Let’s do the Time Warp again!
Welcome to the fifth installment of my blog hop/writing exercise called Time Warp Tuesday here on Four of a Kind!
In case you missed my original post about this, here is the background of how and why I came up with the idea. If you are here to participate and link up your post, you can do so with the Linky Tools at the end of this post (or if you have any difficulty using it, you can share the link to your post in the comment section here).
The gist of Time Warp Tuesday is to revisit and share some of our favorite blog entries from our archives and reflect on our journeys since we wrote them.
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The theme for this week’s Time Warp Tuesday is: Resolution
In my post last week I encouraged participants to choose a post from your archives where you wrote about what “resolution” means to you and your life. It might be related to your journey through infertility, adoption and/or loss or you might have written about another difficult and uncertain situation that you have faced. If you don’t have any blog entries that specifically use the term “resolution,” find a post where you talk about a similar concept. Then write a new post on your blog about why you chose it and what has happen in your life since.
Participants can write about whatever you want in your new blog entries. However, for those who might have needed some help and inspiration to get started, I shared some questions to consider:
Why did you pick this post? Has your perspective changed since the day you wrote your original post? Does the word or idea of resolution still mean the same thing to you now as it did when you wrote your original post? Do you think you would still feel the same way if you were writing it today? What have you learned about yourself, your family and your life since you wrote your original post?
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Time Warp Tuesday: Resolution
As I said in my introduction to this week’s topic in last week’s Time Warp Tuesday post, five years ago, when we were in the midst of our struggle with secondary infertility and loss, I was in therapy to help me learn ways to cope with that difficult and uncertain time in our life. The very first session that I went to with my therapist she told me, “this will be resolved.” I found her statement to be very comforting, but I also wondered how long it might actually take for me to reach a point in my life when I would be able to say that our situation, trying to have another child, was truly resolved.
When I chose this topic recently to be used for this week’s Time Warp theme, I knew that I had written a post awhile back about this very topic. So it was an easy find for me. However, after reading and reflecting on it, I was somewhat surprised by my reaction.
Here is the link to the post that I chose:
Please go and read the post that I am reflecting on today (and comment if you choose), if you haven’t already, and then come back here to see what I have to say about my journey since I wrote it.
***Here is where you left off before you stopped to read my old post.***
As with the other weeks that we have done this writing exercise, it is surreal for me to read an old post, such as this, and know how much time has passed since I wrote it (in this case almost two years). I was surprised to realize, after revisiting this post, that I am not exactly where I thought I would be emotionally two years later and that my family’s future is not quite as “resolved” as I imagined it would be by now.
As I have shared over the past year, Bob and I have made a soft decision to be done trying to have more children and we made the difficult choice to donate our remaining three frozen embryos for stem cell research. However, though we have been careful in our efforts not to get pregnant (which we find so ironic after all the time we spent trying to expand our family), we have not done anything permanent to make this decision final. Even though the question for us is still more so “why would we try to have more children,” then “why wouldn’t we try,” I still struggle with this state of limbo in our life. Though it is a very different, much more comfortable, limbo experience than when we were actively trying to expand our family.
As I imagine many of you can appreciate (and likely relate to), no matter what stage of family building you might be in, living with infertility and loss makes the process of trying and/or avoiding so much more complicated and emotionally confusing for couples. This has definitely been the case for Bob and me and adds another layer to the idea of whether or not our journey through infertility and loss has been (or will truly ever be) resolved. When having sex and trying to get pregnant are so closely connected for so long in our lives, it makes it difficult to separate them later on, even when we want to be able to.
One of my favorite parts of revisiting this old post was having the chance to read the incredibly kind and thoughtful comments that were left for me there. Two years later the words and support of my fellow bloggers still mean so much to me. As it turned out I would write less than 20 posts the following year (2010) here. So knowing in the words of Mel, “that (she and others would) still be here–on moments when the fog parts and you can grab a few minutes. Whether that is now or way in the future. So just know that on the other side of that time cloud are people cheering you on,” was so comforting and encouraging to me when I was writing, reading and commenting on blog entries back then.
