Tuesday, July 24, 2012

The Women I Respect Most

First off - my ankle is completely healed!  No need for even an ankle brace.  I did get a referral for physiotherapy.  I am wearing my sneakers today instead of one shoe and the boot (air cast), and it feels great.

My mom and my aunt are two of the strongest women I know.  They took very different paths in life, but they are both members of the ALI community. 

I have talked before about how my parents had no trouble getting pregnant, but experienced great difficulty staying that way.  My mom shed a little more light on the why while I was in the hospital and we were having one of many conversations. 

When she was a teenager a doctor decided the best way to treat her heavy periods would be to increase the size of her cervix.  Damn crazy 60's medicine.  So basically he created her incompetent cervix.  It's good to know that it is not genetic.  Still, I feel so bad for her and my dad.  They even did a cerclage for the pregnancy with my younger sister (in 1980), but it did not work. 

Then we have my aunt.  Her fallopian tubes were blocked.  They did surgery but it did not work.  At 38 she and my uncle placed themselves on the list to adopt a baby.  Then about a year later she ended up buying her publishing company.  Over the years the business and her employees have become her children.  She once even let me know that there was a failed attempt to adopt a child through a frined of a friend, but the baby's mother decided to parent the child. 

Both my mom and aunt fought hard to be mothers.  One ended up with three children (two biological and one adopted), and the other became a super successful business women with an extremely busy life (volunteer activities, boards, and social engagements). 

I respect them both.

But I hope that I find a way to be a mother.

13 comments:

  1. Hi from ICLW. My mom, too, had TTC problems. It was really due to my dad's sterility and I was conceived by a sperm donor after several unsuccessful tries. Like you, I so respect how hard she fought to have a family. It's always weird to me that history seems to be repeating itself and I have to fight my own battle too, but in a very different way. I'm wishing you the very best!

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  2. Hi from ICLW, thanks for leaving a comment on mine, glad your ankle is all healed.

    Hope you get your wish I really do :)

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  3. Greetings from ICLW. Thanks for stopping by my blog. I am sorry for the struggles your mom and aunt had - I can't imagine how hard it is, even when you think you are on the other side of this journey. I hope that you find your way to motherhood.

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  4. I hope you do too! Thanks for your comment on my blog. I can only imagine how hard it was back then (considering how difficult it is today) and we have so many more medical treatments and everything. I have so much respect for both your mom and aunt!

    ICLW #27

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  5. Hello from ICLW!

    Crazy 60s medicine indeed! I've often thought of how lucky I am to be living at this time. I may not get pregnant, but at least I have more hope for it than women in my circumstances did in the past. How heartbreaking it must have been for them to not even have hope.

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  6. Wow, that is amazing to have those stories of struggle shared with you. I feel like there was some of that for my grandma, but she isn't around anymore to ask. They were married for almost a decade before they had my mom. So I can't help but be curious about it. I know you will find your way to motherhood.

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  7. That's amazing that you have two people in your family to commiserate with.

    I'm an adoptee - so on one hand I'm literally the product of two teenagers getting it on, and on the other I'm the product of two people who despite not having any fertility issues went straight for adoption because they always wanted it that way.

    Just glad there's so many IF's in the blogosphere to talk to!

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  8. Hello from ICLW! Glad that your ankle is all healed!

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  9. Thank you for stopping by my blog and so sorry that it's taken me this long to get back to you. Your mum and aunt sound amazing... and you too :) You've been through so much... thinking of you xoxo

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  10. Here via ICLW. Thank you for visiting and commenting on my blog this week!

    Thank you also for sharing your mothers and aunts stories of trying to build their families. It is crazy to think about what it was like for the generations before ours. Things were so different and they didn't have most of the resources available to them, that we do today.

    Wishing you the best on your journey to become a mother.

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  11. My heart goes out to your mom and aunt. Crazy how far science and medical knowledge has come today. And for that I'm so very thankful. Best of luck on your own journey to motherhood.

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  12. I hope you do too....
    Happy ICLW

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  13. visiting from the Creme. It's great that you have two amazing women in your life to look up to. I'm sorry to hear about their struggles though. Hopefully your own struggles will result in a baby for you.

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