What If?

My mind is a terrible thing. Sometimes I have random thoughts that should stay random and not realized into a statement. I was reading the infertility page of the Huffington Post and they were a blur of random blogs when a random thought hit me. What if I had never married the mother of my test tube baby? I knew from a young age that I wanted to be a father. I cannot tell you any specific reason I had this paternal wish. I was married for seven years before my present marriage. It was not a good marriage and it does not really matter why but one of the good things that came from that marriage was no children. When I divorced from that first marriage I really had no intention on dating again much less getting married. I had a lot of things going on back then. I was starting a new career and a new life. I was too busy rebuilding life to think about parental aspirations. Have you ever heard the expression that good things happen to you when you least expect it? The good thing that happened to me was my present wife, and love of my life, had one of her friends ask me to go on a date with her. Even after the friend told me I was going out on a date with my present wife, Shannon, I still did not rekindle my old dreams of a being a father. Shan and I had a very fast courtship and we were quick to marry. When its right it is right. We had our battles with infertility and would eventually have a child through IVF. I live a blessed life.

I must ask my “what if” question again. What would have happened to my dreams if I never remarried. You will hear from time to time about single women having babies with medical help. Single women that do not have plans of having a man in their life at the time. Maybe these women are career minded and have not had time to find a man they want to share forever with but they feel that fertility clock ticking on them so IVF makes sense. It is not uncommon at all these days for same-sex couples to have children through IVF. Just a couple of years ago a gay male friend of mine had a baby with his male partner. I think it is wonderful but I am not sure I have heard of the unicorn of infertility. What if I would have remained single and wanted to have a child through medically assisted means? How would that scenario be viewed? I am sure it has happened but the first heterosexual man to go down that road had to be very confident. Did his boys give him a hard time? I can hear his friends at the bar when the subject comes up. They would tell him why can’t you just grab the girl at the end of the bar and give her the old let’s have a baby dance and be done with it? Anyone who goes through infertility will probably find more people making misplaced inappropriate statements more often than proper ones. I am not sure I would have had the internal fortitude to have been “that” single man. If I did not have that nerve I would have missed out on a huge blessing in life by being a father. 

When you are struggling with your decision to seek fertility treatments please remember few things worth having come without some struggle, self-doubt, or pain. If you are dealing with infertility and dealing with poorly placed social comments you will be okay. Don’t ever ask yourself “What if I would have stuck out the treatments?” I fully admit I am one of the lucky ones. I know my stars aligned and my daughter was born to my wife and I but the truth was that I had given up. After a failed IVF attempt I fully supported my wife when we agreed that enough was enough. I was prepared to give in. After several months my wife made me change my mind and we tried one last time, the last time. What if she had not changed her mind? My life would be poorer. I hope you never give in as long as it is responsible to move on. Leave life with no doubts and leave the doubters scratching their heads as you move on.