Am I an IF freak?--EDITED

I think I am a mutant IF victim/survivor.

I want to put this delicately because in no way is this meant to harm anyone because all feelings in IF are valid.

I keep reading about people who have had success--either a spontaneous pregnancy or success with treatment--saying how badly they still hurt over IF. How the pain will never go away.

Either I am just too busy/overwhelmed or I have scarred up really really well because I don't feel acute pain anymore. I don't even feel dull pain anymore.

The other night, the babies were sleeping, and I was getting dinner ready and the song "Sea of Love" came on. I motioned quietly to the hubs to come into the kitchen.

"Listen." I said.

Ahhhh, Sea of Love. He used to sing it to me so sweetly all those years ago.

We started dancing in the kitchen and the tears started falling. We had just rocked those beautiful babies before laying them down in their cribs.

"Did you ever think we'd be here?" he asked.

I could barely reply.

We are parents. We are the parents of two beautiful African children. In my wildest dreams from childhood I would never have predicted my life would have turned out this way.

I don't hurt over IF anymore because let's be honest, I crossed over. It may not have been the way I intended to initially, but I did. I am a mother. It's not all I ever wanted to be but it was something I always wanted and was denied for many long, grueling, agonizing months. I fought hard to get here. It did not come easily, but alas, I arrived.

Yes, I sometimes feel a strange pang when I see my friends' kids and they are spitting images of their parents. But not in a vanity way, just in a "isn't that cool" kind of way. I really don't feel any need to see someone who looks like me, but I think it's natural to want to know how you and your spouses genes might combine.

But my babies are beautiful and the way they came into my life has made it much easier for me to see them as unique little souls, not any sort of extension of me, just their own little beings with their own path in life. Of course I will want things for them, of course I will try to guide them and influence them and hopefully help make their paths easier.  I always feared I would see my children as this quasi-extension of myself and even feared ways they might deviate from the things I wished and dreamed for them. I am relieved--and I think somewhat better able--to view them as their own beings because they have no genetic ties to me. I am relieved for them for a lot of reasons related to that. Yes, deeply saddened for them, too, but that goes without saying (I hope). When I cried for DH getting a vasectomy it was temporary, and as much about my inability to hold his hand through the procedure as it was for the loss of genes. And that was sadness for the loss of his genes, not mine.

So I don't hurt much anymore. Does that make me the anomaly here? I think that IF pain is unique, and awful, and excruciating, and unless you've been through it (like most pain out there) you may think you know, but you really do not. But I also like to think that it ends with parenthood. And I'm so sad to know that for many it does not, it just goes on and on and on.

Am I too tired to feel it?

I don't know, but that's entirely possibly given those 4:15 am wake times :)

And hello--I do not wake up and run simply to be able to indulge in desserts. I run because it clears my head. I run because it's time where I am one with myself, and no one is tugging on me or drooling on me or asking me to read Brown Bear for the tenth time in a row. I run because I like the sound of my breathing. I run because I like to sweat. I run because I like to feel a connection to my father, who taught me to run. (note: all of these feelings are on a good running day--on a bad running I plod along just so I can eat the dessert).

Edited to add:
Heather and Silver--Well, it's an interesting question and one I obviously can't answer with 100% honesty because we adopted two babies at once. But, I do remember saying, when I was in the most painful throes of infertility, that if I could just cross over and have one child I would forget the pain because I was sick.of.the.pain. Of course, easy to say then and easy to recall now, ha. I think the other thing I am realizing is that everyone has pain. Mine was IF. Others deal with chronic illnesses or conditions, or the loss of a spouse, or the disintegration of a marriage. And my pain was IF, and I'm done with IF. So I'm done with pain.
Oh yeah, also--my children aren't genetically related at all, yet they're full siblings to them and to us. So Silver, maybe you can give your son a non-genetic but still sibling all the way! Heather, I'm sorry the program you were using in the past is no longer available, I hope there are others you can consider.
Fellow freaks--thanks for the shout-outs :)