Looking Back

What a lame title.

Yesterday I had lunch with a potential partner for my business. She's younger than I, but our lives track in so many ways. She admitted during lunch that she left a monolithic Portland-based sports company in order to start her own company so she and her husband could have flexibility when they started their family.

Only trouble is they have just discovered that they are having trouble starting one.

Sound familiar?

For the first time, I - at 34 weeks pregnant with my second - was clearly on the other side of the IF fence.

I tried to commiserate. I am an open book when it comes to our struggles. How timed sex sucks. How hard IF can be on a marriage. How lonely it can seem. How, yes, I too wanted to kick people in the shins when they asked us, "when are you having kids?"

But I wanted her to know that - although it doesn't seem so now - if she really wants to be, she WILL be a mom someday. How every last person I "know" who struggled is now a mother. (I did not explain the blog and blog friends and how many of you there once were). How she has to believe in this. Even though it is so very hard to do so at this point in their journey.

Her situation broke my heart. I so clearly saw myself four years ago reflected in her.

Like many of you, I want to close my door on IF and miscarriages and white-knuckled pregnancies. In all likelihood, I will in a few short weeks when our second daughter arrives.

But I don't want to foresake all those who are beginning to struggle or who are still in the trenches.

So this blog is at a crossroads. For once, Ms. Planner finds herself without a plan.