"You Can Always Adopt"

I was 40 years old when I first started trying to get pregnant. My boyfriend was 52. Needless to say, I knew the cards were stacked against us. Neither one of us had children, and we felt we were finally in the right relationship to start trying.

In my younger years. I could never see myself as a mother. I either felt too young, not financially ready, or not with the right person, even though I was married in my 20s. I always told everyone I didn't like kids. Maybe I didn't or maybe I was just scared to take that leap. I always spent a lot of time with my nieces and nephews, I was known as the "fun aunt". They even made a holiday in celebration of me. "Aunt Day" they called it, and they decided it would be held the first Saturday of August. Every year.

When I was 39, I rekindled a relationship with a man that I had briefly dated in my mid 20s. Back then we would go out, drink, have a good time, but I never wanted it to be serious. He wanted me to move from my hometown to be with him. At that time, I was not ready to leave my family for a relationship. So, we drifted apart after a year.

Fast forward 15 years. He sent me a message on social media. I was shocked when I saw his name come up on my phone. I hadn't thought about him in years, and to be honest, I had long since moved on. I thought he did too. We still lived hours apart, but we made the decision to meet up on a Friday in a town that was halfway between the two of us. It was like we never were separated for all those years. We clicked again immediately. Our relationship went full throttle after that. We moved in together and talked about marriage.

He was the one that brought up babies first. He said that he had never been with a woman in the past that he wanted the have kids with. I had got to thinking and that is when I realized I was in the same situation. It was that moment that we discussed trying to have a baby. I was so excited, and I couldn't wait to start our little family.

We tried for about a year. I knew it would be a challenge because of my age, and his age too in actuality. After that year, I decided we needed to get a checkup to see if we COULD have a baby. After weeks of tests and waiting, it was determined that that was not in the cards for us. I will spare the details, but the doctor made it quite clear that our dreams of having a family would never be realized.

You always try to rationalize when you learn the news. I thought, well, I'm old, I would be in a wheelchair watching this child graduate, or, this means that I can retire earlier since I won't have baby expenses. It never makes you feel better though. You feel like a failure. like you are missing out on the one thing in life that makes it worth living. Like you will never feel real love because you don't have a child of your own.

Now I am in my late 40s. Whenever I meet a new person whether it be a coworker or an old friend, or even family I haven't talked to in a long time, I always get the "do you have any children?". I always take a breath and say, no we tried but we were unable to. You can imagine what the next statement is "we'll you can always adopt". It is soul crushing to say the least.

I'm not going to go into the cost of adoption, or the hoops you have to jump through the go through the process, but I can tell you it is not for everyone. Long story short, we could not afford it.

The moral of THIS story is: Just be more cognizant of what you say to people. The old cliche is true, you never fully understand a person unless you walk a mile in their shoes.