I'm still infertile.

I still wear that label.  I have four children.  I have been pregnant for a total of (almost) 57 weeks.  Someday soon, two sweet little faces named Kanon and Remington will call me Mom.  One day, I will hold two little babies in Heaven who I will be reunited with, and I call them son and daughter.

But…I am still infertile.

I still see a pregnant belly and cringe.  There are some days when it still hurts to walk down the baby aisle.  I pass by the infant and newborn items and know those days are over for me.  I won’t ever need those again.  It passed in a blink of an eye.

Some days, that little newborn cry that I hear out and about still brings tears to my eyes.  I catch my breath and begin to prepare myself for that longing and pain that always accompanied that sweet noise, even though I have now experienced hearing those precious cries of my own children.

I miss the innocent days when life was about “having a baby someday”, and not having the infertile label.  I miss the days when I thought as soon as I wanted a baby, all we had to do was say, now is the time, and it would happen.  I long for the innocence I had, the naivety that I lived in prior to infertility stole so much from me. 

My eyes have aged, my heart is tired.  Most of this is due to the loss of my sweet Chandler and Paisley, but part of this is from the constant fight I battled for years trying to achieve mine and my husband’s dream to become parents.   

There are days when I still have to remind myself that I actually am a mom, a mom of 4 at that!  Days when the dark days of infertility still cast an ominous shadow over my current life.  Like a storm brewing on the horizon.  Days when I still have to fight the clouds to find the sunshine. 

And then the guilt sets in.  How can I feel this way when I have two beautiful children here that I get to go home to every single day when so many friends are still struggling to have their first, or still trying to get pregnant after experiencing infant loss or miscarriage?  Why can’t I shake this label, and all the stigma that comes with it?  Why can’t I let this go, live in the now, and forget the pain that comes with it? 

How can I give Kanon and Remi everything they deserve when I find myself longing for more children?  They are here, they are mine, how could I want more?  

How much more am I going to let infertility steal from me?