If I had to describe my life in one word it would be privileged. Not in the sense where I was born holding a silver spoon or that I didn't have to work for how far I've come, but I have been very blessed with all that I have gotten. I would even go as far to say that some things have come easily and that my path in life was seemingly paved. Regardless of how things fall into place for someone, I think that it's safe to say that everyone has a life plan, with both long-term and short-term goals. In my case, it appeared as though my map was drawn in permanent marker instead of pencil. At least it was, until someone took a giant magic eraser and sent me into a tailspin and wreaked total havoc on my Pinterest boards.
I had my wedding planned at five years old. In 1997, we unfortunately lost the beautiful Princess Diana. I was a bit too young to completely understand, but what I did see was footage from her wedding to Prince Charles play over and over again on my television day after day. I stared in awe at her beautiful dress with her flowing train, the gorgeous flowers, and, most importantly, the happy couple beaming as they walked down the aisle hand in hand. My mom told me that they would go to a reception filled with people, eat cake, and dance all night. I knew that I wanted that someday, so I started practicing. Every day, I would put on my toilet paper veil and marry a new stuffed animal or imaginary groom, sometimes it was a real friend (or my sister) who I took prisoner and forced into marriage for the day. To me, it was the ultimate fantasy. Besides, once you were married, you got babies.
Obviously, once I was older, I found out that this wasn't quite true, but for the time being...
The only greater goal than having a husband, in my five year-old mind, was having a ton of babies. I wanted, more than anything, to be a mom. In fact, when I didn't have a paper veil on my head, I had a pillow under my shirt and told everyone that I was "pregnuts." When I was between four and five, my mom was also pregnant with my sister, which clearly fed my fascination. In between fake nuptials, I was either hosting baby showers for myself or giving birth. It was a very busy life, but this was just practice. I wanted to be married at the old age of thirteen and have five children by the age of sixteen, so I obviously had time. Over time, this plan clearly got pushed back to something more legal, but one thing always stayed the same: I was going to be a wife and a mother and the rest didn't matter.
In seventh grade, I met the cutest boy with freckles, shaggy hair, and the greatest eyebrows that I had ever seen. He will tell you that we met in sixth grade, but either I clearly wasn't paying attention or he was checking out someone else. In any case, we knew each other before his voice changed and long before my hair saw a box of dye. I didn't know it at the time, but he would become my husband. I used to think that it was silly to say that it was "love at first sight," but I've come to think that it was. In spite of what some people may think, a twelve year-old is capable of being "in love." I didn't know that I was in love at the time, but my soul told me that there was something so special about this person that I shouldn't let him go. And we didn't let go. That's love.
Six months later, our friends made us hold hands at recess. A year later, people watched from the school bus as he kissed me on the cheek. The next summer, I got my first real kiss. After breaking up and getting back together, we started talking about getting married someday. We wanted three kids, two girls and a boy. We graduated high school together and watched all of our friends spread out across the country and do great things. Together, we decided to stay behind and focus on our life and our future family because that's where our passion lived. Every step taken, big or small, we took it together. And eight years after we first started dating, we got married. Because of my husband, I believed that my life would go all according to plan.
I would never call our relationship perfect. I wouldn't ever claim that we don't yell at each other or slam doors. I couldn't lie and say that we never struggle and only have ups, never downs. I will, however, shout from the rooftops that we are stronger together. No matter what, we have always come to the conclusion that a love like ours is worth saving. It's because of our strength that what happened next almost broke us, but didn't.
We wanted to wait a little while before starting a family. We had been together for quite awhile, but we were still young and wanted to live together alone and get our finances in order first. A year of marriage before a baby sounded like a good amount of time to wait. After all, they say that the first year of married life is the hardest; why push it? The topic of children came up a lot, especially because people ask newlyweds all the time when kids will be entering the picture. We would always just say that we wanted to wait, which we were. Even after we no longer wanted to wait, we continued to say the same thing. It was just easier than saying that I couldn't have children.
Those are words that you are never prepared to hear. Enough time had past to make me feel that something wasn't right, so I headed to the doctor to get some testing done. Up until that point, I had never been in a room that felt so cold or been around so many people, but felt so alone.
