While scrolling through Facebook, I saw a piece that caught my eye from mindbodygreen.com. It comes from the perspective of a life that once dreamed of having a child, but it did not come to be for the author. She shares her insights and learning from a living a life without children.
My IVF Treatments Failed. Here's What I Wish Others Struggling With Infertility Knew. By Justine Brooks Froelker
I appreciate that she is another voice who shares the side of the story of when a person is not able to have a child of their own. What happens? How does the person move forward?
Some of what she says echoes what others have expressed. Although, hearing those sentiments repeated is validating. She talks about breaking the silence, being careful not to compare your journey to others, respecting our individual limits and being more than trying to have a baby. These seem to be good things to keep in mind however your IF journey unfolds, baby or not.
Then the author takes it to the next step, the space where there is no baby. Below are a few quotes I really liked.
"For us, healthy hope has meant redefining our dream of family, accepting that we will never have children, and yet doing the work to always have children in our lives."
"For us, this is in living a childfull life and finding ways to parent in honor of our babies who we don't get to hold."
"When we give ourselves permission to feel it all, at the same time, we can find our clarity again. In the complicated gray of life, we can awaken to life in color again."
It takes time to figure out how to live without a child in your family in the way you had once hoped and imagined. It takes time to sort through the feelings and knowing you will not ever be done feeling them all, but finding a way to dream new dreams and deciding how to fold children into your life, how to make room to experience motherhood or parenthood a bit differently. And maybe for me it has been a bit awkward at times, but I'm trying to figure it out. T~ and I are still near the beginning of our life as a couple. While we are newlyweds, we have been together for three years and have had several conversations about children and family. We still have hope, but we are realistic in knowing that time is limited. This part of our story is still playing out. But, it is up to us in how we decide to live while in this space of between.
Thank you for sharing this article, so much goodness in here. I really appreciated her statement that the "never give up" message is not healthy for many. I had to re-imagine what I thought that meant, for myself, but I do think that having that message with me kept me in a futile striving for longer than was necessary. There's so much peer pressure to "keep the faith!" and just keep going and going and going. Her statement about limits was so true, too. I have a friend who did IUIs and then decided ultimately not to pursue IVF and she is childfree, but always compares her journey to mine and is like, "But I didn't have it nearly as bad as you." Which is demeaning to her experience and, quite frankly, this is an area where more is not more. I love the pieces you pulled too, and hope it gives you peace as you decide which turns your story will take.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you found the article helpful and validating. I also really liked her message of being weary of the "never give up" message. I like you have re-imagined what it means to not give up. My title and tagline still ring true. However, it also includes having to sometimes dream new dreams. It's more about not giving up on myself and receding what happiness looks like to me. Yes, I'd like a baby in it and time will tell. And I like what you said that we will see what twists and turns T~ and I decide to make. We will be happy. I will be happy. :)
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