There’s a lightness, this spring. The heavy air that weighed me down in winter grief, isn’t completely gone, but it has mostly dissipated. Walking with a smile is an easier task and I’m able to see strength in my body, where I used to see weakness.
One thing about infertility, is that it will push you beyond what you thought your limits were. Pain, needles, uncomfortable procedures, disappointment, hope, sadness, it lived with us for five years. Outcomes were always uncertain, and it felt like we were on a carousel that frequently broke down.
I can see now that I am stronger than I used to think I was. I can see now that I can tolerate, I can live beside pain and still keep moving. So much of last year and this year has been about healing. Healing from all of the medicine, tests, and letdowns, but also healing from what we thought our family would look like and how it would be created.
On our way to Michigan for the holidays last December, we decided we were ready to move forward and pursue adoption. It was the first time we had both smiled with a conviction that felt like an affirmation that our lives were and would continue to be unexpectedly beautiful.
After our decision came months of research. We looked at all avenues of adoption, attended information sessions and weighed the different options for adoption. Did we want a domestic, international, or foster care adoption? Did we want to adopt a baby, a toddler, someone older? After lots of reading and talking, we finally found an organization that felt right to us and decided to go with a domestic adoption. Like so much of unexplained infertility, you feel like future options are too intimidating, too overwhelming, too out of your wheelhouse that you could never see yourself pursuing them. One thing I have learned through all of this, is that we continually seem to surprise ourselves with the decisions we choose. Decisions that, maybe a couple of years or even months ago, seemed unfathomable to us, but here we are, kicking down the overgrown path and working our way to the end result: a family.
I recently turned 45 and decided it was time to finally get the tattoo I had wanted for a couple of years. I figured that if I could handle giving myself multiple shots and endure some of the most archaic looking medical tests that made me feel like I was a character in The Handmaid’s Tale, I could survive a tattoo.
A few weeks ago, I walked out of the tattoo parlor with a permanent image on my left arm. The tattoo is of a robin, sitting on branches of marigolds, pussy willows, and fresh dill. Each object, a reminder, a nudge to keep going. The robin signifies new beginnings, and I just honestly love those common and beautiful birds. The marigolds remind me of the flowers my mom grew in her garden when I was a kid. My grandmother grew pussy willows outside her den, a room I spent so many sweet and safe moments in. And the dill? My grandpa constantly worked outside in the garden, putzing around, and his hands often smelled of the dill he grew.
My tattoo reminds me that sometimes I can surprise myself. Sometimes I can stand in the middle of a scary and uncertain time of life, and still see something ahead that makes me smile.
More than anything, my tattoo reminds me that sometimes, just sometimes, I can be a real bad ass. And, I like that.
Stefanie Wielkopolan 