TWW Manifesto

I wrote this manifesto in my second cycle of trying. I offer it to you as a resource. Feel free to take what you can use.

The basic premise of any wait is that someone (or something) else has control over what the outcome will be.  Therefore, I promise myself the following:

1. I do not need to be an island. My friends and family want to help and support me. I will seek them out by including them as much as my (and their) mental sanity can handle.
2. I seek joy, humor, and community in all things. While waiting, it can be hard to see those things. So, I will always assume they are there, even when they are obscured by the anxiety during the wait.
3. I will allow myself to feel what I am feeling. I will also do the internal work to understand why I'm feeling that way.
4. I will allow my internal expert to help me see this as a journey, not as a settlement.
5. Though I strive for contentment, I will allow ambition and desire as traveling companions on this journey.
6. When creating an activity to distract myself, I will find the most soothing, leisurely, time-consuming, comical, and fun approach.
7. I will maintain my commitments so that my life remains on a good track. I will support myself by keeping social, work, and other promises I make.
8. I can be there for my husband and family and friends - if appropriate, I will refrain from obsessively talking about my journey to continue to support those I love.
9. No matter the outcome, I will be supported and loved. And no matter the outcome, I will find joy, humor, and community again.
10. Waiting sucks, and it's out of my hands. I will permit myself to surrender to those circumstances and I will find contentment in seeking areas of creation with which I can engage.
11. I am not the waiting and the waiting is not me.

TWW Serenity Prayer:

God grant me the grace to accept that whatever this is, it probably isn't a pregnancy symptom, the strength to change my supplements and routines as my body requires, and the wisdom to know the difference between the advice of internet crazies and my own physician. Amen.