Glad Midsommar!

Today in Sweden, my family and friends are celebrating Midsummer. It's a holiday originating in pagan times to celebrate the summer solstice and to sacrifice in the sign of the norse godess of fertility, Freya. It's a celebration of the longest day of summer, a day to dress your maypole (or in my family's tradition, an old lamp post in the front yard) with flowers and dance around it, a feast when you eat new potatoes, herring and freshly picked strawberries, and a time when all the girls put flowers in their hair. Ever since I was a little girl it's been my absolute favorite holiday.

One of the traditional things to do as a young, unmarried girl is to go out in the midsummer night in silence and pick seven different flowers. You then place the flowers under your pillow and that night you will supposedly dream of the boy whom you'll marry. I have many memories of me and my sister picking flowers after dark trying not to giggle and break the silence, but I can't remember any dreams of a future husband.

In 2004 on midsummer's day I married Diver Dude for the second time. Surrounded by family and friends, standing in front of a dressed maypole, we repeated our vows to each other. It was a perfect day. It rained a lot, and the priest was so nervous about speaking english he nearly forgot to bless our rings and pause for my sister's solo, but it was perfect. 

I may never have dreamt about who my husband would be, but every day I wake up next to him I know he's The One. 

Today we celebrate our sixth anniversary of our second wedding and in spite of being in England I'll put flowers in my hair, eat some good traditional swedish food and possibly also dance around some kind of phallic symbol :)

Glad Midsommar! Happy Midsummer!

It's all about love

I honestly don't know what made Diver Dude turn the corner. I could speculate and say Lady Merlin helped us communicate better or that he found a window to my thoughts through this blog. I could thank my lucky star or four leaf clover. But in my heart I believe that he was finally strong enough to re-discover the part of him that wants this as much as I do.

The turning point came Sunday morning. Diver Dude woke up early and went upstairs to make coffee and left me snoozing away in bed. A couple of hours later he came down, laid down next to me and woke me up with a soft kiss. "I think we should talk" he said and my heart missed a beat. I feared the worst, braced myself for him to tell me he'd come to the conclusion we should go our separate ways. Instead, he said: "I don't want to loose you. I miss you, I miss my best friend, my confidant, my wife and lover. What's important is you and I, everything else comes second. I want to grow old with you." 

Suddenly there he was. My strong, beautiful, fantastic husband. He had come back to me. I felt drunk with happiness. Tears and laughter came in sudden bursts of joy. He kept going: "If it's OK with you, I think we should stick with our original plan of three IVFs. We'll do two more fresh cycles, use the embryos we get and keep our fingers crossed it works." I struggled to say something coherent and failed to say anything but "Thank you". He smiled and said it was a strange thing to say. I looked out through the window, towards the sky, and said it again. Thank You. 

Although we're now back to our original plan of three IVFs I feel enriched by this experience and know that a few changes need to be made. I need to focus on a fuller life. I need a job to find a different self worth, continue my education to expand my mind, and grow the budding friendships I've made to expand our social network. I need a life that's fulfilling and can make me happy with or without children to complete it. 

I know that I'm a very lucky woman. I have a husband who loves me with all his heart and who wants to journey with me through this life. Come what may. That's what it's all about.

Yggradsil - Tree of Life in Nordic mythology

It's a brand new beautiful day

Diver Dude has come around.
He's ready to move forward in our relationship and give us another shot at having a family.
He chose us after all.

I can't tell you how relieved and happy I am.

It's like waking up from a really scary dream.
Waking up to sun shining through your window and your husband pulling you closer and kissing your neck.

Thank you

For your overwhelming response to my last post "An impossible choice". Most of your comments were kind and supportive with wishes of peace. Some offered new angles to look at the problem, some shared  life stories of similar choices made, and some thought it necessary to defend Diver Dude's right to his dream of a childless future. Some angry, some sad, some seemingly based on that post alone with insufficient background knowledge, but all good. All wonderful. All valid.

I wrote my last post from a place of disappointment and a feeling of entrapment. Of course the choices entail more possibilities than described, and naturally I have no idea what the future holds. None of us do, right? This blog is also a place where I try to sort out my thoughts. The good and the bad. The positive and negative. The sane and the crazy.

Tamsen pointed out in her comment that Diver Dude is willing to give up our relationship to not have more children - he has already made his impossible choice.
And he didn't pick me.
It hurts more than I can explain.
But he made his choice when in a hurt and vulnerable state. I have a hard time accepting that this is what he really wants and not just a reaction to a different kind of pain that stems from guilt over not being more involved in his daughters lives. His choice was not to follow a dream of living child free, but to give up on the dream of having a second chance. A shared dream we had in fact worked towards for almost three years.

