Don't Cry for Me, Laurel, Maryland

Since John and I were married two years ago, every party we go to elicits a particular question from somebody. “When are you going to have kids?” It’s a funny thing, this expectation from everyone... everyone except our own mothers! Probably because they’ve been grandparents for at least 10 years through our siblings and the pressure is off in that regard (Thanks, Mike and Jim!!!).

Whether jokingly or not, everyone’s anticipating some “big announcement”. Thankfully, of late, people have been expecting Freddy to come out with big news of his own, so the baby talk has died down a little.

How do you answer something so deeply personal, especially when the answer is not the one people expect to hear? Depending on my mood, sometimes I just want to say, “I hate kids.” Just for shock’s sake. If you know me though, I just give a little shrug. “I don’t know,” I say.

But I do know.

I’ll be heading here tomorrow because I have these. Sadly, after my stay, we won’t be able to have any of these.

When I first learned I had these goo-gobs in my belly, I kept tabs on them via annual exams, but never thought anything of them (other than making me look pregnant all the time). They weren’t painful (still aren’t) or causing any other problems, but they have multiplied and grown large enough to greatly reduce my chances of carrying to term if I were to get pregnant. Had I known this was the case, I would have actively pursued treatment years ago. But from what I’ve read, if you’re prone to have them, getting rid of a few doesn’t prevent others from cropping up, which would have required additional treatments, etc...

My fertility is one of those things I took for granted until someone said, “You can’t...” After weighing the options, I decided I didn’t want to go through all the pain and heartache that couples with fertility issues go through. So I’m choosing the treatment option that will eliminate the fibroids permanently. It’s not that I don’t want to have kids. I’ve always wanted to have kids. My attitude used to be that having a child was more important to me than having a husband. Luckily, I found a GREAT husband. We won’t know the joys of having our own biological kids, but we have each other, a wonderful family, awesome nieces and nephew to spoil and really cool friends. WNTL?