Leave it to a satire site to hit the nail on the head... I was scrolling through my newsfeed the other day and one of my friends liked a satirical article that had the perfect sentence: "It's almost as if this very complicated part of my life causes me to have more than one feeling." Well, that's incredibly accurate. Hahaha. I don't remember what the article was about; it wasn't infertility, but that sentence stood out to me so much that I wrote it down to write about later.
***
For years all I felt was sadness and devastation. What do you mean I wasn't going to have kids?? The future I had envisioned and planned for my entire life wasn't happening. Now what?
I was so so sad, so depressed, so traumatized, and so depleted but cognizant enough to realize that I was missing out on the life I DID have. I didn't want to live like that, but I didn't know how to change it. Well... I realized I didn't even like my neighborhood. We only moved there to be closer to my husband's job so we could have more family time together when we had kids. That's when I started thinking bigger.
We can do anything. We can go anywhere. We can do whatever the hell we want.
Well, except have kids.
Think for a second... If you could go anywhere, do anything, what would you do? Of course, there's logistics and financial considerations, but suspend those for a moment and just envision some of your dreams. What do you really need in life? What's important to you?
Something shifted. Although I was still deep down in a hole, a little bit of weight came off of my shoulders. Like, maybe about two pounds out of a ton. I thought of that Lao Tzu quote, "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" and both rolled my eyes at myself and saw truth in its sentiment. I decided we were selling our house and moving.
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It's only five days into the new year and my husband and I are already over it. Hahaha! But I'm giving us a ton of credit for everything we've been through over the last five years. I told him it's no wonder that we're over it. For four years we did everything we could to try and get pregnant. For the fifth year, we completely changed our lives by selling our house, getting rid of half of our stuff, moving, and me going back to school. Then school started. It was all so much work.
And that's what we're looking at for 2017: so much work. Me at school and him at his job. Don't get me wrong, we are very thankful for my school program and his job! We just know it's temporary and we are really looking forward to what we have planned for 2018/2019.
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So I'm starting to get really excited. I just ordered my textbooks for next semester and the nerd in me is totally geeking out. I am really excited for all of the professional skills I am going to learn this semester.
I am also really excited to move in a year or two, whenever it works out. I actually love where we live now, but I've been in this city a long time and I am looking forward to a new adventure that will offer opportunities we don't have here. If it doesn't work out, we can always come back.
None of these things would be happening if I was parenting. I would not have gone back to school had I gotten pregnant and had a baby. We would not have sold our house. I would not be looking forward to moving in a couple of years.
And I am VERY excited about our new dreams and plans.
***
And then I spent all last night dreaming (nightmaring?) about infertility. In it, I was crying and searching for my baby. I would find one, hold it in my arms and against my chest, and it would feel so right and good and then the baby would disappear and I would continue on my search. Real freaking depressing stuff.
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"It's almost as if this very complicated part of my life causes me to have more than one feeling."
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