Making the Choice

For better or worse, I have decided to live a part of my life open to public viewing by way of writing for a blog about my life as a newly single parent. Choosing to put my thoughts and choices on a public domain such as blogspot opens a Pandora’s box of possibilities – all of which are virtual. Being open about things I'm considering can leave me wide open to judgement and attack or applause and support according to personal whim. But as I choose what to reveal here and what I keep close to my heart, you only get a limited version of my life and if you don't know me personally, then the person who is the writer behind the internet page will always be hidden.

Writing has always been an effective method in helping me clarify my inner spirit. It has always been the most effective way to my soul. Writing has helped me come to serious decisions, work out problems and formulate plans for my future. Writing helps me work through the reflections of my heart and clarify what are true for me and what can be discarded as unimportant or unnecessary.

So here is a card I have held close to my chest. Here is something I've been mulling over in my heart for a long while. I'm still not completely sure that this is the right direction to take, I've decided that I have to at least try to push on the door to see if it will open. If the door doesn’t open I will assume that a window will open elsewhere for me. But here it is, in writing. This is as real as it gets for me.

I have a consultation with the Melbourne IVF group next month to see about the possibility of attempting to have a second child. The law in this state, being an ass, has made it so that a woman without a male partner has to prove that she is infertile before she can be accepted onto the program for IVF. As luck would have it, I was a patient for several years with my first husband, thus proving my infertility, so it has been relatively easy for me to get to this point of the journey. Most women in my position have to battle just to get here, but in a matter of weeks, if all goes as smoothly as everything has so far, I assume I will be doing through the counselling required for a single woman to choose donor sperm and attempt IVF.

Do I think that single parent families are the ideal? Who can say? I don't think that God really planned it this way, but for better or worse it’s a possibility for women now days. And for what its worth, I think that a lot of single women who choose parenthood do a fantastic job at it, because they want it so desperately. I don't want to have the regrets in later life that my mother has. She still talks about her desire to have had another child. She wishes that she had listened to her inner voice and tried her luck again instead of worrying about what others would say. I don't foresee the right man waltzing into my life in a timely fashion for me to attempt having another baby with him, so I have to make choices now. This is my choice.

Yes, I would much prefer to try to have a second child with a husband by my side. I still wish that my marriage was alive and that this whole IVF route was memory that made Sweetpea all the sweeter in my life. But its not an option. My husband has decided that we make better friends than spouses, and he doesn’t see a point in even attempting to work on what we had. In his mind, its over, so for me, there is no other option. I'm turning thirty-seven in a matter of months. The biological side of things wasn’t running smoothly to begin with, and now that my biological clock is chiming the midnight hour on my ability to have a child, I'm not sure I want to waste any more time wondering if it’s the right thing to do because I fear what some members of society will say about my choices. So there it is. Mine and mine alone - my choice.