Letting Go - The final Never a Dad post.

 

Late last week, we went through some steps that shut the door on us ever having children. We have left behind the ambitions of becoming parents and I am processing the finality of it all. We decided adoption was not the route for us and IVF was out of reach, not only financially but emotionally. The tenor of our conversations about this event were a little strained, punctuated with gallows humour and more than a little tension. I am not sure we ever really will let go of our wish to raise another human being. watching them grow up to carry on our little family traditions and help us create something greater than the two of us could add up to in a hundred or so years of life we have left combined. The feelings are still pretty raw and couple that with an already shaky truce with anxiety and depression and we have a potential tornado of emotional meltdowns coming up.
  It's been an interesting ride since we decided at a swim up bar in Jamaica many years ago that we were ready to have kids. We laughed a little at our drunken tears but we truly believed that before the clock turned on that year we would at least be pregnant and expecting an addition to our home. As time went on, we sought professional help and had many hours of unsolicited advice from everyone else. We didn't worry much because we figured there was a lot of time and one of the treatments was sure to work. Enhanced ovulation pills, needles and constant tests and procedures left us drained financially and emotionally, the loss of my business made clear we couldn't handle what was happening and we slid further from the dream. It became an unspoken agreement not to talk about it while we tried to tread water and figure out how to save our life that we had built from total annihilation.
  A year and a half of working at a job that almost killed me didn't help matters and when the smoke cleared and I found a new job that had better hours and medical benefits, we started again, a little bent but unbroken in what was feeling like our last few chances. Despite an ever shrinking window of possibility we ventured forth again into the world of doctors and tests. It became a quicker trip than we had hoped. 
  It was apparent early in this next step that we didn't have our hearts in it any more. We knew it would be expensive, outside of what we were able to spend without changing everything about our lives and I think after 6 or so years of constant disappointment we just gave up. Gave up hope, gave up trying and almost gave up on each other. It was dark and looked like dawn would never come.
  The truth that we were never having kids came after countless pregnancy tests, late nights, temperature logs, needles, pills and doctor's appointments. It came after moments of elation and hope followed by crushing and heart breaking defeat. It felt like we went to war with our own biology and failed as people. The questions and quiet mummers we thought we heard even though they may not have existed, our own minds filled with what could we be now that this path was closed to us. Who knows what they're supposed to do when life doesn't let them complete their perceived right to reproduce? Everyone who has ever been where we were knows their own truth, a little of ours and days ahead that seemed too bleak to consider.
  The end didn't come with anything special, a routine exam and medical procedure that millions of people have experienced. The decision was not only mutual, it was necessary for us to move on as humans, a little damaged, but together at the start of the next chapter. How will it all play out? That is still a little too raw to really consider, I'm prone to snap decisions and that has never been a good idea for us so we are taking stock and moving at glacial speeds toward whatever we decide is best for us. I have withdrawn again into myself a little, letting few inside my circle for fear of showing too much. While at the same time trying to support the other half of this equation who has her own thoughts, fears and dreams about what we did or didn't do and where we will go now. Life most definitely was not what we thought it was going to be almost two decades ago when we first fell in love and despite setbacks, huge mistakes, break ups, make ups and stuff only we will ever know about, it's still standing. A little wobbly and unsure of what corner to go to when this round is over, we will rise through this moment and step back into the ring to fight another day, a little wiser and a whole lot sadder but with the knowledge that the story we write will have to have a different ending than the one we thought we started with.
  Days like this end like all others and it will be how we face the future filled with unknown tomorrows we never considered that will make the difference to us. Our happiness and our direction is now unfocused and we will have choices to make about what we do, where we live and what we our time has become worth to us. We go out every day knowing we missed something but hoping we find out what we are really supposed to be now that this time and this dream has come to its final conclusion.
  "It's been a long time running", Gord Downie sings, and the journey though the morass of infertility doesn't always have a happy ending, no matter how much you want it to. It will never really go away, this life that could have been. But swimming in and immersing ourselves in self pity and navel gazing won't be how we learn to live with purpose once again. Waking up tomorrow will be the same as today, but we can choose happiness if that is what we truly want to do. A new day gives us a chance to live again in the right here and now.


