A Day Alone

So my darling husband left this morning for the weekend, as his little sister is graduating from high school on Monday. 

(I'm still really bummed that I can't make it; Rob and I have been together for 8 1/2 years so I've basically watched Molly grow up.  I feel like she's MY sister.  And because my high school is stupid they have graduation on a Monday, which I have ranted about several times here but COME ON, MONDAY?!)

As I mentioned yesterday, Rob leaving me (as opposed to me leaving him) is always really hard on me.  I revert back to my Army-self, frantically anticipating phone calls or emails like he's been gone for months.  And because he's at his parents' and doesn't get any cell reception I feel suffocated, like he's millions of miles away in a war zone again.  When I finally do talk to him I feel this huge relief and talk a mile a minute trying to tell him every aspect,every second of my day.

I know, I know, get a grip right? We'll be apart for like a week and a half and aside from the occasional moose, I'm pretty sure my husband is safe.

Only slightly less frightening than guerrilla fighters.

I'm watching the Bruins game right now, which is hilarious to me as I have never liked sports.  I still don't like sports, actually. I only like hockey because I think that hockey is the most honest sport in the world.  We all watch and enjoy sports because they provide a sort of safe, simulated warfare.  We can all cheer for our team/country, express undying hatred for the other team/country, and go home feeling like we participated.

Plus, I'm from New England, which means you have to cheer vociferously for all of our regional teams if you give a rat's ass.

Confession time: I'm totally one of those people that says things like "Get the puck in the net!" and "Keep the puck out of their net!" and "Skate! Skate faster!" and other obvious things that make me sound like I understand sports. I have no idea what's going on about 1/2 the time.

Touchdown!

Now I want to talk about the childrens.

Rob and I have been talking a lot about children lately.  There was a time (in other words, my entire adolescence and young adulthood) that I worried excessively about my own fertility.  I don't have much of a reason to fear this other than my need to stress about everything I can't control, but the fear has always been there regardless, at least until I had a revelation last year.

Generally my way of dealing with anxiety is to consider the absolute worst case scenario - usually this makes me feel better because the worst case scenario (typically) isn't that bad.  One day last May I finally applied this to my fear of infertility and imagined the worst case scenario:

We can't have children. 

But we still have each other, and I know we can live a long, full life together.

I'm going to go ahead and apply a disclaimer here and say that this is my thought process, no one else's, and this isn't meant to challenge, criticize or debate anyone else's ideas, actions, motives or thoughts.  Okay? So no fighting down there in the comments.

Rob and I talked and talked and eventually agreed that if we cannot have children on our own through the good old-fashioned and fun method, we will give up control of our fertility and let what happens, happen...and maybe consider adoption if we decide to go that route later. 

This translates into no medical intervention, no stressing, just letting the chips fall where they may. I'm doing this in part to protect myself emotionally - I know that if it comes down to it, I will stress myself into infertility. I will feel a sense of obligation to Rob and to our families, inevitably developing feelings of inadequacy should we encounter an issue.  It is my belief that by completely ceding control to the fates, by making children an option rather than a requirement, we will (hopefully) remove the stress from the equation and make it into an experience that we enjoy.

If we can't have kids, we'll buy a big farmhouse on a shit-ton of land and have 5 dogs. We'll travel, we'll work, we'll live life.  And if we can have kids, we'll just do all of those things with little Caitlin-Rob clones at our feet.

Of course, like anything else, this is subject to change with the winds, with time, with maturity, and with change.  But for now it suits me just fine until the time comes to start trying.

And with those thoughts, I bid you all good night and adieu.  Thanks for your input on the giveaway, by the way!