Fear Factor

1. In just 18 months, at the age of 35, the statistics on the health problems that could be encountered IF I manage to get pregnant are: I am 2.75 X as likely to have a miscarriage. I am 2.5 X more likely to have a baby with down syndrom. 1/3 of my eggs will have chromosomal problems, 0.5% of pregnancies result in chromosomal birth defects. I am twice as likely to have pregnancy/birth complications endangering the child and/or myself. As well as a general 'increased risk' for ectopic pregnancies and premature & low-weight babies.
2. If in fact the 'natural' way is eliminated, the only options left require spending, mostly in the thousands to tens of thousands of dollars, in otherwords, debt in the thousands of dollars. Taking on high debt for high risk, no matter the choice....Canadian adoption=parents have a year to take back child (we know of 2 such cases), International adoption= very high cost, fertility treatments=only takes care of conception, not implantation or surviving the first 4 weeks in utero (typically only 30% successful on average).
3. Cancer has ravaged 66% of the male generation above Sean on his father's side, their 'mid-life crisis' - a fast and vicious killer.  One male cousin didn't even make it past 33 from the same cancer. There is a very real possibility any child of ours could lose their father in the next 3+ years. There is a very real possibility a son of ours could get cancer too.
4. The generational anger that Sean (and his brothers) have inherited, stemming from the kind of poor choices that destroyed lives and whose ripple effects seem unending, makes for a very real possibility of passing this on to our children.

Fears, or anxiousness, whatever you want to name my ever growing list of reasons I'm becoming ok with having no children, I'm torn between allowing these to continue (if they are meant to bring me some comfort being childless) or taking them captive (do not be anxious about anything).
It is difficult to know whether I'm supposed to be 'facing facts' or 'holding on to hope', I have yet to experience any tangible answers, as I have mentioned before.
A new blog I've started following plucked the words right from my heart when I read her post, "I believe God can do miracles, but I am finding it hard to believe he will choose to do it for us. Something in me is telling me that my body is just not going to let this happen. I don't know if it my own pessimism, the enemy, or the Holy Spirit. I don't know whether to believe it or refute it. I wish we just knew one way or the other. I need some black and white. I need a plan, all this grey, and all this "wait and see" feels like such a heavy burden on our shoulders.... I am left desperate for hope. Real hope - and a little perspective."

Am I supposed to be ok with the way things are? Are my anxious thoughts not my own pessimism? Are they the truthful whisperings of the Holy Spirit?

"Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts."

Pros and Cons

When you are TTC it's easy to ignore the 'cons' of having children, you are so focused on all that you want about parenthood and you bury the doubts and worries. The desire for love is built so strong in us, to be able to love and be loved unconditionally is a blinding passion that helps most people forget the 'cons'.

When you are STTC it's the opposite, you spend more time thinking, 'at least I don't have to worry about that' now, and you try not to think about all the 'pros' you are missing out on.  After all, there is a LOT that can go wrong, and I think anyone who cares about children can come up with a long list of reasons they add to our worries, without even including the shallow and selfish ones. But to help me STTC, I even dwell on the shallow and selfish ones. Most days.  Until I look into this face.....and all the cons go away.

(my adorable nephew)

What To Expect

So, 10 months ago I gave up on keeping track of my cycle all together, didn't even want to know when to expect the next one so that I couldn't know if I was late or not.  It really worked in getting over my break-up with TTC, but now it's a little annoying NOT knowing when to expect it.

I didn't want to start tracking it again, or even writing it down every month, but thanks to my iPhone I have an app for that :)

It's called What To Expect.

All I do is enter in the day it starts, how long it lasts and it calculates the rest for me.  If I want to know, for whatever reason, I can glance at the future calendars, but if I don't look at it I have no clue. Blissful ignorance.
Once the next one comes, if the calendar was wrong I can update it so that next months prediction is more accurate, if I want.  Just enough info but not too much.  And the price was right, free!

We'll return right after these messages...

So I took a self-imposed hiatus from regular blogging, back in early October. I needed to give myself a break, figuretively and literally. Ever since I'd realized having children is not a likely future for us I had been a little obsessed with re-shaping my life and my purpose, and for some reason I felt I needed to impliment every idea I ever had to fill the 'empty' life this would leave me with. I'd created one list after another of things I felt I needed/wanted to accomplish with this different future, a list of attributes/skills/characteristics I can shape in myself now that I won't have a life focused on raising children.  I even made a colour coded chart in excel!

And I needed to act on it all NOW. Maybe so I wouldn't feel a void, maybe because I never was good at being idle, which I felt now that I wasn't spending so much time on a certain bunch of activities.

I, being a natural born planner and scheduler, planned and scheduled all these new goals of mine with next to no wiggle room. I even put just about every goal in my Outlook calendar, reminders and all. I thought I accounted for the freedom to follow a new, God-led, purpose, I realize now that embracing gifts he gave me didn't mean I had to use them all and so frequently.

And I totally didn't account for 'life happens'.

And it did.

Life happened. What did I think I would do when work got crazy? How did I not see I had far too many priorities? Why didn't I slow down when my husband started struggling? Or when I started struggling? Or when our marriage started struggling? My calendar reminders didn't stop appearing when those started. I was hit by an anxiety attack, but amidst it all I continued to feel obligated to keep up with my schedule, after all, I had this person I was trying to become, it was my choice to make these priorities, these goals. I would guiltally press 'Snooze' on all those reminders with good intentions of getting back to them all later, but they just piled up, overwhelming me even more.

I forgot to schedule time to

just.be.

So, I interrupted my 'regularly scheduled programming'.

I finally gave myself a break.

And now I'm back.
 
I hope to begin blogging here again a little more regularly now. Thanks for staying tuned.