A Change Has Taken Place

Sorry I have been MIA lately.  Nothing new has really happened on the infertility front lately so I didn't have much to report.  


Three weeks ago my cousin's baby was born (Madeline Lee....I'm obsessed with baby names!), and later that week my best friend had her second daughter, Kylee Shae.  It's been a rocky couple of week for Kylee's family as she was (I believe) 6 weeks premature and at only 1.5 weeks they brought her back to the hospital because she had contracted RSV, which can be fatal in premies.  It's been a scary couple weeks for my friend, and I feel so much sympathy for her.


One might think that things would be hard for me lately, what with the babies being born and now all the hospital updates.  Rather, I just feel concern for my friend and her daughter.  I spent last weekend with another very close, very pregnant friend, and I had the best time talking with her about baby names and shower gifts.  Another one of my best friend's husband just posted a picture on facebook of her 18 weeks "belly pop" picture, and all I thought was, "She's so cute!!!"  Another friend who has a 8 month old emailed me to warn me she'd posting some pictures of her son on FB.  I was so grateful for the heads up, but when they were posted, I truly enjoyed looking at them and seeing how fast he's growing up.


I guess what I'm getting at (and this relates back to the title of the post), is that something inside me has changed.  Only a little bit, but there has still definitely been a change in me.  I'm less bitter, less angry, less sad.  Don't get me wrong, there are still twinges.  I still feel like I get smacked in the face once in a while with baby news.  But for the most part, I'm not walking around feeling like a defective excuse for a woman.


Here's when it happened:


I started reading about choosing to live "child free."  I prefer this term over childless, because it is more empowering.  If after a few more years of TTC through various methods, we decide we need to stop, then I'd prefer to choose to stop, and not feel like I was forced too.


I started thinking about what this would mean and I kind of liked some aspects of it.

1. More money & freedom to travel, the one activity that makes both B and I the happiest.  The picture at the top of this post is us on our honeymoon in Greece in 2009.
2. Earlier retirement because we won't need as much money to support anyone but ourselves.
3. Smaller house & cars to pay for, and no worries over what school district we live in or how to pay for the college years.
4. No daycare, diapers, kids clothes or baby furnishings to pay for.
5. More sleep and free time for ourselves & our hobbies.
6. More time and attention for our dogs, maybe even enough so that we could get a third in a few years!
7. No teenagers to stress over.
8. Opportunity to become really close with any future nieces & nephews & be the "cool" aunt & uncle.

Of course there are many downsides to living child-free, but I think and talk about those all the time so I won't get into them here.  This post is about opening the door to new possibilities.

I'm not saying I don't want kids anymore.  I'm not saying that B and I aren't still going to do everything reasonable in our power to TTC.  All I'm saying is that if the stars do not align for us to have children, I'm starting to think about ways & situations in which I may be able to accept that.  

I think that's really important because in 2-3 years, if we're still not pregnant, and are not in a financial position to afford IVF, I may need to be prepared to face the fact that we may not be the kind of people in this society who are able to move earth and sun to make a baby.  We are middle class people from middle class backgrounds with a lot of student loan debt and our health insurance doesn't cover it.  We may be able to do it, but I can't count on it right now.  So I've decided not to think about it anymore.  I've just tucked it in the back of my mind and am trying to focus on the here and now.

We're doing B's surgery in 3 weeks, and we plan to give that a couple of years  to reap it's full benefits.  We may throw a few more IUI's in the mix during that time, but other than that, no thoughts of IVF or anything until we've given this a real chance.  So, I've decided to let go for at least a year, and focus on other things, and see what happens.  So far, it's been feeling great :)