I’m 37 (almost 38). I have two beautiful children. One biological and one adopted. It’s been exactly ten years since I wrote on this little secret blog. I remembered my login today and read through all the entries. That sweet girl. I have so much compassion for my younger self.
My life is so vastly different now. I homeschool my kids. I have a small business. Life is good. The trauma I experienced with infertility never really left me (in the sense that I never felt I could to back down that road). Sometimes I have regrets about it but knowing now how common that is and how truly terrible it was I have compassion for myself and my decisions. When our daughter (who was conceived during that big IUI #3) was two we started the process of adopting and our amazing son was born a year later.
Our life’s are simple, good, fun, laid back. I love our life.
Last summer though I started getting antsy. I went to an acupuncturist for three months TTC naturally. After that my BFF that I wrote about so often announced she was pregnant, I had a big cry, and we decided we were officially done. That decision gave me a lot of peace and I was very content through her whole pregnancy.
She had the baby yesterday and it has undone me. I wrote so candidly back then about our struggles in friendship and I’m so happy to say that we are even closer today. I love all her kids like my own and have celebrated each birth like I wanted to celebrate her first back then and wasn’t able to. I have thrown her four baby showers. I’ve given gifts, brought meals, been truly over the moon for her. Seeing that itty baby though has opened an old wound and brought a fresh wave of pain that has knocked me out. I’ve cried for six days straight. It’s hard to get anything done.
Each new picture she sends twists my guts into knots. I have a migraine from crying so much and I’m numb. My husband is very hesitant to try again. He’s 42. I don’t blame him. We were settled and here I come with my waves of grief.
The grief confuses me. Does this mean I truly want another baby? Or is this just how it is with infertility and middle age? Knowing that the door is officially closed and that my body really can’t do it is so hard.
And if the door is closed for good, if this death needs to be grieved, how do I memorialize that? There is no grave to bring flowers. There is no place to go and mourn. Do I plant a tree? “For the babies that never were”
Or do we say screw it and go back to the fertility specialist and schedule an iui. At my age. Yikes.
I want to say thank you to the women who commented on these old blogs a decade ago. I never met you. You never even knew my name. But you got me through the hardest time of my life. “May his favor be upon you to a thousand generations.”