Polk
 

I'll Never be a Dad

The last couple of weeks have seen me falling a little off the Polkaroo wagon with some over consuming and a return to the old days on two occasions. I was flummoxed by this sort of behaviour because I have been so in control and present with my beer that I thought I had left those days behind for good. I have been wracking my brain for the last fourteen days trying to come up with an answer and it struck me hard today at work. Five words that sum up what I've been running from...

I'll never be a dad.

That's not a huge sentence but it is a big burden that I've been allowing to fester on my soul for the last few months and keeping it to myself as there is a no more avoided topic than a couples infertility. It's not something you talk about that often and after seven years of throwing thousands of dollars at the problem and watching Kat struggle every month when she didn't become pregnant, I am emotionally spent and tired of the entire process.

Our family is filled with children of all ages and as our nieces and nephews all head farther along their paths in life we lose a little more contact with the time in our lives when a child would seem probable. The youngest of them prepare to head off to high school and we watch proudly, but from a distance as our brothers and sisters begin to loosen the reigns and send their pride and joy into the wider world. Their success at being parents has inspired us and the fact that we cannot emulate them and share in the happiness that is children weighs us down.

When you are childless, well meaning but ultimately devasting things are said in your presence, I've heard the phrase, "You're life isn't complete without kids.", more times than I can count and I can assure you that while I love to watch the kids in my family grow and share in the fun that you have, our lack of funds to try and become parents does not negate our existence. Our experience at the hands of sympathetic nurses and doctors does nothing to soothe the simple fact that we have not been able to conceive and for some people that makes our lives poorer as a result.

I am sure that a child would enhance our lives and make it even better than it is now, but I don't want to feel like I am less of a person because we could not procreate. Our journey hasn't been conventional and a lot of the time we struggled to just make it paycheque to paycheque. The last year has seen a light return to my eyes and we have finally begun to experience all that life has to offer. Craft beer may be the catalyst that kicked off our own personal revolution, but it is in rediscovering ourselves that we truly began to realise how much our infertility had pushed our spirits into the ground. Together we help each other up, dust ourselves off and walk together toward a different future than we had planned.

I've always been told that men are not supposed to feel the pull of parenthood as strongly as women and I had no desire to burden Kat with my personal hell, so as Father's Day approached the other week, I turned once again to over consuming to hide my feelings. I know better and when it happened again this week, that was enough to spur all this. Keeping things bottled up inside helps no one and being able to talk to her and write this has opened my heart to moving forward once again. I would love nothing more than to come back here sometime in the future and write the words "I'm a dad!" over and over again, but that seems increasingly unlikely and I know now that my journey will take me somewhere I could not have imagined as I was growing up.

My Father is one of my heroes and I think the fact that I will not be able to emulate and honour him by being as good a dad as he was and is factored into my depression over our struggle. Watching our friends and family who are experiencing parenthood for the first time brings us some joy as well as a melancholic pull that our chances have slimmed and perhaps life has other things planned for us. Having said that, we are excited about the future. Travelling, chasing a dream or two and probably things we can't even imagine now will come as they may. I can no longer live in the desperate silence of struggling to have a child, but I also don't accept that my personal sense of self should suffer because of that problem. Being part of a couple that struggles with infertility means caring for the other person even though there is nothing you can do to help. Our only choice is to embrace what our lives truly are and not wallow in what cannot be. I know our future will have meaning and it will be a blast to hold Kathryn's hand as we discover just what that will be.

Cheers!

Together, our future is bright!

On Winter

It has been one of the quietest winters I can remember. Not much in the way of snow and even the temperature has been mild. Not what I think of when you say Canadian Winter, but hey, no complaints from this guy.

