Monday, February 18, 2013

clearing out

I've been getting the itch to do some spring cleaning a bit earlier than usual this year.  I was tackling the kitchen "junk" drawer, when I found this item in the very back:



My heart sank, just a bit, and I could feel the familiar fog of grief starting to creep in.

Sadness was streaming over me, as I was reminded that I will never need to take one of these tests again, since the surgery last fall.  I thought about how appropriate the term "barren" really was, now that the lining of my uterus was removed and cauterized... depleted, empty, fruitless.

Then I felt intensely guilty as I heard Emma yawn in the next room.  I felt as if the longing I was feeling in that moment, the remembrance of the years of trying, hoping, grieving, and trying again... it was insulting to my beautiful baby, that I would ever feel regret or yearning for another, an other, child.

I have what I had always longed for - an incredible little girl, who fills our house with so much joy and completes our family. She snapped me back out of my self-indulgent moment, and gave me the strength to throw the test away, and with it the last of my guilt over not being able to sustain another life within myself.

My goal, throughout this journey - I should say *our* goal, as it is the same for The Boy as it is for me - has been to be a parent, not to biologically pass on my genes.

I don't need this test anymore, just as I don't need to be pregnant and experience childbirth to be a mother. And I absolutely do not need to feel bad about my journey to parenthood anymore.

Closure, that is what I found tonight, in the back of a kitchen junk drawer.

(which, fyi, now looks lovely and organized!)