All this said, I do think that at the time I wrote this post, we had reached a very significant point in our journey. At this stage of our life and our marriage we did finally have Abby in our life, a sibling for our son Sean and our “rainbow baby” after the birth and death of our daughter Molly, who we had wanted so much and tried for so long to conceive, sustain and bring home. I felt extremely blessed and grateful at the time (and still do), especially in light of all we had been through to become “Four of a Kind.”
So for those reasons I can see how our journey through secondary infertility and loss seemed to be “resolved” to me at that time. However, I don’t think I perceived back then how it might not feel completely resolved to me in the future until one way or another we close the door, once and for all, on the possibility of trying to bring more children into our family. At this point we are not ready to make our “soft” decision “hard” and until we do I think that feeling of full resolution will elude me. In the meantime, I am doing my best to try to accept and make peace with that.
Thank you for reading and for doing the Time Warp with me this week. I look forward to your feedback about this post, as well as reading and commenting on all of yours. Please feel free to comment even if you didn’t write your own Time Warp Tuesday post this week. It is not too late to participate if you are interested, click here for the details.
Below you will find next week’s topic and I hope that you will join me back here on Tuesday when we “do the Time Warp again!”
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The topic for next week’s Time Warp Tuesday is: Comic Relief
I have really enjoyed this first month of “doing the Time Warp” with you. Many thanks to all those who have participated and welcome again to any newcomers to this blog hop/writing exercise. So far I have chosen some heavier topics (depending on how they were interpreted) and thought it would be nice to pick something on the lighter side for this next round.
Choose a post from your archives related to the theme of “comic relief,” where you wrote about something you did to try to get your mind off a difficult and/or uncertain time in your life. It might have been a fun and lighthearted blog entry off topic from what you usually write about (whether that has traditionally been infertility, loss or something else) or a creative post trying to poke fun at yourself and your journey. Then write a new post on your blog about why you chose it and what has happened in your life since.
Participants can write about whatever you want in your new blog entries. However, for those who might need some help and inspiration to get started, here are some questions to consider:
Why did you pick this post? Has your perspective changed since the day you wrote your original post? Do you still find this post and/or what you wrote about as amusing and entertaining as you did at the time? Do you think you would still feel the same way if you were writing it today? What have you learned about yourself, your family and your life since you wrote your original post?
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For those new to Time Warp Tuesday, here is a quick recap of how it works:
1) Browse through your old blog entries to find one that fits the topic for the given week. The topic is shared at the end of the previous week’s “Time Warp Tuesday” post here on my blog (see above for next week’s topic).
2) Write a new blog post in which you introduce, link to and then reflect on your journey since you wrote the older blog post and put it up on your blog on Tuesday. Please include this link http://chicagobensons.blogspot.com/search/label/Time%20Warp%20Tuesdays in your blog entry, so your readers can find their way to my post with the list of other participants, in case they would like to read more or participate themselves.
3) Share the link to your new post here on Tuesday and then visit, read and comment on the other blogs.
4) After you have done all of these things, you are welcome to grab the code for the the Time Warp Tuesday button by clicking here and put it on your blog. The link will take you to a Google Doc where you can copy the code. If your browser does not allow access to your computer’s clipboard, you can use Ctrl-C for Copy and Ctrl-V for Paste, or use your browser’s Edit menu.
5) Check back here every Tuesday to find out the new topic, theme or question for the following week (I welcome your ideas and suggestions) and then return to Step 1 of this recap to participate.
Please let me know if you have any questions and I hope to see you back here on next Tuesday when we’ll “do the time warp again!”
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Thank you again for reading, commenting and participating in my Time Warp Tuesday blog hop. Link up below and click through to visit others who are doing the Time Warp! (If you have any trouble with Linky Tools, please share the link to your blog entry in the comment section). Also, please don’t forget to comment on my post here, as I do not have a link to this (my own) post below, but I would still really appreciate your feedback. xoxo
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
I feel like I've been watching a nice, soft, quiet snow settle around a little cottage, like a blanket. That's what your resolving post feels like to me.
Beautiful, Kathy.
Um. Wow. The tears were flowing as I read your post, Kathy.
