Twenty-Nine

Today is my birthday, more specifically my 29th birthday. Now before I even start I know many of you are going to think, "who cares?" or "I'll trade ya'" or "I wish I was twenty-nine again" and I get that. It's not that twenty-nine feels particularly old, in fact twnety-nine suddenly feels very young, you know? I think for every year I age "old" moves two years farther out from my original idea of "old". I'm not old... that's not the problem. The problem is what my twenty-ninth birthday represents.

I've mentioned this before, but somehow as a child, I got the idea into my head that I wanted to be just like my mom and stop having babies at twenty-nine. Well (insert four letter word). In fact, mom didn't just stop at twenty-nine, more specifically she had me five days after her 29th birthday. For some unknown reason, this arbitrary and unrealistic goal followed me from my childhood and into my adult life. I've never been able to shake the idea that I should be done with baby-making before thirty. I remember when Sam and I were dating I tried to express the urgency of the situation... we couldn't expect to have five biological babies before twenty-nine if he kept dragging his feet on the dang engagement.

We got engaged at twenty-three. I knew then somewhere in my head that this was an impossible task. I could not get married and have five children before my thirtieth birthday. I should have kicked this silly, idealistic plan to the curb then, but I didn't. When infertility struck like a sledgehammer to the gut, I should have recognized that there was absolutely zero chance this would happen, unless my idea of a family changed from five to one. And honestly, I guess that's initially what changed. Instead of moving twenty-nine down the road a few years to thirty-five or remove this antiquated finish like altogether, I simply lowered my expectations. Instead of five children, I was hoping for three children. Gracious, I was naive. For any infertile person to have three children in four years would be absolutely wild.

With time, I slowly began to recognize that the twenty-nine deadline was not going to happen. Once again, I had the opportunity to drop the nonsense and move on, simply feeling fulfilled if I ever had a baby, and yet once again, I clung to the birthday as the date I needed to at least start my family. If I could have one baby before my 29th birthday, I would feel satisfied I told myself. From there, I could go on adding to my family without deadlines and checkpoints. Thus the October Baby became so important to me. I mourned that this was simply not meant to be after IVF failed in January. Other than a premature birth (which I would obviously never hope for) there was simply no way I would meet this whimsical idea. And so, I tucked the idea away and moved on, silently and secretly dreading this birthday like the plague.

I'm not going to lie. This birthday hurts. All birthdays take on a special type of pain in the midst of infertility, but this one has extra sting. My mommy friends are quickly moving onto their second and third and (bless them) fourth children. My non mommy friends are most often several years younger than me. I'm stuck in between, not exactly a good fit in any world. As a child, like all good Generation Xers and Millenials I was told I could do anything if I simply worked hard, put my mind to it, and never gave up. Well friends, I did all of the above, and yet here I sit. Now I fully recognize in my cognitive, rational mind that the "you can be anything you want to be" is a lie, but on some level I still hear whispers that I failed.

I have to admit though, despite wanting to kick myself for every giving myself this ridiculous deadline, in some ways, I'm really thankful. I'm so glad I was in a desperate hurry to start having babies so I could fit them all in by twenty-nine. I'm so thankful that my biological clock was shrieking at twenty-four. I'm so thankful that we started trying at twenty-five, just thirteen months after getting married. I'm so thankful I felt burdened to be a young mom, even though I feel like a failure today. I'm thankful because this idea, the deadline, this "hurry-up" feeling has given me the blessing of time. Time we wouldn't otherwise have had if I'd felt I had all the time in the world. Time we wouldn't have had if I'd given myself a more normal deadline of 35 or 40. Now the fact that we're almost four years into this infertility battle doesn't mean time is up, or the door is closed. So while it sucks to feel like I failed, I'm still really thankful to have had such a silly idea in my head for so long.

Twenty-nine is such an odd birthday to have a mini midlife crisis over. Again, the freakout has nothing to do with the idea of being old. I don't look at my friends in their thirties and think of them as old; rather I look at my friends in their mid twenties and think of them as fresh-faced young'uns. This day is not about being old, or one step closer to thirty,  it's about failing. In some ways, I guess it's a blessing. This day is finally here, and now I can move forward, leaving the idea behind, embracing the path before me, and forgetting this self-imposed line in the sand. The truth of the matter is, be it twenty-nine or thirty-nine, we will be beyond thrilled to enter parenthood at all. This birthday will pass, and we will move on just as excitedly, just as diligently, just as eagerly on building our families, but today, I'm really missing that October Baby and that First Baby that would have made me a mom so many years ago.