Peeling back the layers

I had my session with NC last night.  I brought her up to speed on what happened to spur me to return to counseling: MM's "epiphany" about not wanting to move forward with DE IVF this summer as we had planned, the conversations we have had since about the possibility of pursuing embryo donation, and the thoughts and feelings I've had about all of it.  (My explanation of my thoughts and feelings was pretty to close to what I posted here.)  It was helpful to talk this out with someone who is not only a trained professional but also already knows something about our TTC history and is an objective outsider.

Following the preliminaries, the first question NC asked me was "How do you feel now about never being a mother?"  After I blathered on for a few minutes about the pros and cons of parenthood and how I have gotten to a point where I think I would be OK either way, she stopped me.  She pointed out that I was giving her my THOUGHTS about this, not my feelings.  She reminded me of my tendency to allow logic to rule over my emotions which she had commented on in earlier sessions.  (Very true; I am very much an Overthinker.)

So I paused for a moment and then blurted out the first thing that came into my head: "When I'm on my deathbed--which I hope won't be until I'm at least 75--I know I will regret it if I was never a mother."  And I promptly burst into tears.

That was an "Aha! moment" for me.  I guess I am just weird, but I have a hard time getting through my thoughts about something to my feelings about it.  For a long time, I believed that my thoughts and feelings were basically the same thing, but one thing this struggle with infertility has taught me is that they are not.  I have loads of perfectly logical, rational thoughts about the possibility of never being a mother, which treatment path to choose and the like, but I have found that apart from those well-reasoned thoughts, I also have emotions.  Emotions that are not at all logic or rational, and often are not very comfortable for me.

I am not a person who usually makes decisions driven by emotion.  Even in my love life, the one area where even rational, sane people often allow their hearts to rule over their heads, I have made more logical decisions, based on thought and reason, than emotional decisions.  (For example, I would tell you that I married MM not only because I love him but because marrying him was a smart decision.  I ended my last serious relationship before MM for logical, not emotional, reasons.)  The last emotion-driven decisions I made in my life were probably in my teens. . . . usually with less-than-ideal outcomes, I might add.

However. . . . a dear friend of mine told me once that there is nothing logical about the desire to be a parent.  I am learning all the time just how true her words are.

Unfortunately, because I am infertile and (apparently) unable to conceive a baby on my own, the "natural" way, coming to this realization about what I truly want is not THE answer to my dilemma.  I still have to figure out how I am going to realize my dream of motherhood, and I still have to honor and respect MM's wishes and thoughts about the process.  There are still many, many steps ahead of me along the road.

But it's a start.