Where do I begin

 I do not know where to begin frankly. I know that I've always wanted to have kids of my own. Be a mother. Like many others, I read on the internet, I've been part of this as well. I'm in what one might call, advanced age for motherhood. And here I am. Whether by choice or just the way life flowed, here is where I am.

Do I regret it all? Not really. Parts of it, mostly about how I dealt with things, but not with the where my life is right now. I got married naively thinking that married life is a bed of roses. Not realizing that marriage requires hard work. Especially for the kind of life I want and want for my kids, I need to be a very strong person. Physically and mentally. I was lacking on both fronts. Same for my partner but the way he dealt with it was different from how I did. We did acknowledge from time to time that we weren't being respectful towards each other and sort of waiting for things to resolve themselves, instead of even being on the same page about the issues we were facing. I tried to talk to others hoping to at least let family know of our issues, but I either felt like people had no idea how to deal with them or I was plainly called a liar. 

So, the matter rested in our hands and our hands only. We eventually tried therapy for a long time, and eventually got to a point where our communication improved and our relationship began to heal.

This entire journey took about 8 years of marriage, no less. Many would have quit much before, because no one needs to waste their life on another person. Me being me, cowardice or just plain grit, I stuck. We stuck. And for that I am happier, undoubtedly. 

Would having a child along the way been a good idea? If it happened naturally, certainly. May be I would have focused my energies on the child rather than what I focused them on. But it didn't. And as much as I was forced to, I did not see it as an option for me to follow ART in hopes on fixing my marriage.

I strongly believe having a child is a precious and blessed experience. A child cannot enter this world with an agenda already on their head. The child deserves to be cherished and loved and nurtured and protected.

I am not saying that my child/children will be born free of expectations. I haven't achieved that state of "letting go" yet. I hope I burden them lesser with my hopes for them and let them realize their own!

On that note, here I am. I hope to pen my thoughts for my "Yet Unborn" child/children here. I hope to experience you soon and meet you. We both do pray for that every single morning. I hope and pray that you are getting ready to come to us soon! We promise to love you and take care of you. To express and share our experiences with you. To treat you with the respect you do deserve. To protect you. To guide you to the best of our abilities. To provide for you. To do the best by you and by us, as a collective. We may fail at times, but we will never give up. 

The more I think about children, mine and any one else's, I find that the poem below resonates with me a lot more:

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

                                                                                    - Kahlil Gibran