I want to talk about my experience with Daily Strength this year.  I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, and I probably won't, since we have all gone through so many of the same emotions.  But if you are inclined to feel bad, please don't.  You know how hard it is to be in our boat. I was very active on here while I was doing my IVF last summer and fall, and then when I took a break from the reproductive arts, I took a break from DS.  This January I came back because I was starting up again.  I started to look up all my cyber-friends, to see how they were doing.  To my, well, what should be great pleasure but was really devastating horror, I saw that more than 50% of them were pregnant.  And a few even had BABIES.  Are you kidding me?  Babies!?  They had shared pictures of ultrasounds, newborns, and most tantalizingly, big bellies.  There was a new support group designation Pregnancy after Invertility/Miscarriage.  But how could they still be linked to me, back in the sad lands of Infertility? I was crushed.  I immediately left my desk and to go for a walk.  I wanted to go as far as I could - to get away from my feelings.  I found a bookstore and walked to the very back section, where I tried to bury myself in a book.  I hated to have to come out of there at all, and when I did, I passed by a book about "Pregnancy after 35."  I'm 35 and, you know, not pregnant.  I crumpled some more.  Before I could go back to the office, I felt the intense urge to eat a whole cake, maybe a whole pot full of macaroni and cheese.  Maybe 90 snickers bars.  I hope that I settled for a Diet Coke, but I don't really remember. I felt the shock of betrayal.  You know that I am rooting for everybody, and I want to be really happy when every one of us gets pregnant.  And in part I am.  But you know about the other part, which does not use logic or generosity of spirit.  I felt tremendous panic that my one safe place, my sanctuary, where all of my friends were going through exactly the same thing as I was, had turned into a place where lots of my friends were pregnant.  Just like the real world.  I cried and cried.   I despaired that everyone else was pulling themselves out of infertility, but I was still here, still trying, still agonizing. It took some time to get over that.  For a month I just used DS as a place to get my feelings out and sort them out through writing.  But yesterday I had a really good experience that changed everything. Out of boredom, I decided to look at my friends' profiles again, to see what they were up to.  I thought I was strong enough, since I was prepared this time.  I clicked on avatar after avatar, and up came pictures of ultrasounds and discussions of amniosyntesis (sp?).  But then I got to CarrieAnn's site, with pictures of her newborn, and her original profile caught my eye.  It said, "Married for 7 years, TTC for 6."  And I remembered: these women are not my rivals: they are me!  I became so very, very thankful that CarrieAnn could finally get her baby.   And then I saw that KerryW had just found out that her baby is going to be a girl.  KerryW, who was so supportive to me back when I started, and whose pictures of gardens had convinced me last year that she would be a nurturing, creative mother.  Now she gets her daughter!  The real message is that it can all work out.  The darkest hour is just before the two pink lines.  We're all just in different time zones. I feel so much better to have hope.  And I feel so much better to be loving you all again.  That's the only way to feel about all of you, my sisters.