It's not easy

It's not easy to share the way trying to have a baby has made me feel. A lot of people don't get it, and that isn't bad, it just means they don't know how to respond and it can get awkward. There are many different emotions this situation brings, most people assume you must feel one particular way but I could be feeling any one of a dozen things. So I instead mostly avoid talking about it, and that's not good either. So I feel like venting today, and maybe my blog is a good way to do that because there is no need for anyone to respond.
I have definately learned over the last 2.5 years that control of our potential parenthood lies in God's hands and so most months I have increasing peace about the future of our family, whether that be two or more members. But it's still not easy. The days that I have a hard time with are when my period is really late, just late enough to hope.
At first I was just a little too optimistic and if I was 3 days late I took a pregnancy test. Then I began to be a little more realistic, but that's when the really late periods started. It's happened four times. 8 months into our trying I was 7 days late and I was convinced I was pregnant, even though my pregnancy test was negative. I searched the internet for why and I read about false negatives and that tests can't really be relied on until you are 2 weeks late, but I didn't have a chance to wait that long. Because I had been so optimistic I was almost just as convinced now that I had to have had a miscarriage. That was definately not easy. 5 months later I was 7 days late again, although this time I instead considered this may be a cycle issue because I couldn't handle the emotions of the other possibility again. Thankfully a really late period didn't happen again until 11 months later but that time it was 12 days late. I ignored my own warnings to wait until the 14th day to do a pregnancy test but each day past the 7th day late my hope just inflated exponentially. There is no other option other than to crash when you've allowed yourself to get your hopes up that high.
Now, it's happened again, 10 days late and as much as I tried I couldn't help but allow a few hopeful thoughts in. The first 5 days I chalked it up to coming off the fertility drugs, my cycle returning to it's erratic state. But then the words of the doctor played through my head, 'sometimes when people take a break from the drugs, they let go of the pressure to get pregnant, the drugs are still somewhat in their system, and that's when a lot of women get pregnant.' I had enough restraint to not do a test this time but I couldn't keep out all hope. The fall wasn't nearly so bad on the 11th day, but the same questions run through my mind everytime as I wallow in disappointment.
If there are no answers how will I know when to stop hoping? I've had no answers from God or doctors, not a 'you can't' and not a 'you will'. I have my own ideas of when I no longer want to be giving birth (age-wise and health-wise) but that's about 5 years away! What if there never will be a concrete 'yes' or 'no'? How do I survive not knowing until I pull the plug on this myself 5-ish years from now. I feel like I'm hoping too much for something I haven't even been promised, and that that hope might keep me from realizing my purpose. Yet without a clear 'no' can I ever stop hoping? And on days when I find peace that it may be my purpose not to have kids it doesn't last long before I feel guilty, like I might just be being selfish. Like the freedoms we have and would continue to have being childless are selfish. It's being neither here not there that drives me crazy.
Who's to say I won't get answers before those years are up? I know I've been and probably still am being taught something through this. And I'm glad for what I've learned. I just feel like with no answers I'm standing with me feet on two paths, two paths in opposite directions, and because I'm just standing still I'm going nowhere. It's not easy, but no one promised it would be.