Let’s talk about something uncomfortable for a minute

It’s been a little while since I’ve shared. Life has been a roller coaster the last 24 months. There’s been a lot of good, a lot of growing pains, a lot of heartbreak and a whole lot of love. This post may be one of the most important I ever put out there, along with my #metoo post in 2016. I want to share something that is deeply personal and incredibly hard to talk about. And the truth is that I don’t talk about it. When people look at me and say “you’re 30 and single? Don’t you want to have kids?”  I do. More than anything. I just don’t know that I can. That was hard to even write and I think I’ve only said aloud less than a dozen times. I don’t know if it’s in the cards for me. Not because I don’t have a partner right now or because I can’t picture it. But as a woman, our bodies are made to reproduce, and mine is failing at that. Dating is hard with that burden to bear. How do you look someone in the face that you could build a future with and tell them a future with you may not include children? Or at least not in the traditional way. I know there are many options out there and I am open to every single one of them. There are some things I may be able to do as well to make it a possibility but those things don’t seem logical to try without a partner. I’ve convinced myself that I will be okay not being a mother. But sometimes it doesn’t feel okay. Sometimes I feel like I would feel empty without a child. But I’m also really afraid to try. How do I have that conversation with my future husband? That while I want to explore every option there is, I’m terrified? I’ve felt that loss before and it that kind of loss makes your bones heavy, makes your heart break. It’s the kind of loss that is etched into your skin and sits on shoulders. Your body failed you. Your body failed that child that almost was. It’s an incredibly hard weight to carry. One of the reasons my last relationship failed (one of the many, many reasons) was his inability to accept what I told him. He just insisted that if we tried enough, it would happen. It didn’t happen. Despite our best efforts. Maybe that was divine intervention or maybe, just maybe, it’s becaude of my medical issues. I suffer from endometriosis. If you’re not familiar with it, study up. It affects many women and it’s difficult to describe the pain that comes along with it and the complications if you don’t experience it. It makes getting pregnant difficult. It makes carrying a child to term challenging. It makes every day hard. The pain can be unbearable. And I live with it. I complain a lot about “angry ovaries” because daily, stabbing pain is something I lived with for many years. I’ve been fortunate to find a doctor who communicates, asks questions and has let me experiment with all kinds of birth controls so I can live comfortably. She does not force me to talk about what my future may look like but she gives me the facts and keeps her door open to when I am ready to face it all head on. Women’s health is something I feel so incredibly strongly about because it affects me directly. It affects my sisters, my best friends, my coworkers. If you’re suffering, if you’re carrying a burden-whether it’s endometriosis, cervical cancer, ovarian cancer, infertility-I see you. I feel you. And you are not alone.