Every day that passes I accept my most recent reproductive issues a little more. I am still not sold on actually wanting children this very minute, but I am sold on wanting them eventually. The eventual desire that I assume will show up one of these days is what motivates me to move forward with some sort of medical intervention. The weirdest part about this whole situation is that I am supposed to (and have) felt an immense sense of loss or disappointment over not being able to have children sometime in the future. It's not like I had a child and lost it (unimaginable pain). It's not even like I got pregnant and miscarried a child (also really awful). Both would be much more tangible, real experiences. Yet, somehow the past few weeks have felt something like losing someone. I have experienced a hypothetical, maybe someday loss of a person I've never met. A confusing thing to process.
I have had enough time to sort of step back and analyze this whole situation. In some twisted way the concept of me being infertile is actually kind of
funny ironic. I spent my entire life convinced that I possess the most fertile womb on the planet. The women in my life periodically passed down reproductive wisdom to me growing up. My grandma (who is also about 5'10" and shaped very much like me) used to tell me that I had "child-bearing hips." I hated this description. I hated my hips. I hated having a body useful to a woman, when I was very much a kid still. Today, my grandma is a no-frills ninety-year-old. She's lived through the Great Depression, had three boys, and was married to a WWII veteran who was absent for long stretches of his children's lives. My grandma probably got pregnant by magic. I doubt my grandfather even had to be in town for the event. She just looks like a mother. She's big and strong, yet feminine in every way. She can cook a meal unlike anyone else in our family and never misses a beat despite her age. I have always been under the impression that my grandma just knew things that the rest of the world didn't. I believed her when she told me I had child-bearing hips. I believed her when she told my long torso would make for easy pregnancies. I believed her when she told me I would have lots of kids. I believed her because I had no reason not to.
After years of "child-bearing hips" references, I think I adopted the same belief about myself. In college I was convinced on a few different occasions that I was pregnant. The catch was that I hadn't had sex with anyone to actually get pregnant. Immaculate conception I suppose. I've spent my life convinced of my inevitable future motherhood. I've never once doubted that getting pregnant is anything other than simple. I believed that I could control pregnancy to the point that I could choose a birth date. I never imagined to be in this situation. Why would someone be cursed with child-bearing hips and not be able to bear children?
I have slowly started to rewrite my story over the past couple of months. I have let go of preconceived notions about who I am and started to accept that whatever story unfolds in the coming years will be the real story. It's easy to rely on the words of those who have come before you to narrate your own experiences. It's easy to buy into the wisdom of people you love, people you trust. It's easy to predict your fate based on your reflection in the faces of those before you. Nonetheless, every person is responsible for finding their own story and their own reality...no matter how big your hips are.
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