It's been a year...
It's been a year since what was one of the most difficult and heartbreaking days of my life. A year ago I began the day with expectations of hope and new life only to have my dreams shattered by a silent ultrasound and uncertainty. It has been a year since I learned what a molar pregnancy was and how isolating it would feel as I moved through such a loss. It has been a year since my world stood still as I waited for the ability to reset and move forward again. It has been a year, but it sometimes feels like both a moment and a lifetime ago. The experience feels simultaneously surreal and painfully real. It has been year since I was bold enough (or crazy enough) to share with the world my journey towards becoming a single mother by choice.
It has been a year full of growth, supportive relationships, life-giving laughter, tears, and learning how to hope again. It has been a year that I wouldn't trade, despite the brokenness with which it began. I wrote about my immediate healing and the pain as I dealt with it last spring, so I don't see a need to rehash any of that here. I survived the year, and came out still standing. I made it through a would-be due date without the struggle I expected to feel. By then I was already healed enough to know my journey was far from over. Now today, I am here to say that I'm still standing, and a year later I am looking back with a weird sense of understanding... not necessarily acceptance and joy over what happened, but an understanding of a bigger story unfolding. I don't exactly know what that story is quite yet, nor where it will lead, but I know I'm in the middle of a story that is bigger than loss.
Now for a bit of an update in this crazy journey I've chosen. The most challenging part of this whole year has been my inability (or unwillingness) to step outside the limbo I'm living in as a part of choosing this path. There is a lot of waiting and unknown when you make up your mind to try to have a kid on your own. Aside from the thousands upon thousands of dollars it costs just to get started, planning ahead in life is pretty limited when you never know what (or when) your next move is going to be.
I'm one of the extremely lucky few who has IVF coverage through my insurance, so I spent most of last year waiting for my insurance company to acknowledge me as a human worthy of qualifying for coverage (don't get me started on that red tape). By the time I qualified, my insurance changed, so I had to cut a little bit more red tape just for fun at that point. In the end, I was deemed worthy of fertility coverage ("singleness" is not always a valid enough diagnosis for insurance companies - although in Australia they have created a "socially infertile" diagnosis, so that's lovely).
For 6 months, I knew that at some point I'd take steps towards IVF and trying to at least freeze embryos, but I didn't know it'd take 4 months to get to that point. I've lived my life in secret as I pursued this hidden endeavor, and much like a year ago, I found myself feeling more and more isolated as a result. Every step of the way presents challenges, expenses, and potential failure or delays. Adding to the stress are fertility diets (low carb, high protein), weight management (gain just enough, but not too quickly), and exercise restrictions (no/limited high intensity).
Luckily for me, a shoulder injury sort of aligned with me being having to take a break from working out for a few weeks, so that made it easy to have a shareable excuse to just skip out on my routine workouts and take it easy. I survived weeks of injecting myself up to three times a day like a champ and rewarded myself with dark chocolate after every needle prick. It really was surprisingly easy until the last few days. I thought I was a bit of a bad-ass for handling the "hard part" so well (lol, I thought the needles were going to be the hard part). I survived the physical turmoil that came next as I waited for my body to return to "normal" again, and now as I realize it has been a year, I take a deep breath and pause. I chose to keep to myself a lot during this time out of necessity and preference, and I have really begun to learn how these times of self-care are extremely life-giving.
It's been a year, and I take take a breath. I can sit back and know that I came through the fire and I'm still standing. I'm still moving forward, and I'm confident that the struggle I've faced is just a small piece of a much bigger story I can't wait to watch unfold. In the meantime, I'll live through more periods of waiting and limbo... I'll be secretive from time-to-time while I figure out my next steps and I'll occasionally share what I am willing to share at the moment - but little more (even in this post, I've been selective). I will probably continue to seem a bit flaky and non-committal in the months ahead as I figure out what is next for me and when. What matters, though, is that it's been a year, and I came out of the worst season imaginable stronger than ever before.
It has been a year full of growth, supportive relationships, life-giving laughter, tears, and learning how to hope again. It has been a year that I wouldn't trade, despite the brokenness with which it began. I wrote about my immediate healing and the pain as I dealt with it last spring, so I don't see a need to rehash any of that here. I survived the year, and came out still standing. I made it through a would-be due date without the struggle I expected to feel. By then I was already healed enough to know my journey was far from over. Now today, I am here to say that I'm still standing, and a year later I am looking back with a weird sense of understanding... not necessarily acceptance and joy over what happened, but an understanding of a bigger story unfolding. I don't exactly know what that story is quite yet, nor where it will lead, but I know I'm in the middle of a story that is bigger than loss.
Now for a bit of an update in this crazy journey I've chosen. The most challenging part of this whole year has been my inability (or unwillingness) to step outside the limbo I'm living in as a part of choosing this path. There is a lot of waiting and unknown when you make up your mind to try to have a kid on your own. Aside from the thousands upon thousands of dollars it costs just to get started, planning ahead in life is pretty limited when you never know what (or when) your next move is going to be.
I'm one of the extremely lucky few who has IVF coverage through my insurance, so I spent most of last year waiting for my insurance company to acknowledge me as a human worthy of qualifying for coverage (don't get me started on that red tape). By the time I qualified, my insurance changed, so I had to cut a little bit more red tape just for fun at that point. In the end, I was deemed worthy of fertility coverage ("singleness" is not always a valid enough diagnosis for insurance companies - although in Australia they have created a "socially infertile" diagnosis, so that's lovely).
For 6 months, I knew that at some point I'd take steps towards IVF and trying to at least freeze embryos, but I didn't know it'd take 4 months to get to that point. I've lived my life in secret as I pursued this hidden endeavor, and much like a year ago, I found myself feeling more and more isolated as a result. Every step of the way presents challenges, expenses, and potential failure or delays. Adding to the stress are fertility diets (low carb, high protein), weight management (gain just enough, but not too quickly), and exercise restrictions (no/limited high intensity).
Luckily for me, a shoulder injury sort of aligned with me being having to take a break from working out for a few weeks, so that made it easy to have a shareable excuse to just skip out on my routine workouts and take it easy. I survived weeks of injecting myself up to three times a day like a champ and rewarded myself with dark chocolate after every needle prick. It really was surprisingly easy until the last few days. I thought I was a bit of a bad-ass for handling the "hard part" so well (lol, I thought the needles were going to be the hard part). I survived the physical turmoil that came next as I waited for my body to return to "normal" again, and now as I realize it has been a year, I take a deep breath and pause. I chose to keep to myself a lot during this time out of necessity and preference, and I have really begun to learn how these times of self-care are extremely life-giving.
It's been a year, and I take take a breath. I can sit back and know that I came through the fire and I'm still standing. I'm still moving forward, and I'm confident that the struggle I've faced is just a small piece of a much bigger story I can't wait to watch unfold. In the meantime, I'll live through more periods of waiting and limbo... I'll be secretive from time-to-time while I figure out my next steps and I'll occasionally share what I am willing to share at the moment - but little more (even in this post, I've been selective). I will probably continue to seem a bit flaky and non-committal in the months ahead as I figure out what is next for me and when. What matters, though, is that it's been a year, and I came out of the worst season imaginable stronger than ever before.
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