Healthy Hope and A Choice for a Childfull Life

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.

Chinese Takeout

While doing some Christmas shopping and running some errands, I was drawn to the toy aisle in the drug store* (not just any drug store, but the end all be all of drug stores).

I don't know why, but this year I've been really excited about looking for toys.  Because of infertility, it has been a long time since I have enjoyed shopping for children's gifts.  Well, at least in terms of toys or clothes.  I've hidden behind the safety of books for many years, which my godchildren and little cousins have enjoyed.  I love books and I'm really good at picking them out.  And I'm told the kids look forward to it because they can't wait to see what I find for them.  It has become my niche and not everyone gives books, so it is kind of special.  And that was kind of my thing before the whole infertility cloud of darkness.  However, it has been a safe haven because I can either go to one store or go online to get all of my holiday shopping done.  Low risk for triggers.  Sadly, not exactly a place swarming with children.  We'll hope they are at the library picking out free books to borrow!

But this year was different.  Something shifted and I wanted to venture down the toy aisle.  Granted this was not the toy aisle of a big toy store, but it was toys.  I just let myself peruse and get lost in the fun of just looking.  I had no real goals.  Just looking.

Then, I was drawn to this toy.

At first glance, I laughed.  Play food has become so much fun, and it comes with a fortune cookie.  Then I had some sad feelings, the ones of longing.  But it was cute, and cooler than the cheeseburger.

I sent the picture to T~ on my phone followed by a texting conversation.

Me:  If I was a mom, would this be the kind of toy my child would have?

Me:  "Mommy is a terrible cook, so we got takeout!"  :O

T~:  We totally would have that!  "Mommy and Daddy expose me to all kinds of culturally diverse, delicious foods!"

Me: (Insert happy blow kiss face emoji.)

Maybe one day.


*Discount Drug Mart--The jingle sums it up nicely.  Discount Drug Mart saves you the run around.  You'll find everything you need!  I bet you can Google it or find it on YouTube.  Growing up in my hometown, this was (is) the go-to store to meet your errand needs.

To Plan or Not To Plan

This week, a blog post by The Polka-Dot Umbrella really resonated with me.  It was titled Where Making Plans and Infertility Intersect.  The author was able to put into words things that I have had related thoughts.

She talks about the emotional pain of infertility and the difficulty of helping others to understand.  But she also experiences a breakthrough with her cousin because they are able to stick with the conversation to get to the meat of understanding what the other is asking and trying to express.  It is a moment of the joining of two minds for deeper clarity and understanding.

She also talks about the difficult struggle of work-life balance when the life part is also trying to balance maybe baby and living the life you have now.  It is a lot to juggle.  You want a career and a child.  You don't want to feel like you have to pick one.  It is hard to just pick baby at the cost of your career if baby never comes.

The part that spoke most to me was after sometime, "you stop making plans.  You stop putting your life on hold for something that may never happen."  For me, I am trying very hard to live the life I have now.  I don't want to miss out on what is going on around me for something that may not come to be.  But, what makes it so hard to let go is the fear that if I "stop" hoping for a child, then it will just not ever happen...that somehow I must not have wanted it badly enough.

The logical part of my brain knows this is not true.  But, my heart struggles.  It wants to hope a hope that is real and full, but not so loudly that it drowns out all else around it.  Just because I want to temper this hope or place it on a temporary shelf doesn't mean the I want it any less.  My life just needs to be more than.

Chess Game

I have a little bit of a tendency to get ahead of myself sometimes.  I worry easily.  In my last post, I eluded to what has been occupying my thoughts.

Life can sometimes feel like a chess game, where it seems important to set yourself up towards getting closer to your dreams.  The dream is possible motherhood and I worry about time.  T~ and I will be getting married in December and I am very happy.  I don't want to rush into trying to have a family, but time is limited.  On top of that, I am not quite where I would like to be in terms of my career.  I'm getting there, but I would feel much more comfortable if the status was a bit more permanent.  I want to be in a position to more comfortably provide for a child.

