I was honoured last year with their first best blog award at Resolve’s Night of Hope, I get to introduce and help organize Resolve’s spring advocacy project, which will choose this year’s winner of the Hope Award for Best Blog at the 2010 Night of Hope.
Did that get your attention?
Good.
Participating in the newly created Project IF is quite simple and will be held in two parts. Today kicks off the first part and the second part will go up on April 21st, just in time for NIAW, National Infertility Awareness Week (April 24–May 1).
All you have to do to participate in the first part is leave a comment below stating your biggest “what if” in regards to infertility: what if I never get to experience pregnancy? What if we can’t gather enough money to fund another adoption? What if we didn’t choose the best clinic? What if my child feels strange about being created via IVF?
In other words, take out one of the “what ifs” that keep knocking around inside your heart, keeping you awake at night, and allow the larger community to commiserate, empathize and help you carry your burden by reading your words.
The What IF List (in other words, this post and the comment section below) is open from now until April 16th. On the 16th, the list will close and 10 what ifs will be chosen to be used in part two of Project IF and directions will be given on April 21st to explain how to participate in the second part.
All blogs and bloggers who participate in Project IF will be eligible to be considered for the Hope Award for Best Blog, presented at the 2010 Night of Hope.
Let the what ifs begin, and may this project bring strength in numbers; in the commonalities that run throughout the community despite our unique diagnoses, experiences, and circumstances.
Please help spread word about this project via your own blog. If you use Twitter, the hashtag is #projectIF. Unlike last year’s Advocacy Day which necessitated a trip to Washington, D.C., this project can be completed in the comfort of your home and will hopefully have an effect on changing the way the general public thinks about infertility as well as bringing together our community.
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What if my third IVF doesn’t work? What if it does and I loose another baby…
What if I’m never happy again? What if I lose my husband, too?
What if we exhaust all of our TTC finances and I still never get to experience motherhood?
What if we have this baby and I’m a horrible mother and regret ever having a baby?
what if my one chance at IVF doesn’t work??
What if I ruin my marriage with my efforts to create a family?
What if we waited too long to start trying (even if we only waited till I was 26)? What if my body is really shutting down and I am starting menopause at 30?
What IF my adoptive child shuns me when he’s older?
What IF my POF leads to other health issues?
What IF I can’t get past the harsh and inconsiderate words of all of the mothers who gave birth?
What if this pain never ends?
What if I can never give my husband the children he dreams of? Will I always be enough for him?
What if the pregnancy I lost is the only one we ever manage?
What if I do get pregnant again, but can’t enjoy it because I’m so scared of losing another one?
What if I never stop thinking of myself as defective?
What if we stopped using birth control 15 years ago when we first found each other, rather than waiting till now?
So, late again. I do a lot of the what if at times.
My latest is not just what if parenting never happens but what if it does and will I be good enough.
What if we hadn’t lost our daughter in the summer of 2004? Would we still have had Gabe or would our family be completely different?
What if God didn’t keep the promise I thought He gave me in Psalm 113:9?
What if I’m too fat to become pregnant at all?
I have the answer: We will all survive. It will be able to move on and be happy. You just have to allow yourself to do so.
This is why I’m not gonna give a “What If”
What if…I don’t come out of this experience happier and better of?
What if…I finally have a chid and my child hates me? or I am not the mom I always wanted to be?
What if…I can make a difference?
What if…I can find happiness, joy, and peace in the midst of the pain of infertility?
What if…people would never utter the phrase “God must not mean for you to have children” ever again?
What if I hadn’t had a wonderfully supportive spouse who was willing to go to end of the earth (and the end of the bank account) to acheive our dream? Children weren’t a priority for him, but he knew how much it meant to me.
What if I had stayed with the infertility specialist who ignored my PCOS symptoms and listened to him when he told me I only needed to lose 40 pounds and go on clomid? What if my new doctor hadn’t finally diagnosed me properly? How many babies could I have lost?
What if I can never stop feeling like a victim of infertility? What if I always worry that people are judging me for wanting more kids? What if I can’t handle more kids?
What if some new “emergency” keeps coming up, and our emotions & finances are too drained to afford the IUF treatments that we need to have for our babies to become a reality?
What if your soulmate can’t birth your children?
What if I would have given up?
What if I have to bury another perfect baby whose only thing wrong with them was being born too soon.
What if I never get over the sadness of depriving my amazing husband from becoming a father?
