It's Not Easy

Music has always spoken to my deepest emotions and connected me to myself in ways I cannot explain. While driving home tonight, one of my new favorite songs came on, "Not Easy" by Alex Da Kid. It hit me hard. I've been listening to this song for a couple of days now and actually felt that it spoke to me about a completely different situation in my life, an emotional experience that took place more than 5 years ago. But tonight, the words, "It's not easy, it's not easy breaking your heart" caught me in a completely different way.

After our recent decision to pursue adoption whole heartedly and set aside any further fertility treatments I just assumed that a lot of my grief would subside. In fact, after our announcement and the outpouring of support we received I felt a tremendous renewal of hope and joy. I felt hope that my dream of being a mother was close again, I felt the joy of a new direction in our journey, and I felt that having closure to the fertility treatment would help put it aside. What I discovered tonight is it's not that simple.

There is still grief and loss on this journey. My heart is still broken over the children that I won't get to carry. There is still loss around the baby that won't have my eyes or Kurtis' nose. There is still the grief of never knowing what traits our baby, our biological child, would get from us. I hadn't thought of those things, I just pushed forward focusing on my end goal, like I always do.

I had to let all of this sink in tonight. I had to let myself feel it. I had to play the words of my husband's regrets and sadness play in my head. He's been feeling it too. We spent the holiday's with my family and on our trip to the zoo, I spent a lot of time with my 3-year-old niece, Leiliana. After we left, Kurtis told me that while she was sitting on my lap, he had a moment of sadness. He noticed that her hair looked like mine and he couldn't help but feel sad that he may never get to see me with a daughter that looks just like me.

We are both thrilled to be on the journey to adoption, but we can't forget that there are still feelings of grief to process. Loss that we should allow ourselves to feel. Adoption doesn't negate fertility issues, it's simply a wonderful option for those who experience the deeply emotional life circumstance of infertility.