But, it is also for my feeling secure.  T~ is open to me working part-time and figuring it out.  But for me, having been through divorce, I do not feel comfortable possibly giving up my career for a child.  I left my full-time job in my past marriage when we started trying to have a family (the timing fell into place with him transferring out of state and I just finished the school year--I did not just up and quit--this was also just as the recession was rolling in and we moved to state with an over saturation of teachers), and then he left me.  I went back to school, and now I'm building a second career.  I do not feel any doubts about T~ and his commitment to me and to us.  I just worry about other terrible what if's.  The job market is very competitive and tight right now.  You don't really get an infinite number of chances.  There are times I wonder if I should have stayed with teaching.  It would have been the safe choice.  But then, I would not have met T~, and I was following my heart.  And he is wonderful and makes me feel happy.  I just hate being in a place of limbo.  I'm trying to be okay with where I am, but it can be difficult.  Also, I just don't want to end up in a place where I feel like I have to choose between child or career.  It feels like there is little room for error.

It is stressing me out.  I feel like if I don't get all of my ducks in a row in the next two or three years, then my chance at motherhood will quickly pass.  And even if it all works out like I hope, it is no guarantee for a baby.

So then I try to refocus my thoughts on the present and remember to be happy with what I have in my life.  It is not easy when you are a planner.

Flipping the Calendar

Today as I was flipping my work calendar to get a glimpse of what I already had scheduled for the next month, I heaved a sad sigh.  It seems of late that my life is blocked in month sized segments.  My work schedule is a heavy influence, but about a month at a time is all that I seem to be able to handle.  And the pages just keep turning and time keeps passing by me.  I feel relief when I get through a month, but then it is just another month that has passed.

I have planning my wedding to look forward to this year.  I am really excited, and so is T~.  We are nearly finished with finalizing the venue.  Then we will start figuring out the other large details, such as an officiant, photographer, flowers and music.  And I can seriously start shopping for a dress.  There is much to look forward to in 2015.  It makes me feel happy.

Then in the back of my mind, as much as I try to push it away, I worry about time...time to build a family.  T~ and I have talked about it and we would like to have a child or two.  We agree on small.  He is open to adoption, but it would be nice to try for a baby of our own.  With every passing month we grow older.  I want to enjoy us, and let our relationship continue to grow and unfold.  I'd rather not rush things just to try to get to a maybe baby.  I don't want to wait or put it off either.  Ideally, I would prefer to be married for a year before having a child.  We want to enjoy our first year of marriage.  I don't know how we will feel by then...we may want to try sooner or a tiny bit later.  And if we were to get PG, I want us to be able to enjoy that, too.  I don't want to put us on a timeline.  But, I also don't want too much time to pass.  I am scared of us missing our window of opportunity, but it may have already passed.  Who knows?

Every now and then I will click on a link to a parenting blog that was posted on FB.  Sometimes I read them because I am curious and other times I read them because maybe one day I will find the information helpful to know...maybe...maybe.  Some of the writings are touching or insightful.  Sometimes I tear up a bit, a sting, and I think to myself I must be glutton for punishment.  (The words that got me were I want them to have babies.)

This most recent post made my heart ache.  A mother reflects on her time in motherhood.  She realizes that this life that she has right now is beautiful and something that dreamed about as a girl, a girl who always imagined herself as one day being a mother.  She also believes that when the end of her days come that she will look back on this time as the best part of her life.  (She could be wrong or she could be right.)  But, what she decides to do is to be thankful and drink it all in and allow herself to fully be in the moment and appreciate it.

I wonder, if I don't become a mother, what chapter in my life will I most be wistful?  What part of my life will I hold dear and want to relive in my mind over and over?  Am I living it now?  I find it a little hard to believe while I feel like I am waiting in hope or longing for a dream that may not come to be.  

And that is why I try to shove those worries about time passing to the very farthest corner of my mind.  I am trying to find some space of peace to be able to be happy living the life that I do have.  I am trying so hard to enjoy and make the most of the life I have with T~ right now.  It happens at times, but I want more moments of balanced happiness than those of longing.

