Gifts of Infertility #21: Embracing the unknown

Growing up, and even as a young adult, I hated uncertainty, and loved to plan. I hated waiting for things, even though I was relatively patient in other respects. I hated waiting for exam results, I hated waiting to find out if I was accepted for my student exchange, and I hated waiting to see if a boy liked me. I liked certainty, as I am sure we all do. In my 30s, one of the main things I disliked about all the international travel I did for business was the uncertainty it imposed on my life, and my lack of ability to plan. Maybe that’s why we all assume that we’ll be able to have children? Because we want to feel that life is certain, and that our futures can be known. Is the idea of not knowing just too hard?

Infertility, of course, was nothing but waiting and uncertainty. Waiting to find out if we would conceive, waiting to even be able to take a pregnancy test, waiting to find out if my pregnancies were viable, waiting to find out if I had an ectopic or trophoblastic disease, waiting to be allowed to attempt IVF, waiting between cycles, waiting to see if I responded to drugs, waiting to see how many eggs there were, waiting, waiting, waiting. Everything about our future was unknown. Everything, until that last fateful day, was uncertain.

But finally the certainty that I had craved had arrived. But it wasn’t the certainty I wanted. Getting that certainty in the knowledge that we would never have children – well, it was very difficult. Because it opened a world of uncertainty, of not knowing what was down that road less travelled. It meant that the direction of the rest of our lives was still unknown. I wanted a plan, but we didn’t have one. I felt rudderless and cut adrift.

The thing is, we still don’t have much of a plan. Life gets more uncertain as we age. We have responsibilities – not children, but elderly parents – and we can’t plan our lives the way I’d like to. We know too that we are very mortal. Who knows if we’ll be healthy this time next year, or in ten years, or twenty years? We’ve lost jobs. We don’t know what will happen to the economy, to our finances, to our future. We live on a major fault-line. Life is constantly an unknown. That’s for certain.

Having learned this one thing – that life is uncertain, and the future is unknown - I had no option but to accept it. And I realise now that I no longer mind this. We never know what life will deliver. We don’t know what tomorrow holds, let alone what we’ll be doing, and how we will feel, years in the future. And you know what? I’m okay with that.

It turns out that the unknown doesn’t really bother me any more. In fact, it even excites me. There could be something wonderful just around the corner. And even if there isn’t, looking for that something wonderful is exciting and a gift in itself. The unknown is worth embracing. Let’s do it together!