Leaning In

There is one big thing I have learned through everything that has gone on over the past 2-3 years…and that is you can’t sit back and let the world pass by you. Moping around at home, living in a world purely of self pity, giving up on things because so much bad has already happened that you have no hope, etc will not help you. Don’t get me wrong, there are absolutely days that I mope around and feel sorry for myself and that is ok. We get to have those days but it is just that…days. I learned that if I let this mentality take over my life then it was a losing battle that I had control over but still let me lose.

This didn’t happen overnight and took me awhile but I chose to lean in to my life. Thank you Sheryl Sandberg for what has been one of the most inspiring books I have ever read. It has had such an impact on my life, and the time it has helped me the most is not even something that you talk about in your book – infertility and pregnancy loss. It goes to show that leaning in is not just about the work place or in the home, it is about your entire life. I chose to start to lean in to my life.

The first thing I did was look at the different compartments in my life: marriage, family, friends, finances, job satisfaction and, of course, having children. Five of those six things had no problems so why would I let one thing take over and bring down my entire life. Yes, the children part was awful but it was important to realize that my whole life wasn’t awful. Just because I was struggling with having children I did not need to go into work and not be a bad ass. It didn’t impact the fact that I had amazing friends and family and was able to live comfortably. I have heard so many woman tell me stories of how it consumed their life. I would offer suggestions on different ways to look at it, some would take it and some wouldn’t. I am not offended as I truly believe each person has to learn for themselves and do what they believe in deep down.

All I hope to do is take what I have learned from this process and help others. I want to help other women and men (because yes, it hurts them too!) lean into their lives. To not give up hope or let it consume everything. I have ready so many stories of marriages that have fallen apart because of infertility or pregnancy loss and I believe it. It would be an enormous lie if I said that my husband and I hadn’t days where we wanted to rip each other’s eyeballs out or throw blame at one another for us being unhappy. We even discussed divorce.

Our divorce discussion was limited but healthy and I encourage those couples who let this situation impact their marriage take a step back and look at it through a broader lens. Divorce is an easy boat to jump into when something like this happens. It is an escape…the fighting would end. But you have to take a step back and think about WHY you are fighting? Are you fighting because you truly can’t stand each other or someone cheated? Or are you fighting because you are unhappy that the current situation is stressful and hard and SUCKS? For us it was the latter, and once we took that step back and looked at our marriage from a broader lens, we knew that we couldn’t imagine not spending the rest of our lives together or raising kids together. There will always be moments that I can’t stand my husband (and seriously…I want to find one woman who can HONESTLY say they don’t tell feel this so I can shake their hand and say “good for you”) but it won’t change my love for him or my commitment to our family. And I know he would say the same…especially about the moments he can’t stand me (Side note: I am loud, talk a lot and like to dance to 90s music in front of my husband just to annoy him).

I want to acknowledge the fact that I am well aware there are couples out there who have experienced much worse than us. On the flip side, there are also couples who have experienced much less but still felt like their lives were falling apart. Regardless of the situation, only you can determine how you want to proceed. There is no checklist on how to handle these situations and under no circumstance should you ever let anyone judge decisions you make on how to cope. I just ask, no maybe beg, for you to be open minded. I ask for you to consider guidance that others may offer you. If you can’t relate or think it’s bs, that’s fine. Everyone is different. But being closed minded will not help you move forward, whatever that path may be.

If there is nothing else you walk away with from this post, I ask for you to think about two things:

1. Compartmentalize your life – find what is good
2. Lean in to your future, fertility and livelihood