Over the last few months I've had some dear friends ask me why I am not blogging and my response has always been; I don't have the time. As you all can see my last entry dates back from August and it was a simple copy/paste from an old blog I used to keep. Over the last week or 2 some events took place and some discussions were held with friends from the community where my old blog was located and as I spoke or wrote words to the friends I had made I realized that my life had come full circle (or so to speak) and that I had accepted the past and I am at peace with the battles my family had to fight to be where we are today.
Over the last 3 years I saw my husband battle cancer and beat it, I embarked on a roller coaster ride when we decided to add to our family via artificial reproduction techniques (ART), I carried an ill child and watched her fight for life for 3 months only to say good-bye when the time came and I carried another child only never to be able to look into his eyes. To say a year ago today that I was not in a "happy place" would be an understatement. When one watches 2 people that you love fight and struggle for life it touches a part of you that you never would have known existed. A part of you, especially when it is your child, that for our own mental/emotional health remains dormant until an event requires it to be awakened. When that part of your soul is awakened it is impossible that it doesn't change you and your view on your own existence.
While I struggled to maintain my sanity during my pregnancy with Isabelle, her short life in the NICU, her death, the loss of my son-to-be one thing didn't change; the support from the online community I had joined when I began my first in-vitro fertilization cycle. Over the months I had incredible support that allowed me to live and survive and for that I will always be grateful. However what I failed to recognize is that although the support allowed me to live day to day it did not allow me to learn to accept what my little family had gone through over the last 3 years. In reality it justified my feelings and I continued to tell myself it was normal. But you know what? It wasn't normal; life did continue to move forward with or without me. In June of this year I decided that the community I had fallen in love with just wasn't what it was when I joined and it was no longer a place I felt welcomed (for numerous reasons). So I signed off and appropriately named my final blog entry on the site "The final page".
Leaving the site was scary at first; where was I to blog about my most intimate details of my fears? I thought about starting a new blog, which obviously I did however with the summer months I honnestly did not have the time to blog. This lack of time turned out to be a very good thing. I spent the summer reflecting on my own about the last 3 years; the positives and negatives. Some days were spent in tears while other days were so energy packed that there weren't enough hours in a day to do everything I wanted. However slowly but surely what I did do over the summer months and well into the fall was that I worked through the emotions of the last 3 years. That doesn't mean I am not terrified of the future. It doesn't mean that I don't question the fears I have if I am blessed to carry a healthy child and bring that child home. But what I do know is that, as one smart member from my old community said "the past does not equal the future". Holding on to that thought combined with not having my negative fears, emotions and thoughts justified made me grow and find a new sense of myself; it made me "come full circle".
Today I feel lucky. My husband is healthy and alive, my beautiful daughter Emilie is healthy and happy and she continues to amaze me and now I truly realize that although the hand of cards I was dealt required me to fight it was fight that is now in the past and it has made me a stronger and a better person. Today I am happy.
I leave you with a quote I came across recently; “Always keep a dream in your heart. If you have a dream, then by all means do what it takes to make it come true. If you have a goal, make it something you strive to accomplish. If you have a hope, then hope for it with all your heart.” ~Collin McCarty
Thanks for reading; hopefully this will be the start of many new entries.