What are the chapters in the lives of the childless that are most meaningful or peaceful or happy?  What do the childless wish they could relive just as it was and not as they might have wished it could be?

The Betweens

My blog is in a state of flux.  Sometimes I question if I have more to write, but then a post comes to mind and it goes on the page.  It sometimes feels like a trickle.  It is not so much that I am dealing with immediate IF issues.  I have used this space to process and grieve what once was my battle with IF.  Now it feels like I am grappling with the left over reverberation, such as how this has all impacted my parents and family.  They have been marked and hurt by the process and sometimes hurt for me in what could have been.  It is sometimes unspoken and more with a knowing sigh or glance.  Pandora's box has been opened and there is no going back to how it was before IF invaded our lives.  It has left a hole and there is no undoing of that want and dream of a child my own.  That chapter in my life has closed and the loss is still felt.

But, there are new chapters yet to be written and a child could still be a possibility.  There is a chance that a new dream of a new child could be born.  However, until that time, I am in a space of in between where I must find a way to live in the present.

And it is in this space of in between that I am trying to find peace and happiness and freedom.

So, where do I look for support?  It is a really, really small niche in the IF community.  As of yet, I have only really found two other blogs where a person was once married and dealing with IF and got divorced and were still of an age to be able to conceive a child potentially.  One stopped her blog shortly thereafter and the other remarried, but then her life quickly took a turn as she faced breast cancer.  This second blog has been very validating for me in a retrospective kind of way before the writer learned of her illness.  And she continues to be inspiring in framing what is most important in life.  Her situation made her have to get off the IF roller coaster.  Then how she documented her journey put things in a different perspective.  Her blog also helped me through my mom's treatments for breast cancer as the blogger was a few steps ahead of my mom in her treatments and it kind of prepared me for what was next.  lt helped me to focus on my current blessings and helped me find clarity in prioritizing what I want in my life.

So, I continue to look for ways to help me deal with the current childlessness in my life because if I do not, I may get stuck in my sadness and grief.  I need to find a way to live my life now and be happy.  The places I find myself more so lately are the blogs of those living childfree.  Perhaps there is something for me to learn from them to help me manage during this chapter in my life.  It is not that I am giving up hope on having a child, just trying to find a way to peaceably live until it may be time to dream that dream.

Bones Tell No Lie

I'm a clutz.  It is not uncommon for me to fumble and bumble around.  As a teacher, it was quite hazardous for me in my first grade classroom with all of the little furniture because I would frequently bump into the low desks and chairs.  My shins had just as many bruises as some of my kids at times.

A few weeks ago at work, I fell on the stairs and injured my foot and shoulder.  I seem to be healing slowly and had a recheck appointment today.  A PA saw me this time and asked how old I was.  He said he was surprised because he said that I looked much younger.  Then the PA decided an x-ray would be good to see how things were looking on the inside.  After it was completed, he asked me again about my age.  He said, "Wow, you look very good for 36, but your bones definitely look 36 showing the normal deterioration."

I always felt blessed in looking younger and being in pretty good shape.  But, I think it has been what I've held onto for hope that maybe my body seeming to be in extra good health could help me borrow a few years and maybe the stats wouldn't apply to me.  If my bones look 36 and are showing the signs of aging, what else is clearly 36?  Have I just been fooling myself into thinking I've got more time or better quality (you know, eggs)?  Have my healthy habits and healthy living been for naught?  Today I'm feeling a greater urgency to have a baby.  I'm tired of seeing all of the pregnant people at work.  They are everywhere!  Seriously, there have been like twelve.  I feel sad and don't want to miss my chance.  Today I feel like time and opportunity are slipping away.

And I feel horrible about it all because I should be enjoying the relationship I do have.  Patience and not wishing time away in the hopes for the next step and the next step and the next step can be difficult sometimes.  I don't want to be ungrateful.  I want to be happy and satisfied for what I do have.

The Space Between 35 and 42

Lately...I've been thinking about what it means to be turning 35 and searching for some kind of grounding in where I am in life, or rather trying to make a space to be comfortable in accepting and celebrating this new chapter in my life. 

