THE MOST IMPORTANT

See that photo in the top right-hand corner of this blog? That's the hubs and me on July 4, 2012. One year ago. This year, we had virtually the same day we had 365 days prior -- we got up early to run the Watermelon 5K, we shared a meal with Philip's family in Mount Dora, and we ambled down to the lake to enjoy the fireworks with the Hueneke clan.

It was a lovely day, but I can't help it -- my thoughts always turn to infertility at these annual events. A year later, and we're still not pregnant. I sat and watched the fireworks in 2012, thinking wistfully about how fun it would be to share this holiday with a family of our own, and I sat and watched the fireworks in 2013, thinking wistfully about how fun it would be to share this holiday with a family of our own.

I love the Fourth of July fireworks so much -- the unabashed patriotism, the long summer night, the childhood nostalgia, the sheer wonder of these artful explosions in the sky. But how many more times will I have to watch them with a quietly heavy heart?

Philip and me in 2012

Philip and me in 2013

I had Friday off too -- a last-minute surprise from my company's CEO -- but I worked all day from home anyway. I finalized my feature outline (yep, same feature I bellyached about a week ago), I caught up on emails, I worked on updating my résumé (which I hadn't touched in six years). By the end of the day, I was wracked with stress. So much remains to be done before we leave for South America in a mere nine days, both at home and at work, all under heightened pressure and major uncertainty.

While I worked inside, Philip and his brother worked out in the garage, going through their father's belongings -- a task at which they've been chipping away for over a year. It's an emotional, overwhelming endeavor, not to mention just a lot of tiring physical labor out in the Florida summer humidity.

By the end of the day, Philip and I were totally beat.

Stress is the absolute worst. It's this invisible weight, and it's inescapable. The moment I awake in the morning and remember everything that's going on, I feel dread to the point of nausea. It's terrible.

This morning wasn't any different, but Philip suggested we go for a run, and I agreed it would be a good release. But halfway through, I had another crying meltdown (par for the course these days). "Why is everything so HARD?!" I wailed like a child out in broad daylight, blowing my snotty nose into my shirt. "Running is hard! Work is hard! Trying to have a baby is hard! Preparing for Bolivia is hard! Going through your dad's stuff is hard!"

Philip was amazingly patient with and encouraging to me, and we managed to finish the workout without further incident.

We also made some major headway on Bolivia prep. We went through old letters from Carmen, our sponsored child, making notes on key people and interests in her life (conversation starters), and we brainstormed gift ideas for her and her family.

Then we went out and freaking shopped till we dropped. Like, we just crazy-shopped our brains out.

It was pretty cathartic, spending all that money. (For me at least. I think Philip was feeling a bit panicky about our upcoming credit-card statement.)

Shopping for Carmen was so very exciting. To think of things she'd like and enjoy, to imagine her pleasure at opening these gifts and using them -- painting her nails with her friends, writing about teenage crushes in a pretty journal, carrying her pink Adidas drawstring backpack to soccer practice -- made me so happy, happier than I've felt in weeks and weeks.

We went bonkers buying stuff for her because it just made me feel so good to focus our energy 100 percent on doing something special for someone we care about. It felt like we were doing something that mattered, that was pure. It was empowering and humbling; it was purposeful; it was good and right and true.

Gifts for Carmen

And unlike all the irresolution of infertility and work, it's a sure thing that on Wednesday, July 17, we will meet this girl with whom we've been corresponding for nine years, and we will get a glimpse of her day-to-day life in South America's poorest country. It's becoming real, and it's awesome. And it's so much more important than anything waiting for me in my office cubicle.

Carmen, age 7, when we first started sponsoring her in 2003

Our most recent photo of Carmen, age 16

So here I am, at 1 in the morning, thinking about what's important. (I'm wide awake because we brilliantly had Starbucks for dinner.) Being some big-shot bridal editor doesn't seem that important. Traveling to tropical islands to go snorkeling doesn't seem that important. Any job that requires extreme amounts of my time -- whether it's time away on travel or time spent continually taking on new responsibilities while never being able to shed old ones -- doesn't seem that important.
 
Starting a family seems important. And in my case, starting a family requires a lot more time, money, effort and emotional reserve than it does for 90 percent of the population.

My mom texted me yesterday: "I am feeling that when you get back from South America, you will dive into the fertility treatments again and probably have a whole new life beginning for you."

