The Baby Issue

"Martian Child" was on yesterday. It stirred up all those unresolved emotions I have regarding my infertility and stalled adoptions plans.
I spent twelve child bearing years with a man who was sterile and who I thought was dispondent about that. It took all twelve years to realize that he wasn't. By then, me and my eggs were thirty-eight years old and apparently aging like my paternal grandmother (who had a full hyterectomy at 43) instead of my mother (who gave birth at 40).
Seven thousand dollars an another husband later, my eggs were deemed "too old" by the Cleveland Clinic. Foster parenting classes were designed to prepare us for emotionally wounded childdren that we may or may not be able to keep. Between stories of kids killing the foster parents' pets and my own concerns about my Bi-polar disorder and being able to handle all that, we have put the idea on hiatus for a while. Well, and who am I kidding ... we barely made the mortgage payment this month and kids cost a fortune.

Where does my faith figure into all this? I went to psychics who told me they saw a little boy around me and I believed them. I put fertility crystals under my mattress. I bought a diaphram between husbands and poked a hole in it. Then I would sleep with random strangers and tell them I was using protection. I thought that maybe I had the wrong statues on my altar. Maybe Diana was viewed as a fertility Goddess, but maybe she wasn't fertile enough.

The bottom line is this: somewhere in the back of my mind I always knew I was going to be forced to choose between being a writer and being a mom. Bi-Polar people don't multi-task well. I can do an exeptional job at either one or the other, but not both. All the fertility statues and crystals in the world will never alter my leutinizing hormone levels. Magick is the act of carrying through an intention from an altered state of conciousness to the real plane. Intention has alot to do with it. When we were at the fertility clinic, I resented being deemed infertile. I did very little to help the situation along. I was heavy. I smoked when I was nervous, but never told the doctor. I never paid attention to my food allergies and as a result took over the counter decongestants to combat my symptoms. I didn't behave like a woman trying to get pregnant. And now I think I know why.

I lost twenty years to this disease. I should have been applying to four years colleges back in 1986 but I am doing that now. I could never have handled the stress of an acedemic career back then. It is only within the last two years that any of the preparations people undertake in order to become financially autonomous have been possible for me. Generally, after college, people spend five to ten years getting their ducks in order before they have kids. That would put me at age 50 to 58 by the time I get all that acccomplished. I missed my window. And to some extent, I'm at peace with that.

But not entirely. When my sister was here we did a massage for Reiki exchange and I teared up when she had her hands over my uterus. And yesterday, while watching John Cusack scale a telescope, I was balling like an unattended infant. But I couldn't bring myself to accept my husband's offer to make love. I feel so closed off and yet I'm the one who's imposing the isolation. I grieve my lack of children and yet resent my grieving. And if I were to get pregnant or a baby was to become available, I would resist that avenue with all that I have, because dammit, I have waited a long time to be able to earn a bachellors degree and nothing is going to keep me from accomplishing that goal. So I sit here in flux, and I wonder ... just who is the Goddess of ambivalence.