Another reason why I have a hard time accepting Diver Dudes choice is the agreement we made when moving to England. He was to pursue a new career and I was to "focus on having a baby". We knew that there would be medical involvement, we knew it was going to take a lot of time and money, and in order to be able to have treatment in Sweden I would not be able to take a job. Economically it made complete sense. We also agreed before starting any treatment that we would do three rounds of IVF, and if it hadn't worked by then, that would be it. We did one round.
One pregnancy.
One miscarriage.
One possible chemical.
One hell of a circus and more emotional pain than any of us were prepared for.

Regardless of what choices I'm forced to make in the near future, I've promised myself (and Lady Merlin) not to make them in a state of sadness, hurt or anger. For now, I'm making other life changes. I'm looking for work, researching art schools and getting the rest of my life in order and shifting focus. It's not been healthy for me to have a future child as my sole purpose. It's exhausting to work towards a goal that is so elusive. I need to define myself in independent terms again.

And while I'm taking one day at a time, I'm hoping that tomorrow will be a better day.

An impossible choice

I had a beautiful post filled with hope already written in my mind about the story of Pinocchio and how Diver Dude picked one out for me in a quaint wood shop in Rome. But events have taken a different turn since Wednesday night.

The past few weeks seemed to be moving in the right direction. We talked, laughed, made love and truly connected the way we used to before this circus started. I felt stronger and more confident than I have in a very long time. Our weekend in Italy was icing on the cake. One perfect night in a small bar in Rome,  Diver Dude took my hand to the sound of the italian version of Bob Dylan, looked me in the eyes, and said: "You know sweetie I think we'll get through this, and even though I'm not ready to commit to having a child yet, I really want you to know..." I stopped him with a kiss and asked him to please not say anything before he was ready. And in my heart hope started spreading its wings.

Wednesday night after a single session with Lady Merlin, Diver Dude came home in an agitated state of mind. I turned the TV off and asked him what happened. He told me how hard this all is for him and how much he loves me, but that if he's being true to himself he does not want any more children. That he can't. He may have thought for a moment he could, but he can't. The flutter of hopeful wings grew quiet and instead I felt dark sadness pour back into my heart.

If he has made this final choice and is willing to take the consequences for it, he leaves me with an impossible choice to make. 

I could stay with Diver Dude knowing that we will never have children. I will never be a mother. He won't be the father of my children, simply a father to his. I stay with a man I'm madly in love with knowing that it denies me the chance of ever having a family. I'll be with the man I love. Some people search their whole life for true love. I'll have that. But he's a lot older than I am and if nature takes it's course I will be a fairly young widow. I will be alone.

Or.

I could leave the man I love in an effort to have a child and pursue donor sperm IUI. If it's successful I'd be a single mother to a child I wish had a father like Diver Dude. Is it fair to let a child shoulder the burden of his mother leaving the man that should've been his/her dad just to get a chance to become his/her mother? It seems wrong on so many levels. 

If it's not successful I'll live my life childless and without Diver Dude. Regardless of the outcome, and possibly in a different way, I will still be alone.

I may find somebody else to love and maybe even have children with, but I truly believe that love like ours come around but once in a lifetime. 

It is an impossible choice to make. No matter what choice I make, I'm afraid I'll end up resenting myself once it's too late. No matter how I look at it I don't know what to do. 

I'm not a fool. I know that even if Diver Dude against all odds decides to give IVF another go, we might not be successful. I may stlll end up childless. But at least we'd give it a fair chance and that's a risk I'm willing to take. It's the risk I agreed to when I married a man that had had a vasectomy.

For now, I pray for a miracle. I pray for guidance. 

And I will get down on my knees.

The beach in Sweden where I grew up. 

Photo taken the day I found out our last blast didn't survive the thaw.

One day at a time

"Where do you see yourself a year from now?" Diver Dude asked me out of the blue on Friday night.
I looked over at him standing with a camping chair in one hand and a beer in the other and stumbled over my words when I answered. "Well, um, I'm here in England, I have a job I like and make decent money, I strive to experience every day to the fullest, appreciate all that I have and to be happy... and hopefully I'm pregnant."

Diver Dude listened and nodded his head but just as I was about to return the question our neighbor walked over to invite us over for a bbq. So we chatted with him for a while, ordered food from our favorite indian restaurant and went about our night until I remembered half way through dinner. "What about you, where do you see yourself a year from now?"

