Mini-hiatus

Since the failure of my first IVF cycle, I've kind of gone on hiatus from infertility.  I haven't been visiting the fertility boards nor have I been reading blogs or posting myself.  I've stopped obsessively searching for everything and anything on infertility.  I've stopped talking to my husband about it.  I needed to take a vacation away from infertility and not think about it.  But today, my vacation ended.  
A good friend and coworker came by to visit me today after classes were over.  She's currently on her maternity leave (we started trying about the same time btw) but she's been at the school every so often to complete the practicum portion of her secondary counseling masters.  Since we haven't seen each other on a daily basis like we used to, we've been a bit out of touch with each other's lives.  She knows that we've been trying to conceive and of course she asked the question, "How are things on the pregnancy front?"  
All those emotions I had been able to keep in check for the past week just flooded back to me.  Last week, when I had the meltdown in front of my English 10 class, I met with two of the counselors, good friends of mine.  They helped me process my emotions and gave me strength to go back into the classroom and not feel like I'm constantly battling with my emotions.  I've been great all week until today.  I'm so tired of crying.  I'm so tired of putting on a brave face, but I really have no choice.  
Needless to say, I was feeling rather blue today and finally decided to read up on some of the blogs I follow.  Jay, of The 2 Week Wait, wrote this in her blog today.  It made me feel better.  Made me feel stronger.  Perhaps it'll do the same for you.

...[H]ow many times have we all done that? Said to ourselves that we are failures? That we are losers? That we’re ashamed? That we can’t do anything right? When are we going to forgive ourselves despite the obvious fact that we haven’t actually done anything wrong in the first place?!?!

More importantly, how can we expect others to show us respect when we can’t show ourselves the respect we so deserve? We are amazing, strong, resilient, supportive women. We subject ourselves to physical and financial strain without any guarantees. We are expected to rejoice for everyone pregnancies without question when so few people go out of their way to support our losses… but we do it. Often. We smile. We buy presents and we hide our pain. We willingly go through hell at the mere promise that we may have a child of our own. We wake up every day, get dressed, function in society no matter what hormones we’re taking, how we’re feeling or what bad news we’ve just been delivered. And yes, we occasionally yell at women pushing strollers but that just means we’re human. We get jealous and resentful but we pick ourselves up over and over and over again and keep going. We are unsung heroes who even in our weaker moments show more strength and courage in one cycle than most people do in an entire lifetime.