To Have a Family–or Not

You are born into a family. You don’t get to pick. Right?

In my case, when I was a young woman, I had to decide if I wanted a family–or not…

I met my first husband, Tom, in college. We were both attending a small fundamentalist, evangelical church. It was a bible study. We dated/courted throughout our four years in school under our church elders’ careful watch and counsel.

One of the commitments we were both excited about was building our family. We planned to have as many children as the Lord would bless us with–maybe 13. It sounded like a good number to shoot for. It was fun that this number freaked our parents out. (You may question our taste in humor here.)

After getting married and graduating from college, we put our commitment to having children on the back burner for several years. That time passed quickly (7 years) and we finally felt ready to make the jump into parenthood. 

However, after more than a year of trying, we discovered that having a family wasn’t going to be effortless. It was going to involve medical intervention…expensive. intervention.

Now you may have heard that the journey of infertility is a rocky and emotionally challenging experience for many couples. Well for us, this was an understatement. We went to counseling and had a trial separation. Nonetheless, Tom not only decided that he didn’t want to be a dad. He also didn’t want the responsibility of a house, a wife, or even a dog.

I’ll use here to say that Mom knew our relationship was doomed when he told her “We will NEVER have a dog.”

Yeah…no.

Now I was in my early 30s. I had a decision to make.

It was on a run at about 10:00 pm in October when it hit me–I had allowed Tom to make so many decisions for us, for me. Now I was done. I was going to decide now. Finishing my run and walking into the house, I went up the stairs and to the bedroom he was in bed reading. “I’m done,” I said. “We’re getting a divorce.”

Tom moved out the following weekend.

Friends asked me, “How did you know that you needed to have a family instead of staying married?”

I simply decided.

My relationship went as far as it could with Tom. He was ready to move on. I planned to regroup and begin the process of adopting from China as a single woman. We divorced amicably. After our divorce hearing, we went out to lunch together.

I believe that you make a decision and walk in that direction as long and as far as you can. Then you adjust course and move forward on that path. Continue…

This is consistent with my whole 17-year journey trying to have a family. There was infertility work, counseling, separation, more counseling, and divorce.

Then I met and married Craig. We quickly jumped into the infertility process and then moved on to our adoption process. (And as you may guess, the adoption process was no walk in the park–but that is another story.)

After each turn in the road or dead end, I have chosen each next step of this journey.

You see, I had a goal…

…and I decided to have a family.

 

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