Infertility, Adoption & Loving Myself

I have never written about this before.  To be so exposed in my pain and my rawness.  To be so confused and confronted in my womanhood.

I dont know where to start.  Except to say that 7 years of infertility and many holistic attempts and surgical and hormonal consults later I feel relieved.  I thought I had to have my own child to be finally accepted as a women, a wife and a daughter to my lineage.  I spent so many years lying to myself about the fact that I was just unlucky or inadequate.  And now I realize that my body has been only supporting me in realizing my greatest self.  I am definitely meant to be a mom but not in the traditional sense.

I have wanted to adopt a baby since I can remember presenting my idea in a grade 5 school project.  I knew in my heart before I understood in my head that I have the capacity to love someone unconditionally that is not my genetics or my race or my culture.  And it has taken me almost 7 years to admit that I am not even sure I ever want to have my own child.  That admitting this fact makes me less of a women.  Don’t get me wrong, I am curious about what it feels like to grow another human inside me and to birth that being from my own body.  But I now realize that it doesn’t complete my femininity nor is it fundamental to my capacity to love so infinitely no matter who’s womb that child has come.

This is challenging for me to say out loud how grateful I am to my body for all the years it kept forcing me to cultivate a love for myself more honestly that could actually hold space for another human being without needing them to be any different or behave in a certain way for me to be ok.  I feel blessed in the pain of many late periods that had me excited and then a month later realized I was left with only my self to hold.  I realize now that all of the broken pieces I thought I could fill by completing my role as a wife and a women, were exposed to the truth that I am the only person who can complete me.

From this place of wholeness I can offer a love so boundless to not only my friends and family but the homeless guy on the corner, or the viscous dog behind the fence or the angry man in traffic or the shameful women trying to blame me for not getting her needs met.  The fact that I can hold space for more chaos and more unpredictable and still smile (maybe after a few tears) into the gratitude I feel for my life as it reveals it self to me matters more than whether I am a successful women because I had 2 kids, a perfectly clean house and a stable career.  I feel to my core the waters of my ability to adapt fluidly thanks profoundly to my infertility are what make me a powerful women and maybe one day mother too.  And that is a bold statement I feel relieved to finally disclose.  Because my love for nature and animals and your children feels just as important to me as if I had children of my own.  And I finally understand that this whole experience was only to strengthen the truth that I have the power to love so abundantly a child that might not be of my body but will definitely be of my whole soul.

So let me finish by saying to all you untraditional moms out there… thank you sincerely for loving without parameters or DNA and making this world the place we are all meant to thrive together.  I only hope I will be a quarter as great as my own mom and all the moms I have been privileged to witness and cherish that raise wild heartfelt women like myself.  Thank you biological and adoptive moms everywhere for allowing us to be our unique selves expressed.

-kaitlin

Xoxoxo