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Wednesday, September 21, 2011

FedEx Fishies!

Things are really starting to get exciting!  My little fishies from the European Sperm Bank USA have been shipped to REACH here in Charlotte and I am counting down the days until my first IUI.   I have to start testing for my surge next week.  There are days when I question if I should wait and continue to look for Mr. Right and there are days when I know in my soul that I am making the right decision.

Last night I went to my friend's baby's 1st birthday party.  After interacting with Baby Isabella, I knew that I was on the right path in my life.  As a psychologist, I think constantly about the future and think about the baby not having a father.  But, I also think about the children I see on a regular basis who see their mother during the week and their father on the weekends (like my soon-to-be ex-husband does) and about those children who just have a father, or just a mother, or who live with their grandparents, and I realize that "normal" doesn't exist anymore in the modern family.  I see children every day who are not getting the love and attention they so desperately need and I know in my heart that I am doing the right thing.  I feel that I was born to be a mother.  My instincts have been so strongly pulling me in that direction for as long as I can remember.  I have always known that I wanted to be a mother and that I would be a fantastic one.

So, I continue on my journey, learning something new every day about myself and about what it is going to take to be a mother and a stronger person in the process.  God gives you only what you can handle they say.  God also gives you so many gifts.  My gift right now is the freedom to reinvent myself. My gift of the future will hopefully be the pitter-patter of little feet.  For every couple or woman trying to conceive, I am sending baby dust your way!

A New Journey!

I guess I will start with saying a little about myself and my history and how I got to where I am today.  I am a psychologist who met my first husband in graduate school.  After we were married for 9 months, I discovered that he was a porn addict.  He would rather satisfy himself with porn rather than having physical relations with me.  He refused to get any help or go to counseling with me, so, needless to say, that ended.

After dating a few "frogs," I met someone who was the opposite of my ex.  We got engaged and moved in together.  A few months go by and the physical relationship stops.  There were a lot of excuses etc. and nothing seemed to make sense.  The day that I was going to break off our engagement and ask him to move out was the day we found out he had leukemia.  So, I stayed with him and took care of him for 7 months, taking a leave of absence from my job.  I then found his stash of porn and found his divorce papers that said the reason for his divorce was due to a porn addiction.  NOT AGAIN!  He had lied and told me that he got a divorce because his wife cheated.  LIE!  So, I turned over his caregiving to his family and ended the relationship.  Unfortunately he passed away a few months later.

 I later entered into a relationship with my current husband.  Things were wonderful.  He has two young children from a previous marriage.  We discussed having more children at length before we got married.  He told me he wanted more children.  We then got married and the day we got married his ex-wife filed for more child support.  She is a horrible mother who cheated on my husband and even had sex with men while the children were in the backseat of the car.  So, the day we got married, she filed with the lawyers to get more child support.  So, after $25,000 in lawyers fees, my husband ended up having less time with his children and paying an extra $1000 a month in child support (little of which ever went to the children).  So, he was stressed about that.

After 10 months of marriage, it was his idea to start to try and have a baby with me.  After one month of trying, on our one year anniversary, he told me he never wanted more children with me.  It was one excuse after another.  He said we would never have enough money because his ex was taking it all.  I offered to go back to school to get a different degree to try and get a new job to make more money.  He didn't like that idea.  He then said with his job, he works too long of hours to have time to be a father to another child.  He then said he was afraid that I would have a baby and leave him and he would end up in the same scenario, paying more child support and not seeing his children.

 It was one thing after another.  I asked him to go to counseling, he said that it wouldn't change anything.  I tried to live with things and come up with solutions.  But, it became increasingly more difficult to take care of his two young children every weekend while not having any promise of a child of my own.  So, needless to say, I left because he was not willing to meet me halfway on any level.  I needed to clear my head and figure out what to do.  Of course, after I left, he would not have any talk of reconciliation.  He told me that I abandoned him and his children and could never trust me again.  So, here I am.  On my own for the past five months.  It was the hardest thing to do in my life, leaving someone I loved so much; someone that I had dreamed of having a family and a life with.  When we started trying to have children and I was in that mindset and then he took that away, I was crushed.  All of these experiences have added up to me deciding to pursue my dreams of having a child on my own.

For the past couple of months, I have been going to a fertility specialist and getting all checked out.  I had an HSG last week, which was not as bad as I thought.  I have a donor picked out for IUI, which was a long arduous process.  It is difficult for me to give up my dream of the white picket fence and having someone to share my life with.  However, the biggest dream in my life has been to have a child.  That is something I cannot compromise on.  Perhaps I will find the white picket fence one day, but for now, I will be thrilled with baby gates!