"Strength is born in the deep silence of long-suffering hearts; not amid joy."

The above quote by Arthur Helps never meant much to a girl like myself. Sure, I've always considered myself to be a strong individual, as life has a way of wearing you down and making you better than you were before by meeting and overcoming various trials.  The thing is: life has been pretty good to me. I'm a happy person who has not experienced *too* much heartache, although I've had lots of interesting surprises.  :)

I met my husband in early 2001 and we fell hard and fast for each other. We were married in July and our son, who I'll refer to as DS1, was born seven months later.  A beautiful, healthy, Depo-Provera baby boy.  A wonderful surprise.

Fast forward to 2005 and after a month of not trying and not preventing pregnancy, we happily found out that we were expecting our second son, DS2.  Another surprise, but not so much.  It was time to give DS1 a sibling and a little brother was a wonderful gift for him.

Pregnancy has always been an easy feat for DH and I. We were the ones who jokingly told people, "All DH had to do was walk past me and voila! I was pregnant." Ugh. Just knowing I was the type of person who used to say that sort of thing makes me want to defriend myself.

Which I suppose brings me to the point of why my fingers are moving across my keyboard right now, as well as why the above quote has a special meaning to me today.  This blog is about us trying to have a baby. Actually trying. Planned out...perfectly.  Except that it's not going perfectly. In fact, it's not really going at all. This is hard work. And it kind of sucks. Who knew?  Not this girl.

A friend of mine has been trying to have a baby for a lot longer than me. A LOT longer. I have a hard time feeling sorry for myself each failed cycle knowing that she's had five and a half times the failed cycles that I've had. Also, she's trying ttc baby number one. I already have two beautiful children.  The reason I bring her up is because she finds blogging about ttc to be therapeutic. At this point, I could use an outlet.  Most of the time, I feel sad and frustrated. It's also very lonely.  I hope that by sharing my experience, it can help me to organize the feelings and thoughts that so often cloud my brain and keep me awake at night.

So, welcome to my blog! Whether you found it by chance or by invitation, I'm happy to have you along for this crazy ride.  Hopefully, it's one that ends with me expanding my family by two feet. :)