I love a good quote. In fact, I have an entire Pinterest board dedicated to quotes, and a saved section on my Instagram with them. Awhile ago I read the quote “Trust the timing of your life” and saved it and every time I see it again, I always screenshot or save it. For someone who is a control freak and has in many ways felt like she’s been treading water for two years yearning for change and to move on to the next stage of her life but unable to do it, it’s been something I’ve found myself quoting quite often. And now, each month, after each failed attempt at getting pregnant and questions about what to do next, I’ve found myself repeating the quote to myself each time I feel like I can’t keep going or that I’m cursed in some way (which in my pity party moments, it often feels that way). Trust the timing of your life.
I am a firm believer that you control your own destiny and you have to make things happen for yourself. But unfortunately, as I get older, I realize that I always hold doubt in the back of my mind that those things will, in fact, happen, and deep down, I wonder if, as most self-help gurus claim, your thoughts do have a bigger influence over your life than you might think and mine are holding me back. Now, fertility books are telling me the same. I have never been a particularly positive person. Cynicism is kind of my thing. But that’s not what this is really about. This is about a deep seated fear I have that in some way I’m not enough or I’m not destined to have a great life or that I won’t be able to achieve my dreams or have what I want. I was SHOCKED when I got pregnant with James. It was really quick, but I was convinced it would take awhile and I’d be one of those unlucky women who had to deal with heartbreaking fertility struggles. In my mind, I told myself as I always do that I’m not one of those people who things come easy for. I’m not one of those people who gets her dreams without lots of blood, sweat and tears. Now, two years later, that is who I am. I’m dealing with heartbreaking fertility struggles, and wondering if I may have willed some of this on myself. Adding that stress and blame isn’t helping and some of it is the way our society approaches fertility now — that women feel they are to blame when they struggle to get pregnant and feel shame. But I also can’t help but wonder how much of my life has not happened as I wanted or wished because as much as I tried to control it with a tight grip, I didn’t really believe it would happen for me. I didn’t believe I deserved it and that good things happen to me or have faith in myself that I could do it. I didn’t trust the universe to provide for me and give me that luck and timing that is in many ways part of the equation too. I didn’t heed the advice to trust the timing of your life.
I have been trying to find meaning in this rollercoaster that is infertility, because I don’t know how else I can make my heart handle this pain and heartbreak. And I’m starting to wonder if maybe this struggle with infertility is the universes way of trying to show me that I have to trust that there is a plan for me, that the universe, that God does have my back, that I am deserving, and my dreams will come true even if they don’t look exactly like I originally envisioned. That I need to believe in myself and the universe and God. That I need to trust. That maybe I need to trust the timing of my life. I can do what I can do, and then God will give us the baby and family we are ready to have and when I look back, it will make sense and I will be grateful and it will work out, even if it hasn’t yet.
I looked up that quote by Steve Jobs yesterday about connecting the dots:You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.
Right now, this, this everything, really, feels devastating. I feel stuck. I don’t feel like I can move forward professionally, with our family, with anything because I’m waiting for the rest of the family I want. I feel heartbroken that I haven’t been able to get pregnant and desperately afraid this will drag on for years or ever. But I know that’s not serving me. It’s causing me stress and anxiety, and there’s really nothing I can do. I can do all the fertility treatments in the world, but there’s a magic out of my control that will determine whether it becomes a baby or not. Babies are miracles and I need to wait for mine, and trust that he or she or they will come. That the universe isn’t spiteful or out to get me, but that it will all work out and looking back, the dots will all connect.
I want to believe everything will work out for me and that this baby will come and the family I’ve always dreamed of will be mine and that I’ll bust out of this rut and get to the next steps professionally and personally that will fulfill me, that I won’t be stuck treading water forever or even much longer, that I might just be on the precipice of my next great adventure. I want to be able to trust that God, the universe is looking out and rooting for me and helping me, because trying to do this all alone believing it’s all stacked against me is exhausting and frankly, I think it’s burnt me out to the point where I don’t even know what I want anymore. There’s this golf analogy my husband once said to me about loosening the grip. Basically when you want something so badly you can hold on so tightly and try to control it so hard, like when you have a really tight grip on your golf club, you end up making a terrible shot. But when you loosen the grip and still try but not try to control it so hard, you end up with a much better shot. I’m totally messing that up but you get my drift.
Maybe if I stop trying to control everything so hard to be exactly what I think my life should be and just try to keep moving forward toward what I think I want or makes me happy without having to know the outcome or control it, I will be happier or at least not so burnt and maybe I’ll actually get what I need and break out of this rut. Maybe it even just starts with accepting that I’m exactly where I need to be right now, and that something great will come out of this pain and tumult of feeling stuck. Maybe it’s learning to trust the timing of your life. And honestly, when it comes to getting pregnant, there’s little else I can do. I can’t control the outcome. I can do the treatments, I can try to take care of myself as best I can to control anything that might be preventing me from conceiving like stress, PCOS, hormonal imbalances, etc., but then I just have to trust that it will happen for me and that it will work out in the best way possible. Easier said than done, but right now, I’m choosing to start trusting the timing of my life…
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