{"id":39,"date":"2016-09-19T20:28:15","date_gmt":"2016-09-20T02:28:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/?p=39"},"modified":"2025-12-11T22:28:48","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T05:28:48","slug":"date-nights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/2016\/09\/19\/date-nights\/","title":{"rendered":"Date Nights"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"date_nights\"Early this year during a hard time, I decided we were going to plan date nights to keep us busy and have activities to look forward to. At first Matt thought they were a bit silly, but he\u2019s a good sport so he went along with it. Now they are something we take pride in — we sit down together, plan our dates, and then follow through. And, like I originally intended, they give us something to do and something to look forward to… but they also have made us try new activities, go new places, and try new recipes. Our dates also give us something to talk about, to each other and to our friends and family. During infertility the question \u201cwhat\u2019s new?\u201d is very painful. I feel like NOTHING is new because for us it\u2019s the same old disappointing story every month\u2026 and I\u2019m definitely not saying that the date nights take that away (they don\u2019t!), but sometimes they do give us something else to think about. They give us a break. Our dates nights have been a nice way for us to shift the focus back to us. They have been a small way that we can kind of reclaim our relationship during a time when it feels like everything is out of our control. <\/span><\/p>\n

During our dates we don\u2019t play that game where we don\u2019t talk about kids or pregnancy or our treatment or anything like that. I see things online about making time where you don\u2019t talk about it — I wish that would work for us, but it doesn\u2019t. So we don\u2019t force it. Sometimes during a date we talk a lot about it, and sometimes we don\u2019t. We just go with it. It\u2019s time for us and we go with whatever feels right with the activity we\u2019ve chosen for that date.<\/span><\/p>\n

So. You must be thinking, \u201cgee how much money are you spending on all of these dates?\u201d Answer: not much. We are saving all spare pennies these days for our infertility treatments, so we\u2019ve put ourselves on a budget and while we\u2019re not perfect, we try to stick to it\u2026 Therefore, many of our dates are not very extravagant. If we do go out, we try to stick to one of drinks, dinner, dessert, or activity to cut down on cost. In addition to the dates listed below, we also have \u201cFancy Friday\u201d. Every Friday we dress up for dinner, whether we\u2019re going out or staying in. I usually wear a dress and Matt usually wears a shirt and bow-tie. If we\u2019re staying in we usually eat off of our fine China\u2026 even if we\u2019re just having leftovers or frozen pizza. It\u2019s fun. <\/span><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a list of some of the things we\u2019ve done: <\/span><\/p>\n