Enduring on our difficult roads.

Well I don't have any solutions for you because I still struggle with very similar feelings myself. Aching heart or lonely road? Some days it's both. Your heart doesn't just ache, sometimes it feels completely shattered. And not only do you feel like you're the only one who struggles with infertility, but when thinking about your future with no children, you feel completely alone then too and your future looks like a long bleak, lonely road.
I shut down when other women start talking about their pregnancies. And it feels like it happens often, and I hate it. When I find out someone is pregnant, I avoid them as much as I can. And sometimes I push the fact that they're pregnant out of my mind because it hurts too much to think about, and when I see them again, it hits me all over again as if I had just found out, because I had made myself almost forget about it. I know it's weird, but when I struggle with something that's what I do, I often push it out of my mind so I don't have to think about it and sometimes forget about it till it's right in my face again.
I really struggled when I first realized that pregnancy wasn't going to come easily to me as well. However it wasn't until right after our 3rd anniversary that it really began to hit me hard. Don't get me wrong, before that I struggled a great deal, but after 3 years I hit a whole new level and I was deeply depressed. I got to the point that I couldn't even hold a baby, because I would break down every time. That hasn't gone away yet. And our marriage began to suffer during that time. As much as Shalum wanted children, he didn't quite understand my maternal longing. We fought quite a bit, and he said some things that really hurt, because he simply didn't quite understand how I was feeling. Over the years I have had so many feelings of inadequacy, struggling with self-worth, thinking I had done something wrong. I've even been told from a priesthood leader that I need to look inside myself and figure out what I'm doing wrong and change. That felt like a slap in the face. Now after 7 1/2 years of marriage, I still get deeply depressed from time to time. I don't want to leave the house, I don't want to see anyone, I dread going to church each Sunday. Going to church is always the hardest when I'm really struggling. Seeing all the families, babies, pregnant women. Being taught the importance of families, hearing testimonies of how being a mother is the greatest blessing in their lives, while I'm sitting there wondering why I'm not able to have this blessing of all blessings. Why am I excluded? What did I do wrong?
Distancing ourselves from those who are pregnant is our way of protecting ourselves. Because it just hurts too much. And I believe it will always hurt. Even if our dreams one day come true and we're able to have a child, I still believe that looking back, our hearts will still feel the heartache for the years we had to suffer. I think the only thing we can do is trust in our Heavenly Father, and work on letting go of our pain because our Savior has already suffered it. (Easy to say, hard to do). And if we never are able to have children in this life, I know that if we follow our Savior and do all that we can to return home to our Heavenly Father, that we will be blessed with all of our righteous desires. And that is what gets me through. Some days it's the only thing that gets me through. Which makes me so grateful to have the testimony that I do, to know that it is possible. My heart breaks for those who don't have the gospel in their lives and don't know of our Heavenly Father's plan. Because it really is a plan of happiness. It just takes a lot of trials and heartache to get to it. So maybe I do have a solution, faith and hard work.
~Candice