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I woke up in the recovery room with the surgeons face blurring in and out saying, "Everything looks fine in there." My immediate reaction was relief that I was well and would not have to undergo treatment for endometriosis. My second reaction was relief also, but for a different reason. I knew that I was getting off the infertility roller coaster at last. All our talking had led us to the place where we could make a choice to live childfree. Of course, there was still some final grieving to do. Hope is hard to give up, even when it has become more painful than helpful.
Finally, there came a day that winter when after so many weeks of talking about living childfree, we finally decided to choose it - to take it and live it. We didn't know exactly what it meant, but we were willing to figure it out day by day and build the rest of our lives on it. The most important thing was that we realized that we did have a choice. We could be childless, defining our lives by what we lack, or we could be childfree, affirming the potential gain that comes of living without children. We chose the latter.
Things really did begin to get better from that moment as one small part of our lives after another underwent redefinition. The future nursery turned into a music room. The dolls we had been saving for our daughters were set aside for our nieces. The money we had been putting away as a college fund became our opportunity to travel. After dozens of these little transformations, we realized that we had made a major change in our lives. Instead of being unsuccessful parents-to-be, we were very successful nonparents. Failure was no longer the major theme of our lives.
© Jean W. Carter and Michael P. Carter
Credits: Perspectives Press
