You know, from as far back as my memory goes, I have been told by one person or another, "Life's just not fair sometimes". I even tell my own child this. Does it make any situation ANY easier? NO! Usually I can find a way around the unfairness and work something out in my favor.
Don't get me wrong, I love my life. I am blessed beyond measure! I have an amazing husband who adores me, a beautiful daughter that I cannot imagine my life without, fantastic family, both my own as well as my in-laws, and an abundance of friends. I look around and know that I am truly blessed! However, there is my heart that I just can't ignore, and in this case, life is indeed not fair...
For about a year now, my heartstrings have been tugged over and over at the thought of adding to our little family. The last few months it has become overwhelming. For lack of a better term, my biological clock is ticking. I had always said if we didn't have another child by the time I was 30, Sydney would be an only child. I was content with that until a year ago. There was no specific event that triggered it, no rhyme or reason to it... I just woke up one morning and told my husband, "I want another baby!" I have said this to him in the past, and he always said he was happy with the way things are now. This time he said, "OK". Imagine my surprise!
We sat down and began discussing the logistics of it: if I get off birth control and wait 3 months, then we start trying, what month will we begin to try? What will be my due date? Then there was the ever present question of "Can we afford this?" Ugh!
I quit my job in September to reopen my home day care, which means I forfeited my insurance. I am one of the millions of Americans who are currently uninsured. It costs entirely too much to get on a family plan through Tommy's insurance at work, and individual policies do not cover maternity care. However, even though we can't afford to put me on Tommy's insurance, we make too much to qualify for Medicaid. I will not be one of those people who would be embarrassed by having to receive government services. My parents have worked their butts off their whole lives and their children (and grandchildren) should be able to reap the benefits of that! I also will not be one of those people that abuse the system. So because of this wicked little problem of finances, my brain tells me another baby is a no-go. My heartstrings are being tugged more than ever.
This feels like a loss. I feel like I'm going through the grieving process for a child I haven't had. I find myself at random times during the day in tears with a literal pain in my chest. I imagine this little one with dark hair and eyes, just like Sydney, and I cry. Hindsight is 20/20 and looking back, I wish I had known I would never carry another child, that I would never experience childbirth again, that I will never again look into the eyes of my own newborn child. I would have soaked in every sound, every smell, every feeling and held on for dear life. I think about the sadness that I feel for Sydney... she will never know the highest highs and lowest lows of being a sibling. She will never know the extreme pleasure of being an aunt. Then I think, "What if she grows up, and doesn't want to have kids?" I would be grandchildless, and that is just a thought to painful to bear. My brain is telling me one thing and my heart is telling me something completely different.
It's unfair that we are those people that are stuck in the middle--- too rich for help, too poor self-reliance. Here's the really unfair part, the part that makes me hear that little voice in the back of my head says, "Sometimes life just isn't fair." I look around and see people who don't even have the means to care for a child, especially ones who have 2 or 3 other babies and can't provide for them. Yet, here they are getting all their medical paid for, having these beautiful babies and no way to take care of them once they get them home. It is one of the most frustrating things that I can imagine. We may not be able to swing $500 to put me on Tommy's insurance, but I can guarantee you my child would be provided for. I guarantee that NO ONE on the Earth would love and adore that child as much as I would. My baby, just like Sydney, would know every day how much they were wanted.
I have such a strong faith in God, and KNOW in my heart that if I did this, and it was in God's plan for me to have another baby, that I would. I also have the faith that God will provide for us, no matter what our needs. He's done it before! I want to leave it in God's hands and let Him take care of us, but the practical side of my brain says that it's just not meant to be. That pen-to-paper, when you look at it logically, the responsible thing to do is to just accept that it isn't meant to be and move on. I guess that's where I need to be... but it's so hard. I spend hours online, trying to figure out a way to present this to Tommy to where he will say, "That'll work!" But short of us paying for a pregnancy, delivery and postpartum care out-of-pocket, that's just not going to happen.
I just wish that my brain and my heart were on the same page... even as blessed as my life is, it's still unfair sometimes!
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