“The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.” – William Arthur Ward

After a recent discussion, I’ve been thinking a lot about positive thinking and what it means. The topic, of course, was my hopes in getting pregnant. The person I was talking with said yet again that it’s going to happen. Hope for this time, but if not, next time. Or the next time. But for sure, someday, it will happen. I will have a long, healthy pregnancy.

I responded with, “I hope so,” my canned response for such optimistic declarations of fertility, and, for once, my response rose an eyebrow.

Was I losing hope? What I not confident anymore?

No. I’m just being realistic. I know too many people who have/will never be able to be pregnant or carry a healthy baby to a healthy birth. Fertility treatments aren’t done indefinitely, and insurance money will run out. There are other options, but I have yet to learn enough about them to have a concrete backup plan.

The future is uncertain. I could get pregnant and have a long, healthy pregnancy. I could never pass the five-weeks-pregnant mark. Something has gone wrong twice in the past, and no one can guarantee that it’s fixable and not just a mysterious Thing that no one can change, not even God.

And speaking of God, no one knows how He works and if giving birth is in the cards for me. I sure hope it is, but I don’t know it is.

Which is why I hope. I don’t know. I hope.

I think optimists and those who believe in the power of positive thinking believe that good thoughts result in good things. I can’t get behind that.

I doubt my family didn’t think good thoughts when my mom was diagnosed with leukemia and shortly after died because of complications.

I doubt parents of premature babies don’t put every ounce of their being into good thoughts for their child’s health, yet many of them lose their battle to live here on Earth.

Maybe positive and negative thinking can account for some of the good and bad in the world. I don’t doubt that there’s some truth behind it. It’s an ancient belief, after all. Ancient beliefs don’t get to be ancient if they have no truth.

But I don’t believe this world is based on the power of good and bad thinking.

Plus, what does that mean for all the good thoughts that didn’t produce good results? Were those thoughts not quite good enough? Who determines what’s good enough and what isn’t, and how do the good-thinkers figure out how to think the best way while the not-as-good thinkers struggle?

My brain hurts trying to think about all this.

I hope each and every cycle that we have positive (two-pink-lines-positive) results.

That hope keeps me taking my cocktail of meds, sacrificing my belly to injections and waking up at the buttcrack of dawn to be probed by ultrasound cameras and be jabbed by blood-drawing needles.

That hope keeps the relationship between Rob and I strong despite the difficulties.

That hope keeps me from giving up on my broken pieces after another failed cycle. It convinces me to pull myself back together, dust myself off and get ready for another try.

I am determined to hope and try until …

That hope keeps the ellipsis hanging off that sentence, the end of it undefined. I hope I never have to finish it.

But I accept that I may have to someday. It’s reality, not pessimism. Despite what I hope, I know may not get what I want.

Is that wrong? Am I wrong to not change my outlook and put all my weight behind positive thinking? What works for you?