We can't get that here

Mom called the other day, asking me to pick up a gasket for her little metal stovetop espresso maker, because she can’t buy them in her town. The idea of not being able to buy something because it’s not available seems distant to me now, thanks to the internet and access to global shopping. YES, today, you can pretty much find “it” somewhere.

So I was surprised last month in Italy, when I was told NO. “No, signora, I’m sorry – you JUST missed the artichokes.” And it happened a few more times, this being in tune with the seasonality of local produce and the natural rhythms of the land.

Is that how I approached my infertility? In a nutshell, totally NO. I fully expected YES, each and every time we tried with IVF and all that came before. YES it’s available, YES you can do it, YES it will work. Even though I’m older, even though we’ve seen nature say no, I relied on western and eastern medicine to make it a YES. But it’s been 9 years of NO.

Today, I’m asking the question again, as we just began another cycle. A glutton for punishment? Maybe. Tenacious? Yes. But this time, I enter this process with even more openness and an internal knowing that NO may be alright. Maybe there's a reason for the NO's; maybe we're supposed to do something else; that maybe life really, truly, would be fine either way, another way.

When a friend of mine was trying to get pregnant she told me, “you know, if it’s just he and I, that would be alright.” I envied her flexibility and trust. Back then, “Just us” didn’t feel like a gift, but a punishment; it just didn’t seem fair to not have the choice of family.

Modern medicine gives us choice, but really, how much can we or should we expect??

P.S. sorry to be absent for so long - it's great to be back!