Where Do I Fit In?

There’s a thought that everyone has had at some point, or many different points, or constantly, at all points.

Where do I fit in?

Maybe you were an only child, but all your childhood friends had siblings.

Maybe your high school didn’t offer electives that were your cup of tea.

Maybe you chose an unpopular major in college.

Maybe you were overqualified for your job.

Maybe everyone around you was having babies, and you weren’t.

Maybe everyone around you wasn’t having babies, and you were.

I don’t know where I fit in.

Jjiraffe posted a few weeks ago about expiration dates on infertility blogs, which led Elphaba to wonder what’s in an infertility blog, and to discuss a parenting after infertility and loss network.

For, well, years, actually, I’ve been asking that question. It’s mostly been just the small kernel of doubt and fear at the back of my mind, but since jjiraffe’s post, it started growing and demanding more and more of my attention. With Elphaba’s posts, it’s become this gnawing beast that won’t leave me alone.

Where do I fit in?

I asked myself so many times when I first started this blog, because I’ve never been pregnant, I’ve never started the adoption process, but somehow, here I am parenting. Is it fair that I’m trying so hard when we already have a child? No, she isn’t mine biologically or even legally, but she’s mine. Does that make any sense?

Everyone goes through their own struggles and deals with them in their own way, but I haven’t found someone who has gone through my struggles, no matter how they’re dealing with them.

I do feel better writing about how I feel and sharing it with you, but amidst all the ‘that sucks’ and ‘I’m sorry’ it would be nice to find a ‘me too.’

I never considered starting a ‘marriage after infidelity’ blog, because there’s no way I would have been able to connect with anyone else the way I have with infertility bloggers. Reading those stories would only have made me feel worse, but reading these stories, even the ones without happy endings, makes me feel like I do fit in somewhere, even if I still ask myself if that’s really true.

I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to stop asking, but for now, I have to keep whittling, and maybe one day I can make my square peg fit a round hole.