Blindfolded

Sometimes I can be such a fool. Not that people attempt to dupe me into things. It’s just that I can become blinded by a situation and make poor decisions, but then again, hindsight is 20/20, isn’t it?

Like when we purchased our house. It was a prerequisite for me in order to move forward with trying to conceive another child. Along with the dated, 2-prong electrical outlets strategically hidden behind polished Pottery Barn furniture, there is a laundry list of issues the previous homeowners failed to disclose. Most of them were to be expected with any older home. But one of them, us warm weather natives, never had the foresight to inquire about.

Our house is a typical New England colonial home. The type of home a child sketches in crayon, with a centered front door, a billowing chimney, and a tree just to the side on the lawn. Only at our house, the lawn would not be colored with any shade of green.

We bought our home during the winter.

So picture if you will, a wintry holiday scene: a picturesque two-story home with a gorgeous holly wreath hanging on a heavy wooden door. Perfectly manicured spruce trees framing the front windows and walkway. And everything. Everything. Covered in a shimmering, white blanket of snow.

Including the front lawn.

A front lawn that we would discover in Spring to be a dense sea of crab grass and dandelions. The distracting eye sore that causes every passing driver to slow down and say, “Holy crap, how could these people leave their yard like that in this neighborhood?”

But we tried. My husband and I personally dug up our front yard twice last year and spread grass seed in hopes that this would be one less worry when I became pregnant. But it never worked. The weeds always came back and took over. I began to worry that our yard would remain forever barren.

So this year, I threw in the towel and decided that we needed help. After many estimates, we found cheap landscapers who promised their method would work. An army men of dug, raked, and pulled for hours. They managed to remove all of the weeds and poured a fresh layer of dirt and grass seed on top.

And then we sat by our window and waited. And waited. Wished. And hoped.

I was convinced I had made the wrong decision yet again. A couple hundred bucks down the drain.

But yesterday, we finally noticed tiny green sprouts. Thousands of tiny blades of grass peeking from the dampened earth. Finally.

I released an apprehensive sigh of relief, thankful for one less item on the list.

Now if only I could become pregnant. It has been over a year since we embarked upon both endeavors.

Soon, perhaps next month, I will need to have another LEEP procedure performed on my cervix, making it unsafe for me to bear children. My doctor had been certain I would become pregnant by now, especially with the help of Clomid. But no amount of manpower, chemicals, or seed has made a difference. And soon this yard of hope will be removed all together.

I’m finding it difficult to swallow the selfish guilt of not trying to conceive sooner. Before this house. Before the biopsies. Before I cared about the view outside.

Although in hindsight it all seems so clear, all I wish to do now is close the window, and pull down the shade to block the view.