Courage: Part 1 or Courage to Conceive

The first time that I held Wisebaby, I didn't cry. I did feel like my heart was about to leap out of my chest and do the happy dance that my feet, numb from an epidural, couldn't perform. That feeling of a happy heart has repeated itself over and over again in the short time that I have been a parent.

Because I have been thinking a lot about my heart, it made me remember that the Latin word for heart, cor, is the basis for the word courage. To be a parent, you have to have a lot of heart. 

Your heart needs to be made of steel, willing to withstand challenges unconditionally. Your heart must also be made of softer stuff, ready to melt at the mere thought of your child. Your heart will need to be strong in order to adjust to life with a new and overwhelming identity; you do not discard your former self, but instead you subjugate it to an all-consuming identity overnight. Your non-parent self is still in there, but it has taken a permanent backseat to the little babe cradled in your arms. 

I'd like to discuss some of the things that require(d) a great deal of courage for me, and I realized that it might need to come in multiple parts, owing to the fact that there is a lot to say and having a babe makes my time to blog sparse. I plan to break it down into the following parts for now: Courage to Conceive, Courage in Pregnancy, and Courage as a New Parent.

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People must have incredible courage to Conceive a child--I use the capital C to designate the difference between conception as an accident and Conception as a willful act of love and sacrifice. All of my life, I have witnessed and been witnessed to about the challenges that having a child entails. One day, I accepted that the scary parts of becoming a parent were far outweighed by the desire to create a life and commit to raising that life in a way that brought light into the world. It wasn't easy. In saying, "Yes! I want to Conceive a child with my husband," I committed to some pretty scary stuff:

• Watching my body change drastically in many ways, some of which are irreversible
• Raising one child for eighteen years, not including college, will cost us roughly a quarter of a million dollars
• Permanently giving up my opportunity to sleep in and nap at will, heavy stuff for someone like me
• Doing more housework than I can possibly conceive
• Accepting that my body, my house, my job, my hobbies, my friendships, etc..., would all become secondary to something that weighs a mere seven pounds
• Raising a child as a Christian

On top of it all, like 10% of American women, we experienced challenges with infertility. Once we had our diagnosis after an early miscarriage and a long period of trying, we had to commit to Conceiving a child again (IVF cycle 1) and again (IVF cycle 2) despite some additional challenges:

• The financial burden of IVF, which I will not spell out in particular details, but I will say, that it cost more for us than the national average of $12,440.
• The physical burden of IVF, which involves sticks and pricks and raging hormones and invasive procedures and ovaries so swollen that they seemingly merged once during an ultrasound; our second IVF cycle and subsequent pregnancy required 368 self-administered shots
• The emotional burden of IVF, which cannot be quantified, but it definitely took its toll.
• The knowledge that all of this could yield no results other than a drained bank account and a broken heart.

Luckily for our hearts, we were able to tap deep into our well of financial, physical, and emotional resources and Conceive our Wisebaby. When we saw that the embryo had turned into a fluttering heartbeat via sonogram, our hearts grew three sizes that day.