Having It All...Eventually

A few years ago, during a particularly difficult part of life (or, as I call it, the Worst Year Ever), I made a list of the things I wanted from life. A lot of these are check-the-box goals, things that are visible rather than the esoteric goals like "To be Happy" or somesuch. I like things I can touch and feel...and attain. Some of this list looks like this:

• Gain an advanced degree, preferably a PhD
• Get married again
• Have kids (2)

The last one is a bit of a kicker given that my body refuses to cooperate in most areas of my life. But, with a little patience and money (and science!), kids are a possibility. I also get the joy of forever telling my children they were a science experiment, which I am looking forward to. 

The biological challenges of having children handled to a degree (or at least planned for), I am now looking at timeline for things. I need a timeline, even a flexible one, in order to function. Obviously the second on that list is a preferable first step (I considered having kids without getting married, or buying (read: adopting) one, but I don't think I can take care of one on my own), but I have faith there. Ideally, I'd like to be done with children-having by mid-thirties. This is, in large part, due to my concerns about the continued decline of my health. While someone else's healthy uterus will be baking  my offspring and my eggs are hearty, it is simply a basic reality of me that I can not walk on some days. While I pray for better management options or a cure for fibromyalgia, the truth is that it is degenerative and usually gets worse as people age. There is a great possibility that The Great Decline won't come until I'm into my 40s or 50s, but I don't know that. I want to be able to play with my children and the older I get, the less likely that will become. So, mid-thirties is my goal.

Well, now we've got a problem. If I was independently wealthy, this wouldn't be an issue. I could go to 5 years of grad school while having children since I don't need the physical recovery time of delivery. But I'm not independently wealthy and having children is more involved than nature intended. The cost of having a child this way could be as much as 100k per child between surrogacy and IVF. Unless Santa brings that one year, it's going to be financially difficult to make that happen without working full time. Some people are hardcore and can go to school and work full time. I applaud and envy them, but I am not one of them. And while I've got good reasons for not wanting to wait overlong on children, I don't have a good reason not to put off grad school other than "I don't wanna". 

So while I'm disappointed at realizing that I may have to put off one dream for the other, I realize that I can, in the end, have both. And that's the important part.