Due Date

So this weekend would have been my due date.

Would have been, but it's wasn't.  Instead of a crib in the would-be nursery, I have a desk.  Instead of mother goose, I have Grey's Anatomy (the book not the dvd's :) ). Instead of being sad about this, I'm motivated.  I would love to have a child, don't get me wrong, but I am truly thankful to have this opportunity to go to nursing school, now, before I have a child running around.

Let me quote myself from around a year ago in "The Emotional Tests":

"The worst part of the roller coaster is that you can't disembark. Well, you can, but that means you have chosen "child-free" living as infertility types like to call it (sounds pretty awful to me at this point). I suppose you could always take a break, but for me, I am scared of missing a chance. Even if I tried to take a break, I would still know when about I was going to ovulate and when I could start expecting symptoms one way or the other...so again, I'm stuck on this ride until either I give birth, or hit menopause."

Hands down...I think this is the most ridiculous statement I've said on this blog. (Excluding my post-HCG test blogs, which are too painful for me to re-read just yet).  To be fair to myself, I'm sure it was inspired by a fertility memoir written by a 40-something...but still, c'mon July 2011, MK...buck the ***k up!  (See Mama, I am learning...) 

So let me show you this little gem:

Or, translated for those of who can't stand the French:

I'm not forty yet...I'm not even darkening 35's door...I got a little time, and I had a little work to do on myself.  My desperation for a child, was, in part, desperation to have something I was proud of in my life.  I was not happy with my life as it was, and mistakenly thought a child could distract me from that.  I gag at the thought of what kind of mother I would have been.  Controlling, impossible expectations, over-bearing, helicopter, angry mama bear are all things that are coming to my mind.  I'm kinda glad I'm not my own child!  

I think, even though we'll never know until we know, that this experience has softened me a bit.  I might not take every possession away from our child for making an A-, now...I'm KIDDING!  But I seriously am contemplating selling back the Tiger Mom book to McKay's (STILL KIDDING!).  I will just be so dad-gummed appreciative of the fact that I get the chance to be a mother, the little things seem to wash away.  Straight A's, piano lessons, getting into the right dance school, gymnastics, looking like they just stepped out of a Brooks Brothers for Kids catalog...those things don't seem as important as they once did. 

The other thing about a break is that it lets you focus on you as a whole person instead of just your ovaries.  You do deserve to be happy. I deserve to find happiness with or without children.  My husband deserves to be happy without children. We deserve to just be happy, today and from tomorrow on regardless of our reproductive systems. 

So today, I graciously accepted a prescription for Depo-Provera (Actually, I kinda begged, but that's for a different installment of this blog...). Twenty-six months later, I can close the door on this chapter of our fertility journey and enjoy being pain-free for the first time in over two years.  I can enjoy my husband, my friends, and my life without fertility trauma.  I can accept we may possibly be the oldest parents at our child's kindergarten graduation. Just think how much I'll have improved by then!

Peace, Love, and Margaritas,

Mary Katherine aka MK 2.0