Let’s do the Time Warp again!
Welcome to the 32nd installment of my blog hop/writing exercise called Time Warp Tuesday!
For those not familiar with Time Warp Tuesdays, which I host on the 2nd Tuesday of every month, here is the background of how and why I came up with the idea. If you are here to participate and link up, you can do so with the Linky Tools at the end of this post (or if you have any difficulty, you can share the link to your post in the comment section).
The gist of Time Warp Tuesday is to revisit and share some of our favorite blog entries from our archives, as well as others’, and reflect on our journeys since we wrote or read them.
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The theme for this month’s Time Warp Tuesday is: Decisions
We have to make them every day, for ourselves and often for loved ones, such as our children, elderly parents, employees, students, etc. Some decisions come more easily than others. Choose a post from your archives OR another blogger’s in which you or they wrote about a time when a decision needed to be made. Maybe it was a difficult decision that you or the other blogger really struggled to come to terms with. Or maybe the choice that was made was an easy decision based on your or the other blogger’s self-knowledge and approach to living. Then write a new post on your blog about why you chose the post that you did and what has happened in your life since it was written.
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, here are some questions to consider:
Why did you pick this post? Has your perspective changed since the day you wrote your original post or read the other blogger’s? Do you think you would still feel the same way if you were writing or reading the post today? What have you learned about yourself, your family and your life since you wrote or read the original post?
Note: If you have an idea for a future Time Warp topic, theme and/or writing prompt, please feel free to share it in the comment section or send me an email. If I choose to use your idea, I will give you credit and link to your blog that week.
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Time Warp Tuesday: Decisions
Throughout my life I have struggled with decision-making. There are plenty of choices and topics that I am able to be decisive about, but some of the hardest have been questions related to Bob and my family building efforts.
How far were we willing to go to achieve our dreams of having children?
What medical interventions would we try?
What options could we afford?
After all we have been through, at what point do we stop and move on with our lives?
How long can we live in limbo unsure if we want to try to bring more children into our family?
What does that state of uncertainty do to our marriage and living children?
So much of our lives don’t go as we plan. Learning how to cope and make peace with that is part of being a mature adult. I also believe that we all have to do what works for us and make the best decisions we can with the information we have at the time. After ten years of trying to build and expand our family, Bob and I began to realize that the central question had changed for us.
We were no longer asking,
Why wouldn’t we want to try to have more children?
Rather, we began to wonder,
Why would we want to try to have more children?
That was a bittersweet transition to make and part of what inspired me to write and share this post in January 2012:
It was extremely therapeutic for me to release those thoughts and words into the blogosphere. It was also incredibly validating to read the comments that I received from others who understand what a difficult choice it is, but also necessary for many people who have struggled with infertility and loss, to decide to put an end to our family building efforts (whether we have one or more living children or are going to live child free). My post really seemed to resonate with readers, as well as family and friends who reached out to me after I shared it.
Almost a year and a half later it is interesting to revisit and reflect on this post. About a year ago we followed through on making our decision to be done with family building final. Though I choose not to share more details about that, I will tell you that I still have mixed feelings about it sometimes. Rationally I still believe that we made the best choice for our marriage and family at the time. But emotionally, as one person commented about on my post sharing her experience, I am not sure that I will ever completely “get there.” I still daydream sometimes about an alternate reality that includes having more children and recently had a vivid dream that I was pregnant again, which made me feel happy and sad at the same time when I woke up.
I love Bob, Sean and Abby so much and do my best to focus on our family as we are, while trying not wonder too much about what might have been. That said, there have been a slew of surprise pregnancy announcements (at least we weren’t expecting them) around us in recent months and it is bittersweet for me to see some of our peers continuing to expand their families after we have put an end to that chapter of our life. As with so many experiences in life, it can be difficult to watch others we care about moving in a different direction, especially when it is one that we used to want to go in too.
This weekend we sold and gave away some key baby items and a lot of my maternity clothes to some friends who are pregnant again. Unlike in the past when we lent family and friends baby stuff, this time it was clear to all parties involved that we did not expect them to return anything when they are done. I am genuinely happy for them and glad that they will be able to use so many of the things that we had for our children when they were younger.
I understand that we did not need to hold on to the items and clothing any longer, but it is still hard to say goodbye to what they represented for so many years, including hope that we would be able to have more children/a bigger family. We still have a lot to pass on and/or sell, but are not getting rid of everything. I am holding on to some of the most sentimental items and clothing, but overall I do believe this process is important and necessary to moving on with our lives and being able to focus on our family as we are here and now.
I am proud of Bob and I for “getting there” 18 months ago, following through on our decision 12 months ago and every day doing our best to make the most of our life and family.