I find it difficult to find the balance of being happy with being a single, childless woman with a challenging, fulfilling career path and not becoming consumed with wanting to be a mother that I lose sight of the wonderful I have in my life in the present.  I do not want to have those thoughts of hoped motherhood looming in my mind that I miss out on capturing and living in the moment now.

To lay this out now--I want to be in a committed, loving relationship, which I see as being married, to a man whom I want to spend the rest of my life.  And a child is a blessing and an experience that I want and hope to share with someone together.  A baby is not a requirement for happiness or satisfaction in that hoped life.  I am looking for someone who is open to the possibility and desire to have children.  I feel confident that I will find that man--someday sooner rather than later, I hope.  Part of my fear is that I will not find him before the window closes...before my physical body says no more, even if my heart still says yes.

What's with 42?  Well, that seems to be the number that keeps popping up in my mind of when I think the window may close for me.  It used to be 38, but I've expanded it.  It could be longer and could change, I don't know.  I would hope that my kid would graduate high school before I reached retirement age.  That could push it to 46.  But, 46 seems so old to be pregnant for the first time.  Forty-two seems to hedge on the possibility that there could still be some good eggs in there and that I could physically handle it, maybe.  Forty-two seems more friendly to defy the odds in some weird way.  I don't know.  Totally know it is not a rational thought process, but there it is--the current barometer on my inner timeline.

And please do not throw out the instant band-aid, "You can always adopt!"  I started down that road once before and I know it is not that simple.  I've already had a touch of that feeling like a pound puppy and feeling judged by others to decide if I'm good enough to be a mother.  I don't even want to get into the manipulation of some that make you feel guilty that you question your level of comfort in how much you are willing to take on in caring for a child that may be atypical in health or development, among other factors.  It is not just a decision about you, there is also a great deal of thought of how it may impact the child.  It is not an easy process and it becomes more complicated the older that you get because young parents are so desired.  It is not to say that it doesn't happen; it thankfully and rightfully does.  I may be open to adoption in the future, but there are so many factors that go into that decision process.  Again, it needs to be inclusive of what is best for me and my hoped partner.

So yes, I do feel there is plenty of time to meet and connect with the man who I dream of sharing a life.  There is a larger and more generous timeline for that to happen.  What is not so forgiving is the time that my body has left to have a baby of my own--my own flesh and blood--my eyes, my hair or my freckles--my love of books, my playful spirit or my feeling at home with nature, art and football.  And all of those kinds of things found in my partner, but mushed in combination with me into one little being.

Part of me feels that if I become too comfortable and caught up in this single life that I may accidentally push away the chance of being a mother.  It's like if I "forget" about it, it may not happen.  Will the universe forget that dream deep within me?  If by living in the moment and not constantly hoping for a child, will the higher power think that having a child is no longer important to me?

Part of me worries that if I keep worrying about it not happening, that it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy and will not happen.  I am afraid of the disappointment that may not come.  I want to be hopeful and believe.  But, what if I am setting myself up for more heartache if it doesn't happen?

I feel caught between quietly hoping, but not hoping too much or not enough, and keeping the fears at bay of it not happening, or worse hoping and believing and it not happening and then being crushed.  I know this is the worst constructed sentence ever.  But, I don't know how else to write all of what I am feeling at the same time.  My thoughts and feelings on motherhood for myself all are a jumbled blob, just like that sentence.  My chest feels tight and the tears silently roll down my cheeks wrapping my brain around all of my thoughts and feelings.

And somehow I have to release the fears, find the courage to believe and get back to living my life as it is in the present--not just getting by, but living a full, happy and content life now.  I know that responsibility resides in me; it is just remembering to do it.  Perhaps focusing on being thankful for what I do have will help me to seize the most that life has to offer me.

As a good friend said to me a few years ago...when one door closes, another one opens.  Maybe all of what I have been through is to make room for something more than I could ever imagine.  After A~, I felt I found that with RJ, but it did not last.  So, I hold onto hope that there is something even better and that my time will not run out.