I think that the events of the last year have definitely accelerated the mid-life crisis I was already beginning to experience in late 2019. I thought of it as a mid-life crisis at that point, anyway. ‘Crisis’ implies fast movement or the need for immediate reaction. I’m beginning to look at it more as a reckoning. Changes are happening, but much slower than in a crisis.
I have learned that a major element of mid-life reckoning is grieving what didn’t happen. Sometimes that has to do with personal choices or things that you can still do something about (ie. writing that novel…or buying a Ferrari). Sometimes it’s just that life is nothing like how you pictured it or dreamed it and you just need to mourn the loss and move on. In my case, specific to trying to have a family, a major elimination has happened in both what I perceived as normal and in what my dreams were for the processes of being pregnant and giving birth. When I got married at age 28, I assumed that I would be pregnant within a couple of years. I assumed that we would conceive easily, and that trying would be this lovely time of connection between my husband and me. I pictured my pregnancy as young and glowing and full of love and life. That’s just the way things go, right? I was also very into all things natural and holistic, and envisioned myself doing a lot of prenatal yoga and working with midwives and giving birth without the aid of drugs in a kiddie pool in my living room. My visions of raising my kids were similar to how I was raised: by younger people who were learning the world along with me. I was picturing myself as a different type of mother than I will likely be.
The reality is that I’m at an age where my body hurts in the morning just from sleeping, without carrying another human. I look like I’m 41. I have some collagen loss in my face. I already have a mom-bod without having actually given birth. I do not look 28, I do not have the energy of a 28-year-old, and I never will again; pregnant or not. The probability of radiant mama vibes during my pregnancy seems pretty low. Obviously, with IVF there is also absolutely nothing even remotely natural about the process of conception thus far. Every single thing has involved scientific intervention. Our one tiny nod to leaving anything to chance is to implant the embryos in the order that they were created. I’ve already had to make my brother (aka future “fun” uncle) promise that he won’t call my children test-tube babies to their faces. Because I am older and will need to have surgery via my uterus to make this pregnancy happen, there is a high likelihood that I will need to give birth via C-section. There is still some hope for delivering naturally, but I am high-risk so it will definitely be in a hospital with an ObGyn (and hopefully a midwife, too!).
My idealistic vision of early motherhood literally can’t happen. There was a time, a pretty long time, when I was angry, resentful, and so unbelievably sad about that. I was self-soothing with negative emotions, which is O.K. for awhile, but eventually it becomes a trap. Once I identified what was happening as grief, I could choose to actively engage with it. Then I could realize that internally fighting things that I can’t change leads to misery and inability to appreciate what is. I won’t be the mother I thought I would be. Instead, I will be a mother who has gone through some shit and now has the wisdom to better discern what’s important. I now know that, even when things are hard and messy, I can let go of what isn’t, be present to whatever reality motherhood presents, and love it anyway.
chaos to clarity 