Chosen Infertility

I grew up in a difficult situation. My family had more problems than there are grains of sand in a sandcastle, and was about as crumbly. There was little stability in my life until I was an adult. As I grew up I spent a lot of time babysitting and seeing what "real" families were like, and all I wanted was to experience that myself.

I grew up in Appalachia and parenting starts early there. By high school graduation nearly half the girls I grew up with had babies. I'm now 30, you can imagine how far off the curve I am from that group. I then attended a Christian college where most of the girls plan to graduate, get married and have babies. After 8 years many are on their 3rd kid.

My path was different; I was in school until I was 25 and certainly wasn't having children then. But I was sure that someday it would happen. Then I found out about bipolar and that my meds made pregnancy dangerous for the baby, while pregnancy without meds would be dangerous for me. So that door slammed.

It wasn't until later that I realized how big a piece of my heart got slammed in that door. I gave up dating totally years ago and part of the reason why is that I don't believe in dating without a future, and that means that early into a relationship I have to find a way to tell someone that they need to know that continuing the relationship means heading in the direction of marriage with no chance of having children. And there won't be children from adoption either; nobody would approve me to adopt and I couldn't handle it anyway.

The hardest part of this seems to be watching other people. I was shocked once when I stumbled into a blog written by an infertile woman and so many of my feelings were described.
I read several more infertility blogs and came to understand that my feelings are essentially the same, the same feeling that something has been taken away by an ugly power beyond my control. And the feelings of sadness and jealousy are the same. Yet my body might be able to produce a baby. Getting it there would be a hard thing, and I wouldn't handle it well when it arrived, but if I were unfair to that child, maybe I could have one. (Maybe not, one med causes infertility). Yet I will never do those things. So I have named what I live with "chosen infertility".

Today I became a 2nd cousin for the first time. Throughout the pregnancy I have been dealing with conflicting emotions, and I was surprised how very jealous I am. I'm not even sure I know how to write the note I need to write. It helps even less that my cousin proclaimed right up until a few months before she got pregnant that she never wanted children, and so it feels sort of like our roles were reversed.

Tonight I feel old and lonely. I know that the decisions I've made are right, and I know that I never could handle pregnancy or motherhood in any way that I would want, but I'm still so sad because I know I should be happy. And I'm angry. I just wish it could be remotely as easy for me as it was for her.

Welcome to the world Emma.