Miracles of Life

For as long as I could remember, as a child, I always longed to be a mother. To have a family of my own. To have the happy nuclear family. I guess it was because I never had a nuclear family… My parents were divorced when I was two. But I had the love of my extended family along with my mom and my brother who have taught me the meaning of family. When I was 13 I decided I wanted to adopt a little girl from China after I heard about the one-child law there.

When I was 25 I was told my chances of having children were at 1%. I was so afraid my boyfriend of seven years would be unhappy with the news and for some reason, I went on a destructive pattern in an attempt to get him to break up with me for fear that if he did not leave at the time, he would regret not being able to have children in the long run because he came from a large family and had always wanted lots of children. Then, he surprised me …. that was the year I got engaged. He told me if he couldn’t have children with me then he didn’t want children at all.

In 2006, at the age of 27 going on 28 I had a miscarriage. It destroyed not only me, but my marriage. I was so depressed, I didn’t know what was going on and my husband was shut-in to himself not having known how to deal with the loss either. Six months later we brought up the thought of divorce because we didn’t know how to cope together. It occurred to me then how many couples get divorced for that same exact reason. We struggled, we argued, we grew further and further apart…counseling came into conversation, but it never happened.

That’s when I began wondering whether I really wanted to be a mother. Whether I really wanted to have a family. Whether I really was someone completely and utterly different from what I had wanted or had become. Had I lived my life the way I wanted or the way everyone thought I should have lived it? Did I make decisions because I wanted them or because I thought that’s what my family wanted? Depression really gives your mind a run for it’s money. You don’t know what’s up or down. What’s right or wrong. What’s real and what’s not.

All these years, I stayed optimistic for other people but really deep down I was a pessimistic person who struggled with depression for years just drifting along determined to put up a fight and this…. this was another huge dip in my road. A huge hit to my belief that everything happens for reason. How could I possibly bring a child into this world in my shape? I simply could not be as good a mother as I thought I could. If I couldn’t see the happiness in life, then there was no way I could show happiness and love to a child of my own.

A 1/2 year later, I stumbled over a book, titled “Eat, Pray, Love” by Elizabeth Gilbert. A book about self-discovery and self-preservation. About discovering who you really are and taking the path that you feel is right for you. The book made me realize that my life….whether I made choices because of me or “for” others, they were choices that I made myself. If I was unhappy it was because I made it so. For anyone to be happy – you must make it so yourself and not depend on other people to do it because ultimately, if you aren’t happy with yourself, then nothing else matters.

It was then that I realized I was unhappy in my marriage because of me not because of my husband. I made myself unhappy. Only thinking about the things that made me sad or the things that made me upset. Didn’t allow myself to see all the good things our marriage had. To truly enjoy the company of the man I fell in love with 11 years before. To enjoy the things I had that others did not. Because ultimately, I was given a miracle … someone to share my life with forever (the good times and the bad times) … to love and to be loved by unconditionally.

Three months after I turned 30, I renewed my sense of life …. that everything happens for reason… because they truly do. All the good… and all the bad. As someone said to me once…. without the bad, we would not truly understand when we have something good. It was then that I decided I wanted to try to have a child even if my percentages were low. Yes, I was risking another miscarriage and the possible drop back into depression, but I wanted to give something back to my loving husband who has supported me all these years. And hope that we could share in this happiness together if the possibility was there. I’ve never feared anything in my life… why should I fear this now?

Now a year later, among all the smallest possibilities… with all percentages stacked against us… my husband and I have been blessed with another miracle in life… pregnancy. At 14 weeks, I’ve had a very tough pregnancy so far. So tough that I haven’t been able to enjoy it at all and sometimes I wonder what I was thinking. But, I look toward the ultimate goal…. the end of one journey and the beginning of another. I keep in mind that six more months from now, my goal of giving this gift of life to my husband and to our marriage will be complete. Because had it not been for my husband all these 13 years… I would not have made it this far in my life…. he has shown me true happiness and what it means to give someone unconditional love. And for this… I love you dearly. After that, it will be about the happiness of our family … together as one. Which I believe will open my world to a whole slew of other miracles of life… Then, I hope I’ll be able to give this same gift of life to another child – a girl that I hope to adopt from China.