The timing for this is incredible for me, as I've been slowly working on trying to get through my own post regarding our own decisions about the state of our family. I am often overcome with emotion when we have these discussions, or even just thinking about it myself, because SO MUCH of where we stand relies heavily on our journey through infertility. And it is impossible to even think briefly about TTCing without thinking of where you've been before. And that just brings up a big ol' serving of emotions that I'm not quite sure how to deal with.
Our own "soft" decision is pretty near a "hard" one, but we've given ourselves a window of time before making it a permanent choice. And I fully understand what you mean about not feeling like there will be resolution until it is final. Until that is done, there will always be a little thought bubble of "what if" floating around in my mind.
Lori – I have never had anyone describe one of my posts quite like that, but I will take it and am glad that you enjoyed it. Thank you. xoxo
Aramelle – Thank you so much. I hope they were therapeutic tears. I can appreciate what it is like to read another person's blog entry at just the right time. That is one of the many things I love about our community here in the blogosphere, knowing that we are not alone and that others truly "get it."
I wish you the best as you try to decide when to make your decision "hard." As I shared here, we too are getting closer to making our choice final, but it isn't easy to get there and as I know you can relate to, there is so much wrapped up considering our options at this point. Thanks again for doing the Time Warp again with us this week! 🙂
Beautiful…
You and I are at such a similar fork in our journey, and your phrase "soft decision" really sums up how I feel about our "no". I really loved being able to read this post, which so articulately put into words the similar feelings that I have about whether or not the size of my family is, in fact, resolved.
My husband and I did in fact use my infertility as birth control (TMI?) which led to my third pregnancy and second miscarriage. I just thought it was so unlikely, as I had never gotten pregnant without IVF and after years of trying. I had accepted that we were two and done until that, and now of course my feelings are more complicated. Your OBGyn was right to warn you about that.
I wonder if those of us who can't have the families we'd always dreamed of (for whatever reason, be them infertility-related, financial, circumstantial, whatever) will ever feel true resolution when it comes to their seemingly "incomplete" family. I hope some day I can find that resolution but I doubt I'll ever achieve it completely.
“At this point we are not ready to make our "soft" decision "hard" and until we do I think that feeling of full resolution will elude me.”
Wow, what a quote. I think this may be a missing piece of the puzzle for me. Although my husband had his vasectomy in 2009, he did not attend his follow up appointments to verify that his sperm count was down to zero. For him, the procedure was the “hard” decision. However, until we receive confirmation that the vasectomy was successful, I feel there will be a part of me that continues to hold out hope for another child.
Wow. This is a very thought provoking set of posts. I can understand where you could be at this place in your family building decisions. I can't imagine having to make that decision. Right now we're still in the "trying-to-get-number-one" stage, so it seems like such a faraway stage. However, I know that life moves quickly and we could be only a year or so away from this very place. It makes me stop and think what we'd do in the same situation. I think that, like you, the "hard" decision would take much thought.
ICLW #35
Judy – Thank you.
jjiraffe – I am glad that you could relate to my post, especially with you being at a "similar fork in your journey" at you put it. I appreciate your feelings being more complicated now. We also knew it was "possible" for us to conceive on our own again after we were somehow able to have Abby. So yeah, trying to come to terms with when to put an end to family building, after dealing with SIF and loss is not an easy decision to come to and make peace with. Thank you so much for doing the Time Warp again with us this week!
Esperanza – That's a good question. I don't know the answer, but hope and pray that I will get to a point where I do feel full (or full enough) resolution to be able to move on with our life without major regrets related to our family building journey.
dspence – I am glad that what I wrote, especially that quote spoke to you. I appreciate where you are coming from and hope that you get the answers you want/need to be able to move on and make peace with your situation or if you decide that you want another child (and its possible) that another one finds its way into your life/home.
Lynn – Thank you for visiting (again) via ICLW! Thank you for your kind words. I appreciate your perspective being at the stage of your journey where you are *still* trying to have your first child, as you shared. I hope and pray that happens for you soon and wish you the best on your journey, both now and when the time comes for you to choose when you are ready to make such a "hard" decision.