What If?

What if implies possibilities, hopes, fears, what might be, the end that we don’t know yet, or even a stop along the way.  What if invites us to explore the land of the unknown, to stand up and look our fears and hopes straight in the face.  What if is scary.

My life is full of What if’s.  I share most of them with other people waiting, wondering, hoping - what if this is our month, cycle, whatever?  What if the option we tried this time is the right one?  What if it works?

Honestly though, these are the happy, hopeful, positive what ifs.  They’re few and far between, and there’s a whole room full of the dark, scary, unpleasant what ifs.  The ones that make us wonder if we’re worth it, the ones that make us feel like terrible people, the ones that we can’t even bear to say because just saying it admits that it might be true.  Today, I’m going to pick one, take it by the hand, and walk a mile in its shoes.

What if I have to learn how to live childfree with a smile…forever?

{Fast-Forward 10 years}

It starts when the phone rings,  it’s my youngest sister, calling to say “It’s Time!” and she’s scared and excited all at once, and you can hear every emotion in the world flow through her voice with those two words.  I feel them all too, overwhelmed for a moment, by the vastness of all of the different things that I’m feeling. 

At 14 years my junior, she’s the closest thing I’ve ever had to a child of my own.  I got to answer the teenage questions about sex, and give her advice and lectures she really didn’t want to hear.  For a couple of years, while my mom was gone, my other sisters and I stepped in and did the best we could, We did it again when my parents split. It’s not the same, but it’s as close as I got.  Jakobe and I tried, hard, in our thirties to have children of our own, but it wasn’t meant to be.

In this moment, the whole family is preparing to descend upon the local hospital, to wait in the waiting room, to wander in and out of the delivery room, and to generally be there for her.  It’s what we do.  We did it when my first nephew was born 16 years ago, and have done it from time to time, for cousins and friends in the meanwhile, but it’s the first time we’ve been able to do it for a sister since then.  It’s been a long wait. 

I think that we’re all excited.  Not everyone arrives at the same time; I’m one of the first.  Jakobe even comes with me, he’s been there giving lectures and advice since she was 14, and it’s a big day for him too.  Her hospital room fills up with family, and we’re all there with advice and smiles: The three of us older girls, and my mom - the people who were there in the room when she herself was born.   After a while Meg catches my eye and we share a little wry smile – the only indication of that lingering bit of sadness we both feel, the moment when we acknowledge that we both wished to experience what Ro is experiencing, but didn’t get that lucky.  Then we move on.

The rest of the day is nothing but smiles, congratulations, and visible happiness.  My niece it the most adorable baby I’ve ever seen, and Ro came through the whole thing like a trooper.  All of the cooing, and snuggling, and “Can I hold the baby” draws to an end and we all head back to our homes so that Ro can rest and recover.

Once we get home, I let go a little bit, and Jakobe holds me while I let out the tears that even I forgot I was holding back.  It doesn’t take long, I mostly gave up feeling sorry for myself when I finally accepted that it wasn’t ever going to happen for us, but it’s still there sometimes.  I make dinner, and decide that maybe it’s time for us to go on another awesome trip.

{Return to the present}

When I started to write that, I didn’t really understand how hard it was going to be to actually imagine myself in that situation.  I knew that I didn’t really want to think about it – and the pile of Kleenex next to me attests that it was a painful experience.  Now I get to move on o the fun side of the What ifs:

What if we go to Jakobe’s urologist appointment on Friday and discover that things aren’t as bad as they initially seemed?  What if it means that we get pregnant this year, and our dream of becoming parents comes true without needing to dig ourselves a hole of debt?  What if we don’t have to wait for a year to be able to afford to attempt it?

And one for my sister Meg:  What if they can figure out why their beans don’t stick, and fix it?

This post brought to you by the letters N, I, A, & W.  National Infertility Awareness Week.
Check out Project IF here.

For more information about NIAW please visit: http://www.resolve.org/takecharge

For more information about Infertility in general:  http://www.resolve.org/infertility101

Updated to add:  My positive what if's (for me at least) were a pipe dream.  The urologist said we wouldn't be conceiving naturally and IUI was unlikely as well.