Diver Dude gave me a crooked smile and said he was just waiting for me to ask. He told me he wants to stay here in England, that he hopes his job will get better, and that he seconds my thoughts on seizing the day. Then he said: "It makes it so hard to tell you this, because I love you, and you're my best friend, but I can't commit to having a child with you right now". He also said that at times he feels like the best thing to do would be to "set me free" so I can find somebody else to have babies with.

And for the first time I was able to talk to him without having my vision blurred by tears or my words jumbled by sobbing. I told him that I think it's childish and self centered to think that he's replaceable, that I want a family with him, and that the only other option for me is to have a child on my own. I explained to him about the biological time issue, the fact that I may only have a couple of years left to become a mother. I explained that what hurts most about this isn't that I might never have a child with him, but that he's not willing to give us a chance to be parents. I told him again how much I love him. I told him that I'm willing to give him some time and that I hope he'll be able to reconnect with the part of him that wants a second chance at fatherhood.

He then asked if it would be okay to just take it one day at a time for now. I said yes. We hugged and we kissed, turned on a good movie and gathered our pets around us in the couch and just enjoyed the rest of the night. Because if you just take one day at a time, you can't worry too much about the future.

I hope you dance

I'm allowed. Allowed to long for a child, and to want to become a mother. Allowed to dream of a family of my own, and to hope that this family will start with Diver Dude and me.


I'm not allowed to label myself the victim and Diver Dude the bad guy. If I do, Diver Dude may, friends and family might, and most likely it will become a self fulfilling prophecy. You see, if you're wearing brown socks but everyone around you keeps telling you they're blue, soon you'll start to question weather your socks are really brown. I am not a victim and Diver Dude is not a bad guy.

If I say these things out loud, it makes me feel stronger. It makes it hard to feel sorry for myself.


I'm working on centering myself and focusing on who I am. Somehow along the way in our marriage I started leaning, and a couple of months ago I actually tumbled over. Unfortunately the same holds true for Diver Dude, and in spite of our best intentions, instead of helping each other get back on our feet in a balanced way, we keep pushing each other over.


So I'll just pick myself up and wait for him to do the same. When he does I'll be here to greet him with strong open arms. I'd like to think of it as asking him to dance. An invitation from one individual to another to move together as one. It may take some work to make it flow and toes may be stepped on occasionally, but when we dance it'll all be worth it.

I hope you still feel small when you stand by the ocean

Whenever one door closes, I hope one more opens

Promise me you'll give faith a fighting chance

And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance

I hope you dance

Lee Ann Womack - I hope you dance

Doing our homework

One of the things I appreciate about you is:
Diver Dude:
- You are so creative. You make even a small weekday dinner a special occasion just by making the table and lighting candles. (yup, I have skills)
-  The way you're always honest, supportive and loyal. I truly feel like you're my best friend. (seriously, that's the sweetest things ever)
Me:
- You sing along out loud (and out of tune) to songs you love. Even in a crowded bar. Or a public library.
- How you deal with Mother and your siblings and how you make sure you stay in each others lives in spite of having had a far from perfect childhood and complicated relationships.

What I'd like a little more of is:
DD:
- Physical activity. Doing something together. Like playing golf. (or taking dance lessons?)
- Head. (seriously?)
Me:
- Compliments.
- Team work (this was after we had spent 3 hours building flower boxes and him constantly needing whatever tool I was currently using. Le sigh.)

What I'd like a little less of is:
DD:
- Clothes in other places than the closet. (do door knobs, floor surface or chairs count as closets?)
Me:
- No's when I suggest something. Like dinner and a movie. (and having a baby!!)

What I'd like to stay the same is:
DD: 
- Our sex life! (didn't he just say he wanted more oral pleasure?)
- That you close the toilet lid after flushing (I've managed to change my bad habit of not closing the lid after almost 7 years of pleading. Yes, I'm worse than a man. And I'm a slow learner.)
Me:
- Yes on the sex life!
- Ummm... (decisions about family building we made three years ago!!)

OK, so I didn't mention the b-word or anything about three letter procedures all weekend but I had to bite my tongue constantly. I'm working hard at giving him space and trying to remember to breathe.
I do feel like we've made some progress and we were actually able to relax and share a few heartfelt laughs this weekend.

And Little Man Chevy came home from the hospital Saturday and is recovering nicely.

There's hope in the world.