What would you do....

What would you do (what would I do) if you knew you could not fail?

I have been thinking about this idea for a few days. When I take on a new task, I generally feel that I will either succeed by my own cleverness and perseverance or I will succeed by finding the correct mentor ship. Since I feel this way, I usually DO succeed. I work my way into management wherever I work. I make friends out of the people I find appealing. I take on new projects with wild abandon and laugh my way through. My attitude is that I will have fun and I will either end with a good outcome or I will end with a good story. (Of course when I do not succeed at something, I tell myself that the thing simply was not on the path I should travel.) I realize that this way of thinking is very self-serving but it gives me great peace.

TTC has been very different for me. HJ and I initially began assuming that I would reproduce without trouble--- just get me near a testicle swim team and my eggs would find a way! We even set aside $7000 of our savings thinking that we would have money to reproduce and put the rest back into the account... LOL ... Then the RE had bad news for me and said that IVF would be my only option with any real chance of success. My heart dropped and I felt as though I had been punched in the stomach. But HJ and I persevered! We read up on the procedure and just knew that I would get pregnant on the 1st go... which I did..... then I miscarried. Then IVF #2 was a bust. My foundation has been rocked.

In retrospect, I have been to this foundationless place before. I was so totally broken when my 1st long term partner left me. I feared I would never love again so I filled my life with an amazing support system. The 2 years before I met HJ were filled with amazing joy and unanticipated growth. I did fear that I would just find a string of less than satisfying people to date but I found ways to fill the hole left by my 1st partner. I think the difference is that friends, family, career and such are not adequate replacements of being a mother and all the wonders that go with having a child.

Who am I if I cannot succeed? Who will I be if I cannot be a mother? I think that I have always seen myself as motherly. I take care of people. I adore Martha Stewart. I plan all year what I will bake at Christmas time. For pete's sake, I even provide counseling to children! When I read the Awakening, I enjoyed Edna Pontellier's independence but I more closely identified with Adele Ratignolle's love of family. I have always considered myself, a "mother-woman." (Which in my opinion does not also preclude being a feminist and an activist!)

So how would I feel about TTC if I KNEW without a doubt that I would succeed in having a child? No worries: no questions: just a quiet confidence in the knowledge that I will be a mother: that either HJ or I will produce a child to fill our home with that last missing element. If I knew these things, I would be free from such fear. I would not have that gnawing feeling that my life may proceed without my deepest desire. I think I would feel lighter and might feel less like I do right now--- as though HJ and I are endlessly in a holding pattern.

Don't misunderstand, I am happy. I feel blessed to be with the love of my life. I am fulfilled by my job and HJ and I are financially okay. I see the good parts of my life and I celebrate them. But how much happier could we all be if we knew that we could finish the TTC journey as parents rather than as wanna-be's? Who knows? Maybe I will end feeling about the past year + the way I feel about the 2 years I was single as an adult--- as I time I learned and grew for the better.

Quote: Just when the caterpillar thought its world was over, it became a butterfly.