My brother lives up north a ways and is amazed that people seem to forget we live in Canada and that in the winter, it snows. He laughs every time we get a little snow and social media explodes with all the exasperated posts about bad drivers, shovelling snow and bitter cold winds. He has a point. If you look around Facebook or Twitter, they are filled with the same posts everybody made last year. And the year before that and the year before that, forever and ever amen. What is it that causes us to lose our collective minds when the mercury dips down and the fluffy white stuff falls from the sky? And what makes us forget that it happens every damn year?

I work with the public and not a day goes by when someone doesn't mention the weather in some way. It's a safe subject and a very Canadian way of saying hello. What I have noticed over my 25 plus years in customer service is that the same people that bitch about the humidity in the summer, do the same for the cold in the winter. I am not sure what they were expecting. The weather is something that changes every ten minutes up here and you would think they were used to that by now.

I am a summertime guy myself. I love it all, from the warm sun and cool air of the May 24 weekend to the humid nights of late August and everything in between. I revel in the heat and spend as much time as I can outside in the Grotto.

This place is where I spend my summer. Beauty!

The winter on the other hand is not my friend. Cold, dark days that are too short. Lack of sunshine does a number on me and I struggle more each year to keep my spirits up while the snowy weather drags on. From the beginning of January until we start to see the first buds break ground in late March, I have to remind myself that summer is coming and I just need to hang in there a few more days.

Despite my struggles with the winter, there are things I love about it. Hockey is T.V. every night and my Leafs keep finding new ways to lose. There is almost nothing better than BBQ in the cold. It just seems to taste better when you know not everyone will brave the elements to have a wonderfully grilled steak and potato dinner. It helps that I have propane heat and a garage to hang out in while the 'Q does its thing, but the flavours seem to be brighter when it is out of season.

Nothing stops the Polkaroos from BBQing.

I also must admit to a bit of a dirty secret. I like shovelling. We have a rather long driveway for the suburbs and a double car garage behind our house. It is a lot of space, but I love when I get out my trusty 10 year old shovel and begin to clean up. There is something soothing about pushing the white stuff around to reveal the blacktop underneath. I never rush, no need for a wrenched back here. I love the feeling of my body heating up as the wind swirls around me. The steam when I take my hat off and accept a mug of Irish coffee when I take a break during a big clean up makes me smile. But most of all, I think I feel like I accomplished something. Small and not world changing, but by clearing the snow from our driveway, we somehow connect with the outside. I don't ski or snowboard. Being a fat guy and having a grasp of physics means that my weight on two sticks going down a hill would result in a funniest videos sort of ending and perhaps a cracked limb or two. But give me a shovel and I am just fine. Trying to work through the drifts that form as the wind pushes the snow around makes me move my body, and in Winter that is a big accomplishment.

Looking back at a job well done.

I would hazard a guess that this is what makes it so soothing for me. Struggling with anxiety and depression, especially at this time of the year, can leave me feeling lethargic and empty inside. Shovelling focuses my attention on an achievable physical task that also allows me time to work through some stuff that may be bugging me. I am not sure why, but as I work my way to the end of the driveway, I become more relaxed and let things that had been upsetting me all day just slip away.

We have talked about getting a snow blower many times and I always resist. I know it would make life easier for those 3 or 4 heavy snows that can take over an hour to clear and leave me a little sore the next day, but still I hold back. Some of that is the cost of purchasing and maintaining a quality machine. The other reason is far simpler, I am not ready to give up my big blue shovel.

Old Blue, she's held together with

Duct tape and love.

It still means something to me to look down at the back of the house and see a clean slate. Maybe we could all approach the snow with a little less hatred and embrace the seasons in the Canadian way, with a smile on our faces and a knowledge that spring is just around the corner.

 Well, not around the corner, but just down the street and kind of walking slow. I mean you think this season could pick up the pace a little. Come on spring, get your ass on in here.

It's okay, I know that when it comes, I will get out the garden stuff and begin the process of getting ready for the summer again.

I can't wait!

Cheers.

My favourite sign that summer is coming!