"You most likely will not be able to have children of your own."
Even if you were told what was coming, nothing will ever prepare you for the news that your plans for the future are shattered. Adoption, surrogacy, fostering...these are all wonderful ways to have a child to call your own. In that moment, you don't think of other options. You think of everything that you can't do. You think of the basic human ability that you should have, that you don't. You think of the failure that you are and that you don't know how you're going to tell your husband. You think of how you built a foundation for a future that won't come and that it all falls on you. Then the tears come.
The conversation that DJ and I had was one of the hardest I've ever had, but we chose to persevere and keep trying. We decided to wish for a miracle. Month after month, negative test after negative test, appointment after appointment, we remained determined to keep the hope. For me, it waned. To say that I was always hopeful would be a lie. Every month, I would break a little bit more. Every birth announcement I saw, every baby I held, every time someone asked when we were going to have a baby, I let it get to me. I watched myself become a shell of myself and then fall apart over and over. He helped me back up and convinced me to try again.
It was at my lowest point when we decided to either spend our savings on adoption or on more invasive medical intervention. We went to a couple meetings with local adoption agencies and we made an appointment with a fertility specialist. It couldn't hurt to pursue both at once and get all of the information that we could. We decided that it didn't matter how we got our baby, we just wanted a family. We wanted a baby to love. After all of our appointments, however, I didn't feel like I was ready to adopt. I was selfish and I wanted to try everything that we could afford before giving up, even if it destroyed me. I'm glad that we didn't pursue adoption in that moment because it's not something to jump into. You have to be emotionally ready. It's not as simple as "there's always adoption." It's deciding to extend your love to a child that's not biologically yours, but making them your own. You can't do that when you feel like a failure. You shouldn't do that when you feel broken.
With the fertility specialist, I went through multiple painful procedures. I drove over an hour to the doctor first thing in the morning and then to work every day. I injected my stomach with needles and took three different medications that made me sick. I ate a special diet and we lived our life on a schedule. It was grueling, both physically and emotionally. And it was worth it. It took years, but we got our happy ending. On our life map, we took backroads, but we got our family.
The plan that I had written for my life is not what happened. It's not what's going to happen. Would I still call myself privileged? Yes. Life told me that I couldn't have children. I told life to shove it. It wasn't easy, but I'm a mom. I'm a wife and I'm a mom. It doesn't matter which route I took to get here.
I had my wedding planned at five years old. In 1997, we unfortunately lost the beautiful Princess Diana. I was a bit too young to completely understand, but what I did see was footage from her wedding to Prince Charles play over and over again on my television day after day. I stared in awe at her beautiful dress with her flowing train, the gorgeous flowers, and, most importantly, the happy couple beaming as they walked down the aisle hand in hand. My mom told me that they would go to a reception filled with people, eat cake, and dance all night. I knew that I wanted that someday, so I started practicing. Every day, I would put on my toilet paper veil and marry a new stuffed animal or imaginary groom, sometimes it was a real friend (or my sister) who I took prisoner and forced into marriage for the day. To me, it was the ultimate fantasy. Besides, once you were married, you got babies.
Obviously, once I was older, I found out that this wasn't quite true, but for the time being...
The only greater goal than having a husband, in my five year-old mind, was having a ton of babies. I wanted, more than anything, to be a mom. In fact, when I didn't have a paper veil on my head, I had a pillow under my shirt and told everyone that I was "pregnuts." When I was between four and five, my mom was also pregnant with my sister, which clearly fed my fascination. In between fake nuptials, I was either hosting baby showers for myself or giving birth. It was a very busy life, but this was just practice. I wanted to be married at the old age of thirteen and have five children by the age of sixteen, so I obviously had time. Over time, this plan clearly got pushed back to something more legal, but one thing always stayed the same: I was going to be a wife and a mother and the rest didn't matter.
In seventh grade, I met the cutest boy with freckles, shaggy hair, and the greatest eyebrows that I had ever seen. He will tell you that we met in sixth grade, but either I clearly wasn't paying attention or he was checking out someone else. In any case, we knew each other before his voice changed and long before my hair saw a box of dye. I didn't know it at the time, but he would become my husband. I used to think that it was silly to say that it was "love at first sight," but I've come to think that it was. In spite of what some people may think, a twelve year-old is capable of being "in love." I didn't know that I was in love at the time, but my soul told me that there was something so special about this person that I shouldn't let him go. And we didn't let go. That's love.
