Heartbreaking

Something we don’t talk about enough are the women who never doubted they would have children one day- but didn’t. They never had to question wanting to be a mom, but they did want to wait until they met the right person to do that with. They didn’t want kids so badly they settled down with the 1st boyfriend or 1st man who showed affection. They were selective with their heart and with what they wanted personally for the trajectory of their life. They had some control over things where it seemed appropriate. They wanted a true partner and also wanted to be in love. They did want to be personally succesful and fulfilled with a career, but there was no sacraficing family because they knew when that time came it would just fall into place. Perhaps they had relationship stuggles and challenges finding that ‘right’ person, and had to learn to let go, and maybe almost stop caring if it ever even happened – the only way to allow it to come into their life.

You might find yourself in your early to mid 30’s – not too old by anyone’s standards to still have the life you always assumed would be yours, but not as young as you once were when you dreamed up what life would look like one day.

Then comes marriage and building a home and feeling like you truly did get to where you wanted to be in many ways. Then trying to have children – something you wanted to time as perfectly as you could while always being very careful in your past not to have a child with the ‘wrong’ person – now you finally feel the relief of letting it happen the ‘old fashion way’ with your partner whom you took such care and consideration to find. Then it just doesn’t happen – Month after month – nothing – Negative test after negative test – Tears and heartbreak. What is wrong with you, or is it your partner? You give it time, take the vacations, limit your stress, take the vitamins, change your diet and do your research. You get on the list to see the best specialist in your state and months later when you finally get it in with them you are still holding hope that this will fix the ‘problem’. They tell you after several more months of tests that nothing is ‘wrong’ they can’t actually find a reason your body isn’t doing the one thing you always assumed would come easy and natural. You start the injections and all of the prepartion, physically and mentally in order to ‘make it happen’ – remember you have done this before in your life. You went to school, got a career, lived on your own, practiced self-love and self-care until you were blue in the face and you learned to not ‘make love happen’, but let it happen and yet here you are forced to ‘make a child happen’. It takes effort from your body, mind and spirit to go to the endless appointments, ultrasounds, mix the shots and have your partner inject you nightly while at the same time you can’t physically do the excercise that usually brought joy and escape or have real intimacy with your partner because there are now rules around how to make a baby. There is no outlet for stress during this time as the hormones you take change you, infuriate you and then there is the strict schedule you are bound to daily. You go through the 1st procedure to see if you have any viable options, and maybe you only end up with one. All it takes is one! So you tell yourself to give it a chance. To your amazement the ‘one’ takes, and you are pregnant! For the 1st time you feel like this is it! It is finally coming together and falling into place. You did it!

Then you wait, since you are getting good at waiting for news, knowing both good or bad news comes along with this process, but you learn that your levels aren’t rising like they should. Cold nurses on the other end of the phone take you to your breaking point and you scream and cry as if that will help you feel better. Your baby was growing and then it stopped one day. There is no heartbeat and there is nothing you can do. You know you can’t ‘make it happen’. Yet, it is so hard to let go when it is happening inside of your own body. You don’t go back to being yourself immediately. These things take time. Your hormones have changed you, and your loss has changed you. This process has changed your relationship and if you are lucky it has brought you closer, but that too takes time. Time, more of that thing you now are running out of because there is a ticking clock on this process that you once thought you would never know. Then there are the questions from others on your decisions and your future. It gets taken out of your hands and starts to be a topic of conversation everywhere you go – even when you don’t want to talk about it. You continue to try your best and you try to go back to basics and still the years go by. You are now at the age where phyically and mentally something has changed inside of you again, and now it is you and your desires. You are sad some days when you think about what could have been, but this is life and though you have gratitude for what you do have you have to keep going on without this.

Then one morning you see a battle online between the people that have children- and make that their entire identity and those that don’t want them- and make that their entire identity. You are left floating somewhere inbetween – you don’t fit in at this point in your life and perhaps you never will. You aren’t apart of either group. You don’t have a strong take in this argument either way because you don’t fit with these people and they don’t understand you. It ultimately worked for them, or they never tried. They don’t understand you. For you there is no rainbow and no one talks about you and what that feels like to be in this group. There is no changing it and there is only living through it and accepting it. It’s heartbreaking really, and I think it’s time to talk about us.