What IF the pain and torment of each passing month never goes away?
What IF I’m meant not to have a child?
What IF I can’t find an RE who is willing to treat me with my multiple IVF failures?
What if the pregnancy I aborted at 18 was my one chance to be a mom.
What IF I had not given into the fear or losing my uterus to have surgery to remove my fibroids? What IF I had started TTC earlier?
What IF I let myself acknowledge my true feelings about our infertility? Will I ever be able to close the door on the grief that pours out?
What if my children experience IF like we did? What if I’m never a grandmother? I don’t want them to ever experience the hurt and losses we did.
What IF I didn’t miscarry the three times I did? I would be sitting here 13 weeks pregnant with a 9 month old and a 3 year old… How would I/We be different?
What if I let myself believe that a pregnancy is possible and I let positive thinking lead me, instead of putting up walls and isolating myself?
what IF i am not on the right path?
What if my mother in law asked me about the progress of my career path and my other passions outside of family, instead of just always asking “when am i going to get good news”?
What if I stopped dodging questions about why we don’t have children…and was just honest and up front with people?
What IF I punch the next person that says, ‘well now that you have adopted a baby, you will finally get pregnant and have one of your own.’
What IF I work too hard at my schooling/career to help me through the pain of infertility and then when our baby does come I feel inconvenienced?
What if I only mother other peoples children who constantly remind me that I’m not mom.
What if I become so resentful that I choose to no longer do foster care and children are placed in homes without enough love and support?
What if the children I have loved are placed in abusive situations when I could have saved them? What if I can’t save them?
What if following my gut leads me to a childless place?
What if I was in charge of my life again?
what IF I hate my body, no matter how thin or beautiful I get because I know the insides are not all they’re supposed to be?
What if we are wasting our time, money and sanity trying for another when we should really be focusing that energy on the child we already worked so hard to have?
What IF nobody ever calls me mama, or cries out in the night only wanting my comfort?
What IF I spend years trying to have a baby, and then we have one or adopt one, and he or she dies? (this is true fear of mine)
What IF I finally do get pregnant and nobody wants to come to my baby shower, because I couldn’t bring myself to go to all of theirs?
What IF my husband realizes that I’m the problem and he could divorce me and find someone else to give him children?
What IF the only baby I ever have has four legs and a tail?
What IF we buy a big house that is filled with empty rooms?
What IF my niece has a baby before I do?
What IF I eventually have a child, but the bitterness and pain from years of infertility make it hard to love him or her?
What IF there is a light at the end of the tunnel, but I’m afraid to walk to it because I’m comfortable and I’ve found my place in the land of IF?
What IF I never get to feel the trill of my child moving inside of me?
What IF I never get to be a mother?
What IF the closest I get to motherhood is “Aunt”, “Godmother”, or “Stepmother” (to an 18 year old who hates me), or “Pet owner”?
What IF my body can handle a pregnancy or parenting afterward? What IF I am just not healthy enough?
What IF I just can’t cope with it all?
What IF the closest I come to having a child is a missed period?
Opps.. Typo ( don’t be surprised)
What IF I never get to feel the THRILL of my child moving inside of me?
What IF getting pregnant with my daughter was all a fluke, because of coming off birth control pills and i would have dealt with primary infertility also.
What IF i will never be able to get pregnant again, I went through 1 year & 2 back to back miscarriages to get pregnant with my son.It’s been almost 3 years of trying for #3.
What if…I do get pregnant, but forget to happy about it because of fear of another miscarriage?
What if I’m only a stepmom, never a mom?
What if I don’t get to feel the love a mother has for her children?
What if I stop fighting the incessant thoughts that because I was born without a uterus I am not a woman?
What if I relapse in my eating disorder and starve myself because I’m so mad and sad that my body has betrayed me in this most primal way?
What if I continue to feel too scared/shy/inadequate/not “normal” that I never open myself up to dating and finding a husband?
What if my sister will never get to be my gestational surrogate? What if I never adopt?
What if graduating medical school and being a doctor doesn’t fill this hole in my heart?
What if I don’t feel accomplished or successful until I become a mother?
What if I never become a mom even though it’s the ONLY thing I’ve ever wanted to be?
What if I never get any answers as to WHY we can’t get pregnant?
What if I am always wondering What if….?
What if we all decided to shun the cultural pressure to be part of the Mommy Club and start feeling “whole” without children? Could that ever happen?