Going to a counselor was just what I needed. She didn’t care if I had kids or not. She was simply there to listen and help me sort out my thoughts. I quickly realized that there were a few issues at play.

 

First, I didn’t want to be an absentee mother, but also didn’t want to give up my job. My counselor made me quickly realize that all mom or potential moms feel this pressure. They worry they aren’t around enough or that someone else is raising their children, but that isn’t true. You are doing what is best for your family whether that is going to an office every day or staying home, and the world shouldn’t judge you for doing either. So that problem was solved. I would keep working and we would figure it out like so many others have done. 

 

The second issue was family pressure. "We will retire when you have kids so we can help you" sounds nice but my counselor informed me that it is actually a lot of pressure. Comments about future grandkids always made me feel like I was letting my parents and in-laws down, especially if we ultimately decided to not have kids. However, I discovered through my counseling sessions that the decision whether to have children or not was a decision solely between Adam and I. We couldn't let anyone influence that decision, no matter how much we loved them. 

 

I also discovered that it was not a decision that we had to make right away. We had always planned to be married for a while and had some things we wanted to do before making a decision on kids. That was always our plan, and we shouldn't let outside pressure change that.  We should just enjoy married life and our pre-kids bucket list before making any decisions on trying so that is what we decided to do. We started by booking a trip to Europe. 

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The third issue was the most important one and the one I had been trying to ignore. It was that deep down, I knew there was a chance I would have trouble getting pregnant. My whole life I had dealt with female issues. I was put on birth control at a very young age not because I was sexually active or had a progressive mother or anything like that. Rather, I had health issues that required me to be placed on birth control. In fact, I was almost immediately placed on medication after “becoming a woman.” Over the years I had three ovarian cysts burst, one of which put me in the hospital. Deep down I knew that something wasn’t quite right and I think I knew that this could possibly lead to difficulty getting pregnant. For this reason, I convinced myself that I wasn’t sure I wanted kids because that was easier than wanting them, but not being able to have them. 

 

After talking though my issues and discovering that Adam and I actually did want kids, we decided to check some items off our pre-kid bucket list and then pull the goalie to just see what happens. It was also decided that we would keep our decision entirely to ourselves so that it would be between us no matter what happened. In fact, when my family came to visit, I made sure that all hints that we were trying to have a baby were hidden away and could not be found. We were completely devoted to keeping this our little secret and let whatever was going to happen, happen. My body had other plans though.