Losing Control

“Control Freak”

This is a term I bestowed upon myself for years, but lately, it has grown to give me the “ick.” I mean, is it human to want to be in control of your life and the goings-on within it to an extent? Sure. Is it possible to perhaps take that a little too far? Also yes.

For instance, I didn’t drink (or get drunk, I should say) for the first time until I was almost 22 (and even that was unintentional…but that’s another story for another time). I don’t say this to demonstrate the lamest flex of all time but rather to illustrate how unwilling I was to not be fully in control of my person. If you’re a parent (and more specifically my parents, lol), this may sound like a green-flag situation…and without context, you wouldn’t be wrong. But the problem, at least for me, is that the control I so desperately seek is fully and completely rooted in fear—fear of the unknown, fear of repercussion, fear of failure.

I’ve always been an overly-cautious person. I evaluate and then reevaluate the risks, and if at any point I feel as though I won’t be able to manage the situation—or at the very least be able to remove myself from the situation—then 99.9% of the time I’m just not going to partake. Granted my general anxiety definitely plays a role in this as well, but it all usually comes back to my need to be in control. And when you’re faced with a situation, like infertility, that removes all aspects of control, it absolutely rocks you to your very core.

Because even in the pursuit of medical interventions—whether it’s medications, IUI, or IVF—the first thing a fertility doctor will tell you is that there are no guarantees. You can’t control how your body responds, you can’t control potential monkey wrenches, and you can’t control the outcome. So not only was I being faced with the circumstance of having no control over my body in the way of reproduction, but I also was about to embark on a (painful and expensive) journey with the full disclosure that I would have zero control over what the end result would be…and that terrified me.

But as I often say, multiple feelings can (and should) exist at once…and as soon as I grieved the fact that we get to have to pursue IVF, I was met with a strange sense of relief. I didn’t realize just how (mentally, physically, emotionally) exhausting it was to hold on to an idea or plan so tightly, paired with the constant mapping out of every logistical detail and risk analysis. I’m slowly learning that there’s something almost freeing in relinquishing control and a level of peace knowing I’ve done (or am doing) all that I can do in regard to the little control I do have.

Don’t get me wrong…it still kills me that this is our path and that there’s nothing I can do to change it, but one thing I can control is my attitude and my perspective in this endeavor. So I am choosing to just take it one day at a time and focusing more on what I’m gaining and less on what I’m losing: a revelatory life lesson, a new form of resilience, and—hopefully—a baby.