A Legacy

Greetings Humble Readers...

¹leg·a·cy
       noun \ˈle-gə-sē\

       pluralleg·a·cies

Definition of LEGACY

1: a gift by will especially of money or other personal property

2: something transmitted by or received from an ancestor or predecessor or from the past 

definition courtesy of miriam-webster.com

I mentioned in yesterday's post that I had recently been getting rid of my maternity clothes and some baby things.  My closet was getting ridiculous again, and as we are most certainly not going to have any more wee-lings (my Beloved goes for his snip-snip next week Friday), it was time to move on. 

And yet, it was hard.  From January 8th, 2008 (the day I took my last bcp... some dates really do stick) until May 10th of this year, it has at times felt like every breath I've taken was somehow connected to building our family.  And now I'm getting rid of things that I longed so desperately to need.  Pippin is outgrowing so many things so fast... the bassinet, the baby bathtub, the cradle and his too cute little track suit.   There won't be another wee-ling to need these things, and I'm 100% okay with that.

But it's still hard on my heart to get rid of them. 

The finality of where we are right now on this journey has me thinking about a lot of things. 

About my place in the IF community, about my role as cheerleader for those still in the trenches and as another voice to the world at large about what IF really is.  I may not have the communication skills of someone like Mel or Keiko, but I can share my experiences and what I've learned from my fellow IFers.  I can help my family and friends understand that IF is not only a physiological issue, but also a deeply emotional one.  I can help them understand terminology, procedures, and the realities of outcomes (as opposed to the sensationalized stories in the media).  And I want to be completely honest about our losses, be transparent about our journey.  I want to help remove the taboo and shame associated with miscarriage and IF.

But perhaps, most important of all, I will educate my children.

I will teach both of them, Ginevra and Pippin, about the realities of fertility.  I will encourage them to follow their dreams, and to seek out amazing experiences, but I will also teach them that the human reproductive system has limitations.  And that they can and should take their time to be sure of themselves and their life partners.  But I will also be honest and teach them that there will come an end date to attempting to have biological children. 

Sure, sometime in the future, medical science may come up with better and more effective forms of ART, but I want them to understand their bodies and how they really work.  I'm not going to leave it to the "if you have sex, you'll get pregnant" health classes in junior high to give them their only understanding of their reproductive systems.  I'm going to teach Ginny to pay attention to her body, to learn to recognize her cycles and what they mean.  I don't want Ginny's birthright to be being blindsided by her own body when she is trying to build her family. 

And, I'm sure sooner rather than later, I'll tell them about Emily and Olivia... about the two babies we never got to hold, but loved so deeply.  I'll tell Ginny about the dream I had about her, my beautiful dark haired blue-eyed dream baby in a pink dress, while I was still pregnant with Olivia.  I will tell Pip about the role his daddy had in holding me together when I thought I was going to break into a thousand pieces.

This will be my IF legacy.  This will be Emily and Olivia's legacy.