August 31st, 2012 The day we dreamed our first child (or children, as we transferred two embryos) were to be born. We would have hoped to welcome one or two babies into the world around this time. But they were never our babies to have on this side of eternity. I was never meant to mother them in the traditional sense. Always to be just a dream and yet so much more.
But instead we spent time together in Lake Tahoe redefining after infertility treatments, side effects, financial stressors and no babies to show for it.
I had to walk back into myself that day. Because if I didn’t make that choice I think I may have literally died of a broken heart.
As the day passed…I chose myself again.
As the day passed by I chose to find a piece of ever upward.
August 31st, 2013
They would have been one year old today. So much work and healing in the last year, on myself especially but, also in every single relationship in my life.
But instead we moved into Mason House; the family home we created to share with our loved ones for years to come.
As the year passed by…the pain began to subside just a tiny bit and it stings a little less every day as we actively find other love and joy.
As the year passed by I chose to make my ever upward.
August 31st, 2014
I felt off all day. But I didn’t even notice the date necessarily, I actually was a day off. Obviously, I knew in my heart and soul that our babies were due this day and that today they would have been two years old.
But instead I spent the day with my namesake, Abigail Justine. I held her, I loved on her and played with her. We went and saw butterflies together and rode the carousel. I have no doubt she is the enough in my life after so much almost enough.
This and my loved ones are beginning to read my book, Ever Upward. As I watch them feel the book in their hands and take in the beauty of the cover, I see the smile come across their faces, their eyes fill with tears and true love and support exuding from them. In all of this I feel many of the same feelings I think I may have had had they been holding my child.
Ever Upward has been a labor of my love and pain. It has been conceived through the dream of becoming a mother and the loss of that dream. And, it has been birthed with the help and love of so many. Ever Upward is my baby many years in the making.
As the years pass by…the scars heal a bit more, I embrace it all and trust my ever upward.
As the years pass by I choose to be ever upward.
And, most of all I make sure to be open to the ever upward that has come from the lifelong losses of this journey through my work.
These choices are not consolation. These choices don’t erase the losses. These choices can never make it better.
These choices are simply the lights of what happens when I do the work to let go of what isn’t in order to grasp what is.
This is the light, the love, the essence of ever upward.
This is the choice to be ever upward.
*To read more about my experiences through two back surgeries, the survival of infertility and how I chose to change my life make sure preorder your copy of Ever Upward: Overcoming the Lifelong Losses of Infertility to Own a Childfree Life.*
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