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. :-)
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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. :-)
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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.
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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!
The other day I was talking to someone and at the end of our conversation online, she said that she hoped that me and my husband would stay heart-to-heart and hand-in-hand until we became grandma and grandpa. It's very common for people in Indo to say something like this.
I replied, "Thanks for your wish, but because we don't have kids, we'll never become grandma and grandpa. We'll just become old honeymooners HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA..." ;-D
She replied, "Oh dear goodnessss..." ;-D
Yep, I was in a naughty mood at that time ha ha ha...and no, I didn't feel any pain or grief at all when I wrote my reply he he...I LOVE these lighthearted moments! :-D WOOOHOOOOOOOOO!!!!
I think sense of humor is vital in life and I feel that I'm progressing more in my healing journey when I'm able to make jokes about our circumstances without even planning to do so. Humor has definitely helped our marriage in so many ways.
I just thought this post was so beautifully written that I have to share it here...I think it's a balanced post on dealing with grief.
I've been thinking about memories for the past few days. The memories that we have with those who've left us. Those sweet memories that we can hold on to when we miss someone we love that has passed away. Like my dad, for example. Every now and then I remember something that he did...the quirky things that he did...what he said...how much he loved singing (even when he didn't know the lyrics - he'd made up the lyrics himself)...and I cried. Whenever I miss him, I've been very comforted by the fact that I have those sweet memories to hold on to. And I can always share those memories with my brother and mother and those people who knew him and they can even tell me some of the memories that I may even forget or don't know about him. Those memories that create the tapestry of dad's life.
But when I miss the non existent children in my life? I have nothing to hold on to. Maybe that's one reason why I feel the pangs every now and then. The pangs** may not be pure jealousy (we don't want their children, but our own), but the fact that there are no real memories to hold on to. And on top of that, there's no chance to talk about those memories with other people, either. If someone shares stories of their dads, I can always tell them my own memories of my dad. If they tell stories of their children, all I can share is the stories that my mom has told me about me and my brother when we were young.
** Some pangs may be jealousy, but I think the pangs that make me feel hollow inside are different. Like the kind that I felt the other day.
The other day I had a funny experience that was actually the inspiration of this post. This is what I wrote in my draft folder a few days ago:
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"Close friend (the new mother) has posted more photos
of herself and the new baby again and I did feel some pangs...She was walking out with baby and husband, enjoying the sun, looking so happy and beautiful.
And
I couldn't help thinking about the alternate universe again
(self-defense much?). In my alternate universe, I'm walking around with a
stroller with my baby and my stroller is filled with bright patches of
colours with small cute cat photos in each patch ha ha ha ha ha ha ha...And it's the kind of flexible stroller where I can just easily switch the colour and design according to my mood.
Boy,
it's SO MUCH FUN trying to think of myself in an alternate universe (my
childlike self is loving it). Oh, and let's not forget that in my
alternate universe, I have a very loving cat and my husband has plenty
of hair (not because I mind, but because I know he'd love to have more
hair on his head) HE HE HE HE HE HE HE HE HE HEHHHH...
Where
would our cat be? Sitting on top of the cover of the stroller perhaps.
Hey, I can do anything I want. It's my story LOL!!!"
The text ended there, though I'd like to add some other things that crossed my mind that day:
"For the life of me, though, I couldn't even figure out the look on our child's face. I tried to peep into the stroller but the baby's face was blurry. Probably because it's always been a mystery. Will the child look more Finnish or Asian? I don't know and obviously I still can't decide yet.
But then my wild imagination took over again and guess what happened? We took off, flying with the baby stroller...like Mary Poppins with her umbrella ha ha ha ha ha ha ha..."
Ahem. Yeah, so that's the extent of it. I'll tell you one thing, though...thinking about this cartoon version of our alternate universe took my mind off my close friend's baby and parenthood. So much so that I was even surprised at its effect. Maybe next time I should do this trick again he he he he he...After all, the imaginary world is always much more interesting. :-D Maybe in the real world, if I could ever have a baby, I'd be cranky and the baby would be a difficult one, but in my imaginary world, I can fly away to the sky with my baby, husband, and the stroller. Nothing can beat that, not even reality! :-D :-D :-D
P.S. This is how I looked like after having fun creating my imaginary world:
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I've been reading about grief cycles for quite some time now from different women across the globe. I remember being frustrated every time I felt that grief was knocking on my door again. I just wanted to say, "Not againnnnn?"
I've been wondering about grief cycles in my own experience lately. I don't think that each cycle is the same, though. I think that if we allow ourselves to open the door, sit a while with that grief, listen to it, and give it room to share its wisdom, we'll learn different things each time because there are so many different layers of losses that we have to deal with in this type of journey. And I feel that each time the cycle starts, the starting point is getting further and further away from the point of origin.
I also think that each time I learn a new trick on how to deal with the grief wave as it comes. Sometimes it's a learned trick that I've honed for a while, other times it just comes out of the blue (natural self-defense instinct), other times I come up with an experimental tool to deal with a new wave of grief.
All I can say is that when I switch my perspective into "What can I learn this time (about myself, other people, or whatever)?", I can even feel excited about inviting grief inside (may be kinda weird to put it this way, but I'm telling it as it is here). It's like grief is an old friend coming for a visit and I'm looking forward to getting some insight. And we can even enjoy a relaxing chat over tea and sweet buns. :-)
In this post I'd also love to share some brilliant links:
1. Ten Things I've Learned About Trauma.
2. You Can't Please All The People All The Time.
3. Why Miscarriage Matters When You're Pro-Life.
