The American philosopher and author Joseph Campbell once
said:
“Find a place inside where there’s joy, and the joy will burn out the
pain.”
Frankie and I are currently seeking out the joy in our
lives.
This past weekend we got an email from New Life letting us
know that although the fetal sac was visible, there was no visible fetus, and
thus no detectible heartbeat. They have taken the surrogate off of medication,
and expect that the lining and sac will be discharged. (I have many thoughts on this that will come in
a later post. Our poor surrogate… L
)
It was a tough email to receive, but as you may guess
after my last post, in a way it was a relief. At least now we know.
Naturally, we’re very saddened by this news. But it’s not
end game for us. Not by a long shot. While I totally understand why some
celebrate the beta tests and the early pregnancy indicators, we never fully
celebrated those moments. We found great joy in them, but we didn’t celebrate. Each IP has to view this process through their own lens, and we knew that through our medical lenses, the pregnancy wasn’t viable to us until we had
a heartbeat. While I know that some people don’t agree or understand why we
didn’t enjoy the emotions more, we restrained our emotions for this very reason.
Our hearts were protected…to some extent at least. There were still some tears….and
some cherry pie from Thanksgiving that disappeared a little too quickly…but
overall we’re doing ok. It’s a process that won’t happen overnight, but we know
we’ll be alright, and we’ll come through stronger.
Fortunately, there is no lack of joy in our lives, so the
residual pain doesn’t stand a chance. Before we got married, we talked a lot
about our future together. We both knew that we wanted children, but we also
both knew that we wanted to be in a relationship that didn’t need children to be
complete. We’re already complete and although we both want kids more than
anything in this world, we don’t need anything more to fill our lives together.
Any children we have would just be the icing on an already wonderful cake. The
joy we bring each other is enough to burn out any pain we’re faced with in our
lives, and it gives us the confidence to know that any children we are fortunate
enough to have will only add to the love we have in our house; not be born to
fill a gap in our lives. And that feels wonderful. It means we can be patient.
It means we can be happy that we got so far the first time. And it means we
have the strength to try again.
Joseph Campbell also once said:
“Follow your bliss, and the
universe will open doors where there were only walls.”
That said, we’re ready to knock down some walls….
