I think about cancer a lot.
It scares me.
So many I know have been touched by it in some way or another.
A girl I went to school with died from a rare form of it.
A childhood friend’s mother died from it.
Another childhood friend’s father-in-law and brother-in-law died from it, and her father is battling it.
Then of course there are the celebrities, who presumably can afford the best possible care to cure it. They still die from it.
It lurks.
It strikes without rhyme or reason — it seems.
We haven’t pinpointed what causes it. We don’t understand why sometimes it goes and sometimes it comes back. I have friends who have beaten it. Did they get lucky, or did they do something right?
I want not to think about cancer.
It’s not like I’m going to find a cure by thinking about it all the time.
I just really, really, want to make sure I don’t get it.
If I think about it a lot, if I’m aware of it all the time, it can’t blindside me.
Right?
I have these two beautiful children to look after. I want to see their whole lives. I am not giving up that privilege.
I felt this way about our infertility. This all-consuming way.
First I thought I didn’t want children.
I was still a child when I made that decision (25).
Then I found a man to love, and quickly my body insisted each month that I did very much want children with this man I loved. Some months the yearning felt suffocating and all I had to hold on to was my faith in him, us, and biology.
We didn’t start trying until nearly 8 years later (33).
There were obstacles.
Sperm antibodies. Endometriosis. An over-active immune system. Stress.
That I was getting up in age was a constant worry.
I didn’t know how to battle the passage of time, or how to convince my vigilant immune system to stand down.
I did a lot of online research. I joined a lot of Facebook support groups.
I rolled my eyes a lot, primarily at the suggestion that I let go.
There are a lot of blog posts out there written by women who suffered with infertility and came out the other side with babies. So many of them got pregnant after they “stopped trying.”
I couldn’t figure out how to stop trying.
I could pretend I didn’t care anymore…but I knew I was pretending.
I still cared.
Finally, I succumbed to my doctor’s recommendations.
We started IVF.
Ugh, the high stakes of IVF.
I felt each step of the process deep in the bones of my soul.
It was the very last possible resort so it begged the question:
What if this doesn’t work?
The first transfer resulted in a chemical pregnancy. We found out on Christmas Eve.
Was that hard?
Not any harder than everything we’d been through to get to this point.
No, fuck that.
Yes it was goddamn hard.
I was lovesick for our baby by then. I was desperate for the relief of a resolution.
The uncertainty ate at me.
What if this doesn’t work?
Shortly after my son turned 1 year old, I discovered I was pregnant for a second time.
Becoming a mom for the first time turned me inside out.
Also, post-partum hormones.
When a woman becomes pregnant, parts of her brain re-wire so she can be more attuned to the baby. The acuity with which she can make connections between seemingly random things sharpens.
I was never better at NYT Connections than when I was post-partum with my second.
But also I suddenly really connected with this: I was taking a huge risk.
I was pregnant at 37 — a “geriatric” pregnancy.
Another eye roll — except…
What if something did happened to me?
All the clinicians make sure to let you know right away: there are real risks.
I had a little being I loved more than life itself dependent on me. Who was I to put him at risk of losing his mother?
Something very real could happen to me, and the brand new life growing inside of me, and my growing son, and the husband who would be left to pick up any pieces.
Nobody tells little girls they can die from a pregnancy.
Or, little girls don’t know to listen.
In the first trimester of my second pregnancy, I internalized this:
Life is not guaranteed.
We are all just fucking lucky to be here most days.
When my son was about a month old, I placed him in his stroller and took him for a walk through the vernal pools near our home.
The December air was chill, but the sun was out and the day was clear enough that I could see the hills beyond us.
My son, who came out restless as my spirit, fell asleep.
We were alone together amongst the naked trees, beneath the warming sun, and I thought — FINALLY, breathlessly, tearfully — I got him here.
I can let go.
When you feel things deeply, everything means a lot to you.
Living means so much to me.
But I’ve learned this after two pregnancies (even though I struggle when I’m in the thick of my feelings to remember it):
When my knuckles are white from the strain of holding on to water, it is time to let go.
Let go of all of it.
Open your arms to the sky and say, Go ahead, do your worst.
And don’t wait around to see if it will.
Stray Sentences 