We are Simply in Awe...

of the blog posts, and the comments, and the emails, and the forum messages, and the poetry, and the phone calls of support....

I am an avid thank you card writer (a mediocre thank you card sender) and I wish I could write to each and every one of you-- telling you how much your words have meant to us, how they have uplifted us in a way that would have taken months on our own, how they have been instrumental in allowing us to begin to heal.

These words, they came from ALL AROUND THE WORLD, and as individual thank yous are next to impossible, I hope that you will read this and know that we are speaking to EVERY ONE OF YOU and that we THANK YOU from the bottom of our hearts.

I have written before about how the 1s in this world seem to be disproportionally composed of ready-made parents with oversized hearts.

I have written before about this extraordinary community of international surrogacy bloggers.

I have written before about the exceptional family I have been blessed with.

And I have written before about how fortunate we feel to have found Dr. Shivani and the entire SCI team.

And now, my words, they have officially been validated.

We fell hard this time. Harder than we ever have. And it hurt SO BAD. And it STILL HURTS-- A LOT. And it will for a very long time.

And I am not sure that we will ever fall this hard again. Because I am not sure that we will ever allow ourselves to believe, to hope, to open ourselves up to the possibility of such immense hurt again.

We will revert to guarding our hearts, as so many of us have done after losses, after failed cycles, after results that have completely defied the odds... again.

And while we wish it weren't this way, we have learned that as members of such a unique community,

we are privileged to ride on the coattails of the faith of others.

Maybe we won't be able to believe again, but maybe, we will be able to move on regardless.

Maybe we will rely on the words of Dr. Shivani who has "guaranteed I will be a mummy in 2012." Or maybe on the words of Rahul, who has assured us that "people who do not get a success on the first attempt, they definitely get a success in the second attempt."

While we have a hard time believing these words ourselves, maybe, they will suffice to propel us forward until we reach our goal. And maybe, with our forward momentum, those who contacted us, pleading with us to move forward because they had become so dependent on our journey to move their own journey forward, will grab on to the coattails of our mock faith, and together we will continue forward... until we ALL achieve our goal of becoming the parents we know we were meant to be.

Because once was definitely not enough...

THANK YOU AGAIN TO EVERYONE.