Living in the Rainbow

I read this quote today “We change when the pain of remembering the same, is greater than the pain of changing” apparently attributed to Alcoholics Anonymous.

I think we may have reached this pivot point as regards trying for another baby.  Over the past 4 years the pain of not having another child has been overwhelming.  The stillbirth of our daughter was the most painful moment.  But also painful were the repeated hospital appointments with the infertility clinics.  The tests and the results.  The monthly cycle of hope and disappointment.  The recent announcement that IVF was our only option remaining.

So here we are asking if the pain of the same (trying for a baby and lets face it probably being disappointed) is more than the pain of changing.  In other words would it be easier to say we are complete as a family? – so far we have felt incomplete.  Would it be easier to give up on our hopes and dreams of another child and instead focus on the wonderful son that we do have and make the most of the brief years we have with him before he is grown up?

I think you have to be incredibly strong-willed and disciplined to stop infertility problems dominating your life.  We have not really managed it.  And the risk is that you spend too much of your life focusing on what you do not have.  I would hate my son to grow up and say my parents 1) never got over the death of their daughter2) always wanted another child and 3) these two factors resulted in them never being satisfied with me.

The reality is that if I stopped wanting a baby (not sure how I do that by the way) then I wouldn’t find pregnant women, babies, 2,3,4 children families, etc. such hard work.  I would become more mellow and move on.  It is as if I have a heightened sense of love for my potential child.  And it has been on high alert for the last four years but I have had nothing to do with it, nowhere to channel it.  With this capacity to love comes the pain associated with that lack of fulfilment.  But if I let go of that desire to have another baby, that capacity to love him or her, then perhaps life will get easier, become normal again.

I think this, as well as the moral reservations we have, will mean we will not go ahead with IVF.  If God gives us another baby then wonderful.  But I think we are going to stop trying for another baby.  This is a painful decision – but less painful than going for IVF.