35...

Since turning 35 (half way through my 30's to 40!!! ...ugh) at the beginning of this month, I've noticed a pattern of uncontrollable 'sad days.' At first I thought it was just hormonal stuff--and I'm not just talking about monthly female stuff--I'm talking about the drugs I'm on daily that set things into all sorts of whack! But it dawned on me tonight, after scrolling my fb feed to see so many friends, around my age, having the last of their babies, that my new 'number' has been an extra big reminder of our circumstances. Not that it's not on my mind all the time, anyway, but 35 really is a door reached that's been on my biological and mental radar my entire adult life.

Certainly, I more than anyone, know *now* that plans and our human tendency to MAKE plans for everything are really, in some regard, a silly waste of time. GOD'S plan is the end-all regardless of what we think 'we know best.' But like most people--women in particular--I once had a plan. My plan (in conjunction with my spouse's approval, of course) was to have 3 or 4 kids, each a couple to a few years apart from one another and 'be done' by the time I turned 35. I'll never forget going to our ultrasound to find out if Linc was a boy or girl and as we were pulling up in our car, Aaron making me promise that even if he was a girl, we wouldn't be done. I remember how relieved it made me feel that my husband and father of my children still wanted 3 or 4, too.

As most of us know, 35 is not just some random number I chose. Research and medical-findings were my biggest reasonings. The fact that you begin drastically losing your fertility every year after 35 and the fact that the pregnancy complication/abnormality rates go way up after 35 were certainly my biggest drive. But also, just thinking about carrying a child, BIRTHING a child and HAVING ENERGY FOR a newborn and multiplied children after that age *errr...MY NOW AGE* was NOT what I wanted for myself. Us. Our kids.

Aaron seems to think I'm letting go of faith in the matter to rule out--assuming my health is still in good standing--adding to our family and having 'second generation' children, "someday." But honestly, it just seems so distant and it feels as though everything about cancer has been a 'waiting game' even though I've been soooooo ready for so MANY things to change, for so long. It makes me feel, sometimes, like we're never gonna live in any other house or town or ever 'progress' into something DIFFERENT. I even have the morbid thought, on occasion, that my cancer will come back and kill me and it will be in these very same walls that I will leave this world.
Sorry to be depressing. Just being honest.

I know it's horrible for me to even say out loud, but every time I see a post about someone expecting their third or forth baby...or even meet a mom who has three or more kids...I actually bellow up inside with some amount of hate for them.
Like I said. Horrible.
But I'm so angry that they got to have that--they got to meet that desire of a third or forth--and I didn't. The clincher is seeing families with two boys, trying for--and sometimes succeeding at getting that girl. OR seeing families have that 'perfect family' of two boys and two girls. Definitely gives me an inkling of a glimpse of how childless mothers-at-heart feel when seeing mom's with kids. I KNOW in my heart that I should be happy for them, but it's hard.

Anytime I post an entry directly or indirectly addressing this bleeding mama's heart of mine, I get two kinds of sweet-intentioned private messages: Friends and family who feel they must remind me of the 'two boys that I am blessed with' and friends and family who want to 'introduce' me to the idea of adopting--as though I wouldn't be happy adding to our family that way. But on the contrary, I would be so game for that route.. if it were even possible for us.
What many people don't realize is how hard it is to have a recent history of cancer and even get approved as a candidate. Sure, I know God moves mountains...I am aware that many out there have 'impossible' adoption stories...but it's just not our time. Not according to approval needs OR other.
Even just our current house size would hold us back. One of the reasons that when Linc was 2 1/2 and I was practically begging to have another, Aaron just didn't feel like we could. And these are outside of Aaron's reasonable argument of fear for adding another child to our family that could, someday be his and his ALONE to raise, too--given the worst case scenario happened with my health.

With Linc now being 5 and growing up so fast, the baby-stage is becoming a further and further distant past. Some days I think I wouldn't want to go back to diapers and highchairs and midnight feedings--even if I HAD the choice. Once you get so far removed from that... how could you?!


It's funny.
Out of all the wrath and toll that cancer has taken on me--on my heart--this is perhaps the deepest I feel God could allow me to be cut---outside of having one of my loved ones go through it instead of me, that is. If you'd of told me in my 20's that I'd have cancer at the age of 32, I might of had an extra blazing fire lit under me to make babies and make 'em fast, ha! But, I know that's just one of the reasons why we DON'T receive such head's up about life's challenges. If I'd of known, I'd of done everything in my power to 'soften the blow' on myself. Yet I do--deep down, past all the tears and throat clenching moments--understand, that the blow HAS to be hard if God is to implement in me the extreme change He is working on now.

I just wish it didn't hurt so darned bad...