Acceptance.

August 20, 2014 at 9:22 am | Posted in Choosing Happiness., Crazy Talk (aka: Therapy), I Write. (aka: writing projects), Intention (Living)., Mindful., My life | 8 Comments

Ah, the irony of writing a post where I say I’ve been writing every day since I started vacation, and I have a goal to write every day… and then not being able to write at all one day.

I did not write anything yesterday but review notes for the person that is helping me test controls. The woman I work for wants me to step up and manage this new person, which is fine, but it also really kind of sucks. I was envisioning a situation where I could do my own work and the other person does hers, end of story. So far from feeling as if I am extracting myself from my current work situation, I feel like I am getting more and more entrenched.

Sigh.

I keep reminding myself that nothing is forever, and really, it takes only a conversation to alert her that I cannot work this project next year.

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Anyway, so here I am, sitting in my kitchen, stealing time to write while I wait for the babysitter to come so I can work for the day.

Mel had a great post yesterday.

Show up and write.

So here I am.

I have to admit I’ve had a hard time writing in my space because I feel like there are SO many blogs out there, with so many people who have much better things to say that I do. This idea wars with my other idea that there IS space for me in this community, the infertile who made it to the other side but remains one of the few that is working to accept that the family she was given is her complete family.

It’s hard sometimes for me to read other blogs, too. Where are the people like me?

I see all these posts with people who are done with family building, and the general theme is that they feel like their family is complete. I usually see those posts where they see their older child playing with the new baby, or they post a picture where the kids are interacting.

Those posts are written with such warmth and thankfulness and happiness that it used to make me ache with longing.

And here’s where I confess: I would get angry at a lot of those posts. I was jealous and bitter.

Of course it’s easy to feel like your family is complete when you get what you want, I’d think.

I know, I’m awful. I used to hate those feelings.

But for so long, I felt like I was MISSING something. There was a piece missing, a part missing. The baby I didn’t get to have. And though I had the very same thankfulness whenever I looked at Lucky – because, really, how LUCKY we got with him, it’s nothing short of amazing – it never lasted.

I wanted more.

I wanted my baby, the one I lost. The one that made me feel sick and who had a beating heart. I wanted her, the one who didn’t make it.

I wanted my arms and heart and belly to be full again.

I wanted to be able to post on my blog, looking at Lucky and our new baby, how complete I felt.

And I have still have days where I long for that baby, still feel that expansion and contraction of pain in my heart and belly whenever I see an infant; a visceral want that comes from a deep, deep place inside me whenever I snuggle with my nephew, or hold a baby.  And it’s still hard for me to see pictures of siblings, because my heart hurts when I realize that Lucky will never know what it’s like to have a brother or a sister.

I think that’s the hardest part for me to accept; that Charlie and I have siblings who are such a big part of our lives, and Lucky will never get to experience that kind of love.

But, also.

Whenever I tell people, or say out loud, there will never be another baby,  I now have this deep, unshakeable sense of peace. I sometimes look at Charlie and Lucky and Happy, and I feel that same warmth and thankfulness and happiness that I see in those Complete Family blog posts.

Our family IS complete. There isn’t anything missing, no piece we need to find and fill into our family. The four of us (and yes, I count the dog, who is quite decidedly NOT the same as having another child… but oh so wonderful a companion.) make a unit that’s distinctly ours.

Acceptance. I haz it.

This acceptance is not at all what I thought it would be.

Over the years of fighting infertility to bring home the family we had dreamed of, I saw acceptance as a mirage, an oasis in the far distance. It was so hard for me to say the words, We may never have any more children. 

Even with the “may” in there, it was hard to think about.

Even as I was giving away clothing and baby gear, I never really thought I’d ever look in the mirror and admit that we’d never have another baby in our house.

Even as we walked away from treatments, I had the idea, maybe. Maybe we’ll get lucky again, this time with a surprise pregnancy. Or maybe we’ll adopt. Maybe we’ll change our minds someday and go back to treatments.

I needed that maybe. I needed the hope that our walking away wasn’t final, that we were leaving the door open a crack just in case we changed our minds. I needed to sit with the decision, the hope, the fear, the fail, the bigness of the decision to stop trying. I needed time and distance from the cycle of hope and fear.

I don’t need the maybe anymore.

Our family is complete; we will never have any more children. And yes, it hurts to say that.

But it also feels right to say it, too.