In March last year, we opened our hearts and shared with all of you how we had been trying to have a baby for quite some time. Nine months on, and unfortunately there is still no belly to show for it! What there is however is a number of key learnings we thought to share. In case you are wondering, the reason we have chosen to be so open about our experience is that we hope to help others who might be facing a similar situation with fertility or even another area of their life in which the same lessons can apply.
- When each of us are faced with a particular circumstance, there is a propensity to feel as though a) we are the only one facing it, and b) it is worse than what others around us are facing. In our case, we have discovered how common it is to have some sort of journey with fertility. We just don’t realise it because most people don’t talk about it and the majority of what we are exposed to on social media is all the happy stuff. We have come to understand though that everyone has their unique lot they have been dealt with in life and there is no objective scale in which the difficulty of the challenges we face preside. Rather, it is our relationship to our challenges that determines how hard we experience them.
- A few weeks ago it suddenly dawned on us that since we have been trying for quite a while now, we had become quite attached to the idea of falling pregnant for falling pregnant sake. It had become this far-reaching goal that we were eager to achieve and consumed most of our air-time. What we have since re-connected to is our deep commitment to bringing new life into this world and becoming mindful parents for those reasons alone.
- In a similar vein, we discovered that having a baby had become an external desire that we wished for in an attempt to somehow fulfil something internally within us. It became somewhat akin to wanting a promotion or a brand new car – something that we hoped would bring us joy when we finally got it. We had strayed away from our core belief that children come ‘through us’ not ‘from us’ (as we described in an article we wrote over two years ago on the recipe to perfect parenting). They are their own unique individuals who are here in this world, like us, to live their own lives at their own will by their own choice. This has been a powerful reminder for us to learn before embarking on a journey of parenthood that our role as parents is to guide, support, and love. As Kahlil Gibran so eloquently puts it to be “the bows from which our children as living arrows are sent forth“.
- The importance of regular meditation can’t be understated. Not only does it calm our physiology and help regulate the emotions, it also offers us a deep access to the very nature of our minds, of which these insights have arisen.
