Much like the chicken and the egg question, I often ask myself which came first; my fear of not having children or my inability to have children.
When I was young, my biggest fear was losing one of my parents. It consumed me for several years as a child and lead to my inability to sleep as I worried about robbers breaking into the house, or the house burning down. Ironically, I was too young to think of the real dangers such as disease. Then, my father passed away of cancer. I won't say it was an easy time in my life, but I survived and my fears were always worse than the actual event. Was my fear based in some sort of intuitive feeling or did my focus on the negativity cause the event. Am I saying my bad thoughts caused my father's illness? Of course not...smoking cigarettes for 30 years caused his cancer! But you can't deny that constant negative thoughts can't be good, right?
In my mid-twenties, my fears changed to one of being unable to have children. I started with just a lingering thought here and there... what if I can't have kids? Some people know what they will be when they grow up at a very young age. I, on the other hand, was always confused about my career path... but one thing was for certain; I wanted to be a mom. I remember being fascinated with adoption for a long time. Is everyone fascinated with adoption or was it just me? Did I intuitively know this would my path and felt an attraction to this specific route to parenthood? Even before I met Pierre I talked about adoption. I had given myself until the age of 35 to have a child. I told myself, if I don't have a child by the time I was 35, I would adopt. Ironically, I was exactly 35 when we first added our name to a waiting list since we were having trouble getting pregnant... I wasn't even thinking of my cut-off time when we did. We even talked about adoption and infertility early in our relationship. Do all couples talk about this? Somehow, I think we aren't like most couples! We talked about having children on our first date! It was clear it was something we both really wanted. There was no reason to doubt we would be able to have a baby; we were both healthy and no one in our families had ever had fertility issues... so why did I even think it would be for us? It's odd, isn't it? I remember asking Pierre if he would ever sell his Mustang to pay for fertility treatments and we weren't even trying to get pregnant at the time. Of course he agreed, but I'm not sure he knew what he was getting himself into. lol
So I ask you... am I intuitive or am I negative? Did I know, on some level, my path to parenthood would be different than most or did my fears somehow send out a message into the world?
Woah! I'm being way to introspective for a Monday morning!
When I was young, my biggest fear was losing one of my parents. It consumed me for several years as a child and lead to my inability to sleep as I worried about robbers breaking into the house, or the house burning down. Ironically, I was too young to think of the real dangers such as disease. Then, my father passed away of cancer. I won't say it was an easy time in my life, but I survived and my fears were always worse than the actual event. Was my fear based in some sort of intuitive feeling or did my focus on the negativity cause the event. Am I saying my bad thoughts caused my father's illness? Of course not...smoking cigarettes for 30 years caused his cancer! But you can't deny that constant negative thoughts can't be good, right?
In my mid-twenties, my fears changed to one of being unable to have children. I started with just a lingering thought here and there... what if I can't have kids? Some people know what they will be when they grow up at a very young age. I, on the other hand, was always confused about my career path... but one thing was for certain; I wanted to be a mom. I remember being fascinated with adoption for a long time. Is everyone fascinated with adoption or was it just me? Did I intuitively know this would my path and felt an attraction to this specific route to parenthood? Even before I met Pierre I talked about adoption. I had given myself until the age of 35 to have a child. I told myself, if I don't have a child by the time I was 35, I would adopt. Ironically, I was exactly 35 when we first added our name to a waiting list since we were having trouble getting pregnant... I wasn't even thinking of my cut-off time when we did. We even talked about adoption and infertility early in our relationship. Do all couples talk about this? Somehow, I think we aren't like most couples! We talked about having children on our first date! It was clear it was something we both really wanted. There was no reason to doubt we would be able to have a baby; we were both healthy and no one in our families had ever had fertility issues... so why did I even think it would be for us? It's odd, isn't it? I remember asking Pierre if he would ever sell his Mustang to pay for fertility treatments and we weren't even trying to get pregnant at the time. Of course he agreed, but I'm not sure he knew what he was getting himself into. lol
So I ask you... am I intuitive or am I negative? Did I know, on some level, my path to parenthood would be different than most or did my fears somehow send out a message into the world?
Woah! I'm being way to introspective for a Monday morning!