Living in the realm of “just in case”
It takes 40 days to set a new habit and retrain the subconscious. This is what I’ve learned through yoga training, retreats, and personal practice. I’m on month one of my new routine, and the consistency allows my roots to settle and strengthen into the new soil I’ve planted them in. Even as I grow, there is always a subtle layer of my subconscious that discounts my current life and reimagines an oneiric parallel one that includes a child. Maybe somewhere, in another universe, I have a nest of children calling to me. Not here, in my quiet house. Right now, I hear the rain tapping, the fireplace crackling, and the furnace blowing next to me as I clack, clack away at the keys. The sun is rising, filtering light through clouds, as day arrives with a yawn.
At some point, I’ll drink my smoothie and lay out my multivitamins for the day. Every time I pick up the bottle of folic acid, the one vitamin my doctor prescribed when I told him in 2021 that I was trying to get pregnant, I think, “Why am I torturing myself with this daily reminder?" But I’ll continue to take it, I know, just in case. And this is the curse of not knowing. There is always the just in case.
I took the pill, just in case, so that I didn’t get pregnant when I wasn’t ready. When I was, I stopped taking the pill, just in case all the right circumstances lined up for me to become a mother. It took me a year to bleed, and another two years for my body to find my own monthly rhythm. I had a little help to get there. After an intensive week of prenatal yoga training and a specially crafted herbal tea, I was bleeding, a victory. A regular cycle meant a healthy body and hope for a baby.
That hope has strained over the years with each month that I bleed. My emotional charge has also weakened. I can field inappropriate questions from strangers without tearing up. Even with broader shoulders, there are still moments when I feel like a raw nerve. A comment about so-and-so barely trying, and boom, just like that, they got pregnant. Who’s next? I’m always waiting for the ball to drop.
Pop culture and the media are leaning into the subject more, but I’m still not sure how I feel about it. I want more, then when I see more, I want less. There is an upcoming book titled “Others Like Me: The Lives of Women Without Children” by Nicole Louie. From the description, the author includes stories of those without kids by choice, circumstance or infertility. While I celebrate more voices on the subject, it feels too close to the bone for me, at least while I linger in the realm of “just in case.” I’m not ready to accept that my life will be without children.
I appreciate learning about others who have lived (or currently wade) in this realm. A sideways comment or subtle remark that I relate to. A paragraph or a chapter buried in a book. I burst into tears when I opened the “High Risk” chapter in Sarah Polley’s book “Run Towards the Danger” and was confronted with a personal essay on her fertility challenges due to endometriosis. I cried through the whole chapter, yet I was grateful for Sarah’s vulnerability and willingness to share her experience. But as always, this story ended with a miracle baby (then babies), as many do.
This blog is my vulnerable moment — except I don’t know how this will end. I knew starting Fearless Forty that fertility would be a topic I’d explore with honesty. It’s ever-present in my mind, every month that ticks by. While the melancholy sits within, so does joy. One is a foil for the other.
Living in the realm of “just in case” is both a burden and a blessing. When the window of potential is open, I have a responsibility to make the right decisions about how I treat my body. When I plan for the future by booking a trip or signing up for a race, I wonder what state my body will be in and what trimester. When I dream of the future, it’s dual, one with expansive freedom and one with maternal anchors. The unknowing could be a hell, but I choose for it to be a heaven.
The part of me that aches to nurture is channelled toward being an aunt, plant parenting, and an overabundance of love for my dog. It actually terrifies me how much I love her and the joy she brings to our home. I don’t love all dogs like this. I wonder, what would it be like to have my own child? When I sink into magical thinking, I pull away when my chest can barely contain my heart — it’s already so full.
I know I’m turning forty this year, and the window is closing. I’m reminded daily by uncanny advertisements that pop up on websites and my social feed. The older I get, the more doors and windows close. But then, unexpectedly, others open that you didn’t know existed. There’s hope for that too.
Yours Truly,
Fearless Forty