“Happy people don’t necessarily have everything, they just make the most of everything they have.” ~ Author Unknown
Thank you for reading and for doing the Time Warp with me this month! 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. It is not too late to participate if you are interested, click here for the details.
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The topic for the next Time Warp Tuesday (on July 9th) is: Advice
Sometimes we appreciate receiving good advice from mentors and other loved ones. In other cases unsolicited advice can come off as condescending and judgemental. Choose a post from your archives OR another blogger’s in which you or they wrote about advice. The blog entry could about helpful or not so helpful advice that you or the writer gave or received. It could also speak to how you feel about giving or receiving advice. Then write a new post on your blog about why you chose the post that you did and what has happened in your life since it was written.
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 or read the other blogger’s? Do you think you would still feel the same way if you were writing or reading the post today? What have you learned about yourself, your family and your life since you wrote or read the original post?
Note: If you have an idea for a future Time Warp topic, theme and/or writing prompt, please feel free to share it in the comment section or send me an email. If I choose to use your idea, I will give you credit and link to your blog that week.
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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 or another blogger’s to find one that fits the topic for the given month. The topic is shared at the end of the previous month’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 or read the older blog post and put it up on your blog on Tuesday. Please include this link https://bereavedandblessed.com/projects-regular-series/time-warp-tuesdays/ 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 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 on the 2nd Tuesday of the month to find out the new topic, theme or question for the next Time Warp Tuesday (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 next month: Tuesday, July 9th (the 2nd Tuesday of the month), 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
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Back to the future after visiting your last post. Making the decision is one thing, getting rid of the physical things is another … because somehow it makes it more real, more final. I think everyone holds on to sentimental things … even if they’re done family building. We’re human, and we preserve our memories in artifacts in addition to our minds.
But it must feel good to know that you’ve passed your items on to someone else who will love them and use them, too. For me, there’s a true generosity of spirit in the passing on of baby items, because it’s so hard to let go.
Justine recently posted..NaBloPoMo: Worry About Yourself, and Roasted Tomato Soup with Farro
Not sure if I got the time warp tuesday link to work, so I thought that I would just share in the comment section. This is a great topic as I often reflect on the decision we made to pursue IVF when we did. Here’s my post. http://rainbowmaking101.blogspot.com/2013/06/time-warp-tuesdays.html
AJ recently posted..Time Warp Tuesdays
What a moving post, both this one and the one you linked to. It was interesting for me to look back at my comment on your original post and see where I was at that time and to reflect on how much *I* have also changed in the almost 18 months since you wrote it and I commented. It’s funny because at the time I said I was just biding my time until the decision was made for me and basically it has been. After our diagnoses of DOR and MFI it is clear we will not be pursuing a third child. We feel so incredibly lucky to have a second child after our recent struggles.
But I’m sure there will be moments when it’s hard, when those families who had their second children while we were trying start having their third children and we have to be again reminded of choices we don’t have, decisions we can’t really make in the ways we wanted to. I think that is the hardest part about infertility, when it makes the decisions for you. That is so unfair.
And giving away things is also hard. I recently realized I should probably start giving my baby girl clothes to a dear friend with a daughter because we will never need them again. I worry about what might happen if I lose this baby–maybe then I would want the clothes back–but I’ve decided I can’t live like that and I will give the clothes to her at the first opportunity, no matter how hard it is.
And then I’ll give away the baby stuff as we no longer need it. And each item leaving my house will be another reminder of a decision we don’t have.
I hope that over time you find more and more peace in your own decision. I know it was a hard one to come to and I wish you didn’t have to make it for the reasons you did.
Abiding with you.
Esperanza recently posted..Time Warp Tuesday: Decisions
What a moving post, and it’s nice to see your follow-up. Given the rollercoaster of emotions that we all in the ALI community go through in family building, I’m not surprised that this is one of those decisions that sits ok sometimes, and not so well others. Being a second-guesser of my own decisions, I feel ya’.
Geochick recently posted..Time Warp Tuesday – Decisions
While our journeys were very different from each other, we both shared in the poignant and difficult task of packing up and donating baby clothes (mine still with their store tags intact) and related paraphernalia and preparing ourselves to reconcile the end of our childbearing dreams. It wasn’t an easy decision to move forward in either of our cases, but knowing that we were part of a community that understood the significance of that task provided some solace.
Pamela recently posted..Time Warp Tuesday: Decisions
I’m glad you chose that post for sharing, and wrote this one. It can be a challenge to picture the future while ‘in the trenches,’ and you paint a beautiful one.
April recently posted..Time Warp Tuesday: Decisions
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