Choosing this choice

Well it may have been a two week wait but it's taken me almost two months to be able to write about it.  I guess when I'm grieving I don't like company.  

My x, perhaps not surprisingly, came to the conclusion that he didn't think we should get back together again.  For him our getting back together would mean giving up on his romantic ideal - the one where he meets a woman and it just feels 'right'.  As painful as that has been to accept, I now think that maybe he is right.  Maybe the parts of our relationship that didn't work would never work.  And given that - when I'm honest with myself - these weren't insignificant, we potentially could have committed ourselves to a loveless and lonely future together.  

But of course that's not what my focus has been on. It's the other potential that's consumed me - the one in which our decision to commit payed off.  The one in which we learnt to love, accept and support each other.  The one in which we got to look back years from now and think thank god I asked and thank god he said Yes.  My version of the romantic ideal - with him.  Equally as unrealistic as his. Really.

What I've realised is that there's been more to this whole experience than I first thought.  My grief hasn't been just about this x.  It's bigger than that, bigger than him. It's the grief that can't be avoided for those of us that 'choose' to become single mothers - with 'choice' being the operative word.  Yes I'm choosing to have children alone over not having them at all.  But if I had more choices then this wouldn't be my first.  I'd choose to have someone choose me and choose parenthood with me.  I'd choose to conceive by having fabulous sex with someone that I loved and who loved me.  I'd choose to have someone intimately witness my belly bulging day by day, week by week, month by month.  I'd choose to have someone care about the future of this child as much as I will.  I'd choose for my child to have a father. So as much as it is a choice, my choice, in many ways it doesn't feel like a choice.  And it's this seeming lack of choice that I've been grieving.  Deeply.

It's not that I hadn't thought about this - a lot - since I started thinking about becoming a single parent.  But I hadn't allowed myself to really feel it - the sadness and the loss of other potential futures for me and for my children.  So I did.  And it's been hard.  But the intense sadness has passed -for now. 

I'm excited again - about my choice.   

A different kind of two week wait...

It's interesting how when you think you are completely in control of your life (or maybe I mean heart...) and the direction it's taking, you find again that somehow you're not.  

I started my last masters placement about a month ago and on the first day working at the hospital my supervisor asked "How's your love life?", and proceeded to set me up on a blind date.  Wow.  This is what I'd imagined during my studies, that when I got out into the 'real world' where the ratio of women to men wasn't 90:10, and I wasn't the oldest person in the room, there'd be abundant opportunities to meet some great guy.  Except at 36 and planning to start TTC as a single woman in under two months it felt like a case of two little too late, and so to be honest I really didn't see the point.  "It's just a date." he said. Nice enough theory. So I went.  

To be honest the poor guy didn't have a hope in hell because in my mind it was going to have to be love at first sight for me to even contemplate starting something.  Well here's the twist that I really really wasn't expecting... no it wasn't love at first sight, it wasn't even maybe I could find a way to love you if I had no sight.  What it was, was this. Straight after the date, and completely by surprise, I was struck by the feeling that if I was going to be with anyone at this point in time, then the only person that I wanted be with was my x.  Groan. Yes I can hear it. I've been groaning too.  

Just when everything was so simple. And I was happy. I am happy. But what if I could be happy with someone else in my life. Someone who I still cared about. Alot. And what if I never told him how I felt.  Or asked him how he felt. I'd be left wondering. I didn't want to be left wondering.  

So I called my him and we met last night.

I told him that I had just two months before I started trying to conceive and that for my own piece of mind I needed to know something before I did.  I told him that this date made me start thinking about him and about us and about whether we'd made the right decision when we'd ended things 3 years ago.  He told me that he'd thought about us alot too, that he couldn't understand why it hadn't worked out either, and he wished that it could have too.  

We talked about how in so many ways we were really good together and how we were both ready to have a family and how we both thought that we'd be great parents together.    

