The staircase

I was randomly watching the news on tv last night and a commercial flashed by (I can't even remember what it was for) that had this quote from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.:

"Faith is taking the first step, even when you don't see the whole staircase."

I don't think of myself as having had a lot of faith throughout the last few years, but this just kind of quietly hit me as such a good description of what this whole experience with infertility has been about. And I guess it convinced me that I have indeed had some amount of faith along the way.

Way back when, we took the first step. In retrospect, this was pretty naively done, thinking we knew what the staircase would like like if we could see: do IVF, get pregnant, have a baby. Done. Maybe the more amazing thing is that we kept taking the next step and the next step after that.

Who would have known that the staircase would have had so many twists and turns? Who would have known that one branch of it led to a locked door - well, really several locked doors (my non-responder status, our Trisomy 18 and subsequent D&C)? Who would have known that there was a crazy gap in the staircase that we had to leap over to get to donor eggs and who would have known that my sister would be standing there? And then who would have known that following the staircase lately would have surreally landed us right back at the bottom - with an 'old fashioned' pregnancy with my own, unmedicated eggs and some random sex. And I still don't think we know what this staircase really looks like. We can't see all of it even now.

It really is amazing sometimes, when you think about all we've collectively been through, that we all just keep going. And that's not to denigrate those who decide to get off the staircase when they've had enough. I totally understand that.

Anyhoo, not to get all Jack Handy Deep Thoughts on you on this fine Friday evening, but I thought I'd just share this awesome quote. I hope everybody has a fantastic weekend!