Six months later, our friends made us hold hands at recess. A year later, people watched from the school bus as he kissed me on the cheek. The next summer, I got my first real kiss. After breaking up and getting back together, we started talking about getting married someday. We wanted three kids, two girls and a boy. We graduated high school together and watched all of our friends spread out across the country and do great things. Together, we decided to stay behind and focus on our life and our future family because that's where our passion lived. Every step taken, big or small, we took it together. And eight years after we first started dating, we got married. Because of my husband, I believed that my life would go all according to plan.
I would never call our relationship perfect. I wouldn't ever claim that we don't yell at each other or slam doors. I couldn't lie and say that we never struggle and only have ups, never downs. I will, however, shout from the rooftops that we are stronger together. No matter what, we have always come to the conclusion that a love like ours is worth saving. It's because of our strength that what happened next almost broke us, but didn't.
We wanted to wait a little while before starting a family. We had been together for quite awhile, but we were still young and wanted to live together alone and get our finances in order first. A year of marriage before a baby sounded like a good amount of time to wait. After all, they say that the first year of married life is the hardest; why push it? The topic of children came up a lot, especially because people ask newlyweds all the time when kids will be entering the picture. We would always just say that we wanted to wait, which we were. Even after we no longer wanted to wait, we continued to say the same thing. It was just easier than saying that I couldn't have children.
Those are words that you are never prepared to hear. Enough time had past to make me feel that something wasn't right, so I headed to the doctor to get some testing done. Up until that point, I had never been in a room that felt so cold or been around so many people, but felt so alone.
"You most likely will not be able to have children of your own."
Even if you were told what was coming, nothing will ever prepare you for the news that your plans for the future are shattered. Adoption, surrogacy, fostering...these are all wonderful ways to have a child to call your own. In that moment, you don't think of other options. You think of everything that you can't do. You think of the basic human ability that you should have, that you don't. You think of the failure that you are and that you don't know how you're going to tell your husband. You think of how you built a foundation for a future that won't come and that it all falls on you. Then the tears come.
The conversation that DJ and I had was one of the hardest I've ever had, but we chose to persevere and keep trying. We decided to wish for a miracle. Month after month, negative test after negative test, appointment after appointment, we remained determined to keep the hope. For me, it waned. To say that I was always hopeful would be a lie. Every month, I would break a little bit more. Every birth announcement I saw, every baby I held, every time someone asked when we were going to have a baby, I let it get to me. I watched myself become a shell of myself and then fall apart over and over. He helped me back up and convinced me to try again.
It was at my lowest point when we decided to either spend our savings on adoption or on more invasive medical intervention. We went to a couple meetings with local adoption agencies and we made an appointment with a fertility specialist. It couldn't hurt to pursue both at once and get all of the information that we could. We decided that it didn't matter how we got our baby, we just wanted a family. We wanted a baby to love. After all of our appointments, however, I didn't feel like I was ready to adopt. I was selfish and I wanted to try everything that we could afford before giving up, even if it destroyed me. I'm glad that we didn't pursue adoption in that moment because it's not something to jump into. You have to be emotionally ready. It's not as simple as "there's always adoption." It's deciding to extend your love to a child that's not biologically yours, but making them your own. You can't do that when you feel like a failure. You shouldn't do that when you feel broken.
With the fertility specialist, I went through multiple painful procedures. I drove over an hour to the doctor first thing in the morning and then to work every day. I injected my stomach with needles and took three different medications that made me sick. I ate a special diet and we lived our life on a schedule. It was grueling, both physically and emotionally. And it was worth it. It took years, but we got our happy ending. On our life map, we took backroads, but we got our family.
The plan that I had written for my life is not what happened. It's not what's going to happen. Would I still call myself privileged? Yes. Life told me that I couldn't have children. I told life to shove it. It wasn't easy, but I'm a mom. I'm a wife and I'm a mom. It doesn't matter which route I took to get here.
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| I made you, but you made me a mother. |
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