we were on the 5 year plan

D and I were on the 5 year plan. We got married when we were both quite young and our expectation was that after about 5 years or so we would start a family. Twelve years later we’re still working on that one. It’s like I had my life planned on an Etch-a-Sketch and someone shook it all away, started redrawing the plan but didn’t allow me a glimpse of where we were headed.

I often wonder how we got here…to this place where we’re both quite a bit older then we had ever hoped with no kids. I guess life happened. A string of events starting from D getting laid off, to us moving to the States for 3 years, to me having difficulty finding employment once we were back in Canada delayed our start. The timing just didn’t seem right, there was always something else that took precedence in life. But now that we’re in our current position of childlessness after 12 years of marriage I wonder about the choices we’ve made along the way. Should we have thrown caution to the wind and tried to conceive while living in a different country with D in school and my income barely covering living expenses? We both would have been younger…how much of a difference would that have made to our fertility? Sometimes I could just kick myself and our “responsible” decision making process during that time. We thought we needed to save money, have more stability in our lives, wait for D to finish grad school and get a job, wait for me to find employment once in Canada to accrue hours for a maternity leave. Well…I’ve certainly got the hours!

I can’t go back and redo parts of life. I get that we all make the best decisions and choices we can with the information that is available at the time. And we all have to deal with the consequences of our choices. But…I guess my big lesson in all of this is to not necessarily wait for x,y,z to happen before making important decisions in life. Don’t let finances and ideal situations get in the way of dreams and desires. If you wait for everything to be perfect, you just might find yourself in an imperfect situation. And I’m not just talking about us potentially having a bio kid because we would have started trying earlier. Had we discovered our infertility earlier we would just be that much further in the adoption process.

I want to be clear that I’m quite okay with where we’re at right now and pursuing adoption, I feel that this is right for us…but as I struggle in the waiting I sometimes wonder what might have been if I had listened to my baby urge all those years ago.

An encouragement for me to spend more time following and listening to my heart versus my head.