Meet Guilt and Questioning

Okay, so here is the update that I have been promising you. Sabrina started her meds the day after Christmas in preparation for our January 28^th FET. To tell you the truth I have given very little thought to the whole thing, but more on that later. We had a wonderful Christmas with my family, so wonderful that I did very little thinking about the whole baby thing at all. For once I was really able to just be in the moment and enjoy the time that I had with the people who I love, instead of being distracted by that non-existent human who has haunted me for so many of the previous years. I am so grateful that I was able to just live in the moment, because they are beautiful moments.

For Christmas I gave the husband a trip to San Francisco to see two members of the Grateful Dead play on New Years Eve. To everyone’s shock, mine mostly, I was able to keep this from him. I am horrible about not being able to keep secrets from him, so this was a major accomplishment. It has been a couple of years since we have taken a proper vacation, and although this one was short it was amazingly wonderful. Between school and just day to day life we get very little time to just really be together. We partied way too hard on New Years Eve and spent the next day paying for it, but it was still the most fun I have had in a long time.

During all this fun and acting way younger than we apparently are, I had a profound moment. For just a tiny moment I questioned whether I really wanted to be a mother. Let’s face it a kid is not going to allow us to have much time with each other just being silly kids ourselves. As usual this fleeting thought brought along two friends, meet guilt and questioning.

I live in this constant state of fear about being a good mother, which I know is natural, but that fear quickly turns to guilt in the blink of an eye. I put so much more pressure on myself because of the infertility. The fact that we must go to extremes to have a child has made me feel the need to be the perfect mother, something I know full well does not exist. Every time I even entertain the idea of living without a child or start to enjoy moments that I know will be few and far between once our child is here I feel an overwhelming amount of guilt. No matter how irrational I know this all is, the feelings never seem to change.

Part of all of this is that I still, and always will, feel responsible for my infertility. Yes, I have PCOS which was going to make getting pregnant very difficult at best, but at the end of the day I know that I did this to myself. Really, there was very little choice in the matter, having periods from 2 to 6 months did not leave me with a life. The uterine ablation was the only chance I had at living a “normal” life and there is not a moment that I ever regret making that decision. The fact remains that it was a decision. Unlike the vast majority of women in the world of infertility, I walked into a hospital and signed a consent form to make myself forever infertile. Which also makes me feel guilty about ever calling myself an infertile, because medical conditions caused me to get to that point but in the end I put the final nail in that coffin.

I know that I want to be a mother as much as I want to breathe. I know that parenthood is going to be a great new chapter in our relationship. I also know that I am going to miss these amazing moments that we have together as just a couple. My world is a wonderful place, I am married to the man who was really my best friend before we ever got romantic and no matter where life has taken us we have maintained this friendship. Our world will be an even better place when our child is finally with us.