The F Word

I was with a lovely group of women recently talking about infertility and the transition to adoption---something I do on a dailybasis.......
One word kept rearing its ugly head time again and again and again---- FAILURE.

“IVF FAILED”

“I had a FAILED pregnancy”

“My body FAILED me”

“We had a FAILED adoption”

“I FAILED……”

“My husband FAILED……”

“They FAILED to give me that information”

“My friends FAILED to understand what I was going through”

FAIL FAIL FAIL……

UGHHHHHHHHH

I actually started to keep track of the number of times the word (in one way or another) was mentioned.

Put it this way----I stopped. I couldn’t keep up.


And then one woman looked at me and said “How did you ever get beyond the FAILURE?”

Ahhhhhhh….a question I could answer.

Not only could I answer this question, I could answer it smiling.

“Jake.” I replied

She gave me a questioning look.

“When Jake came into my life, it all became very clear why all the other options had to fail. Jake is the child I was meant to have.”


“I found a different path to motherhood through adoption and learned that my failures weren’t truly failures. They were simply events that led me in a direction I wouldn’t have found for myself.”

And then I added, “It wasn’t easy…..but I got past the F word, you will too.”

She laughed.

As I left the event, even I had a sense of renewed optimism about my own road to adoption….but I remember those days of FAILURE like they were yesterday.


Love much,
xob