To be or not to be...

...a mother that is. The last few days its really been hitting home what a challenge this whole issue will eventually be. And no I am not even close to trying yet, but I would be lying if I didn't admit I think about it now and then.
Watching Opera yesterday I saw a man who was a widowed single father raising his daughter Madeline after her mother dropped dead suddenly the day after she was born with a massive blood clot that moved to her brain. She died instantly.

The father said; "My wife had read all the books, had all the knowledge, and she took it all with her. Here I was, left with no time to grieve for my wife because I had a newborn baby to take care of, and no idea how I would do it, or if I could."
My husband, who happened to enter the room as this story was unfolding on TV, and I looked at each other with tears in both of our eyes.
This is such a great fear for us.
We have so many challenges to being natural parents it is sometimes overwhelming and honestly most of the time I don't want to think about it...
We do not have the luxury of "trying" at will for years and years, everything has to be calculated and planned and...well...clinical. If we do not conceive we will soon run out of money for Lovenox long before we've run out of the desire to conceive, that I am sure of.
And if everything goes according to plans and we do conceive then we are left with injections every 12 hours that leave massive contusions and cause swelling, insanely close monitoring, perfectly timed birth induction and...even though I hate, hate to think of it...a higher risk of still birth and of me suffering a life threatening clot after delivery.
All of these pressures weigh on our minds, even though we know these events are still a ways off...

And, even though we receive little pressure from our families to have children, and I am so grateful for that, I still know that I am my parents only child. Without my children they will never be grandparents- and this weighs heavy on me. I feel like I need to have children so they will have grandchildren.
I can't help but see the way my mother looks at her new great nephew and niece and know that thoughts of her future grandchildren arnt far from her thoughts. And while I know my mother would never want to risk my health to bring another life into this world, the fact remains- I am the only child, I am her only chance at being a grandmother.

My closest friend told me in the hospital that she would rather I be alive, then dead leaving my child behind. She would rather help me through the grief of not being able to parent than to lose me. Her love and concern for my well-being was, and always has been, profound and touching.

Being an only child has been both a burden and a blessing in my life. I have been lonely many times in my family, with all of the responsibilities left to me- yet if I were not an only child I don't know that I would be as close to my parents as I am, and honestly I don't think I would have matured as quickly or as well as I have. I miss the love and support a sibling could give, but in seeing others struggles I don't miss the arguments, anger, rivalry or comparisons siblings breed either.
And ironically when and if hubby and I decide to have a child, that child will most likely be an only child as well.
This is such a difficult and personal choice for us, but we have no idea what the future holds. All we can hope for is increasingly better health and I hope one day, somehow, when we're ready we'll have our answer...

I just wish I could tell all the mothers out there, who had it easy- easy conception, easy delivery and a healthy baby- cherish that simple, and often taken for granted gift, of having that freedom!
Because if your healthy and happy nothing else truly matters...funny thing is most people don't realize how true this is until its taken away.