More than just a Puppy

I realized on my way home last night that I was feeling like the girl in Mean Girls with all of the feelings.  You know which one:

{Image from HERE}

And that really is how I have been feeling.  I am the perfect combination of sad events and lots of hormones and it is DANGEROUS.  It's really only dangerous if you don't want to witness me bursting into tears over a commercial or my coworkers or the idea of the puppies dying or mentally disabled people (all of which have brought me close to tears in the last couple of days).

When Phil and I decided to get a puppy, it was supposed to be like a celebration.  We knew that we wouldn't be getting the dog until after I was done with all the thyroid cancer treatment stuff.  And since we wouldn't be able to move towards having a baby for at least a year, the puppy was kind of like a surrogate baby.

I waited impatiently to get through the second surgery and the recovery process, then through the low-iodine diet and hypothyroidism.  Through the radioactive iodine and the whole body scan.  Two days after we get the results of my scan, the puppies were born.  And a few days after they were born, we decided we would be getting Lincoln.

It felt like our luck was changing and that maybe the hard times were behind us.  We figured the pendulum was beginning to swing in the other direction, in our favor.  As I mentioned before, I was having a hard time accepting that things were actually starting to get better, but I was slowly coming to grips with the fact that maybe we were done with the sadness and entering into a new, Spring-full chapter.

Then the puppies died.

And it felt like the pendulum was still swinging in the wrong direction.  Maybe things weren't getting better, afterall and I was right to be hesitant to feel relieved.  Maybe I am cursed and destined to have all these hard trials.

That was a horrible feeling.

And then I got just really sad.  The dog wasn't just a dog, I had kind of made it a symbol for all the things that I want to move towards: being done with cancer, moving on with life, and having babies.  For how sad I was about the puppy dying, I started to worry about all of the loss and possible heartache that could await us when we do start trying to have a family:

-  IVF can be a super emotional and heartbreaking process.  We could end up spending thousands of dollars just to come out empty-handed.  And with a lot of heartbreak.
-  Or I could get pregnant and have a miscarriage. 
-  Or if we decide to move towards adoption, there is a whole new level of potential heartache there.  We could think we have a baby and have a birth mother change her mind.  Or it could take years to find a baby. 

Thinking about all of the potential loss and sadness that could be awaiting us just seems unbearable at the moment and it all came rushing to me Tuesday night.

But the only way to avoid heartache and loss is to never try for things.  Of course your expectations go up when you are trying to have a baby or, in this case, get a puppy.  Because for the most part, things work out the way they are supposed to.  When they don't, it is disappointing.  But not trying for things that you want in life is no way to live.  And I would hate to think that I am so afraid of loss and sadness that I become unable to live my life.

It is worth the risk of being disappointed.  And when things finally work out, I know the past disappointments will be more than worth it.

{Image from HERE}