Icarus

I debated writing this post, so hopefully I do the feelings in it justice, without hurting or offending anyone. Since our surrogacy road has ended, I have been to one baby shower, seen one new baby, and been to a first birthday. It was hard, because originally I was supposed to be next for those things. I was still thrilled to see all of my friends and their children have those moments, but that doesn't mean it didn't hurt. After I had been to all of those celebrations, I felt that I could handle anything. Wrong. This past weekend B and I went to a wedding for my cousin. I have a large extended family, which I love, and we are very involved in each others lives. However, some of them were unaware that our surrogacy arrangement was over, so there were times where I had to recount the tale, which sucks. The last thing you want to do when you're trying to forget something is to relive it. Over the course of the weekend, children were brought up several times. Whether it was someone discussing their efforts to start a family, or someone asking me when we were going to start a family, or simply someone asking if my mom was dying to be a grandma. Normally, those things wouldn't bother me, but they stung a little this time around, because I don't have the answers. Adoption is a long process, and can be draining emotionally and financially. B and I are already doing what we can to get extra money (more on that later), but we can't tell people when a child will enter our lives, or how many we will have. The questions weren't meant to hurt, but it still provided an extra layer of emotion to the weekend. 

*Side note about the wedding, which was the whole reason we were there. The wedding was amazing. Seriously, I couldn't imagine seeing two people more in love, it was precious and heart warming. Right from the second her dad gave her away until the last dance of the evening, my cousin and her new husband, were so perfectly true to who they are and their love. It was certainly an experience to cherish. *

The day after the wedding was hard for me. It was my birthday, and my family being my family had a birthday party on the beach for wedding guests as well as other family members and me. Normally being a year older doesn't freak me out, but it did this year. The reason it was so hard was because less than three months ago, I was planning on how I was going to tell my whole family that our transfer had worked, and that we were going to have a baby. It was a pretty awesome plan, and it also involved my mom finding out our news for the first time as well. Instead I found myself surrogateless, planless, and babyless. Last year was a tough year for me, mainly because I had told everyone that it was going to be my year, and it wasn't. I want to say the same about this year, but how can I after everything that has happened? So I stood on the beach and realized just how small I am in comparison to everything else. I though of all the things I had lost, and once again cursed the unfairness of everything. My birthday this year, was supposed to be the culminating moment, a chance for me to see karmic retribution or whatever for all the struggles I have faced in my life. I was hurting, am hurting, because I had fallen in love with the hypothetical surrogate baby, and now I'm a year older, and have gotten so close, but am now even further away. 

It's like that old mythology tale, where Icarus flies to close to the sun. His father warns him that he must stay far enough away from the sea, so his feathers don't get wet, and far enough away from the sun so the wax won't melt. Well Icarus, doesn't listen to his father and he flies too close to the sun, his wax begins to melt, and he falls into the sea, and dies. I think that is the fault of human nature, and that we can all relate to the story. There is a point in all of our lives where we are told not to get our hopes up, but we do, and we get burned badly for it. The story is really about the dangers of both being complacent and being arrogant. This weekend was my reminder that I had flown too close to the sun. The worst part of the story? It literally ends with Icarus dying in the sea. The sea is named after him, but that's not much of a happy ending. Thankfully, this is real life, and my dad didn't go make me some wax feathers, and I am not dead. That is also true of human nature, for centuries we had failed, and for centuries we have tried again. Maybe that’s what we are supposed to learn from all of this, and from Icarus. Even if we get too big for our britches, we can still have something left behind that we are remembered by. So although this year didn’t start out the best, I know that in the future I will have something to be remembered by, and someone that calls me mommy will continue my legacy.

PS: In all honesty, the birthday party on the beach was awesome, plus I have the best family in the world, so this year is off to a good and memorable start!