This Path in Life

I struggled with naming this blog.  I am not very creative when it comes to things like names.  But, I want to write about my life now.  This will be about where I am currently in life.  It will probably include a lot of memories while I try to figure out this path.  Which got me thinking about this path my life has taken.  It's not a path I chose for myself, but I am learning to embrace it.

Why is it not the path I chose? 

I remember the day I got married.  I was 22 and my husband was 21.  Yes, we were young!  It was a bright sunny day in Las Vegas.  I still love that city.  It is so alive.  Now, you are thinking we eloped since we were so young and married in Vegas.  Nope, we thought about it.  We seriously thought about it, about as serious as you think of things when you are that young.  We had a small wedding in a garden with a handful of family members.  It was lovely, and I would do it the same way again.  We were in love, happy, WILD, carefree, and we were excited that our paths had merged into one.  I remember thinking that we could make anything happen.

The funny thing is, since we got married in Vegas on pretty short notice, most of our family members thought we were pregnant!  We were both raised with strong religious backgrounds where you were supposed to get married in a Church setting.  The fact of the matter is, my husband and I are just not very religious.  We like to do things our own way.  We thought it was funny that relatives assumed we were pregnant.  We would make light of situations such as when a random aunt would ask us "So, when are you having your baby?"  our answer would be "Not for a few years" and they would get this strange look on their face.  It took them a few seconds to realize that our wedding was by choice and not from being in a "family way".

It's ironic that we are infertile.  Here are the numbers.  10:  the number of years we have been married.  7:  the number of years that we were ttc.  0:  the number of pregnancies that we had.  We thought it might take us a little longer than most to get pregnant since I have endometriosis.  I know of others that have endometriosis in my family and in my friends.  I am the only one that I know in real life that wasn't able to get pregnant with endometriosis.  My mother has this disease but she had 6 kids, and 7 pregnancies.  I really didn't think that it would not happen for us.  I think that is why we waited so long to try fertility treatments after several years of trying to conceive.  That and we were so young.  I thought for sure it would happen.  We came to the end of trying to have our own baby when I was 31, been trying for 7 years, and ended an IVF cycle without a pregnancy and no embryos to freeze.  I find that I have to defend myself to people when they find out that we did IVF 1 time.  First, they want to know why we would even take it that far.  Second, they want to know why we didn't try more attempts.  It's a conversation you just can't win.  The ultimate truth is that it is a decision that my husband and I made together, and we don't have regrets.

Here is where I came to the name of this little blog.  This is the path in life that my husband and I are on.  We got on this path about a year and a half ago with our decision to live childfree.  I have a busy little life.  I am an accountant for a large corporation.  I am going to school part time to get my master's degree in business.  I love my crafts in the little spare time I have.  I am an aunt to 10 nieces and nephews (and more on the way).  This is our path to living childless.  It has been a little bumpy, riddled with pot holes so far, but it is smoothing out.  I am beginning to embrace this path and I am excited to see what is ahead.