Semantics

Re: My previous blog post... it really resonates with me. 

The profoundness is not lost on me. It's not taken lightly, hell, I think I've detailed FOR YEARS about the "what if" I never have a kid theme. Part of me is still hesitant to get the ablation (which, I then would feel I'd need to get the tubal ligation, just to be responsible, and ensure I don't get pregnant, saving myself some potential grief down the road, i.e. an even higher risk pregnancy, or death). I feel like it's a matter of mental semantics as it were.

The ablation and tubal doesn't change the total sum of my childless reality, it merely changes the mathematical equation which brings me to the same sum. Much like 2+2=4, so too can 3+1=4. The variables are different, but the sum remains the same. And the sum is like what I said the other day, I spent my life thinking motherhood would find me, and well, motherhood ain't looking for me.

I mentioned this to ReproEndoGuy, and he said that he couldn't make the decision for me, but "... there's always IVF." I reminded him that at 44, I like living in a world of certitudes. And IVF, given my age, and PCOS, and Factor Five Leiden Mutation, and my adenomyosis? Well, there's not enough certainty that either 1. Pregnancy would happen; or 2. The child or I would survive the pregnancy; or 3. That the child would come out without birth defects. I don't see the sense of making valiant efforts when the deck is so very obviously stacked up against me. 

I can tell that ReproEndoGuy is a bit sad that this "rainy day project" we both have been working on together for nearly ten years isn't going to happen. And since it's not going to happen, I might as well work towards dealing with the pain management of the adenomyosis, because this is a quality of life issue for me, not merely an annoyance. It's debilitating.

Fortunately, I don't feel a sense of peer pressure (well, save for my well-intentioned, loving mother-in-law, who is desperate to be a grandmother, desperate to have some joy in her life) to be a mother. I never self-identified myself as a wife or a mother. And even though I am obviously a woman, there are times where I truly feel like my existence is neutral gender-wise. I don't feel totally asexual or nonsexual, but it does make me wonder "what is femininity?" I'm not overly butch, I'm not overly girly. I'm not overly bitchy, and I'm not overly passive either. 

Fortunately, I also do not feel a sense of being broken or defective as a woman. I never felt like my gender was my destiny, though I always took it for granted I'd eventually be a mother at some point. I don't feel like my life is over now that motherhood is off the table. I am still a mother, even if I don't have a child to raise, if that makes any sense. I can mother myself, or when my husband lets me, I can mother him. I can mother my friends who need it. Yet selfishly, the one person who needs to be mothered, my own mother, well, that's too big of an issue, and a futile one to be succinct, as you can't help someone who doesn't want to be helped. So scratch that. But it IS a profound thought. She needs a mother, and I need TO mother, and well, here we are, 120 miles separating us, and even more, untraversable emotional mileage/geography between us.

Part of my mind drifts to past forks in the road, decisions made in haste, or Hobson's Choice type decisions, or even decisions made FOR me due to the interference of my mother, and there is the flicker of anger and regret, but overall I'll say in my own defense, that I've always tried to make the very best decisions given the circumstances, resources and information I have had on hand at any given point in my life. Still sucks though. This isn't what I ever anticipated for myself. And my life WOULD have been radically different (and incredibly boring) had I not made the choices I have made.