Decisions, Decisions…

Lately I’ve felt caught between a rock and hard place. Obviously the quote above can be applied to any aspect of life and rings true no matter what. But it seems I’m destined to learn this particular lesson the hard way.

You see, I grew up in a predominantly LDS family and society. As a child of such surroundings, we are taught from a young age (either purposely, or inadvertently) that this is the way our lives ought to go:

1.    Graduate High School
2.    Graduate College/ Go on a mission
3.    Get married
4.    Have kids

Lots of people tend to follow this plan without really meaning to, that’s just the way it happens. And that’s okay. But if things don’t fall properly into place this way, there is a lot of pressure that you must be doing something wrong, or maybe, perhaps, *gasp* you are the problem. You suddenly find yourself with some decisions to make, and realizations to come to.

We already know that my life hasn’t followed the pattern outlined above like I actually believed it would as a child. I have been left in the dust by 90% of my peers and that took some getting used to. I’ve come to accept my lot, which is half the battle. The other half is deciding what to do instead.

Originally, I had planned to train for a bodybuilding contest and compete on the amateur stage, thus achieving a dream I’ve been nursing for many, many years. I’d do this in the meantime while I waited to get pregnant, whatever that might entail. I figured it would be an excellent distraction from the stress involved with fertility treatment and give me something positive to focus on, all the while infertility would be “going on” in the background. I thought I had it all figured out. I need to learn that when this thought goes through your head, that is the very moment that you couldn’t be more wrong.

Now here’s where the rock and the hard place comes in: If you’re not aware, in order to compete in a bodybuilding comp, you’ve got to get your bodyfat percentage down into the teens, think between 16 – 18% for female competitors and in the single digits for male competitors. Conversely, you may or may not be aware that an ideal bodyfat percentage for getting pregnant is between 20 – 24%, roughly. And that’s for a normal, fertile woman. Being infertile, it’s even more critical for me to maintain that delicate balance, thus rendering the above-outlined plan completely ineffective.

So lately I’ve found myself at a crossroads. Do I put off or give up altogether my bodybuilding dream, or do I put off fertility treatments, knowing that risks only increase with age? I am rounding the corner on 30, after all. I know there are a lot of people who would say, “Why is this even a debate, are you crazy?? Obviously the right choice is starting your family! Give up on that stupid idea!”

Not so fast. To these people I say, you must not understand just how important achieving that dream is to me. It’s not something that randomly occurred to me one day out of the blue and I thought “Maybe that’d be cool if I did that one day.” No. It’s all I think about. Well, not all I think about, obviously, but truthfully it is on my mind just as much as infertility. And it has been at the forefront for almost a decade.

So this has been my struggle for the past few months. But I’m glad to report that I think I’ve finally made a decision and I think it’s the right one for me, at this time. I feel at peace with the decision and the pressure is officially gone.

“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.” Ecclesiastes 3:1

Until next time.