When you’re caught in the claws of infertility, time becomes a tricky thing. You’re aware of its linear passing, but you stop acknowledging its special markers and milestones. The dawning of new seasons, holidays or birthdays suddenly becomes something to endure, rather than something to celebrate, as they serve to underscore that which you still don’t have.
I’m a list maker and a goal setter by nature. When I first started this journey, I began to make goals that were linked to time and seasonality:
“By next Christmas we will be pregnant.”
“Next spring at this time, I’ll have a baby.”
“By my next birthday, I’ll have my first child and then in two birthdays I’ll have my second.”
It seems wild to me now that I actually thought I could control any of this. And perhaps the most frustrating part of it all is that many people can and do control their pregnancy timeline.
As today marks another year around the sun for me, I’m focusing on the blessings that I have right now in this moment, rather than the ones that time has yet to yield.
0 comments on “What to Expect When You’re Not Expecting: Birthday Edition”