Sounds perfect.  But we also talked really honestly about what hadn't worked.  And I guess this is where all our fears about going there again lie. He's never been in love with any woman ever  - including me. And this 'issue' of his mirrors mine. I've never felt truly loved by any man ever - including him. And underneath everything this was why I ended our relationship after 18 months.  

So the question we're both left with is this.  If we were to try again are we being grown-ups by doing so - are we challenging the discomfort we both experience being in relationships by choosing to commit to this one and work together to understand and overcome our intimacy issues?  Or are we succumbing to those issues  - choosing a relationship that will never meet his need to fall in love and my need to be loved?  

In other words is this right relationship or should we be waiting for the relationship that feels right? Well I guess I answered that question - rightly or wrongly - when I called him. And I left him with two weeks to do the same.

And so here I am... on a different kind of two week wait. One I wasn't expecting but one that already feels like it's going to be as long and as unsettling as any other.  

Fertility checks and donor selection...

The story continues...

In May this year I found a clinic happy to treat single women, got a referral to their gyno, went to see her and came home crying.  Before the appointment I'd been under the impression that starting at 36 would be bliss when it came to TTC (trying to conceive) and that compared to many women taking this path I was starting pretty early! Well yes and no.  

She told me that my having Crohn's disease - and in particular my having had 3 surgeries - would likely mean that I have scar tissue that would make my chances of conception more difficult - and likely result in my needing to go straight to IVF.  

She also told me that smoking - which I have for more years than i care to admit - 'ruins fertility'. Fuck.  Being 'socially infertile' is bad enough, but infertile proper?! That really wasn't something I'd considered at all.  Ironically, what was on my side was that I'd had a termination in my early 20s and so I knew I could conceive - well at least back then.  Admittedly, this 'good news' was - and still is - bittersweet.  Oh for the benefits of hindsight...          

The next months were consumed with booking tests and waiting for appointments and waiting even longer for the results.  I had an HSG which showed that my fallopian tubes were clear - not blocked from scarring as predicted. I had an ultrasound that showed one small, apparently unproblematic cyst typical for my age, and a healthy-looking uterus with no signs whatsoever of the predicted scarring, although a few signs of PCOS - without the S - which according to my gyno shouldn't affect my efforts to TTC - at least at this stage.  My cycle was assessed and from that it appeared I had 'good ovarian reserve' ('6' I think) and was ovulating!  I started feeling greatly reassured.

I had also made appointments with the clinic to have the mandatory counseling session and to get onto their sperm donor wait-list - which I was told would take about 12 months before I got to the top.  But inspired by a woman on the online community I had joined I decided I might try advertising for my own donor to shorten the wait - which I did with some success.  However, it turned out that I wouldn't need to pursue either of these options for donors, as a good friend of mine called me offering to donate his sperm!

Suffice to say I was dumbfounded - but in a good way!  We'd had a 12 month relationship 10 years ago, when I was 26 and he was 40, and while it hadn't worked out we'd remained (completely platonic!) good friends.  Interestingly, when I'd first started thinking about donors he was the only man I actually knew that I thought would be not only willing but also able (in the short and long-term) to become my known donor.  He's intelligent, funny, tall, attractive and most importantly is super healthy and has never wanted children of his own.  But alas, I'd never asked him as he'd been in - and still is in - a great relationship with a great woman who believe it or not, was the one who suggested he call me and offer to donate his sperm!

I really could not believe their generosity - particularly hers.  While like him she doesn't want children, I'm still struck by the selflessness - selflessness I'm embarrassed to say I'm not sure I'd have if I were in the same position.

So we got together for dinner and had a really open and honest discussion about what it would involve and most importantly the expectations each of us held about the others roles in the immediate future and of course in the longer-term.  As it turned out we all want the same thing - I want him (in a sense them!) to be the donor not the father for my child, and they want to be the donors and not the parents to the child.  So we figure the relationships between them and my child(ren) will look something like those enjoyed between godparents and godchildren, with the main difference being that he'll be known by our families, our friends and of course any children I conceive as their donor.