One Year Later…

For a miraculous reason, it happened to hit me today, that today is the exact one year mark of the beginning of my journey a year ago, and the beginning of my documentation of it on this blog. What a difference a year makes, and what an exciting and wild year it was. I read back that very first post I made, and it is sentimental and incredible that here I am a year later, in a completely different world, with an almost 2 month old daughter and completely different problems. Don’t we sometimes wish we could go back in time and tell ourselves just how miraculously and incredibly different our lives will be down the road. It is hard to fathom in a present moment, just how different things could be in the future. And even as I sit here today, up to my ears in newborn care and issues I realize just how different my life will be even just a short year from now.

But it is exciting to look back and see that hope and faith leap that I took a year ago, just in that hope that I will be living the exact dream that I am today. As I write this, and the little miracle that is now part of my life lies asleep before me, I realize just how incredibly lucky I am and am humbled that I am now privilaged to even have her in my life. Not a day have I taken it for granted, and each day, only cried at how grateful I am. It is amazing how after all that it took to survive TTC, I feel almost as if I don’t deserve something this miraculous and amazing. Through all the sleepless nights (I have not slept a single night through yet since her birth – that’s almost 2 months now), through all the crazy days of a complete and TOTAL change of life, all I have ever felt, is never so much as a single moment of frustration, but rather only incredible grateful joy. I now know what a miracle it is to have a baby. And I will never take it for granted that I do.

My heart cries for those of my friends who are still working on it and have had so much grief, and my only hope and prayers are that their miracle is still ahead – that they will also soon be wishing that they could come back to this day and time to tell themselves that their lives will change incredibly down the line and the horrible trials of TTC will be over.

When I look back on that post from a year ago, I realize that probably never in my entire life, has one year made such a big difference and revolutionized my life so much. Well… I guess, maybe once or twice before. But every time there is such a life-changing year, one looks back in wonder and awe.

So what is my life like today, one year later? Well… having a baby has been much more of everything I had imagined. Much more wonderful AND much more stressful. The stress for me has not been the baby itself, but rather everything else. It is a little unfathomable for me now how to do life anymore the way I used to, now that I have this precious responsibility. It scares me and freaks me out, how to continue living it and doing everything I did before – cause I feel like I have been hit by a freight-train and now EVERYthing has changed. My priorities, my life, the way I view the world – everything is now different. All I see is this tiny being that is my child, that needs me to thrive and survive, and everything else around me is now seen in context of that. I had no idea the level of sacrifice a mother freely gives, just to see her infant be taken care of. No price is too great and no cost is too steep. I had “heard” it all before, but now that I feel it, I truly understand what it means.

In the last couple months I somehow delt with the horrible pains of recovery from birth, the pain of getting used to breastfeeding, the sleepless nights – everything, and never so much as batted an eye when I realized it is all for her. I know without a doubt that I would risk my life without so much as blinking to protect hers. It is an amazing, raw, and almost unreasonable feeling – this love for the being that emerges out of you.

I look at her sometimes and realize that she will possibly never even realize it and probably take it all for granted – just as we never really thought about the love our own parents had for us that much. But it doesn’t change a thing. I guess we are simply wired to feel this way about our children in order for the human race to survive.

So does that mean its all been all bliss? Of course not. Heck no. In fact without a doubt, I have been more stressed in the last 8 weeks than I EVER was during that incredible IVF journey. Back then, my stress was all in the unknown, and because noone was privy to what was going on in my life, my stress was also all private. Something I had no idea about is just how wonderful it is to have your business truly be all yours. Something you completely lose when you do have a child. The stress and the negative side of everything is not the baby – its just everything else. I had no idea just how much stress family alone can create. When you are married, everyone stays out of your marriage (typically anyway), but when you have a child, everyone feels free to have a “say” in things or judge your actions/choices/views/EVERYthing.

The other stress is simply the bitter-sweet bond of having this child. In giving it everything, you can so easily lose yourself. Your needs, hobbies, lifestyle, likes and dislikes, can easily just melt away into things of a “previous life”. Now its all about the baby. Your child. And its incredible how its a sacrifice you make so willingly. I had no idea.

Its crazy how a year ago my problems were all about how to prepare myself for an IVF cycle, and how to deal with each step along the way where I had to wait for results and hope and pray that every step of the way works out as hoped. Today my problems are all about caring for the new little miracle in my life and trying to manage everything else, and somehow remain sane through it all.

One of the personal issues I am now battling with is how to entrust her to someone else as I inevitably have to go back to work and resume my life. Its hard, when I think about her in terms of that very beginning – that precious little embryo that I took upon myself to protect every minute of every day. Every milestone was a celebration, and I knew that nobody could do this job but me. BUt I guess part of being a mother will involve ironically, letting go a little bit more and more every day of this precious being that we fight so much to have. This little embryo is now independant enough to live outside my body and while i know that nobody will do as good job as me in caring for her, now others definitely can. I am sure that in just how quickly it seemed that she went from this tiny embryo to a baby, she will just continue growing and becoming more independent every day, becoming the ultimate adult she is destined to become and ready to sprout her own wings and live her own life. I have heard so many parents say how quickly this happens, and I definitely believe it. All I can do is simply savor each day, even amidst all the stress and challenges, to enjoy every minute, never taking it for granted – just the way I did pregnancy which in hindsight, was over before it started.

Its funny how it seems that that the longest time of all, was that IVF cycle. That time when every day was an unknown and a neverending stretch until every next step. I wonder if this is how I will always feel.

Well, one year later, looking back all I can say is that I was blessed to have had this year. It is such years that become an unforgettable part of life. And never had I felt more of a miracle than I did in the events of this year. I am so fortunate that I was blessed with a happy ending to that story I started a year ago on this blog, or rather a happy beginning. I have no doubt that there will be many challenges ahead, many tears and many stressful times. Such is life. But this past year I will never forget. And even amidst all the trials and stresses, it will definitely go down as one of the most happiest in my life. Because I learnt so much, experienced so much, and was given so much. I will thank God for it, for as long as I live.