I did everything in my power:
I went to acupuncturists three times a week.
We remodeled our chi thanks to Feng Shui and Chi Gong.
I sought out astrologers for the most auspicious dates for our IVF procedures and consulted assorted healers.
I prayed even though I am agnostic.
I trusted my fate to Maori healers who charged $350 in cash for a 50-minute consultation.
I ate my weight in yams and sweet potatoes (supposedly the nutritional super-food that can promise a pregnancy even when the top doctors in reproductive medicine can't deliver).
I endured countless artificial reproductive technology procedures ($100,000.00 worth).
And now I feel nothing but grateful that I am not a mother, and that is a miracle even greater than me somehow managing to get pregnant.
It continues to surprise me how grateful I am in retrospect not to have achieved my long cherished dream of being a mother. For nearly the past three months I have been with a very wonderful man and I am crazy about him, and I feel sure that he would tell you that he is crazy about me. This lovely man has two nearly-adult-children and he is a wonderful father, and I love that about him. The super-duper-crazy thing is that as I watch him father his children that there is no envy in me, rather there is relief. Being in the relationship with him hasn't filled me with longing to parent a child with him (a biological impossibility, by the way) or regret that I can't (I imagined that falling in love might create some familiar stirring to be a mother).
Instead I feel so extraordinarily grateful. I feel crazy grateful for how everything worked out so very perfectly. And I think about how if I had gotten what I hoped and prayed and paid Reproductive Endocrinologists for that I would now be a very unhappy gal who likely would not have had the courage to do what I did in March( (leave my husband) and how I certainly would not be in this new relationship with this wonderful man who makes me ridiculously happy. I feel blessed. (I know that word has slightly religious tones to it, but I almost feel that there was a divine hand in all of this unfolding as it has -- emphasis on the word "almost.")
In the last ten months I have thought of the following quote more times than I ate sweet potatoes (and I ate so many that I was in danger of turning orange) or charted my temperature back in the height of the IUI days:
"More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones."
That is a line from Truman Capote's novel, "Answered Prayers." Each time I think of the quote or say it, I find myself overwhelmed with gratitude that I didn't get what I wanted. Not getting what I wanted may prove that grace exists (by the way, Grace was the name I wanted to name the daughter that I thought I wanted to have).
Sure, there are days that I am punched in the ovaries by the unchangeable fact that I will never be anyone's mother. I will never know what it is like to have someone call me "mommy." I won't ever have a little baby hand hold onto the back of my neck (for some reason, this is an image that has dogged me since I began trying to become pregnant). But I also won't have all the headache, hell, heartache, expense and frown lines that come with mothering. Now I am free. I am free to do what I want and to spend my time and money the way I want. Now I get to spend my life doing what I want to do. I know that sounds selfish, and I suppose it is. But as I am not a mother, my selfishness isn't hurting anyone else.
And, yeah, I am still really and truly happy. I am house shopping. Me and the adorable boyfriend are looking for a house, and I am not freaking out in the least. Okay, not true, I am actually freaking out in the good way. I am actually happy to be looking for a permanent residence. I am proof that miracles happen. I prove that not getting what you want can make you extraordinarily happy, in the long run, that is.
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So how has not getting what you want made you happy? Please share!
This post originally appeared on La Belette Rouge.
Miracles that happens astounding world community of nations could also occur in these cases who can say "NO" to it.
The people of the world community of nations would definitely pray to God Almighty to bless all those who yet have no children but prays they are blessed to with one. God surely will answer by Blessing his creation. A woman would not feel to be complete woman without becoming a mother.
How dare you attempt to dictate to women what will and will not make them "complete women"? The beauty about this article is that she has found peace with what life has given to her and she is thankful for the life she has. Who are you to tell her what she does and does not need?
Also, perhaps an English class or twenty may be in order....
Adoption is a wonderful alternative. You would
make children that do not have a family very
happy. Or be a foster parent, take a child away
from CPS and give them a great home.
If this is occurring in livestock - “recent reports of infertility rates in dairy heifers of over 20%, and spontaneous abortions in cattle as high as 45%,” what's to say this is not happening in humans?!
In a letter written by Don Huber, professor emeritus at Purdue University and sent to Sec. of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, Huber warns of a pathogen new to science as a result of Roundup Ready crops:
"In summary, because of the high titer of this new animal pathogen in Roundup Ready crops, and its association with plant and animal diseases that are reaching epidemic proportions, we request USDA's participation in a multi-agency investigation, and an immediate moratorium on the deregulation of RR crops until the causal/predisposing relationship with glyphosate and/or RR plants can be ruled out as a threat to crop and animal production and human health."
Huber's letter was written before Vilsack announced his decision to authorize the commercial planting of GM alfalfa in February. Huber had hoped to impose a moratorium.
Alfalfa is mainly used as animal feed!
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/newPathogenInRoundupReadyGMCrops.php
I want GM foods labeled.............
On a side note: the author is happy that she is does not have a child; having a child does not define a woman. Happiness comes from within, and as long as she is happy that is what counts! If she wanted to adopt she would have; but she discovered that she was happy being right where she was!