I've had this feeling that learning to let go of many things during my infertility journey has also helped me in learning to let go of the possibility in disappointing others. I'm not talking about disappointing others on purpose, but about the kind of disappointment that one feels when one has too much expectation or too high expectation from someone else and that someone else fails to fulfill that expectation.
A conversation online with someone made me realize about this shift. After the conversation, for a brief second this thought appeared, "Woah! I'm not so sure I'm as good as you think I am, you know?"
That thought was followed by the fear of disappointing that person, but a second later, I was surprised when another thought butted in: "But you know what, if you happen to disappoint in the end, you're only human anyway. If that person can't accept that and then decides to stop keeping in touch with you, then there's nothing else that you can do about it."
I don't think I've ever felt that way before. In the past, if I felt that other people have too high an opinion of myself, I would feel burdened and then I would do my best not to disappoint that person while at the back of my mind there was always a tiny bit of fear of disappointing him/her (which was kinda tiring). There were also occasions when I'd even try to keep some space from that person to avoid disappointing him/her, because I remember disappointing one teacher in High School and that memory haunted me for years.
Dare I even say that this is another new thing that infertility has taught me? :-D That all those repeated lessons on letting go has a wider effect than I could even begin to understand? We shall see.
After all, I get to disappoint my parents and in-laws by not being able to produce any grandchildren and for some period of time I felt guilty because of that, but I've made peace with it now and I don't feel burdened anymore by the fact that I can't give them any grandchildren. Anyhow, I'd like to record this here so that I don't forget about it. :-)
glitter-graphics.com
OK, so the close friend who had a baby about two months ago has been sharing updates about the baby's growth progress and I must say that even though there are some things I can't relate to, there's still a benefit coming out of my ignorance. For instance, when she shares things about what the baby can do, I can rejoice fully with her because I have no idea what babies can do at different stage of their developments. No comparing with any other babies/kids. I find this to be comforting and encouraging he he he...
The other day we received her baby card and I must say that it was tough to open it. She printed out plenty of photos (the baby's very expressive and cute) along with a poem and then taped them onto the long homemade card (all four pages filled with photos/text). It was hard because I couldn't help thinking what I would have done if I was the one who had the baby - what kind of baby card I could have designed, the kind of text I'd be choosing for the card (or perhaps the kind of poem I'd have written for the card) etc. And a line in the poem made me feel some pain: "We don't remember life before." A gentle ouch forced me to close the card.
I only glanced at the card very quickly because my grief was in the way of my being able to enjoy her card. However, I was then reminded of the verse: "love others as you love yourself".
OK, so time to give myself some love...
I started thinking that if it were my own baby card, what kind of card would it be? So I did allow myself to daydream a little. Because I'm a practical person, I imagined I would have ordered the cards through an online printer so that I wouldn't have to do anything else other than just send them. But I'd surely have taken a lot of time thinking about the text. And I imagined how happy I would have been to send the cards to my friends and family and I imagined them smiling when they opened it (OK, I know this is oversimplifying the matter, but it's called the best-case scenario in a daydream).
Because I wouldn't have known whether the baby would have been born in which season and whether the baby would have been a boy or a girl, I felt some glee in daydreaming about all the different choices of theme I could have chosen for my baby card. Daydreaming was fun, because I could easily change things without having to pay a dime he he he...:-)
That made it easier. I picked up her card again and this time I could really focus on what she'd created: all the photos she's carefully picked, etc. :-) I'm gonna try this trick again for next time. :-)
glitter-graphics.com
Those words came out of my lips not long ago. We had just gone back from our winter holiday in Tenerife. During the 6-hour flight back to Helsinki, a family with two young children (perhaps aged 5 and 2) were sitting right in front of our seats and the youngest child was crying and screaming and yelling (the crying and screaming stopped for a few minutes and then it started again and the cycle continued).
I think she was tired and sleepy (it was an overnight flight), but no matter how much the mother tried to soothe her, she just couldn't seem to get comfy. She did fell asleep for about 45 minutes on her mother's lap (enough time to allow the mother to have dinner with one hand and read a little), but then she started whining, crying, and yelling again.
A few years ago I would never had dreamt that those words would ever come out of my lips he he...but lately after observing more and more about life on the other side of the fence, I've felt more strongly that I won't ever be patient enough to deal with temper tantrums like that and other things involved in parenting. I don't think I'll ever be totally childfree, but I think that I'm shifting towards an even more clearer point on my healing journey in which I'm very sure I do not want to have children.
glitter-graphics.com
I feel thankful that we didn't have to travel with little children, even though I know there are children that won't give too much trouble during any travels, but that's the point of all this. We'll never know what kind of child we're going to have and we no longer feel that we even want to know - even if it can be very fulfilling to be parents. It's a strange feeling, but I'm gonna see where this takes me. :-D
FYI, this is NOT a sudden shift, but it's been going on gradually, but the fact that I said those words to my husband felt like the final nail on the coffin so to speak. My husband is also on the same page with me on this matter.
That said, though, I know there will still be tender moments along my way, but I just want to record this point in time because I feel that it's an important shift.
Almost forgot...my brother posted a photo of his youngest boy on FB, tagged me on it, and again he used the name that I said I had liked (that he had used as his middle name). I was so touched that my eyes went wet when I realized what he had done. :-) I know he must've done it on purpose. Bless him!
