Remember that many fail in their infertility journey. How can anyone adjust to that?

I spent many decades as a driven perfectionist so I completely understand your frustrations, but I no longer feel them so intently. When I was younger I measured my success by how much money I had or how high I climbed on the corporate ladder. Now I realize that those things don’t matter to me nearly as much as I thought they did. What matters now is spending time with my children, my husband, my parents, and those I love. It’s enjoying the sunrises and sunsets, and spending as much time as possible outdoors. We all have different ways of measuring our success, but think carefully about the way you measure yours. While a successful career is important to many it is not the end-all-be-all that we think it is. It sounds like your heart has always been in medicine. If you can pursue that career by all means reach for it, but do not feel down about the path your life has taken. My entire identity was wrapped around my career. When I was laid off eight years ago I cried for days, but my life is better now that it’s ever been. I stopped allowing society to measure my success and began creating a different scale to measure it for myself. I hope you can learn to do the same! I wish you all the best and hope you will return many years from now with an update on how things turned out!

Hi Stephan, Thank you for your kind and thoughtful comment. I don’t know how old you are, but at 43 years old I have definitely learned that life doesn’t often follow the plans that I imagine. I am sorry that you and your wife struggled with infertility. Of all of my journeys throughout the past forty years of my life those struggles were some of the most difficult. We live in a world where we don’t openly discuss fertility issues, which made the stress and heaviness of that time of my life that much harder to bear.

It sounds like your life has been all that you bargained for AND a whole that you weren’t expecting. I hope you know that you are not alone. That’s why I wrote this post, because we all face that moment in our lives where we look at our life plan and our circumstances and try to match them up. Then we wonder what happened to bring us to this very moment. I’m glad that you decided to comment. Others will read your words and know that they are not alone either.

I especially like your point about empathy. My empathy is growing and swelling with age. The more bumps I encounter in life the more I recognize that everyone else is also silently traveling over their own hills and mountains.

I wish you the best of luck as you plot a new course. I only have two young children and I know that those first few years can be incredibly difficult. It will be so much better a few years from now. What amazes me most about my life is feeling the weight of a difficult moment in my life. Then looking back a few years later and remembering that heaviness, but also feeling like it went by in the blink of an eye.

Thank you again for leaving this comment and for letting me know that this post helped you.

I keep coming back to this article and your reply Steve. I too graduated as a ChemE, married my high school sweetheart, planned to have a large family (we have 5 at home, all very young yet), I’ve worked for one company and still live in my hometown in a large beautiful house. All according to plan…
Except…(and this is tough to talk about, even with people with trust completely) We lost our first child 17 weeks into the pregnancy, our 2nd and 3rd pregnancies were healthy, though high stress, and then we lost our 4th and 5th children at the end of the first trimester in addition to some fertility struggles. On our sixth pregancy, we got triplets :). Thank the Lord they were born healthy and we were able to bring them all home after relatively short ~1month stays in the NICU. So, new vehicle that can handle 5 children 6 and under with all their gear, new house to comfortably handle a family of 7 + a nearly live in Grandma. Finally a few years later and looking at our family from the outside and everything looks great and according to plan. And it is. And it isn’t.
I guess I’m just trying to say that even a life that goes to plan from the outside and may look pretty close to picture perfect, doesn’t always go to plan. I have an amazing family and amazing life, but it has taught me some empathy (hopefully) and to try not to assume I know what another person’s life is even when I know some of the broad strokes. I’m still pretty young and I’m sure some more surprises will come my way, but for now I have a new plan.

That’s a great point you’ve brought up. I was thinking about a change of plans that results in a negative feeling, but you are absolutely right. There are plenty of positive changes that can occur too!

Happy Sunday Ms. Jewels! I’m binge-reading your blog today!

I’m so glad you like my recent posts. When COVID-19 first struck I felt a little stumped for writing material, but lately I have more ideas than time to write them all down! I feel the same way about my childhood dreams. I can look back and say, “I never could have imagined the path my life took, but I am content with the path I’ve traveled.” I’m glad that you feel the same way.

Oh and I’ve had a few of those shower banging moments myself 😉