In that case, I guess you have to ask yourself if you’d rather be pregnant right now and without him, or be in your current situation. Would you rather let the relationship go where it will and in three years be alone, childless, and that much closer to menopause (what you’re afraid will happen, and pretty much a worst-case scenario), or have a toddler and have missed those three years with him (best case scenario if you push it and he leaves)?
Are you willing to consider alternative methods of becoming a parent, like egg donors, fostering, or adoption? If so, there’s no rush at all. Those things don’t have a countdown, and you can take all the time to enjoy your relationship that you want or need. If you want your biological child or no child at all, you might talk to your SO about the possibility of having IVF done and freezing all the embryos. That would give you a backup in case you decide that you want to have kids and find that you can’t, or that you don’t want to take the risks.
Keep in mind that life pretty much never turns out like anyone planned. I was supposed to be a practicing vet by now, you know, and my friend Jenn was supposed to be to be an up-and-coming journalist by now. Other friends were supposed to be married and having kids by now. Still others were supposed to still be footloose and fancy-free. For all of us, life happened while we were making other plans, and we wound up on a road we’d never really envisioned.
I, for one, had never even considered this particular road. The plan was that I’d be in vet school while he was in med school, I’d practice whereever he was doing his residency, then we’d go back to Kentucky and buy a small farm somewhere where I could have a horse or two to go along with the 4 dogs and 5 cats. And maybe, eventually, when the time seemed right, we’d get married. If there were problems, I might still be in school during his residency. That was the plan. The plan never included me not getting into vet school at all. The plan never included him not wanting an entire zoo in the house. The plan never included getting married during the pure hell of his intern year. And the plan certainly never included living near Duke fans during basketball season. My entire life right now, none of it was in the plan. I was supposed to be on the interstate, and somehow I ended up on two-lane blacktop out in the middle of nowhere.
I could keep pushing and straining to get back to the interstate, I suppose. It would mean missing out on the good stuff that’s on this particular road, though. There’s a lot of scenery here that I’d never even imagined existed, and a lot of interesting people and places and things to see that I’d miss from the interstate. Given the choice between spending the whole trip with my face buried in the map and leaning back to enjoy the scenery, I’ll take the scenery, thanks.
In short, your future’s an adventure novel, and you have two ways to find out how it all comes out. You can read the Cliff’s notes and miss the depth, texture, and richness of it, or you can savor each page as it unfolds. It’s your choice.
