Five years on

Once or twice a year I remember to pop on to make sure this blog and associated accounts haven't expired and I'm paid up. So I just noticed that my first post here was on October 5, 2005, and this is my 98th post. In keeping with the overall not-much-in-touch-with-self theme that defines my life, I cannot, cannot, cannot remember what I was thinking and feeling and needed to write about that would have filled all those posts. Maybe, I will celebrate NaBloPoMo http://www.nablopomo.com/ by just rereading them all.

But probably I won't.

But maybe this is still a good opportunity to try to reflect and self educate a bit.

Originally this blog was mostly about dealing with the horrendous pain of miscarriage and infertility. How's that going? Pain: pretty much gone, I'm happy to say. I can still get a little emotional and weepy attending mass with my parents on Mothers Day and at Christmas, but it's for a confusing jumble of reasons: no kids of my own, love and concern for my own aging parents, and, I must confess, church music. Church music makes me emotional. Roman Catholicism wins again.

We don't have kids. I never did a fourth round of IVF. I never went back and reopened the conversation about adoption. I am very pleased to report that right now, I am happy and life is good. I do not carry this around with me and think about it all day long. It does not interfere with my relationships with friends who have children. I actually find that I have a little tiny bit of secret and shameful pleasure when I occasionally make people (only those I know really well, and I like to think they'd forgive me) uncomfortable by referring to our sad, barren, childless status in an oblique way when they are being annoying and bellyachey about life and how their kids are making them nuts.

I believe that life is easier for me without kids. I do not know how I will feel about this in years and decades to come, when everyone else is going through high school, college, post-college despair years, marriage, grandchildren ... I am sure I will have periods where I feel worse about it.

The only thing I've learned that I do hold very close to my heart about this whole experience is that there is only one TRULY good thing about wanting but being unable to have kids: not being able to have kids means not having sick kids. I feel like there's been a lot of this happening lately, I know a few people personally who have had children with serious health problems and I feel my brain start to crack and wobble when I try to feel how this would feel as a parent. Laws of probability dictate that this will touch me much more closely than I would like in future, cousins, siblings...somewhere.

So that I don't edit, undo, regret or retract I'm going to stop there and hit the publish.

Comments

[DD]

My heart always does this funny little flip-flop when I see your name, the only Mary Scarlet I have ever known. Like seeing a long-lost lover walking down the street...

Peace and love, always.

[amanda]

It's so good to hear an update! I'm really glad you're doing well. I do know how hard it is to get back to the blog after you've ignored it, so thanks for checking in.

[thalia]

Thank you for letting us know how you are. Odd how these things work, I was running through old blogs last week and stopped by yours thinking, Oh I miss her. Then here you are today.

I'm glad things are good, and think your perspective is fascinating, and that you have a tremendous self-awareness, perhaps another infertility legacy? Or was that always part of you?

[MsPrufrock]

I haven't read blogs in ages, but opening my Reader is the reading version of comfort food. I couldn't be more pleased to see a post from you. It's always nice and reassuring to see one of your old favourites pop up every once and again. I'm pleased to hear you're posting from a good place. Also, five years - DAMN!

[Portlairge]

It was so nice to see your post in my reader today. Yours was one of the first blogs I read along with the people who have commented before me. I'm glad to hear you are doing well.