I can't even tell you the thrill that thought sent through my gut. To just pour all of my resources into the quest to build a family, to not let anything -- stress, work drama, travel -- stand in my way: What freedom! What purpose! It was the course I was on for the first half of 2013 before I got derailed, and while it seems so distant now, I want to get back on that road.

It's the most important.

I don't know the way back to that road. There are no directions; there's no clear map. But at least I know now where I need to get.

Have any of you experienced this conflict -- a job that's too demanding to coexist with fertility treatment? What did you do?

TOO MUCH

I had another crying meltdown on Friday night. It had been a hell of week, every day feeling like at least two. We're on deadline with the magazine, which is a very stressful, overwhelming time even in normal circumstances. I typically have to work late, there are a million last-minute fact-checking details to keep straight, and everyone starts to ride on everyone else's last nerve.

I'd also had two Big Idea meetings during the course of the week about how to improve the magazine's blog and the print magazine itself, in which I felt a great deal of pressure to be super prepared and impressive and sparkly while trying to read my new boss' mind.

On Friday I was just so infinitely tired; I spent the day researching a feature and it was just taking way too fucking long, and I wasn't happy with my outline, and at 7 p.m. I finally admitted defeat and drove over to my best friend's birthday happy hour that had started at 6. I couldn't find parking, and I knew Philip and I were leaving that night to drive two hours to St. Pete for the weekend, and I still hadn't packed my suitcase. I was getting more and more frustrated, and then I saw it: a perfectly pregnant girl in a tight-fitting white dress and heels, her dark hair tumbling over her shoulder, holding hands with her man, on their way to some fancy babymoon date. And I started to sob.

Oh yeah, I remembered, I'm ALSO infertile! I had kind of forgotten about it for the moment, so preoccupied with all the intense work drama and the general nonstop pace of life. But the universe wasn't going to let me forget.

Finally I found a parking spot, and just as I pulled in, my husband called, and I choked out all of life's injustices over my cell.

In the end, he came out to meet me at the bar, all my girlfriends rushed to console me as soon as they saw me enter with the Look of Death on my face, and I drank some delicious wine. We got on the road to St. Pete at 10:30, which was retardedly late, but the drive went by quickly, and Philip and I had a ton to catch up on, having barely had a minute to talk all week.

I had a hard time relaxing on our weekend getaway. It rained on the beach, the Tigers lost, and work uncertainty hung over me like a cloud. But it was definitely still fun, and I did my best to be a pleasant companion to Philip and our friends who joined us.

I'm dreading the two weeks ahead of me, as it's all just too much to think about. Ship a magazine, then have another Big Idea meeting, then have an even bigger Big Idea meeting two days after that, then jet off to South America on a complicated two-week trip we've barely had time to plan. And oh yeah, the Big Announcement about who gets the promotion will happen when we're in the middle of the Bolivian salt desert.

Tomorrow Philip and I get inoculated -- a big check-the-box item -- and at some point we need to book a couple of tours, buy domestic airline tickets and purchase a backpack full of appropriate gifts for a  teenage Bolivian girl ... any ideas what's on that wish list?

I am taking off Thursday, and we're running the Watermelon 5K at 7 a.m. "Running" is probably generous, as my exercise routine has fallen into oblivion. But it will feel good to hopefully burn off some of this tension.

Even tonight I have a pile of work to do for a promotion I'm not sure I'll get at a job I'm not sure I want. Treatment Erika will be back in August (provided I dubiously use my leftover progesterone tablets to delay my period while I'm in South America), and I have no idea how she's going to mesh with Jetsetting Power-Editor Erika -- or if she'll even have to.

My future is a hazy question mark, which drives the control freak in me bonkers, and I lay awake at night asking myself and God, What do I want? What do you want for me? What are my options? What is even within my power to try? If it turns out I can't be a mom, do I want to keep climbing the ladder at this job? If I don't do that, what else is there? What life choices would allow us to just move to a lazy beach town and escape all this aneurysm-generating corporate and infertility nonsense? Would you ladies join me if I opened Infertility Island where you'd never have to see another pregnant belly in your life, and you wouldn't have to keep pretending your career is all you need?

And while I'm thinking these things, I just keep getting up and going to work and pasting on a smile and attending meetings because for now, there doesn't seem like any other choice.