Infertility Bullshit, Take 91,396: How Do You Measure A Year?

It can’t just be “Well, did we have a baby this year?” But it can become that.

People reach the end of years, and naturally they want to think “Well, was this year a success? What was good and bad about it?” Some people don’t do this, of course, and just plow ahead with “the busy holiday season.” I’d argue most semi-aware and introspective people do some kind of audit of the year. If you’re in the thick of raising kids or peak earning years, I’d argue this “audit” is probably a bit transactional: Are people generally happy and healthy? Are we arriving at commitments? Are we making money? I think it takes a lot of people until 3–5 years into empty nesting to really ask, “Hey, am I doing stuff that makes me happy year-over-year?” I might be wrong about that. Dunno.

I’ve now written metric shit tons about infertility, so I won’t inundate you with links aside from that one. I will tell you that one unfortunate byproduct of that journey is that as you reach the end of a given year, it can feel like your only barometer for success in that year was: “Well, did this happen?” As such:

• “Yes, it did.” = Successful year
• “No, it did not.” = Unsuccessful year