Go to Napa.

One of my best girlfriends has been trying to plan a girl’s trip to Napa for years. She finally booked it for last August and then Covid happened, which caused her to cancel. She has always invited me to join, but each year she was planning it, there was something going on in my life which forced me to say no. Two years ago I was getting married…last year we were in the midst of trying to get pregnant and about to start IVF….and then this year she asked again and my answer felt different. 

After my last failed IVF cycle in February, I decided that I was going to change my mindset about having children. Previously, I had been praying every day for God to bless Rob and I with children. Obviously, that prayer wasn’t working for us (at least right now anyway), so I thought it would be better for my mental state to change my prayers. I started praying for my desires to match God’s plan for my life. I also started asking God to take the desire to have children away from me if that is not in His plan for our life. 

The strangest thing has happened since then…I currently have no desire to do IVF again. 

Now, for those that don’t know me well, I tend to be emotional. (My husband would probably say that’s an understatement, but whatever.) My feelings can be fleeting and change easily. I know myself well enough to not trust my feelings completely or use absolutes while I am working through something. But I do also know from 40 years of experience, that I will know my answer when I am fully at peace with something.

So anyway…I currently have no desire to do IVF again and I don’t know exactly what that means. Rob and I have always planned on doing IVF one more time, so I’m guessing that feeling might change someday. But for now, I’m embracing this part of my life. 

I was talking to someone a few weeks ago about her and her husband recently deciding that they won’t do any fertility treatments to try to have kids. They have fully decided, “If it happens, it happens.” She was saying how freeing it felt when they made that decision. And then I couldn’t think of a better word to describe what I’ve been feeling since changing my prayers about having children too. Free. 

Ever since I’ve lost the desire to do IVF again, I’ve felt more free than I have in the last 2 years combined. Free from having my entire focus be on something I can’t have.  Free from feeling like I’ve failed as a women. Free from constant disappointment. Free from visiting the doctor’s office that’s over an hour away, multiple times a week. Free from bad news. Free from saying no to things because I don’t know if I’ll be in the midst of an IVF cycle. Free from hormones taking over my body. Free from waiting. Free from not fully embracing where I am at in life because I want to be somewhere else. Free to be me again.

If I’m being honest, I feel like I’ve lost myself these past couple of years. I’ve always thought life is a balancing act- something new gets thrown into your life (or taken away) and you have to figure out how to adjust to the new normal. For me, the last 9 years of my life have felt like I am constantly rebalancing. But with IVF, it felt like it threw me sooo off balance that it’s been difficult to get back to center. I haven’t felt like me for such a long time. Until recently…

I knew that things were different inside me lately because when my friend asked me to go to Napa a few weeks ago, the first thought in my mind was “Heck yes, I wanna go to Napa with some girlfriends!” I almost didn’t recognize the feeling inside myself; however, it was a response that the “old” Steph would have for sure. The fun-loving, world-traveling, free-spirited girl inside me started to feel familiar again.

I talked to my husband about it and during the conversation I almost tried to talk myself out of going. I felt guilty about spending the money because we have goals we are trying to achieve. Also, would it be fair for me to get to do something like that while he stayed at home? (Questions I never asked myself before, but do now that I’m married.) My super loving and supportive husband looked at me and said, “Babe. Go to Napa.” And that was all I needed to hear from the person I needed to hear it from. I think in a way he was happy to see the girl he married start to show herself again too. 

I know what some of you might be thinking. I’ve thought it too. Maybe if I let go of trying to have a baby, give up and just live my life, that’s when God will make it happen. I get it. It’s the Hollywood ending to my life.  It’s the thing you say to someone who’s unable to have children and you don’t know what else to say. 

The reality and gut-wrenching fact is that maybe Rob and I are just not meant to have children.  And after I went through the grief of my last IVF cycle and have changed my prayers to God, I think I’ve finally been able to get to the part of the grief cycle that’s one of the most important. Acceptance. 

What I’ve realized in the last 9 years of my life is that most of the time, you won’t get the answers to your questions. 

Why is this happening to us? 

Why do Rob and I not get to have children when there are people out there who can so easily have them? 

Why do Rob and I not get to be parents when there are so many people out there who don’t deserve to be parents?

Today, I’m accepting that I will never know the answers to those questions. And to be honest, it doesn’t help to live in a constant state of denial, dreaming that God will surprise us and we’ll get pregnant naturally or some other fairytale I could tell myself. All that does is set me up for disappointment. 

So what can I do? 

I can accept where I am at in life. Continue to pray to be on the path God has planned for me. Find the meaning in the suffering that I have gone through. Support others on their journey as well. Keep working on the balance in my life that I’ve been searching for. Learn how to combine the old Steph with all that I have learned these past 2 years in order to figure out who I am today.

And, most importantly, go to fricken Napa, drink wine and laugh my butt off with some girlfriends. Or in other words…live my life. Right here, right now.