Keeping it real

We are not a baby making couple.  We learned this quickly when we started this journey to parenthood 11 years ago.  We found that creating a family would be taxing financially and emotionally.  There were times I wondered if we would ever be parents.  Once we had Noah we had found the magic potion!  Each baby we had was a different process with different emotional challenges.  Getting pregnant with Anderson seemed to take everything I had.  Trying to conceive while dealing with some very real and extreme anxiety issues was horrible.  Yet we knew and felt our family wasn't complete.  Honestly the year of fertility treatments and of his pregnancy was the worst time of my life.  I was in a very dark and lonely place.  Finally after having him I was able to get on some medication and started enjoying life and the amazing little person our family had been blessed with.  A year later I got off the medication and all was good for the next few months.  After having Anderson Zac and I went back and forth with whether or not we should have another child.  We finally decided that we wanted to try again but had to put some stipulations on it.  We were excited at the prospect yet dreaded the process.  We committed to doing fertility treatment 3 times and if it didn't work we would be content with the beautiful little family we have.  We met at the clinic and went through the process.  At the time of our insemination all looked amazing and likely that it would work.  Directly following the insemination my anxieties started trickling in.  4 days before we were to find out if we were pregnant or not it was full blown anxiety/depression that I had just finished a two year battle with.  Anxiety is real, and dark and hard to explain if one has never felt it. In retrospect I have had glimpses of this when I was younger and single but did not realize what it was and it only involved and affected me. Since having a family it has shifted to them and their well being and it makes it so much more intense.  I was so lost and filled with fear.  It was not a fear of dealing with four kids but it projected onto my other fears of disconnect and the growing up of my other kids.  I had crazy irrational thoughts that I knew were irrational but it didn't matter, they consumed me.  I couldn't eat, or sleep or enjoy anything.  It was awful.  I felt so positive I was pregnant and it projected these crazy thoughts about my other kids and I felt completely out of control.  Medication is not an option for me while pregnant.  Zac and I knew our family could not go through that emotional hardship again.  We knew if I wasn't pregnant that we could not continue with treatment.  In the fourth watch we found out I was not pregnant.  The anxieties immediately alleviated and was replaced with sadness.  Sadness that we were done having kids.  Sadness that we were moving on to a new stage of life.  Sadness that I feel like all my choices in life from here on out are going to be dictated by this crippling anxiety. 

  The reality is neither Zac nor I felt we "needed" another baby as we had with Anderson but it was something we wanted.  Maybe this is was I needed to feel closure and finality that we are done but it is a hard way to figure that out.  In all honesty I truely feel that the fertility treatments would not have worked in three tries and ten thousand dollars would have been lost trying. My heart aches that we have ended this chapter.  I am attempting to see the blessings of this.  We can put much more effort and focus on our three kids.  It is improving but I am still sad.   

So we are forever the Brodrick 5.  We may not be the family I invisioned I would have but they are simply amazing.  I am so blessed.