I feel like I’m starting to mentally move on from this fertility journey. I’ve read blogs about the benefits of having an only child, and others about the adoption process. I’m pretty convinced these last two embryos won’t work. I’m thinking about where I might get the best price for Toby’s baby stuff we no longer need. I’m looking into returning to work in some manifestation, and thinking ahead to a life with just us 3. This hasn’t been planned, it’s just sort of happened.
Part of me is trying to get on with things.
The other part is screaming at me to stop. It’s not ready to move on and even less ready to consider work and adoption. It’s wondering what the hell I’m doing and why. It keeps shouting that there are still two embryos in the freezer, and if I can just lose the weight again then it might work. And that I should at least start trying to do the latter.
Part of me is on its knees sobbing for a continuance.
I see pregnant mothers running after preschoolers and young kids in the park, and I think that’s just not a situation I will ever be in. And part of me is glad. It looks like hard work. The other part grieves in private like an unrequited lover who has just been confronted with the reality that it’s never going to happen.
I think it might be self defence on my part. The piece of me that can’t cope with the pain and emotional stress has taken hold of the wheel and decided this road trip sucks, and why the heck would we keep on driving? I’m very strong-willed, or as my CV says, I’m “a self-starter with motivation and determination”. The lack of control on this journey is very hard to cope with, especially for someone like me. So the part of me that wants control is taking it by force. I feel like a coup d’etat is happening inside me, and the defending regime is all out of emotial energy to fight back.
We’re still waiting for the blood test results, and all the time life is moving on. Friends’ babies conceived during our 2.5 years of trying are growing, developing, crawling – a reminder of how much time has passed in this echoing void. Mum-friends are returning to work or otherwise moving on from these maternal years, families complete. Life moves on.
I’ve been in an incredibly fortunate position to be off work for as long as I have – ever since Toby was born 3.5yrs ago. I didn’t go back to work because I didn’t want to stop-start my career by having a second child after returning, and I wanted to look after Toby. I am so incredibly grateful to John for working to enable this, and for the friends I’ve had around me during these years. But perhaps it is over now?
Perhaps it is time to look forwards and embrace the changes that seem to be inevitable, with grace and under my own control, while such things are still a possibility?
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